This acetate cover "controversy" is addictive.
Watching people who have stood back and simply acted like sheep and listened to all the scammers and.. "influencers" and go out and spend hundreds if not thousands on comic speculation where the comics end up not being worth half of what they paid.
WHO is so dumb that they want to pay $85 (the "original" cost) for a facsimile that has been devalued by having two extra staples added and an acetate cover? Not just that you cannot sell on Ebay as they have classed this as a bootleg and it is. Marvel did not give permission it seems.
I have a polished turd CGC graded 10.0 with "Spiderman" etched into it -yours for $10,000 sucker!
It is now over 20 years since I exposed all of this on Comic Bits Online and even some of the dodgy CGC stories I published posts up until 2019 on what was going on in comics and huge views...but it was in one eye and out the other. Here is one. Someone I knew who worked at a distributor took a copy of a brand new that week comic from the centre of the box. He looked it over. No creases. Perfect. He sent it to CGC to be graded and it came back 2.0 -a brand new and unblemished comic was a 2.0?? Apparently the "grader" decided that the staples did not match so the grade was lowered. Let me explain something; if you use a stapler for paperwork when it starts running low you put in new staples of the same brand but you cannot tell the difference. This also applies to printers (imagine how many staples they go through) so at some point during the collation of the print run new staples were added (though I saw the close up and found it hard to tell any difference in my friend's book).
Another for fun. A You Tuber had his 1969 comic graded as 9.0 by CGC. He was happy until he saw that somehow the casing had been cracked either before shipping or during and he showed the the undamaged box on his channel. So he contacted CGC who told him to send it back and they would re-slab it. They did and although it took three months to get the book back he was happy...until he saw that his book was now 5.0! Argue and "We can look at it and regrade (at a price)"
That CGC officially graded an illegal bootleg will or should have ramifications.
We see absolutely ridiculous prices being asked on Ebay.uk for US comics because we are isolated now. I buy a $10 comic from the U.S. (like I used to) and the postage cost is going to be around $35-40. Dealers in the U.S. will not (I have asked) mark envelopes/packages as "Second hand comic" which means that UK customs will hit you with another $12-20 as import duty. So for Avengers vol. 1 #84 I would be paying almost $70+
For this reason Ebay sellers try to play buyers off. And we see this with U.S. sellers on Ebay UK who ask $150 for a comic AND want $70-95 for postage on top.
Everyone from comic publishers, editors, sellers and even conventions have been on the scam band wagon. Comic buyers quite literally encourage them and say "Thank you for scamming me, sir".
For absolutely no reason old British comics of the 1940s-1950s have trebled and quadrupled in price. Why? There is very limited interest and I note 1940s annuals I paid £5.00 a few months ago are now listed as £35/£60/£75 -and they are not selling and there is the usual Ebay seller skullduggery going on meaning that unless an item hits the big money they want suddenly your winning bid...lost. Ebay do not care so long as they get their cut. I have seen black and white UK reprints of American comics hit prices such as £25 and £30 when the original full colour comic will cost £5-6!
I offer the fair price (I know they want to make money) but when they come back with a "counter offer" that is treble that I walk away. I am not helping the scammers get rich.
This has all sucked the life out of comic collecting as fun. Sell comics you don't want because you need rent or money to buy certain series you follow but scam.....
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