Had to pick between a pristine slabbed comic or a reader copy - I chose wrong

Last month at a convention in Austin, I had to decide between buying a near-mint copy of Amazing Spider-Man #300 for $200 or a beat-up reader copy for $40. I went with the cheap one thinking I'd save money and still enjoy the story. Big mistake. The reader copy had someone's old pizza stain on the cover, three pages were taped together, and the kid selling it gave me this look like he was doing me a favor. Now every time I flip through it I just get annoyed at myself for not splurging on the clean slab. Anyone else regret cheaping out on a key issue and just end up buying the expensive version later anyway?

2 comments

2 Comments

maxmurphy1mo ago

Yeah, that line about "doesn't hold value and just ends up being a headache" really hits home. A buddy of mine did the same thing with a first print of "Watchmen" back in 2019. He got what he thought was a deal, a crinkled copy for like 30 bucks, but the whole back cover was water damaged and smelled like an old basement. He tried to read it but the pages were all wavy and stuck together in spots. A few months later he broke down and bought a clean graded copy for a hundred bucks, and now the beat up one just sits in a box in his closet. He told me he learned the hard way that sometimes saving money upfront costs you more in the long run.

lee7331mo ago

Read this one expert guy on YouTube say that slabbed books are the only way to go for keys like that. He explained that a beat-up reader copy doesn't hold value and just ends up being a headache. I did the same thing with a Secret Wars #8 a few years back. Bought the cheap one and the cover was literally half torn off. Ended up selling it at a loss and buying a clean graded copy for triple what I paid. Now I just save up and wait for the right slabbed book to come along.