I agree, the videos are genuine.

I appreciate that! I tried to go to 2 videos a week, but RL seems to get in the way. I still have plans to do so, thanks for the kind words! This kind of comment keeps me going!

Thanks for the comment and watching! It definitely keeps me excited about this hobby!

LOL didn't even realize I did that.. I need a straight jacket for sure! Thanks for the kind words

I am going to start shifting to more process videos over the next year or two, and away from results.. or I'll just add a 2nd upload each week. Time is limited, unfortuantely. :(

One of the best I've ever seen :)

I may take you up on that sometime! And systematic/scientific is the way to go. It's basically one big filtering process. As my car salesman dad always said, "You make your money when you buy the car, not when you sell it"

Thank you!

Hi and thanks! Finding books is rather tedious, I do most of my purchases on eBay. I have developed a system for weeding out gems, but it still takes hours of searching. I usually will look at 250 or more listings before I buy/bid on a book. Some weeks I find 20 books, some weeks I find 1 (or 0)... it's amazing how it can be feast or famine. One thing I look for is when a buyer drops several slabs at once for sale with books on my list. If I notice that one of the books looks undegraded, their is a good chance that all of the books he or she submitted will be undergraded... so you might get lucky and find several good candidates all at once. This actually happened to me last week. I found over 10 mostly bronze era x-men, and they were graded 9.4 to 9.6, and all of them looks like they could have gotten 9.8! It is literally taking me 10 minutes of work and a press to get them CGC ready. I am submitting a bunch today, let's see if it pays off. You should see those books in videos down the road. I have also found big lots of raw comics that had several gems.. like the entire mcfarlane run, and all those transformers 1-3 packs I bought (paid $2,000 and ended up selling all for over $20,000 total). I hope this helps! Have a great week!

@@ImproveCollectingComics thanks so much for the reply! I’ll definitely look forward to seeing those X-Men books in a video down the road. Keep up the great work!

Thanks for the feedback. I do worry about people finding these videos boring. I am thinking of doing a "course" or whatever, showing my process.. not sure if anyone would be interested in that though

I am always scared of mid and lower grade books.. they tend to be fragile and I'm afraid of damaging them. I'll see if I can find some good CPR candidates though!

Very cool! Thank you so much!!

Great to hear!

Someone else left a similar comment as well. I'll just paste what I told them below! And yes, I definitely want to do some videos on this part of the process. "Finding books is rather tedious, I do most of my purchases on eBay. I have developed a system for weeding out gems, but it still takes hours of searching. I usually will look at 250 or more listings before I buy/bid on a book. Some weeks I find 20 books, some weeks I find 1 (or 0)... it's amazing how it can be feast or famine. One thing I look for is when a buyer drops several slabs at once for sale with books on my list. If I notice that one of the books looks undegraded, their is a good chance that all of the books he or she submitted will be undergraded... so you might get lucky and find several good candidates all at once. This actually happened to me last week. I found over 10 mostly bronze era x-men, and they were graded 9.4 to 9.6, and all of them looks like they could have gotten 9.8! It is literally taking me 10 minutes of work and a press to get them CGC ready. I am submitting a bunch today, let's see if it pays off. You should see those books in videos down the road. I have also found big lots of raw comics that had several gems.. like the entire mcfarlane run, and all those transformers 1-3 packs I bought (paid $2,000 and ended up selling all for over $20,000 total)." I hope this helps!

Very nice!

Those things scare me to death, so afraid of damaging them

I have always used the swing away versions, but just ordered a clamshell, since I think it will use less space overall. As long as you put 2 steel or aluminum plates around the books, I don't think it really matters that much. My website has a link to the press I started with, I definitely recommend it. improvecollecting.com

Usually the adhesive isn't an issue, but sometimes it will stick. I just put SRP paper around it and never have an issue.. it doesn't seem to stick to it.

Nice! Is the Swayze version better?

Not really. Just make sure you put SRP paper around the inserts, otherwise it can stick to the adjacent page.. there was an adhesive added to the inserts for mailing.

Occasionally I will touch up some ticks and not press after, but usually there is a slight hint of a wave to the area heat is applied that would disappear with a press after. So the answer is.. "sometimes"

Those scare me to death, I'm afraid I'll damage them during CPR

I have, but those things are really tedious and I have decent success with other erasers.

On the "to do" list for sure.. I am afraid it might be dissapointing, my room isn't nearly as cool or valuable as a lot of collectors out there. I'm just a blue collar guy :)

99% of us are “blue collar guys”.