COMIC DETAILS
|
Comic Description:
|
Adventures of Superman 499 Modern
|
|
Grade:
|
9.8
|
|
Page Quality:
|
WHITE
|
|
Certification #:
|
4533712001
|
|
Owner:
|
Iconic1s
|
SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
com·ple·tist - noun - an obsessive, typically indiscriminate, collector or fan of something." Dictionary
It has been a long (and expensive) journey adding this book to this set in 9.8! Worth it!
This was the last 9.8 that I needed for my set to make it 100 percent 9.8 and above!
This book is the second Universal 9.8 to enter the census, there is also one 9.8 Signature Series at this time. There were a total of fourteen graded copies when I added this book (I can confirm that at least two of those were cracked books whose labels were not removed from the census though).
Cool story - the Seller of this book was the original owner. He told me that in 1994 he saved up his paper route money and bought this from a Comic Book Store in Columbiana Ohio for cover price! (This book was only available in the two-packs as far as I know so perhaps the store owner removed it from that). It was bagged and boarded when he bought it and he said he NEVER even took it out! It wasn't until years later when he and his seven year old Son were getting into Comics and Cards together that he found that he still had this book and six other DC Universe Logo books in his collection... he submitted them, and this book as well as his Superman 74 fourth printing both received 9.8's in January 2025. Such a neat story to go with this book... the last 9.8 that I needed for this set!
I added this book and completed this set in all 9.8 or above on 1 February 2025 and have my friend Brandon Shepherd to thank for it! He sent me a text at 7:51 PM on Thursday, 30 January 2025, with a link to this book on eBay... it had just been listed as BIN for $1999.00! I freaked out... I told my Wife and she started yelling (literally) at me to BUY IT! (probably because I had told her many times that once I finish this set in all 9.8 or above that I would stop buying comics... hee hee hee) but I wanted to make an offer first... I also had to take a leak! I made the offer and took a leak... when the toxins were gone from my body the paranoia nevertheless kicked in and I went ahead and hit the BIN to secure this book for this set. That's a lot of money but c'mon, I've been looking for this thing forever and I couldn't let it slip through my fingers AGAIN! It was literally the LAST 9.8 I needed! I ended up completing the sale at 7:53 PM so that was one FAAAAST pee!
This is the most I paid for any book in this set... I had created a CGC Forum WTB post in June 2020 where I had been offering $1200 since then... in the back of my mind though, I always thought that if a 9.8 ever did show up that the price I paid was about what I should expect, so I was sort of prepared. I guess it's kind of fitting that I had to go all out to add this last book in 9.8. I am just really happy that this was a BIN listing so I did not have to go through the excruciating experience of an auction for this book! I have a feeling that it would have went for a bit more if that had been the case!
The journey to add it was long...
This book replaced a 9.6 that I believe may have had a shot at 9.8 with CPR. I had always said that if I got my hands on a second 9.6 before I found a 9.8, I would give that a try... as much as I thought that book had a chance at 9.8, I wasn't willing to have it cracked without a backup. That 9.6 is still in my Custom Set along with some other neat stuff in it's description if you want to check it out (a pic of it is also in the second image slot here!)!
I bought that book off of eBay when I already had a 9.4. It had been listed for a couple months, the price dropped, but it did not have a make an offer option. Over the course of the listing I sent the seller a couple messages asking if they would accept a lower price. I also asked if it had been pressed and the response was that it had not. To me, this left open the option of attempting CPR. The price never did come down to where I really wanted it to be but they did end up meeting me half way at $225.00. At the time there were ONLY three of these in the census, one each 9.8, 9.6, and 9.4, and I had the 9.4 and 9.6. The lone 9.8 at the time was listed on eBay in mid-2019 originally for $1500.00, it sat there for awhile and ended up selling for $800.00. I could have bought it then but at the time I still needed over 30 books to be at 100 percent completion... with that far to go I wasn't yet at the point where I could justify paying that much for a single book. Solid raw copies were really hard to come by so I decided to wait for another 9.8 to come up for sale and then make the decision whether I wanted it bad enough to pay what's being asked. I don't regret not buying that first 9.8 when I had the chance... most things happen for a reason and who knows how that might have impacted the rest of my experience putting these books together.
The 9.4 that I originally had was the first book that I purchased for this set that was already graded and not a 9.8. I had decided that if I submitted a book and it came back less than 9.8 I could put it in the set while looking for a better copy, but that I wouldn’t buy a graded book that wasn't a 9.8. I ended up abandoning that idea in order to have some of the harder to find books like this one in my collection until I got a 9.8 copy.
I had gotten the 9.4 from fellow board member onlyweaknesskryptonite. I bought the book knowing that there was a hair in the slab, up against the book. In fact, he had even previously created a CGC forum post about this hair.
When I received the 9.4 I prepared to get it reholdered. I had already created an order and mailed the book before I was advised by another board member to contact Brittany at CGC. Once I contacted Brittany everything was taken care of. The book was reholdered and back on it's way to me within a week. The order was changed from a reholder to MECHANICAL ERROR and I did not pay anything for the service, not even return shipping. I did pay to ship the book to CGC but that's okay because I sent it in with another order. Great customer service from CGC and I appreciate fellow board member's pointing me in the right direction!
I was later able to get my hands on a raw copy of this book and submitted it in May 2021... I got that copy on eBay, auction style for $57.00. It had a lot of dents and I submitted it through CCS. Grade date ended up being 13 December 2021 and it also received a 9.4. Although that was a great grade for the particular book, I was obviously hoping it would somehow pull off a 9.8 after pressing. It was really fun to be able to submit a copy of this book myself!
After that submission I had two 9.4's and one 9.6 of this book... the hunt continued!
Then in August 2022 I cracked the 9.4 I submitted and sent it back in for the Dan Jurgens Private Signing... I asked for a Doomsday sketch! That time the book returned a Signature Series 9.2 (with a Superman head sketch)... it's great to have the Signature and Sketch but not so awesome for it to downgrade to 9.2... especially after another trip through CCS! That book now has it's own slot in my Custom Set.
After that submission I had one 9,6, one 9.4, and a 9.2 Signature Series of this book... the hunt continued to continue!
In May 2023 I may have let a possible second / raw 9.8 slip through my fingers. It was the end of Memorial Day weekend and a sealed two pack containing this book and Adventures of Superman 498 fourth printing was listed on eBay at around 8:00 PM for BIN $650.00 or Best Offer. If you had been keeping an eye on this book at the time you would know that this was a very good starting point. The pictures of the book looked wonderful but at this stage of the game, with four copies of this book in my possession (9.6, 9.4, 9.2 SS, and another raw which I got fairly cheap and which I planned on keeping raw) I just wasn't super excited about dropping that much money on a 'maybe' 9.8 raw book. As good as the pictures looked, I still asked a few questions about the condition before making up my mind... the Seller was very responsive and everything sounded good. He was not a comic guy from what I could tell... his other listings were of camera gear and the verbiage of the listing was a little off, so maybe this was in fact the deal of the century and the next 9.8. Still, I was cautious. I was in the middle of typing in an offer when the Seller let me know it just sold... I think it was listed for around 30 minutes or so. The next day I found out that another collector I know had bought it... I was happy that it at least went to a good home! I did regret a little not grabbing it right away but at least I knew where it ended up and I hoped that eventually I would find out it's fate if it was ever submitted (at this time I'm not sure if it ever was... but if it was it must not have received 9.8!).
Then after nearly two more basically uneventful years looking for this book...
... HERE WE ARE... I HAVE FINALLY COMPLETED THIS SET ALL IN 9.8 OR ABOVE! I COULD HAVE GIVEN UP WITH THE 9.4, OR THE 9.6, BUT THE COMPLETIST IN ME WOULDN'T LET ME QUIT UNTIL I HAD THIS FINAL 9.8...
I AM SO HAPPY IT FINALLY WORKED OUT!
My WTB post had 7.2K views by the time I was able to declare that this book was indeed FOUND!!
The second image slot shows the copies of this book mentioned above, that came my way during this journey leading to a 9.8, including the raw I plan on keeping that way!
I will still keep my eyes open for ways to improve this set... maybe the occasional 9.8 Signature Series upgrade, or (please no) a 9.9 that might pop up (I already have four in this set) but I finally feel like I finished what I started on 8 March 2018 at 9:19 PM when I created this set...
I hope anyone looking at this set enjoys themselves!
Happy collecting!
|
|
|