Set Description
Synopsis: In terms of the CGC Census, and not the value of the books, this is probably our best Marvel set, as 69 of 80 issues are 9.8s, 70 of 80 issues are highest graded, all but two issues are at least 9.6s and no worse than second highest graded, and eight issues are single highest graded. While this set now ranks second because of the recent increase in the registry points for a #1 9.6, it is the best registered set in existence, as the owner of the #1 set now has already sold his books. Again, that’s the problem with the registry, as so many books are not registered so year after year sets that no longer even exist still top the registry.
Background: These are books that I collected as a kid. While they do not represent the entirety of our DD collection, I think that, if I had it to do over again, I would probably have stopped our DD collection at Issue #80, as even that stretches beyond how far I collected these books as a kid. When I first started accumulating CGC books around 2000, I focused on 12 titles and took them from #1-100, or just collected the superhero portions of titles like Strange Tales, Journey Into Mystery, Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense. But when I decided to register our books as a means to organize our collections about 10 years ago, which were then stored in CGC boxes, I first registered our DDs in the #1-157 set, which picked up our issues #81-#100.
At the current time, this is our only complete set of Daredevils. I anticipate that we will finish the larger #1-157 set in the near future, as we only lack a couple of books there. However, we only own a couple of books later than those.
2021 Update: The good news is that we have upgraded several issues in this set over the past year and now have 69 9.8s, with 8 of those books being single highest graded. The bad news is that our Issue #1 is still just a 9.4. We would love to upgrade that book, along with Issue #38, which are our two 9.4s in this set, to at least 9.6s in the upcoming year. However, we may have missed our chance with respect to DD #1. Generally speaking, nice 9.6 examples of #1 topped out in the $35-40k range over the last decade. We have been very close to buying one on multiple occasions, but we have always been very disciplined in our bids or offers on that book since there are so many 9.6s in the census. This may be a case where we have been penalized for being disciplined buyers and relying on the premise that another will come along because of the high numbers in the census, as prices have recently shot up in value, which may make upgrading that issue particularly challenging. In fact, there have been four sales of 9.6s in 2021 with a low of $102,000 and a high of $150,000. Prior to this sales, I do not believe I have ever seen a 9.6 #1 reach $50,000.
