Metropolis Collectibles, Inc is a rare comic book dealer of vintage American comics, primarily known for its large collection of comic books originally published in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The company is located on Broadway in New York City, and the comic book showroom allows viewings by appointment only. In addition to being comic book buyers and comic book sellers, Metropolis also gives comic book appraisals and provides comic book valuation services of rare, old out-of-print comics.
Metropolis was founded in 1984 by Stephen Fishler, and merged in 1999 with Vincent Zurzolo, Jr., of Vincent's Collectibles; [1] Zurzolo said that as he found he could not compete with Fishler's business, so merging the two made sense. [2]
Over the years, Metropolis Collectibles has grown from being a comic book mail-order company to maintaining a major online retail presence. Metropolis Collectibles has obtained a variety of notable classic comic book collections over the years, or "pedigrees", including the Crowley Collection, [3] the Allentown Pedigree, the D-Copy Collection, and the Northford Collection.
In August 2014, the company was able to purchase a near-mint copy of Action Comics #1 (CGC 9.0) for $3.2 million in an auction on eBay. [2]
In July 2007, the owners and staff of Metropolis Collectibles started a separate entity, a sister company called Comic Connect, Corp. [2] [4] Unlike the parent company, this website gives users the ability to list their own comic for sale, and to buy/sell comic books from each other, and is positioned as an alternative to eBay and comic book auctions.
Metropolis founder Stephen Fishler is credited with creating the 10 point grading scale that is used industry wide for valuing comic books. He did not create the nomenclature grades (e.g. Very Fine, Near Mint), but organized what was once a 42-point system into the 10-point grading scale, which he convinced the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide to adopt, and was later embraced by the Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) for their own 3rd Party Grading Services. [5]
A comic book, comic-magazine or simply 'comic,' is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and written narrative, usually, dialogue contained in word balloons emblematic of the comics art form.
Amazing Adult Fantasy, retitled Amazing Fantasy in its final issue, is an American comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics from 1961 through 1962, with the latter title revived with superhero features in 1995 and in the 2000s. The final 1960s issue, Amazing Fantasy #15, introduced the popular Marvel superhero Spider-Man. Amazing Adult Fantasy premiered with issue #7, taking over the numbering from Amazing Adventures.
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. is an American comic book distributor serving retailers in North America and worldwide. They transport comic books and graphic novels, as well as other popular culture products such as toys, games, and apparel from comic book publishers or suppliers to retailers.
Comic book collecting is a hobby that treats comic books and related items as collectibles or artwork to be sought after and preserved. Though considerably more recent than the collecting of postage stamps (philately) or books (bibliophilia), it has a major following around the world today and is partially responsible for the increased interest in comics after the temporary slump experienced during the 1980s.
Comic book price guides are typically published on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis and provide comprehensive information about the fluctuations in the resale value of comics over a specific duration. These guides play a crucial role for collectors who intend to sell their collection or require an estimate of their collection's value for insurance purposes.
An ashcan comic is a form of the American comic book originally created solely to establish trademarks on potential titles and not intended for sale. The practice was common in the 1930s and 1940s when the comic book industry was in its infancy, but was phased out after updates to US trademark law. The term was revived in the 1980s by Bob Burden, who applied it to prototypes of his self-published comic book. Since the 1990s, the term has been used to describe promotional materials produced in large print runs and made available for mass consumption. In the film and television industries, the term "ashcan copy" has been adopted for low-grade material created to preserve a claim to licensed property rights.
Tradera.com is an online marketplace based in Stockholm, Sweden. With its 3,6 million members, 6 million weekly visits and more than 3 million listings at any given point (2024), it's the largest marketplace in the Nordics for sustainable shopping. Items are sold from both private consumers and businesses and are ranging from fashion and interior design to tech and collectibles. Although Tradera welcomes members from all over the world, most are from within the EU and Sweden. Tradera was originally based completely on auctions, but today visitors can purchase both new and second hand items through auctions as well as fixed price listings. Tradera was founded in 1999 but was acquired by eBay Inc. in 2006, which already owned the financial tech company PayPal. When eBay and PayPal were separated in 2015, Tradera became part of PayPal. Since PayPal's sale of Tradera in 2021, Tradera has once again become a Swedish company.
AbeBooks is an e-commerce global online marketplace with seven websites that offer books, fine art, and collectables from sellers in over 50 countries. Launched in 1996, it specialises in used, rare and out-of-print books. AbeBooks has been a subsidiary of Amazon since 2008.
Paradise Comics is a comic book store located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The owner and proprietor is Peter Dixon. Paradise Comics is actively buying with free evaluations and selling gold, silver and bronze age vintage comics, 1933 to 1980 and CGC graded comics and CGC Signature Series comic books. The store is located at 3278 Yonge Street in Toronto.
Certified Guaranty Company, also known as CGC, is a Sarasota, Florida comic book grading service. CGC is an independent member of the Certified Collectibles Group of companies. It is the first independent and impartial third party grading service for comic books.
Video game collecting is the hobby of collecting and preserving video games, video game consoles, and related memorabilia. Most video game consoles, and their games, are considered to be collectors' items years after their discontinuation due to their functional longevity and cultural significance. Collectors usually narrow their search to games holding characteristics they enjoy, such as being published for a specific video game console, being of certain genre, or featuring a specific character.
Heritage Auctions is an American multi-national auction house based in Dallas, Texas. Founded in 1976, Heritage is an auctioneer of numismatic collections, comics, fine art, books, luxury accessories, real estate, and memorabilia from film, music, history, and sports.
Action Comics #1 is the first issue of the original run of the comic book/magazine series Action Comics. It features the first appearance of several comic-book heroes—most notably the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster creation, Superman—and sold for 10 cents. It is widely considered to be both the beginning of the superhero genre and the most valuable comic book in the world. Action Comics would go on to run for 904 numbered issues before it restarted its numbering in the fall of 2011. It returned to its original numbering with issue #957, published on June 8, 2016 and reached its 1,000th issue in 2018.
Stephen A. Geppi is an American comic book distributor, publisher and former comic store owner. Having established an early chain of comic shops in Baltimore in the mid-late 1970s, he is best known for his distributing business. Geppi founded Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic direct distribution service in 1982, and has served as the company's head to the present. Diamond Distribution became the successor to direct market pioneer Phil Seuling's distribution dream when Geppi took over New Media/Irjax's warehouses in 1982. He further bought out early-distributor Bud Plant in 1988, and main rival Capital City in 1996 to assume a near-monopoly on comics distribution, including exclusivity deals with the major comic book publishers.
Catawiki is an online auction platform for buying and selling special items and collectibles. Catawiki was founded in 2008 as an online community for collectors. Since 2011, the company has been hosting weekly online auctions, in various categories such as vintage comic books, model trains, coins, watches, art, jewellery and classic cars.
A wine auction may also auction other alcoholic beverages than wine. There are two basic types of wine auctions: first hand wine auctions, where wineries sell their own wines, and second hand wine auctions, arranged by auction houses or other auctioneers to make it possible for any owners of wine to trade it. In most cases, the wines traded at wine auctions are collectible "fine wines" typically suitable for extended cellaring. Second-hand buyers may be looking for mature wines which are no longer available first-hand. In all types of auction the auctioneer charges commission to both buyers and sellers.
Robert Lee Beerbohm was an American comic book historian and retailer who was intimately involved with the rise of comics fandom from 1966. Beginning as a teenager in the late 60s, he became a fixture in the growing comic convention scene, while in the 1970s and 1980s he was heavily involved in Bay Area comic book retailing and distribution.
The Motor City Comic Con is a fan convention held in Novi, Michigan, United States, at the Suburban Collection Showplace. It is traditionally a three-day event, usually held in May of each year. The Motor City Comic Con was founded in 1989 by comics retailer Michael Goldman.
Bruce Hershenson is an American entrepreneur who in 1999 founded the movie memorabilia auction company eMoviePoster. He is a collector of movie pressbooks and has edited 43 movie poster history books.
The Amazing Spider-Man#129, with its subtitle being "The Punisher Strikes Twice!" is a 19-page-long single issue of the American comic book The Amazing Spider-Man, published by Marvel Comics in 1974. The issue is well known for being the first appearance of the character called the Punisher, who at that point in time was portrayed as an antagonist of Spider-Man but would later become one of Marvel's most popular and successful characters. The issue is also the first appearance of the Jackal, a supervillain who would go on to become one of Spider-Man's main adversaries and an integral part of the infamous mid-'90s Spider-Man storyline the Clone Saga.