This guy, not a comic fan, got a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #1(1963) as a wedding present from his brother-in-law, a comic fan. Now he selling it at the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas. The owner's son Corey AKA Big Hoss and his goofy sidekick, Chumley (Gee, Tennessee...) obviously want it but they wanted it graded. So a local toy-dealer comes in and declares it in the Fine range (about $7000). The guy wants $5000, they offer 3K and make the deal at $4000! Everyone's happy!

But you know that they're going to sell it for $6000 to $7000!

BTW, they usually get experts to appraise items and make sure they're real. I've heard about counterfeit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1s but are there bogus Golden/Silver/Bronze Age books out there? Could you be tricked by a fake Amazing Spider-Man #1?

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  • I haven't heard of any bogus Spider-Man #1s, but I have heard of people passing off those comic book and record set comics (not the Power Record ones on carstock from the '70s, but the ones from the '60s which look quite like comics to the uninitiated) as the real thing, and even DC treasury editions (yes!) with the cardstock covers removed as actual Golden Age comics. (Hey, comics were bigger in those days, right?) Or is that just an urban legend?

  • I've heard about the DC treasurary replicas scam, too. A part of that was that they reprinted the ads and editorials from inside the front and back covers. I have the Famous 1st Edition copy of Wonder Woman #1 in front of me. There are house ads and comic fillers ("Sweet Adeline") and, of course, the obligitory two-page text story (ironically titled "A Message From Phil").

  • It's been a long while since I've seen collectible comics, over at my friend's - Jason's - house (back in high school :)); and he wouldn't even let me touch them. Those guys were shuffling the book around, inspecting it, saw some writing on one page; BUT, despite the condition - that thing's worth, like, $20K - and the seller let the appraisal low-ball him and then Rick beat him down on top of it. Sure, it looked like it was mad fake; but, probably, the guy was just desperate for money.. Shame, his loss (should've said $10 thousand and just walked out the door with it, for sure).

    Edit: Omg, yeah, and the gun!.. The gun, holy cow. Another $10-20K down the drain for the seller, at an auction.

    .. Oh my goodness, just saw what came next, $90,000 for the guitar; Geez! First night that Chum stayed awake, too, lol. xD

    Jeff of Earth-J said:

    I haven't heard of any bogus Spider-Man #1s [..]

  • I haven't heard of any counterfeit Spider-Man #1 but I am familiar with the Golden record sets from about 1966. There were at least four produced...Fantastic Four #1 (which I heard and read the enclosed book), The Mighty Thor in Journey into Mystery #83 (which i have seen, but not heard), Spider-Man #1 and Avengers #4, as I recall.  There are at least three dead tip-offs that the copies which were included with the record are reprints, and not original:

    First, there is NO PRICE on the cover. it has been removed before the reprint was printed.

    Second, the story almost always starts ON THE INSIDE FRONT COVER in BLACK AND WHITE. Then the story resumes where the first splash page (or title page) normally would appear.  Some run onto the inside back cover in BLACK AND WHITE as well.

    Third, there are no other ad pages, in house promos nor any other pages of any kind...just pure story art pages.

    Fourth, and I must assume here, cause I haven't held them all in my hands...there's a full page color ad on the rear cover for Golden Records in general.

    Hope this helps.

    I had not heard of counterfeit TMNT #1 copies... but I have heard of a scandal involving counterfeit Cerebus #1 copies that surfaced in the Detroit area in the late 1980s. The only way you could tell they were fake was in the COLOR OF THE STAPLES!  That is, the originals had gold tinted staples and the copies had silver, OR vice versa. I don't recall which now.

    Allegedly, someone took a copy of the original book to a printer, and asked him to reproduce and assemble it exactly as it appeared. The staples were the only thing they couldn't match.  Although there was an investigation into the number of copies that were showing up at comics shows and swap shows, flea markets and more, I don't recall any prosecution resulting, and no conclusions reached. (I have my suspicions of who was involved, but that's all the are.)

  • Outside of the fake TMNT comics I don't recall other counterfeits running around. I'm sure they are out there.

    A friend of mine bought an Optimus Prime toy at a show one time, and it ended up being fake. I also remember when people were selling fake Magic: the Gathering cards.

  • Pawn Stars is a sad show to me.  A lot of these people selling stuff probably just lost their shirts at the casino and are trying to keep the legbreakers at bay.

  • I once bought a police property auction for some Marvel, DC Versus cards that ended up having a MTG Black Lotus counterfeit in it, if it had been real it would have been in the 5k range, peeled card apart to find the original underneath. I've seen several auctions for Cerebus #1s now that advertise that they are the counterfeit ones.

    Travis Herrick (Modular Mod) said:

    Outside of the fake TMNT comics I don't recall other counterfeits running around. I'm sure they are out there.

    A friend of mine bought an Optimus Prime toy at a show one time, and it ended up being fake. I also remember when people were selling fake Magic: the Gathering cards.

  • On the flip side, it is decidedly not a bit like a "real" pawn store, where desperate people are coming in hoping to scrape some money together. Pawn Stars is squeegeed clean of all that sort of unsettling reality. The people showing up there with unique items are just there on a lark, the producers would have us believe.

    John Dunbar (the mod of maple) said:

    Pawn Stars is a sad show to me.  A lot of these people selling stuff probably just lost their shirts at the casino and are trying to keep the legbreakers at bay.

  • For sure, this show and a lot of reality shows are at least partially (if not fully) scripted.  The shop is so bright, clean, and open it reminds me of a Blockbuster Video.
     
    Lumbering Jack (M'odd-R8-Tr) said:

    On the flip side, it is decidedly not a bit like a "real" pawn store, where desperate people are coming in hoping to scrape some money together. Pawn Stars is squeegeed clean of all that sort of unsettling reality. The people showing up there with unique items are just there on a lark, the producers would have us believe.

    John Dunbar (the mod of maple) said:

    Pawn Stars is a sad show to me.  A lot of these people selling stuff probably just lost their shirts at the casino and are trying to keep the legbreakers at bay.

  • Cory (Big Haws) also gets it wrong when he claims that spider-man was a spin-off of the Fantastic Four. He really doesn't know what he's talking about.  The FF were a gueststar in Spidey's first solo issue...Spidey actually began as the lead feature in Amazing Fantasy #15. Cory just doesn't know.

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