Difficulties of Certification Number Tracking

I noticed that a reply to one of my journals gently scolded me for mentioning member clarkkentdds in the same journal discussing fraud. In my defense I did write in my journal, "I do not believe clarkkentdds is a fraud". Let me reiterate that I fully believe clarkkentdds's collection is 100% legit and actually wrote a journal awhile back where I declared it, "possibly [...] the most staggering comic collection I have seen". Sadly it's now obscured but it really is a sight to behold. I have never seen so many highest grade comics from one of the staple Golden Age collections in one collection. The thing is it's like the girl with the ridiculously out of proportion top. The more amazing the more you start to consider that maybe everything isn't as it seems. I would say it's more of a compliment to clarkkentdds that his collection is so amazing it seems impossible but kudos to clark kent. I happen to be a big fan of focused collections and this one is 100% Adventures of Superman. If only it were not obscured. In fact I'd love to know what museum the collection is featured in.

But that isn't really the point of my posting. The CGC registry serves a lot of cool purposes. First, it somewhat tracks where the graded comics are and who has them. Also, they've added a little bit of fun competition including yearly bragging awards. Of course it only works as much as people are accurately entering certification numbers. It's pretty clear that most certification numbers are not being entered so it's possible that the best collections are unknown. It's also becoming increasingly clear that as often as people neglect to add certification numbers to their registry people also don't tend to remove certification numbers when they no longer own a comic. If you look at the highest grade early issue of Captain Marvel Adventures very few are accounted for on the registry. Starman221 has now won Best in Set 5 years straight including the enviable Best Golden Age set of 2009 but very few of his early comics are even close to the highest grade so it seems like there is an awesome Captain Marvel Adventures collection hiding in the shadows.

So in perusing the internet for buying opportunities I noticed one of the comics from Starman221's collection up for sale. I knew it was the exact comic based on the registry number. Then I noticed another, and another and whole pile. Not just one website but all over the place. It's possible that all these comics are consignments and he actually does still own them but I think there is a very good chance that many of the comics in Starman221's collection have already been sold and like many registry members doesn't bother to remove them unless someone else claims them. Likewise I noticed that NewForceComics has issues for sale. So at this point two of the collectors above me in registry points may well not have all the registry points assigned to them. Daily Star is currently in second place and I can't tell what he has since his collection is obscured but given the closeness in registry points between his collection and Starman221 there seems to me a decent chance that Daily Star might have been the true 2011 Best in Set winner.

So what have I learned? I guess that trying to be number 1 in a particular set may be a fools errand since it's possible you're competing against a collection that doesn't actually exist.

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