lou_fine

Ahhhhh.............the all-time classic group photo that really can't be beat and which I really need to save somewhere on my computer here. Is that Mystery Men 2 robot cover also an Allentown copy of is it from another pedigree such as the Larson since I heard those were also really cherry nice? If it's the Allentown copy, I imagine it it should be pretty pristine since from the Master Allentown Collection List, Payette had graded the MM 2 as a NM/M condition copy. Especially since we all know how tough his grading generally tends to be in comparison to CGC's grading, as evident from the graded Allentown examples we have seen so far to date.

For a consignor, from a financial point of view, the only thing that matters is the bottom-line and what they can pocket after all of the fees and certainly not the headline grabbing top line that the auction houses loves to harp about all the time.

Although it might seem crazy to some, I don't think it's quite as crazy as the 2014 - 2016 time period before the tax laws were changed to discourage the rampant and highly inflationary flipping of houses. Now, that was a rather insane period of time where I remember a small but sedate nothing at all special house on the West side of the city being flipped four times during this short 2 year time period with the price going up from $3.2M before it settled in at a $7.6M price point. So, the OP with his purchase of the Allentown copy Cap 1 for $100B or even $100M would take the gold medal for craziness by a long shot.

If you are on good terms and keep in contact with the big boys in the hobby place back then, you can certainly benefit from that long held idiom that "one person's trash is another person's treasure".

For all of the Frazatta Famous Funnies aficionados and collectors who are still looking to fill some of the gaps in their Frazetta FF run without having to pay the nosebleed Heritage prices, as per my earlier post in the Famous Funnies thread, there's a small run from Famous Funnies 209 through 212 that's still sitting at a fraction of what similar graded copies sold for on Heritage just a few short months ago:

I thought the following early Bats in comparison were also a bit low on the low side: Batman 6, 7.0, OW/W, $5,317 Batman 7, 6.5, OW/W, $4,877 and Batman 8, 6.0, OW/W, $5,859

Received an email today from CL about their Feature Auction offerings tonight and noticed that their Frazetta Famous Funnies run from 209 through 212, with these two leading the way for now at $5,414 and $4,511 respectively, with the FF 211 being a Bethlehem pedigree copy to boot: https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAuctions%2Fdefault.asp%3FFocused%3D1%23Item_1551508&id=1551508&itemType=0#detail https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAuctions%2Fdefault.asp%3FFocused%3D1%23Item_1551509&id=1551509&itemType=0#detail Still a long ways to go from the strong 5-figures and near 5-figures which Heritage were able to fetch recently for their Frazetta Famous Funnies, especially with respect to the CGC 9.0 graded copy FF 211 and CGC 8.0 graded copy of FF 212 which sold only a few short months ago for $19,800 and $19,200 respectively. Will certainly be interesting to see how close these CL Frazetta Famous Funnies offerings come to the Heritage price points, but I somehow don't think it'll be close since more of the deep pocketed frenzied GA eyeballs tends to focus more on the Heritage auction site, as opposed to the CC auction site.

Then again, it was finally nice to see a couple of the Neal Adams Avengers books finally get some loving, especially with the big giant-size classic Neal Adams cover to cover issue of Avengers 93 which at one time was the biggest go to BA Marvel book for collectors to chase down when both Hulk 181 and Spidey 129 were still nothing books at less than a dollar a pop. Most llikely a record price with a CGC 9.6 2nd highest graded copy jumping up from something in the $2,800 range in the last minute to finished up at $6,100. Similarly, the Neal Adams Avengers 94 second highest graded CGC 9.6 copy also jumped up from somewhere in the $800 range all the way up to $3,878 in the last minute of the auction. Clearly, CL is much more the home base for the CGC label chasers and the more readily accessible recent books (relative to the GA books) who loves to come in the dying seconds of an auction with their snipe bids.

Sold for $230K. By Price is Right rules, you lose. Sorry. I am assuming he was banking on the high side, considering that Heritage had recently auctioned off a nicely presenting lower graded CGC 2.0 copy for $222K back in September which was then followed by a NOT so nicely presenting CGC 2.0 Promise Collection copy that sold for $240K a few short months ago back in November. With this auction result here for $230K, it kind of makes me wonder what the CGC 2.5 graded copy will go for at CC since it is already sitting at $150K with another 2 weeks to go. This slightly lower price point in comparison to the Heritage results might possibly be due to the fact that CL is not necessarily the first or possibly even the second auction site to come into most GA collector's mind when it comes to the big key GA books, but then again the supposedly higher fees at Heritage can often certainly result in the same amount going into the consignor's pocket by the time it's all said and done.

Sadly, my windfall will come up a few zeros shy of Mr. Frommelt's. Well, a few zeros shy of Tim Frommelt's $100B mark is still $100M which is certainly nothing to sniff at.

Looks like some fool of a bidder just went and placed a new high bid on this POS book here. Took a second look at my analysis of this book here and definitely my bad here and hope that I didn't mislead any potential bidders here. Clearly one of the most OVERRATED GA books out there and now doubt that it's even a Lou Fine cover and clearly the reason why Overstreet doesn't even mention this in his guide. And to top it off, a Rockford copy which is the most overgraded pedigree out there and makes the Promise Collection books look like a poster child for examples of undergraded pedigree books. Hope nobody else falls for CL's much overblown hype that it's one of the highest graded copies out there. Especially since I just got an inside tip that there's a whole ton of HG copies sitting in CGC's pipeline just waiting to be graded and slabbed that would have no problems snuggling themselves in there between the Church CGC 9.6 highest graded copy and the CGC 8.0 second highest graded copy of this book here. So, absolutely nothing to see at all with respect to this CL lot here.

Went back and you are dead on correct here as it shows up in the latter portion of their auction archives where the straight sales are kept. It's hard to tell if you would have won the book anyways even if you had gone a couple more bid increments higher. Especially since the winner might have been willing to go several bid increments higher. Especially if the winner at the <$15K price point was Fishler himself who possibly knew he could find a buyer at a much higher price point if he was patient enough. Still, it would have been nice if you had won it and to see the book going to a much longer term loving home. Surprisingly, this Jumbo 11 still seems to be one of those very few still to be discovered and fully appreciated gems from Fine. Probably due in part to the fact that the collecting base is much more familiar with the Jumbo 10 with its highly popular classic cover which had been broken out by Overstreet decades ago. Not so much for the Jumbo 11 with no mention at all about the Fine cover artwork except for a tiny notation buried deep in the liner notes at the end of the title. Also interesting to note that Jumbo 11 is also actually a much tougher book to find with its census count at only 20 in total including restored copies, or running at just a bit more than half of the total census count of 36 for the much more pricier Jumbo 10.

I certainly wish and yet sadly, definitely not something which you would see out here where my kids are hoping to buy a home. With the crazy real estate market the way it is like the current vintage comic book marketplace, although this is more common on the west side of the city, you even see stupid transactions in the lower cost south east corner of the city where a house sells for almost a whole million OVER the asking price: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/2450-se-marine-drive-vancouver Probably one of the trending strategies from the past few years of putting in a slightly lower than market asking price in order to draw a ton of competitive bids. Perfect case in point being this house from the news a couple of weeks ago with an asking price of only $1,598,000 and then only to be sold at $2,510,000 in the cheaper east side of the city. Still, a grossly egregious big move up from its asking price and yet, a darn good return for the seller from the $262,600 it had sold for back in July of 2000.

And yet in the Overstreet Guide, it clearly states that Double Action Comics 2 is NOT an ashcan. I guess that earlier article by Gary might be a bit out-of-date since it was written back in the 90's and states only 3 known copies of Double Action 2 and no verified copy of a Double Action 1. In the Overstreet Guide, it states that there are now 7 known copies of Double Action 2, with 4 of them in high grade. In addition, it also states that Double Action 1 exists as an ashcan copy.

It already has since the CL copy is now sitting at $211K with still another couple of days to go, while Magik's CBCS 9.0 graded Pennsylvania copy only managed to fetched $173,275 back in 2015. The question is will it be able to take out the CBCS 9.2 graded Church copy that sold for $262,900 back in 2017, which I think it will most likely do without not too much problem at all.

Have always love the bright blood red colors on this early Jumbo cover by Fine and thought it might have gone for a bit more than the $2,640 it did fetched: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/adventure/jumbo-comics-11-fiction-house-1940-cgc-vg-40-off-white-to-white-pages/a/122209-17644.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116# Then again, it has always been a much underappreciated Fine cover and seems to have gotten lost amongst all of his other great classic covers, I guess it doesn't help when Overstreet hasn't even broken this book out yet and simply lumps it in together with the later Eisner cover issues. I noticed that Heritage did managed to sell the CGC 9.6 graded Church copy of this book for just under $15K back in 2016 and then the book was auctioned off again by CC for $24K a couple years later in 2018.

I'm pretty sure whatever was going to happen has already happened. Yes indeed, where did that good old Tim Frommelt go to or did he find something else to spend his $100 billion dollars on besides just a Cap 1? Why, it's been almost a good 10 days since we last heard from him and his quest to acquire this book from the younger Verzyl kids.

Says the guy living in the world's most expensive city by a long shot in terms of unaffordability. At least we take only the silver medal as the second most expensive city in the world in terms of unaffordability. Then again, we are taxed egregiously to the max on 50% of our capital gains while you guys in HK live pretty much in a tax haven with ZERO percent capital gains tax.

Or if you want to try on the posh ritzy West side of the city, this even dreamier looking house sold for $80K over the $2.4M asking price: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-teardown-real-estate-1.3449869 With the backyard being listed as a landscaper's dream (love how real estate agents phrase things as I certainly wouldn't call it that): Not sure how much it would go for in today's hot real estate market, as this sale took place way back in 2016 long before Covid rocketed prices further up into the stratosphere. Of course, being on the West side of the city, it's going to cost a whole heck of a lot more than a piddly mllion dollars to put up a new house there as the building trades charge according to what the market will bear which means pretty much close to double since you also have to keep up with the Jones's next door.

Where's "here" ? Right here where you can buy this "beauty" of a dream house on the East side of the city for a cool million dollars: https://vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/metro-vancouver-real-estate-this-is-what-1-million-buys-you Okay, my bad as it was listed last year for $100 less at only $999,900. Then again, it did end up selling shortly after that for $1,105,000!!! I guess we shouldn't forget that it's going to cost you another million to tear it down and put a new house up there to replace it.

You forgot to add in a key third point point here: - submit it with half of a discontinued $1,000 bill along with a note saying they'll get the other half of the $1,000 bill if it comes back encased in a slab with the "right" grade.

Sadly, with the way the real estate market is flying right now, it's pretty much the Bank of Mom & Dad if your kids ever hope to buy a home of their own. It's definitely family first when it comes to these gut wrenching tough choices and shows just how great of a parent you are when it comes to crunch time. Depending upon where your daughter is looking to buy a house, I guess the proceeds will either be going hopefully towards a good portion of the cost of the house or if not, at least a good portion of the down payment for her dream home. Will definitely be cheering your book on as your copy of Bat 1 closes in a couple of short weeks from now. Perfect timing for this book with how red hot the entire collectibles marketplace has been with the pandemic and now coupled this with the long awaited release of the new Batman movie later this week which certainly can't hurt either.

Wowzas! Just checked the bidding history and it looks like the book jumped from $151K up to $211K with 7 additional bids in less than a minute. Looks like somebody is trying to go on a preliminary fishing trip to see if they can scope out the high bid from their competitor.

Well, if they are indeed trying to make their record breaking sales invisible to potential sellers, they are definitely doing a poor job of it. Especially since every one of these record breaking sales can be easily found in their auction archives which is open to everybody, unlike GPA or GoCollect where you are required to pay a subscription fee to access the sales information. My thinking is that non-auction sales results are probably not being transmitted over due more to the crapola dollar store website system which they have in place with all of its subsequent shortfalls and limitations.

But yes, what a cover, all that gorgeous red and a close up shot of Blue Beetle and unlike Batman, no qualms about using his special gun at all.