lou_fine

Well, this is definitely a bit of a shocker since Jigglypig is pretty much of a fixture when it comes to these Vancouver shows. Hopefully, it's not anything to do with a health related issue that's keeping him from attending. Is this somebody new who usually doesn't tend to come over and are you referring to Fan Expo or to the Vancouver Comic Show here, or both?

Short, sweet, and to the point. Well, I guess anybody who had purchased share(s) in their CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1 at somewhere in the mid $60K's must be pretty happy right about now.

Well, there was one regular boardie here who was really into it and had started up a whole thread on it when it first came up about a year ago.

I believe pretty much the same thing also happened to all of those key GA books that were brought in the first Sotheby's Auction back in the early 90's, as I believe they went on display as part of some kind of trevelling circus show around the country.

Yeah, clicked onto the Exhibitors and Retailers of their attached link and all it shows is an application to apply to become a retailer and still no listing of the actual retailers to date. Which kind of leads me to think that all of the comic book retailers are most likely holding out for the big comic book show scheduled for the PNE grounds the following Sunday on the 27th where they will have a lot less of the glitz and glam that buyers are trying to avoid nowadays where it's really no longer about the actual comic books themselves anymore.

Less than a week away and still no listing for the actual comic book retailers that will be attending this show since this is supposed to be a comic book convention to buy and sell comic books?

I just checked and I believe you would be incorrect here as these books here are already at something like 6X their unrestored condition guide prices (i.e. high $2K's or low $3K's) even though they are raw and have the much dreaded restoration on them: Which kind of makes me kind of wonder what they are going to end up at by the time the bell rings for the final bids later today.

Are you saying you definitely would have gone after that Little Nemo 1906 and the Yellow Kid in McFadden Flats books.

Took a closer look at this Frank Frazetta Famous Funnies auction listing and noticed that it had closed on a Wednesday: https://comics.ha.com/itm/memorabilia/comic-related/frank-frazetta-famous-funnies-portfolio-russ-cochran-1975-/a/322206-47159.s?ic2=mybidspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyBids-101116 This makes me kind of wonder if it would have done better if it had been slotted in as part of their regular Sunday/Monday Weekly Comic Book related auction, instead of this regular Wednesday Comics Art Auction which I was not even aware of?

Anybody here heard from Jon lately since it seems he's basically stopped posting here after the end of his big auction? Hope he's doing just fine in his retirement and being the life long collector that he's always been, probably a bit hard to come back to the boards after selling off the overwhleming majority of your personal collection even though he wanted to pass them off to the next generation of collectors.

Well, hope your fingers are still crossed although I am not sure if you would consider these prices to be reasonable since the ones scheduled to closed later today are already sitting in the high $2K's and low $3K's even before the bell rings for the final bidding. Definitely looks like some very strong aggressive bidding on these still in raw and restored condition books here, which would normally be a double killer for most books, but clearly not the case for these stunning HTF pre-hero DC books.

Well, I guess the comment from your original post would have been more complete and accurate if you had also included the following which I have highlighted in bold:

Well, since we all know what happened with a CGC 9.9 graded copy of Transformers 1 and DC Comics Presents 26 is both an even earlier and bigger key, all I can say is that I hope all of your affairs are in order and you have brought your will up-to-date.

Not sure what some of you are thinking here, but in theory they are supposed to grade each book from scratch (i.e. from the point of view that it had not been graded before. Of course, not sure if this is what actually happens in reality though. Makes no sense that you would think CGC would honor the grade from a competing company when they do not even honor previously graded CGC books from their own company as grading is still more of an art then an exact science, coupled with the fact that their undisclosed grading standards tend to change over time.

Tell us more. Especially since you've got the inside scoop as you used to work at CGC before.

To each their own, but isn't it much safer to invest in books that's worth money in all grades across the condition spectrum, and even safer if they are still worth money when raw and even if in restored condition as that's the sign of a true vintage collectible comic book?

Don't believe this is how the signature verification process is supposed to be working because how can CGC verify something some 15 or 16 years after the fact if the book was not graded and slabbed at the time.

I still remember Pat Kochanek walking around one of the SD Con's back in the 90s with the Church copy of this book as he was going on endlessly espousing about how the combination of bright colors on the cover of this AMF just made it seemingly pop right out from the covers.

So, any idea what happened with Deni's 10 copies which she would have gotten as part of the divorce settlement? Or was Dave so pissed off with the whole breakup and proceedings by then, that he decided to take a and a poop on all of her copies before passing them over to her.

Totally don't buy this story that it was shipping damage as opposed to production printing damage, and if so, Dave should have gone after the shipping company instead of the printing company. Nevertheless, I thought CGC was supposed to be grading books based upon the condition they were in when they arrived at the LCS's. At least that's what we were led to believe when certain books have unique well known production printing defects, and especially in the case of the early Marvel keys with their horrid eye gouging Marvel chipping which they give a soft pass to when it comes to grading. Their rationale apparently being that these early Marvel keys had poor production printing, although isn't there still far more uber HG copies of all of the early Marvel keys than there are with the few much later regular HG copies of Cerebus 1.

Totally agree with you here and the exact reason why I tossed the few copies I did find for this turd of a book straight into the recycle bin.

For those of you here who are fans of the Frazetta Famous Funnies cover artwork, another boardie just PM me with this HA listing they saw: https://comics.ha.com/itm/memorabilia/comic-related/frank-frazetta-famous-funnies-portfolio-russ-cochran-1975-/a/322206-47159.s?ic2=mybidspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyBids-101116 Not sure about the price point here at $576, but I believe this is probably somewhere in the ballpark as I have seen them sell from $400 up to the $900 price range in past years. Also not sure if the recent upsurge in prices for the underlying Frazetta Famous Funnies books would result in an increase for this type of related collectible, but definitely a poor man's way of acquiring a gorgeous example of Frazetta's classic artwork without having to pay 5-figures for some of these individual issues here. Just wish that I had been made aware of this Heritage Auction listing while it was still active, instead of after it had already ended.

Well, since the entire print run for Cerebus 1 was only 2,000 copies, then you kind sir with your multiple copies must be either a filthy but lucky hoarder or one of those greedy but very astute speculators. Seriously though, good for you and was you ever able to fund and acquire any copy without those ubiquitous and notorious spine cracks on them? Being much more of a collector, I never really went for buying multiple copies of a book. The only real exception that I remember making here was for Special Marvel Edition 15 with the first appearance of Shang-Chi. I remember picking up 4 or 5 copies of this book back then because I was never quite completely satisfied with the centering and that eye piercing white that was running down the spine on most copies of that book. That book was so common that you simply couldn't help but to run across it in the back issue bins of every single LCS back then. Stopped buying when it hit that outrageous amount of $3 for a so-called Mint copy of that book as there was just no way I was going to spend that kind of money for such a common book.

Not sure how the Signature signing and grading system works, but I don't imagine there's such a thing as having a CGC verified Signature book without having it graded and slabbed right afterwards. Or is it possible that this anomaly was allowed for one of Dave's personal signed books? If not and if your assumption that the CGC 9.6 came from an upgraded former CGC 9.4 copy, then I guess the submittor did not bothered to ever turned back in their old CGC 9.4 label as the count of CGC 9.4 Signature copies remained the same at only 3 copies even after the addition of the only CGC 9.6 Signature graded copy back in the latter half of 2019.

Just checked the CGCdata.com website for Cerebus 1 and it indicates that there were only 9 HG Signature copies of Cerebus 1 as of July 12, 2004: http://www.cgcdata.com/cgc/search/comicid/39931/6mo As the website shows, this was comprised of 2 CGC 9.4's, 3 CGC 9.2's, 3 CGC 9.0's, and then the 1 CGC 8.0 which you had already alluded to, for a total of only 9 Signature copies. From this count here, then I would assume that all 9 of these highest graded Signature copies would have been from Dave Sim's personal files, whihc then still leaves one copy outstanding. I highly doubt that this 10th copy would have been one of the other 3 Signature copies in the census at the time as their grades were far too low at only CGC 6.0. CGC 5.0, and a CGC 3.0 graded copy. Any possibility that Dave might have saved the best condition signed copy for himself in his raw personal collection and did not bother to get it graded and slabbed until the latter half of 2019 when a CGC 9.6 graded Signature copy does show up in the CGC Census Population report for the first time? The other question which I have is whatever happened to the other 10 copies which Dave had cherry picked and ended up having to give it to Deni as part of their divorce settlement: “By the time I started Cerebus, the story of Bill Gaines putting away twelve copies of each E.C. comic, fresh from the printer was pretty widespread in the collectibles market” says Sim. “I had no idea if it was an urban legend or not. I had heard that he put twenty of each away, so that’s what I did.” Sim laughs, “I’m glad I got that part wrong.”Part of the property settlement when Sim and his wife, Deni, divorced in the early eighties, involved each taking half of the Cerebus No. 1’s. After hearing how bad the divorce proceedings played out, it makes me kind of wonder if Deni ended up tossing all 10 of her cherry picked copies into a burning fireplace or flushed them all down the toilet to show exactly how he felt about Dave at the time back then. Or is it possible that Deni's 10 copies might be part of the 8 Universal unrestored blue label copies that's graded at CGC 9.0 and above?