lou_fine

Well, with your love for Cerebus back then along with your connection to Harry who was a central figure in the early times when it came to retailing the early issues of Cerebus, I certainly hope that you was able to acquire all of the back issues prior to issue 36 all the way back to the now highly sought after Cerebus 1.

Wow...........from some of the books which I have seen lately, sounds like you should be applying for a grader's job at CGC then, as you seem to be more than qualified and could help them to improve their grading game.

Hmmmmm, a storage unit from a security point of view.........................have you never heard of the Alfred Pennyworth collection of books that were almost not to be, until the owner managed to have the luck of the angles on his side in the end?

How about the Bat 1 then, or is the $350K estimate a good one for that "not the best presenting" example of a CGC 5.0 graded book?

Hey Aman; Didn't realize that you was such a big fan of Cerebus 1 and also so knowledgeable about the book. As such, being a long time boardie who seems to know how CGC operates when it comes to grading, I have always wonder about something when it comes to this book here. Since CGC supposedly takes known production defects into account when it comes to grading a particular book (eg. Marvel chipping which is downgraded to a far lesser extent than other chipping), do you know if CGC is baking in the fact that virtually all copies of Cerebus 1 left the printing facility already in damaged condition? Since most of the production damage is limited to creasing along the spine, which as we all know CGC absolutely hates with an eye to their top and bottom lines , do you think they are still hitting these books for the full impact of these production printing creases? Especially since if you exclude Dave's Signature copies which he supposedly cherry picked after going through the entire print run, there are still only 2 copies of Cerebus 1 which has graded as high as CGC 9.4 after all these long years which would seem to be statistically impossible for a #1 first issue (i.e. much more likely to be collected) book from as late as 1977. Also, any idea where this CGC 9.6 Signature copy of Cerebus 1 came from since it was graded and slabbed during the second half of 2019 and hence not part of the so-called Dave Sim File Copy Pedigree Collection books which were all signed back in March of 2004? Just wondering if this was another personal copy held back by Dave or if this was one of the copies which came out of Deni's divorce settlement? Hard to imagine a CGC 9.6 graded copy being missed by Dave during his supposedly meticulous cherry picking process and therefore just coming out of the wild.

No. It was a non-Ped. I have no in to the Chinatown ped. Don't know the guy. Again, my only point was it had a cool back story.. Yes, definitely a very cool back story on this Chinatown collection of pedigree books. As collectors, I guess we all tend to like the HG copies of these books, whether a ped or not. I remember Fishler back in the day used to call them "killer" copies which I guess was his selling or marketing terminology for them.

I would imagine there are many many frustrated buyers longer term who were succumbed by all of the movie and TV related hyped books, especially when it comes to the relatively common books and if they had brought at the top of the market.

I can certainly understand Allentown and Denver since those are the smallest pedigrees in terms of quantity with only 135 and 153 extant books respectively. With the Hawkeye's, I would have thought it to be a lot easier since there's supposed to be 1,500 books out there, although I guess the fact that there's no identifiable markings on the books from this pedigree makes it easy for some of them to have gotten "lost" over time and hence lose their pedigree status.

Is that a Chinatown copy of Four Color 456 or Uncle Scrooge 2 since I assume that must have been graded much later than the main group as the only Four Color Uncle Scrooge books that I have on my list are Uncle Scrooge 4 - 13. Well, I guess the key word here is eventually, since that signal has now been flashing for almost 15 years then.

I would say that was true easier to find Aman than the Arrow issues. Perfect case in point being Funny Pages V2#10 featuring the first appearance of the Arrow where the only copies that we have seen in the marketplace during the past decade were either low grade or Restored/Conserved copies. No doubt due to the fact that the CGC Census Population Report indicates a total of only 16 copies (i.e. 13 Universal & 3 Restored) which is low for a key GA book, since these are the exact types of books that any seller would have graded and slabbed before putting it into the marketplace. Even rarer in grade as the highest graded copy to date so far is still only a CGC 8.0 copy and even the Church copy was listed as only a Fine copy by Chuck in his Mile High cartalogue.

As far as you are aware of, which ones have hit the market already besides raw books like New Funnies featuring Andy Panda and possibly some of the Four Color books? In terms of graded books, it looks like the top 5 highest graded books in the entire Chinatown Collection were all Four Color books from the mid-50's time period which indicates they were the ones collected by the daughter. Doubt you would have much luck acquiring any of these copies though because they are all still the single highest graded copies in the census (save one of them in shared highest graded) after all these long years and all five of them with White Pages to boot.

Strange as it may seem, I actually feel that the rather limited size of the Allentown Collection at only 135 books tends to add a note of prestige and uniqueness to these books, as opposed to a much larger size pedigree with thousands of extant books. In other words, collectors might feel that it is more desirable to own a copy of an Allentown book when there is only a total of 135 extant copies out there which hardly ever appears in the marketplace, as opposed to owning a copy of some other pedigree where there are 5,000 or possibly even 20,000 other extant copies out there and ones which tend to show up in auctions on a more regular basis. Especially when the overwhelming majority of the Allentown books slabbed to date have all graded into the 9's, as opposed to the ones which you have mentioned like the Larson, Windy City, and Kansas City probably averages out in grade to only somewhere in the 8's that tends to diminish their status as a pedigree. In addition, although its that the larger size pedigree would certainly have deeper runs and more keys, the number of keys, semi-keys, or in-demand issues within the Allentown is a much higher proportion of the total collection as opposed to the other pedigrees which also has a lot more of the lesser name books that once again tends to diminish their status as a pedigree. A perfect case in point would be the long standing Larson pedigree which probably averages out to only somewhere in the low to mid 8's in terms of grading. And yet the Larson copies of both Fantastic Comics 1 and Thrilling Comics 1 with their bright cover colors were just mind blowingly gorgeous and clearly still embedded in my memory when I saw them during the Diamond Galleries grand opening back in the mid-90's.

And your point is? Only that it's rare in the marketplace because it hasn't yet really been brought to market, but will be a whole lot less rare when it is eventually brought to market and actually available for purchase. And your point is?

In complete agreement with this statement and the reason why I also feel that the Promise Collection is in contention with both the Pennsylvania and Hawkeye's as my pick for the 5th position. Although there are clearly some technical defects with some of the Promise Collection books vis-a-vis their assigned CGC grades, from the Heritage scans which I've seen save for dust shadows on some of the books, there is no doubt as to the freshness, gloss, and just how the colors seem to pop on the covers of the these books. Especially when you look at some of the "lesser" and seldom seen titles like Internationl Comics, Crime Patrol, Moon Girl, etc. Although some of us here (including yours truly and guilty as charged ) tend to harp on the seeming overgrading on some of the Promise Collection books , my bet is that there are probably just as many undergraded books in the pedigree collection as there are overgraded books. It's just that it's so much easier to spot overgraded books from just looking at a scan(s) and point them out, whereas you really cannot do the same thing by just looking at a scan(s) when it comes to a possibly undergraded book.

From most of yur posts on the boards here, it appears that you are still in the acquisition mode for now.

That's because the CGC serial number indicates the book was graded and slabbed back in March of 2019 and CGC did not designate the Cookville's as a pedigree until later that same year back in July of 2019.

I imagine it's probably because most of the long time GA collectors couldn't care less about the CGC registry because they are much more interested in the underlying books themselves, whereas I would assume the CGC Registry probably has much more to do with assigning points or whatever based upon the grade of a particular book. My bet is that the overwhelming majority of long time GA collectors have never ever even wandered into the Registry section of the CGC website.

Well, very rare only because the purchaser who brought the collection from the OO has not yet released any of the books into the marketplace. That is, unless you are interested in purchasing some late Four Colors or funny animal books from the mid 50's time period which even he doesn't want. Then again, these were pretty much far and away the highest graded books in the Chinatown collection, out of the ones that were graded.

What Domo said is pretty much it in a nutshell, as this key book like many others took off in value during the past year with the pandemic taking hold. In this case here, the GSXM 1 pretty much tripled in value over the 1-year time period, and overshot when it peaked at $72K. It then went searching for a consolidation point to settled in at, during which time it drifted back down into the high $30K's before seemingly settling in at somehwere in the $40K's price range. Looks like the CGC 9.8 copies of X-Men 94 is still on the rise as it has continued to moved upwards and past GSXM 1 due to the fact that there are far fewer copies in this high grade, as it was not part of a rumoured warehouse find which was supposedly the case for the GSXM 1.

Pretty much the same as I got as the first 4 is a slam dunk and also in the exact same order, with both the Church and Allentown clearly in the lead. As for the pedigree in 5th position, it was pretty much a toss-up between the Pennsylvania and the Hawkeye. After giving it some thought, even though the Penn's are much more well known, from the less well known Hawkeye's which I have seen, they are clearly nicer and sharper than the Penn copies, so it would be the Hawkeye's for me. Gave some thought to slotting the Promise Collection books into that 5th position, but too early to tell with all of the hype that's on these books right now. In addition, that later time period is not my main area of interest, but probably the other big factor is that the seeming inconsistent grading by CGC for these books have certainly damaged the reputation of this pedigree for me at this current point in time.

Well, with the way the comic book market has been going for the last couple of years, I would say some of the long-time collectors with these kinds of books that they brought back in the day for much much lower dollars are now probsbly giving some serious thought to cashing out. Especially since the comic book market has historically always tended to move in cycles and don't tend to stay either too hot or too cold for extended periods of time, and will definitely be interesting to see how long this current cycle of the market stays super red hot.

Unfortunately for the Promise Collection books, the quality of the grading of them was not commensurate (i.e. far inferior, inconsistent, and somewhat suspect for some of the books) with the superior quality of the collection and hence has damaged the legacy of this pedigree collection in the eyes of some collectors within the hobby. Can't remember exactly who and not sure if I would go so far, but a couple of boardies here even stated that they would take the small, but super high quality 135 Allentown pedigree collection with all of their big big keys over the much larger 5,000 Promise Collection of books if they were given the choice between the two pedigree collections.

I guess you haven't heard the news then............somebody did exactly this and is now on the hook to Heritage for some $3.36M for a pedistrian Spidey OA page.

Yay, then let's call it 9.8! Lol Well, since it's not a Promise copy and not being submitted by Heritage, we need to balance our grading scorecard, so dust shadows sure do count and we'll just call it a 8.0.

Looks like there actually is one, as another boardie just bumped it to the front since it had been sitting dormant in the deep freeze since 2019: