lou_fine

Yes, Dave's still there. One of the best graders in the business! Well, if he is, then can they please get him to grade all of the vintage collectible comic books for us. I would certainly like to get around to finally having some of my books graded and slabbed, but the seeming inconsistency from what I've seen here makes it look like a big red flag whereby it's really nothing more than a spin of the roulette wheel. Sadly, my luck is never ever good when it comes to these kinds of things.

Talking about stunning and stupendous cover artwork here, it was certainly nice to see further confirmation that the marketplace is finally starting to cross over into the 5-figure threshold for some of these all-time classic Frazetta Famous Funnies cover books which even Frazetta himself acknowledges was done when he was at the top of his form: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/famous-funnies-211-signature-series-frank-frazetta-eastern-color-1954-cgc-vf-nm-90-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7266-95049.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Not sure if it's the signature which I somehow doubt as this copy sold for a rather astounding $19,800 when another equivalent CGC 9.0 graded copy had sold for only $5,040 at the beginning of 2021 and with CGC 9.4 graded copies selling into the $7K's price range during the previous 2 years. Looks like the only other 2 Frazetta Famous Funnies covers to hit 5-figures were the CGC 8.0 graded copy of FF 212 and also the CGC 7.5 graded copy of FF 215 which sold for $19,200 and $11,400 respectively, with both of them being sold in Heritage's last Signature Auction only a short couple months ago. Especially nice is to see these prices being fetched for reasonable condition copies that are far from the highest grades. With these kinds of results on some of his Famous Funnies covers, it makes me wonder what kind of prices we could see if copies of either FF 213 or FF214 in nice grade comes up for auction, especially since I consider those two covers to be the high water mark of his Famous Funnies run and a run which even he himself said: "All I know is that I was very pleased with those Famous Funnies covers; they are me at my very best." .

Never said that this kind of price point would be sustainable, as I believe this was just a one-time huge outlier of a sale by 2 bidders (to steal a line from another boardie @tth2 talking about another book) who have too many dollars and not enough sense. Just a bit surprised that one of them didn't step back to take a breath and come to the realization that this book in this particular grade tends to show up in every single auction at a fraction of the final price.

Yeah, you are 110% correct as who cares about that no-name Swampy and all washed up Punisher guy. Being the old fart that I am, I would definitely have gone for his stunning and super rare OA for the cover to Detective Comics 28.

Well, for the Bat 49 from my own personal POV, I simply just call it a return to sanity for a relatively common GA book. In addition, if the $38K sale was an outlier, then it certainly stood in good company as it probably simply rode in on the coattails of the CGC 9.6 graded Promise Collection copy of Bat 49 that had sold for an almost equally outrageous $132K just one day before the $38K sale. There was definitely no need to go above and beyond to pay those kinds of stratospheric prices for the book, especially with a total of 5 copies in the same CGC 9.6 grade as the Promise Collection copy, and also a total 11 copies in the same CGC 8.5 grade with another 11 higher graded copies (for a whopping total of 22 copies) as the one that sold for $38K+. Especially when another CGC 9.6 graded copy had just sold for only $28,800 a year earlier and another CGC 8.5 graded copy had sold for only $10,800 a few months prior to the $38,400 sale. With a book as seemingly common as Bat 49 and a book that seems to show up in every other major auction, sometimes it's just a case of biding your time and waiting for the right copy to come along at a much more reasonable price point before pulling the trigger.

The quality of the art is and always has been irrelevant in the most valuable OA pieces. It's all about comic book significance. Well, if that's the case, then somebody in NYC must be absolutely ecstatic about this $3.3M+ sale for the Mike Zeck Venom interior page, especially since they have the absolutely gorgeous OA for the covers to both Spidey 129 and Wrightson's classic HOS 92 which I saw when I was there a couple of years ago.

Hey West; Don't sweat it as I believe Tim and I already put this rather far-fetched conspiracy theory about Magik's Suspense 3 sale to bed and stand ready to defend you. BTW: I also don't think that you as the competition can hold a candle to some of the shall we say negative (but hopefully humorous from a constructive POV) chatter that some boardies here put out about our rather tolerant hosts here and also about Heritage.

Of all the books to pick as evidence for your paranoid conspiracy delusions, that is the most bizarre choice. Yes, I would tend to agree with Tim here and say that a Suspense 3 would be a very odd choice indeed. Now, if it was a TMNT 1, that's a completely different story..........big huge demand from both within and outside the hobby coupled with a supposedly low supply, and yet high enough and available that if you was astute enough to have picked up several HG copies of this relatively recent book, it's quite possible to move the market significantly with a few strategic auction results. Definitely not saying this is what took place here by any stretch of the imagination, but interesting to note how CGC 9.8 graded copies jumped from the $30K's quagmire it was seemingly stuck at and right into the $50K to $70K price range after that big landmark public auction took place at $90K before this exact same copy resold at a substantially lower price in a private transaction a few months later, and now they've really jumped the shark all the way to a quarter of a million dollars. And now, you got your CGC 9.6 graded copies about to crossed into 6-figures and even your CGC 9.2 graded copies touching onto $40K's, which needless to say, is an astounding return to all those hundreds of collectors lucky enough to be holding onto HG copies of this key CA book here.

Have you forgotten all about your younger days when the hip in generation crowd use to go on the cheap by thumbing their way across the country?

Whoa!!! Well, like they say, the comic book market always tends to move in cycles. So, since this GA DC Adventure run of comics seems to have been pretty much in a deeper than deep freeze down cycle for the past 30 odd years, I guess once the market turns, it's going to be so swift and powerful buyers will end up having a case of severe whiplash trying to catch up to the marketplace for these books.

Yeah, go figure in this cryto-like red hot GA marketplace where some classic cover books have no problems selling for huge double digit multiples to condition guide, this highest graded classic cover book and a pedigree copy at that not only sells at a discount to guide, but also at a substantially lower price point than what an equivalent graded non-pedigree copy had sold for way back all the way in 2006. Seeing how a virtual unknown character like the Black Knight can come out of the deep freeze right into the burning heat of the fire just based upon a hint of potential movie stardom, I guess the only way to light a fire under Adventure Comics 73 is to have DC transfer the Manhunter's right over to Marvel in hopes of him becoming part of the MCU movie franchise going forward. Especially since being part of the DCEU movie empire seems to do virtually nothing for the DC character books from a valuation point of view.

I don't doubt it. I remember when the Voldemort Magic Woo Suspense 3 sold for $100K right after Voldemort started slabbing books. I couldn't help but wonder whether that $100K came out of Voldemort's marketing budget. I very much highly doubt and virtually 100% positive this is NOT what took place with Magik's copy of Suspense Comics 3. Especially since Magik's copy of Suspense 3 served as the frontispiece for Gerber's landmark PhotoJournal Guide and had long been recognized in the hobby place as a highly sought after book by a number of big dealers and deep pocketed collectors. Especially since it had also been long recognized as the top condition copy out there since the existence of the Church copy did not come to light until almost a full 2 years after Magik's copy had already sold. According to Magik, even though he had paid 10X Mint condition guide for the book at the time, he had still received many very generous offers for the book over the years which he had always politely turned down. So, I am quite sure the purchase of Magik's Suspense 3 did not come out from Voldemort's marketing budget and I am also quite sure whoever the lucky winner was is still ecstatic about their purchase to this day, especially in light of how strong the current market is for classic cover books.

Well, if this HA auction result is any indication, I would have to respectfully disagree with your above assessment, as per a prior post from me: I guess this also goes to show it's sometimes all about timing and just showing a bit of patience.

Given that hammer price, I'm forecasting 260 9.8s will be graded next week alone. More correctly, 260 copies will be sent in before the day is over with none of them being graded and slabbed until next year at the earliest by the time they make it through the CGC pressing and grading storage warehouse that is already bursting at the seams. Blackstone and CGC's business plan for 2022: A little bit of well placed strategic bidding goes a long way to achieving your Corporate goals.

After seeing this result here, it makes me wonder if Halperin has the fingers on both of his hands working overtime on this book here: https://comics.ha.com/itm/modern-age-1980-present-/superhero/daredevil-168-marvel-1981-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/7266-95130.s To each their own, but why in the world would anybody in their right or wrong mind pay $13,200 for this book when there's already a total of 260 copies slabbed to date in this equivalent CGC highest grade. Especially since this is a relatively common as dirt book in grade as it was pretty much hoarded by all of the collectors back in the day when it first came out. Any bets that there's going to be a ton of copies of this book being sent into CGC for grading after this result, which will go a long way to stuffing their coffers to overflowing. Which reminds me that I really really do need to get around to fnding my copies so that I can send in at least a couple of them to get the fresh looking inks squished squashed right out of the pages before they get moved over to the next room for grading.

The actual stamp that is included with the book pushed it up another mil. Weee Well, if that tiny little barely visible rocket stamp boosted the final price by a while mil, just imagine how much more this book will go for: https://comics.ha.com/itm/bronze-age-1970-1979-/superhero/the-incredible-hulk-181-signature-series-stan-lee-and-others-marvel-1974-cgc-vf-85-off-white-pages/a/122203-15490.s?ctrack=473536&type=featured-2-comic-close-122203-tem011422 Should be worth at least a few more millions this coming Sunday since you can barely see either the Hulk or Wolvie under all of that "beautiful" penmanship, especially since it seems to have done the trick and avoided the purple PLOD label by covering up all of the color touch on the cover.

If by public you aren't counting the blue 3.0 that ComicConnect auctioned last month for $1.6 million (which was my basis for the comparison to the Tec27), or the resale of the 8.5 last April, then yes. Yes, let's not forget the then record sale price of $3.25M for the Universal blue CGC 8.5 graded copy back in April of 2021, although that appears to have been a non-auction private sale: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/916042 Needless to say, the buyer of this copy here must be absolutely ecstatic with a mere CGC 6.0 graded copy that sold yesterday for the relatively astounding sum of $3.18M.

There were indeed a few others, but they were not in Blue universal labels, including one of them that was a restored CGC 9.0 copy.

Well, from the Heritage Auction results that we saw today, I guess we got our answer in that prices are not easing back down. Especially in the case of HG GA books and in particular classic GGA and pre-code horror covers as they still seem to be continuing their big march upwards. Heck, even a CGC 6.5 graded copy of More Fun 73 with the first Aquaman and Green Arrow sold for $192K after a Heritage had sold a higher CGC 7.5 graded copy of the same book for only $111K back in April of 2021. Looks like even high population count books like GSXM 1 are back on the move once again with a CGC 9.8 graded copy selling for $48K after dropping back into the mid to high $30K's towards the end of 2021 Not $264K this time for a CGC 9.8, but still pretty hot for another CGC 9.6 copy of Marvel Spotlight 5 to sell for $84K after languishing much lower prior to the end of 2021.

Or sometimes even 10 times as in that case of the Mike Zeck Venom interior page artwork, as I believed it started at something like $330K but ended up at over $3.3M.

I did during the previous auction back in November or whenever it was. Didn't seem to help as they sent me another Art Auction catalogue via FedEx which I promptly tossed straight into the recycle bin without even bothering to flip it open to take a gander at.

Not sure why, but they started to send me the art auction catalogue which I have absolutely zero interest in, instead of the comic book catalogues which they used to send to me. Keeps my better half happy as the art auction catalog goes straight into the recycle bin instead of the comic book auction catalogues taking up space at the bottom of the closet.

Another book that I thought did surprisingly well was this copy of More Fun 73 which seem to be on the way back down after the big Aquaman movie hype from a few years ago: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/superhero/more-fun-comics-73-dc-1941-cgc-fn-65-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7266-91045.s Sold for a rather surprising and astonishing $192K for a CGC 6.5 graded copy, after Heritage was able to fetch only $111K for a higher CGC 7.5 graded copy back in April of 2021. Have always been interested in acquiring this book since it was the only still reasonably price DC GA key first appearance book back in the early to mid 90's when I was much more actively pursuing these books. Pretty tough to beat when it's got the first appearance of not just one long running DC character, but two of them in the form of both Aquaman and Green Arrrow. Definitely another one of these classic non-purchasing blunders of mine as I remember Harley had a nice raw VF copy for something like $3K or $4K a couple of years prior to the first big GA gold rush back in the mid 90's. Although it certainly did looked nice, it just didn't look quite "perfect enough" for what I wanted for my collection as it just didn't have that "killer" look to it, especially considering the price point.

If you don't count the two high profile copies that sold in the last 12 months, sure. Would you be including the supposed sale of that raw copy in a private transaction for $4.5M as part of this count here?

Was looking at some of the HA auction results from today and couldn't help but to laugh at this one here: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/crime/gangsters-can-t-win-2-ds-publishing-1948-cgc-nm-94-white-pages/a/7266-92012.s I guess this goes to clearly show that any type of press, even bad press, can go to help promote the sale of something as it sold for $26,400 or something approaching almost 60X top of guide. Especially after the way some of us here (including me) have denigrated what appeared to be a horrendously overgraded Promise Collection copy of Gangsters Can't Win #2. Maybe Heritage should kick back a small portion of their fee back to us for helping to promote and raise the profile of this prior relatively "unknown" book.