lou_fine

Understandably, the recounting of history can indeed get very fuzzy at times. I was always under the impression that it was the family that made the offer to Chuck based upon the belief that there was about 20,000 books there and at 10 cents a pop, that would work out to $2,000. Chuck merely agreed to accept the family's offer and was not asked and did not expressed any opinion as to the value of the collection. Nothing more than a straight forward offer (by the fammily) and acceptance (by Chuck) deal and hence a binding legal contractual agreement. Some here have speculated that the family might have taken Chuck to the courts after they found out the true value of the collection, but believe there was nothing found on any court records and hence probably just nothing more than another conspriacy theory with no evidence of any actual proof to support it.

I believe if you really wanted to, you could probably be able to determine the actual name of the OO for all of these pedigree collections. Especially since I am sure the founders or dealers who brought them or will bring them to market knows the actual names of the OO of these pedigree collections. It's just that they prefer to keep their name "secret" for various reasons which could range from something as covoluted as the possibility that the OO or their family might possibly had disposed of the collection years or even decades before they actually came to market. Or it could be something as silly as the founder/dealer thinking the actual name of the OO did not have the right sound to it and hence might devalue the collection going forward.

It indeed is only $25 for grading and slabbing as long as it is just a Modern book with a value of less than $400, which means $25 for anything post 1975 that's pretty much not worth grading and $37 if it's a Vintage book or pre-1975 that's worth less than $400: https://www.cgccomics.com/submit/services-fees/cgc-grading/ If the book is valued between $400 to $1,000 then it falls into the so-called "High Value" tier with a fixed fee of $85. If you've actually got a book that's worth grading and valued at more then $1,000 then it falls into the "Unlimited" tier at 4% of FMV with a minimum charge of $150. Isn't this the whole premise behind the CPR game and for submittors to pay multiple times to get the exact same book graded and slabbed?

Yes, if the stories are indeed, he got the $2,000 to pay for the collection from Burrell Rowe (i.e a Texas dealer) on the condition that Burrell got to pick the first $10,000 worth of books based upon Overstreet valuations at the time. Bingo..................that's it exactly, as nobody else except Chuckles was willing to drive all the way out there to take a look at the collection thinking it would be nothing more than another wild goose chase.

Well, all I can say is that if you think paying 10 cents per copy for pristine minty fresh looking GA books from 35+ years ago back in the latter part of the 70's was taking a risk, then the fact that I was paying 5 cents for fugly low grade SA beaters in the mid-60's from just a couple years ago like X-Men 1 and Daredevil 1 north of the 49th must have been absolutely suicidal.

Boy, you really are dating yourself here with this 3% of FMV to grade and slab a so-called "expensive" book. You do realize it's now 2023 and the CCG ownership group has you by by what's hanging between your legs and squeezing and pressing it as hard as they can while they are reaching for your wallet in the back at the same time. Seriously though, luckily for all of us here the cost for now is only 4% of FMV for their Unlimited Value Tier (i.e. anything above a mere $1,000) with a minimum charge of $150. This basically means that if you have a book valued at $1,001 the cost to have it graded and slabbed is only a mere $150. Of course, with grading standards now subtlety adjusted to target shall we say "additional revenue generating" defects, a large majority of submittors will now also send their books into CCS in order to "prep" them for grading in fear they get punished when it crosses the Grader's table. So, if you go for this additional and almost required service, you need only pay another 4% of FMV for their Unlimited Tier with once again a minimum charge of $150. So, for your $1,001 book you will now be paying only $300 or a mere 30% ( was that just a typo on your part when you said 3% ) to have it prepped, graded, slabbed, and let's not forget the shipping charges on top of that. Since the CCG ownership group have been having annual increases in their grading and submission fees and tier adjustments every Spring for the past few years, it's probably best to send your books in right now before they bump them up once again. I would not at all be suprised to see the next increase set at say 5% of FMV with the Unlimited Value Tier lowered once again this time to $750 and a minimum charge of $200 per book, with submittors still lining up and banging down the doors of CCS/CGC to get their books prepped and graded.

No. the old lady and the family asked for brand new FULL COVER PRICE for old used smelly books on the condition that Chuck had to removed them all from the house at his own expense and dirt poor Chuckles agreed to accept the offer even though he didn't have a dime to his name at the time and had to go out and borrow the money from a big time comic dealer in order to acquire the collection.

You left out the first Joker cover, namely this one here:

What makes you say that Edgarwas a bitter obsessed old man when he was supposedly collecting them for work reference purposes? As for being obsessed, aren't all collectors a bit obsessive and for being an old man, don't we all age over time and sadly become old?

The fact that submittors would even consider sending in a book like this in the first place for certification hoping to to find a CGC 9.8 at the end of the CGC grading rainbow staggers me.

Well, according to the masterful tracking worksheet below which was compiled by our very own @MasterChief, the answer would be NO: Looks like the Terry-Toons had a percentage drop of only a mere 72% and was beaten out by a few other books, with the biggest being a tied for highest graded CGC 9.4 copy of 'Tec 126 which sold for a silly $43,200 before coming back down to reality and selling for a still strong price of $7,800 or a percentage drop of 82%. Definitely not as bad of a percentage drop as some of the high flying and hugely popular tech stocks from a couple of years ago or the Canadian cannabis stocks which shall we say went up in a puff of smoke once governmental legalization of weed was officially approved back in 2017/18 or whenever. Then again, there were also the rare and odd home runs with gains of 100% or more like the Plastic Man which had a bump up of 200% as it went from a mere $1,200 on its first go round as a CGC 9.2 graded copy up to a whopping $3,600 as a CGC 9.6 graded copy. Unlike what's happening in the rest of this CPR focused marketplace, it looks like there were very very few successful attempts at playing the CPR game with the Promise books as only a fractional 7 out of the 262 resales were successfully regraded. The CPR regrade that I found interesting was the one for the 'Tec 39 which got bumped DOWN from a CGC 4.5 grade down to a CGC 4.0 for its second go round, but was yet still able to garnered a 81% increase in price as it went up from $4,320 up to $7,800.

If that was indeed the case, then wouldn't it be more appropriate to have a thread on "What Are The BOTTOM 5 Pedigree's In YOur Opinion"?

Based upon all previous sales of this book in this similar high grade condition range, the real surprise is why did it sell for such a ridiculous amount on the first go round? Especially when the amount that it sold for on its second go round appears to be much more in line with what it should have gone for.

Wowza is right.........................this issue much be almost as common as dirt with a whopping 15 copies sold in a 5-month time period from mid-March through to mid-August.

Yes, totally agree with you that it really depends on what your criteria is, and as such, I believe it's really a case of to each their own, as everybody here will have their own criteria and hence their own preferences as to which pedigrees they like. Interesting to note that you seem to base your criteria more upon what I would say is more of a "macro pedigree" POV in the sense that you feel that the size of the collection (i.e. big is better) is quite important in your selection. Especially when you refer to the Gaines File Copies having 10 copies of each and the Windy City being the biggest collection of its type with its 2,000 Number 1 issues. I guess I took pretty much the opposite approach in my selection and really more from a shall we say "micro collector" POV in the sense that I also felt that the size of the collection (i.e. less is more desireable) was important in my selection. As a collector from my own personal POV, I would much rather have a copy of an Allentown book in my collection since its total size numbers only 135 extant books in total, as opposed to having a pedigree copy of a book that has thousands of extant copies in total. Especially when having an Allentown book in your personal collection is special and unique and like having a true rare as hen's teeth pedigree nugget when compared to having a book from a pedigree that numbers into the thousands. Likewise, I would much rather have a copy of a Denver number 1 book with its total count of only 153 extant books as opposed to the Windy City pedigree with its total of some 2,000 extant number 1 issues.

Being more of an old school longer term collector from back in the day, I'll stick with the earlier known more established pedigrees, as opposed to some of these wannabe newbies who have yet to stand the hobby's true test of time: 1) Edgar Church; 2) Allentown; 3) Tom Reilly; 4) Lamont Larson; and 5) Denver

Totally agree with everybody's POV here that the Allentown Collection is by far the absolute least deserving of pedigree status out of the 61 CGC official pedigrees, especially from a quantity POV with a mere total of only a piddly 135 books in the entire collection. Who in the world would want any of them!!! As a result, I am willing to sacrifice my personal collecting standards and take the hit by offering to remove the toxic stench of them from your personal collections at a mere 10% discount to condition guide value.

Can I ask you a question here..........are you trying to give us a "funny" here on a slow dreary boring Saturday or are you actually serious here? Especially since this is now 2023 and we are no longer living in the fantasy world of 2000 to 2004 when CGC first started up and we were all so innocent and naive thinking that CGC was looking after our best interests before we got that rude awakening in 2005 when CGC was outed on the boards here and we found out what was really actually happening behind the scene. If you reread the definition of restoration back then prior to 2005 and you look at what's happening to books in today's certified marketplace, it would appear that CGC has actually institutionalized restoration making it part and parcel of the whole certification process. Especially since grading standards have been fine tuned to the point whereby many submittors are now afraid of submitting a book into CGC for straight through grading without having it go through the CCS "prep" process first, less their book get hammered during the subsequent grading process. In fact, with CGC firmly ensconced as the de facto certification company within the marketplace since its inception, it would appear that restoration (although they no longer call or define it as such) has grown from almost nothing into the burgeoning industry it is today within the comic book marketplace.

Hey Aman; Although I find that you are pretty much always spot on when it comes to your comic book history and analysis, it appears that this is one of the very few and rare times that you are actually incorrect with respect to your time frame here. I bought my first Overstreet Guide (i.e the Barks Porky Pig cover edition) in 1977 and I clearly remember the guide a few years later having an extensive multi-page section written by Ernie Gerber and Bill Sarill where they discussed the preservation and restoration of comic book, including a section on the value of restored comic books. Depending upon the type and extent of the restoration, it was stated that the increase in valuation for restored comic books could be enormous when compared to unrestored books in their original lower condition grade. Needless to say, this marketplace sentiment did not last very long due apparently to the proclivity for this restoration work to go undisclosed upon resale even though it was seen as a net positive in terms of adding value to a book. I remember switching my collecting focus from new books to vintage pre-hero and GA books back in '87 and the big red flag back then was to watch out for and to avoid restored books. Especially when you had dealers like Mark Wilson around at the time who just couldn't pass up doing some type of work on a book no matter how nice it already was. Still remember asking him in every which way possible if he had done anything to a book prior to me expressing an interest in purchasing it from him and this was quite a few years before Sotheby's arrived with their comic book auctions in 1991/92.

As I had alluded to rather poorly may I say, the use of any auction archives to estimate the "average" condition for these 3 pedigrees would be clearly skewed to the upside since there is much less incentive to have the lower grade copies go through the expensive certification process. Especially in the case of so many of the raw copies from these 3 collections that we have seen on the boards here before they came up with the CGC pedigree designation for them. Totally agree with this qualifier when it was used for the Lost Valley Collection which consisted primarily of books from the much harder and rarer to find time period of the latter part of the 1930's.

Lucky for you that I had a lot of free time on my hand today and was able to do in-depth detailed research to find out the answer for you as per an astute boardie here:

Actually, I believe it is really more of a labelling error more than anything else that this regraded CGC 8.5 Church copy of Supes 1 would have the same certification number as when it was first graded as a CGC 8.0 graded copy. No real surprise and pretty much in line with business practices in general when it comes to preferential treatment and as such, not a big deal from my POV. In our case here, probably standard for "special" books, "special" collections, or for submittors with the right connections to have their books reviewed and evaluated for potential upgrade by CGC personnel that is above the pay grade of your regular CGC grader. The only thing here is that a book which has been successfully regraded to a different grade would be issued with a new certification number, while one that was not successful would simply go through the reholdering process and be given the same original certification number. Hence, from what I can see here, most likely nothing more than a labelling error and another book slabbed incorrectly, albeit a much higher profile one, that should have been caught during the QC process. From when these Church books came to market, weren't they at a time when restoration was seen as adding value to an unrestored book? So, if you consider these isolated extremely minor restoration as moments of madness and unfortunate lapses of judgement when it was deemed to be adding value to a book at the time, what would you characterize today as when submittors are banging down the doors of CCS and waiting countless months to get their books worked on before they get graded in order to pump up the grade and add value to the book?

Well, I would most certainly hope that many of the already graded copies have been certified in the VF range, especially considering that most collectors would not have bothered to send their lower condition copies in for grading. Correct me if I am wrong which would not be surprising, but I believe the overwhelming majority of the copies that we have seen here on the boards from these 3 "pedigree" collections would grade out only in the CGC 5.5 to 7.5 grade range, with very very few in CGC 9.0 or above. Definitely nothing or nowhere even close to what we would see from the overwhelming majority of the Church, Allentown, or Promise pedigrees.

I believe you might be confusing official CGC pedigrees with the CGC "named collections" (eg. Bobby Blue Collection) and then there's the CGC books affixed with stickers by the auction houses themselves (eg. Feed Store Collection) for the sole purpose of helping to market the books. The last and most recent collection to receive official CGC pedigree status was the Promise Collection and if I remember correctly, that was back in the Spring of 2021. The one before that was the Chinatown pedigree and I believe that one came in the summer of 2020 and I personally believe that both of these collections were fully deserving of their official CGC pedigree status. Certainly can't say the same with that large number of so-called pedigrees that they added back in July of 2019 when they were introducing their brand new pedigree label and decided that they better throw a bunch of new pedigrees into the mix in order to help promote their new pedigree label. Especially when it came to the Cookville's, Eldon's, and Harold Curtis because I personally felt that they did not meet the most important criteria for pedigree designation, namely the requirement that the collection must consist of exceptional high grade quallity books. Or to be more precise, how many or what tiny percentage of the books from these 3 huge massive collections actually graded out to CGC 9.0 or above (Answer: very very few). Then again, I guess it met the other criteria for pedigree designation, namely the requirment that the collection must consist of a considerable number of books from an original owner, and I guess this must have sent visions to the CCG ownersip group of thousands upon thousands of "new pedigree" books being sent back into CCS/CGC for reholdering and possibly even for pressing and regrading.

Re-evaluation by CGC prior to cracking and regrading. Now this is rather enlightening as it's the first time that I've heard that a book can be graded while still encased in a CGC holder, as I always thought you had to have the actual book in hand for a full examination of the entire book before it can be properly and accurately graded.