lou_fine

And sadly, no different from today except that it's become much more sophisticated and widespread, especially with the definition of restoration changing over time to exclude more and more things that the hobby had once recognized as falling under the restoration umbrella back then.

In all honesty, they most definitely can't with any true degree of certainly since grading is really nothing more than a subjective opinion (albeit supposedly an expert one) at a time a book crosses a grader's table, as opposed to being anywhere near an exact science. Based upon the dollars being paid out though for some of these nosebleed highest graded copies recently, the bidders must think grading is not only an exact science, but probably even more precise than that electron microscope you have pictured in your post up above. To each their own, but I would much rather buy the book, as opposed to buying the label. Especially with today's grading inconsistency when CGC's acceptable grading margin of error seems to be widening rather substantially to plus or minus 3 grade increments or more on some books.

Really ? my mistake, I thought it was HA The $3.2M auction was the copy auctioned off on eBay by Darren Adams from Pristine Comics several years ago. The much more recent one was a private sale for $3.25M earlier this year which was handled through Metro/CC: https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/9032/action-comics-1-sets-record/

Actually, the other GA pedigrees that contained all #1 issues as far as I know were the Carson City or Comstock pedigree along with the Kansas City pedigree. I believe there might also be one other, but can't think of it right now.

With some of the out of this galaxy prices that we have seen on the Western genre books, it almost makes me wonder if it's time for all of the virtually comatose cowboy aficionados to have their long awaited and much overdue day in the sun after a very long 60+ years eclipse. Saw this in a PM sent to me, but just wondering if any boardie here was lucky enough to pick up this "very tightly graded" 2nd highest graded Promise copy of Best Western 58 at a bargain basement price of only $1,560 or well over 5X top of guide: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/western/best-western-58-the-promise-collection-pedigree-marvel-1949-cgc-nm-92-off-white-to-white-pages/a/122137-13201.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Archive-ThisAuction-120115# No doubt the "lucky" winner here must be banking on a potential upgrade here to at least a CGC 9.4 where its companion Best Western 59 was graded at and managed to fetched $3,840 or just over 13X top of guide. Well, at least it does look better than that CGC 8.5 graded copy of Gangsters Can't Win #2 which another boardie had posted up here on the boards. Seriously though, it is indeed finally good to see strong prices in some of the Western theme books during the past couple of years, and not just limited to the heroes who wear their undies on the outside, the GGA classic cover books, PCH, or what have you. Especially for an old-timer like me who still remember the family getting their first TV and turning it on and pretty much nothing except all of those cowboy shows on the TV back then.

Though the smallest of all the pedigrees out there at only 135 books, definitely right up there in stature as one of the top pedigrees out there due to the sheer number of early big keys in the collection, and virtually all of them in true high grade condition to boot. Definitely none of the seemingly inflated overgrading or at best, inconsistent grading that seems to be taking place nowadays.

I absolutely don't see why not since comic books were always meant for reading and sharing with your fellow collecting buddies: Now, if I remember correctly, that Church copy of Fantastic Comics #3 with the classic robot cover ended up selling for close to a quarter of million dollars a few years ago.

You mean this Shang-Chi that we all know and love from one of his best covers by Paul Gulacy: to look more like this former actor here:

And your guess would be wrong because if I remember correctly, the Graders Notes had nothing in terms of interior defects as it was all about those nasty "additional revenue generating defects" that you can see only if you hold the book up at a certain angle to the light. And yet, if you have a fugly "production" rat chew throughout the entire book that even Mr. Magoo could see on his worst days, you get a free pass from the graders: Any bets if I was to submit a book like this at random with a big chunk like that missing from the corner, I would also get it back in a grade with a "5" in it, but unfortunately for a no-name submitter like me, the "5" would be on the other side of the decimal point.

Is this particular issue here now being seen as the go to issue in the Schomburg airbrushed run of Wonder Comics? Definitely a strong price at $16,800 when comared to previous sales for this issue here, but I also felt the prices for all of the Schomburg airbrushed covers in the Exciting run also finished up at pretty strong prices considering that most of them were also not the single highest graded copy. To each their own, but to tell you the truth, I didn't really cared too much for either the size or the placement of the "coding" on this copy of Wonder 15 as I found it to be a bit too obtrusive and distracting for my taste:

Why, you you dilettante...........................one of the cognoscenti, of course. Seriously though, the item that I was most shocked at and one which I had already alluded to before in a previous post wasn't even a comic book even though it was astutely and deftly placed right into the middle of the comic book lots: https://comics.ha.com/itm/books/overstreet/overstreet-comic-book-price-guide-1-first-printing-overstreet-publications-1970-cgc-nm-96-white-pages/a/7246-94188.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Archive-ThisAuction-120115 Sold for what I thought was a rather astounding $45,600 which kind of makes me wonder if Bidder 7102 with his bags full of money was the winner of this book here. Especially since the last record sale of this book was for a then single highest graded CGC 9.2 copy in 2018 for what I thought at the time was already an astounding price of $9K, before a second 9.2 graded copy the following year brought it down to a more reasonable $4,800. Maybe it was the placement of the book in this particular go round which ensured many more eyeballs with money to spend would be seeing this book, as opposed to its usual placement of being lost in the odds & ends miscellaneous section of the auction. This result here reminded me of a conversation that I had the other year with a supposed member of the cognoscenti who had commented that this book was without a doubt one of the most important books within the comic book hobby. Not only that, but with its very limited print run of only 1,000 copies and coupled with the fact that the book was meant to be read and used, the likelihood of very many surviving in high grade would be very slim. His advice to me was to grab one should one in grade ever come along, but definitely not at this price point for me.

Nah.............you gotta jump onto the Phantom bandwagon before it gets out of the starting blocks and running at full steam: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/feature-books-57-the-phantom-the-promise-collection-pedigree-david-mckay-publications-1948-cgc-nm-92-off-white-to-whit/a/7246-96093.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515# Looks like this lowly CGC 9.2 graded copy with the absolutely stunning dripping cover colors managed to fetch $9,600 and I believe another Phantom Feature Book managed to fetched over $10K the other day. I really need to track down one of those virtually impossible to find Ace Comics 11 with the first appearance of the Phantom, which was also on Metro's target Want List as per one of their newsletters.

Yes, from my own personal point of view, this is the sign of a true vintage collectible comic book is when it can command high prices and multiples to guide across the entire condition spectrum, as opposed to do being able to achieve this for the highest graded copies only and nada for the ones pretty much below that.

Well, we all need to understand that this is a business after all, and although collectors might call it nepotism or conflict of interest, in the business world it's called veritcal integration and the Promise Collection is simply nothing more than the classic example for the realization of business synergies to the max. Particularly telling since we haven't seen a single one of these nosebleed graded Promise Collection books come back into the marketplace in higher graded slabs and being resold at substantially higher prices, which was certainly not the case with the Jon Berk Collection which was auctioned off through a competing auction house.

Never mind..............you are right in that the CGC 9.6 graded copy looks even worse that the 9.8 from a miscut point of view: Wow, looks like the owner of this Orgeon Coast Collection had multiple copies of MS 5 and is definitely going to be making good bank here. Definitely much smarter than moi because if somebody had given me a copy of a relatively common book that looked like this, I probably would have used it to line the inside of my kitchen recycle container, especially with that bottom staple.

Well, you are definitely right about the book being off-centered just by taking a look at the clearly visible misaligned white line running down the spine: Just imagine paying $265K for a copy that I would flipped right past if I saw it on the shelves of the LCS at the time or simply leave the store to head to another LCS in town for a better looking copy.

Stunning price. Stunning and lascivious cover.

Yes, almost knocked me right out of my seat when I saw the hammer come down on this book here at an out of this galaxy $90K. Why, this is totally unbelievable as at a price point of $90K now puts this book in esteemed company with the likes of Silver Surfer 4 and Uncle Scrooge 1. Seriously though, a real tough book to find as I remember trying to track down a nice looking copy after seeing the Holocaust style cover in a copy of the CBM magazine back in the 90's. Although I was willing to pay more than top of guide for a copy which was only several hundred dollars at the time, I was never able to come across any copy, let alone find a nice looking killer copy for my collection at a reasonable price.

Yes, although it was "stunning" to use Heritage's own words to see a book in such high grade with these kinds of defects, what's even more shocking is that it actually sold for such a stunningly high amount of $19,200 nevetheless. Makes me wonder if this Live Bidder 7102 spent enough time looking at the book to even noticed the missing piece or if it even mattered to him, considering all of the other big dollar books that he apparently hoovered up in this auction at record prices?

Yeah, this was also the first thing that crossed my mind when the hammer came down on some of these Pep's here. Unlike Mitch who seems to be the biggest cheerleader for the Promise Collection books here, I believe the winners for a large number of the Promise books will also have a rather long wait before they can see some green on their winnings.

I actually liked Brian today with his sharp looking turquoise blue tie set against a black shirt and grey suit, and a bit of a sense of humour to boot. I thought Barry used to be pretty good in terms of his details with the individual lots, but not the same level of enthusiasm as the years have gone by.

Absolutely beautiful and stunning pair of Church Sensation's that you have here. Just wondering if there's any truth to what many have stated here in that factors such as the ones you mentioned above, including color saturation does not count for that much when it comes to the final grade, especially when compared to some of the other more technical factors that the graders focus more on?

Well, I guess we clearly got the answer to your question here once the Church run of Pep came under the auction hammer. Any truth to the rumour that Anthony Chiofalo got out on bail last week just in time to bid in this auction, since he's so familiar with the HA platform.

To each their own, but I guess it really depends if you are a CGC label collector or if you are a comic book collector. Especially since I know EXACTLY what 25% of a certain dollar amount represents, while a CGC grade being subjective in nature can have an acceptable grading range of error which unfortunately seems to be widening quite a bit lately.

It's not quite that bad. I recall reading somewhere that CGC uses three independent graders. One of them is the head grader who has the final word, but after he/she determines the grade, they look to see what the other graders gave the comic. That way, they're less likely to miss a defect or to be too affected by whatever mood they're in on that day. Sure, it's not an exact science, but they do strive for consistency. Glad to see that you are still a believer and drinking your daily dose of CGC juice. For the life of me, I just can't figure out which one of these 2 pedigree books look better, given that both of them have the exact same CGC 8.5 grade: Well, all I can say is that I guess somebody must have brought into the label as they ended up paying $10,800 for the Gangsters Can't Win 2 when the book has a condition guide value of only $268. Of course some of the CGC loyalists here stated that what we were seeing here on the spine of the Gangsters Can't Win book were so-called "production flaws", and as such, are not to be taken into account by the graders when grading the book. No surprise though to guess which book was submitted in for grading by Heritage while the other was not.