lou_fine

Sold for $28k. -J. Hey Jay; Your $28K figure is BEFORE the BP juice. So, once you add in the mandatory 20% BP, you end up with a final price of $33,600 for this CGC 9.8 graded copy of Spidey 129: https://comics.ha.com/itm/bronze-age-1970-1979-/superhero/the-amazing-spider-man-129-marvel-1974-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/122118-11045.s

WTF: But I just won Transformers 1 last month for a paltry $44K, expecting it to continue climbing to 6-figures before the end of this year.

Since we are all adults here, the Mods would hopefully not banish you to the CGC sin bin if you finish Sandra's line here: ......................."and I'll be yours , allll night longgg!!!"

Lordy! That is the one I want. One of the most iconic and well known comic covers of all time. I love it so much that it is my screen saver every time I turn on my phone. Well, unlike most of you who tends to go for the long time classic favorites, I guess I always like to go for the underdogs since they seem to be much more underrated and underappreciated. As such, I have always tended to favor the PL 23 cover over the PL 17 cover and in a similar vein, the Blue Beetle 52 cover with the beautiful blend of colors over the long recognized classic cover BB54. Then again, maybe it's simply nothing more than my senses becoming more muted and bored after seeing the PL 17 and BB 54 covers being highlighted for almost 50 long years now.

This happens all the time. People bid with blinders on. You guys are all completely right as I ALSO SIMPLY DON'T GET IT. I guess it's all really a matter of knowing your customer base and the marketplace that you are putting your items in. A perfect analogy would be if you have a designer brand fashion item and you want to get top dollar for it, would you expect the deeper pocketed customers to peruse the local flea market or army surplus store to pick up items of interest that suit their fancy or would they be more likely to go to Rodeo Drive or similar type haunts to window shop for their items. It's not exactly rocket science here, but guess which venue would get you more dollars for the exact same item. Unless it's the super hot and readily available items that you see in the marketplace all the time like a Spidey 300, Hulk 181, MOKF 15, etc, I don't understand why you would expect comic book shoppers to scroll through tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousand of comic book items on a regular ongoing basis to see if there is anything there on eBay that might interest them enough to risk placing a bid on with a seller that they most likely have never ever heard of. Believe me, this is very time-consuming, strenuously tedious, and highly non-productive WORK for anybody to go through if they want to window shop for a comic book that might spark their interest. The key thing that I simply don't understand in this whole equation here is why do THE SELLERS choose to select the eBay venue to sell their items if they truly feel that they have a vintage collectible item that should be going for top dollars. Why not select an professional comic book auction site like CL or CC to do all of the hard laborious work in terms of coming up with the listing description, shipping and handling, dealing with customer complaints and related issues, etc. and you can get all this for LESS THAN what you have to pay to Ebay and PayPal and one where YOU have to do all of this work yourself. Most of all, if you want top dollars for all of your hard work, why go to eBay where you indeed do have the world wide web, but guess what, you have the wrong eyeballs looking at your items. The big dollar comic book buyers and most of the CGC label chasers who willingly open up their wallets tends to roam through the comic book auction sites much more so than on eBay. Bottom-line: So, if you want top dollar for your collectible comic book, why not take it to a site (for a cheaper cost to you and less work) which is specifically tageted to those types of customers, as opposed to taking it to a site (for a higher cost to you and all the work) where basement bargain hunters go to fish through tens of thousands of pieces of drek to hopefully find something of value that might interest them. To me, it's an absolute no-brainer and I just don't get it.

Well, I don't believe we'll be seeing any more sales of Transformers 1 at $44,000, as that one there was totally and completely !!! , the money, that is!!!

That's exactly why it hasn't corrected yet because the rumours are still very much alive since they haven't been killed or brought to fruition yet. If the rumours does materialize into reality, it is then at this point that the book usually starts to correct big time. Or have you forgotten the time honor tradition which is almost always in play here of: Buy on the Rumours, and Sell on the News?

Too lazy to search for the scan again, but if I remember correctly, the copy of All-Select 1 from this Promise Collection was only a CGC 8.0 graded copy even though it's from the Fall of 1943.

Are you confident that your wallet can take the hit for any of the Police Comics that might eminate from this Promise Collection here? As per your post below, how did you make out in your quest for the Chinatown copies, or are you going to ditch them like yesterday's old lover and go after your fresh new love:

Excessive writing on the cover does get some level of downgrade beyond the usual. The Marvel 1 Lloyd Jacquet "Pay Copy" is an example of a near mint copy receiving a 9.0 due to the writing. Although I thought that I was getting ripped off at the time, it now definitely brings back pleasant memories of not only the Recil Macon that I picked up at the time, but also a couple other GA pedigrees as a result. Brought a Macon copy of what is now considered to be a key Timely book from the Dentist way back in the day for about VF condition guide. When I went through the book upon receipt and saw the writing of his name throughout the book, I called Dave up and informed him that I would be returning the book to him. Although he said it was not a problem, somehow I ended up with a Denver copy of another key Timely book since he gave me a huge discount on the book in light of my dissatisfaction with the Macon copy. Upon receipt of the Denver copy, when I was going through the book and noticed the siamese pages, I called Dave up again and told him that I couldn't read the story in the book. Same story, but this time I ended up with the Larson copy of a key early Fox book at a steal of a deal considering that he sold it to me for quite a bit less than the price which it was advertised for in the Metro catalogue a few months earlier. Although I was thinking of calling Dave up again on the Fox book because it had a very light but failed attempted erasure of the Larson numeric code, I decided against it since the book was absolutely minty fresh and perfect in every other way condition wise. Besides, I figured my wallet wouldn't be able to take another hit if I gave him a call since it had already been lightened by quite a few thousand dollars for all 3 of these books already. Definitely turned out alright in the end since that Recil Macon book has gone up almost 25X in terms of Overstreet guide valuation, and better yet, the book seems to even sell consistently in the marketplace for a big premium to condition guide, even in restored condition. Can't complain about the Denver and Larson books which I got as a result of all the Recil Macon writing, as their price trajectory is also closely behind in the same positive upwards direction.

Getting warm Yes, this would definitely be a rather warm and sentimental back story to the collection, a bit akin to the Tom Reilly San Francisco books then.

Interesting to note that when I clicked onto this link for the Eldon copy of Superman 35, one of the things i noticed right away was the CGC 9.6 graded copy of TMNT 1 just 2 books to the right that sold for what at the time (i.e. February of 2019) was probably a rather astounding price of $14,400. Fast forward a short 2+ years later and a TMNT 1 in CGC 9.6 sells for $66K at Heritage and then another copy sells for $88K an even shorter 2 weeks right after that. Kind of sad to see how much the HTF GA market has fallen behind the much more readily available keys books form the FOMO driven BA and CA marketplace, although I strongly feel that this Promise Collection will go a long way to facilitate a catch way for the GA marketplace and will definitely be fun and interesting to watch what plays out.

In total agreement with you 110% on your point here, especially when you are referring to the Church or Larson books with their long recognized small and unobtrusive codes and/or names written on the covers. In fact, I would definitely prefer a Church book with a code as opposed to one without the code. Although the codes on these Promise Collection books are clearly larger and hence a bit more obtrusive as compared to the small neat Church codes, I am sure the marketplace will have no problems accepting them due to their provenance of this pedigree. Similar in vien to the Camp copies of the Okajima books where eveen though they have all of the large writing all over the covers, they are now clearly much more coveted by the collecting base as evident by the much higher prices they go for as compared to the regular Okajima books. Although I don't believe CGC downgrades for the small distributor codes and/or small recognized names on pedigrees such as the Church and Larson books, do you have any idea how they handle some of the other pedigrees? They seem to have been inconsistent with some of them like the Dell File Copies where they were dinged for the writing on the covers at one time, then not, and now seemingly are once again depending upon the book. How about the Camp copies of Okajima with all of that writing or the Recil Macon as I have one of these books and it looks like he wrote his name in there at least a dozen times, including filling out the coupon. Apparently, it is common and one of the trademarks of the Recil Macon pedigree books, but how does CGC handle all of this writing from a condition grading point of view?

I somehow doubt this is going to happen because you are thinking more from the old school collector's point of view before CCG came in with certification and their whole grading game. Especially since today's CGC generation of collectors have been conditioned to focus in on that big big number on the top left hand corner of the slab pretty much above all else. In addition, I believe Heritage is going to try their best to market this once in a lifetime generational collection outside the regular comic book collecting crowd and try to pull in as much of the other FOMO driven collectibles money that seems to be flying around out there. And guess what, these newbies with the deep pockets aren't going to know anything at all or care to learn about pressing, CPR, cleaning, stigmatization, overgrading, or what have you because the only thing they will focus in on is that big number and if it's the highest graded copy because that's easy for them to understand.

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/superman-35-dc-1945-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/7204-91079.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515 Wow, greatly appreciate you posting a link to this absolutely killer copy and truly stunning book with the deep bold dripping blood red cover colors: Of course I am biased here since I have always love the books with the deep strong color strike and this copy definitely has it here in terms of the red, blue, and purples here. The only other time I remember such a strong red cover was on a copy of Star Spangled 8 with the deep red sky, but ended up passing on the book as it was a Mark Wilson book and just figured that it couldn't be that blood red unless the book had gone through one of Mark's patented cleaning processes. As for the Eldon books, based upon what I have seen this appears to be an outlier condition wise as compared to the rest of the collection, but what an outlier it is in this particular case here.

Ummmm................the Eldon books have been designated as an offfical pedigree by CGC back when they introduced their new pedigee label: https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/7577/ Now, if possible, can you provide us with a link to this CGC 9.8 graded Eldon book because for the life of me, I can't think of one that would grade that high as virtually all of the Eldon books (similar to the Harold Curtis and Cookville pedigrees) are in the CGC 5.0 to CGC 9.0 (if that) grade range as far as I can remember.

Yes, it does How about the books that have signatures scrawled all over the cover, and with some of them looking more like an ugly smudge mark than an actual signature? Now, a lot of those are definite eyesores and yet they still seem to get the high grades, especially those in the yellow holders.

Hey Tim; @tth2 Since we really know that you have now seen the light and want to join the "in" crowd in terms of the crypto investors and NFT traders, why don't we cut out the middle man here and avoid paying all of those Heritage fees by having you and me work out a private deal here. I'll take that old Church copy of Mystery Men 3 with that nasty pungent Mile High smell off your hands and in return I'll simply give you want you need to show up your new friends in terms of a Transformers 1 and a Shogun Warriors 1. Oh heck, I'll make sure it's a no-brainer steal of a deal for you and also toss in a copy of Rom 1 to make it a 3 for 1 deal and one that's definitely highly in your favor.

So, are you trying to imply that if we play the grading game by their rules and keep the CCG ownership happy (i.e. you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours ), a random book like say the Church copy of Mystery Men 3 could possibly have its potential maximized from a CGC 9.6 grade up to a CGC 9.8 grade? And if you are really good to them and they grade it according to the Promise Collection grading standards, it might even go all the way up to a grade of CGC 9.9.

Let's see if I can further thin out out the bidding pool. Now, I fully understand why Jason Ewert's been too busy to return any of my phone calls for the past month or so, with his voicemail saying that he won't be able to return any calls until June of this year at the earliest.

Maybe with all of these scans that we are now seeing from Heritage with the absolutely eye popping gorgeous books from this Promise Collection here, they should also have Lon provide us with the "before" picture of these books so that we can see what they looked like before they got squashed, graded, and slabbed. Can't wait to see what grade this beautiful book comes out at and whether they are going to "fix up" some of the obvious spine and corner issues with this book here, or simply choose to apply the soft and gentle soothing touches of their grading feather to this book here:

You may have missed the recent announcement that pressing related damage is now considered a ‘manufacturing’ defect. Sadly, this is probably more closer to the truth than just a rumour or a funny joke. Especially since it seems that with the current grading team in place for the past several years and the newbies working in CCS (i.e. not Nelson who knows what he's doing here), they have seemingly been overlooking tell tale signature pressing defects coming from their in-house partner company and simply giving them a blind pass in terms of grading. So much for Borock's line that if books are not pressed properly in terms of leaving pressing defects, they will then be downgraded accordingly. Or is this their new updated version of grading them accordingly?

Question: I was always on the fence when it came to FC and whether they held the same weight as OO...thoughts? Definitely not in the eyes of CGC as although they might note tham as File Copy, they certainly don't come with the special pedigree labels. From a grading point of view, they also don't seem to give them the same benefit of the doubt, as clearly evident from this Dell File Copy here: This Dell File Copy here would definitely seem to present a lot nicer than that Subby 11 from the Promise Collection which ended up with a higher grade than this nicely presenting book here relative to its grade. Althugh I would agree with you in terms of the Random House and Harvey File copies from the Silver Age because these were really just part of a large warehouse find, I would definitely disagree with you in terms of the Dell File Copies from the late 30's and early 40's because these File Copies here were more unique/individual and clearly were not stored in a warehouse and from their minty fresh condition, most likely in an office storage environment.

Yes, like I said.....................buy the book, not the label. Then again, wouldn't it be better if CGC simply apllied their undisclosed grading standards on a much more consistent basis, as opposed to having soft grading or giving benefit of the doubt (Whether intentionally or sub-conciously) because it's a preferred customer while having tough tight grading on their regular customers. Bit surprised that you seem to be okay with this as you say that we should bid according to the book and simply ignore the grade. especially since I thought that what we were paying CGC for in the first place in terms of 3rd party independent and hopefully consistent grading.

Realistically big HA orders are probably going to get a bit of preferential treatment. Say 5000 x 100 = 500,000 in fees? Are you going to work on that 500k order from a closely connected company, or work on Joe Schmucklack’s 9.4 Avengers 398? Although I have absolutely zero problems with this collection getting special treatment in terms of being fast tracked through both the pressing and grading process plus most likely not having to pay for it like everybody else here, the issue that I do have serious problems with is with CGC seemingly adjusting their undisclosed grading standards just for this collection to take into account some of the obvious "non-defects" around the spine, edges, and staple areas that seems to be on some of the books we have seen here so far. Any bets that if I had turned in a book like this one here with this very obvious and flagrant defect , I would probably be looking at somewhere in the CGC 6's if I was lucky: If I am bidding on these books in the upcoming Heritage Auction, I would definitely take some of these grades with a grain of salt, and as always, I guess we should always take a look at the underlying book in the holder itself. Although all of these books from this collection are most definitely very beautiful, just not so sure about the "beautiful" grades on some of them. Looks like the old mantra of buy the book, as opposed to buy the label is even more applicable for books coming out from this collection here.