lou_fine

Well, if you guys are into GA comics with zero copies graded to date, there's this little absolute beauty of a book that I saw in another thread here: I guess now it's just a matter of trying to convince @adamstrange to sell it to one of us here and preferably only to me, myself, and I.

And right there was his big big mistake in the negotitations. If he had simply dismissed it out of hand and then lumped it in with something else that was truly worthless and offered you $10 for everything, the cup would probably be in his hands by now.

Start a business that cleans out homes when the people can't live there anymore. Yeah, let's flash back to 1977 and I'll see what the Church family will be willing to PAY ME to haul away all that paper garbage filling up the basement closets and pantry in that house, so that it will be much easier for them to do a quick sale of the house.

Do you mean high priced books like this so-called scarce hghest graded copy of Conan 3 which is sitting there at the astonomical price of $330: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/896627 Whenever I see this book here, it sure brings back bad memories of what a no-brain dummy I was back in the mid-70's when I first started to collect comic books more seriously. I still remember being at my first local comic con down at some hotel and I was trying to decide between a Conan 3 and a FF 11 at some ridiculous amount like $40 or $50 which to me was big big money at the time. Since they were both priced the same in the guide at the time, and my Smith run of Conan was pretty much complete by then, I figured that I better go for the Conan 3 since that know nothing at all Overstreet had it marked as scarce or limited distribution in his guide. Something that is clearly not right and yet he still has it indicated as such in his current guide. All I will say is that FF 11 is definitely no longer priced the same in either the guide or the marketplace as Conan 3 anymore by a long long shot. Heck, they probably aren't even in the same city, let alone the same ball park. Or by slow progression, are you referring to all of those pages and pages of CGC 9.8 graded copies of Conan's and Daredevils or some of those VF copies of Brave and Bold with the Adams covers which are all still sitting there at $1 awaiting their first bid? Being more of a GA kind of guy, I would tend to prefer some of these early Archie's from the 40's that still going for only a whole loonie: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/907263 Then again, also being a condition focused kind of collector, maybe I'll have to toss in a few more dollars to get some of the higher graded GA books that's into the CGC 9's, but at least still seemingly a bargain for now at only $25 or thereabouts.

Just think that you could have been a multi-millionaire if you had kept some of these copies for yourself instead of passing them all onto Pearl for who son who probably ended up thrashing them all in the end anyways. Yeah, I remember those times in the mid-70's when I picked up my first copy of XM 94 for a whole dollar and on the way out of the con, thought that I had gotten myself completely ripped off as the last dealer by the door had his copy on the table for only 30 cents. I was totally pissed off enough that I went back to pick up the second copy just to lower my breakeven cost back down to 65 cents in the hope of not losing money on the darned thing whenever it came time to sell them. Paid a fortune at the time, relatively speaking, of a whole $2 for a nice minty fresh copy of GSXM 1 with a perfect squarebound cover and a nice snow white front cover. Sad thing is that I lost both the GSXM 1 and one of the XM94 when I left them at my sister's place for what I thought was *ahem* safekeeping. Never bothered to replace them since they were already going for a few hundred dollars by then and certainly not willing to pay that kind of money for relatively "common as dirt" books from the 70's.

And then from the bargain basement level right up to the penthouse, you have this copy of GSXM 1 for the newbie deep pocketed crypto investors and NFT traders who just love to throw their easy new found money at these readily available HG books like this one here: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/895455 Interesting to see that CC has unpdated their auction description to point out the $67,900 sale from a couple of weeks ago, and no doubt hoping that it will help to puch this copy right up past it from their current price point of only a measly $35,833. Sad to say, but no Transformers 1 to spice up this auction here so that the old fogies like us can have a good laugh. Then again, they do have this copy of GSXM 1 here and at least it doesn't have a crushed botton staple area which the CL copy at $67.9K seem to have.

Well, at least you can still hopefully find some bargains this way, with still almost 20% of their auction lots sitting at single dollar digits or still even awaiting their first bid. Heck, looks like you can even safely bid on (at least for now) highest graded copies of even pedigree or file copies back to the 40's and even 30's with only having to go through your loose change at this current point in their auction.

It would definitely take our bathroom renovation to the next level. At the amount you would be able to fetch for an Action 1 in that type of condition, it must be the biggest bathroom in the world then, as that kind of money should be good enough for a sizable down payment on your new house.

Well, I would certainly hope that they would at least list the biggest defects which would be affecting the grade of the book, like that top left hand corner bump that RHG had mentioned in his post. From all of the Graders' Notes which I have purchased before in the past, they seem to clearly identify the type , extent, and location of the defects in quesion on a book. If this was the case, then we most definitely should not have to pay to get access to these notes here if they do not provide us with the necessary information on a book's condition. Maybe this is our rationale to convince them to provide the notes for free to us.

Yes, I am actually rather surprised they didn't note the upper left hand corner bump since that would be a much bigger defect as opposed to the "File Copy" writing notation and that very light and small shadow line on the back cover. Makes me wonder if the CGC graders also consider the Mile High codes on the Church books or the more obtrusive "Larson" name written on the Larson pedigree books as defects to be taken into account in the determination of the final grade. If so, this would definitely be a grade killer when it comes to the Okajima Camp copies or the pencilled in check marks done throughout the Cosmic Areoplane books. I always though of these tell tale signature markings associated with a pedigree book to be a positive, but I guess the graders see them as a negative when it comes to the determination of the final grade. I guess the only exception they probably make for writing on the comic books would then be their own Verified Signature books since I assume they would be getting a cut of the money there. Can't remember here, but if it's unverified and they didn't get their share, are signatures considered to be a defect or do they go into those Green Qualified slabs? You are 110% right when you talk about the seeming plumpness of this book here. I have over a dozen of these Dell File Copies from the late 30's / early 40's and besides the fact that they look like they just came off the printing press is the actual "feel" of these books. They are definitely plump and feel like they were probably stored in filing cabinets , as opposed to being flattened in big warehouse piles like the much later Harvey File Copies. Definite keepers in my personal collection and they sure do look nice in their glossy mylar holders. As for its climb up the CGC grading ladder, is it possible that the bump from 9.0 up to 9.6 was a straight resub, especially since that upper left hand ding is still on the CGC 9.6 copy. If so, as you had alluded to nothing more than being undergraded as a CGC 9.0 and then being overgraded as a CGC 9.6. If any pressing was done for the 9.6 upgrade, probably most likely done by Matt from the time frames that we are looking at here and another press might have gotten rid of that ding enough to bum it up to CGC 9.8.

With the big Heritage Signature Auction over last week and the current CL Focus Auction on its last legs, decided to give this thread here a long awaited but timely bump. Surprised to see almost zero discussion on CC's big Event Auction on this go round as it has less than a week to go before the curtain falls on it. Wonder if the big high profile news shattering record Action 1 sale is going to draw attention away from this upcoming auction here or help CC to promote it which is what they seem to be trying to do with their email? Or is this the big protest from all of the board members and potential bidders because of the 15% BP which they have placed on lots from the Kentucky Collection? From all of the complaints that I've been seeing here, you would think that calculating an additional 15% was like advanced quadratic equation mathematics instead of the simple grade school arithmetic that it actually is. Anyways, any guesses here as to where this nicely presenting copy of 'Tec 31 relative to its grade will finish up at by the time it's all said and done: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/905969 I am sure that the Slightly Brittle pages is going to be a bit of a killer here, but then again, if I remember correctly, the CC Event Auctions have been able to fetch into the mid-$40K's for their CGC 1.0 graded copies of this book here. So, I imagine this CGC 2.5 graded copy will certainly go for a lot more than the current $25,500 price point where it is sittting at right now.

Looks like the seller is just trying to get some timely promotion for his EXTENSIVE RESTORED copy of Action 1 here. The only record he has a chance of breaking here would be one for a restored comic, but only if he can find a buyer for this book at a tiny fraction of his asking price. Probably something in the 10% range or thereabouts if he's lucky.

What I had meant by a "private sale" was simply sold in a non-auction sales format. Not sure why you would think there would be more market manipulation with a so-called private sales as opposed to a public auction where you can have shill bidding taking place or any other form of market manipulation taking place. Especially since we have seen some rather questionable auction results here before. Actually, before we had all of these big high profile auctions, were all auctions done in this so-called private sales whether it be at a comic convention, over the telephone, or from a sales catalogue?

Or will everybody be freed from their home prison after the bulk of the population gets vaccinated and finally be able to go out and about spending their money on restaurants, bars, travel, and the like?

Did he also confirm it’s NM? After examining it, he thought it was NM I believe you have to take this for what it's worth because he made this statement when he was with CGC and viewed by boardies here as God's gift to grading. Now, that he's working for the other guys across the street, most boardies are saying that he couldn't grade a book even if his life depended upon it.

The $1.5 was through ComicConnect which I shared the letter and post card they mailed out after to try to drum up consignments a few pages back. Yes, the $1.5M sale shows up in their auction archives as a non-auction sale in 2010 while the $2,052,000 sale shows up as an auction sale in 2018. Can't see the one for $1,750,000 in 2017, so I must assume it is probably a private brokered transaction where one of the 2 parties involved did not want any publicity on the sale of the book. Surprised not to see the $3.25M sale in there yet as during their Event Auctions ever since their website update last year, the auction archives are updated pretty much instantaneously. I guess since this is a non-auction private sale somebody probably has to manually go in there and input the sale into their auction archives.

If you are referring to the Darren Adams video on the origin story of his CGC Action 1, you definitely should NOT because it's nothing more than a blustering video filled with hype and some mistruths in there inclucing some significant gaps in the timeline where shall we say some critical and undisclosed activities might possibly have been done on the book.

Well, according to the email from Metro this morning and even before the one from CGC arrived in my email box, it looks like this is the fourth sale of this copy by Metro/CC within the past 10+ years. Vincent in the email states that they first brokered the book for a world record $1.5M back in 2010, then again in 2017 for $1,750,000; for $2,050,000 in 2018,and now for $3,250,000 in 2021. Actually, now that I think of it, should it be at least a couple more times for Metro with respect to this copy here? If it's the one owned by Kramer from back in the mid 90's, I am quite sure the original purchase along with the subsequent resale must have been done by Fishler since most of Kramer's books went through Fishler at the time.

Sadly, not only will it come back with a Green Qualified label, but they might also view all of those signatures as a "writing on book" defect and hammer it accordingly when it comes to the determination of the final grade.

Sadly, this is never going to happen now since CGC made the wrong play when they first started up by instituting a stigmatizing multi-color label system, instead of implementing an uni-color label system utilizing both a 10-point condition grading system in conjunction with a 10-point restoration rating system right from the get go.

He paid 1 million dollars more for a 9.0 ultra white pages to upgrade his copy...both copies were on display in I think London called the impossible collection, you should check out the video that copy I remember being in London at that time to visit my daughter, but missed the big exhibition by one week as I had already left London by then. The exhibition was held at the gorgeous and historic St. Pancras Hotel and here is a link to a couple of the stories on the Impossible Collection: https://www.trustedreviews.com/opinion/the-impossible-collection-batman-and-superman-s-secret-history-revealed-2942993 For the story below, you might just need to find some way to cut through all of those freaking ads: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/walking-around-the-very-well-named-impossible-collection-of-dc-comic-books/

And yet at the shallow end of the pool where buyers like me without the deep pockets hang out, if you take a look at their current Event Auction just over 20% of their auction lots are still sitting in single dollar digit territory or still even awaiting their first bid.

Hate to break the news to you, but this is no longer the Stone Age as that is just so passe, since it is now the 21st century and we are all living in the Age of Certification. The two most important things for today's marketplace are the color of the label and that big big number along with the PQ on the top left hand corner of the slab. It's all about buying the label, and much less so about buying the book like the good olden days of yore when some so-called young foolish kid would pay the unheard and outrageous amount of $1,800 and change for a copy of Action Comics #1.

Ok, since I just HAD to satisfy my curiosity here, I decided to Mannup and forked over the 5 bucks only to find out that the cost was $10. Looks like my initial thinking that any defects as posted above would be limited to the exterior covers were correct in the end, as the only 2 comments in the Graders' Notes were as follows: Front Cover Writing Top Back Cover Lite Shadow Since those Graders' Notes were for the CGC 9.0 graded copy, as I couldn't access any for the CGC 9.6 graded copy since it's now in a CGC 9.8 slab, the only part I found a bit confusing is that those 2 same noted defects that supposedly took it all the way down to only a 9.0 grade are still clearly just as evident on the 9.6 graded copy here as before on the 9.0 graded copy: Definitely another part of this whole grading game that I don't really care for is the inconsistency in grading at times, changes to their undisclosed grading standards, and the handling of their submission process for some of their customers. Although I do understand the rationale for it from a corporate business point of view, it definitely doesn't mean that I have to like it. Now, if I was a betting man, my bet is that those 2 noted above defects that took the grade all the way down to a CGC 9.0 is most likely still just as evident on the book even though it is now residing in a CGC 9.8 slab. Also don't really care for their rather inconsistent application of how they handle tell tale signature markings that's associated with certain pedigrees or file copies as evident here. Athough long time collectors like me always prefer to have the pedigree codes, markings, or names on their books for sentimental collecting purposes, I can understand why some collectors will try to erase these markings since CGC will seemingly at times view these as writing defects and hammer them accordingly when it comes to the determination of the final grade.

Seriously,.................did you not read the seller's hyped descrption for the book in the link which you yourself just attached to your post above?