lou_fine

Kind of sad to see these very early and super rare pre-hero DC books like this one here still out of favor with today's generation of collectors and only able to sell at a discount to condition guide, as opposed to the men in tights who wear their underwear on the outside all going for either huge premium or even at multiples to condition guide: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/humor/new-book-of-comics-1-dc-1937-cgc-vf-75-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7242-92047.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Open-ThisAuction-120115# This CGC 7.5 graded copy sure looks nice for a super early 1937 book and also appears sharper than the equivalent graded More Fun 73 above, but then again not quite as nice as the equivalent graded Four Color, from the cover scans only though.

So, I guess you are saying they got the grade because they sent it in and did the "complete works" according to the CCG game rules and got the just reward they deserved, as opposed to the standard punishment grading if you don't play by their rules. In terms of the CGC 7.5 graded copy of More Fun 73, here's a copy of another CGC 7.5 graded copy of a book and for the life of me, I can't tell which one appears nicer from the front cover, with the back cover looking even nicer than the front cover for this book here: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/820386 I guess some poor submittor didn't know or understand the full rules of the grading game and most likely got the just bludgeoning of the CGC grading hammer as a result. Not sure where it's going to end up at, but sure looks like a steal right now at a dig deep deep down into your pocket whopping $6 for a File Copy of an almost 80 year old book.

I did in-fact! And tell me more about this movie you mentioned! Well, I hope all of you have your copies of Adventure 48 before Hourman makes his big silver screen appearance as part of the next pahse of the DCEU movie franchise.

So, I guess you are saying they got the grade because they sent it in and did the "complete works" according to the CCG game rules and got the just reward they deserved, as opposed to the standard punishment grading if you don't play by their rules.

Not sure about the rest of you here, but I thought this particular copy of More Fun 73 went for a pretty strong price, given its actual appearance relative to its assigned grade: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/superhero/more-fun-comics-73-dc-1941-cgc-vf-75-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7242-91042.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Archive-ThisAuction-120115# From what I am seeing here, that sure appears to be quite a bit of wear on the front cover that you otherwise don't normally see on other CGC 7.5 graded books.

Never realized that you were also a charter member of this much noted 80's B&W club. I shouldn't have used the past tense. I still have them all! Considering the fact that Hong Kong has the most expensive prices for real estate in the world by a long shot, I am surprised that you would still have room to store all of these "much valued treasures" in your place.

Well, if it's at $360, you really can't complain too much since at least it's still got the number "6" in there. Seriously though, $360 is probably not really that much in today's robust marketplace for a CGC single highest graded copy when it comes to today's rabid FOMO label conscious buyers. Especially when you consider that whole slew of Dell Looney Tunes books that have been selling in the weekly Heritage Sunday Auctions for the past month at huge multiples to top of guide ranging anywhere from $1,500 up to just over $4,000 for each of them. Then again, maybe Bugs Bunny is a much more recognizable and relevant character for today's new generation of deep pocketed buyers as compared to Flesh Flash Gordon. Since you are a fellow boardie and appear to be interested in Flash, just between you and me, there are a some other Flash Gordon books that's still sitting at a much lower price point right now like this nice dark painted cover one here for only $43, along with an even earlier one at an even lower price point than this one here: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/820394

Looking at the picture of the 9.8, and it certainly appears that gorgeous 9.6 at HA last month is clearly better. Won't be surprised one bit if there is a third 9.8 on the census soon. Ummmm...............since this is a Heritage scan, "appears" would be the key word here because their goal is to make all of their 1.8 graded books appear like 9.8 graded books if possible.

Well, it's quite clear that this is not a HA scan since CC must have done this with their lights turned off since this DD 1 cover looks pretty creamy. If this book had been listed on Heritage, you would probably need to look at it with your sunglasses on since the color of the cover would be blindingly snow white. Most probably one of these newbie deep pocketed CGC label collectors who's not knowledgeable enough to know that this particular copy here was graded and slabbed during arguably one of CGC's softest grading time periods in 2010/2011. Clearly, the mantra for the newbie all-wise Reddit Gamestoppers, sports card traders, and crypto investors here is to "Buy the label, not the book".

Wowzers.........was this through one of their listed Buy It Now sales since I don't think this book would have been assigned to one of their no-profile Monthly Auctions? That's actually an absolutely mind blowing price for what clearly appears to be a misaligned cover from the above scan that I am looking at. I imagine the ourchaser must have been one of these deep pocketed new to the comic book marketplace who knows only how to read the title on the label and that big big number on the top left hand corner of the slab.

Hey, hey, hey...........that's blasphemy as I absolutely love the cover for Adventure 72 and actually had it as one of my Top 5 covers in a CBM survey back in the mid 90's. If I remember correctly, I also had 'Tec 31, Punch 12, All-American 61, and Silver Streak 6 in there or was it a Supes 14. I most definitely must have had bad taste back then because I was the only single person to include 'Tec 31 in their listing, and yet in a survey conducted by Heritage about 5 years ago, the cover for Detective Comics 31 finished up right at the top of the charts. So, go figure that!!!

+1 I'm not even checking out their auctions anymore. It's simply too much of a hassle. Looks like you two might not be the only ones as the activity and action for their current Event Auction seems to be pretty quiet as compared to their previous Event Auctions. Took a quick look and after a full week of bidding, it looks like over 25% of their auction lots still have either no bids or only the one bid place on them to date. Might we find some actual bargain deals here since almost 40% of the lots are still sitting at only single digits in terms of still being under $10 for now. Especially since the first week is where a lot of the bidding is normally done and then it usually tends to go dead until the final frantic days of the auction.

Well, sorry to say, but membership in this club might already be full since I am sure you are not the first one to say this.

Persoanlly, I've always been a much much bigger fan of More Fun 73 since it had both Aquaman and Green Arrow who have both certainly retained their prominence in the comic books and media to a much greater degree than either Hourman from Adventure 48 or Starman from Adventure 61.

Well, since everybody on these boards are saying that escalating prices on books are all directly related to movies, I hope that all of you have snapped up your copies of Adventure Comics 48 by now: https://screenrant.com/hourman-movie-release-date-story-cast-dceu/ With Hourman scheduled to hit the big silver screen as the next big addition to the DCEU, does that mean that we can finally breathe some life back into this long dead Adventure run that seems to have been in a state of severe comatose for several decades now.

Never realized that you were also a charter member of this much noted 80's B&W club.

It would appear that you have answered your own question here: Especially since this new CGC generation of speculator needs to chase after books with easily recognizable characters which are easily and readily available in high grade in order to get their fix. Definitely zero interest in chasing after oldy moldy books with characters which they have never heard of and even if they did, only appears in the marketplace once every few years, and then not even in anywhere close to high grade.

Metro did this with the DC Movie Comics 1 in the nineties. It didn't seem to work, as Movie Comics(with the exception of 6 with the Lugosi Robot cover) don't seem to be in very high demand. Well, I guess the one that probably worked out a lot better for them was Fantastic Comics 3 which was clearly Fishler's favorite back in the day.

I believe the term is referred to as Impending Bankruptcy.

My lesson in collecting comic books is to buy what you like and enjoy as you are most likely going to be stuck holding it, and if it happens to go up in value, that's just an extra bonus. And needless to say, the exact reason why I handed that TMNT 1 back to the LCS owner as fast as I could after he said that he could order me a copy direct from the publisher for only $300. He must have been out of his mind if he thought I was looney enough to pay him $300 for a fugly doggy doo doo looking POS book that I wouldn't even want for $3, let along 300 big ones.

I would definitely agree with you about gains not being completely erased because I have not seen a single example of this to date so far. On the other hand, I believe some of the drops from their peaks have been by clearly more than 10% and quite likely by even more than 20%. MSH 13 being the perfect example and possibly also some of the Guardians of the Galaxy related books. From a GA point of view, I have also heard of drops for More Fun 73 along with the key Wonder Woman issues. From a long time collectors point of view though, time tends to heal everything and this definitely includes purchasing mistakes whether they be from over paying for them, over grading, or hidden slight restoration.

Tim; OMG, say this isn't so when it came to you!!! Although these 2 guys didn't need to finance the purchase of a house or anything like that, I guess you would be referring to possible 2021/22 versions of 2 unforgettable deep pocketed past collectors like Jay Parrino and Gary Keller who stopped by long enough for a cup of coffee and left the hobby hundreds of thousands of dollars lighter in their pocketbook shortly after. .

Not sure about Ms. Marvel 1, but I imagine most likely same downward trajectory as MSH 13 and probably par for the course when it comes to hot movie hype driven books. For the record, it looks like the 2nd highest graded copy of MSH 13 and 1 of 7 at the time in CGC 9.6 sold at CL for a rather astounding $31,111 back in November of 2018. This was then eventually followed by the single highest 9.8 graded copy (i.e. Federal Hill Copy) sold once again in a CL Auction nearly 2 years later in August of 2020 for the slightly lower amount of $31,000. This was then followed by the sale of another CGC 9.6 graded copy (now 1 of 8 in this grade) just last month for $16,450. So, a definite downward trend it might appear, although when it comes to the current set of crazed deep pocketed FOMO buyers who have found this marketplace of ours seemingly just this month, that last sale is probably like a lifetime ago, and any new 9.6 copy might just go for way more than $30K by now.

So, are you saying that I made a big mistake by putting most of my GA and pedigree books into mylar holders, while keeping my cherry picked BA and CA books packed brick style into those old sticky yellowing poly bags for some 40 odd years?

Yes, he most definitely was wrong because although his so-called purchase of the TMNT 1 for $90K was indeed able to push the market for this book up from the mid to high $30K price range that it had been stucked at and into the $50K+ price range, he in theory didn't do so well as he sold that exact same high profile $90K copy for only $59K in a very low profile non-auction sale a few short months later after the prices had consolidated into this $50K+ price range. My personal thinking though is that he probably still made out like a bandit by moving the entire early TMNT market upwards at the expense of simply paying for the Heritage auction fees.