lou_fine

Wow. I thought it looked good for a 9.0 but 9.6? 9.2 ok, 9.4 yeah maybe. So you think that actual book might be sitting in a 9.8 holder now? Do you think it went from a 9.6 to a 9.8? There are no 9.6's, 9.4's or 9.2's in the census so it does seem to look like its currently a 9.8. Like you said, since there is no longer a 9.6 copy listed in the census, I am pretty much 100% sure that it is now residing in a CGC 9.8 holder since the census count for 9.8's had increased by one after the 9.6 had been deleted. Unlike you though, I tend to look at it from the other angle and if the book is now sitting in a CGC 9.8 holder and we cannot tell any significant differences (if any?) between the CGC 9.0 scan and the CGC 9.6 scan, than just maybe it should never have been in a CGC 9.0 holder in the first place. Interesting story about this book personally for me if you don't falling asleep while reading. Flash back to the early 90's and I responded to an ad in CBG for some Poughkeepsie File Copy books in which I ended up picking up over a dozen of these books including several of these Crackajack Funnies along with some random Four Color issues of Flash Gordon, Don Winslow, King of the Royal Mounted, and the likes. Super nice dealer from Michigan who had just recently retired by then and was helping a former long time customer of his dispose of some of his books. Gave me a great deal at a big big discount off the top of guide prices due to the number of books that I was ordering. Not expecting much in terms of grade like your typical CBG ads, I was astounded when I received the books in the mail since they looked minty fresh with strong colors like they had just come off the printing press. Called the dealer back right away and asked him if he had other copies such as Crackajack Funnies 9 since I knew this was the first appearance of Red Ryder and he responded that he would be receiving more books from this customer and would be sure to give me a call once he got them because he was quite sure that there were more Crackajack's in the collection. Fast forward about another 6 months or so and I see another ad in the CBG with the Poughkeepsie File copy of Crackajack Funnies 9 in there along with a whole bunch of other file copy issues. Called the dealer right away who informed me that all of the books were already sold and that he had wanted to call me, but had apparently misplaced my phone number and contact information. Fast forward several more years to when CGC first opened their doors and I decided to send in about a dozen of my books, including a couple of these File Copy books, to test this so-called new grading system in advance of the big Greg Manning Auction that was scheduled to take place later that year in 2000. Was actually quite happy when all of them came back in the grade range of CGC 9.2 to CGC 9.6, with both of the file copies coming in at CGC 9.6 even though the Crackajack that I had sent in was not the best of the bunch from a condition point of view. As a result, I am not too surprised that the Crackajack Funnies 9 posted above would manage to get a CGC 9.8 grade in the end. My own takeaway is that it shows how much their undisclosed grading standards have changed over time. My bet is that when I got my books graded way back in 2000, they were graded based upon the traditional grading standards that had historically been in place prior to CGC and before Heritage entered onto the scene in 2002. Sadly, over the years I believe there have been some subtle but significant changes made to their undisclosed grading standards to facilitate the CPR game which is now clearly in full swing. My bet is that if I send in these books for grading today, they would get no more than a CGC 8.5 or CGC 9.0 because although they look minty fresh and near perfect like some of the few Church books which I have, if you hold them up and bend them at a certain angle to the light, you can see a few barely imperceptible tiny NCB tick marks on the spines of most of them. I hate it when they take these barely visible defects and seemingly move them to the top of their grading hit parade while letting more obvious and fugly defects go without much of a drop in grade. Makes total and complete sense business wise though, since these are clearly low hanging additional revenue generating defects and since CCG is a business after all, and whatever helps CCS and CGC (and HA through their overlapping ownership) will certainly help both their own corporate top and bottom lines. I guess it also doesn't hurt that you now have the former "King of Pressing" in place as your head grader. Bottom-line though, regardless of whether it's in a CGC 9.0 holder, a CGC 9.6 holder, or a CGC 9.8 holder, all I know is that particular File Copy of Crackajack Funnies 9 should actually be locked away raw and ungraded in my personal collection right next to my other file copies.

Then we would also have to worry and watch out for airplane parts falling out of the sky and onto our property, or even worse, on top of our heads.

i bought my first copy, a 9.0WP about 7 yrs ago for $2200. sold it about 3 years later for $7500. now i have two copies, an 8.0 and an 8.5, both have appreciated as well since i got them. not sure why you wouldnt think of spending 1k aside from the fact that you cant really get this book anymore at that price. Well, to tell you the honest truth, I already have a copy of Hulk 181 which I picked up some 40 odd years ago for what I thought was then an outrageous price of $5. Was down at the local con back then and the dealer had it as part of his wall display and was seriously thinking of handing it back to him since he was asking both above guide for the book and also not refusing to come down on his price, but the book was just too nice to turn down since I must have been a Byrne/Austin X-Men fan back then or else I never would have even bothered to look at a Hulk 181 in the first place. Since I am really more of a GA collector at this point in time and have been for the last 30 years or so, I would have to admit that I zero interest in looking for any Marvel related books since they are so readily available and really nothing more than being willing to open up your wallet if you want any Marvel book at all. Although I don't remember ever spending anywhere close to more than double digits on a Marvel book, I will admit that my biggest regret and one I that I still think about every now and then was turning down an uber HG set of Spidey 2 through 10 for only $1K near the end of the 80's just before the Marvel SA books took off after spending the good part of the 80's going absolutely nowhere except slightly down in valuation. Sigh......double sigh.............all those key super villians first appearances and also in grade to boot!!! I guess I must be at that old timer stage of my collecting life cycle where I just get so much more fun and enjoyment out of being able to find the much HTF Centaur books or Fox books which have only a handful of copies slabbed to date, as opposed to chasing down relatively common books which already have thousands of copies slabbed to date. I guess it's really a case of to each, their own as long as we all enjoy what we are getting out of our comic book purchases. For me at least, it makes it really fast to go through the auction listings from the various auction houses nowadays since I simply skip through anything that's from Marvel and pretty much also anything from DC.

And you do have a "locked in guarantee of flipping it instantly." It's called literally any online auction house or forum, including the one you're on right now. High grades have been over $1k for a long time now, so you missed out on a ton of profits, my man. (By the way, if someone offered even like a 3.0 on here for 1k, it'd be gone so quickly you wouldn't even get a chance to pass on it. Actually, I'm not even sure you can get a .5 anymore for under 1k.) From a pure mathematical theoretical point of view, you are 100% right in that it's a guaranteed locked in profit if I buy a CGC 9.8 copy for only $1K. As I have noted in my comment above, my problem is that I tend to approach comics more from a long term collector's point of view and as such, if I buy a comic book, it's really intended for my own personal collection. I have never thought of purchasing a comic book and then doing an immediate flip on it make money on it because that would then seem more like work and hence take the fun out of it. With comics, I really see it more as a hobby which I enjoy and have fun with, and if it happens to go up in value over time while I own it, then that's just an extra bonus for me.

Probably the same speculators who brought Spidey 300 at something like $2K last year and were then able to successfully flip them out for $5K this year. Just maybe, they are hoping for a similar repeat type performance from Spidey 238.

Makes me wonder if they will also end up doing this with the Tomb of Dracula 10 since it's still kind of stuck sitting there at $57K for now? Looks like it took a big jump from $50K to $70K in the last go round before this move put the wheels in motion to have pull in a few more bids to get it up to $85K: https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/history.asp?item=1099710&back=%2Fauctions%2Fitem.asp%3Fid%3D1099710 They might just be hoping this same strategy works for the 'Tec 38 and be able to pull in a few more bids.

Well, looks like that top left corner of the book would have kept it out of 8.5 territory, regardless of whether the book got pressed or not. Actually, as far as I can tell, your copy appears to have a lot less of the color breaking tick marks on the spine that most other Cerbus 1 have.

I'm deep in the friggin' frozen heart of Texas. Raising rates, ...seriously? Considering how close a lot of us came to freezing to death due to the choices made via rolling blackouts the providers should be more concerned about their own legal exposure. And you thought your problem was just limited to NOT having power to heat up your homes and to give you light and water at the same time. Well, after reading this story, you might just want to run downstairs or wherever to turn your power off as fast as possible: https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/gov-abbott-calls-emergency-meeting-to-address-spike-in-electricity-bills/285-b707d401-77f3-42f3-b7bc-e8186f7d5764 Hopefully, instead of using your regular power, you don't have to consider burning part of your comic book collection to keep warm after reading this.

Actually, it was set to 90K with (Reserve not yet met) à la what Heritage does with items not doing as expected. Bidding was in the 60s and there was no reserve. So 95K should clear reserve. Definitely don't really care for it when the auction houses uses this strategy with respect to their lots with a reserved price on them. Even more so when there's still 3+ days to go and the bid history indicates the highest bid to be only at $65K. Figure they could have at least waited until the final last morning to bump it up to the reserve price instead of almost a full 4 days in advance.

Is this a copy of Bat 232 that you brought and it came already with the CVA or is this a copy that you were planning to sell and they asked if you wanted a CVA sticker applied to it. Either way, it definitely sounds like a pretty sweet book to me and certainly one that I would never kick out of my personal collection.

Yep, and there are actually tens of millions of millionaires. (And a lot of them doubled their money last year.) No doubt there are tens of millions of millionaires throughout the entire world, but how many of them actually even want a copy of Hulk 181 regardless of the price? Heck, if you go by the strict definition of a millionaire, anybody that owns a house in this city is already by definition a millionaire. As such, even though I am a long time comic book collector, I would never think of paying even a $1,000 for a copy of Hulk 181 (unless I already have a locked in guarantee of flipping it instantly at a huge profit), let alone at $40K for a copy. the money, that is.

Well, I hope everybody here from Texas is on a fixed rate plan when it comes to their electrical power, because you certainly wouldn't find it very funny at all if you are on a variable rate plan at now $9,000 per megawatt hour with electrical bills running into 5-figures when you don't even have any power.

Yes, just took a quick look at my email from CL yesterday and it certainly does look like they have a much better than usual selection of GA books on this particular go round here. Looks like this sharp looking copy of 'Tec 38 (save for that fugly looking attenpted erasure on the front cover ) has already hit $90K, but still hasn't met the reserve yet which makes me kind of curious as to what the Reserve Price has been set at: https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAuctions%2Fdefault.asp%3F_SORT%3DYES%26Focused%3D1%26ItemType%3D0%26f1%3Da.MaxBid%26ODire1%3DDESC%26f2%3Di.Title%2C%2Bi.IssueNumber%26ODire2%3DASC%26f3%3Da.MaxBid%26ODire3%3DDESC%26pg%3D1%23Item_1458560&id=1458560&itemType=0

Even though it's the weekend and a Saturday night, it's still not a good idea to be overdosing yourself when it comes to the CGC Kool-Aid. Especially if you are leaning towards the thinking that grading is an exact science since you seem to believe that the grade is the grade. From my own personal point of view, grading is really more of an art and an opinion at a particular point in time, and as such, can be greatly influenced by various factors. Some of them might possibly be pre-planned and internal due either to the changing of undisclosed grading standards or shifting between loose grading and tight grading time periods. Others might be external with submittors proactively performing undisclosed activities to maximize the potential of their books. Then again, some of them might be purely unintentional because grading is really after all, nothing more than an opinion subject to human error and hence, not the exact science we all wish that it can be. After all, as we have seen on many occasions in the past whereby books are being pushed up by multiple grade increments such as an Action 1 going from CGC 8.0 up to CGC 9.0, a Bat 1 going from CGC 9.0 up CGC 9.4, or even the above Crackajack Funnies 9 going from a CGC 9.0 up to a CGC 9.8. Sadly, in this current marketplace reality of ours whereby flippers and CGC label collectors are trying to get the highest grade for their books, I would resort to common sense and tend to think that books that already present nicer than their assigned CGC grades stands a better chance of getting an upgrade when compared to books that simply presents okay or in line with their assigned CGC grade. Well, at least that's my bottom line rationale for why some bidders might be willing to bid higher for books with these CVA and/or QES stickers.

No worries at all as this is not my card since this is just a copy and paste of a card I found through Google. You must think I am made out of money or Bitcoin if you think that I would ever bother to buy any kind of sleeve holder for my cards. I have a complete set of these Golden Age comic cover cards wrapped up somewhere in my house, but would not be able to tell you where even if my life depended upon it since I have absolutely no idea after all these long years. Thank God they still appear to be worthless from what I can see, which then really makes me question the medium and long term value of these Marvel trading cards from the 90's which are apparently available by the tens of millions if collectors ever get around to grading them.

Well, looks like nice steady progression here. Is this a good sign for potential buyers since this could just be another step on the book's steady climb upwards on the grading ladder? Do we need to cue @tth2 at this point here so that he can provide us with his signature line now?

I guess I am like you in that I think it's often times easier to see the flaws in a book from the back cover because they don't have all of that artwork and color getting in the way. Since this was a Heritage auction, here's a copy of the back cover scan for you to peruse at your leisure: Well, by paying only CGC 9.0 prices on this copy here, you are the proud winner of 2 new cars as this File Copy actually turned out to be a CGC 9.6 graded copy: To tell you the honest truth though, with my obvious failing eyes, I really can't see that much of a difference between the 2 scans to warrant a 3-step incremental difference in the grading of the book here. Well, my bad as this copy here should probably have come with one of those stickers as I clearly must be blind since this CGC 9.6 graded copy has now been removed from the CGC Population Report and the census count for a CGC 9.8 graded copy has now increased by one. Go figure that as I guess it's kind of hard to tell the difference between a CGC 9.0 graded book from a CGC 9.8 graded copy sometimes by just looking at a scan, as opposed to having the actual slab or raw book in hand, although I personally wouldn't pay that much more for either a sticker or a higher grade while others surely would. I just find it kind of sad how much grading has changed from when CGC first opened their doors and it has now reached the point that if you don't play by their rules, you will clearly be punished when it comes to grading on your book.

Wasn't both Wonder Woman movies done by the same -script writing team, although I believe Patty jenkins and Geoff Johns just came in to finished off the writing chores on the first WW movie after the first -script writer left?

The plot thickens Well, the only reason why I came up with Randy Lawrence's name is according to this big write-up on the Alfred Pennyworth Collection from HA: https://www.ha.com/heritage-auctions-press-releases-and-news/one-of-the-most-storied-and-celebrated-collections-of-batman-comics-heads-to-heritage-auctions-in-november.s?releaseId=4006

Well, I guess that's what tends to happen when you have the powers that be and a power generation company that doesn't bother to pay attention to report recommendations by winterizing their equipment for these types of situations all in the name of keeping costs down. Especially since this exact same scenario has played itself out a couple times in the past already. I certainly wouldn't believe in their initial spin that it's all because of the so-called New Green Deal which is not even in place yet. Then again, why not go with this spin since huge chunks of the population will readily and be more than happy to buy this theory and the finger of blame will no longer be pointed at you then.

Sounds as though we just might need to get an IRS tax expert to deciper all of this hidden code for us here. So, are we basically saying that all of these apparent record setting prices for the Pennyworth books on HA never actually took place at the price points as listed by Heritage?

I would imagine that's the whole purpose of the CVA or the QES stickers as it's simply indicating from their point of view that the CGC 9.0 book with the sticker presents better than its assigned grade. Since potential bidders only get to see a scan of the book and don't have the advantage of seeing the slab or raw book in hand, I assume this is simply trying to provide them with a bit more information in terms of their subjective opinion on the grade assigned to the book in question. Personally, I also don't care much for the stickers and probably wouldn't bid that much more for a book that has one on them. But then again, I am not that much of a grade conscious bidder in the first place as I also wouldn't pay that much more for a book that's one or two grade increments higher, as it's really more about the book to me and whether I want that book in my personal collection, as opposed to that big number on the top left corner. Clearly the reason why I don't win very many books at auction though. Then again, it's really a case of to each, their own as to a lot of bidders, it's all about that number, especially when it comes to the more recent books which are readily available in uber high grade and the grade is the only differentiation between them. For those bidders, the CVA or QES stickers do possibly matter to them a bit more. Professor; I remember seeing this line from you in a previous post from a few days ago and then I thought of this example here and being almost blind as a bat when it comes to these things , I would love to hear your opinion on this particular book here. If all you've got to go is this scan before you decide to bid on this File Copy book or not, would you simply bid based upon the CGC 9.0 grade that's been assigned by CGC, or bid slightly higher even though it's doesn't have one of those stickers on it since you yourself think it's nicer than 9.0, or throw in a lower bid since CGC obviously blew it by overgrading the book based upon what you can see from the scan:

Do tell as this definitely sounds like there appears to be more underneath the surface than what we are seeing here from just these figures then.

Didn't the owner sell a lot of his HG Marvel Silver Age collection...on Heritage??? Yes, that was quite a few years ago and apparently for his own personal collection which he had been building up over the years. I guess you can spin this either of 2 ways: 1) He had no confidence in his own auction site to be able to produce top dollar results for his books; or 2) He didn't want to be accuse of putting himself in a potential conflict of interest situation in terms of improperly running up the prices on his own books, which is something Pedigree has been acuse of doing before in the past.

Well, slowly creeping up there as it's now sitting at $57,000. Any bets as to whether it will hit the $85,000 price pointthat it was able to achieve on it's last go round less than a couple of years ago?