lou_fine

Oh yes, absolutely.................but sadly, clearly more than what both you and I are willing to spend on a comic book.

Well, even if you are a mooch, at least you would be one with quality taste as clearly evident by that copy of AA 61 you are going after.

So, if you are asking for $25K, does this mean that you have an extra $10K - $15K of your own money to throw in for this copy here: After all, a slightly lower graded copy sold for just over $30K at CC last summer or for over 3X condition guide and I don't see this sharp looking copy going any lower, especially since its got one of those CVA Exceptional stickers on it. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out though.

Like what we saw the other week with Game Stop and AMC, all I can say is don't be the one caught without a seat to sit on when the music stops.

I don’t think it would...it’s one story arc spread across three titles...not the same thing as a mini-series, IMHO Well, I am sure this also wouldn't qualify since it's really a story arc, but from my own personal point of view, definitely better than any of the mini-series from Marvel in the 80's. Of course the story arc which I am referring to is Daredevil's Born Again by Frank Miller which was one of the absolute best storylines from the 80's.

Well, you certainly don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why it's so much more difficult to buy. After all, there's only 6 copies of Cerebus 1 slabbed in CGC 9.4 or above if you include the 4 Signature copies that Sim himself had cherry picked from the printng house to squirreled away in his own personal collection. In comparison, according to the CGC Census Population Report, there's a total of 77 copies of Albedo 2 slabbed in CGC 9.4 or above, and a whopping total of 175 copies of TMNT 1 slabbed in CGC 9.4 or above. Absolutely no comparison at all to a Cerebus 1 in terms of true rarity.

Are you referring to the huge buying opportunity that was created with the Coronavirus panic that hit the stock markets last March? Sadly, as recent history has shown us, the best strategy is to buy the dip as opposed to sell the panic since virtually all of the equity indicies have doubled since that time. If you was a stock picker and both astute and lucky enough to have loaded up on Square when it dipped below $40 or Tesla when it dropped back down below $500, you could be laughing all the way to the bank since both of those are now trading at $270+ and $3,200+ pre-split respectively.

Not sure what your issue is and why you would be so uncomfortable with something that looks transparent and so delectably translucent:

LOL. Lucky! I am jealous. Wish I could go back to the days of the LCS, I miss them. Not really since the WWBN 32, although a nice copy, was clearly a back issue copy which I must have picked up from their bins and had intended to upgrade whenever a better copy came along. Definitely something which I had clearly ended up forgetting to do over the years though. The good thing about going through your old boxes is that every now and then, you come across books which you never even realize that you ever had in the first place. Perfect example being a few years ago, when I found a HG copy of Iron Man 55 stuck randomly in the middle of a pile of mid to late 70's Mavel books. Better yet, fast forward to last year when I was flipping through a bunch of worthless 80's drek and found a second copy of IM 55 along with a IM 56 in even nicer condition right near the bottom of the worthless stack. Couldn't figure out why I would have brought those books in the first place, but then realize I was clearly a fan of Starlin's artwork at the time. One of these years, I really must get around to sorting my books in proper alpha order, instead of simply leaving them in the order of when they were purchased. It really would make it so much easier for me to find something then.

I thought Todd always used to sign books for free. At least he did when I remember that I got one of my Spidey 300's signed by him way back in the day when he used to showed up at the local conventions on a rather regular basis.

Why, you are nothing but a trouble maker taking the side of my better half on this. In a sense, I was hoping for something like the $180 that's listed in the guide so that I wouldn't have to waste my time looking for it. Then again, it shouldn't really be that hard to find since it's a slabbed book. Unlike the raw Spidey 300's which I cherry picked of the shelves of the LCS back in the day and luckily came across a WWBN 32 & 33 which I never even realized that I had while hunting for my Spidey 300's.

Well, let's hope so and even more so if record prices extends for the lower graded copies also, similar to Spidey 300 and other so-called keys. Any idea what a CGC 9.4 graded copy would be worth in today's hot Spidey market? Just wondering since I remember driving through the U.S. Midwest about 10 years ago and stopped off at one of the LCS's in a small town. For some reason, my better half spotted a slabbed copy of ASM 238 and asked me if it was a good deal at $100. Since that was at slightly less than top of guide at the time plus that was the first time she ever showed any interest in spending her hard earned money on a comic book, I said sure why not. Definitely a mistake because now she keeps asking every single year if she would be able to recoup her money if she goes to resell it. Only problem is that I have absolutely no idea where the book is now after all these years and needless to say, best not to let her know especially since I thought it was never worth the money that we had pay for it in the first place.

It’s a Public Storage facility. Just the regular indoor kind you see everywhere. Apparently all of the climate controlled ones are built this way. I won’t be storing anything of value in a storage unit ever again. Clothes and furniture! If I remember correctly, isn't that the same way they got through into the storage unit for the Alfred Pennyworth Collection: 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 All I can say is that the owner, Randy Lawrence, was extremely lucky that he was able to recover his 7-figure comic book collection in the end.

From your post above, you clearly do not understand the mentality of a rabid CGC label collector and probably thinking more from a comic book collector's point of view.

Well, that's probably because the character was created and the stories written by the old professor way back in the 40's who clearly had ideas about sexual attitudes that were way ahead of their time: Looks like he certainly didn't mind "sharing" and I am sure he also found more titillating ways to use that lasso than what he had depicted in his comic book stories.

Well, I would say that trying to correct a book that has suffered damage from SCS due to the faulty design of the CGC holder in an attempt to restore it back to its original condition seems more acceptable to me. Definitely much more acceptable than taking an already high grade copy of a book and then artificially manipulating it in an attempt to upgrade it to something that is over and above its original condition, just so you can foist it into an unsuspecting marketplace without disclosure for hopefully more dollars. Unfortunately or fortunately depending upon your point of view, that's the sad reality of the comic book marketplace that we live in now.

It wasn’t until our very own forum detectives discovered the upgrading shenanigans that CGC adopted their “pressing isn’t restoration” policy. Yes, that was certainly a wild and raucous time on the boards when Dupchak, Masterchief, Red Hook, etc. posted those before and after scans to allow everybody to take a peek behind the kimono to see what was really taking place behind the scenes. Especially enlightening from the point of view that CGC claimed at the time that their grading standards was based on what had always been in place in the hobby, and yet this was at a time when pressing had always been widely acknowledged as a restoration activity up to that point in time. Yeah, clearly remember Borock eventually coming onto the boards to quell the anger of the mob by opening the pressing barn doors nice and wide through his declaration that pressing was really nothing more than "optimization of potential" and then proceeded to rewrite comic book history by incorrectly implying this was an activity that had always been done in the hobby. In reality, pressing at that time was an activity that had normally been done as only the final finishing step after other more invasive restoration activities had been performed on a book.

It's either a 9.9 or never will be, I don't think one can sub a 9.8 to get a 9.9, or a 9.9 to get a 10 Well, all I will say is that if it doesn't have a CVA sticker on it, I would definitely tend to agree with you as the chance for a downgrade is probably higher than the chance for an upgrade if resubmitted.

I believe Matt was most likely doing this on a standalone basis (i.e. as the finishing touch on restoration work) even back in the 90's well before CGC even opened their doors. If it was Friesen and CGC themselves doing the pressing work, then it's really damming that they didn't bothered to proactively inform the marketplace about this in terms of their grading standards, instead of foisting manipulated books into an unsuspecting marketplace without any disclosure at all.

I would say its been pressed to poop already. Well, since the serial number for this book indicates that it was graded way back at the start of 2005 before pressing was even outed on the boards here at that time, there's probably also a good chance that it might just not have been pressed prior to grading. Especially if you take a look at some of the other books that were also submitted in the same batch to CGC. The best person to ask might just be Matt himself since he was obviously one of the ones in the know and pressing has always been his forte, even before most collectors knew that this was a thing, and most of all, that CGC was actually even allowing it to be done.

I have always found that supply works both ways. Extreme rarity will actually hurt the increase in prices for a book because it's actually hard for a book to go up in value if copies only appear in the marketplace once or twice a decade if that. You need to have a good supply of the book out there to satiate the feeding frenzy in order to drive the valuations upwards ever more.

Well, if you can manipulate people into paying almost $500 a pop for Game Stop when it was trading for under $20 less than a month earlier, I don't see why you can't do the same thing with the early TMNT market through some supposedly well timed and well orchestrated "sales" done over a period of time. Shall we take a survey of the so-called investors who piled in and couldn't run fast enough to pay over $300 a pop for Game Stop shares now that it is trading for only about $50 a share? Nothing more than the old classic pump and dump game that's been in play for centuries now whereby this version of Robin Hood robs from the poor to give to the rich.

I guess you must be referring to this auction result here that ended at $29,585 back in June of 2009: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/304395 I clearly remember this sale and as I had mentioned at the time, this $30K was paid not so much for the book, but more for the label itself as it must have gone to a CGC label collector who was willing to dig deep deep down into their pocket to obtain the one and only highest graded copy of this book at the time. Like I stated at the time, it is totally absurb for label collectors to pay an insane premium for a temporary highest graded copy when the graded comic book market is still so new with so many more raw copies or lower graded copies still waiting to have their potential maximized. As a long time collector, a good buy is when you buy a book at a price point such that you want other copies to enter into the marketplace to not only reinforce the price that you had paid for the book, but also to help push it up to the next incremental pricing level. It's clearly a sign that you have over paid if the sales of other copies in the equivalent or similar grades only serves to push the price of your copy down.

Link? I guess you must have missed it since there were a few very high dollar value sales talked about back on Page 118 to 120 of this very thread discussing some rather manipulative sales on eBay and I believe one on CL that was never ever consumated in the end. As for the subsequent $59K sale of the HA $90K CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1, here you go: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/877988?tzf=1

Wow, you are most definitely right on the mark here once again as I am in total agreement with you on your point here, especially since movie related hype is usally not long lasting and tends to have a relatively short shelf life. From ny point of view, the big run up on TMNT 1 prices all began with this perfectly executed, well times, and very high profile supposed auction "sale" of this CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1 for $90K when the book had been mired in a mid to high $30K funk for the previous year or so: https://comics.ha.com/itm/modern-age-1980-present-/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1-mirage-studios-1984-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/7211-91091.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 This very high profile $90K sale immediately jump started the entire early TMNT market with the CGC 9.8 graded copies of TMNT 1 rocketing right into the $50+ price range, with the "buyer" of this $90K copy then being able to successfully flip it out for a whopping $59K in a very low profile non-auction format sale in a few short months after that, no doubt along with some other very early TMNT books which they might have had.