lou_fine

Well, being the greedy collector that I am, I would want both books there, but if I had to choose only one, I would definitely go for the Wings 5: Absolutely love the strong deep red colors on this copy here and the perspective of the bomb coming out of the cover and right towards you is just bang on.

Decided to give a bump to this old thread here since we finally got the long awaited answer to our question about the BIG one from back in February of this year: Although it was indeed not a Cap 1, it looks like I was bang on with respect to my guess at the Wonderworld 3 as per my post up above: And needless to say, an absolutely wonderful and beautiful addition to this Allentown thread that we have going here.

My assumption is that it was probably not too difficult in this particular case since the book most likely did not changed hands that many times. Although they may have consulted with Payette himself for further confirmation, it might not have been necessary in this particular case since the book was sold through Metro/CC and the Allentown Collection was originally purchased by both Payette and Fishler back in 1987. So, Fishler himself might have remember the book because he does have a mind like a steel trap when it comes to certain books. In addition, he's like a bloodhound when it comes to tracking down the provenance of a book because I remember being interested in the Overstreet copy of Fantastic Comics #1 when I saw it at the Diamond Int'l Galleries grand opening and he refused to sell it to me at the time because he was sure it was the Larson copy, and if so, the price would then be substantially higher. Interesting to note that gorgeous umarked copy of Wonderworld 3 was sold in July of 2002 and then the purchaser must have tried unsuccessfully for a resub in hopes of a higher grade in August as evident by the new (i.e. current) serial number. Unfortuantely for the purchaser, it looks like they took a huge bath on the 2005 HA resale as it sold for only $15,525 on its second go round in 2005. I guess the boys at Heritage missed the fact both times that it was a pedigree since they didn't have either the access to the same personal history of the book or possibly the same degree of tenacity to verify the provenance as Fishler did.

When you see pedigree books like this, it's sad to realize that it's so easy for some of them to lose their chain of provenance over the years. Which was clearly the case here as I still remember this unmarked copy selling for the then astounding price of $25K+ way back in 2002 only to resell a few years later in 2005 for only $15K+: Which makes it especially good to see that this spectacular copy here finally get back its much deserved pedigree designation. Especially in the case of the unmarked Allentown books where it's so easy to lose track of them and there's so very few of them around (i.e. only 135 books in total) that we cannot afford to lose a single one of them.

Well, you sneaky little devil and now I guess we know why you really didn't go after the Berk Church copy of this book in the last big CC auction a month ago: Well done and big congrats on an absolutely gorgeous pickup of an all-time key Fox book in superb census topping condition.

It doesn't make any sense to try to manipulate the price of CGC 9.8 TMNT #1, since speculators don't exactly have a stack of them to sell. A stack doesn't exist. If any manipulation is working, it's on the third printings. Dozens of sales have occurred recently, all at multiples of decades of pricing norms. While there's an argument that if the top grade of the first printings could be manipulated, it would raise the values of all the other grades and printings... but that's a stretch. Whoever would be "cashing in" on the manipulation of CGC 9.8 TMNT #1 pricing would have to have them in the first place. That's even more unlikely. Well, I guess I should have been a bit more direct here with respect to using the term "speculators", as I really meant players or particpants in the marketplace which definitely would also include dealers and auction houses. As another board member had posted in the AF 15 thread on the SA boards here: Although you don't think it makes any sense to manipulate the price of a TMNT 1, it actually makes a whole ton of sense from a business point of view if you look at what actually happened in not only the TMNT 1 marketplace, but the entire early TMNT marketplace. You simply need to think bigger and outside the box and look at the whole picture here. You take a book like a CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1 (with already 32 copies in this grade and almost a whopping 400 copies in CGC 9.0 and above) that had been selling in the mid to high $30K's, toss in a very high profile auction sale at $90K to get those crazed speculators all churned up and ready to shoot their load off and let's see what happens to the marketplace. Needless to say, the rabid speculators take notice right off the bat and the market for CGC 9.8 copies of TMNT 1 immediately spikes into the $50K+ range, with the earlier exact same $90K copy then selling a few short months later discreetly and off the radar through a non-auction sale with another company at a price point of $59K . Not surprisingly, since a rising tide lifts all boats and with FOMO now in full play, we can see what has happened to the rest of the early TMNT marketplace during the past several months. So, the trick is to think beyond just the one transaction and instead, think of lighting a fire under the entire marketplace and collecting all of the benefits going forward. If this was the actual plan, all I can say is that it was planned and executed perfectly. If so, since it worked so well with the TMNT marketplace, why not do a rinse and repeat with the once red hot and now flailing AF 15 marketplace and see if we can change the negative sentiment that seems to have set in during the past year or so. As mentioned above, voila and let's pay $66K for a book that had fallen back into a rut of $35K to $40K and see if it works again. Interesting to note that the sentiment in the AF 15 marketplace has now seem to changed from negative to slight positive with prices on the increase finally once again since this outlying auction result of $66K. Sadly, it seems that this comic book hobby is now much more to do with the money and the books are often times just vehicles being used to generate this big money whether it be through the gaming of the grading system or through the price manipilation of the books themselves.

Well, that's just evil. But I guess your devil emoji shows that you already know that. Well, I guess that's why you can't spell "devil" without having "evil" in there.

Um, is Action #1 listed by Overstreet as being worth $300 in 2020? Yes indeed, if you pick up the Facsimile copy of Overstreet #1 that was just released earlier this month.

This is actually a very interesting comment and shows how much the comic book marketplace has changed over the decades. I still remember when I first started back in the mid-70's and looked at the guide prices and would hope for the day that I could sell some of my books for that kind of price. Now I look at the guide prices and just wish that I would be lucky enough to be able to pick up the vintage collectible books I want for anywhere close to those prices.

Mostly I just wanted to know if you thought we would be better off going by Overstreet values. And I think that was a definite yes. Yes, yes , and most definitely a big YES in certain situations. Perfect case in point being if I was ever lucky enough to come across a vintage collection like the Edgar Curch Mile High Collection. First thing I would do is run down to my LCS and snap up the Facsimilie copy of Overstreet #1, run back to the house and point out the 2020 publication date to the owner, explain to them that those are actually full retail prices listed in there and he is in fact trying to wholesale the books to be. I would then explain to the lucky owner that being the honest and upstanding person that I am, I would be willing to pay them full guide prices and not be like that unscrupulous Chuck Rozanski who got away with paying only cover price or a whole dime for each of those books. No doubt realizing that I would pay a whopping $300 for his Action 1 instead of only a dime, let alone all of the other books, would surely be more than enough to have us both dancing for joy in the streets. End of story dream!!! Seriously though, Overstreet is really nothing more than just a guide, especially since certain in demand books will sell at multiples to condition guide while others that have fallen out of favor will be luck to even fetch guide in today's very robust marketplace. So, bottom-line is that you really need to know the marketplace and especially the books that you are interested in and where it fits in when it comes to today's marketplace.

When it comes to possible manipulation of the marketplace, it's probably not so defined as a book in a particular grade or a book with particular types of defects. It's really probably a lot more general than that and more in the sense of changing the market sentiment and perception of a book on an more overall basis regardless of either the grade and/or the particulat type of defect. After all, improved sentiment along with a rising tide tends to lift all boats in the water.

Based on when the collection was found restoration wasn’t as heavily frowned on. Yes, but the question is why would you need to do that amount of restoration on a book like 'Tec 36 that was already graded by Joe Tricarichi to be a NM copy except for the dark stain on the inside spine of the cover?

Excellent point. That hadn't even occurred to me. Well, the only time that I would agree with this sentiment is with respect to Modern Age books in CGC 9.4 grades and above which Overstreet clearly has stated that his guide is not intended for due to the high volatility for books in condition levels above his top of guide 9.2 grades. With respect to vintage collectible comic books though, I strongly believe that Overstreet values do in fact reflect CGC graded books to a certain extent, as per the following post I made in another thread yesterday:

Well, if this very obvious outlier of a sale was planned and done intentionally in order to either stop or hopefully reversed the negative trajectory of the AF 15 market that had taken place over the past several months, I would have to say it would be another one that was timed and exected perfectly. As clearly evident from some of the more recent auction results that we have seen with respect to the AF 15 offerings over the past few months. I was actaully thinking you was referring back to a few years ago where the relatively HG end of the AF 15 marketplace moved rapidly in a couple of short years from just under the $100K price point and into the $400K to $600K+ price point depending upon the grade of the book.

Yes, your mention of the Wonder Woman 10 also had me puzzled there as the list at the time shows the WW run going only from WW 10 through to WW 20. Any possibilty that you might have confused it with Wonder Woman 20 because that one there should have been a real stunner out of not only just the WW run, but the entire Chinatwon Collection as a whole?

Yes, it would definitely be interesting and enlightening to see this book since it's listed as being only a CGC 6.5 F+ apprent graded copy with Moderate restoration. Especially in light of the fact this the Larson 'Tec 36 was listed as being a NM copy with a dark stain on the inside spine when graded by Joe Tricarichi in his Larson List from way back in 1975. Makes me wonder how much the grading standards might have changed with respect to certain types of defects or is it possible that some collector along the way ended up damaging the book while in their possession.

So your concern isn't limited just to gocollect but even GPA. Since you have to pay a subscription fee to use GPA, that makes it a much more serious problem.What about Overstreet? Do they model prices in a similar way, or do they use more hard data? Not sure why you would even compare GPA and GoCollect with Overstreet because everybody in the hobby knows that they are two completely different animals that seeks to do completely different things. GPA and GoCollect seeks to capture real time prices in the marketplace based upon the last final sale and the average prices based upon the most recent sales. Overstreet, on the other hand, seeks to report on previous prices that have occurred over the past year(s) and will slowly increase them in the guide when there is clear and obvious evidence of price consolidation over an extended period of time (i.e. years). This serves to show an ever increasing trajectory in prices over the long terms as Overstreet has obviously been very successful in using this technique to help nuture the growth and health of the vintage collectible comic book market over the past 50 years with virtually no interruption at all. If you are talking about price guides, I would have to say that GPA and Go Collect is much more similar to the old Wizard price guides in terms of trying to capture the most recent prices. Needless to say, many of those previously double digit and even triple digit valuation books back in tose days can now be had in the dollar boxes. Of course, they probably also went a bit overboard in terms of being caught with their pants down several time as some of their Top Hot books reported for the months with huge inflated prices never ever even ended up hitting the shelves of the LCS's as scheduled due to unplanned distribution problems.

No, I'm not. But it is interesting that GSX1 was also adjusted downward at the same time. That's because you are talking about very high profile books where it's obvious that any computerized mathematical projections that are out of line can easily be spotted and then manually corrected when flagged. My concern then is with respect to this entire price estimate model, especially when it comes to the lower profile books that fly under the radar where it's not quite so obvious to catch all of these erroreous computerized estimates. With respect to that very high profile and record setting $90K TMNT 1 sale through Heritage, makes me wonder how valid it really was when it resold later through a discreet off the radar non-auction sale via another auction house for only $59K after the market for the book had jumped from the mid to high $30K's into the $50K+ price point after that record setting HA auction result?

It's not so much the dollar values per se as it is the fact that gocollect suddenly decided to lower them significantly when there is nothing (that I know of) in the market to indicate that values have gone down recently. FYI: This book was raised up to the $85K price estimate when that supposed sale of a CGC 9.8 graded copy sold at eBay for something like $79K back in June of this year. When it was pointed out on the boards here that this was an obvious fraudulent sale done only to manipulate the TMNT 1 market prices in both GPA and GoCollect, the price estimate came right back down to the high $60K's or there about and have bounced around there since then. It is rather obvious that there are some rather questionable speculators out there trying their best to falsely manipulate the price of this book. Are you actually aware of any sale for this book in CGC 9.8 above the $70K mark that would warrant the $88K price estimate as it appears to me to be more of a computerized mathematical algorithm that was flagged and has now been manually corrected.

If so, AF 15 would be another perfect book to used in a play like this due simply to the ample number of copies that are around at all condition levels which makes it just so much easier to mmanipulate a marketplace. Unlike the $90K TMNT 1 record setter which ended up reselling through another auction house at a substantially lower price point, was there evidence of this happening with any of the AF 15 copies that were sold at then record prices at the time?

Not sure about the 9.6 prices, but besides the rather dubious outlier of a sale at the $90K price point that went through Heritage last summer when all other previous prices were only in the mid to high $30K's, is there any real reason why it should be at $88K as opposed to only $70K which seems to be a much more accurate valuation for this book right now? If anything, that $88K price estimate appears to be more of an mathematical error based upon some incorrect price estimate algorithm than anything else.

Well, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised based upon the rather dubious pair of characters heading up HA and some of Heritage's rather questionable auction practices in some of their other collectible markets which they have dealt in. Any chance that the CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1 auction result last summer at the humongous outlying price of $90K when all the previous high water marks for this book was only in the mid to high $30K's would be a perfect example of this. Certainly helped to jumped the CGC 9.8 TMNT 1 market up above the $50K mark immediately and then you have this exact same $90K copy selling a few short months after that for only $59K through CC. Any chance that this very high profile $90K HA sale was one of the driving forces in pushing the CGC 9.8 graded TMNT 1 market into what would now be the $60K+ price point and as a result, lifting all other prints of this entire TMNT 1 into the irrational exuberant and almost out of control market that we now have. If so, definitely a perfectly timed and executed play using a high profile high dollar value book with ample copies in grade along with various reprint versions out there that can easily drive the entire early TMNT marketplace upwards.

What happened to the post about the Annual being for raws and the Overstreet Comic Price Review being for slabs? Yeah, I read the post this morning and I certainly didn't find anything at all offensive about it as it was just talking about the Overstreet Comic Price Review mag. Anyhow, as far as I can tell, the Overstreet Comics Price Review only ran for 17 issues from 2003 through to 2005 and was rally tageted for those HG books slabbed in CGC 9.4 and above since the Annual Guide did not report on anything above their top of guide 9.2 condition level: The solution was Overstreet's Comic Price Review, a monthly publication specializing in tracking the tumultuous market for certified comic books graded at 9.4 and higher. So, as far as I can tell, just because they had this review running for a few years to primarily report on more recent books in CGC 9.4 and above does not necessarily exclude the Annual Guide from including the impact of slabbed prices in the determination of their valuations. They most assuredly did since virtually all of the high dollar value older books did not sell in raw condition and generally always sold as graded slabs.

Well, that's definitely very interesting in terms of the grades as compared to what shows up in Joe Tricarichi's original Larson List. The Larson copy of 'Tec 35 as shown below is indeed a Conserved copy with a cover that's been cleaned: Yet is listed in the original Larson List as being only a Fine graded copy with no notes. Looks like the grading standards must have been quite different in the old days as I can clearly see the erased Larson name on this copy of 'Tec 35? On the other hand, the CGC Apparent 6.5 Fine+ graded copy of 'Tec 36 with all that restoration shows up in the original Larson List as being a NM graded copy with what I believe is a note stating that it has a dark stain on the inside spine (hard to make out Joe Tricarichi's almost illegible handwriting??). I assume what is meant is that the book would have been NM except for the dark stain on the inside spine of the book, although I find it rather puzzling that it would need all that much restoration work if Joe's grading was anywhere close to being accurate.