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lou_fine

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Everything posted by lou_fine

  1. lou_fine
    I assume his Top 100 along with his other charts must still be done up manually as opposed to being computerized since it's quite common to see new entrants to the charts be missed for a year or two. Similar to what happened with a couple of the pre-Robin Tec books a few years ago. Maybe somebody here should send a qiick email to Overstreet and his gang beause these are the exact types of mistakes or oversights that they will indeed fix up for the next edition of the guide. Now, if you are talking about your own personal opinions on individual pricing valuations for certain books, most definitely not so much. Looks like the Cap 46 would have taken top spot in terms of his Top 100 percentage increases since it increased by 25% if he had correctly included it in his Top 100 chart for this year's edition of the guide. On the other hand it appears that poor Hoppy's not getting much love from Overstreet this year as he dropped Hopalong Cassidy #1 by a whopping 35% from the #2 spot at $4,600 in his Top 10 Western chart in last year's guide down to only $3,000 or into the #9 spot in his Top 10 Western chart for this year.
  2. lou_fine
    Wow, definitely a blast from the past as I guess it's only old long time collectors like us who would remember ads like this since this harkens back to the old days long before they had such a thing as the internet or even any talk about the super information highway. I very clearly remember this ad and calling in for their telephone auction as I had been into the historical aspect of the comic book hobby and the lot that caught my eye was the Harry Wildenberg Famous Funnies #1 - #5 set. Especially since Wildenberg was pretty much the architect and founder of the current day version of the comic book when he came up with the initial concept and layout format for Funnies on Parade and Famous Funnies in his role as Sales Manager for Eastern Color Publications at the time. Definitely should have gone after some of those early Centaurs instead, especially in terms of that Amazing Mystery Funnies, but being a collector it's hard to resist going after the roots of the hobby even though they sadly haven't really gone up in value after all these decades. So, I was alrealy well aware of the Chinatown Collection out of Berkeley when I first touched base with both West and Ritter about Pat's OO collection for him. In fact, it was one of the first things that Ritter had mentioned to me in one of his initial early emails to me, but I believe it was decided in the end that the collection from Comic Relief was not deemed to be an official pedigree of any kind as it was just a small but very early low to mid-grade collection that was named as such really just for marketing purposes more than anything else. So, I assume the "Chinatown" designation was deemed to be okay in the end as that's how it was named when it was added into the Pedigree Book website with its own official link at the time.
  3. lou_fine
    Well said... Indeed..........definitely very well said!!!
  4. lou_fine
    I cull thru these reports and try to separate the wheat from the chaff. It’s still interesting and informative. There are spots that strike me as manipulative, but I read em anyway. I think you may be in a better position than most to spot the manipulation Well, in the days of yore before they had the internet and social media websites which was actually not so long ago, I most definitely read the market reports as they were a must read and one of the first things that I checked out when I got my copy of the guide. Now with the boards and all of the other sources of information that we seemingly have at the click of a button, definitely not so much as I tend to read them only when I am bored and have nothing else to do. Just went through the last few of them from the 2019 guide the previous weekend as I figured that I should get through all of them before the new edition of the guide came out last week.
  5. lou_fine
    Well, since they've already slabbed millions of books bt now, the obvious common sense answer would be YES. Probably not quite to the degree that you are talking about because to go from a CGC 7.0 grade up to a CGC 9.0 is really quite a bit of a stretch. Haven't we already seen some examples of this that have taken place before in the past?
  6. lou_fine
    It was billed as the Chinatown copy when I bought it. CGC say 1944 in the article, and we all know they've never been wrong. That said, it's still a Mystic 2 with white pages. Although it is definitely a nice looking copy of Mystic 2 relative to its assigned grade, I hope you didn't have to pay any kind of a premium for the supposed pedigree. Yes, the fact that it's from 1940 and clearly outside the Chinatown Collection date range is the obvious dead giveaway. The other not quite as obvious one would be the assigned condition of the book as there were less than a handful of books out of the entire collection that were in this relatively low condition grade range.
  7. lou_fine
    Sean; Didn't you used to be an advisor for the Overstreet Guide back in the 90's or thereabouts when you were much more active as a dealer and also a regular contributor to the CBM magazine? Maybe you could touch base with Bob one of these days and ask him about this obvious pricing anomaly between Cap 2 and Cap 3 and then give us the scoop here.
  8. lou_fine
    Was tracking this copy of Exciting Comics here and it sure seem to go for a pretty attractive price from my own POV or maybe I am just out of touch with the Nedor marketplace: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/superhero/exciting-comics-33-nedor-1944-cgc-fn-65-off-white-to-white-pages/a/122036-11218.s?type=bidnotice-tracked-endofauction Sold for $1,800 not only in mid-grade, but also with what appears to be a bit of a rusty staple. Nevertheless, still an attractive looking copy of a WWII Black Terror Nazi bondage cover.
  9. lou_fine
    She's tied at #79 with three other books. Yes, looks like PL 17 jumped up 10 spots from #89 up to #79 as its valuation went from $35K up to $40K in this year's edition of the guide.
  10. lou_fine
    Well, with this new Covid-19 business environment that everybody is living in, will the pretty much shuttered down movie theatres and these movie related hype books really have as much of an impact on the pricing of books going forward as they used to have in the past?
  11. lou_fine
    Well, I guess you simply can't have everything you want sometimes. At least they did send out an email on Thursday that had pictured links to every single lot in their just completed Event Auction as it's always good to have everything all in one spot.
  12. lou_fine
    Hey Peter; is it possible that they still have it in their back inventory with the book still linked to you? Why don't you try and hit the relist button and then ask them for the money when it does resell.
  13. lou_fine
    Thanks for the link!!! Finally got around to opening it up and reading it now that hockey season is officially over with the ouster of the Canucks from the Stanley Cup playoffs. Very nice article and write-up and I especially like the historical aspect in terms of the old black and white pictures. Definitely goes into a lot more detail than the write-up that Ritter had done up for the Chinatown Collection that I saw in the link on the Pedigree Book website which was nice and concise with the info they had at the time. Clearly Steve was the numbers guys out of the quartet, but at least they did highlight and did similar closeups for some of the books with the Chinese character for the OO's last name. These books with the Chinese characters would clearly be a bit more special, similar in vein to the Edgar Church books with the Mile High code. I still remember West's and Steve's comment at the time that they were in a hurry to finish because they were hoping to have the Pedigree Book all done up in time for the following year. Well, I guess we all know what happened there.
  14. lou_fine
    Here you go Peter: Cap 74 - 18% Phantom Lady 17 - 14% Superman 1 - 13% Detective 38 - 12% Sub-Mariner 1 - 11% All- American 61 - 11% Action 1 - 10% Cap 1 - 10% Whiz (2)1 - 10% Flash 1 - 10% Sensation 1 - 10% Detective 36 - 10% The rest were under 10% increases. The Overstreet Top 100 is much the Dow Jones Index which is also not a very good indicator since it is disproportionately influenced by the big boys at the top, but this appears to be a bit of a conservative year with the overall percentage increase coming in at the mid single digit level (i.e. approx. 5% to 7%) from strictly eyeballing it. Although valuations were a lot lower back then, definitely not like the early to mid 90's for a 5-year time period when GA was super red hot and even Overstreet had his overall average percentage for his Top 50 and then his Top 100 ranging from the mid 20% into the low 30% with even one year rocketing in at just over 60%. Now, those years were most definitely very very un-Overstreet like when it came to his price guide valuation increases as somebody must have really lit a fire under his butt back then.
  15. lou_fine
    Do u know the number of Action 1 sales compared to Tec 27 sales in the last year previous years between guides ? Fixed that for you. You do realize that this is the Overstreet Price Guide we are talking about and not the old and now defunct Wizard Price Guide. You've been on the boards long enough to know that Overstreet never ever bases his guide valuations on waht happen in just the previous one year time period. As we all know, he's much more conservative and likes to see confirming sales of a book over an extended period of time before slowly raising his price on that book. As such, how many more multi-million sales have taken place for 'Tec 27 as compared to Action 1 over the past several years?
  16. lou_fine
    Tec 27 was at 7% Possibly due in part to the fact that it's relatively scarce and doesn't tend to show up in the marketplace very often and this results in a lack of market activity to support or to confirm more aggressive price increases.
  17. lou_fine
    Ask and ye shall receive. That wold be Cap 74 at 18% for the Gold , which was followed by PL 17 at 14% for the Silver , and lagging close behind and just squeaking in for the Bronze was Supes 1 at 13%. Nothing compared to the 150% for Mask 1, but then that one there is still far away from entering Overstreet's Top 100. Only 2 new entries into his Top 100 and that would be the long awaited return of Mystery Men 1 after a multi-decades long absence and new to the chart would be the classic cover Pep 34, with both of these being tied in 95th spot at $32,000.
  18. lou_fine
    As per usual, every year the new price guide comes out there's talk about the pricing for Cap 3 as compared to Cap 2 and something which Gator has also mentioned before in the past. Although it's common for Overstreet to be behind and conservative on his prices, he is usually still accurate from a relative pricing point of view when it comes to particular issues within a run. For example, everybody knows that Wonderworld 7, Mystery Men 3, Archie 50, etc. is worth more than the other surrounding issues within those particular runs and as a result, is priced accordingly from a relative pricing point of view. Like Gator has said before, everybody knows that Cap 3 is the second most valuable Cap book in the entire run and by a wide margin since forever. Which then makes me wonder if this is one of those intentional errors that Overstreet puts in his price guide to find out if anybody else out there is violating his copyright infringement since this would be such a very obvious error. Especially since there have been enough sales of both Cap 3 (although none in high grade) and Cap 2 in the public marketplace over the years to establish a pretty strong pricing relationship between these 2 books. Then again, maybe Overstreet is just way behind the market on Cap 3 since I find it rather hard to believe he would put in an intentional error for copyright purposes when it comes to his guide valuation for a particular book.
  19. lou_fine
    Like all collectors like us, we all tend to love the ones that are in the nicest condition and would grade out the highest, and even more so when it is acknowledged and recognized to be a classic cover book.
  20. lou_fine
    Although I don't know hin personally, apparently Bob Overstreet does and ever since he was a young'un.
  21. lou_fine
    Wow, that's definitely a very strong price for a copy in this grade. Is the Mask 2 starting to catch up to Mask 1 in terms of valuation in the comic book marketplace or still relatively far behind? Maybe old Bob's going to have to give the same kind of bump to Mask 2 as he did with Mask 1 in this year's edition of the guide if these prices hold up over an extended period of time.
  22. lou_fine
    Probably not really since the Indian Arrowheads were apparently his first true passion besides the comic books.
  23. lou_fine
    So, how do you feel about the rest of his family of guides, such as The Overstreet Guide to Collecting Video Games, The Overstreet Guide to Grading Comics, The Overstreet Guide t Collecting Comic & Animation Art, The Overstreet Guide to Cllecting Horror, The Overstreet Guide to Collecting Movie Posters, The Overstreet Guide to Collecting Tabletop Games, The Overstreet Price Guide to Batman, The Overstreet Price Guide to Star Wars Collectibles, and probably his own personal favourite, The Official Overstreet Identification and Price Guide to Indian Arrowheads, etc....... Makes me wonder if the man has any time to sleep at all, especially considering his advancing age now. So, which guide was you referring to in your comment above and do you already have the full library of all of his various guides?
  24. lou_fine
    Maybe you have to remind the young'uns it really wasn't that long ago that there was no such thing as the internet or even cell phones.
  25. lou_fine
    There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is 100% true, and like a lot of the long time dealers will tell you his influence has certainly helped the comic book marketplace to flourish and to continue on a seemingly never ending climb upwards over the past 5 decades.