lou_fine

Yes, although the replacement of staples with period vintage staples might not longer be considered as restoration with CGC's new revised Restoration Grading Scale which they implemented back in June of 2014, it would still be considered as Conservation along with many of the other former restoration activities that transitioned over at the same time: https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/4083/ Conservation Repairs Tear seals Spine split seals Reinforcement Piece reattachment Some cover or interior cleaning (water or solvent) Staples cleaned or replaced Some leaf casting Materials Used for Conservation Repairs: Rice paper Wheat glue Vintage staples Archival tape

No argument here with respect to the key or classic cover books. It was really more with respect to the non-key lower demand books that some collectors were also just throwing ridiculous multiples to guide for as everybody was scrambing around trying to figure out where the certified market was going to go back then.

Did they even have GPA when CGC first opened their doors back in 2000? I remember seeing this in one of the Overstreet updates as they were highlighting some of the initial sales of CGC certified books and at the time, I thought it must have been a mistake for sure because nobody in their right mind would pay that kind of price for a book like that. Little did I know that was only a indication of things to come as collectors and investors were trying to naviagte the value of certified books in those first year or so that CGC started up before prices started to shake themselves out. There were some ridiculous prices paid on some minor GA books that would take buyers years to hope to recoup their money. Sure, a lot of the mainstream books or in-demand GGA and horror ending up reaping big profits looking backwards now, but some of the more minor stuff, definitely not so much.

Since this is an open public forum and minors might be reading these posts, it is probably not good form for you to share your nightime experiences with your wife here.

Why not.......ask and ye shall receive. I guess you must have been a good little boy and the comic Gods are about to answer your prayers and grant you your wish here. I just talked to the collector who forked over $2,500 for his CGC 9.8 graded copy of Shadow Comics 1 (can't remember if it was the Kuluta version or the Chaykin version ) and he is willing to bite the bullet and begrudgingly let you have it at the exact same $2,500 figure that he had paid for it when CGC first opened their doors way back in 2000. ...............the money, that is.

In all seriousness, how much has this one gone up in value:

Not sure if this stance is still relevant and being strictly adherred to as it was written up back in 2014 after CCG had acquired Matt's Classics Incorporated back in 2012 and Matt was still working for them in charge of CCS at the time. Since that time, Matt has transitioned over to the CGC grading side of the buisness as their Primary Grader in 2016 and shall we say, the quality of the jobs apprently being done through CCS is **ahem**, not quite the same as before. Since it's all one big happy company though where it's good for everybody to get along and to keep the conspriacy theorists happy about potential conflict of interest, apparently books with certain tell tale pressing "defects" were given a free pass when it came to grading with the graders apparently turning a blind eye to them. Not sure if it's still being done anymore, but many boardies here say it still is. Although collectors and many of the boards members cried conflict of interest when the buyout was first announced at the time, in the real corporate world that we live in, it's simply called smart strategic business synergies being realized.

Was watching this past Sunday's HA offerings and was seriously thinking of placing a higher bid on this classic GGA book here: Saw this about to close at a hammer price of $280 or $336 with the BP juice and was seriously thinking of upping the bid to north of $300, but changed my mind just as I was about to hit the bid button. Would have prefer a slightly nicer presenting copy for this price, even though this exact same copy here sold had sold for $552 in another one of their Sunday Heritage auctions just in September of last year.

Hasn't this type of scenario or similar also has been postulated with GPA manipulation? Well, since we all know how old slow conservative Bob moves with the loooooong lag factor that he build into his guide valuations until he see solid evidence or confirmation of prices, you are going to have many long years to wait. Just because a book sells for a certain amount of money doesn NOT mean that Overstreet will be reflecting the full impact of that move in his guide next year. For example, take a look at the high profile sale of the CGC 9.2 graded Atlantic City copy of Action Comics 13 which sold at CC for something like $185K way back in 2011 when top of guide was only at $30K. Well, guess what, instead of jacking his guide valuation all the way up to $185K in the next guide, it went up significantly to $45K or a 50% increase the following year. It was only after many years of continuing sales at multiples of condition guide , even in restored PLOD conditio, that Overstreet finally got around to bumping his top of guide price up to $190K in the current edition of the guide. Take a look at the Cap 3 which we all seem to be talking about here, and if you think old Bob is going to be reflecting these prices in his guide, you've got a long wait coming because it's still valued at only $6,500 in mid-grade even though they have been selling in the low to mid $20K's even in restored PLOD condition for the past couple of years. Now, if you are talking about attempted GPA price maniupilation, then that's a completely different story as everybody's focus there seems to be on the last sales result or the average of the past few sales. As a result, tons of room for price manipulation there. Still, better than Wizard since GPA is supposedly based upon actual sales whereas Wizard was caught with their panties down around their ankes so many times. Especially when it came to price valuations during the early 90's boom for expected red hot books being set at things like $20 or $50, only to find out later that those books never even ended up hitting the shelves of the LCS's in time due to printing or distribution issues.

This is also something that had crossed my mind as I noticed that the names of either Vinnie or Ken Goldin (found of some big sports auction house) as the sellers of the books to RallyRd at the bottom of the Purchase Option Agreement that's on file. Nevertheless, calling Cap 3 "dead inventory" which is probably the second most in-demand Cap book out there is pretty much tantamount to calling Hulk 181 or uber HG copies of TMNT 1 dead inventory. Especially when you considered that Cap 3 is one of the very few books out there that has consistently been able to sell for huge multiples to condition guide, even when in restored PLOD condition. Of course, anything can become dead inventory if the price is unrealistically too high, but I don't believe a mid-grade unrestored copy of Cap 3 in the mid to upper end of the $30K's would qualify as being unrealistically too high from my own personal point of view.

Except, we know the factual value of that book is less than $37,000. It's *never* sold for $37,000 in that grade and the last sale of a comp (another cgc 5.0 copy) sold two weeks ago for less than $24,000 all-in. Not sure how good that sale from a few weeks ago at $23,400 is as an indicator for the correct value of a Cap 3 since it appears to be more of an outlier to the down side when compared to previous sales. I personally believe the price was negatively impacted by the fact that there were 2 relatively nice copies of Cap 3 up for sale in the same auction which is never a good thing for the consignor. If we skip over this last sale for $23,400, the HA archives indicates that the last 3 mid-grade sales for Cap 3 was a CGC 6.0 restored PLOD copy for $21,600 back in November of 2018, a CGC 5.5 restored PLOD copy for $24,000 back in November of 2019, and a CGC 4.0 restored PLOD copy for $18,000 earlier in March of this year. If you coupled this with the $30,500 auction sale that CC was able to get for their CGC 5.0 graded copy back in March of 2019 plus the $35,500 they sold this current copy to RallyRd in March of this year, then a more realistic value of somewhere in the low to mid $30K's for an unrestored CGC 5.0 graded copy of Cap 3 is probably somewhere in the ball park. From a pure investment point of view, there is also always a premium to buying something in lower amounts that makes it more conducive to a broader number of investors. As far as I can tell from all of these previous auction results, with many of them for restored PLOD copies, this premium is nowhere close to the 40% to 60% that some of the boards members here appear to be making it out to be.

Thanks for touching base with them to hear what they actually have to say. Although there is a 10% max limit on third party arms length investors, did you get a chance to ask them what the max limit is with respect to share ownership by their own company itself, because this is where the tricky part is in terms of potential fraud or price manipulation of the underlying asset?

Jim; It says that you joined the boards in 2003 and where was you in 2005 or thereabouts when the whole pressing fiasco first came to light on the boards here? Have you forgotten about the infamous Church copy of Boy Comics 17 which managed to go all the way from a CGC 4.0 grade up to a CGC 7.5 grade before finally coming back in a CGC 9.0 grade, all while residing in a blue Universal unrestored label. This is where Borock finally had to come back onto these boards to declare that "disassembly and reassembly of a comic book, in and of itself, does NOT constitute restoration". Needless to say, this just open the barn doors even that much wider for artifical manipulation of books to take place in our hobby by giving it the green light.

i'm guessing that they own 51% of each book/ shares. I would also suspect something like this since it's about the only think that makes financial sense from their point of view. Then again, if they are under the SEC regulations, aren't they supposed to divulge the identity of all large shareholders who owns 10% or more of any publicly traded asset?

This is the part that I can't quite seem to get a handle on in this investment scheme that they are trying to set up here. Where exactly are the profits for RallyRd here since the SEC filings seems to indicate they are paying top dollar for these books in the first place and then selling off shares in them that would have them only gain a couple thousand dollars on each of them. This $1,500 or $2,000 gross margin would be eaten up very quickly in terms of SEC filing fees, insurance costs, storage fees, administration management fees, and whatever else kind of expenses that would be incur with setting up this type of investment fund.

Well, let's hope they are smart enough not to take it down to your local flea market and peddle it off for a whole dollar thinking they just hit the jackpot by getting a 10-bagger on the cover price of what is now obviously an old and used book.

With this type of approach, I believe it's really much more from a pure investment point of view, as opposed to a true collecting point of view. When viewed in this light, how often do you pull up your investment account to show your friends how your shares of Apple or Enron are doing when you get together.

Take a look at the books you've mentioned here and how many of us are auctioning these off on a regular basis. Heck, even for Heritage, these types of quality books makes up only a very percentage of their auction offerings in comparison to the rest of the book they are auctioning off. Well, if it comes to highest graded copies of more otherwise more common books or simply BA or CA books, I would definitely go with CL. If it's OA, then Heritage is the auction house to go with and if it's pre-Robin 'Tec books or early Action books, I would be looking much more towards CC to give me the best bang for my buck. So, there is no real one-stop auction house when it comes to consigning your treasures, as each one of these major auction houses have their own specialty niche customer base.

Would the Church copy of Wonderworld Comics 3 be one of these 9 quality books?

Well then, how about some kind of central depository exchange whereby private collectors can send in some of their primo books like say a Church copy of Mystery Men 3 and then sell 1,000 shares at something like $100 a pop. Of course, the private collector would end up pocketing most of the proceeds plus having the option to retain as many shares of the book as desired, with the expenses and some kind of percentage profit going to the depository exchange.

Exactly right as the consignor is always paying the FULL LOAD when it comes to the auction house consignment fees.

Well, from looking at all of the documents, maybe Metro/CC is already indirectly involved in some way as it appears that all of the books have been sourced or brought from either Vinnie or Ken Goldin (the founder of some big sports memobralia auction house) as their names are on the SEC documents as being the sellers for these books to RallyRd from what I can see.

As I had posted on the General board thread, can they really make money if we take a look at the Cap 3 example where they had to pay $35,500 for the book in the first place and then managed to fetched only $37,000 in the subsequent IPO. I highly doubt the $1,500 premium can really cover all of the additional ancillary charges once you get lawyers and SEC securities involved:

Yes, it would appear that the balance of $28,400 would have had to be paid back on May 15th, as this balance was due on the EARLIER of 7 days after the IPO or on May 15th. So, they would have had to pay the full amount of $35,500 to Vinnie on May 15th or more than 2 months prior to the IPO coming out yesterday. So, my question is if they managed to raise only $37,000 from this IPO, how are the boys at RallyRd going to be able to make much money on this, if any in fact, if the remaining $1,500 premium is expected to pay for all of the ancillary storage costs, insurance fees, and administration fees such as registration and lawyer fees?

? Heritage commissions are 35% now? Last I checked they were ~half that. It's not actually 35% total without any discounts as I believe @valiantman was simply adding together the 20% BP on the hammer price and the 15% SP on the hammer price for a simplified, but incorrect total of 35%. If we assume no special negotiating discounts even with the standard 20% BP and 15% SP, it still works out to less than 35%. For example, if a book hammers for $1,000 the 20% standard BP works out to $200 while the 15% standard SP works out to $150. This means that the consignor would then receive only $850 (once again assuming no negotiations done) out of the $1,200 total sale for a total commision fee paid out of 29.17%.