lou_fine

Maybe with this current pandemic, it's just not the best time for consigning higher dollar value books as per @Mmehdy's rather ominous prognostications on the impact of the pandemic on comic books. Then again, you read other threads and it sounds as though prices are running higher than before with respoect to books at the lower end of the price spectrum, whereby potential bidders are apparently using their stimulus money from the federal government as an unexpected bonus to buy books which they otherwise would not have brought. So, who really knows except that the additional stimulus money definitely wouldn't be enough to buy these higher dollar value GA books.

Actually, I think you should cover all of your bases because there's a third possibility in that it might just sell for the exact same $19,800 that it did on this go round.

you may be falsely assuming someone is spending big bucks on getting the book worked on. It could be owned by the person doing the work. I also think people know a lot of people buy based on the number on the label not the book Well, looks like it came close at the end, but not surprisingly (at least to me), it's still no cigar as it finished up at only $52,800. Not sure how much the consignor had to spend on the "facejob" and any other resto work that might have been performed on the book. So, even if they got the resto work done for free and didn't have to pay for any of the regrading or auction fees ( Steve I. and James H.) , they still would have lost money on this Eldon copy of Cap 3 since they would have had to pay the $55K that it sold for in one of the CC Event Auctions back in 2018. Like I was alluding to earlier, definitely not as easy to play and win at the CPR related games when it comes to easily identifiable GA books which simply don't come around that often. Especially when compared to the later BA or CA books where it's really so much more about that big number on the top left as there's just so many more copies around which then simply makes it a whole lot easier to conveniently "hide" the book with no one being the wiser.

Ended a hair under 20K. My own personal thinking was that this copy of the much in demand Mystery Men 3 would go for north of $20K myself. Might we just see it reappear in another auction during more favorable (i.e. non pandemic) times and then see it go for a stronger price? Reminds me a bit of the CGC 8.0 VF copy of the equally much in demand Wonderworld 7 which some astute buyer picked up for some $16K+ in one of the Heritage Signature Auctions a few years ago and then was able to successfully flipped it for $22K+ in a CC Event Auction several short months later.

Definitely the case, but then as I've said many times before in the past, it's never good for the consignors when an auction house have multiple copies of the same book up for sale in the same auction. Looks like Heritage decided to triple down on it this time by having 3 different copies of All-Star 8 up for sale in this same auction here.

Yes, that's why I struck it out and went with the 5.0 copy of Cap 3. Still a lot of room to go because even restored mid-grade copies of Cap 3 were hitting the $20K's in previous Heritage auctions.

Another book that I just noticed that would be interesting to watch as part of a 3-book race would be this classic cover G/L Solomon Grundy cover here: Absolutely love this classic cover book here and will be interesting to see how all 3 of these books finish up as they all have historically sold for mutiples to condition guide.

Well, being the contrarian again, do you mean with the stock markets either at a record high or near their record highs once again.

Or the contrarian way of viewing it is to wonder if the value of a Cap 3 has dropped down to the level of a Mystery Men 3? Sad for the bidders with the shallow pockets though as I doubt that will definitely not be the case by the time it's all said and done after one more sleep.

Well, that was certainly an ideal book to stock up on. Do you still have all 5 of your Hulk 181 copies or did you slowly sell them off in order to acquire other books over the years?

I still remember way back in the day when both this book here plus Bulletman 5 were seen as 2 of the classic Raboy must have books at the time back then. Sad to say, but they seen to have lost a lot of collector interest over the decades along with pretty much most of the other Fawcett related titles.

I remember being down at one of the SD Con's back in the day and saw a really nice looking CGC 9.0 graded Lost Valley copy of Master Comics 26. Just as I was about to plop down my money for the book, decided to take a walk over to Basement Comics and asked them to borrow a copy of their Lost Valley Catalogue. Noticed that the book was listed in their catalogues as a CGC 8.0 graded copy, so that kind of "seal" the deal for the Lost Valley Master 26 for me.

Come on, you people.................just went through this whole thread here and I still haven't seen anybody post their copies of Action 1 or 'Tec 27 yet.

Neither have I. Well, it looks like everybody else must also be following your strategy since it looks like nobody has really bidded in the past week. If not, then poor old @GreatCaesarsGhost just might get stuck with the "facejob" copy of Cap 3 at these bargain basement prices.

Well, not quite as strong as the 8.0 condition copy of Action Comics 1 that sold for $3.2M in 2014 or well before the GA explosion in prices.

Yes, looks like it finished up at $58K or pretty much where we had expected it to (see below) based upon the last several sales, as detailed below:

Wasn't the Marvel Comics 1 gone from the matketplace for well over a decade or something like that since its last prior sale? If so, the GA marketplace has definitely had an almost exponential change in valuation in that time period and it's really hard to tell what portion of that increase is due to the actual increase in the value of the book itself, as opposed to just the bump up in the grade then.

I actually don't know why consignors get some of these books even slabbed in the first place. Especially considering the fact that the slabbing costs for so many of them are higher than what they can sell the slabs for, even before the other ancillary costs associated with selling are added in.

Well, try telling that to the buyer of the CGC 9.0 graded copy of Action 13 who paid $156K to acquire it: and then managed to get it upgraded to CGC 9.2 which tied it as the highest graded copy, but then only managed to sell it for $166K a year later which no doubt represented a loss after taking in the ancillary slabbing and auction commission fees. My thinking is that a fresh to market CGC 9.2 graded copy would probably had fetch closer to $250K in the marketplace, especially considering that the CGC 9.2 graded Atlantic City copy was able to fetch $185K in a CC Event Auction way back in 2011 when the book was guiding for only $30K back then, as opposed to the current $190K top of guide valuation when the above copy sold for only $166K.

Ok I’m now the high bidder. Who’s got the brass to take it from me? Well, I am quite sure that Richard thanks you for your bid, but we all hope that there's still an extra zero in your max bid at the far right end just waiting to be activated.

Was you fast enough to be the lucky one to picke up that Wings 90 that 's on the copy of the Lost Valley Catalouge? I remember calling him once I received a copy of the catalogue and all I remember was his comment that the book was long gone by then.

Well, it looks like it has gone up by just one more bid increment some 10 days later at it is now sitting at $48K with less than 20 hours remaining. I guess it might just hit the $50K mark, but not siure how much more it will get after that as I guess only time will tell as the clock winds down.

I believe the Star Rangers 1 is actually tied with this book here as the first dedicated Western comic book as they both came out way back in February 1937:

So, are you saying that this book is going to sell for somewhere north of $60K or do you think the book might also be owned by the auction company, hence no auction commission fees either?

I would rather have the 6.5 any day. Not even close. Agreed. Whoever worked over that book is a person_too_unaware_of_social_graces. The Eldon 6.5 was beautiful, nothing wrong with it. Patinated with age, it presented an appreciation for natural preservation signified by time and the book's ability to stand its tests. Now recycled and remade. It exhibits an artificial look manufactured by a flipper who damaged the object of age with wantonness greed. Just wondering if anybody here can explain the financial rationale of taking one of these easily identifiable GA books and throwing in a bunch of expensive work onto your initial cost just to get a measly tiny 0.5 grade increment on the book? Especially when we have seen time and time again that this has definitely not paid off for whoever has decided to take this huge risk as GA collectors oftentimes don't tend to pay more for tiny grade increments, unlike some of the more recent BA and CA books where it's so much more about the grade. Since it's still sitting at under $10K, I highly doubt it's going to move up far enough to hit the $55,500 mark which he had to forked over for the book in the first place in one of the CC Event auctions back a couple of years ago. Especially when you have take into account all of the additional ancillary fees to get this done including the restoration costs, grading fees, HA commissions fees, etc.