lou_fine

That's why my bet is that most of these dealers probably didn't even have any of the key first issues in stock, let alone being able to fill your order if you asked them for multiple copies in the Number of Copies column which they had on their order form.

Perhaps the book is cooling off a tad or perhaps it's the economy. Well, from what I am reading here, has anybody considered the possibility the book might simply not present as visually nice relative to the technical grade assigned by CGC.

Was this a scan of the book through the CGC slab since it definitely looks like a sheet of plastic over your book? Does the back cover also have this same look? Maybe they hired the guy that used to take the scans for Heritage or got some scanning tips from the guys at Heritage.

Aye, and that lass has a lusty look in her eye Probably so because Overstreet's notes for this "rare" book says it's really all about the dog.

Looks like there's not much love for the GA books in this thread here. Anyways, did anybody nab this HTF Green Lantern book that doesn't tend to come into the marketplace very often: Absolutely love this cover with the anatomically impossibly drawn femme fatale in the yellow dress and must be an absolute keeper in most collectors' private collection as the last copy auctioned off on Heritage was back in 2014. Although there's already been 19 Universal unrestored copies on the CGC census, it's still listed as Rare in the Overstreet guide and probably more so in terms of grade as there's only one graded copy above the CGC 7.0 comdition level.

Oh ok cool, thanks brother for the information No problem and you definitely can't go wrong when it comes to those Dr. Fate and Spectre covers from the issues in the 50's and 60's.

Some good news for you here then as it looks like they have a few nice copies of More Fun coming up in the upcoming Heritage and CC auctions which you might find right down your alley then.

When I see your "beauty" of a book here in all its wonderful glory, it reminded me of exactly what was going through my mind in terms of "who in their frigging right mind would pay $300 smackers for that piece of garbage" when he handed me the TMNT 1 to take a look at. Especially at a time when collectible in demand books like Hulk 181, ASM 121 & 122 were valued at only around $20 in the guide back then. And yet, I then ended up paying $40 for the so-called Signed and Limited Edition of Miller's Dark Knight because I was a big fan of his brand of writing and artwork back then. Then again, I guess I was never really much of an underground type of guy who I couldn't ever see myself paying something like $690K for this piece of Crumb art that sold at the end of last year in one of the HA Signature Auctions: I guess I am just not a connoisseur of the intricate details of finer art, but then again, I imagine it's really a case of to each, their own.

Well, you never know...............even "relatively common" books which are certainly not scarce like Hulk 181, TMNT 1, goes up like crazy if the right demand factors are in place. Toss out a few rumors about a potential Geriatric Gerbils movie and watch as everyone's garbage will all of of sudden become everyone's treasure just like that.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with this statement here as I believe each of these auction houses have their own particular niche customer base. For example, I believe that Heritage clearly has the lead by far when it comes to the original art market. Yet, when it comes to certain comic books such as Action 1 or the high deman pre-Robin 'Tec books, I believe CC tends to be the market maker in this area. Now, if you are talking about CGC highest graded copies of more recent BA books (especially with links to movies and TV shows), I believe that CL tends to get the highest prices because that's where the CGC label collectors seems to hang around. I think in a lot of cases, it just happens to depend on your timing and also luck in terms of being able to get the right sets of eyeballs onto a particular book in an auction when it does come up for sale. I still think the $90K TMNT 1 result was more of an outlier than anything else, which is kind of confirmed as HA was able to follow this sale up with one for only $52.8K a few months later. Looks like CC was able to hit a slightly higher price point with their $59K BIN sale, although I still don't understand why the seller would want to take such a big hit on the book after paying $90K only several months earlier and also why he did not reconsign the book back with HA. I guess his pocket might not have been as deep as initially thought.

Hey, a book which I personally haven't seen before and it looks like you've got yourself a real winner here. Especially since there's only 2 graded copies of this beauty here and you've got the highest grade copy in the entire universe right here. Now, this is in the same category as Centaurs or some of the pre-hero GA DC books where there are less than a handful of graded copies after some 20 years of certification. Not so sure about the demand though. After seeing this, who wants a copy of TMNT 1 with graded copies already approaching the 1,000 mark in total, and over 30 copies also already graded to date at the CGC 9.8 condition level. Let's not forget the raw copies that's still sitting out there in private collections that has yet to cross the grading table. Just wait until these Geriatric Gerbils movie rumors hit the social media and they'll be scampering past the turtles and making them eat dust (value wise) just like that.

Yes, I sold a pair of Dazzler #1 and 2 for a lofty $1.50 at the last con. Sat on those treasure$ for about 40 years. Well, I certainly hope you managed to squeeze the buyer sucker for a buck fifty for each of them, or was it for both of them combined together?

Are you really seriously trying to tell me that I can finally recoup my money and get more than cover price for these smelly pieces doggie poo books?

Thank you for regaling us with the tale. I just wanted to needle you a bit because I know you don’t care for the book. Appreciate you playing along. Yeah, I'm still looking for the 'depressed' emoji. Sorry to hear that man, but gotta respect the honesty! Actually, not really that terrible or depressing at all as that was most likely back in the 1986/87 time period and the comic book market was completely different back then. That was when the squarebound copy of Avengers 93 with the gorgeous artwork by Neal Adams was still the big go to book to acquire for the BA and books like the Hulk 181 was still valued only in the $20+ price range in the guide and Spidey 129 was still waiting to be broken out since Spidey 121 & 122 were the ones to get. So, to even think of paying a whopping $300 or at huge multiples to top of guide guide to take a huge flyer on a book was just not being done at that point in time and definitely something that most collectors would not be rushing into. Especially on a B&W book from 2 unknown creators and an never heard of publisher was rather unimagineable at the time. Hence, no real regrets since I am pretty much 100% sure I would still have done the exact same thing if given the chance again if the same market circumstances were still in place. Of course, we all know about the B&W book & bust that would take place in the comic book marketplace during the ensuring few years after that. So, if anybody here wants to pay good money for first issue classics like Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Boris the Bear, Samurai Penguin, etc., be sure to let me know. Although I don't have any real regrets about the TMNT 1 non-purchase (except from a financial missed opportunity POV ), there would come another non-purchase deal a year or two later that I regretted the minute that I said No and still regret to this very day. Got a phone call from a power broker in the comic book marketplace who I had gotten to know since I had started to shift my interest from new books to GA after a brief flirtation with pre-hero GA books in the latter part of the 80's. Anyways, he calls to tell me that he had just picked up a supposedly uber HG set of Spidey 2 to 10 and that I could have it for the grand sum of only $1,000 which was around top of Mint guide price at the time or a bit under. The set had been compiled by a very well known collector (mostly GA) who had meticulously upgraded the set over the past 20 years whenever he found nicer copies of each issue. He told me that since I had arrived on the GA scene too late and had missed out on all of his Church Mile High keys (as if I could even had afforded them in the first place ) he thought that this might be a good buy going forward for me, especially considering that I was not a deep pocketed collector. Well, back then Marvel SA books including the keys had been sitting in the doldrums and going absolutely nowhere for most of the decade and in fact, had even dropped down in the guide for a year or so during those early years. Anyways, he told me that he would hold onto the books for me for about 10 days or so to give me time to think about it and to call him back with my answer. After about a week, I receive another call from him and he informed me that another one of his regular buyers with much deeper pockets had expressed interest in acquiring the set and he was wondering if I had made up my mind yet. Told him that I hadn't and would give him a call back in the next day or so with my answer which he didn't have an issue with. After thinking about it for a day or so and remembering his constant night time lectures on always collecting the highest grade possible and from the keys or first issues on outwards or else you'll never have any money left when the keys or real good quality books do come along, I decided to say NO since it did not have a Spidey 1 in the set. I somehow knew in the back of my mind that if I had the Spidey 2 - 10 set, I would end up trying my best to hunt down a Spidey 1 to complete the set and would most likely end up paying ridiculous money for it as it seem the SA Marvels keys and first issues were just starting to wake up from their decade long slumber in the deep freeze. Looking back now, I really should have been more flexible with my stupid rule as that would have been the perfect time to go into SA Marvels as history has now shown us, they would start their decades long ascent in the late 80's and haven't really looked back since. Definitely still have regrets to this day about this poor decision that I had made not so much from a missed financial opportunity point of view, since being a long term collector, I know that those books would still be in my personal collection and not sold off. Regrets really more from the collector's POV and fact that those issues would be the first appearances and origins for many of Spider-Man's key villians which I could have picked up in HG condition at a very rerasonable price point.

From Gocollect: Well, it's hard to say how accurate those fair market values would be since they have the CGC 9.8 graded copies listed at $80K , whereas the last 3 sales actually took place in the $50K to $60K price range.

Ok the scoop is that the $59K sale is legit, confirmed via phone with CC this morning as a consignment/BIN sale that ended on 4/30/20. It is the same book that sold last summer for $90K. Sooo...our last sales of 9.8's boil down to: $90K, 52.8K, 50K, 59K. Greatly appreciate you taking the time to call in and dig up all of this info for the rest of us lazy boardies like me. So, the timelime and venues for these 4 sales were: 1) $90K at HA in August 2019; 2) $52.8K at HA in November 2019; 3) $50K at CL in December; and 4) the $90K HA copy reselling for $59K at the end of April 2020 as a BIN consignment. Hmmm....................this more than confirms that the $90K Heritage sale back in August of 2019 was more of an outlier sale than anything else and also makes me wonder why the buyer was in such a hurry to sell it, especially at such a substantially lower price point. Probably had something to do with the current economic environment at the time, but I guess only the buyer/consignor would know. Thsi would then place the current value of a CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1 back into the $50K to $60K price range that most boardies suspect is where it is. Will be interesting to see if the current CL copy is able to hit its Reserve price (whatever that is) and I guess only time will tell. Now, this part doesn't make any legitimate sense to me at all since I thought he had told you that the book was sold and already paid for at a completed $79,950 price point. Definitely sounds a bit sketchy to me if he is poaching scans from other copies and then initiating completed "non sales" at substantially higher than market price points on eBay when nothing has actually been sold.

I believe most bidders wait until the end of the auction at the end of the week to pay for their winnings so that they can combined their payment charges into one payment only and also have only one combined shipping charge. I am sure your book will arrive safely into your hands very shortly though.

Well, if it's first appearances that turns your crank, then I would have much rather gone for this much higher graded File Copy of Famous Funnies #191 here: Sold last night for only $600 (or a fractional 1/8 of what's beeing asked for the ebay copy of FF 81) and featuring the first appearance of Barney Carr, Space Detective with what I feel is an absolutely gorgeous and far superior looking cover as compared to the Famous Funnies 81 asking for $4,800.

Did you asked for both books to be shipped separately since this would be extremely strange considering that they were won in the same "last" auction? Most auction winners wants to add in another book to their order so as to justify the shipping charges, aand yet you want to ship your 2 books as separate shipments.

Sorry - I didn't mean to come off defensive. No worries as I was more concerned that you might have gotten the impression that I was disparaging your book which was certainly not my intention at all with my post.

You certainly won't get any arguments from me with respect to CGC's rather not so well thought out multi-colored labelling system since I have always advocated for a unicolor labelling system implemented in conjunction with both a 10-point condition grading system and a 10-point restoration rating system right from the first day that I got here. Although they had good intentions with their multi-colored labelling system, like Borock admitted in the end, it most definitely resulted in a long of unintended negative consequences. Clearly one of the reasons why he implemented a uni-color labelling system when he started up the other grading company, but far too late by then as the horse was not only out of the barn by then, but already clear over the mountain as everybody was so used to having the multi-color labels by then that they couldn't understand anything else.

Just wait till they actually make a good movie or other sort of revival...this'll be a 100k book some day in the not too distant future. At that time I look forward to the retelling of the story of how you had a chance to buy a first print #1 cheap back in the day and passed on it... Why wait since I can ALREADY RIGHT NOW tell you the story of how I had a chance to buy a first print #1 issue back in the day and passed on it.......... Definitely a sad (at least for me), but unfortuantely true story for me. Fast backwards to about 1987 or thereabouts and I am at one of my LCS's hoping to snag a book that will one day go up and be worth a staggering $5 or so in the guide. The owner knows that I am looking for these kinds of books and asks me if I would like to order a Signed & Limited Edition Hardcover of the new Batman, the Dark Knight Returns by the red hot creator of the day, Frank Miller, for only $40. He then also hands me over a copy of some fugly looking book with the horrible looking underground type of art that I absolutely abhor and says that he has the book on hold for a customer of his. He tells me that he can order another copy for me right from the creators themseves for the out of this universe price of only $300. I flip open the book and take a look at the crude really fugly interior artwork and hand it back to him immediately, thinking at the same time that he must think I am a total looney bin if he thinks I would pay him $300 smackers for a piece of crapola like that. Then again, maybe he was offering me $300 to take this atomic smelly piece of doggie poo poo out of his store and dispose of it for him somewhere safe and sound. Well, knowing me and the el Cheapo guy that I am and being a big fan of Miller's writing and artwork at the time, I ended up getting the Signed & Limited Edition of the Dark Knight book and one that I would probably still not be able to recoup my original price that I had paid for the book some 30+ years ago. And of course, we all know what happened to the value of the TMNT #1 first print that I passed on for only $300 and probably one that I would continue to pass on to this day if I didn't know its real value. Definitely one of the books that I missed out on in terms of not buying back in the day, but not one that I actually think much about since it's not really a book that I care for and there's been other bigger deals that I had sadly passed on.

Perish the thought..........are you guys really trying to say that over overpricing takes place on eBay. Haven't really seen it myself, although I was noticing that Heritage just auctioned off a large number of CGC graded copies of Famous Funnies in the graded in the 9's for something like $100 to $150 a pop, and then came across this very tempting listing on eBay here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Famous-Funnies-81-Eastern-Color-April-1941-CGC-5-5-Off-White-to-White-Pages/254446520492?hash=item3b3e31c8ac:g:jzwAAOSwBxdd1FDC Looks like this enticing copy here can be yours for the bargain basement price of only $4,800 smackers as compared to its condition guide value of $93. Thinking seriously of hitting the BIN button right now before some other hungry bidder spots it and snaps this little beauty right out of my hands.

From what I can see from their Restoration Grading Scale here, I don't seem to see "leafcasting" under the Restoration umbrella: Restoration Repairs Color touch Piece replacement Re-glossing Paper bleaching Married pages or cover Unless it's buried and hidden there under the not so market and buyer friendly terminology of "Piece Replacement"?

Didn't mean to say anything negative about your book here as it looks like it is going to be an absolutely gorgeous copy that would look good in any collector's personal collection. The only thing that I am really questioning here is CGC's seeming ongoing and shifting changes to their Restoration and Conservation definitions and sometimes apparent inconsistency in the application of their colored labels. Then again of course, it's always possible that it's just me and I simply don't understand all of the finer nuances behind their grading system, while everybody else here has a crystal clear understanding of it.