lou_fine

From checking out the other earlier thread, it looks like it was @Moondog who had posted these photos here. Looking at that cabinet though, I highly doubt that it could hold thousands of books as many had speculated in terms of the overall size of the collection.

Well, all I can say is that I'd more than be happy and ecstatic to take this Mutt and Jeff off anybody's hands if they are turfing it out:

Tell me about it. So, are you really trying to tell me that even poor old Mickey and Dickie with his futuristic Apple watch won't even be worth as much as a roll of toilet paper in this pandemic driven future of ours?

But the next episode of the scorching red hot Stargirl TV show coming out tomorrow is entitled "Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite". So best if you take your copies of All-American 25 and Adventure Comics 48 & 61 and jack them up like there's no tomorrow.

Reminds me of the time I was at the Diamond Int'l Galleries Grand Opening way back in the mid-90's and a bunch of old time collectors were marvelling and talking about Geppi's extensive collection of HG BLB's. When one of them mentioned the HC edition of the Big Little Mother Goose Book, all of their eyes seem to open up and they suddenly became a lot more interested. Somehow though, I think a BLB book like this would fall more into the latter group while more well known and recognized characters like the Mickey Mouse and Tracy BLB's would fall into the former group.

Well, I am sure that the CGC and GPA generation of speculators and day traders always have a big laugh when they think of poor old slow Bob who they claim is just so out of touch with reality and the current marketplace. Ask any long time dealer, auction house, or seasoned collector and virtually all of them will tell you how much they appreciate Overstreet's steadying influence and nuturing valuations in guiding the vintage collectible books on an ever upward trend over the past 50 years. Much better than the Wizard approach to price guide valuations (i.e. proactive price setting) where they were caught with their undies down around their ankles on several different occasions when they came out with $20+ valuations on supposedly new scorching hot books, only to have them not even hit the shelves of the LCS's that month due to missed deadlines.

That is insane... Yes indeed, as you might be crying your eyes out long ago if you had paid good money to these 2 guys for their books. Especially since they were notorious not only for overgrading, but also undisclosed restoration on virtually all of their books if they even had the early issues in the first place. Not sure about trimming, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me in the least with these 2 rather infamous so-called dealers from back in the day.

I am not sure about your reasoning here, so can you please explain why:

How much is that CGC 9.8 graded copy of DC's Shadow #1 worth nowadays? Any bets that the buyer is not running all the way to the bank with his profits after paying $2,500 after buying into all that hype from CGC during their first couple of years that graded comics were worth so much more than raw comics.

When I saw this , this was the first thing that came to my mind:

You wish!!! Seriously though, I imagine it would really depend on what types of book you are picking up nowadays. Just think back some 30 odd years ago when speculators and collectors were snapping up all of those B&W books and Wizard yyped so-called hot Valiant and Image books with some of them going for $20 to $50 or even triple digits as soon as they were hitting the newsstand and see if you can recover your money for them nowadays some 30 years later. Any bets that speculators paying silly money for CGC 9.8 graded copies of supposedly hot recent books and variants nowadays will probably not be getting all of their money back in 20 years from now when there are multiple more copies all dressed at 9.8 and some even at 9.9 condition levels as the years go by.

Well, according to the stories I heard back then, it was all because of Lisa Marie. This little tidbit from last year seems to confirm this: Nicolas Cage filed for a divorce from Lisa Marie Presley on 25 November 2002, two days after his premiere for his movie Adaptation with Meryl Streep, which he attended with Lisa Marie on 23 November 2002. Their marriage lasted approximately 108 days. The divorce was finalized in 2004. The divorce proceedings lasted longer than the marriage itself. They never lived together as they could not agree where they wanted to live. He said that Lisa Marie Presley was extremely jealous and controlling, she made him sell his huge comic book collection , which he regretted. He said he should have stood up for himself. I guess old Nic wasn't as tough as how the movies made him out to be.

We are likely screwed then Yes, it would appear that most countries are afraid of a second wave of this deadly virus hitting them again. Heard that certain sections of Bejing is heading back into a lockdown again as they had something like 50 new cases during the past few days after supposedly having none for almost 2 months. And yet, some places in America and throughout the other parts of the world are starting to reopen even with more new cases every day than when they first went into lockdown, or even as new daily cases are at a record high.

FYI: I believe this upcoming Event Auction is scheduled to end sometime in August and the WW1984 movie was scheduled to be released on August 14th, but just announced this morning that it has now been postponed to October 2 of this year. Absolutely no hype with any of these movies right now because who really wants to be locked in a theatre with possible asymptomatic people sitting in close proximity to you for a couple of hours.

Totally agree with you in terms of CGC's apparent inconsistency here with regards to Trimming for individual single pages. Especially when the trim on the Universal Batman 1 page cuts right into the storyline and the word ballons, whereas the soc-called Trimmed Cap 1 page does not. Then again, maybe it's just due to a change in CGC's policy in the interim, as the Cap page was graded in September 2019 while the Batman page was graded in December 2019.

So you're saying that Heritage is being gamed? That's what has to be happening based on your theory. All because a picture appears similar to you. An eBay completed sale can be faked. But Heritage??? Lol, you are smoking some good stuff Extremely sad to see that you keep seeming to misunderstand my post as nowhere in there was I saying the Heritage completed auction was being gamed. Especially since the Heritage completed auction was back in August of 2019 and the eBay auction that is in question was just completed a few days ago on June 10th. So, I don't see why you would think Heritage is the one that is gaming the system in this particular situation here. I am stating that the completed eBay auction for $79,950 is clearly fraudulent as the scammer simply stole the front cover scan from the CC $85K BIN listing and then stole the back cover scan from the HA $90K auction listing. Just dont want any potential bidders to end up incorporating this obviously fraudulent eBay sale for $79K if they are thinking of bidding on the CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1 that is listed in the current CL Auction scheduled to end in a few short weeks from now on July 7th. Just noticed on the TMNT 1 thread on the CA Forum that Masterchief with his usual top of the game scanning analytical skills has also come to the exact same conclusion with respect to this supposedly "completed" eBay transaction:

I am not going to name names but 20% of the Vancouver, BC area LCS are ready to fall. Location, location, location. GAC Vancouver is not going to pick up any suburban subscribers unless they work downtown since folks scared to take busy skytrain and crowded buses to the core due to Covid. Maybe it's been awhile since I've travelled to the various LCS's throughout the city, but I can think of only four shops in the surrounding municipalities and you would have to go pretty far out into the boonies before hitting the 5th and 6th ones after that?

Like I told you on the copper age forum, they are different copies: Ebay's copy for $79 K that just sold and the $90K version from last summer on Heritage. Different CGC numbers. Why are you pushing this? Glad to see that you agree with me that the eBay copy supposedly "sold" for $79,950 is the same as the CC $85K BIN copy since their front cover scans indicate they both have the same serial number. Also glad that you agree with me that the Heritage copy that sold for $90K is a completely different copy since it has a different CGC serial number. The part that I find rather confusing and highly suspicious then is why the back cover scan for the $79K eBay copy is clearly the same as the back cover scan for the $90K HA copy, as clearly evident by the matching tell tale minute details on both of the back cover scans? Only reason I am asking is this clearly appears to be the topic of this thread here in terms of possible GPA market manipulation through the use of potential fraudulent listings or so-called "completed" transactions that never ever even actually took place.

Perhaps CC just hasn't been notified to remove it from their site yet. (?) -J. Clearly aware that the front cover scan for the $79K eBay copy has the same front cover scan and serial number as the CC BIN copy for $85K. The part that I find rather confusing then and highly suspicious is the fact that the back cover scan for the $79K eBay copy appears to be the exact same back cover as the $90K HA copy, as clearly evident from matching tell tale minute details for both of the back cover scans. So, the only way this could happen from my own personal point of view is the seller taking a front cover scan from the CC copy and then taking a back cover scan from the HA copy to come up with the eBay copy for his so-called "completed" sale. The other possibility which I find highly doubtful is that the buyer of the $90K HA copy would decide to take a highly irrational and unconscionable risk by attempting an unsuccessful CPR on an already highest graded copy of a $90K book and then decide to cut their loss by listing it as a BIN on CC for $85K and finally on eBay for the completed sale at $79K.

I don't believe the Mods would allow me to spell it properly. Then again, I never really tried.

Well, based upon this graph above, would this suggest that Direct editions should then be rarer for books published prior to the 80's and therefore in theory, should be worth more than their Newsstand counterpart?

Metropolis Comics does not do that. From your comment here, it sounds as though you actually believe that all of the other auction houses and major comic book dealers would do this on a consistent basis?

+1 probably due to the stress of whether his landlord will apply for the Canada fed rent rebate to cover 75% of his monthly lease effective June 1, 2020. If not, the LCS will likely run out of cash flow and be forced to close in a few months with no comicons to dump overstock at. Other LCS is extending his 1/2 price bin stock sale from 1 week to 3 weeks to cover his full monthly rent. Which one of the LCS's are you referring to here since there's not really that many of them left here in the city? The big one here in the downtown city centre doesn't really have that much of a bin stock to speak of, or is this where they are going to win out in the long run by scooping up all of the comic book customers as the other shops close down as this virus continues on?

Was over on the CA Forum and just wondering if this would be an example of market manipulation here with respect to this supposed sale of TMNT for something almost $80K? Hard for me to tell since I am not any kind of experts with scans and all that, but that back cover of the eBay copy that just sold sure looks exactly the same as the back cover for the $90K copy that Heritage had sold last year.

A convincing recovery isn't likely to take shape until there's a safe, reliable, readily available Covid-19 vaccine. Remember that phrase from Alan Greenspan about irrational exuberance because it sure seem that way in the markets until today, especially with the S&P appraoching record highs and the Nasdaq blowing through their record highs to cross 10K during the past week. Especially considering this was all taking place with Covid-19 hitting a new daily global record for new cases just earlier this week. Coupled this with the fact that real unemployment is most likely well over 20% with virtually the entire economy still operating at 50% along with borders still closed. Clearly the markets seem to be ignoring the realities of the economy while everybody with their stimulus checks were probably trying their hand at day trading the market. Watched a bit of CNBC today and they said that the bottom 20 (or something like that) of the Russell 2000 returned about 81% during the big increase last week, while the top 20 on the Russell returned something like only 5% during the same time frame. Heck, even a real company with no revenues at this time like Norwegian Cruise Lines returned something like 71% last week before taking a big hit today. I really really should learn to day trade instead of treating it like a comic book collection where I just buy and hold. If the markets were to reflect what's really happening to our economy, the curve should really start to look like an inverted "V" with a very long protruding tail to represent the slow recovery from this Coronavirus.