lou_fine

Since I didn't have time to watch any of the live auctions from yesterday, is it anymore confusing than what they had in the ast with respect to their extended auction bidding windows?

The part I don't understand is that they should have tons of books ready for consignment for their next Event Auction after all this time. Especially in light of the fact that virtually all of the books in this current Event Auction were supposedly for their own non-consigned books only, as a test of their website in action. So, they should in theory have been building up their auction consignment inventory for the past 6 months or thereabouts. Then again, it seems that Heritage is also in the process of agressively chasing down books for their ever increasing number of auctions, so I guess there's lots of competition for quality books.

Fantastic pick-up here as you can never go wrong with anything related at all to an original copy of Action 1. Are you going to try and piece the whole Superman first appearance story from Action 1 together now?

I say it won't Just took a much closer look at the scans for both of these books and I think you are most probably correct in your assessment here. It would appear that the CC copy was graded back in 2013 and appears to be slightly more loosely graded as compared to the HA copy graded this current year. Hey Peter; Looks like we were both correct in our assessment here, but just by a the skin of our teeth as it came in at the $177K price point or just a few grand short of Heritage's $180K price point acheived at the end of last month.

Yep, looks like the AMF Centaurs did alright in the end with all of them (save for the AMF V2 #12 at a 29% premium to guide) finishing up at not only big multiples to condition guide, but with the last 2 issues rocketing past their previous price points when they sold in the big Jon Berk Auction a few years ago: This issue here got bidded up to $3,300 or 3.3X condition guide from where it was earlier in the day and noticeably more than the $1,938 it fetched in the Berk Auction; While this copy here sold for an astounding $4,100 or 4.8X condition guide even w/o receiving any additional extended bids and significantly more than the $1,676 it fetched in the Jon Berk Auction.

No, looks like it actually went for $76K as I assume the next bid would have taken it to the $77K price point: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/868929 If I am correct which I might not be, it would appear that this book like many of the others in this auction here, didn't get to experience any of those wild 3-minute extended bidding sessions that we have become accustomed to in prior CC Event Auctions.

Well, at least the HA one tonight is limited only to the original art portion and not also to the comic books. I still remember a couple of times last year when CL would run their comic book auctions on the same overlapping days as the big CC Event auctions.

Yes, it's in the CC archives as per the following link: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/774946 This one here is NOT the Court Copy, as it is a different copy graded slightly higher at a grade of CGC 3.5.

Well, the one recent hot area that I do expect to see some kind of letdown would be in the more recent BA market in terms of the highly speculative, but relatively common movie related books. Especially with the postponement of all of these big super-hero franchise movies and the fact that most movie goers would probably not want to be sitting for a few hours in movie theatres any time soon.

At first glance, this would appear to be the case if you take a look at the HA archives, but then again, maybe not so much considering that CC was able to fetched $107K for this copy here back at the end of 2018 in one of their CC Event Auctions:

Well, looks like first day of the supposedly big CC Event Auction is scheduled to start hitting the 3-minute buzzer in a few short hours from now and everything seems to be a lot quieter than normal. Not sure if it's to do with their new auction website design or the current bad economic times we seem to be in (although you certainly can't tell from the stock markets ), but prices still appear to be on the low side for now, except for the odd books like this one here which is already at $67K with the extended bidding still to go: Looks like the Centaurs in the form of the later Amazing Mystery Funnies are still running red hot for now at multiples to condition to guide already with several hours still to go, and definitely not suffering much in this current negative business environment to date so far.

Interesting to note that during these tumultous economic times, a pair of game-worn Michael Jordon running shoes were still able to fetch a record $560K at auction or almost 4X the pre-auction high estimate. Even more confounding is to take a look at the stock markets and see that they are still continuing to climb to somewhere within 10% of their pre-Coronavirus record highs and even much closer if you are looking at the Nasdaq. Especially shocking and seemingly irrational in an economic business environment where most of the businesses are either still closed or nowhere even close to pre-Coronavirus operating mode. So, who's to say with all of this current irrational positivity in the collectibles and investing side of the economy, that we should really expect this huge pending crash to take place in the vintage GA/SA comic book marketplace?

When I did a pedigree search on GPA, there were very few titles represented (realizing that only records sales from those sites it receives data). Below are the titles and when I went through, usually only one issue from that title showed (e.g., Batman #35 is the only issue in 9.0, Boy Commandos #7 in 8.5, and so on). I went through the Heritage archives under Cookville and the highest graded copies which I could find were 9.0 graded copies of Batman 35, Supes 41, Smash 63, and then everything else lower graded after that. It would appear that the last set of pedigrees which CGC designated for pedigree status last summer such as the Cookville, Eldon, and Harold Curtis would most probably all fail their old key and supposedly most important criteria for pedigree designation by a long shot, namely "the collection must be high-grade". Any idea if this means that this once former key requirement is now no longer required in order to obtain pedigree status from CGC?

On the topic of the Cookville pedigree collection, is anybody here aware of any copies that have graded out in the CGC 9.4 and above grade range?

That, and the Kane signature has gone from “writing on cover” to Verified That's because CGC only provides a Signature service whereby the book needs to be signed in front of a CGC witness, whereas the competition provides the same authorized witness signature service. The competition, on the other hand, also goes one step further by providing an additional Signature Verification Service whereby they certify the authenticity of unwitnessed signatures. CGC treats the unwitnessed signature as "writing on cover", but I am not sure if they treat it as a defect which would then end up lowering the condition grade of the book.

Strongly doubt that he'll be getting anywhere close to the starting bid of $175K for that copy there, especially with the notorious Bob Kane's signature on it. Now, if it was Bill Finger's authentic signature on the book instead, it would stand a much better chance then.

CBCS Brittle That actually sounds like a rather surprisingly strong price for a 1.5 graded copy from the competition, especially for one with the much dreaded Brittle pages. Then again, it looks like Heritage was able to auction off an entry level CGC 1.0 graded copy with OW pages for $15,600 just last summer.

Speaking of daily spam mail, looks like I finally got one yesterday with a picture of one of the few nicer GA books in an Event Auction that definitely seems to be a bit on the light side for the vintage GA comic book collector: For me, this first issue here with the Quinlan cover seem to laid the groundwork and a hint of what was to come a couple of issues later with the classic Schomburg cover. It will be interesting to see what this issue of Suspense Comics 1 goes for next week in light of Mitch's @Mmehdy Coronavirus doomsday forecast for GA books, especially since this book usually always tends to sell for a nice healthy multiple to condition guide.

Were these books which you had ordered after this whole Coronavirus fiasco started back in March? If so, my bet is that it's most likely due to the Stay At Home order which is in place for NYC, as I heard that everybody is basically working from home except for Vinnie and one other person. Maybe, that's why we are getting bombarded with spam mail from them on an almost daily basis since Vinnie is probably getting totally bored to death sitting in the office pretty much by his lonesome self. I certainly wouldn't think that Vinnie is much of a packaging and shipping expert if you really expect him to do that type of work while everybody else in the shipping department is either furloughed or whatever status they are on.

That's only because all of the Everett hackers got booted into the sin bin after the Everett vs. Fine debacle.

Of course the chances would be slim to none. Especially since if the book was really an unread NM Gem copy, they would have gotten the book slabbed themselves. Like the old saying goes........if something seems too good to be true, it most likely is. Hence, be forewarned as you would most definitely be proceeding at your own risk here.

The question which I have here is if you want to own a slabbed book based upon all of the after purchase work you seem to be doing in your scenbario here, why in the world would you even buy a raw book in the first place? And if you do, shouldn't a rational person also then take all of these additional costs into consideration, especially in a snake infested marketplace venue like eBay? As to your second point, if you had brought a book that was already graded and slabbed by CGC, would you be anymore aware that the book might have already had its potential maximized and you might similarly be throwing your money away for a service (i.e. pressing & cleaning) that is completely unnecessary and a total waste of your money.

Really, no difference at all if the seller is the person who brought the book and then KNOWINGLY had it manipulated into a higher grade and then attempting to sell it without disclosing this critical piece of information to the bidding public. The old argument that there is absolutely no need for disclosure since nobody cares if a book has been pressed or not simply doesn't hold water anymore. This irrational argument is really nothing more than a spin used by scammers since they clearly should know full well by now that many people in the marketplace want only books that are completely unrestored and not manipulated in any kind of fashion.

Now, this is definitely a much smarter strategy on your part when it comes to selling books with some kind of value to them. As long as you don't go overboard like some submittors here and start sending in brand new books that just arrived on the shelves of your LCS last week.

Well, let's hope so then. Although the only problem here is that the buyer might possibly end up with a neg on his rating if the seller gives one to him for not paying on a completed auction.