lou_fine

. . . said nobody, ever Well then, I assume you must also be busy like me right now, rushing to pack up all of my GA goodies before their Friday deadline just so I can consign them in time for their big Event Auction whereby they can use all of the other existing copies from their deep deep inventory gathered over the decades to help promote our consigned books for us. Or even better yet, if we ask nicely, they might even provide potential bidders with automatic links to the same books from other competing auction houses like CL, HA, etc. in order to provide bidders with a even more complete picture of what is available to them before placing a bid on your consigned book.

WTF: The consignors are really going to love this one here as it's just totally screwy from an auction website point of view. Unlike Heritage which has links to prior sales for the same book, if you click onto any of the auction lots, it will have a list of the same book or other similar copies that Metro or CC has available for sale from its current inventory. Not only is this using your consigned book to promote other copies which they have sitting in their inventory, but it also sets a cap on how much your copy will be able to achieve as it's really linking any potential bidders to all available competing copies of your consigned book. With this automatic built-in competing feature linked to all auction books, I simply don't see any reason why potential consignors would want to consigned their books to CC going forward, unless they want a cap to be put in place on their books based upon available competing copies.

Is anybody else also receiving these spam emails from CC saying that due to continuing last minute requests from consignors, they are extending the deadline for acceting consignments for thie May Event Auction? Seems rather strange to me since I thought this first Event Auction after their disasterous website revamp was supposed to be only for non-consigned books. At first, the new acceptance deadline was for Monday April 20th and now it looks like it has been extended to this coming Friday April 24th. Really doesn't make much sense to me since this May Event Auction is scheduled to start next Monday on April 27th and I can't figure how they can slot anything new in there when they don't even have their current 2,267 lots loaded into the system in aplha order yet.

Looks like it was at the bottom of the 2019 list for last year and got demoted off the list for this year to make way for well-deserved up and comers like Cap 3 and 'Tec 35. Cap 3 is a definite sure fire chart buster as it continues to sell at big multiples to guide in all grade levels across the entire condition spectrum, even in restored grades.

A big huge shout out to our very own tall Texan (i.e. @MrBedrock ) who made the decsion to Mannup for his employees during this time of the pandemic crisis: https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2020/04/07/how-one-houston-retailer-has-avoided-layoffs.html Instead of taking the easy way out by either laying off or furloughing his employees, it looks like Richard took the high road and he's going to retain and continue to pay for all 32 of them throughout his various stores. According to the article, Richard states that "I'm not letting anybody go; (my employees are) big assets to me". Looks like Richard had the foresight to see what was coming and was wise enough to take an advance against his inventory and also one from an auction house for vintage comics normally targeted for comic conventions since it's almost a guarantee that we won't be having any for this coming convention season. Well done Richard, and a whole ton of respect here for placing your employees over and above your own personal business interests.

Mind boggling... This is why I don't really pay much attention to CL auctions since I figure that if you really want to win a book, you usually have to throw in stratospheric bid in order to beat out the snipers that might pop in at the end. Then again, if I had the highest graded copy of a relatively common book other than for its uber highgrade, I certainly know where i would auction it off since CL would appear to be the go to site for all of the CGC label collectors who's willing to pay through the teeth to acquire a label that they want.

you're right. That's exactly how it looks . . . https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/sub-mariner-comics-32-timely-1949-cgc-fn-vf-70-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7229-92075.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515 I guess you are referring to this copy of Subby 32 here: Just wondering how do you know that the book was sent in for grading by Heritage and not by somebody else? As for the rest of your comments with respect to the grading it looks like you are spot on here. Maybe it's a case of paying your dues and since the book has by now gone through CGC at least 3 times, they probably figured it deserves a break when it comes to the grading.

I guess you must be referring to the little bump that Bug's foot is about to step on here: Now, that would most definitely take it out of the assigned CGC 9.2 grade range.

Makes me wonder which ones of these CGC label buyers will be the least unhappy going forward, say 5 short years from now: 1) The buyer on this 2nd highest 9.6 graded copy of MSH 13 for $31,111; 2) The buyer of the CGC 9.8 graded copy of Hulk 181 for $59,000; 3) The buyer of the CGC 9.8 graded copy of Fantastic Four 52 for $90,000; 4) The buyer of the CGC 9.9 graded copy of Tomb of Dracula 10 for $85,000; or 5) The buyer of the CGC 9.8 graded copy of Eternals 13 for something like $4,100?

Personally I tend to agree. I think it has quite a bit of room to grow. Well, looks like even with a hugely sucessful movie, the book still seem to follow the ususal movie hyped book with all of the speculators jumping off and trying to offload their copies, as evident by this post here:

Well, not to start up the old once again, but definitely a lot more than a Hulk 181 in equivalent CGC 9.6 graded condition.

Oh.......much better taste!!!

Well, if it's the Peanuts 1 you are after, it's just a matter of biding your time and waiting for the right one to come along at your desired price since this book seems to have been showing up on a rather consistent basis in auctions over the past few years.

Don't see a Master Comics 3 here, but I do see a Master Comics #4 in this auction here. Took a quick look at the HA archives and noticed that they had sales for both Master 2 and Master 4 (not these 2 specific copies) a few times within the past couple of years. Interesting to note that each time they came back into the marketplace, they ended up selling for lower and rather significantly lower than the first time each of them sold for back in May of 2018.

Yes indeed, looks like a pretty solid run of the very early WD Comics & Stories here.......and yet they are missing the key issue #31 with the start of the Barkd DD run.

I was just about to bid on this copy here when I realized that CGC also has a 9.9 condition grade level. I guess I am just going to have to wait one more iteration when it comes back out as a CGC 9.9 graded copy because then it would be all ready, set, and go for a perfect 10 which is what I really want for my copy of Gang Busters 1.

Full disclosure might mean describing it thusly: "One of a kind at this point in time. No guarantees about tomorrow (or a half hour from now)." Yet surprisingly, it still seems to work so well after all these long years. Just look at the irrational and crazy extra money that some buyers will pay for an otherwise relatively common book just because it is that one tiny notch higher that it can now be called "the highest graded copy" at this moment in time. Then again, I guess it's really a case of to each, their own.

The best time to buy is when there's a big sale on an item, and especially when everybody's selling so that you can take your time and have your pick of the litter.

His advice on AF15 was pretty good. That book went through a ton of growth. Well, although AF 15 (especially for the non uber HG copies) has certainly gone up quite a bit over the past few years, it should be pointed put that Mirch's price predictions for this book was off by a long shot in terms of millions of dollars. It would appear that he most likely based his prediction upon the CGC 9.6 graded copy of AF 15 that sold for $1.1M back in early 2011 and probably thought that prices for HG copies would continue to move up from there. Turns out that $1.1M sale was much more of an outlier and prices for lower graded copies over the next few years simply did not support that $1.1M price point. Perfect example being the CGC 9.4 graded copy that just sold last month for only $795K which is a far cry from Mitch's prediction of $4M for a CGC 9.4 graded copy by 2020. Not even sure if this was an actual sale since there's talk that the book was actually purchased by the owner or consignor of this 9.4 copy. It would appear that Mitch must have been a big Spidey fan as he also had Spidey 1 as one of his Top 5 books by 2020. For me, I would most certainly have Batman 1 ahead of a Spidey 1 due to the sheer number of copies. To tell you the honest truth, I would even have a book like Pep 22 ranked higher than a Spidey 1 since the Pep 22 is a first appearance while the Spidey 1 is not a first appearance. Okay, true rarity also comes into play here for sure. Then again, maybe it's just me since I've always been an Archie fan from even before the mid-90's when the spandex super hero books moved past my price range.

The prices were off, but the advice was spot on, hold do not sell on any of those books and it paid off big time. Hey Mitch; Nine short years later, do you have any changes in your Top 5 in terms of either additions/deletions, or change in your ranking order? On another point from that article, what was the "odd ball" Mickey Mouse book that you apparently paid $5K for at the time and the one you valued at $5K in your Mehdy Price Guide?

As a long time collector, I am definitely much more interested in spending time in the market, as opposed to trying to time the market.

I hate to break the bad news to you guys here, but when it comes to CCG, it is a business after all, and as such it really is all about the money in terms of the top line and the bottom line. You have to remember the Murphy Anderson Pedigree was launched at the same time as 4 other pedigrees and was done to promote CGC's brand spanking new pedigree label at the time. If you think the Murphy Anerson books were truly not pedigree worthy, you should have seen some of the other ones that they also decided to designate as pedigrees at the same time. All I'll say is that those collections were of rather a very large size and no doubt CGC should get a whole ton of money to keep the boys at CCG happy by having collectors turn in mid-grade books by the thousands so that they can sit in those brand spanking new slabs with the nicely colored pedigree label.

In today's marketplace, $6K really doesn't sound like that much when it comes to collectible comic books and yet they were already willing to drop the SP completely!!! Makes me wonder how much more it would take for them to start giving you back some of the BP juice then?

Well, from your comment here, I would take it that you do indeed own a copy of Action Comics #1, just not the one in the story with the big writeup. As long time collectors like to do, they usually tend to go for upgrades, so I would assume the one you own is most probably nicer than the first one you had brought from Theo for $1,801.26. The only question I have is whether it is possibly nicer than the Church copy that the Dentist owns? BTW: From that price you had paid, I guess Theo must have been a real penny picher if he was not willing to go down by even a $1.26 on your purchase of the Action 1.

I don't think that statement is limited just to the last 15 years. The same could be said of prices 50 years ago..1970. We have been on a step-ladder of price increase ever since the Overstreet Guide was first published, and even before if you had access to GA at a local bookstore it still cost you some money. Although I always expected GA keys/semi-keys and classic cover books to continue to increase in price over time, I assume this would be mostly for books in grade. Yet, if you take a look at some of the auction results over the past few years for these GA keys, classic covers, and HTF in-demand books, they have actually increased percentage wise the most in lower more affordable grades. I still remember back in the day, when collectors would not pay big money for books in low grade or entry level reading condition, but clearly now this is no longer the case as rising prices or lack of supply has caused many of these low grade copies to also sell for multiples to condition guide which is something that would never have happened in the old days. Definitely a sign of strength in the marketplace whn a book can sell for multiples to guide in all grades across the entire condition specturm, and even more so for the few that can also do it in restored condition.