lou_fine

Yep. The seasonal flu doesn't cause massive disruptions to supply chains and end markets like this new strain is doing. The world will probably print negative GDP in Q1. Chinese GDP will be down quarter-on-quarter. Japan will print a second consecutive quarter of negative GDP growth (the technical definition of a recession). US GDP growth will have a 1-handle at best. Unfortunately, I would agree with you here, but at the same time, isn't this really simply being caused by an overreaction to a new virus strain which we don't have a handle on yet. Of course, this panic and fear is totally understandable given the fact that we are almost provided with minute to minute updates on the number of Corona Virus cases and deaths around the world by the news media and social platforms. Makes me wonder how much more fear and disruptions to the supply chain would have taken place if they had done body counts at the top of the news every hour for the 45 million Americans that caught the seasonal flu and the 61,000 associated deaths that occurred last year.

For all of the uber HG OCD collectors, have you ever considered the possibility that this video IS ALREADY showing them taking extra care with a high dollar value book? Especially when we can't see what they are doing behind closed doors when they are under the gun grading thousands of virtually worthless low dollar value books that just hit the shelves of the LCS's last week.

Was this auction sale back in December of 2018 ever completed when it was all said and done? Just wondering because when I go to click onto the completed auction link, it takes me to this CC BIN asking price of $150K instead: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/752902

Are you seriously trying to tell speculators who spend tons of money playing the CPR game and buyers who pay multiples more for a CGC 9.8 graded copy of a book as compared to a CGC 9.6 graded copy, that whoever can flip the pages the fastest on a book is the one that is the best at grading and knows the most about what he is doing? BTW: I believe he was only flipping through the book to count the pages and not grading the book. At least I hope so, because if he was doing both at the same time in this little video here, that would definitely be a real cause for concern.

Have you ever bothered to pay and checked some of the Graders Notes for books that you are interested in bidding on? It's amazing how much emphasis is being placed on spine stresses and non-color breaking creases identified in every little portion of the book. Now I guess we know where some of them are coming from. No worries though and definitely no appearance of a conflict of interest here , since these can be easily taken care of if you are willing to kick some extra money in the direction of their sister company and then pay them all over again to have the book regraded a second time.

Any bets that if this was a HG copy of a book in the 9.4 to 9.6 grade range to start, there's probably a good chance it would drop below that grade range by the time they finished counting the pages if it was handled in the exact same fashion.

Well, just checked the Heritage archives and it looks like this is ddfinitely an insanely high price as it's more than double what copies have sold for in the past.

you know better than to quote guide! gpa on a 3.0 is $312 in 9/2018 Well, this is definitely good to know since I just realized why this particular cover looks so familiar, as it seems like I have a relatively HG copy of this book here. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the same kind of money when it comes time to sell it, as these lower valued GA books often sells based more upon availability, as opposed to strict condition grades.

So, I guess you are saying that Jay Parrino would have made big time money on this Pay Copy if he had held it long enough. Instead, he ended up losing big time money on it when he resold it back to Geppi for a few hundred thousand or thereabouts less than what he had paid Geppi to acquire it in the first place.

Soooo... the sale of ONE book now determines the health of the market?!? Definitely not the case, although books like AF 15 and Hulk 181 have often been used in the past as an indicator of how the market is going. It's just that books like these are seen as bellweather books when they seem to be going up in value, so it's only fair to indicate when they are also plateauing or going down in value.

I guess that's becasue I have a copy of the guide, but no subscription to GPA since I am mostly interested in GA books which don't tend to sell often enough to get a valid representative sample of prices. What does this beautiful red Phantom Ace cover copy show for in GPA: For what it's worth, mid-grade condition guide value of only $33 or thereabouts, and yet sold for huge multiples as it sold for $900 with the BP juice in there.

Based upon your post here, so I flip over to the Heritage Auction to find the first 4 books being Ace Comics with the Phantom covers and guess what: This copy here with a condition guide price of under $25 ends up seling for $432;, with the other 3 Phantom Ace copies also selling for big multiples to condition guide.

Where have you seen the other covers? I’ve been trying to find them. Yes, I haven't seen any of the other covers for this coming year's edition so far? This McFarlane cover is definitely far better than the Price Guide covers from the past several years, with the only exception being the beautiful Sgt. Rock cover done by Russ Heath for the 2016 Limited Edtion of the Guide.

Somehow, I don't think that would happen. Could it happen? Anything could happen. But I don't think that could happen. Yes, it would appear that the news media have really hyped this Coronavirus right to the hilt, leaving some people with the impression of the world becoming like one of those si-fi apocalyptic worlds or like the a version of the Walking Dead. I guess I am not surprised since this is a new variant strain with flu like symptons which the experts do not yet fully understand and able to get a handle on so far. Yet, as I posted on another thread on the SA boards, just imagine what would happen if the media went and focus on the daily body counts for the seasonal flu instead:

As per my bolded highlights to your comments above, I would tend to agree with you if the equity markets continues to experience continuing big movements downwards over an extended period of time going forward. If not and the markets hold or start to show signs of movements back up, I think the impact on the collectibles market would be very limited. After all, have we not already have 2 or 3 market corrections over the past 2 years? If I remember correctly, were the North American markets not only in correction territory, but also touching on the verge og bear market territory back on Chiristmas Eve of 2018 and I certainly don't remember a crash occurring in the comics collectibles market at the time.

By "impressive", would you be referring to books like this CGC 5.5 graded copy of AF 15 here: https://comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FDEFAULT.ASP%3FFocused%3D1%26pg%3D16%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%23Item_1373725&id=1373725&itemType=0 Looks like this mid-grade copy here managed to fetched $36,500 when we had a few CGC 5.0 graded copies selling in the $50K+ range a couple of years ago.

Did CGC ever make up their mind on the final version of the pedigree labels? I've seen some with this black and silver two-tone color combination and then I see others with the black and gold two-tone color combination.

Like any of the other comic collecting time periods, the "hot" GA books are usually reserved for the keys and classic covers in the current marketplace. Unfortunately, books such as CMJ 28 and Whiz 88 are seen much more as mid-run books, as opposed to either being a key of any kind or a classic cover in any sense of the word. On the other hand, if you have a book like Master Comics 27 being a perfect example here: Looks like this raw G/VG graded copy with the classic Raboy cover sold on Heritage earlier this month for something like $960 or at almost 4X condition guide.

Weren't you the one that was having a cracking party a few months ago to show us all of the books which you had released from their emtombed slab holders? Most definitely if you are going to have a cracking party thread followed by a reholdering party thread, and then go through the same rinse and repeat cycle all opver again.

Or is it possible that we are now seeing a lot more of these due to the relatively poorer quality of the pressing work now being performed by a certain pressing company in the post-Nelson era that shall remain nameless for obvious reasons?

I guess it really depends on your definition of a scam? After all, nobody is putting a gun to the head of these bidders and forcing them to put in these ridiculous bids. Especially in this highly label-centric marketplace which we now have for relatively common books, would you consider it a scam that buyers are oftentimes paying multiples more to win a CGC 9.8 graded copy of a book as compared to a CGC 9.6 graded copy of the same book? Especially in light of the fact that grading is still nothing more than a third party subjective opinion at a given point in time, and what is graded as a 9.6 can sometimes be graded as a 9.8 on another day and vice versa, without anything being done to the book at all in the interim.

The common flu generally infects around 10% of the US population with a 1% mortality rate. Covid 19 has a 2.3% mortality rate. While it’s true that if 70% of the population got it and the mortality rate jumped up to 3-4% it would be horrible, neither of those are likely. EDIT: That’s not to say that we shouldn’t treat Covid 19 seriously. If you look at the underlying numbers themselves, I would tend to agree with you. I believe most people are overreacting to the current situation because of all of the media and news scarce hype, coupled with the fact that this is a new variant strain which they do not understand yet. I can just imagine what people's reactions would be and where the stock market would be if they led off the top of the hour news everyday with the daily body count stats for the regular seasonal flu. Especially since the United States alone by itself had something like 45 million flu cases with 61,000 associated deaths due to just the regular seasonal flu for last year: https://cnsnews.com/article/international/michael-w-chapman/cdc-estimate-45-million-flu-cases-61000-flu-associated So, if the news media focused on the 45 million seasonal flu cases as compared to the 66 Coronavirus cases and the 61,000 associated deaths as compared to the zero Coronaviru related deaths to date so far, I can just see the Dow and S&P approaching zero already.

well, not obvious to some of us being eternally optimistic. I had hoped for a less substantial drop but the four days were brutal. I got out still having substantial profit in both stocks- really substantial ,but it became the position that I would rather sell it now and buy it back when the market has stabilized if that happens in the immediate future. Right now, I prefer cash in those accounts to having a portfolio. Since I don't need that cash, I can watch from the sidelines with a little smaller investment portfolio. It would not have been as easy if it had been comics. The prior four weeks you mention would not have helped in my mind. Well, I guess I must have been an eternal optimist just like you since I also held onto most of my equities just like you, although I did consider selling some of them at the end of January. I think I was fooled by the fact that the North American markets just kept on setting new records on an almost daily basis throughout this whole Coronavirus fiasco that was taking place in the rest of the world. These continuing record stock market close definitely didn't make sense since it was bound to affect the health of all companies with travel bans in place, supply lines cut, etc, but I guess I must be a collector at heart. Actually, if you are thinking of stocks like Visa or Mastercard, you don't even have to go back as far as 4 weeks, since you would have done well if you had sold only 10 short days ago. Especially since Visa had climbed to their all-time high range of about $210 - $215 about 10 days ago (i.e. almost 4 weeks AFTER the Coronavirus outbreak was announced) before dropping back into the $180 to $190 range during this past week. Similarly with Mastercard, which had climbed to their all-time high range of about $340 to $350 about 10 days ago before falling back into the $280 to $290 price range during this past week. Sadly for me, I don't own any Mastercard, but being the collector that I am, will continue to hold onto the very few shares of Visa which I did pick up back in the day at around $20 a share spile adjusted and just collect their dividends until the share price goes back up again since i don't need the money right now anyways.

This is so very true as I personally find it virtually impossible to try to time the market, as opposed to simply spending time in the market. Most people in the marketplace don't see a fall occurring until it has already started and by the time they react, they usually have already absorbed the biggest part of the crash already. Especially since the stock market is pretrty much like mountain climbing sometimes, in that it's usually a long and hard climb up to the top of the mountain, but a very fast drop when you fall off the mountain. Yes, for most regular retail investors, it's pretty hard to time the market if you are late to react to a market fall by even a day or so and then you combine this with Aman's scenario whereby you are also not there for the big up days.

The Mile High part definitely had more to do with that sale. I imagine the combo helped a little more 🤷‍♂️ This is not your Edgar Church Mile High which is highly desired in the hobby place, but rather a Chuck Rozanski marketing hyped Mile High II which is no longer even recognized by CGC as a pedigree anymore since these books were just part of a huge warehouse find with multiple (sometimes even hundreds) copies of each book.