lou_fine

Since a lot of collectors, including Dave Sim himself, do not tend to grade and slab their books until it comes time to sell them, this just may happen sooner rather than later.

Since you are much more with the whole CGC grading process, do you have any idea if CGC takes this fact into account when it comes to grading Cerebus 1's?

Well, if the underbidder was still interested in the book post the $15K result, it looks like they were the real winner here as equivalent condition copies were subsequently graded and sold in the marketplace for a fraction of this astounding recording setting price.

As long as you don't mind doing a ton of endless scrolling from what I can see. I punched in Action 1 under their previous Sold option and it returned 1,169 items, with not a single one of them being a copy of Action 1 on the first page. I did the same for Comic available and it returned 121 items with a copy of a 1988 Action 1 reprint showing up on Page 1. I did the same under Advanced Search and it retuned only 4 items: One being a single page from an Action 1; the second a 1988 Action 1 reprint; the third an Action 1 Silver Print Proof, and the last being a copy of Action Comics Annual #1. Tried it with a more common book like Detective 38 and it shows up with a total of 83,591 results for you to scroll through. I assume it's like Vinnie says in this week's edition of Scoop: “From top to bottom, from front to back, every aspect is completely new and expertly designed,” “It’s designed to help collectors find the specific comic they’re looking for while offering a batch of related comics that might fit into their collection.” Unless I am not doing it properly which is quite possible since I am technically challenged when it comes to computers and internet searches, I would tend to disagree with Vinnie's assessment of the new site. Although I will have to agree with him that it definitely does find a batch of related (and sadly unrelated) comics in terms of your search.

this Now, now, you two. I am 110% certain you two wouldn't feel the same way about this buyer if you were the consignor of this Iron Man 30 and hopping to be lucky enough to just get $700 or $800 out of the book. You would be way too busy doing other things like

Any less so than the buyer willing to pay $4,150 for a CGC 9.8 graded copy of Eternals #13 a few months ago when it couldn't have been the only highest graded copy in the whole ENTIRE universe at the time? Especially when there are now 30 copies of this relatively common book in the exact same equivalent grade, with another 58 copies in CGC 9.6 graded condition now waiting to be lovingly hugged higher to another level.

+1 In full agreement with you here. Personally, I am definitely much more interested in books which have underlying value in terms of all grades across the entire condition spectrum. Chasing and paying for CGC labels is definitely not a game that I would be good at playing, especially considering the anal-retentive way that I tend to collect.

Hey Mitch; How about if we think outside the super-hero box and make a daring choice by going even before your 1938 starting point all the way back to 1933: In fact, right back to the historical origins of the modern day comic book, especially since these early pioneer pre-hero books have been out of favor for decades now. Or are they sadly long forgotten and dead and not a chance of ever being resurrected in today's super-hero and classic cover focused marketplace?

So, according to this historical chart as previously posted if you actually believe it, you guys are going to try to squeeze every last dollar out of the market for a few more weeks before making the big switcheroo: Hippefully, you dumped all of your China related stocks like Ali last week at all-time record highs when word of the Coronavirus first broke because they are taking a bit of a beating this week with the situation worsening as time goes by.

That's a lousy purchase if you want to get your money back. However, if you want the best CGC certified collection of Iron Man, it's a great purchase. It's not on me to judge what someone spends their money on. That's the great thing about this HOBBY. It's not rational, and you get to buy what you like. If it increases in value, that's gravy. +1 I would wholeheartedly agree with both of your points here, as it's should always be a case of to each, their own. Especially since I have paid good money for books before in the past knowing that they did not have the same chance of going up in value as other books. Brought it for the simple reason that I just wanted a copy in my own personal collection. Although I tended to rationalize my new comic books purchases from the LCS's back in the day with the hope that they would increase in value one day, I actually never really truly expected them to. I was just going through some boxes the other day looking for a book and noticed that I have a ton of BA books in their poly bags from 40+ years that really has no value to them. Being an old time long-term collector, even if I had come across a book like a minty fresh uber HG Iron Man 30 in my personal collection, it would never ever cross my mind to get something like this graded and slabbed since it just seems so common and not worth the time and trouble to take a gamble on putting it through the grading process.

Well, $260 for a very subjective and one opinion based grade lower is a huge difference to be paying as compared to a very definitve and exact mathematical based $15K. Did you ever consider sending your copy in for a resub, although the spine ticks would most likely keep this copy from grading any higher. Even if possible, if appears that CGC 9.8 graded copies of this book is now trading at a fraction of what this copy sold for a few years ago and might not be worth cost of the gamble?

But it's the only 9.8 in the UNIVERSE! Well, lucky for the winner then as he no longer has to worry about being all cold and alone by himself in the entire universe. Especially since he now has 3 other copies in equivalent grade to keep himself company. Looks like if he wants to have the only copy in the UNIVERSE, he going to have to try to find a CGC 4.5 graded copy or lower which are probably as scarce as hen's teeth.

It's possible this is the one. Actually loved the early issues of the CBM magazines with their wealth of information and thought Gary and his wife did a super fantastic job on them. Too lazy to dig out my copy, but does anybody have the Top First 10 books handy, since I might actually have a few of them?

Well, since we are talking about investment and your love for Iron Man, had your income increased to the level that you was the lucky winner of this book here: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/689571 Looking back now a few years later on this auction result of $15K for this relatively common book (other than grade), I believe the consignor made out a lot better than the eventual winner of this copy here.

Actually, I forgot to include the link where I had seen the Mask 1 being highlighted as one of the key books found in the Hawkeye Collection: http://moocowcomics.blogspot.com/2006/02/hawkeye-pedigree.html Looks like Joe Smejkal was probably the key player when it came to acquiring the majority of the collection. I remembered sitting next to him at one of the SD CBM dinners back in the day to honor all of the GA DC creators. Definitely a nice gentleman and good to hear him talk about his collecting days including some of the Hawkeye books which he had. He talked about the Hawkeye copy of Punch 10 that he was planning to require, but did not mentioned any other specific books like Mask 1 or Punch12. It was definitely nice to sit down for dinner and to have the opportunity to talk to one of these old time collectors for a couple of hours.

Was checking something earlier about the Hawkeye pedigree collection and I noticed that they mentioned a HG grade copy of Mask 1 being in that collection. Would anybody here know anything thing about this pedigree copy and if it has ever shown up in the marketplace? Just wondering if it was an Universal unrestored copy, and if so, I imagine it has not yet been graded since the current highest graded copy is only a CGC 7.5 copy.

Yes, if we have bidders going as high as $31,111 for MSH 13 because it's the first appearance of Carol Danvers, even before she became Ms. Marvel, then this one here should definitely also count: As further proof of this, just take a look at the following link from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magik_(Illyana_Rasputina) Looks pretty conclusive to me.

Did you even bothered to ask them to send you your payment in the first place? Especially since it's quite possible that a lot of the consignors with CC might simply leave their monies in their account for bidding in future auctions. If so, this would be a waste of both time and money for CC and their consignors to issue a cheque to them, only to have them send one back in for their winnings in the next auction.

So, I guess you are saying the GA comic book market is a safer place for investing, as opposed to the more recent ages where irrational exuberance tends to rear its ugly head at times. Especially when you often see books selling for ridiculous record setting prices, even though the population census report indicates the existence of multiple copies in equivalent grades. If so, then I guess you are implying the recent winners of books such as Tomb of Dracula 10 for $85K; Marvel Super Heroes 13 for $31,111; Eternals 13 for $4,150; etc. stands a much higher risk of not being able to recoup their money upon eventual resale of their books?

My experience is that auction dynamics don't work like this. Great auctions with lots of great items attract more quality buyers. Krapola auctions with few items or few quality items generate less buzz and attract fewer quality buyers. It's as simple as that. My impression of the auction market during the last few years is that the pool of money available to chase after books is very deep, and the benefit of being in a hot auction, even though it's filled with books that are competitive with your books, outweighs the risk that bidders' funds will be depleted because there are lots of books competing with yours. I would definitely agree with your point of view in your particular case since the type of books that you tend to buy and sell are more in the deep end of the pool where the big boys with their BSD's hang out. These are the kind of books that would stand out in any type of auction, whether it be a big auction with a ton of quality books in there, or a smaller auction with fewer quality books. For collectors like me who are relegated more towards the shallow end of the pool, our books would probably tend to be swamped and overlooked in a huge auction populated by a lot of quality books resulting in lower than expected prices being acheived. A perfect example of this auction dynamic at work would be this nicely presenting, but relatively low grade copy of the supposedly rare Green Lantern 30 which I was lucky enough to have picked up several years ago: I highly doubt that I would have been able to win this book here with my maximum bid of $170 except for the fact that it was buried and lost right in the middle of a huge run of pristine Edgar Church Green Lantern's that Joe Smejkal had consigned for sale in the exact same auction. Unfortunately for me, with the type of books which I have in my collection, it would probably be easier for them to be lost like a weed in a garden full of roses when it comes to a big quality auction, as opposed to looking more like a rose in a garden full of weeds with respect to a lower quality auction.

You should just ask if they can ship all your books directly to Comiclink. Well, hopefully you managed to get a much more satisfactory response back from them today. Although if you try the CL angle as suggested above, I would agree that you'll get an instant response back from them tout suite.

A buddy of mine was smart enough to buy it while value was at low ebb. He is not a dealer. As far as I know, he still owns it. We talked about a trade for it once, but I didn't pull the trigger. It's a great book. +1 Would definitely agreement 110% with your statement above in regards to National Comics 7. Glad to hear that your buddy was astute enough to pick it up at a bargain price and hopefully, he was also wise enough to still have it in his collection.

Not sure about now, but it used to be that the safe archival tape resulted in a PLOD because it was done with obvious intent. The damaging inflicting non-archival tape was considered to be Universal because nobody would intentionally try to upgrade a book using this kind of "bad" tape.

Actually, not much of a surprise because you don't really have to do too much research at all to find this exact same scenario with a lot of books in the first few years of certification. Seems as though buyers were apparently trying to figure out the right price point for slabbed books back then and often ended up over paying for them in those early years. Take a look at another classic example being the Church copy of National Comics 7 with the beautiful and absolutely breathtaking Lou Fine classic underwater cover: Sold in February of 2004 at HA for $20,700 or at a multiple of more than 8X top of condition guide price; Then failed to sell in May of 2005 at HA with a reserve of $16,000; Also failed to sell a second time in August of 2006 at HA with a reserve of $12,000; and Finally failed to sell a third time in January of 2007 at HA with a reserve of only $11,500. Not sure whatever happened to the book although there was quite a bit of speculation back then that the book might have been bidded up there and brought by a Heritage related dealer. Regardless, I am quite sure that this book along with the previously mentioned Church copy of the classic cover Target Comics 7 would have absolutely no problems fetching huge dollars in today's much more scorching red hot classic cover focused marketplace.

Well, I am quite sure that the rather severe Marvel chipping along the entire right hand edge of this particular copy here had a serious down draft on the final price.