lou_fine

Based upon scans of many pedigree books which I have seen, it is rather obvious that CGC follows this rule. Of course, this is then offset by the fact that they seem to downgrade for books that have been restored. So, if we complete your equation, a pedigree copy would receive a 9.6 grade, an unrestored copy would receive a 9.4, and oftentimes it appears that a restored book would receive a 9.0 or possibly even a 8.5 grade. As if the PLOD label was not enough to impact the value of the restored book already. This is possibly why you can sometimes see fugly pedigree books relative to their assigned grades and yet can often see some gorgeous restored books relative to their assigned grades. Of course, this is also possibly explained by the fact that CGC grades much more based upon the structure and technical aspects of the book which you tell by only having the actual book in hand, as opposed to the visual appearance which the graders tend to pay less attention to, but which scans are good for.

Well, if one of the data points on your sticker is current value, how often are you updating your stickers since this market is pretty red hot and can be quite volatile in terms of current market price?

That's fantastic!!! Please be sure to PM me a few days in advance with the time and place of the LCS and I will be sure to get my yet to be born grandchild down there in good time.

Vincent has been on Vacation last few weeks in Belize and think he was in San Diego on the 1st. Isn't this supposedly the big revamp of their website which they have been hinting at for the past couple of years? I think it was supposed to have gone in last year, but looks like whatever they did turned out to be some minor fine-tuning from what I could see. Well, if you are going to take a couple of weeks off, you may as well take it during the 2 quietest weeks of the year when nothing is really happening from a comic auction point of view. Perfect time to give your key personnel some much appreciated personal time off, especially when their next big Event Auction isn't until March. Now, if they don't have it back up and launched by the end of next week, then I would be a bit more concerned.

Seriously? If you had a Fine copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, you would read it every once in a while? That's just plain nuts. I have a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 in CGC 0.5. When I bought it in the early 2000s, I paid $600 for it. I had it slabbed 2 - 3 years ago, and it's now sitting in a safe deposit box. The thought of reading that issue NEVER crossed my mind. With all the Masterworks, Essentials, Omnibus(es), and Epic collections available, along with Marvel Online, you can easily read it at virtually any time. I'm sure I'm going to be pilloried as a person who doesn't care about comics, but that is far from the truth. I have a full run of Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, and Daredevil. I have read virtually every comic in my collection. When I started on these expensive back issues, I didn't need to read that comic. I had read it earlier, most likely by using Marvel Collectors' Item Classics. It was most likely that I read the first 20+ issues of all the Silver Age Marvel super-heroes that way. So, go ahead and read a comic that's worth $60,000 whenever you want. I'm sure that nothing will happen to it. Well, maybe it's just a case of to each, their own. Especially since comics are really meant to be enjoyed and if you are careful enough with them, they shouldn't really incur any damage to them. For example, here are some pictures of some old time collectors/boardies just geeking out and enjoying their books here: Absolutely love that Church copy of Fantastic 3 which still managed to grade out as a CGC 9.4 copy after all of that perusing and also still managed to fetch something like a quarter of a million dollars in the Jon Berk Auction on CC a couple of summers ago. Wow, forgot that thread was so popular that it ran for an astonishing 175 pages in a few short months.

Well, all I can tell you is that if I own the Church copy of Action 1 or any of the other top GA books out there, I would certainly NOT be getting it graded and slabbed if it was simply going to be sitting in my personal collection. BTW: It's not just the Church copy of Action 1 that Dave owns, but rather the entire Church run from Action 1 through Action 23, along with the Allentown copy of 'Tec 27 and the Church copies of all of the other early Batman 'Tec books, etc.etc. From a strict financial point of view, I've never quite understood the rationale for having your books graded and slabbed if you aren't planning to sell them yet. Especially if it's an uber HG copy because once it gets graded, it also gets added into the CGC population census report. This would serve only to put a damper on prices going forward if you now have the highest graded copy, and yet don't plan to sell it at this point in time. As we all know, highest graded copies generally go for huge multiples, so wouldn't it be smarter financially to have your copy remain raw while somebody else's highest graded copies continues to drive the price up on your book. If your book was already slabbed, potential bidders might not be willing to bid as high on the undercopies knowing that there is already a higher graded copy (i.e. your now slabbed copy) sitting out there. No point to put a dampener on prices by having your copy graded already when you can simply sit back with your raw copy and watch bidders chased the market up on the price of your still to be slabbed book.

I have to quibble with this statement a little bit. Two years ago I decided to have pretty much all of my pre-1975 books graded because that was the best way to ascertain their value, Is this another case of whether the chicken or the egg came first? If you are a long term comic book collector, I believe you should already have some general idea with respect to the potential value of your individual books. Isn't this the basic piece of information which you need to have in the first place to figure out if your books are even worth to have them graded at all. Especially if you are talking about pre-1975 BA books which are actually relatively common, and in more cases than not, would not even be worth grading at all once you add in all of the grading and other ancillary fees involved. From my own personal point of view, if I was planning to keep the books for my personal collection, slabs would simply take up so much more storage space than raw books. In addition, you wouldn't be able to enjoy them the same way that you normally could with a raw comic book if they were entombed in one of those slabs. The other major reason is that with all of the ongoing changes that CGC is constantly making with respect to label modifications, pedigree designation changes, restoration/conservation definition changes, etc.; your previously slabbed book might not actually be reflective of whatever the current grading system is when it comes time for you to sell your books.

Those archives did not appear to be complete. I don't know how they decide which sales to scrub--consignor or buyer request, maybe. Yes, I agree with you about their Sold Items archive, as I believe they are a couple years behind or possibly made a proactive decision not to maintain it anymore. The one which I am referring to are the links from their auction email messages which gives you access to view every single individual lot that has been auctioned off. Hopefully, these links will still be active and working once they do get their new revamped website back up and running again.

Well, it that little bonfire was burning way back in 1964, my thinking is that there's most probably some baseball cards and comic books in that drum that would have been worth a bit of money nowadays.

By any chance, was his name JayDog because I heard he's got quite a bug in his undies about White pages on a book?

What was the outcome of this "quagmire" ? I too have a book that appears it was not pressed or pressed correctly, and i'm curious how this all worked out with your situation...did the grade change,did the graders notes change after the second pressing? I had graders notes of "several very light creases on back top left corner", and after "pressing and resub" it has the EXACT same graders notes..... how'd you fare? From reading several threads on this same subject matter here over the past few years, I thought that it was pretty much common knowledge that there is an inverse relationship between prices and quality of work at CCS ever since Matt left to head up the grading side at CGC. In other words, the highest prices in the industry for the lowest quality of work, with some books apparently being damaged during the process.

YES, most certainly if you are trying to look for a tax write-off.

Is this fluctuation between loose and tight grading not the standard norm that we have come to expect from CGC over the years? Although we all know that grading is really more of an art than an exact science, I believe these swings in grading is also exacerbated due to the possibility that CGC tends to adjust their undisclosed grading standards according to the current business agenda that is in play at any point in time. This should not be surprising at all and in fact, should be expected, since the CCG ownership is a business entity after all and what really matters is their top line and bottom line.

Well, if this is true, then they really need to get an move on as there's only about 5 weeks left until show time and their website still appears to be pretty blank. No actual times listed except for the February 9th date and worse of all, still no ticket pricing information at all as far as I can tell. In addition, if they already have 160 tables presold, they should at least have a list of vendor names on their website for these 160 tables. Certainly hope they can get their act together in time, as the Fan Expo that is scheduled for the following weekend seems to be pretty devoid of many actual true comic book dealers.

+1 I would definitely agree with the above statement since I have seen far more RAW copies of all of the Marvel SA keys, as opposed to graded slabbed copies. The only real value that I find in the CGC population census is from a relative comparison point of view, as I feel the census counts would capture only a small fraction of the total number of actual books out there. Like many other long time GA collectors out there from well before CGC ever opened their doors for business, there is absolutely no reason at all to get a book graded and slabbed until it comes time to sell it. In addition, if they have GA books in their personal collection, some of them might also have some realtively nice SA books along with uber HG and still raw BA and CA books which they might have cherry picked off the shelves of the LCS's when these books first cam out. I guess only time will tell as more of these collections enters into the marketplace going forward.

Was this process something similar to Greg Theakston's process which became known as "Theakstonization" or something like that? A process whereby the original comic book would literally be destroyed with the colors toally bleached out in order to facilitate the reprinting process.

Your theory that you had posted would definitely be correct if the market was made up of pure comic book collectors only. In actual fact though, a significant portion of the comic book market is comprised of short-term flippers and mid-term investors who are more than willing to pick up copies (even multiple copies at that) as long as they believe there is going to be continuing upward movement on the price of the book. Their only rationale for buying is not to keep the book, instead it is to sell if for a profit at a higher price point going forwards.

Not sure how you can say that you are paying only 15% from a consignor point of view if you take a closer look at the numbers which you are presenting here. If you take a look at your own example above, for all intents and purposes, the market or selling price for the book for GPA, Heritage reporting, Overstreet reporting, etc. would have captured this sale at the $4,080 price point. The hammer price of $3,400 is only a temporary interim valuation that disappears once the hammer comes down and the auction is over. What is really happening is that although you think the buyer is indeed paying the 20% BP or $680 in your example here, this money is still really coming out from your pocket because it is being kept by Heritage instead of going to you. As a result, although you may think you are paying only the 15% SP or $510 in your example here, this sale at a price point of $4,080 is actually costing you total auction fees of $1,190 or over 29% of the final auction realized price. Now, if you had consign the same piece with either CC or CL and they were able to fetch the same market price point of $4,080; you final dollars dropping into your pocket would be substantially higher. Especially since their standard consignment fee is only 10% which means your auction fees would work out to only $408 in both cases, and hence you would walk away with $3,672 in your pocket or about 27% more than the $2,890 amount from Heritage. Of course, the underlying assumption here is that you would have been able to hit the same market price of $4,080 with the other 2 auction houses which might not necessarily be the case when it comes to original artwork where HA seems to possibly have a stronger customer base. With comic books though, I personally believe the price points for all 3 auction houses are much more similar and it really depends on the types of books which you are consigning as to which one of these auction houses will possibly do better. It's really up to the consignor to do their own due diligence if they really want to maximize their dollars when selling their books, along with a bit of luck of course. Plus the fact that you can apparently negotiate some of the auction fees downwards with HA to bring them closer to their competitors, depending upon the types of books which you have up for consignment.

I never had the opportunity to buy the "S" copy or any other copy of New Comics #2 that was above 2.0. The nicer looking copies are all restored (not that there's anything wrong with that). I still remember reading Gary Carter's excellent article, "DC Before Superman", in the 13th edition of the Overstreet Price Guide, multiple times over the years before eventually getting into GA collecting near the end of the 80's. Being primarily a BA to MA collector at the time, I was absolutely taken aback by the seeming rarity of these pre-hero DC books, and in particular, New Fun Comics 2 and New Comics 2 which Gary had highlighted as being the rarest copy in their individual runs. So, I guess it's no real surprise that the New Comics 2 would have been one of the first issues snapped up out of this "S" run of New/New Adventure/Adventure series of comic books. Especially considering how nice and relatively high grade all of these "S" copies appear to be. Needless to say, it certainly would have looked nice with the rest of the "S" copies which you have in your personal collection. Yes, nothing at all wrong with restoration when it comes to these real hard to find books. I still remember picking up my restored copy of New Fun 2 about 15 or 20 years ago and was actually happy that it had some work done on it. For sure if it had been an unrestored copy in that type of mid-grade condition, I never would have been able to afford a copy at all.

Now, those definitely look like snow white pages to me!!!

Cerebus is older, but less than a decade older than the other two. Looks like you are indeed correct here. Not sure why, but I always had the impression that Cerebus came out in 1970, as opposed to 1977 when it actually first debuted.

I've always personally believe that the comic book market tends to be very cyclical in terms of its various segments. By this, I mean that although the heat will be on AF 15 for awhile, it will tend to move somewhere else like Hulk 181 after the fire gets too hot. When the heat gets too high on the Hulk 181's, the fire will then move to another segment of the marketplace like the FF's and the X-Men books. Haven't we actually seen this exact movement during the past few years. This, I believe is the natural cycle that takes place and the fire will eventually circle back to Af 15 and the rest of the Spidey books after that. Just take a look at the GA marketplace where the marketplace was literally on fire for the pre-Robin 'Tec books a few years ago before moving onto the early Action Supes cover books. It then went onto the 2nd or 3rd tier publishers like Fox and Centaur, before hitting the Baker GGA classic cover books last year and has now shifted big time onto the L.B. Cole bookswhere low grades or even restored copies seems to often be selling for huge multiples to condition guide. As a result, although AF 15 might appear to be currently in a holding or cooling temporary phase for now, this might actually be the best time to pick one up and then wait to hold on for the next big leg up in the marketplace.

Well, here's the current highest graded Universal copy of New Comics which came out from the Billy Wright pedigree collection: https://comics.ha.com/itm/platinum-age-1897-1937-/new-comics-2-billy-wright-pedigree-dc-1936-cgc-gd-20-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7054-91110.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Auctioned off at Heritage along with the rest of the Billy Wright books back in February of 2012 for $3,107 or about 2.5X condition guide as Good valuation at the time was only $1,229. Thank goodness Overstreet has kept up with the times as the current valuation for this book in Good condition has now been raised up all the way to an astronomical $1,333 in this year's edition of the guide. Well, have to admit he probably doesn't have much data to go on, since this looks like the only universal unrestored copy that shows up as selling in a public auction site. I know the Jon Berk copy is also a restored copy, but did you pick up your CGC 1.5 unrestored graded copy through a public auction since CC's website is down for a complete revamp and CL has no archive of any kind? I guess it's only a matter of time before another universal unrestored copy comes to market and we get a better idea of its current valuation in the real marketplace.

That's some story... Did you and Rick ever tried to trace the path of the book backwards in the hope of nabbing the culprit who had stolen the book in order to give them a good beat down?

Considering that's a book from way back in the extremely tough to find1935 time period, it certainly presents very nicely for its age. Definitely beats the relatively crapola copy that I have which I certainly can't complain about though. Especially since it came from a collection that also contained relatively nice copies of the first 2 recognized comic books (i.e. Funnies on Parade and Famous Funnies, A Carnival of Comics) that were published way back in 1933. Sad to see that these pioneer and much under appreciated early pre-hero books have fallen quite far behind in the marketplace and almost forgotten, as compared to the early super hero books and classic cover books which most of the collectors and speculators/investors are chasing after nowadays.