lou_fine

The Meyers. Husband and wife duo that do pro restoration work. But go waaaay overboard. Restoration on steroids. More like recreation than restoration. CGC at one time refused to grade their garbage work, so CBCS welcomed them with open arms. They got into a legal battle with CGC. There is a thread about it in Comics General. Actually, the best thread to get the whole story on this fight between the two parties is this one here on the GA boards: https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/381951-theres-a-restored-94-tec-33-blowing-up-on-ebay/page/25/?tab=comments#comment-8958785 A massive thread that just came out after the Christmas of 2015 and it seem more like a case of "he said, she said" when you are given a window to view all of the dirty laundry that comes with a divorce or business breakup. After all, although we always seem to focus on the Meyers husband and wife team whenever we talk about the bad doings with IGB, it shouldn't be forgotten that the whole thing started out as a happy threesome. If you read through the whole thread here, it's quite obvious that Matt and CGC were also quite involved with developing the process through the initial and possibly middle stages. Unfortunately, for both parties involved, there was a breakdown somewhere along the line in this business relationship and they both went their own separate ways. As par for the course with these types of breakups, each side coming up with completely different and oftentimes conflicting reasons for the eventual breakup. Hard to say who to believe, but in cases like this, there is usually a bit of truth and lies on both sides. My bet is that if the process had come to a successful conclusion with Matt and CGC still having their hands in it at the end, we would not be saying the same things about these books. In fact, I think both CGC and CCS would be spinning the story about how great these books are and would have already included this process as another one of their additional revenue streams by now. And no doubt, we would also have people lining up to get their books done up and the buzz on the boards about these books would not be slanted as much as they are right now.

Yes, I've had an account with them for many years. Your name might have simply fallen off their electronic mailing list after an extended period of time. This is apparently what happened to me around the Spring of this year when I noticed that I was not receiving my Event Auction notifications from them. I called them up and the girl said that my account was active, but that she would simply delete it and put it back in again (kind of like a reboot I guess) and see if that would fix the issue or not. It did.

Definitely not good and hope you recover your books. I find that it's probably better to use the regular Post Office route like USPS whereby they will drop the parcel off at the nearest postal outlet for your subsequent pickup if you are not home. The problem with FedEx nowadays is that they seem to just drop off your parcel or package right at the front door even if it requires a signature, but you are not home.

Any bets that the winner of this Cindy 37 for only $1,270 must be with their win, while the consignor must be feeeling quite : Especially since this almost equivalent graded CGC copy here sold for $4,200 at HA only about 10 days earlier: I guess this is further proof that selling in auctions can often be like a crapshoot sometimes.

I didn't get one unfortunately! Well then, I believe all you have to do is to go to either their Metro or CC and sign up for an account or something like that to receive their electronic "junk" mail. Definitely nowhere near the amount of junk mail you receive from the other auction houses like CL or Heritage which is usually quite a few times a week. With Metro or CC, it's usually only during their monthly and Event auction notifications (which you do want) plus probably just one monthly newsletter if they get around doing it.

Hey Peter; Are you sure it wasn't this rather not quite as appealing looking copy since it came in with the same CGC 3.5 graded label: Boy, talk about grading consistency or lack thereof in this particular case here. Maybe this is when we DO need to have CVA or QES, or whatever they are called.

from a PM I sent to an insterested boardie: That book was bought by Stephen Ritter ( WorldWide Comics ) at auction on ComicLink for $27,805 5/28/2019 as a 3.0. I think it circulated raw before that on ebay a while before. He cracked it out and was selling raw as a "4.0" (full grade higher than CGC grade) on his site for 38.5K. Got fed up after a while, had it pressed re-subbed and managed the 3.5. Same asking price. It has a "pending sale" on his site. https://www.wwcomics.com/comicdetail.asp?Product_ID=Detective_33_88484 It will likely be shilled on ComicLink (apparently not hard enough) Typcial MO for one of Ritter's acqiusitions which were so successful with his Jon Berk purchases, but apparently not so easy with some of these more recent ones. Sounds like it's these types of transactions that allows Tim to LOVE this hobby more and more with each passing day.

good Q ! Well, maybe one of you guys with the much deeper pockets can spring for a copy of the CGC Grader's Notes and post them here for all of us to see.

.............. Is this going to be your new tagline going forward?

Although it's definitely sad to see results like these, this is another indication that the speculating and flipping of comic books in an attempt to make fast money is certainly nothing more than a crapshoot, and certainly made harder when the following factors are also in play: 1) Trying to make money on a current low demand publisher like Fawcett and out of favor title/character like Whiz (i.e. Captain Marvel) is definitely not the best avenue to be taking; 2) If you do, a holding period of less than 1 short year is almost assuredely guaranteed to be a money loser for you; and 3) Especially if you had over paid for the book in the first place back in November of 2018, relative to recent sales at the time. Looks like the Heritage archives indicates that you had paid $1,680 for your copy just before Christmas of last year. This would seem to be on the high side for a relatively not so hot book , especially since an equivalent CGC graded copy with the exact same PQ was able to fetch only $1,195 in a Heritage Auction the year before that. And if you was thinking about the last CC auction result for this particular book, I guess you should have gotten the book regraded by the other guys across the street. Especially since CC was able to get $2,877 for a nicer looking equivalent graded copy of this book graded by the other guys back in December of 2016. Well, either that or it might have been irrational movie hype at that particular time.

Did you by chance keep a record of the hammer prices on those? Unfortunately I forgot to watch them! Not sure why you would have to watch them in order to get the final results? Just simply go back to your email box and open up the email message that CC had sent to you back on November 25th which has links to all of the individual auction lots for Session 3 2/2 (Ghost-Rider to Shield-Wizard) and you'll have the final hammer prices for all of the Planets right there.

Well, from the picture which you posted here, it looks like the cops and his fellow colleagues already have the culprit completely surrounded: Seriously though, best of luck to you in being able to track down your book.

wow ! Well, it's an old story that's been talked about here many times before in the past and ended up ensnaring not only the embezzler. The books were so enticing that they also ensnared 2 of the investigators in the end who were brought in to help the DA and the other authorities with the case: https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/22/8870089/texas-comic-book-heist-anthony-chiofalo-tadano I imagine the Tandano Corporation was nowhere close to recovering all of the $9.3M that they had lost from this whole fiasco.

I have asked CGC to remove the first serial # from the census in the CGC Registry thread. Well, looks like this was another CPR or simply a straight resubmit that didn't turn out so well for the initial owner of the book then.

This happened with several Billy Wright books. It's interesting to note that the Billy Wright copy of DC#29 was originally a 7.0. It was acquired along with at least 9 other BW copies at the same auction which were then apparently CPRed 3 months later (same submission group) and liquidated in less than a year after purchase (some as soon as three months after the initial auction). Whoever was behind it lost big $$$ for this particular flipping episode as these particular 9 books were acquired for $231,650 then liquidated for $190,602, a net loss of $41,048. Well, it looks like his mistake was going through all of that time consuming and tedious work involved with the whole CPR game facilitated by CGC. He simply should have gotten a hold of Anthony Chiofalo who probably would have paid him outrageous money for his books similar to this BW copy of All-Star #3: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/all-star-comics-3-billy-wright-pedigree-dc-1940-cgc-vf-85-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7054-91043.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 The winner of this Billy Wright book here paid only $49,293.75 for the book and ended up receiving $200,000 for it only a short week later through the Make An Offer To Owner feature that they have on the Heritage website. Definitely virtually impossible to beat a return of over 300% in only a week's time anywhere else.

I'm guessing 150K or thereabouts. Yes, it would not be a surprise to me at all, especially considering that the pre-Robin 'Tec market was the first part of the GA market to catch fire a few years ago and still seems to be buring pretty brightly even in today's red hot marketplace.

Any idea if this was the same copy that sold for $66K on CC back in 2017 or if it looked as nice as that copy particular copy? Best of luck to you in being able to track it down and locking it into your personal collection.

Well, if the Heritage archives and CC's Sold Items listings are accurate, this would appear to be a record price for ANY copy of 'Tec 29 in an open public market sale. On a PPP (i.e. price per point) basis, it even came close to the CGC 3.0 graded copy that sold for $66,010 in a CC auction back in March of 2017: I am quite sure if either the CGC 7.5 graded copy that sold at CC for $90,555 back in 2015/16 or the CGC 7.5 graded Billy Wright copy that sold at Heritage for $65,725 back in November of 2012 should be able to hit 6-figures by now if they ever came back into the public marketplace. Interesting to note that the original purchaser of the BW copy must have lost big money on his copy as it was purchased for $83,650 on Heritage a few short months earlier back in February of 2012 during the initial auctioning of the Billy Wright Collection when it was listed as only a lower graded CGC 7.0 F/VF copy.

Let's hope so Definitely hard to say since these kinds of price increases are generally not sustainable longer term. Just take a look at AF 15 which was going gangbusters there a couple of years ago, but has definitely slowed right back down over the past year or so. Looks like Hulk 181's was the IT book for last year and the early part of this year, and even this book is starting to level off right now. With the GA market, was it not all about Matt baker covers for 2018 before this cycled through to L.B. Cole covers for this current 2019 year. I strongly believe the comic book market is very cylical which makes me wonder who the new hot GA artist will be for the coming 2020 year. Will the hyper demand for the Cole books start to level off similar to what happend with the Baker books this year and shift to another old time fan favoeite artist like Raboy with some of his beautiful and classic early Master covers. Especially since the entire Fawcett line of books have seemingly been banished to the penalty box for decades now and maybe it's their turn to finally have the spotlight shine on them.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news here then.........word is that CL is so happy with their no back cover auction results performance that they are now considering removing all front cover scans also.

Gorgeous book. And yet it doesn't seem to look quite as bright and sharp in the original HA scan here, as posted by Masterchief: I guess this was back in 2002 when Heritage was first starting up with comic books and probably couldn' t afford the high power spotlights that they have nowadays.

As a devout fan of the early Fox books, I think the Mystery Men 5 would have sold better in the Berk auction if it hadn't been surrounded by so many other key Mystery Men books that collectors place a higher premium on, such as #1, #3, and #10 (not to mention all the other Fox titles that were up for auction at that time). Just not enough money to spread around. The consigner of the MM5 on ComicConnect got a nice price because it stood out without any other competition. Sadly I wasn't the consigner! Yes, in an auction like the one for the Jon Berk collection, it is easy for the bidders to simply pass over a book when they feel it is starting to get a bit high becuase there are tens and possibly even hundreds of other books on their want list that they can also chased after. Probably the only reason why I was able to snapped up a few of the Centaurs and Fox books which I did because I am quite sure that they would have finished beyond my reach at higher price points in a regular CC Event Auction. Being a life long collector of comic books, I believe Jon probably felt this was the easiest way for him to sell his collection and give him peace of mind at the same time, as opposed to torturously dragging it out to over multiple auctions. He probably also felt that this was probably the mst effective way to pass his books to as many of the next generation of collectors as possible which was supposedly one of his goals.

That one has real nice eye appeal. +2 No back cover scan yet, but that's most definitely a superb looking copy from the front cover scan, relative to it's assigned CGC 3.5 grade. Definitely, not a good idea on the part of both the consignors and HA to put 2 copies of this supposedly relatively rarer GA key up for sale in the same auction though.

Unfortunately, for the initial buyer of this book way back in 2002, he made the mistake of selling the book off way too soon instead of holding onto it. In fact, it would appear that he actually lost money on his purchase as it was auctioned off by HA in February of 2005 for only $10,925 when it was marketed as coming from the Northern Lights Collection: :https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/detective-comics-29-dc-1939-cgc-vg-fn-50-off-white-to-white-pages-batman-appeared-on-a-comic-book-cover-for-only-the-s/a/815-1106.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515# Looks like the this buyer was at aleast able to make some money from the books as it was subsequently auctioned off again by HA in May of 2008 for $19,120: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/detective-comics-29-dc-1939-cgc-vg-fn-50-off-white-to-white-pages/a/828-41130.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Interesting to note that this time, Heritage did not bothered to include the Northern Lights Collection provenance, but stated in their auction description that they had previously sold this copy for $10,925 the last time they had auctioned it. Not sure if it was resold once again prior to this most recent $107K sale on another auction site, but nice to know that they kept the same label (i.e. serial number) on the book throughout all these years which means that it has only gone through the reholdering process.

Only 6k above the Heritage 7.0 in August. Maybe the right edge held it back? I am actually surprised that it ended up receiving the QES sticker with that tan line or dust shadow running down the right edge. Then again, I believe the current crew of graders are supposedly downgrading books for this particular defect, whereas this was apparently not done to the same extent in the past. So, maybe what you are looking at would have been a CGC 8.5 graded copy without the QES sticker in the past. But since it's now been downgraded to only a CGC 8.0 with the undisclosed and continually shifting grading standards, it does deserve a QES sticker relative to the lowered grade.