lou_fine

I think it is unrealistic to think that Heritage would not know the CGC history of a $1M+ comic they are auctioning. They knew. My guess is the $2M estimate was a typo. Has any MC 1 ever topped $300K at auction or $350K in a private sale? I don't think so. But the CA 1 9.4 result makes $1M seem realistic. That $2M was just plain crazy The only comic to top $1.5M is Action 1. Heritage knows this. It was a typo. I would tend to agree that Heritage most definitely knew the history of the book. At the same time though, i do not believe they would have made the same typo twice in their original advertisement and spin job on the book. To me, that is totally unbelievable a mistake of this magnitude would not have been caught before the ad went out. I think what happened here is that Heritage did know about the history of the book, but was banking on the hope that nobody else would know about the history of the book. So, it would appear that Masterchief's outing of this particular copy is going to cost the consignor of this book a significant amount of dollars here. Or at least that's the way that I see the picture of what took place here.

Any thread with insightful information presented from Masterchief usually turns out to be a thread to take note of.

looking at the pictures now, I would have to agree. In hand the pages seemed more consistent in condition. thanks +1 That's definitely also my take on the whole situation here with respect to your copy of Overstreet 1 here.

I've always like the Suspense 1 myself, especially when you compare it to the price of the Suspense 3. I guess that's just me as I always seem to prefer the underdog, like my preference for Phantom Lady 23 over PL 17 and Blue Beetle 52 over BB 54. Either that, ot it's my cheapo side showing up again as those are all way way cheaper than the much more highly prized and recognized classic covers of Suspens 3, PL 17, and BB 54. Actually, I've always thought of the Suspense 1 cover image as the precursor and the poor man's version of Suspense 3.

Guess it was another Dean from BC, Canada that had a letter published in CBM #2 that was "aroused" by Centaurs, pre-hero GA and select Timely Comics. Words of wisdom from Dr. Pat Kochanek: Now that you mention it, that does sound a bit familiar to me, although the timing must be off. Not sure how I could have gotten a letter into CBM #2 if that's when my subscription started. Or maybe I sent in this letter with my subscription request and Gary like the letter enough to print it and also send me a complimentary copy of CBM #1 at the same time. Those 4-issue Edgar Church Mile High articles written by Dr. Pat was certainly good information for collectors, even though I already knew most of it by then through my many late night conversations with John Snyder by then.

This kind of reminds me of Magik's story about how he had to plunked down a huge 10X guide for the PhotoJournal copy of Suspense 3 from Ernie Gerber when it was guiding at something like only $195 at top of guide.

I believe the only letter I ever got published was the one requesting readers to turn in their Top 5 GA covers of all time. I believe they got something like 35 responses and I was the lucky winner or name drawn to win some kind of comic art book authored by the late Jerry Weist. If I remember correctly, I was the only fool out of the entire group of submittors to include 'Tec 31 and Punch 12 in my Top 5. Definitely shows how tastes can change over time as I believe those 2 books were listed right near the top in one of Heritage's surveys they ran a couple of years ago for top GA covers. Just checked and it looks like 'Tec 31 finished on top and Punch 12 12 finished at #4, with Suspens 3 and Fantastic Comics 3 squeezing in between. Makes me wonder where all of the 'Tec 31 and Punch 12 lovers were back in the mid-90's when CBM ran their first survey.

Sadly, I had the exact opposite feeling as I simply couldn't wait for the mag to end its long awaited death. Especially with rspect to the direction that Russ had taken the once great fan magazine and turned it into his own personal soapbox which virtually nobpdy had anymore interest in by the end.

Allan; I prefer some of the later issues where he covered some of the 2nd and 3rd tier publishers as the DC's and Timely's were just too obvious and common from my point of view. Since it was only issue #2 and his first Sleepers column, I guess he had to start with the Big 2 publishers of the day.

Well, besides Keith's column which always tended to focus on the investor side for the hot SA market, another one of the columinst that I really enjoyed reading at the time was Sean Linkenbach with his fantastic Sleepers column. This column attemtpted to highlight some of the soon to be hot or in demand GA books from his point of view that were still flying under the radar at the time with the general marketplace.

Since we are talking about Gary Carter here, whatever happened with that so-called Indian Reservation pedigree collection or was that really nothing more than an urban legend based upon unsubstantiated rumours?

More and more editorial interference. Geppi was easy to work for but CBM was under Gemstone Publishing and it wasn't of interest to that leadership and didn't make enough money for Carter to have any weight to throw around. He left and was eventually became a Dean at a California college. Weren't there also runours at the time that he was hoping to be the heir apparent for the Overstreet Guide whenever Bob would eventually decide to leave or the Great Comic Shop in the Sky came calling for him. I believe he got the message that this was not going to be his destiny within the Gemstone Publishing Empire and decided to leave. Like any other sane individual, if you was given a choice between living in dreary moddy Timonimun or sunny seaside San Diego which he absolutely loved and came from, the choice would be pretty much of an no-brainer from my own personal point of view.

The first 15 issues were the absolute best of the entire CBM run as they had cover features and articles on topics such as The First 1,000 Comic Books, 50 Rarest Golden Age books, Alex Schomburg, Lou Fine, Centuar Comics, Edgar Church 4-issue run, Relative Scarcity and Demand for specific DC SA runs, etc. Needless to say, it was an absolute treasure trove of information at the time and an absolute must read for any true collector of comic books. I basically started subscribing with Issue #2 and Gary Carter was then nice enough to send me a complimentary copy of Issue #1 in order for me not to have missed anything. I still go back and refer to Issue #32 which is known as The Pedigree Issue as it had articles on several of the more established GA pedigrees at the time. I guess it's actually the closest that we will get to having the Pedigree Book itself if it ever does come out. The CBM magazine definitely did not have the same fan feel to it after it was taken over by Geppi and became a more slick magazine starting with Issue #22. Near the end, it was unfortunately not even a shadow of its former self once Russ Cochran took over the magazine and drove all of the fans away with his inane topics until it finally got cancelled.

This is the first CC auction that I can remember in a while where I came away thinking that CC got better prices for a lot of books than Heritage would've gotten for the same books. The extremely strong prices for the Church CMJ run blew away anything that Heritage has achieved for comparable CMJs. This reinforces the benefit of putting up a run together, but also seems to indicate that CC has better connections to CMJ collectors. I would tend to agree to the part about putting a run together, but I also tend to think it depends upon the size of the run. If the run is too big or if you have a ton of runs all at one time (i.e. like the Jon Berk Auction), I don't think you will get top dollar in that particular situation because there is only so much money to go around at one time. Hence, in that type of situation, it's really easy for the bidders to simply pass a lot if they feel it's leaning towards the high side and mentally reallocate their money for the rest of the desired lots to follow. As for certain auction houses doing better than other auction houses, I always feel that the consignors also carries some responsibility here. It's really up to them to do their due diligence as from my point of view, there's really no one answer that fits all. For example, if it's OA or any 6-figure GA book save the pre-Robin 'Tec's or early Action's, I would definitely go with Heritage for sure. Yet, if it's uber HG BA books and more recent going forward, I would be throwing them CL's way. If it's some of the bigger books like the pre-Robin 'Tec's or the early Action's, I would be leaning heavily towards CC since they seem to clearly be the market makers here. As for the other GA books, it would probably be a toss-up between CC or Heritage depending upon the type of deal you can get with HA. Not sure about the SA market at all since I don't really follow it too much and I am sure you would know a lot more about that part of the market.

I believe it really depends on the particular book in question. If you are talking about some of the really early Poughkeepsie File Copies from the late 30's or the very early 40's, these mostly appear to be HG single copies only which were retained and stored right in the offices of the publisher. If you are talking about some of the later file copies such as the Gold Key Phantom #1 or many of the Harvey funny character books, these were indeed found with multiple copies inside their warehouse storage facilities. Not sure which category the Chamber of Chills #19 would fall into, but quite sure that Thing #16 would indeed be a warehouse find considering there are already 182 graded copies out there, with a whopping total of over 100 of these being in CGC 9.0 or better.

You mean besides the 82 Universal graded copies already slabbed, with a large proportion of these in relatively nice condition, there is still a whole slew of these in Raw condition that has yet to be held in the hands of a grader? Definitely makes one wonder why this particular book, as based upon the supply side of the equation, would already be trading into strong and seemingly continuously rising 4-figures territory. BTW: Big congrats there on your super nice copy though and holding it for so long, especially relative to the price you had paid for the book.

Well, since tomorrow is Sunday, how do their Sunday auctions end anyways? Is it like their regular auctions where it keeps going up as long as there's a bidder before last call, or is it in the CL final bell format?

That is INCREDIBLE! Well I have a copy, maybe nicer than the one that sold. I should be slabbing and sending it to these guys. But I kinda like it. Only paid $95.00 long time ago. Do you remember approximately when this time period was, especcially since it probably even nicer than this copy that just sold for the astounding sum of $12,536: Being the dumb finicky collector that I was way back in the day when the books just had to look relatively perfect, I am 100% sure that I would have passed on this book even at only $95. Heck, to tell you the honest truth and being the El Cheapo guy that I am, without the guide and without any knowledge of these latest insane auction results for certain books over these past few years, I would probably still pass on it today for only $95 since it's not really in my particular collecting wheelhouse. Just looking at some of the auction prices being paid for these not so HG copies of GA books that are now seen as keys, classic covers, or HTF books makes me really wish that I could have a time machine and go back to change my bad bad decisions about not bothering to pick them up because I simply thought at the time they still were not in that nice enough condition for me to spend my money on.

Jon let go large portions of his collection in the two decades prior to the big sale. Yes, I guess it was indeed a combination of both dispersal strategies and possibly the best of both worlds. But the big CC offload at the end was so massive that it basically seem to overwhelm all of the smaller individual run dispersals he had done in the past. Makes wonder if we have been seeing some of the same strategy being followed by Dave Anderson with some of his 2nd tier runs apparently being auctioned off through Heritage during the past couple of years.

Many thanks. Loads of pretty books among those titles. I love that Flash run, but it felt like time to let most go. I might reassemble in a higher grade at some point. I held back a few I couldn’t live without, including my 96, which is on par with the AF32 as being miserably tough. And cool. Wow, that's definitely a ton of books to be giving up at one time, although I think you did mentioned in another post that this is only a portion of your collection so far. Definitely hope this is the case as it looks like you have quite a lot of goodies in your collection. I can definitely feel for you as a collector whenever you do decide to let a part of your collection go. Everybody takes a different approach to it as some will do it by runs such as you seem to be doing or some like Jon Berk who will do it all at once. Whichever way they do decide to take, all I can do is wish them the best for safeguarding and taking care of these wonderful books for all these long years so that they can be passed off to the next generation of collectors. At the same time, it also makes me especailly happy that you have also held back a few for yourself which you simply couldn't live without, similar to what Jon apparently did with a few of the Centaurs from his much loved collection.

Long been one of my favorite ECs. Great cover and (if you crack it!) absolutely top interior content, with Kamen on a Ray Bradbury horror story and Reed Crandall's killer artwork on Carrion Death. +1 I think you pretty well nailed it right on the head with your detailed analysis here.

So, from what I am seeing here, I assume it must be that big ding at the bottom left of the spine, along with possibly some invisible spine ticks that can't be seen from a scan, that kept this book out from hitting the CGC 9.6 graded level on the first go round here. That appears to be a pretty significant hit from what I am seeing here. Of course, that from the point of view of being a long term collector from long before CGC was even a glint in anybody's eyes, and simply going for the overall visual appearance and feel of a book, as opposed to the tiny technical details that CGC places most of their focus on. Ok, the ding at the bottom would definitely bother me in the old days, but not so much the tiny near invisible ticks that can only be seen when the book is held in hand and pointed at just the exact correct angle to the light. Especially not if they are they are either a Church copy or a Poughkeepsie File Copy from way back in the late 30's or early 40's and looking and feeling just as fresh as a newsstand comic off the shelves of your LCS last week.

I guess the QES sticker cost about $50,000 on this one...I give the sticker itself a 6.5 for placement and the cut. I'm not sure they met their own criteria for it. Yes indeed, as I was rather shocked it actually managed to climbed all the way up there from where it was earlier in the day. If I remember correctly, it was sitting at only something like $65K not too long before its scheduled auction end time. Actually, based upon some of the 4-figure and 3-figure results for what I though were not so HTF books, it looks like the gang at Metro and CC must have hyped this collection properly and also used their extensive network of connections to get the right buyers interested in this Key Collection. I assume the long-time collector should be ecstatic with the results as this will indeed go a long ways to paying off some of his hefty medical bills and also to provide some type of legacy for his family going forward.

Yes indeed, as it looks like Bat 1 for the Gold and Action 1 for the Silver, with the Bronze most likely being held by Spidey until he hands it off to Phantom Lady on Thursday afternoon. Way behind eating their dust and sweeping up the racetrack floor will be both the rare Italian and possibly even rarer Peruvian editions of Walking Dead #1, with both of them still sitting there at the astonomical price of $1 with no customer bids to their credit yet. Well, looks like it was much more of a squeaker than I had originally thought as Phantom Lady with her outstretched longer fingernails just manages to snatch the Bronze medal out of Spidey's hands with a bid of $121K over Spidey's top bid of $120K. Still at the back of the pack choking from all of the dust is the rare Italian edition of Walking Dead #1 at $1 and still unable to get out of the starting gate, while the super rare Peruvian version is now clearly ahead in second last place with a triple size bid of $3. Surprise, surprise, as Professor X shocks the audience by actually stepping up from his wheelchair and digs inside Phantom Lady's top where she thought it was safely hidden away, only to have him grab the now hot Bronze medal and sheepishly hand it to his band of merry mutants. As for the contest at the other end of the building, it looks like the rare Italian edition of Walking Dead #1 with the winning sum of $15 was able to beat out the super rare Peruvian edition at $21 in their 2-dog race for bottom of the barrel honors.

On the other hand, I felt these 2 absolutely gorgeous Torchy's with the titillating cover artwork and interior lingerie art by Bill Ward should have done better: Especially in this era of super red hot classic GGA cover books, considering these 2 books seldom come to market in this high grade condition and yet they only managed to hammer at $2,555 and $2,625 respectively. Go figure that as I think the lucky buyer(s) really got themselves a steal of a deal at these prices!!!