lou_fine

Well, if last night's Heritage auction was any indication, it definitey looks like the good times are still here to rock and roll. Decided to do one of my very few forays into Heritage's Sunday auctions yesterday afternoon and threw in a pie in the sky crazy bid for this book here: Thought for sure that my bid would be safe and forgot all about checking back in to see if anybody would be even crazier than me. Looks like there was as some crazy fool out there went one increment higher than me and bidded $240 on the book for a final price of $288. My bad as I really should have gone back in and check, especially since I would have been willing to up my bid to $260 for an all-in price of $310 or about a 20% discount to condition guide. My problem is that I just can't figure out if we are still on a continuation of the uptrend on the $31,111 that was paid less than a year ago for the then NOT highest graded CGC 9.6 graded copy of this book or are we now over the peak and starting to hit the downward side of the chart for this red hot book here.

makes the Professor's 9.9 purchase look silly Thus Endeth the Lesson! Well, why end it here when we can all go back in time to relive and enjoy a whole 56 pages of fun and rollicking good times with the Prof:

there have been a few outliers at $1200 but the average has been pretty steady around $800 since 2015 Well, with 13 copies in CGC 9.9 graded condition, any idea what the going rate for one of those baker's dozen copies would be? Does anybody remember here when and what the single highest graded CGC 10.0 graded copy sold for?

True. Only Chicago Copies owned by George had the coding. He coded ALL his books, including non Chicago's. West; Since I would not be able to ask you a question here based upon your current job with your current employer, I just had a question from the point of view of your previous job with your previous employer here. When it comes to markings or coding that's associated or recognized as the signature tell tale marks for a particular pedigree, how do the graders treat that from a strict grading point of view? If it's something minor and small like the Edgar Church codings, I imagine they are not seen as a defect. I personally prefer books with these tell tale MH codes because it makes it so much easier to identify them and verify their authenticity. I was just wondering what happens when you get either the more obtrusive coding like the Okijima camp copies which are often rather large, but still doesn't appear to be a deterrent for the collectors based upon the high prices they are fetching. Or the Cosmic Aeroplane or even the Recil Macon pedigree books which have their markings and/or printed signatures throughout various parts of the book. Definitely less appealing from a relative visual appearance point of view, so I was wondering if these would then be seen as a defect when it comes to grading? Of course, there's absolutely no need for you to answer this question if this would be a violation of CGC's proprietary rights and you could end up in the slammer for life if you did answer the question.

You mean after he was booted off the pages of CBG and not allowed to run his scams on there anymore? I clearly remember him crying like a little school girl and wishing and hoping to no avail that he could get his advertising privileges back. Brings a smile to my face every time I think about poor little Danny boy twisting in the wind for all those long months on end.

Masterchief; Most definitely a blast from the past. After reading all of that hype and Danny Dupcak prose in all its glory, I found my hands naturally reaching out for my wallet to open it as wide as I could.

Well, I guess Wertham must have been out of step with the times back then, otherwise he would have also added in the whole threesome angle. Of course, if it was Charles Moulton, he would have caught it right away as he was doing the whole threesome love triangle in real life, in between coming up with Wonder Woman and inventing the lie detector.

Ironically, the Comic Buyers Guide's expose on Dupcak/Comic-Keys connection ("Mystery in Cyberspace") came out in February 2004. Well, that sure took them a long time or more than 10 years after they were booted off from advertising on the pages of CBG. Especially since it took only a discussion with Maggie down at the SD Con and they were gone from the pages of CBG within 2 short weeks afterwards.

It was an auction from 2004. A lot more information about Dupcak's doctored books and phony descriptions became circulated after then. Well, I still think that Heritage should have known a lot sooner than that. Especially when most collectors were already well aware of the nefarious going ons with fantazia and their Eastern Color File Copies in the early 90's.

They don't charge for it So, out of the goodeness of their heart, are they really going to reholder everybody's pedigree books with the new label and slab for free then? That'll be the day...........and if you really believe it, then I have some swamp land in Florida to sell to you.

Wow, to think they would actually be enough to use use both "Fantazia" and their Certificate of Non-Authenticity as the key selling point for their book.

The Church #15, a CGC 9.6, sold on CC a few years ago too. Does make one wonder where the rest are. This current #17 looks like it may be on its way to the 150k club. I would definitely tend to agree with you on your estimate here. It definitely looks like another case whereby the Church copy of a long time acknowledged classic cover is virtually locked up in a private collection with the key thrown away. Similar in vein to the Church Suspense 3 which nobody thought even existed until it all of a sudden made its appearance out of nowhere.

Yes. And color touched it. And trimmed it. Are you sure that's Danny Boy's handiwork there? After all, his trimming jobs are really more of a macro hack job whereby you are usually left with only a mini version of the comic book by the time he's done with it.

Well, since another AA 16 has already entered the $100K Club before, I believe the first true new entry will be making its debut soon in the CC Auction: I am actually surprised it's taken this long for a copy to finally surfaced in NM condition. Especially since it's been acknowledged by everybody in the hobby as one of the all-time classic GGA covers right from the get go. Looks like a lot of collectors have been trying to reach this grading pinnacle since the CGC census indicates almost 100 copies have passed through their grader's hands to date, with only this sole single copy being able to acheive this ever elusive CGC 9.4 NM designation. Makes me wonder if there is a Church copy of this book being held in tightly in some lucky collector's private collection to this day. Especially since Chuck's Mile High catalogue didn't have any of the Phanton lady books in there, but that's probably because Burrell might have pulled them all out from the get go as part of his compensation for loaning Chuck the $2K to purchase the entire Church collection in the first place. After all, didn't Heritage have a Church copy of PL 16 which they auctioned off a few years ago

So, makes me wonder if CGC would tend to view these penned in codes as defects and downgrade accordingly for them, especially since they are not CGC verified signatures? Reminds me a bit like the Recil Macon books where he penned in his name all over the book along with filling in his personal info for the mailed-in coupons inside the books. Oh well, but I'll still them!!!

Masterchief; Welcome back to the boards after a long long absence, even though I know that you have been patroling the boards behind the scenes. Personally, let me say that your absolutely amazing detective tracking work and deep dive into some of the shall we say "improved books" have been sorely missed on these boards here. Hope this post here is a positive sign that you might be able to post more often and share some of your extensive knowledge with the new boardies going forward.

No, George owned a lot of Chicago Copies, but not every George Olshevsky copy is a Chicago Copy. He had a complete Timely collection, about 1/3rd were Chicago Copies. West; Greatly appreciate your feedback here. I remembered going theough the Overstreet guides back in the late 70's and early 80's and they used to constantly talked about the Olshevsky Timely copies which left me with the impression that they were some type of pedigree copy back then. Since that name seems to have dropped out of the collecting volcabulary over the past couple of decades, I thought they might have just changed it to the more familiar sounding Chicago pedigree name. Thanks for clearing up that little misunderstanding on my part for me. As for the Chicago books themselves, any idea how large the collection was since they don't seem to really show up very often in the marketplace today? I know it had a lot of the Timely's as part of the collection back then when they seem to be much more prevalent. Not so much now, as even this current CC auction that is taking place right now has only one of these books in their auction. Looking at it last night, I somehow suspect it just might end up finishing a wee bit higher than the current $3 top bid it is sitting at. Especially since it is apparently still tied as the highest graded copy after all these years. On second thought, considering the auction has now gone on for almost an entire week with everybody already having their fair shot on the book, I really think the CC auction should end right now on this Chicago pedigree book right here and not go a single dollar higher than the astronomically out of the ball park $3 figure it's already at. Boy, they are definitely right when they talk about how insane prices are in today's scorching red hot marketplace.

Although Allentown books are rarer due to the small size of the collection, their state of preservation is far below that of a typical Mile High from the same era. Most of the Allentown books are Cream to Off-White or Off-White while most Mile Highs are White or Off-White to White. Out of the 135 Allentowns I'd guess only 10 or so are better than their Mile High counterpart. West; I am 110% sure that you have seen a whole ton more of these Allentown pedigree books than I have and I am sure you must be correct when comparing these 2 pedigrees in general. Of course, everybody here already knows about the high profile Allentown copies of both 'Tec 27 and Cap 1 being most likely the best copies in existence along with the high grade CGC 9.6 graded Allentown copy of 'Tec 29. Since my comment was more limited to just the early Fox books as I am more of a fan with respect to this small subset of the Allentown collection, I decided to take a closer look to see if I remembered things correctly or not in terms of these particular books being very high grade from a strict condition point of view. Based upon my limited computer and search skills, I was able to find only 10 early Fox books where there were both Church copies and Allentown copies that had been graded. Out of these 10 matchups, there were 6 cases where the Allentown copies ended up grading higher than their Church counterparts, 2 copies where they were graded exactly the same, and the remaining 2 copies where the Church copy came out higher than their Allentown counterpart. As I had already mentioned, one of these was the Mystery Men 3 where the MH copy came in at a CGC 9.6 grade and the AT copy came in at a CGC 9.4 grade. The only other early Fox book that I was able to find where the Church copy finished higher was the Wonderworld 14 which came in at a grade of CGC 8.5, while the AT copy came in one step lower at only a CGC 8.0 grade. Interesting to note that Payette (who has a reputation as a tough grader) had the book graded as a raw NM (same as his grade for the Mystery Men 3) which makes me wonder if there might have been some damage inflicted to the book in the interim, or is it due to one of those near invisible flaws that CGC takes the grading hammer to, but is easily upgradeable if "fixed". Watching PQ sometimes bounce all over the place, I have never place that much significance on the PQ rating for a particular book. Nevertheless, it looks like out of the 10 early Allentown Fox books, the only one that had any mention of Cream in their PQ was the CGC 9.2 graded copy Wonderworld 6 (still highest graded copy by far) which had a PQ rating of Cream to Off-White pages way back in 2000 when CGC graded it when they first opened their doors. Any bets that the PQ might actually go up on this book if it ever got regraded since it seems that the accepted thinking on these boards here is that PQ was judged relatively harshly in the early days as compared to later on. What I am sure of though is that the colors on the Church books always tends to really stand out and seemingly pop right off the covers which is something that CGC doesn't seem to factor as much in terms of their grading as they probably should. My bet is that the colors on the Church books, even for these early Fox books, would most probably be sharper and stand out a lot more than the ones on the Allentown copies. In all honesty though, I would certainly not complain and be happy owing any of these early Fox books, whether it be a Church copy, an Allentown copy, or even any of the Larson copies that one of our fellow esteemed board members here is still gripping onto tightly after all of these years.

My old age must be starting to creep in as I've been trying to figure something out. Now, as everybody here knows, the Mile High pedigree collection is really the Edgar Church collection and the San Francsico pedigree collection is really the Tom Reilly collection. If I remember correctly, the Carson City pedigree collection is also known as the Comstock Collection. When it comes to the Chicago pedigree collection though, it is clearly not the same thing as the Windy City pedigree collection since this one consists of only #1 issues as far as I can remember. So, is the Chicago pedigree collection then the same thing as the noted George Olshevsky collection which was often talked about way back in the day? I believe it consisted mostly of the Timely books and was highly sought after at the time.

Can't really remember that book but it must have looked pretty nice. $30k seems reasonable to me. Which book are you referring to be at in terms of a reasonable price? The CGC 1.8 graded copy that CL auctioned off a few months ago or this latest CGC 3.0 graded copy in the current CC auction?

Are you being serious here with your line of thinking? So, are you really trying to say that Dave Anderson made a huge mistake by paying up for the Church copy of Action Comics #1 and the Allentown copy of Detective Comics #27 back then, when he really should have been loading up on the current hottest books of the day like all of the one's that were on Wizard's Top 10 Hot lists back in the 90's? Boy, I sure wish I was in poor Dave's position and had made a huge collecting blunder like that. Poor Dave, living in that imaginary world of his whereby collectors are offering him all of those illusionary dollars for his books. Well, of course CGC makes more money off the Modern books as opposed to the vintage GA books. After all, that's what their entire business model is based upon. Convince the "astute" collectors of the day like yourself to send in what are otherwise worthless books to be graded as they are coming off the printing presses in the tens of thousands every week. Especially since the underlying books themselves don't have much real value at all, as all of the incremental value (if any at all) is in the CGC labels only, and perfect for today's generation of CGC label collectors. In full agreement with you that CGC would not be able to keep their doors open if they had only the vintage GA market to depend upon. After all, there is absolutely no real reason at all for a long term GA collector to ever have their vintage collectible books graded unless it came time for them to sell them.

I may have thrown in a couple bids Peter; Before you threw in your bids, you shoud have come onto the boards here declaring how this used to be a POS CGC 0.5 graded PLOD book before somebody must have gotten their dirty greasy little hands onto it and manipulated it into a CGC 3.0 blue slab.

Really nice presenting copy. I’ll guess 31K. So, are you saying that the winner of the CGC 1.8 graded copy of the 'Tec 38 in the CL Spring auction got taken to the cleaners on his winning bid of $30K?

If I was a consignor, I would be ecstatic if a book of mines even qualifed for the 6-months payment plan option. Of course, I would be even more ecstatic if the winner of the book had deep enough pockets to forego the 6 months and pay off the whole thing right away.

yes I'll take it. They can end that one now ! Sorry Peter; It looks like the mere fact of mentioning this book here has just brought in another 7 bids and now it's sitting at $16,400. Any guesses as to where this copy will finish up at on a price per point basis. Don't think it'll get to the $18K per poont that the other copy in the CC auction managed to fetched a couple of years ago, but will it get close to the $16,667 per point that this CGC 1.8 graded copy (i.e. $30K) was able to fetched on CL a few months ago in their big Spring auction: