lou_fine

Once again, to each their own as it clearly looks like you are talking about 2 completely different kinds of buyers in the comic book book market here with these 2 examples of yours. With the Batman 11, you are talking about the long term vintage comic book collector who is spending time in the market. With the Gwen Stacy book, you are talking much more about the day trader where it's all about trying to time the market and flip the book for a big percentage profit before it falls like a rock. Any bets that the collector who put their money into say an Amazing-Man #22, Archie 50, Cinderella Love 25, Mystery Men 30, or even a Seven Seas 4 back in the late 80's or early 90's is doing a whole lot better now than the person who put the same amount of money into books like the then hot books of the time like Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters #1, Adventurers #1 (Skeleton Variant cover), Boris the Bear #1, Lady Death #1, McFarlane's Spidey #1, Malibu's Ultraverse line of books, Jim Lee's X-Men #1, Valiant's Deathmate books, etc., etc., etc. Personally for myself, I am much better at spending time in the marketplace. If I was trying to time the market, I am the one that would probably have ended up paying over $30K for the Marvel Super-Heroes #13 or something like $90K for the FF #52. Are you really Boston Corbett in disguise here? Wasn't he the economics professor who paid over $12K for a NM 98 in what is now a not so hard to find grade and then proceeded to lectured all of us here on the boards about the dynamic economics of the comic book marketplace and how his book would never ever go down in value. After being schooled by him on his flawless economic theory of comic book investing, I believe he ended it with his classic line of: THUS ENDTH THE LESSON. Well, all I can say is that it certainly did for him.

Batman #11 sells about 20 copies a year on eBay compared to Hulk #181 ASM #300 and NM#98 which sell close to 50- 100 a month. Please look up ebay completed sales for a source. One of the first things that shocked me was how slow Golden Age sales are compared to silver age,bronze, copper and modern age comics. Modern comics shocked me in the other way as I was surprised how much volume they do, especially Spider-Man and Batman modern comics. So yeah people who are loading up on these Marvel speculation movie hyped books are making way more profit than someone holding onto a vg golden age Batman #11 for 5 to 10 years. Makes absolutely no sense at all that you are referring to completed sales as your measuring stick if something is a good investment or not. In this case, I guess you would have to say the Mona Lisa has zero value because it has not sold at all to anybody for decades on end. At the same time, why would you waste your time and money on a slow book like Hulk 181 of ASM 300 which sells only a hundred or so a month, when you can try to flip the latest hot book off the newsstand that most likely has a much higher turnover? I always love these comparisons where somebody takes the hottest book from a particular time period and then matches it up agains a not the hottest book from another time period and then declares one must be better than the other. If you want to use Hulk 181 or ASM 300, then you should probably be matching it up against either an Action 1 or a AF 15. What you are doing with your Hulk 181 to Batman 11 comparison is tantamount to a GA collector trying to match up a Action 1 or a Detective 27 against a book like a ASM 39 and saying it's obvious which one turned out to be the better investment in the end. Even a less obvious match up between say a 'Tec 31 or an Action 13 against either a Hulk 181 or a ASM 300 would still be a better comparison. I could tell you which books virtually all collectors would take here (except for you of course ) since even CGC 1.0 graded copies of 'Tec 31 have been selling for over $40K in the past couple of years and didn't a Poor 0.5 raw copy of Action 13 go for almost $13K a few years ago in one of the Heritage Sunday auctions. Now, if I was holding all 4 of these books in my personal collection, guess which 2 I would be most happiest with at owning. Like any other hobby, it's really a case of to each their own.

3.0 blue ? That’s strong out of the gate Like Gator alluded to in his post, with the CC auctions, it's never really about the start as it's so much more about the finish at the end when the 3-minute buzzer goes off. Makes me wonder if this CGC 3.0 copy will finally be able to beat the price per point that this copy was able to fetch at just over $54K a couple of years ago on CC: I clearly remember watching both this one as it hit something like $25K near the end and then went all the way up to $54,010 after more than a half hour of extended bidding. Must have been the dynamic duo at the time as I also remember the gorgeous presenting CGC 3.0 graded copy of 'Tec 29 running neck and neck with it at the same time before finishing off a few minutes earlier at $66,010. Hmmmm.........that last $10 on the winning bids for both books makes me think it just might have been the same winner on both books that time.

Might have something to do with the fact that this particular copy of Avengers 1 was graded back in October of 2011 which is often considered to be one of the "loose" grading time periods for CGC.

Depending upon the type of books your are putting up for auction this time, that's actually quite high for only 3 days in on a CC auction. I just did a quick sort of the lots based upon Lowest Price First and it takes until Page 45 before you reach a lot that's got a bid above the starting hammer price of $1. That means 1,108 lots of the 2,720 or just over 40% of them still haven't received a single bid yet. I hope potential bidders realize that this particular CC auction is shorter than their past auctions by 1 whole week. Probably in response to a ton of complaints from their bidders along with board members here that their auctions were running way too long and some bidders might have forgotten all about them by the time the 3-minute buzzer sounds off.

Remember not to lose hope if the bids on your books appear low for the first few weeks. After all, with CC's auction format in play, most of the action on the more in-demand books tends to take place when the 3-minute buzzer goes off.

Actually, not too hard to figure out at all since this photo was posted on the boards before and talked about back then during the summer Con season. It's also very obvious from the illegitimate 11-digit serial number when CGC serial numbers have only 10 digits in them.

Looks micro trimmed ... Looks more like one of those extra extra restoration jobs from the husband and wife team at IGB.

I just got mine too! Nothing like stellar customer service to keep people coming back! No, I think the idea is that they hope you'll simply get tired of waiting for the books and decide to reconsign it to them just in time for their next Event Auction.

Just got an email that my item from the June auction has finally shipped. June of what year since it reminds me now that I really should get around to asking Heritage to send me out that book I won from them bck in 2017.

Totally understand that this is nothing more than a "What If" scenario here, especially since the Church books are generally accepted and acknowledged to be "normally" the best there is. It's really a case of to each their own though, especailly if you are talking about the Allentown books. Although the Church books in general are indeed often the best copies in existence, this does not seem to be the case in a straight match up with the Allentown copies that are out there. Clearly evident by the fact that the Allentown copies of 'Tec 27 and Cap 1 are deemed to be far superior to the Church copies. Similar in vein to the fact that in a match up of the early Fox books where the Allentown copies have already been graded, they have either come out on top or at least equivalent to the Church copy, with the main exception being Tim's Mile High copy of Mystery Men 3. In addition, the Allentown books are far more unique and highly sought after since there are only 135 of them in existence, as compared to something like 18,000 to 20,000 Church books out there. Just take a look at the upcoming CC auction and once again, not a single Allentown copy out of 2,723 lots while there are almost 30 Church books in there. Take a look at any Heritage Auction where there are usually a large number of Church books, and you'll be lucky to find a single Allentown book in there. So, although I am definitely a fan of the Edgar Church Mile High books, I also place a lot of prestige and possibly am even a bigger fan of the much harder to find Allentown books.

Definitely interesting that you think this current CGC 9.2 graded copy could have actually been previously graded as a FN68 based according to the pre-CGC grading standards of the day. With such a significant upgrade, are you implying that there was a lot of "non-restorative" enhancement done to the book to get it up to this far superior grade? I would find it extremely hard to believe that grading standards would have changed this much if it was only a straight resub.

Tom Reilly is to San Francisco as Edgar Church is to Mile High. Yes but CGC designates it the SF pedigree not Reilly pedigree What, you are now tossing CGC in this mix here!!! Hmmm........let's see now. Are you subconsciously now implying that CGC is to CBCS as Tom Reilly is to San Francisco and as Edgar Church is to Mile High?

Tom Reilly is to San Francisco as Edgar Church is to Mile High.

Batman and Robin seem to be enjoying their cosplay, er, crime-fighting. Yes indeed, I am actually surprised it got past the editors as it looks like Robin's already assuming his usual position for Batman.

If the punch holes remove color touch then it may well have been a PLOD 2.5. Yes, doesn't make much sense that CGC seems to generally downgrade a book when it has restoration, even though the actual work is supposed to improve the condition of the book. I guess that's why we often see restored books that seems to present much nicer from a strict visual point of view relative to their assigned grade, as opposed to unrestored books that can often present not as nice relative to their assigned grade. As if the PLOD isn't enough to hurt the value of the book, they seemingly want to make sure by also hitting it on the grade. Then again, maybe when you have the actual book in hand, it might not feel natural with the work and that's possibly the reason for the downgrade. So, who really knows in the end?

It's a gorgeous example for the grade, but looks fairly graded to me. With the front cover top edge, spine and bottom right corner, and what appear on the back cover to be a very small piece missing and a possible left edge cover tear and clear small tears along the spine, one can argue that the assigned grade is spot on. +1 Without the benefit of having the book in hand, I am also in full agreement that this book "appears" to be fairly graded for a CGC 4.5 graded copy, especially in light of the aformentioned visual defects on the front cover.

Got to be internal issues, how can this be only 4.5 ?! CGC certainly is tough on SA Yes, the back cover definitely presents much better than a 4.5 graded copy. The major defects with this copy though are clearly evident in terms of the front cover and this is probably why the book came in at only a 4.5 grade.

Makes me wonder how much of a factor or downgrade was given to the book as a result of the 5 punch holes?

I think that’s the Famous First Edition based on its measurements Gee, and I thought that was either the jolly Green Giant's or Stumbo the Giant's personal copy based upon its measurements.

Just thinking more from the point of view of all of the raw copies that must still be sitting out there in private collections. After all, most of these GA books are held much more in the hands of the longer term collectors and these are the types of collectors who most probably wouldn't even think of having their books graded and slabbed until it was time for them to sell it.

Maybe the single highest grade will make the difference, but I have never felt this book got the respect it deserved. If All Star 3 and Avengers 1 is so all that, why not this book? as a worthless trivia side note, this book was once thought to be rare. Today CGC census numbers show a different story Yes, Overstreet should probably really removed that "Scarce" notation that he has for both All Winners 19 & 21. Especially since they can't truly be as scarce with unrestored census population counts of 55 and 59 copies respectively, and even more so when compared with many other in-demand GA books still with only single digit census counts. In terms of single highest copy graded, anybody here have an idea as to the possible condition of the Church copy, especially since Chuck had it listed as a NM+ copy in his original Mile High Catalog.

Well, it looks like there were at least 2 other books from this consignor that were graded at the same time. The Spidey 1 came in with a CGC grade of 7.0 while the Daredevil 1 came in at CGC 9.4.

Well, if they are done with their posting, it looks like they now have a total of 47 pages in total or close to 2,350 books in total. I guess another highlight would be this copy of Startling Comics #49: Doubt it'll be able to hit six figures like the Church copy did back in 2016. Might stand a chance of hitting the $64K mark though which another CGC 9.6 graded copy was able to fetch last year during one of the CC auctions. Although having a total of 4 copies in this current highest graded CGC 9.6 condition level might make it a bit tougher to do.

Are you really so sure about this? I believe it really matters when you went and loaded up on these particular books here.