lou_fine

Why was there such a massive drop in the book’s value? Most likely because it made no sense for anybody to be paying that kind of money for that book in the first place, especially when there were already several other equivalent graded copies along with another higher graded copy on the census already. Nothing more than a return to normalcy after a short time period of hyper irrational exuberence.

So, are you really trying to tell me the person who paid over $30K for a CGC 9.6 graded copy of MSH #13 last year is not going to be the bulk of that money any time soon?

Or is it possible they are taking their bags of money and spending it on the much more challenging and rewarding GA comic book market, considering how much some of those prices have moved up in such a short period of time? Especially when collecting SA books, and in particular Marvel SA is really not much of a challenge at all as a complete set can probably be obtained in a week's time, depending on how fast you are willing to open your wallet.

You most definitely should not be counting on your comic book collection to form the BULK of your retirement fund, especially if you are doing your purchasing in terms of today's red hot marketplace with their hyper inflated prices. Then again, there's also absolutely nothing wrong at all with having your comic book collection act as the nice plump cherry on top of your retirement fund, especially if you had brought them back in the 90's at what were then perceived to be hyper inflated prices during that particular go round of the big red hot GA market.

You aren't the only one. Unfortunately, that's what happens and is also totally expected to happen when a collection of that size and significance gets placed into the market all in one shot. The individual books usually don't end up going for top dollar because there is just so much that the bidders need to spread their money between a lot more lots than what they would do in a normal auction. Although you can definitely pick up some books at less than the going rate, you also end up passing or missing out on books that you would normally make a much more aggressive push for if it was a regular auction with fewer quality books.

And yet he single handedly destroyed the Comic Book Marketplace (CBM) magazine that was such an amazing fan mag at the start when the Carters were running it, by turning it into his own almost unreadable puff piece in the end.

I talked to them. They were gracious but I’m a big believer in eating my mistakes. I was willing to pay the extra $250 on the cut bid if they wanted to offer it to the under bidder. Anyway, it is all my fault. I am just really glad it was on a book I really like and one I can afford. If it were the SF Cap 1 that is a mistake I would not be able to eat Exactly how gracious, not gracious enough I guess to waive any subsequent seller's fees that you might end up incurring? I remember bidding in either one of the Sotheby's or very early Heritage auctions back in the day when the internet service was a lot slower. By the time I hit the Bid button, the auction had already moved onto the next lot to a piece of OA which I did not collect at all. Called them up immediately and they said it was no problem and they would simply cancelled out my bid. Not sure what haappened to the lot that I had made a mistake on, but it worked out alright in the end for me.

Yikes, that looks like a $9,900 overshot to me which is certainly nothing to sniff at. Maybe you could call Heritage and try to explain the situation to them and see if they could remedy the situation for you. I imagine they would at the least consider waiving some of the fees associated with any subsequent resale you decide to do on the book. If so, just hold onto the book for a couple of auctions and then put it back out in the hot spring and/or summer auction periods and you should hopefully be able to recoup your money, if not more on the book.

Well, since I also love the other Christmas color (i.e. green) on covers, I would just as well go after this book here: Well, not necessarily the Church copy here, but any nice copy of this book here since it would sell at a fraction of what the Seven Seas 4 fetches in today's red hot GGA cover marketplace. I imagine if the cover image of the girl was larger and we could see the actual close-up menacing eyes of the octopus, it would be much more of a classic cover and going for a few more buckets of money.

So, are you saying this was just a thrill bid on your part here, with the full expectation that another bidder would come in and toss a higher bid on the book?

Wow, finally somebody that's thinking along the same wavelength as me. Although it has now been 20 long years and I would tend to think your 10% figure might be a bit low. I would most definitely say that although we can still see the light at the start of the grading tunnel, there's absolutely no way that we are even close to seeing the light at the end of the grading tunnel anytime soon. As I have been saying ever since I got on these boards here, we are still so early in this whole grading game that it's absurb to think that all of the quality books have already been graded. This is why I find it almost silly for speculators to say that we already have 3,000+ copies of AF 15 graded out there and there simply can't be many more than that. My guess is that the CGC census population report will end up being somewhere in the 5-figures for this high demand book before it's all said and done. This is also why I find it rather strange that buyers are apparently willing to pay outrageous multiples to acquire the current highest graded copy of a particular book. Especially when the egregious premium being paid has only short term transitory value and will disappear once another equivalent or higher graded copy of the book gets slabbed. If you have to pay up (i.e. beyond reasonable) to acquire one of these current highest graded copies, it's almost tantamount to buying a hot potato and just waiting for the big , and as history has clearly shown us over and over again, this is usally just a matter of time. Especially when any rational collector who has a shot at possibly having the highest graded copy or close to it still sitting in their private collection would not even think of getting it graded until it came time to sell the book. Even moreso since since getting the book graded to simply keep it in your collection and if it is indeed the new highest graded copy or close to it, would only end up putting a damper on prices for your own copy going forward.

This is definitely true. What we have seen though is a short term speculative jump in prices on the first appearances of these characters heading towards the movie theatres or your TV screens. Highly speculative and a dangerous minefield to be walking through as it requires you to be quite nimble as the prices are very volatile and tends to drop from their peaks rather quickly. Definitely not an area for me as I am terrible when it comes to trying to time the market, when I find it so much easier to buy vintage quality books and simply spend time in the market.

I wasn't making a comment on all things wacky. Just that one thing. And yet it's not that hard to find something that's even far wackier.

I would also be very happy if I've been saving my books from as far back as the early 40's or is it possibly even earlier?

Like the old saying goes on the boards here...................Buy what you love and enjoy, and if it happens to go up in value, then that's just an extra bonus. Looking backwards, I thought we were approaching a peak back in the mid-90's when the GA books went through their huge astronomical run up back then. Yet, look at where we are now after the most recent red hot run up over the past few years. As for the future, who really knows what's going to happen longer term.

So, are you implying that you are in agreement with this statement to the point since it's so obvious that it's ridiculous and not even necessary for it to be mentioned? Or are you implying that it's ridiculous since it's just so obvious that this statement is not true and almost to the point of a big joke?

I acquired debt from buying comics. To me makes sense selling comics to pay it off. Well, taking on managable short term debt from a collector's point of view is also completely different from taking on managable debt from a dealer's point of view. As a result, they are usually also dealt with and taken care of in completely different ways.

This just seems wacky to me to even offer this service. Really, is it anymore wacky than a grading company that offers to take a look at scans for an eBay auction in order to provide you with an estimated grade range along with a possible label type? All at a cost to you of course, but one which you can then offset in part if you do decide to send the book in for real actual grading. For the life of me, I can't figure out which grading company that would be.

I think it is more silly to keep debt. I don't regret selling any comics to get rid of it. I guess it really depends if it's managable short term debt or uncontrollable long term debt. After all, didn't Chuck end up having to make a big side deal with Burrell Rowe just to get his hands on the $2K in order to acquire the Church collection? Or Dave making the concious decision to take on some short-term debt in order to acquire the Church Action run after coming out from dental school?

It's awesome that you've kept the book all these years. I am quite sure that the older generation of long term comic book collectors have probably kept all of their books much longer than me. Definitely the case since my original off the shelf collection only goes back as far as the BA mid-70's where they are all still sitting around somewhere in those old poly bags that I shove them in after cherry picking them off the shelves of the LCS. Definitely different from today's generation of CGC collectors or even moreso with the CPR speculative flipping crowd where it often seems that holding onto a book for even more than a whole day must feel like absolute prison time to them.

Well, it's definitely hard to beat a "woman in bondage" cover when it comes to GGA art. Boy, that blond woman in the red dress still hasn't managed to figure a way out after six whole long months or does she simply enjoy being in that position? BTW: Is your better half aware of your apparent fetish with woman in bondage?

sold to thehumantorch One or both of them?

so did I. Lol Since that's past tense as opposed to present tense, does that mean that you have sold your copies off?

In my opinion he's the single worst person in comics. If anyone has anything nice to say about him, the floor is open. Have we all forgotten about Danny Dupchak, although he was always good for some hilarious stories while he was trying to con you.

at one point they were listed in the same auction. they moved one back to november. So, yes. Well, if the second copy goes for only half of what this recent copy managed to fetch which many of you seem to suspect will happen, I can bet you that the second consignor will be totally pissed off. Especially if it was Heritage that made the call on which 9.8 graded copy would go first and which copy would go next.