lou_fine

agreed Are the 2 of your trying to encourage potential fraudulent activity on the boards here? Send both the book and loose staples to Matt and ask him for his professional opinion (while wearing his CCS hat) as to whether the boys at CCS are qualified enough to do this type of work and be able to get it by without detection from those darn CGC graders.

should i sell my 6.0 now NO, you should most definitely be trying to scoop every single one of them up at whatever the going price is so that you can then control the market for these Mask Comics going forward.

Doesn't the government check payments over 10,000.00, to make sure no laundering, or shenanigans? I may be wrong , just what I heard. Yes indeed, any form of payment over $10K has to to be fully documented with an anti-money laundering form and submitted in for review. Not sure if this particular transaction would have been flagged and pulled for a more detailed review, as opposed to the norm of simply being waived right through. A foreign amount of over $10K and detailing a comic book transaction might indeed raised some red flags as it would definitely be out of the norm for them, but not for the boardies here of course.

Another question is will this crack $100K on the next go round or will sanity come back into play as it dips back down to the $50K mark:

It does have low census numbers, but I don't believe that would justify $9,000 for a non-key, non-event, JLA numbered in the high 40's. The only thing remotely special about it is that it's an 80 pager.  Did you miss the big bold heading where it said the book came from the highly acclaimed Pacific Coast pedigree collection?

And you would be exactly right in this particular case here. Especially since the CGC census already shows that there are another 24 equivlaent CGC 9.8 graded ccopies of this book out there, along with another 44 CGC 9.6 graded copies knocking on the door whilst the owner holding their red hot pressing iron in their other hand.

As a fellow boardie who is concerned about your proper mental health, I am willing to step up to the plate, bite the bullet, and take that no good darned TMNT 1 from your nerve wracked and trembling hands. It's quite obvious the mere fact that you own this book is giving you a lot of undue stress and sure as heck also giving you a lot of sleepless nights. As a result, since it's quite obvious that nobody else cares enough to offer, I would be willing to give you some much needed stress relief by taking that horrid book off your hands and removing all of that negative energy that seems to be floating around you right now.

But the Terry and the Pirates sold at a lower price than it did last time on Heritage. Haven't you learned that the past is the past and there's no time like the present? Actually, it looks like you are right on here since the book sold for $6,572.50 on HA back in November of 2017 and then resold again for $6,600 a full year later in November of 2018. Looks like the consignor must have lost some serious coin on this book here from a percentage point of view as it managed to fetch only $5,160 in this most recent go-round.

Well, it looks like PL 17 has SS 4 beat by about 25 years then since I remember PL 17 already being flagged and singled out in the Overstreet guide as far back as the mid to late 70's. I guess I was lucky in being able to stumble my way onto my copy of Seven Seas 4 back in the mid 90's when it was still below everybody's radar.

You really can't go wrong with the top 20 to 25 GGA covers. I can certainly see collectors choosing covers like Brenda Starr #14, Startling #49, Blue Beetle #54, etc. as their favorite. Well, again being the contrarian that I am, I've always much preferred the Blue Beetle 52 over the much more highly acknowledged classic BB 54 cover myself. I've always loved the bright blue, green, and red color combinations on Blue Beetle 52.

Agreed. The layout and execution on SS4 is better - plus it doesn't make my wife's eyes roll like it does when she looks at my PL17. I know this book has gone crazy the last few years, but I believe it still has a ways to go. God, I really MUST take a much closer look at a copy of this book here, espeically since you've been around for so long ever since the Sleeper days of CBM. I clearly have always had the PL 17 cover tattooed into my mind from Overstreet's neverending constant focus on this book, even though I personally prefer the cover image to PL23 myself. Well okay, probably after doing a cost benefit analysis considering the once much cheaper cost of PL 23 relative to the always uber expensive PL 17. Being the contratian that I am, I have always preferred the Seven Seas 6 cover with its nice blend of flowing colors to the Seven Seas 4 myself. As a result, after acquring uber HG copies of both SS 1 and SS 2, I made a clear decision to look for a nice copy of SS 6 for my personal collection. After contacting a few dealers, I was relegated to a nice copy of SS 4 which I decided to accept in the interim with the clear intention of acquiring the SS 6 eventually. Well, 25 years later, I now have a relatively high grade set of all of them, except for the SS 6 which always seem to be past my price point. Obvously, the Seven Seas 4 must have been an insignificant book at the time because I don't even remember who I got it from or how much I had paid for it. For sure it must have been well under $500 or else I would definitely remember paying that kind of money for an almost foregettable book at the time. I guess sometimes you just get lucky and things happen to swing in your favor. Go figure that!!!

Would this be the Church copy by reputation or some other HG non-pedigree copy that is still locked away in a private collection?

friends don't let friends bid drunk ... Well, obviously he wasn't as drunk as the other guy who bidded it all the way up to $90K. This clearly brings back memories of me talking to the owner of a LCS shop in the suburbs out here. He asked me if I would be interested in ordering either a copy of the Dark Knight limited signed and number edition for $40 or a copy of this TMNT #1 from the publisher for $300 which he had already just ordered for another one of his customers. Being your typical know nothing Modern day comic collector at the time, I was all into Miller and agreed to order a copy of the Dark Knight from him. Especially after taking a peek at the sample artwork for TMNT which he had and thinking to myself, why in the world would I pay $300 for this horrid looking piece of crapola artwork when I probably wouldn't even touch it for $3.00 Fast forward almost 25 years and it looks like I would be lucky to fetch even $4 for the Miller "not so limited" DK hardcover edition and yet the TMNT is almost fetching 6 figures here.

You really should proofread your posts before you hit the Submit button here. Not exactly sure what you are talking about here as we seem to be in full agreement, especially after I went to all the trouble of fixing up your little typo here. No worries at all and you are most welcome by the way.

Since you seem to be a fine connoisseur in this end of the market and have been for awhile now, are you aware of any potential high grade copies of this book that might grade into the 9's or thereabouts that could blow past these current highest CGC 7.5 graded copies? Seems to be quite a few of relatively low grade to mi-grade copies of this book in the census, but still no truly HG copy to this current point in time after virtually 20 long years of slabbing. I wonder how much longer we will have to wait for a HG copy of this L.B. Cole classic cover book to make its appearance in the marketplace?

Well under guide, I think. FC 9 is a funny book (a funny funny book?). It's been a laggard for quite a while now. Combination, imo, of Barks having faded a bit, not a great cover (which isn't by Barks), not all Barks on the story, not a great story, and not a particularly scarce book. Still, that was a low price. I'd also have bid it up if I were in buying mode, which I'm also not. I guess it sort of depends on which books you are talking about. Based upon the initial low bidding that was taking place on these 2 not so in favor type of books, I was expecting the final results to also be on the low side: Yet, both of these rather nice looking and superb HG copies were still able to fetch multiples to top of guide.

As big a proponent of this book as I am, I have to wonder if this sale actually goes through, or if it isn’t some sort of attempted market manipulation. Maybe someone who owns 100 copies winning his own book to try and drive up the value himself. Especially when you consider that there's 24 other copies of this book out there in the exact samenot so HTF CGC 9.8 grade. Plus another 44 copies in slightly lower CGC 9.6 condition grade that's already knocking at the door and will now be highly tempted to go for some love loving and squeezeable hugs in order to see if they too can get past the door to join their CGC 9.8 graded brethren on the other side. Plus all of the other still raw HG copies of this book that's still out there which makes me think the purchaser of this particular copy is going to be in for a whole lot of financial pain and spanking when it comes time to sell this book here.

Well, it came in mightly close at $9,600 which is definitely a pretty strong price for this copy here: Considering all of the relatively strong prices that the Mask Comics have been fetching lately, I wish somebody would put out a nice copy of Suspense Comics 8 to see what kind of money that book would fetch in today's seemingly uber hot marletplace when it comes to the L.B. Cole classic cover books. Looks like this 1 of 3 highest graded copies was able to fetch only $3,107, but that was back in 2012 or long before the hot Cole phase: Any bets that this book or any other HG copy of Suspense 8 would also be able to get close to the $10K mark in today's markedly hotter marketplace.

https://lithub.com/the-man-who-made-millions-from-old-comics-in-a-closet/ Well, although Billy's heirs might indeed have made millions on his collection, it looks like the Tandano America Corporation might not have fared quite so well. Especially if this BW copy of AS 3 which sold for $72K is any indication: Most definitely a huge loss for them if their former employee had indeed paid $200K for this copy here after it had just sold for only $49K+ in a Heritage Signature Auction less than a week earlier.

Well, what is everybody's post-auction take on the final price of $72K for the CGC 7.0 graded copy of MF 73 here? Definitely much more than where they were going for prior to the Aquaman movie hype of 5 years ago, but appears to be a slight drop off from the $93K to $99K that CGC 8.0 graded copies were fetching on CC a couple of years ago. Especially when you take into consideration that CC was able to fetch $74,500 in once of their Event Auctions for a not the best looking CGC 5.0 graded copy back in March of 2015. Although that sale does appear to be a bit of an outlier when compared to all of the other MF 73 sales.

May well be. I owned a 9.8 copy of SS 1 for a while. Not a very attractive cover, imo. Seems as if material from Universal/Phoenix surfaced at some point, including some OA. A few years ago, somebody listed high graded copies of 4 and 6 (maybe also 5) on eBay at what seemed like crazy high prices. Those prices would be screaming bargains these days, of course. It would not surprise me at all if SS 1 and possibly SS 2 were indeed part of a small warehouse fine at some time in the distant past. I highly doubt that either SS 4 or most definitely SS 6 were ever part of any warehouse find given the relatively much lower number of HG copies out there.

That’s the same here. 15-20 people, of which half were probably Heritage employees. Seems very anticlimactic I guess this shows us how much of a tiny tiny niche the uber high end of the comic book market really is. Especially when you would hopefully expect some type of leakage from the 100,000 comic book fans attending the SD Con, even more so considering all of the free food they had out there. Not so much, it would seem.

Was it the usual typical small crowd of people at this Heritage Live Auction? I remember years ago when they held one of their big Signature Auction right in the middle of the SD Con. With well over 100,000 convention attendees down there, I was expecting to see a relatively sizable crowd during the live portion of the auction. When I walked into the room, I was surprised to see that there were barely 20 people in there and I am sure a good portion of them were Heritage employees themselves. Definitely couldn't complain about all of the goodies and refreshments though since there was ample to go around considering the small crowd.

Hey, who's the guy in the blue shirt up there at the top of your picture here?

I certainly wished this was true, but I highly doubt it since I do happen to have a nice copy of SS 4 in my own personal collection. I believe one of the main reasons for the current large disparity in the census count between PL 17 and the seeming scarcity of SS 4 is due to the simple fact that PL 17 has always been a hot classic cover book ever since the 70's. Definitely not the same situation with the Seven Seas 4 which appears to be one of the new hot fad GGA cover books that has gained popularity recently. Maybe Seven Seas 4 will narrow the census gap a bit as time goes on, especially now that collectors are starting to see the value of the book.