lou_fine

Yes the lots start closing in 90 mins and that most action happens at the end. Exactly why I don't even waste my time bidding in the CL or eBay auctions. If you really want to win a book, you basically have to throw in a moonshot of a bid because you have absolutely no idea what it would take for you to win the book. I much prefer either the Heritage or CC auction formats because you know exactly what you are bidding in order to win the book and you have nobody else to blame except yourself if you win or lose.

+1 Totally agree with you here. I think they should just go back to their original premise and stick with the history of the various pedigrees and the back story\ies behind them since that from my point of view, is the most interesting part of the pedigree story. Similar in vein to the CBM issue published back in the day that was dedicated to some of the GA pedigrees, as these are the types of background stories that remain timeless and relevant to the collecting base. I can certainly read these over and over again and it never fails to score high on the enjoyment scale for me. I really think they should get away from trying to link it to all of the CGC stats because that is constantly changing over time and it basically makes it a much more dated publication. Much more better to have it as a seminal one-time publication similar in vein to the historic Gerber Photojournals.

Beats me, but I don't really understand how this book can keep going for such high prices when they seem to be showing up in almost every auction now. When the first copy showed up a few years ago, I could understand the huge multiple to condition guide. Now, we've had so many copies available in the marketplace since then and they still go for outrageous prices. Go figure that as they are certainly nowhere near as scarce as previously thought.

Well, if I was Helen or any of the other Church family members, I would certainly not be very happy with Jerry at all.

This would help explain why Mitch couldn't buy one for $400. Also due to the fact that back in those pre-internet days and non-connected world, it was really more about having the right connections in order to even have any hope of having access to the key books. Nowadays, not so much with public auctions on an almost monthly basis where the only thing required is deep pockets and a willingness to dip into it.

I had heard Nick and Mike paid roughly $1,000 for 60 Timelys on that day...that comes out to $16.66 per book or $98.48/book in today's money. Anybody have a 1973 OSPG? Of course, looking back retroactively based upon today's marketplace, it would appear the Nick and Mike made out like bandits in this deal. If you go back to 1973, however, it's quite possible that the wise old Doc might have been the one dancing like a crazy banana , especially if there were any mid-run or later issues of the 3 Timely titles which were probably valued in only single digit dollars at the time in the Overprice Guide. Actually, relatively much more expensive if you compare that Reilly sale to the $2,000 that the old lady managed to squeeze out of Chuck for the 20,000 (or thereabouts) Church books. She probably thought she had fleeced that young whippersnapper of a hippie dude to pay full brand spanking new prices for what were just some old used comic books. I am just sorry that I was not around at the time for the Doc and the old Church lady to take advantage of me like that.

Well, since that first load of Timely's on that Easter Sunday were comprised of Cap, Torch, and Subby's, I guess we'll take a look at those only then: With respect to the Cap's, it looks like Cap 1 was guiding for a whopping $350 at top of guide with the Cap 2 being the only other 3-figure dollar book coming in at $150. All of the other Cap's were well below $100 for the rest of the first 10 issues and then well below $50 for anything after Cap 10. Human Torch #2(#3) was listed at $130 which was then followed by Torch #5 at $90. All of the other Torch's were well under $50 with the exception of Torch #3 (#2) which came in at $65 in top of guide. Subby #1 was listed at $100 followed by Subby #2 at $50 with the rest of the first 10 issues well under $50 and anything after Subby 10 well under $20 a pop. Of course, it should also be pointed out that the Overstreet guide was often referred to as the Overprice Guide back in those early days. I also believe that Bob used to always mentioned that collectors should not expect to receive full guide prices when selling to a dealer and oftentimes would see only something like 20% due to the costs and expenses that the dealers would have to incur in order to resell a book. Okay, I am willing to MANNUP and bite the bullet here by offering a full $100 for each of these Reilly Timely's even after taking inflation into account.

Congrats on a great pickup here. I have always loved the colors on this absolutely gorgeous classic BB bondage cover.

Well, this puts it in line on a price per point basis with the CGC 3.0 graded that sold on CC for just over $54K then. Probably due in large part that both of these copies appeared nicer relative to their assigned CGC grades.

Any reason for you to move the Green Mask 1 and the Weird 1 or was it because they just weren't quite as sharp as the Mystery Men 1 and the Amazing Adventure Funnies 1? Just read from Bob's Facebook page that there were duplicates in the Tom Reilly collection. As far as you know, were there any dups in the Denver Collection?

This is the first I've heard about the Reilly books having a copy of Mystery Men #1 in there. I guess nobody knows where this copy would be? Is it possible that it just might not have any of the tell tale Reilly codes on it or did all of the books from this pedigree collection come with the designated codes without any exceptions?

To each their own, but I absolutely love looking at the back cover of books, especially when they look so perfect and white as this Denver Cap 1 here. What an absolute beauty of a back cover here.

Not all bound books are trimmed. You'd have to look at each book on a case by case basis. Yes, wouldn't it have been a lot simpler or at least a lot wiser from a preservation point of view to look for a hardcover binder that would fit the actual comic books themselves, instead of the the other way around?

A few others that exist, though I have no idea if they have been graded- Sure Fire 1 Super Mystery 1 Miracle Comics 1 Green Mask 1 The Flame 1 Green Hornet 1 Crash 1 Well, this is definitely very useful information as it looks like the listed grades of these 45 Denver's (including Cap 1 at 9.4) would work out to an average grade of 8.66, with a range from CGC 6.0 up to CGC 9.6. Pretty much what I had expected since I was thinking an average grade of 8.5 even though there does seem to be a lot of CGC 9's+ in that list there. I notice that the lists didn't include any of the 3 books that the Pedigree Book had mentioned in their little write-up: Wonder how those 3 highlighted Denver books would stack up against the rest of the group?

They get a blue label unless something else has been done to the book. The problem is that we are trying to box all books into clear cut designations like 'trimmed' or 'restored' or whatever. But there are 'one off' type books that fall between the cracks and in those cases, those books are treated by certification companies on a 'case by case' basis. The Marvel Comics #1 CGC 9.0 Pay copy is a perfect example. How do you grade it when it has writing all over the book? They treated it as a one off because of it's special characteristics. And so in a case where a book was assembled by a publisher - it's going to be a judgement call on how it's handled, depending on the circumstances and provenance of the book. Provenance would trump everything else for me. Roy; I am not sure if CGC or the other grading company would treat books like these as "one-off's" or not. I remember picking up a bound volume (actually unbound since it was no longer bound to the hardcover) of Harry Wildenberg's copies of Famous Funnies #1 - #5 way back in the day. Doubt they would be worth very much since books in those days were trimmed in order to fit the hardcovers and nobody in this CGC generation of collectors would even know who Harry Wildenberg was and his importance to the creation of the modern comic book as we know it so well today. Of course, the absence of any super-heroes wearing their undies outside their pants and the current lack of interest in the historical strip reprint comic books certainly doesn't help matters at all in terms of valuations.

I've always wondered if the graders are more prone to give the benefit of doubt to a book and grade it higher if they are unsure and if the book was paid for at a higher tier? Of course, the theory is that they always grade the book that's in front of them and don't know any of the submission details, but then again.

From my personal point of view, there is a world of difference between a "File Copy" and a warehouse find. Especially if you are referring to a Poughkeepsie File Copy from say the late 30's or early 40's where there might only be that one "file copy" of a particular book. A warehouse find brings to my mind the distinct possibility of multiple copies of the exact same book in the same equivalent grades.

Don't you have a copy of the Official Comic Book Pedigree book yet Lou? It came out (never)! I am just glad I never bothered to give them the initial $50 deposit which they were asking from collectors in the beginning. I guess the best person to know the details about the Denver pedigree would be Jim Payette since he seems to keep pretty good records for these kinds of things. Similar hopefully to what he did for the Allentown Collection which had a detailed list of the individual books along with their grades at the time.

Yes, talk about inflation here. Their max grading fee used to be $3K and then they jacked it right up to $5K without a corresponding increase to their valuation threshold trigger point of $3,000 per book. The least they could have done was increase the threshold level to $5,000 per book, especially considering how fast book valuations are increasing in this marketplace.

December of 2009 it was certified 9.0 PLOD with cleaned cover, but might have changed since then. I guess that's why it's alright for Heritage to hire Mark Wilson now. Especially since all of the books he "cleaned" have now been given the quasi-blue light of approval now. I guess if either CGC or Heritage hires Jason in the future, we'll know that near invisible micro-trimming is also good to go.

The Bat 1 has a cleaned cover. It resides in a 9.0 PLOD holder. Any idea if the Bat 1 was graded prior to CGC's change in their updated Restoration Grading Scale? Especially since cleaning, including both wet cleaning and solvent cleaning, has now apparently been moved out of the dreaded PLOD holder and into the much more acceptable Conserved holder.

Can understand the extra expense for a Walk Thru - we also charge a premium for customers who require services on an emergency/immediate basis and can't wait for the customary turn-around times. So I guess it is simply "because they can" +1 I believe you hit the nail on the head when you said "simply because they can". More so than speed, it's based upon the perceived value of your book. So, if I have a key GA book that's been sitting in my collection for decades and in no hurry to get it graded, they can still charge up to $5K to have it graded as long as they think it's market value is greater than $3,000.

It is first issues from most publishers, Fox, Quality, Ace, Centaur (I had the Man Of War #1 years ago), Timely, etc. Yes, just went back to the Pedigree Book website and it states that there's a total of 153 books in the entire collection. The only ones they listed in their meagre write-up was the All-Select 1, GL #1, and Sensation #1. So, I assume those 3 should probably be pretty nice copies or representative of the books within the Denver collection. Although it looks like the later Centaurs are there like your Man Of War #1, I doubt many of the early Centaur #1's would be in there since it states that the collection runs only from 1938 through to 1944.

Insurance expenses. As a business entity, I would assume they need to carry insurance waivers/business liability insurance on high value books while they are in CGCs possession. Sounds as though you've been drinking way too much of the CGC Kool-Aid if you believe it's all about the insurance expense. Especially if you really believe they have to pay $5K to insure a book that's going to be in their possession for only a few days on a Walk Through submission.

Since we are talking about the Denver pedigree here, does anybody have an idea of exactly what books are in this pedigree? Just wondering since there it is supposedly a relative small pedigree with only 151 books or thereabouts in there, which makes it the second smallest major pedigree to the Allentown Collection which is comprised of only 135 books. Does anybody know if all or most of the Timely and DC #1 issues would be in the Denver? I believe there are some Fox #1 issues that are part of the Denver Collection. It's too bad they never ever got around to finishing off that Pedigree Book which they had talked about for the longest while.