lou_fine

+1 Totally agree with you on this point. Yes, that was a definite eye opener here when Danny and then Masterchief lay down those before and after scans for all of us to see here. How ironic that it would be a macro-trimmer like Danny to expose a micro-trimmer like Ewert.

Now, that's classic Danny boy right there as he always came up with these wild and wacky stories to divert attention away from why he couldn't talked to you at the time or he was simply too busy to make it down to the post office to send you back your money. A Mazarati was it, because he told me that he had his Ferrari parked right outside and had to go chase some guys away who were trying to break into it and would have to get back to me later. Although his stories were always of the rather lame brained and unbelievable type, you simply couldn't help but to laughed at how crazy some of them were. Another one of his classics was that he was right in between 2 of his model girlfriends and couldn't talk anymore because they both needed him right then and there. Somehow, I got the distinct feeling that Danny didn't find it quite so funny when the shoe was on the other foot later on.

This actually reminds me of the time that I was contacted by a congressional aide to Congressman Lane Evans out of Illinois. Not sure how he got my number, but I assumed it must have come from Maggie Thompson as this was not too long after Danny boy lost his advertising privileges with CBG. Sounds as though the aide must have been a collector and had been ripped off by Danny and was gathering evidence to proceed with a case against him. Something to do with mail fraud across state lines which is apparently a federal crime down in the U.S. I assumed the aide must have gotten his money back from Danny because I never heard back from him with respect to providing more evidence for the case. Probably shouldn't have done it, but I did kind of indirectly mentioned the case to him and twisted the knife around a little bit when he was trying to get his book back from me.

Or maybe it's time to educate certain segments of the marketplace that there is both a mathematically significant and financially acknowledged difference between $143K and $23.5K. And yet at the same time, even independent third party grading of a comic book is still at best only a subjective opinion at the time the book crosses a human grader's table. As such, due to almost any number of contributing factors, a book which might grade out as a CGC 9.6 copy could conceivably be graded as a CGC 9.8 copy the next day or even a hour from then, and vice versa. That is, unless you truly believe this is a perfect world and if this is indeed the case why would you want to stop at only single decimal delineations between grades. Especially when there must be a world of clear and obvious differences between a CGC 9.62 and CGC 9.63 graded book.

Golden Age Only Period. (Aside from errors) Years ago I believe SB came on the boards and explained it was just due to the acceptance in the hobby and only when the grade would have had no apparent improvement anyway. I mentioned Snyder because he was known to mess with quite a few high quality GA books back in the day. Some have suggested this acceptance was due to some of his practices. I believe that many of the board members here either do not realize or have forgotten that restored books way back in the day (around the late 70's and early 80's) were deemed to have added value in comparison to a previously unrestored copy. Definitely an acceptable and possibly even recommended practice way back then, assuming proper disclosure of course. In fact, to the point whereby Overstreet even attempted to come up with some type of numerical determination in his guide whereby a restored book would be valued a certain percentage higher than its prior unrestored grade and yet lower than its new restored grade if it was unrestored. Thank goodness the hobby has learned from their past mistakes and advanced far enough that no collector would ever be crazy enough to even think of trying to "improve" their book in the hopes of being able to sell them for more money in this so much more consumer aware marketplace of ours nowadays.

Roy; In full agreement with your points here as I have also made virtually the same ones many times before in the past whenever this topic came up. Similarly, I believe pricing on books would have been significantly different if CGC had come up with a dual color labeling system for their graded books, dependent upon age and grade level to help "differentiate" them for the marketplace. Say blue labels for all MA books graded CGC 9.8 and above, with say black labels for all MA books lower than CGC 9.8. Or say blue labels for all CA books graded 9.6 and above, with black labels for all CA books lower than CGC 9.6. Well,you get the idea as I think we should be able to differentiate the difference between the various CGC grades and think for ourselves, without having CGC guide or direct us through the use of different colour labels.

Yes, I clearly remember that long and much heated discussion on the boards here. I believe CGC and Steve in particular finally realized the impact or unintended consequences which their stigmatizing purple label was having on the value of restored books at the time. As a result, they attempted to introduced a 15-point restoration rating system similar to the formal 10-point restoration rating system that Jon Berk had proposed in a written article for Comic Book Marketplace in the very early days of CGC. I never could understand the rationale by many of the board members here at the time that they simply would never be able to understand a formal 10-point restoration rating system, and yet they seem to have absolutely no problems understanding a 10-point grading system. Saying that you could not comprehend the difference between a R-0 rated Unrestored book from say a R-10 Extreme Amateur Restored book is like saying you cannot comprehend the difference between a CGC 0.5 Poor graded book from a CGC 9.8 NM/M graded book. My personal belief is that all of the backlash against the idea was also due to a case of extremely bad timing. Especially since they tried to introduce this new idea right after the whole pressing (i.e. maximization of potential) and Ewert micro-trimming fiasco had come to light and were still fresh in the minds of everybody here. Many simply dismissed this right away and saw it as possibly just another potential scam which was being foisted upon them as the credibility of CGC at the time was shall we say a bit suspect. A uni-color label system with a formal 10-point restoration rating system in conjunction with a formal 10-point grading system would definitely have been a good idea and most likely been happily accepted by the collecting base if it had been introduced right from the get go. Definitely hard to close the barn door (i.e. to make changes) after the horses have already left.

I am certainly glad to see that all 3 of us are in agreement then. Nothing can be expected to be perfect, including CGC, but it's definitely a lot better than what we had before.

Ironically, I believe that is exactly what is happening in the current market. People are buying up all the PLODS and sending them in for restoration removal surgery in hopes of potential profit when that Purple header turns Blue. My reasoning behind this entire thread is this: restored books are currently being submitted to CGC and coming back with Blue labels (after being cut, scraped, defaced). If this is already the case, why can't the books simply be downgraded accordingly, given the Blue label with the CT notation and returned unmutilated. Actually, with CGC's announced change to their restoration rating scale a few years ago, you need not even bother to go through all that work in order to get your restored book out from the PLOD slab. With their more clearly defined restoration scale and also deeming some work as Conservation, it was a simple matter of cracking out a former PLOD book and resubmitting it back in for one of those blue/grey Conserved slabs, depending upon the work that had been done. Looking backwards now, some of the astute buyers would stand to have made a lot of money by buying those much dreaded PLOD's in the early days when they were highly stigmatized by almost all collectors. Especially since there seems to be a slightly better understanding of restored books nw and the type of work done to them, as compared to the early days when CGC first started out with just the stigmatizing purple labels. In fact, to the point whereby we are starting to seemingly see more acceptance of these Conserved and even Restored books. Especially after the big Jon Berk Auction a couple summers ago, whereby even restored books are now finally going for big premiums and sometimes even multiples to condition guide and in particular, for the truly HTF rarer books.

While there is some truth here (maybe even mostly truth), this is as one sided as a view can get. There is a lot of context that you are (probably purposefully) leaving out. It makes rational people that don't share your extreme view just dismiss it out of hand precisely because of its extremism. Even though like I said there is a lot of truth to it. Any noob that doesn't have all of the background, who is perhaps reading this thread after getting into comics in the last few years is either a) going to dismiss this as a CGC hater with an agenda (which based on your years of posts here is what I personally believe is the case but my opinion is irrelevant in the context of what I'm trying to tell you) or b) believe you completely and miss the bigger picture of the good that CGC has done for the hobby. Much like I tell my far left liberal and far right conservative friends... there is a happy middle. Most definitely not a CGC hater as I believe this hobby of ours is certainly a lot better and far safer for the collecting base with CGC here, as compared to the what was taking place before 3rd party grading and restoration checking was in place. With all of the apparent CGC acolytes here seemingly always bestowing the virtues of the company (like you ), it's also good to point out that this world of ours is not always perfect like the sweet and innocent days of wine and roses. It just would have been so much better for CGC to have been proactive and upfront about the changes,instead of being reactive and having to explain the changes after the fact. I actually felt sorry for Steve being caught in that particular situation at the time and finally disclosing the company line in order to explain how a book could go all the way from a CGC 4.0 grade up to a CGC 7.5 grade, before then going way up to a CGC 9.0 grade, all whilst residing in a CGC blue label holder. It just would have been so much better if they had informed the collecting base about all of these significant changes before they even graded their first book and they could have been collecting all of these additional revenue streams right from the get go. Of course, there would most likely have been such an uproar from the collectors at the time, that CGC might not have even gotten off the ground at the time. So, with CCG being a business enterprise and with their prior experience in the other collecting fields, I do understand why they did it the way they did, but that certainly does not mean that I have to like how it all went down.

Yes, the long held standard definition of restoration was indeed already established and in place when CGC first opened its doors for business. Unfortunately for all of us, CGC surreptitiously decided to change the definition of restoration to suit the business agenda of their parent CCG and did not bothered to inform the collecting base or the marketplace of this significant change. It was only years later due to the efforts of many board detectives here that we were able to finally get CGC to admit to these significant changes in the restoration definition to the point whereby even "disassembly and reassembly of a comic book in and of itself does not constitute restoration". To make matters doubly worse, it was then determined that certain "people in the know" were already well aware of these changes and had been nefariously "maximizing the potential" of their books. Needless to say, they most likely made a small fortune by offloading them into an unsuspecting marketplace after laundering them through CGC to obtain their blue sealed stamp of approval.

+1 Exactly what he said. Personally, I would never even think of slabbing a book unless it came time to sell it. Even then, only if I thought it had a guaranteed market value of $300 or more, based upon its current pre-slabbed condition.

Yes, similar to 'Tec 28 which used to be the 2nd most valuable Batman book out there back in the early days of Overstreet. Looks like value was simply much more based on whichever book came out earlier as there was not enough information at the time to break out all of the details which would come later.

During those mail order days, this was really the worst I got burned. The grades by Dupjerk were horrendous plus the undisclosed restoration. Yes, weren't those the crazy and fun days of the Wild Wild West when you would have to watch out for snakes like Danny Boy here. I clearly remembered ordering one of those supposedly untouched file copies from one of his ads in the old CBG days. No problem getting a hold of him on the phone and actually didn't mind listening to some of his absolutely crazy stories to avoid giving you back your money. Definitely played the old switcheroo game a few times which was nothing but more money for wasted postage. Of course, those were the pre-internet days which did leave him very vulnerable as his main source of income from comics at least was probably through his ads in the pages of CBG. Once you exposed this weakness of his and he's no longer allowed to advertised there, you then get to find out what an absolute crybaby he really is. It's simply amazing how fast you got all of your money back plus all of your postage and telephone expense after this. Unfortunately, for some unexpected reasons here and there, it somehow took me months before I could get around to sending the book back to him. Even after calling him every few weeks to assure him that the book was most definitely on its way back to him, but these weird and strange happenings would unexpectedly get in the way all the time. Did eventually ended up sending the book back to the crybaby about 6 or 8 months later, but I guess the letter of resolution I was supposed to have sent to CBG must have gotten lost in the mail. Or is it still sitting there only half done on my old typewriter? Poor Danny Boy, since I never ever did see him back in the pages of CBG after this. Every time I think about Danny boy and those long drawn out conversations at the end, it now puts a big smile on my face.

Very impressive. What I would want to have in my personal collection would be a copy of this book here: The first comic book appearance of the Phantom and a book that came out several months before Action 1 hit the stands. Apparently, a real rare and HTF toughie to track down, with only a total of 14 graded copies (universal & restored) to date, with this CGC 7.5 being the highest graded copy.

You wouldn't happen to be talking about Boston Corbett here, would you? Our now long gone economics professor who had paid over $12K for what was then the highest graded copy of NM 98 and then came onto the boards expounding and lecturing to all of us how this book could only go up in value over time.

The fact that it is primarily black makes this work well. +1 This brightly colored montage with the all-black Mask 1 right dead center most definitely makes it stand out. The only time I saw a better presentation of this book was during the Diamond Int'l Galleries grand opening way back in the mid-90's. I clearly remembered this Church copy of Mask 1 being very prominently displayed side by side with the all-black Church Suspense 8 on the top shelf of the mahogany armoire in Geppi's library. An absolutely unbelievable sight to view them through the glass window of the armoire as the two of them just looked like the perfect comic book pairing. It's too bad they didn't have readily available cell phones in those days, let alone cell phone cameras.

Not a Stevens fan I guess? No, just not a fan of this particular piece as there are just so many other more appealing cover artwork by Stevens which I definitely do like.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I understand that Firefly/Serenity is not everyone's cup of tea. However, one way to look at this particular phenomenon is by its overall pop culture impact. Well, if you are going to go that far back, then they should have gone with Babylon 5 which I thought was a great si-fi TV show and even had a short comic book run to boot. Especially since B5 was probably one of the first TV series to move the concept of TV shows away from single episode stories to much more of a space opera with a continuous story line throughout the entire run.

And one that I definitely wouldn't ever want to see again.

Well, how about this raw POS Poor graded copy from Heritage then: that still managed to fetched almost $15K in one of their Sunday Auctions a few years ago. Looks like there have been a few copies of Action 13 sold during the past few years, which has undoubtedly upped the census count on them.

From my personal point of view, they've had mostly horrid covers for several years in a row now. The only one that I really like was the Russ Heath Sgt Rock cover from a few years ago: But then again, it's probably really a matter of to each, their own. Especially since everybody has different taste when it comes to art.

Cgc is "third party grading". So how can they grade their own work - and still be third party? I assume you are just trying to be sarcastic with your enquiry here? After all, I believe everybody here knows that CCG owns CGC and was worried it would become a conflict of interest when they also took over CCS several years ago. Not sure if the thread is still allowed to be here, but this conflict apparently became quite evident a few years ago when Matt first switched over from CCS to CGC. Apparently the thread went on to indicate pressing quality issues with the product coming out from the post-Nelson CCS and these were basically given a "free pass" by the graders, whereas the ones that were supposedly done by the competitors and did not exhibit the tell-tale pressing issues were not given the same benefit when it came to their grades. Not sure how true this was since playing the CPR game is definitely not something that I partake in. Of course, it could have always been just an coincidence, so who really knows.

I think perception is impacted by supply and of late, Action #10 has been offered the least offered book of the three. As far as slabbed copies go, the numbers are pretty similar: with all three being very, very tough to find in any condition, especially blue label. CGC Universal 18 = Action #10 24 = Action #13 29 = Action #7 I believe at the time that the Atlantic City copy came out in 2011, it's quite possible that Action 13 might have had the lowest census numbers out of these 3 books. Especially when the CC lot description keeps on harping about how extremely rare the Action 13 is, as compared to their statement that they have "sold only eight copies of this historic comic" (i.e. Action 10).

Well, I am also quite sure that the Church copy of Suspense 8 should hit somewhere in the 5-figures. Being Mr Conservative as I am prone to be though, I am not quite sure if it would fetch more than the $37.5K that the CGC 9.8 graded copy of Blue Bolt 105 was able to get on CL last summer. I guess you never know as I suppose it would also really depend on how high the Church Suspense 8 graded out at.