lou_fine

Brian; This was already alluded to on Page 4 of the following thread: https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/445718-2019-comiclink-comic-connect-heritage-etcetera-wins/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-10540615 Since this was a rather sizable warehouse find, I imagine there would be a significantly large number of copies of each book in there, including the Hulk 181's.

Reasons to grade a book, or only collect graded books: - More certainty of what you are buying - Ease of selling - Better protection against everyday handling and storing Then, from an OCD point of view, once you start collecting a few slabs, well, then they all have to be in slabs to match. In response to your points above: 1) Those books were brought 30 or 40+ years ago, well before 3rd party grading and slabbing existed; 2) Not sell now, so why slab now; 3) Yes, better protection (hopefully that is), but takes up 3 or 4 times as much storage space and makes it totally impractical to enjoy the comic book; and 4) Already have some slabs and have zero interest in them as they feel and look like a bulky unattractive industrial or commercial product, as opposed to a real comic book feeling that you get when you have them in a much nicer presenting mylar. Much better strategy is to take them out of the slabs so that they can all be in matching beautiful mylars. I guess it's just a case of old school type collecting, as opposed to the new school thinking with the CGC generation of collectors here. Nothing wrong with either, as it's really just a case of to each their own.

Most long time old school collectors like Dave sees absolutely no reason to grade their books unless it comes time to sell them and I would definitely agree with line of thinking. Unlike the CGC generation of collectors who needs to have their books slabbed as the grade in some cases seems more important than the underlying books themselves. Personally, the only possible reason that I can think of for grading a book is for the restoration check. Even here, does it really matter since CGC's definition of restoration seems to change over time? So, why waste money like what some collectors may have done years ago to only have their books sitting in a PLOD, when they would now be sitting in a blue/grey Conserved label if graded today. And even if it is restored, does it really matter anyway if you are not selling it yet, since the book is what it is.

I don't believe there would be thousands of Mile High II copies of Hulk 181's. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were hundreds of copies of them since it was a really large warehouse find after all.

Well, you definitely can't get a better start than going with a National #7: Not sure whatever happened with this Church copy in the end as I distinctly remember Heritage having this copy featured in their auctions about 12 to 15 years ago, with it going unsold a few times as it did not meet reserve. I imagined it must have eventually found a good home in the end as it is an absolutely gorgeous cover and seems to be rather under appreciated as compared to the rest of Fine's more recognized classic covers. Never could figure out why as I think it is one of his best covers out there with the detailed artwork and use of colors.

So, these figures of yours does confirm what some of the other board members are saying here. Specifically, that the overall market appears to be softening a bit and Hulk 181, the MHII in particular, is starting to trend downwards. Or NOT!!!

That’s a terrible story. But, and I’m sorry for my ignorance, what is SCS damage? Not sure if it's completely fixable by a good pressing job or not. But I strongly suspect it would never be able to get back into the high side of the 9's again from a grading point of view, no matter how hard they work at it.

Well, it was probably won by the same person who won the single highest graded CGC 9.9 copy and paid something like $150K for back over a decade ago. Only problem is that it ended up with a severe cases of SCS damage and would be lucky to hit back into the 9's if it was ever regraded again.

Yes, that's the one. And I remember that it sold for under $500 I didn't bid on the book because I was focused on several others. I hope he hung onto it. I won't mention any names, but I will say that he is known for having... neat stuff. Absolutely no idea who in the world you would be talking about here. I guess I should really get a hold of somebody in the know here like Rickneatstuff if I am ever going to unravel this deep mystery.

Well, I seem to recall a fellow boardie winning the Edgar Church copy of this book on eBay back in the summer of 2006. Not sure if he still has it. Perhaps this post will catch his eye... All I can say is that I certainly wish I was that fellow boardie who had brought it way back then. I assume that must be the CGC 9.4 graded copy that is showing up in the census then, as the other 2 copies besides these two are much lower graded copies. Do you remember what it sold for back then because I am 100% sure that it would go for multiples of whatever he had paid back then.

The bond should have been a whole lot higher than that, considering the value of the items that were stolen. What an absolute doofus this judge must be not to think that letting him go free just gives the culprit the opportunity to flee and launder the rest of the $1.3M in a more intelligent fashion.

Well, since the Cindy 37 is way up there in the stratosphere in terms of pricing and they seem to show up quite frequently in these auctions recently, the one that I would go with would be this one here: Looks like this book here came out several months prior to the Cindy 37 and is definitely much tougher to find since a meagre total of only 4 copies have been slabbed after all this time. Definitely at a much lower price point than the Cindy 37, but the real trick, I imagine, is to find one. Especially since the Heritage archives indicates this is the only slabbed copy plus another low grade raw copy which they have ever sold, while Metro/CC indicates no copies as having ever been sold in their archives.

It has something to do with the way CC is imaging the slabs. I wish they would stop presenting them this way. There's nothing wrong with the slabs themselves. Well, if I was the consignor of all of these slabs that have been improperly imaged, I would be be calling CC up and giving them a piece of my mind then. Especially since scans like these makes the books look defective on the inside or suffering from SCS. Images like these will definitely discourage potential bidders from even bidding or at the minimum, from going as high as they might if the scan of these books had been done properly.

Well, I certainly hope both the winner loser of this copy here and the under bidder winner did not bid this price up to these levels based upon the pedigree designation. Especially since the Mile High II Collection is no longer viewed to be a pedigree within the marketplace.

$59,000 final price. Just imagine if it had the extra special CVA Super Duper Exceptional sticker. You know, the one you get if you pay up for the 10 minute eval versus the normal 5... I would agree that it probably had a lot to do with the CVA sticker since as crazy as it sounds, bidders do pay for the labels as opposed to using their own eyes. Like I had already posted in the other thread in General with respect to this auction result here: And to all the boardies here who said nobody would even pay an extra penny for the so-called "worthless" CVA label or sticker. I guess this goes to show there really are a lot of collectors willing to pay up for a label, as clearly evident by past auctions when bidders would pay multiples more for a 9.8 graded book even though it might look worse or possibly overgraded when compared to a superior looking 9.6 graded copy. 

Well, if it's Cindy 37 you are interested in, it looks like there's 2 of them coming up in the next set of auctions: This rather "shapely" looking CGC 6.0 graded copy that's coming up in the next ComicLink Auction or: This slightly higher CGC 6.5 graded copy that's available in the next ComicConnect Auction. Wonder which one of these 2 will end up doing better in the end with the two auction houses duking it out? Does anybody know what is going on with the bottom of this book as their scan here makes it look defective? Is that just a bad scan or picture using a bad background as I notice the same "look" on a large portion of their auction listings on this go round here? Or is that improper slabbing done by CGC which is going to result in serious damage being done to all of the books?

And to all the boardies here who said nobody would even pay an extra penny for the so-called "worthless" CVA label or sticker. I guess this goes to show there really are a lot of collectors willing to pay up for a label, as clearly evident by past auctions when bidders would pay multiples more for a 9.8 graded book even though it might look worse or possibly overgraded when compared to a superior looking 9.6 graded copy.

Well, I believe prices were already starting to soften a bit in the auctions at the end of 2018 from what I was reading on the boards here. Not sure, but somehow I believe the continuing volatility of the falling stock market which is usually a leading indicator for the economy is probably not giving potential bidders a ton of confidence right now.

Well, in this age of inclusiveness and gender equality, maybe we should just go with the "muscular" Captain America cover by the great Rob Liefeld: or NOT!!!

Yes, I have...and Jason Ewert of laser trimming fame, and numerous others, each one vile in their own way, yet none as despicable as Gerry D-O-U-C-H-E Ross! Well, I guess this one had a lot more to do with CGC and the eventual spin they finally decided to take when the whole pressing and micro-trimming fiasco first came to light on these boards back here in 2005 and everybody found out exactly what was going on behind the curtains. Although it took awhile and a ton of angst and beotching on the boards here, they finally came out with the spin that pressing was really nothing more than "maximization of potential", while micro-trimming was "destruction of a comic book". I can imagine if it had gone the other way that we would now be calling Jason a true God send and have him as head of grading at CGC, while poor Matt would be deemed as the piraya to be banished from the hobby. How ironic that it was actually Danny boy himself who was one of the lead culprits that had uncovered all of this rather unscrupulous and manipulative going-ons that was taking place behind the scenes with books then being laundered through CGC by people in the know upon a naive and unsuspecting collecting marketplace.

Your list here actually made me go back and check out some of these covers in the Gerber Photo Journal Guide.

This one here actually looks a lot better than the Ginger 4. Not only does it have the same sexy positioning for the girl, but adds in the seductive wave in her hair.

From the cover image, I would have to say that Ginger 4, unlike Archie 50, is hiding some of Ginger's better assets. I believe Ginger 1 is a more risque cover since it shows Ginger's "double breasted" assets a lot more definitively: Then again, if you prefer the Ginger 1, then you should be totally ecstatic with the Archie 46 with its whole series of "double breasted" figures:

In this case it would be a plus if I could get insurance to pay cover price instead of fair market value or replacement cost. This is so very true and not only with 90's drek, but even with most of today's MA newsstand books. And yet you see speculators happily throwing even a ton more dollars at them getting them pressed and slabbed even as they are coming off the shelves of their LCS's. That's what I would call a case of graded labels where the value only comes from the label, as opposed to graded comic books where there is value in the underlying comic book itself regardless of the label.

Yes he does. Well, this is interesting, but really not that surprising at all. It looks like the owner of these books might have been a little too open with too many people with respect to providing details about his collection.