lou_fine

Well, I guess you could consign your personal collection to them and then they would have lots of truly collectible and vintage back issues to discount and sell on FCBD.

Probably done on purpose just so that Starlin cannot go back to Disney to make a claim for even more compensation than what he has received to date so far.

From personal experience, I would agree 100% with you that it is totally Overstreet's fault here. I remember attending a local comic convention here way back in the day and I was trying to decide between a HG copy of Conan 3 and a HG copy of FF 11 since they were both going for around the same price. Being the total that I was then, I decided to to go with the Conan 3 in order to fill the missing gap in my BWS Conan's thinking that it would be tougher to find than the FF 11 given Overstreet's note on this book which he still has to this day in his guide. I also figured that going forward, who would really want an issue of FF that was noted for featuring Willie Lumpkin the mailman more than anything else. The only saving grace was that I was able to pick up 2 copies of X-Men 94 at the same convention. And the only reason for that was that I had paid a whole dollar for the first copy and then saw another equally minty fresh copy for only 25 cents on my way out the door. Feeling that I had just gotten totally ripped off , I decided I better lower my breakeven cost by picking up the second one just in case I ever got around to selling them one day.

I personally doubt there are 10's of thousands of raw copies still around. I also personally doubt the stories you here of thus and so guy is sitting on 200 copies. The simple fact is the book is worth too much for the average person to be sitting on that many copies. Yes a few may, but the average person would unload the majority. He has seen no evidence of multiple people hoarding 100's of copies. Even if they did find a stash of a few hundred raw books, it would hardly cause a blip on the market. There are at least 12k stabbed copies ( including other companies) plus many known raws, and the market is still very strong. This is the key book of the Bronze age. Would definitely agree with you that Hulk 181 is the key book of the Bronze Age. I would also agree with your comment that nobody would be out there sitting on hundreds of copies of this book, as any rational person (even the staunchest long term collector here) would surely sell off some of their multiples given the current market demand for this book. On the other hand, I also don't believe their are 12K slabbed copies out there, especially since there are so many resubs when it comes to these key books. Although there might not be high 10's of thousands of raw copies of this book out there, I strongly believe there are still much more raw copies of this book sitting in collections, as compared to the number of slabbed copies. Especially when there is no real reason to have a book slabbed until it comes time to sell it. This reminds me of the same discussion that takes place with respect to AF 15 and how many copies are still out there. Was down at my LCS last week and the owner told me that he now has 5 copies of AF 15's. I believe virtually all of them are still raw since he doesn't really plan on selling any of them yet, so why bother slabbing them.

My copy is not the one up for auction but if that copy hits 100k, then you bet I’m selling In any other auction, it might have had a chance at cracking the $100K mark, but probably not in this particular auction here. Especially when you've got 16 different copies of the first 11 issues of Cap, including duplicates of the Cap 3 itself in the same auction here. Reminds me a bit of the last CC auction whereby they had 24 different copies of the pre-Robin 'Tec books (inc. 'Tec 38 here) and the feeling was that the books had under performed as compared to previous auction results. Will definitely draw the attention of collectors for these books here, but sometimes too much selection options and availability to potential bidders will result in lower than expected prices for the books in question.

Nice copy! Very nice, can't believe it's a 6.5! -J. +1 Yes, if I had a book that looked like that and it came back as a CGC 6.5, I would also be jumping for joy. Big congrats on the book and grade.

The thing is there are 10000 plus copies slabbed of this book and an unknown number of raw. Well, if there are 10,000 plus copies of graded Hulk 181's already slabbed out there, I imagine there must be 10's of thousands of raw copies still sitting in private collections. Especially since I haven't seen very many graded copies myself over the years except in scans, but have seen a ton of raw copies sitting on convention tables wherever I go.

Good to know that you did not want the book to be sitting in a slab with what you felt was an overgraded label. Since you felt that it was such a big and severe drop in grade, did you feel that the 7.5 grade was accurate or might the book have been slightly undergraded here? This is where a comparison of the Grader's Notes would be very useful to see why the book dropped down to only a CGC 7.5 as it would indicate what the other company might have missed when they graded the book. As collectors here, it's all part of the learning curve.

Sorry, that was my bad as you had clearly stated in your original post that the lot belonged to ft88. I guess I should have posted your original comment along with the picture.

Killer in what sense of the word? In Fishler's terminology that the ASM 31 was a "killer copy" (i.e. real HG copy) and that CGC had severly undergraded the book? Or that you knew that the other company had clearly overgraded the book and sent it in anyways to CGC hoping they would give you an equivalent or possibly even higher grade and you got "kill" because it was graded more accurately this time? Since you held the book in hand and must have had some idea about its condition level, did you personally feel it was closer to a VF/NM copy or only a VF- copy?

The best advice that Bob could give this potential consignor is not to post this picture of his Eternals #1: After all, it's best to squeeze them out one at a time so that it gives the marketplace the impression that it is a truly rare variant that is being literally given away at the bargain basement price of only $6,000. That's the best way for him to realize his greater than a quarter million dollars on his hoard of Eternals #1's.

Rick; Well, since you are one of Bob's advisors, are you the one that's advising him to keep the valuation for this high in-demand book down at only $15,300 in this condition? Well, at least he finally moved the Cap 3 into the same valuations as Cap 2 for all listed conditions below VF/NM 9.0. Maybe you should advise him that Cap 3 should be valued well above Cap 2 in ALL grades across the entire condition spectrum for this year's edition of the guide. Seriously though, it's a bit of a puzzle why he doesn't pay more attention to his advisors since I know that you are a strong proponent that Cap 3 is definitely worth more than a Cap 2 in the current marketplace and has also been that way for several years now.

Just looked thru “Captain America The Classic Years”, and confirmed, there is no 2 page CF in issue 3. Those begin with #6. Thanks and that's indeed good to know. I just absolutely love those 2-page centerfolds out of the couple of Cap books I have which had them. Any idea how far along into the Cap run they went before they stopped doing them?

Well then, it looks like you are in the perfect and ideal inebriated state of condition required for the accurate and consistent grading of comic books. As Donald or Arnold would say......."YOU ARE HIRED".

June 1st of what year?

May have been a bit later as I joined in 2004 and I remember it. Maybe 2006 or so? I remember Borock discussing it and CGC changing their position but I always though it was a shame. I remember being berated by boardies for supporting it saying it would support scamming, etc. but I always thought it was a good thing that would expand both understanding of restored books and appreciation for them. Yes indeed, an one-color label would have definitely forced collectors to have a much better understanding of the nuances with respect to the type and extent of restoration being done on books. Similar to how collectors now have a much better understanding of grading with the current 10-point grading system in place, as opposed to the old Good / Fine / Mint standard that used to be in place way back in the day. Now, if CGC had gone ahead and placed a multi-color labeling system for grades dependent upon the age (i.e. GA, SA, BA, CA, MA) of the book, the current marketplace for graded books would no doubt be completely different from what it is today. Of course, from hindsight it would have been ideal if CGC had gone with the uni-color label system right from the get go. Instead they went with the multi-color labels thinking it would simplify things for collectors, but as Borock himself stated, it unfortunately resulted in severely negative unintended consequences which they did not foresee when they first implemented the system. The subsequent attempt to "fix" this issue was really a matter of bad timing as it came almost immediately after the whole Jason Ewert fiasco and also after pressing first came to light on the boards here. Definitely not a good time to be trying to implement something new and as controversial as changing the labels. Especially at a time when most board members were totally frustrated and angry over possible preferential treatment for certain so-called big "inside" clients and didn't trust at all what CGC might have been doing behind the scenes.

Well, definite congrats on picking up Jon's copy of Fantastic 3, or was it the Action 1? We both wish.

Yes indeed, looks like he has multiple copies of the early GA Cap's, including 2 copies of the highly sought after Cap 3, along with multiple copies of the last several issues of the GA Cap run. But clearly much more of an Avengers fan as there are well over 25 pages of Avengers books in there, including multiple uber HG copies of the early Avengers books in his collection there.

This one collector auction is definitely not as good as the Jon Berk Auction that took place at the same time last year, but I guess you really can't complain too much when you have a nice Action 1 and a 'Tec 27 in there, even though it's been restored. After all, it's really hard save for a couple of collectors to even have a chance against the absolutely amazing collection that Jon had complied over his collecting lifetime.

I am actually surprised that there is basically a grade difference of only one increment between the 2 companies as this is indicating a sign of consistency for both of them from my point of view. Especially from all of the negative talk here all of the time about the other company which kind of leaves one with the impression they might have been as much as 2 or 3 grade increments higher when it comes to grading. A more interesting test would be to send in CGC slabbed books graded during the 5 or so years time period prior to 2016 and see how they fare in comparison to this same test being conducted against the other company. I strongly believe probably not so well from some of the slabs I am seeing. I believe somebody did one for some of the CA books and virtually everything came in lower without exception, with even a previously graded CGC 9.2 X-Men 94 coming back as only a CGC 8.0 graded copy with the new grading team in place. At least they were smart enough to keep the old label to challenge them on the revised grade, whereby they agreed they had been too tight on the 8.0 grade and bumped it up to an CGC 9.0 in the end upon a further review of the book. It's kind of sad that I now find myself checking on the serial number of every CGC slab before I bid on it to determine when it was graded. I guess the big number on the top left is not good enough and I now also have to check on the date of grading amongst other things as part of my due diligence before bidding on a book. Latest conspiracy theory is that they are getting even tighter on the uber HG's, but loosening up on the low and mid grades a bit. Maybe there's some truth to the comment that the new CGC 9.6 is the old CGC 9.8, especially when it comes to the more recent books. The ideal situation is to have both accurate and consistent grading over an extended period of time. Definitely not a reality though as grading teams change over time and the grading companies are still a business, and as such, are subject to their business agendas and what is happening in the marketplace at the time. I definitely prefer the tight grading as long as it is reasonable and not to the point of obvious undergrading relative to what has taken place before. Although competition is generally good, it is never good for a grading company to "weaponize" their grades in response to another company gaining market share. Definitely a faster and more effective way to get back market share as opposed to more costly alternatives like faster turnaround times, easier access to grading notes, better case holders, or what have you. The only problem is that it could also invalidate many of their own previously graded books and if continued on both sides, could result in a race to the bottom of the grading scale.

Is there even a 2-page centerfold spread for Cap #3 because I don't believe there is? Does anybody here have a scan of this apparent centerfold image for Cap #3 since I would sure like to see what it looks like?

Well, anything worthwhile to report back yet? Do they even have an office set up yet, and if so, are they taking submissions or anything like that?

Well, if you wanted to combine movie hype with both creative story telling and classic artwork, I am rather surprised that the Kree-Skull war issues done by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams in the pages of the Avengers back in the early 70's still haven't really taken off yet. Especially in light of how pivotal this story line will be in the upcoming Captain Marvel movie according to Kevin Feige: http://comicbook.com/marvel/2017/07/23/captain-marvel-movie-kree-skrull-war/ Even more surprising at the relative lack of interest in this series as I remember how hot these books were way back in the 70's when collectors were chasing after creator related titles. Pretty much the entire run from Avengers 93 through to BWS Avengers 100 were must have books at the time, with the classic 52-pager of Neal Adams Avengers 93 being the clear hottest BA book at the time. Definitely not so much anymore and almost seemingly forgotten as it has fallen way behind many of the other keys and even semi-keys of the BA and CA in terms of interest and demand.

it's an interesting perspective you have on the cost of carrying around a book for 40 + years until it's worth something. Not many people think about that. I guess the perspective I have on it is more from a collector's point of view. Being a long-term collector who has had the book for over four decades, I am certainly happy to finally see some value being attached to it. Being the collector at heart though, I somehow get the feeling that I will still have these books in my collection 20+ years later after it has gone full cycle from being worthless drek to hot book and then finally back to the same worthless drek it was a few months ago. Especially in the case of books like these which really don't tend to have much value in anything below the uber high grades. I just find it hard to convince myself to spend triple digit multiples of the 25 cents I had paid for the book just to hopefully find CGC on a good day so that they can squeeze out an uber HG label for me. Now, if you are talking about an Action 13, Cap 3, Archie 50, or even a Hulk 181 (given today's hyped marketplace), that's a completely different story as you are buying or selling a book that has true value across all condition grades as evident by the fact that they can go for multiples to guide even in low grade or sometimes at a premium to guide even when restored. But to each their own, and I definitely don't mind when these common books like Eternals 1 goes up in value because that always leaves me with a good exit option if I do ever decide to take advantage of it.

+1 I would tend to agree with you here as these were absolutely beautifully crafted pieces of artwork masterfully done by BWS. As such, they were most likely also highly collected at the time and possibly one of the factors that prices have not gone up as much as others from that same time period. Of course, the current marketplace is not really affected so much by the creative artwork or writings within the comics so much, as they are dominated by the hype associated to them from upcoming movies, TV projects, or what have you.