lou_fine

Depends how good your accountant is. Well, in that case, I've got a ton of worthless late 80's B&W's and early 90's Valiant garbage that should qualify for a 100% tax write-off then. Thank God and thank my wallet that I never got into Image at least.

I know you were making a joke about CGC here but your statement that I quoted likely explains many of the flip-for-a-loss auctions we are seeing. Although I am sure that the tax department will gladly chase after you for your capital gains on your comic book investments, not sure if they will be just as willing to go with your losses on your funny books that you brought at stupid prices.

Did he buy the old story that used to be in the Overstreet price guides for the longest time.................namely that due to high inventory carrying costs, transportation, and what have you, in most cases dealers could pay only fractions of the valuations listed in the price guide.

Well, if Harley was selling them at only guide prices, then I imagine there's nothing in there like a Weird Mysteries 4 that Heritage just sold for $43,200 in CGC 7.0 or was you lucky enough to snag a book like this one here at the full guide price of only $568: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/romance/teen-age-romances-13-st-john-1950-cgc-fn-55-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7339-94179.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Inventory-BuyNowFromOwner-ThisAuction-120115 Much better than paying the $11,400 that it sold for just yesterday at Heritage.

Good lord! I've got a stack of raw copies that I can't get to CGC fast enough now! CGC Business Planning Meeting Notes: Let's pay a really stupid outrageous price as a tax write-off at auction for what is otherwise an absolutely worthless book, but one that is stashed away by the thousands in ultra HG by collectors and then just sit back and watch the submissions come pouring in.

This was also the impression that I got from the way the books were being handled and sold off, even with respect to the BA and later books.

Well, since you do like that one there in terms of the Mystery Men 9, then it's probably god news for you as the Heritage CGC 5.0 graded copy sold for a rather stunning $6,600 yesterday, as per my post in the Heritage thread below:

Formerly under-appreciated cover I guess the artist couldn't make up his mind on what would do it, so decided to cover all of the bases with his cover here. He's got the alluring and tantilizing damsel in bondage to the spider web, the hungry spider in heat, and the skull and bones to top it off.

Yes indeed, and it looks like if you are only willing to spend in the near or low teens for a copy of this book, best to do it sooner rather than later: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/seven-seas-comics-4-universal-phoenix-feature-1947-cgc-vf-85-off-white-pages/a/7158-91100.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Since it looks like $14,340 would have fetched you a nice attractive looking CGC 8.5 graded copy of this book back in 2017; https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/seven-seas-comics-4-universal-phoenix-feature-1947-cgc-vg-fn-50-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7283-93074.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 While $12K would have fetched you only a mid-grade CGC 5.0 graded copy of this Baker classic cover back in November of 2022. So, fast forward to only a few short months later and $13.2K only fetches you a CGC 3.5 graded copy of this book here. You never know, but if you wait too long, the low teens might only be fetching you a CGC 2.0 graded copy of this book in the not too distant future.

Looks like nothing more than a continuation of the ongoing strong prices that we have been seeing on the early Fox books. This Wonderworld 7 being not only a classic cover, but probably the best cover in the entire Wonderworld run should really be not much of a surprise considering that a equivalent graded 3.0 copy had sold for $10,200 back in April of 202. The one that did surprised me a bit at how strong it finished up at was this copy of a non-classic cover Mystery Men 9 which finished at $6,600: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/superhero/mystery-men-comics-9-fox-1940-cgc-vg-fn-50-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/7339-94140.s Than again, I guess it should really not have been that surprising considering this issue seems to be a real toughie to find in grade. Especially considering that this mid-grade 5.0 copy is still the 3rd highest graded copy and surpassed by the Church copy at only a CGC 9.0 and the 2nd highest just a slight notch higher at a grade of only CGC 5.5.

Not really since there's now something like 79 equivalent CGC 9.8 graded copies out there already and counting: https://comics.ha.com/itm/modern-age-1980-present-/science-fiction/aliens-1-dark-horse-1988-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/7339-94222.s And absolutely no problem at all if you are willing to open up your wallet nice and wide to fish out $7,500 to acquire your copy.

WTF.................not much easing on this book here, but then I guess that's because there's only 79 copies in this equivalent grade here: https://comics.ha.com/itm/modern-age-1980-present-/science-fiction/aliens-1-dark-horse-1988-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/7339-94222.s Just sold for a rather astonishing 2021 FOMO like crypto price point of $7,500 and who said that CA books were deader than a door nail.

Big congrats on being able to pick up what I considered to be one of the best non-Supes cover in the Action run and it appears that you are really killing it lately as this should also fit right in with that nice copy of National 7 with the classic Lou Fine underwater submarine cover that you also picked up recently.

Most definitely as the 8.0 copy took a big beat down when compared to prior actual 8.0 sales and the 7.0 sold for what I assume would be much less than what was expected based upon relative graded sales.

And as someone who has seen the collection, any idea as to the quantity and quality of the GA portion of the collection beyond just the Supes 1 and Bat 1? Especially how far back it goes and does it have some of the hard to find Fox books or some of the true rarites like the Centaur books? Don't really care so much for commn BA books like SME 15 because I ended up with something like 4 or 5 copies for myself in my search for a perfectly well centered copy back in the day. All I can say is that this book must have been one of those warehouse finds because I remember "tripping" over them everytime I went into one of the LCS's and eventually gave up my search for the so-called "perfect one" because they simply got way too expensive for my wallet and the ones that I got are probably already in the 9.2 to hopeful squished squashed 9.6 condition grade range.

And sometimes there is also money to be gained, especially if you can use the earlier copy as a stepping stone to push your later copy to possibly a even higher level than it would have acheived without that stepping stone. In watching those videos, I somehow get the feeling that the son never really got into the comic book market before this and he is simply learning on the fly from his buddies and wherever else possible, all in a quest to get as much money out of his father's collection as fast as possible.

Then again, they simply could have incorporated Ritter's rather bold, but clearly winning tagline with just a slight adjustment to it in their auction listing description, say something like "Still much better condition than the OTHER", and the 7.0 copy might just have been able to beat out the 8.0 copy in the end.

Now, now....................let's not give the boys at CGC any more bright ideas or their turnaround times will start to climb back up again.

That depends if you believe in the financial investment POV or NOT that past cost is irrelvant and it's really all about current market valuation?

Well, it should then be clear that Ritter's words has a much higher level of integrity in the marketplace as compared to CGC's grading.

That is some seriously horrific reading. Since the hope for successful flipping of comic books in today's certified marketplace is really highly dependent on the successful playing of the CPR game, the column that I find most interesting is the "New Grade" column. Especially in the fact that out of 116 Promise retreads to date so far, there have been very few attempts to play this game with the Promise books save for Ritter, as we have just seen two successful upgrades along with the one failed downgrade. What I find ironic and rather funny though is that the one single downgrade (i.e. Detective 39 going from CGC 4.5 down to CGC 4.0) is also the book with by far the highest percentage gain at a whopping positive 81% when it jumped from its initial sale price of $4,320 back in September of 2021 to its second round sale price of $7,800 on March 1 of 2023.

Except for the fact that the 9.6 Riddler has been confirmed to be no longer $450K worthy as the buyer/consignor must have found out yesterday, although I rather suspect they probably knew right after hitting that $456K bid button back in 2021.

Since it was the newscasters that were talking about the first Batman issue and how it was currently sitting at just over $300K at the time, I am 100% certain that they know zippo about 'Tec 27 and simply made the incorrect assumption that Bat 1 was the first Batman.

The CGC 6.0 copy at $36K appears to be a bit of an outlier and caused probably as a result of the Promise Collection crazed hangover. Nevertheless, a definite down draft in prices on this book which probably needs a bit of a rest as quite a few copies have come into the marketplace during the past year and a half. Probably a good time to consider picking one up if you are in the market for this classic cover book as I don't see it staying down for very long.

It would have been even more impressive if it was a stack of Marvel Spotlight 5's. Heck, if we are in FantasyLand here now..........................why not a whole stack of Action 1's and Detective 27's?