lou_fine

If you are talking about low to mid grade SA and BA non-key books, they have always been out there in abundance and never reached the dizzying heights in the first place that it sounds like you are thinking of. Now if you are talking about GA or SA keys or classic covers, than that is a completely different story altogether.

Maybe we should all look for these old label goodness to see if there is any potential for their grades to be bumped up a few notches. For example, if we look at the first 6 pages of the current CC auction sorted by Highest Price First, it looks like there are 5 GA books or only about 3% in there with the old style labels. A copy of Adventure 40, a couple of Timelys, and a couple of early Fox books, with a few of them still running at a substantial discount to guide. Maybe an opportunity here if people forget to bid at the end? Hm.......that Subby 13 looks quite tempting, but too pricey for my shallow pockets.

+1 In full agreement with you that this copy of Hulk 181 will never ever be taken out from its slab because the chance of it ever acheiving this same CGC 9.9 grade is probably slim to none without some work being done to the book. Do you remember what this copy sold for, as I heard it was something like $140K to $150K which sounds just like silly money for such a common BA book? If this is true, what's the chance the purchaser could end up with a 6-figure loss on this book even if it stays in its current CGC 9.9 slab, given it's notoriety and bad word of mouth relative to its assigned grade? Especially in today's marketplace where collectors appear to be a bit more attuned to buying the book as opposed to simply buying the label which seem to be so much more prevalent a decade ago. As evident by this Hulk 181 itself, whereby its value has gone up substantially in all grades across the entire condition spectrum except for the copies in 9.8 and possibly this copy in 9.9 if it ever came back to market again.

Yes, I also don't understand this so-called Manual Entry explanation that was apparently given. I still remember the record breaking sales in the exact same auction for both the CGC 3.0 copies of 'Tec 29 and 'Tec 38 for $66K and $54K respectively and they both got into GPA almost immediately. At first, I thought it might have been due to the buyer making use of the 6-month payment option, but apparently the AF 15 was paid for in full according to a boardie here. So, who really knows with GPA sometimes, because if I was Metro, I would certainly want that $57K auction result for the AF 15 to be captured.

That is what people are actually saying between the lines. You guys are just so polite and diplomatic all the time which is so un-Trump like in this politically incorrect day and age. I just find it so much easier to read the actual lines themselves as opposed to reading between the lines.

here's a larger version of the scan. I got the grader's notes. I believe it was graded harshly at the time and has easily improvable issues ("finger bends" on the back cover being the most obvious) Have any of you guys considered the possibility that the simplest and most logical explanation sometimes is the real one and that there might really be no mystery at all? Don't you simply love old label goodness.

Personally, I believe that grading has changed over the years from when CGC first opened their doors. Although they may have gone less strict in certain areas, they have certainly tightened up in terms of both color breaking and non-color breaking creases and stress lines. Your statement actually confirms that grading has become more strict in terms of this one key area, because if you book has any near invisible non-color breaking creases that can only be seen by holding the book up at a certain angle to the light, it is simply going to get hammered at the grading table. Especially with the current grading team at CGC now headed since last year by the former king of the pressers and prior owner of the biggest pressing company in the marketplace. Sad to see that so many submittors now feels that pressing is virtually a prerequisite step to take before having a book graded, but financially convenient for CCG and their parent company since it adds to both their top line and bottom line in the form of both additional streams of revenue (i.e. pressing or pre-screen for pressing) and repeat business (i.e. regrading fees).

As the out of control Variant Age.

I agree. In some ways, what's being done today is worse. Years ago, few knew what was going on. Today, many know but just don't care. The stakes are higher, one tick can mean tens of thousands in valuation, brings out the worst in people. I don't really blame the collectors as much as I blame the head honchos at CGC and CCG who not only gave the green light for all of these shenanigans to take place, but seemingly encouraged it even though they were supposedly the gate watchers safeguarding the hobby for us. They could have done this by taking a verbal hard line stance against what was going on, similar to their tough talk on micro trimming and how that practice was an absolute no-no, which would have been my preferred choice. But being a business entity, it's only understandable that they would only be looking out for their own best interests in terms of adopting standards and practices that would be incremental to both their top line and bottom line. The unfortunate part is that these practices have now become so institutionalized in our marketplace that it has virtually forced almost the entire collecting base to wallow around in this same mud and muck.

Yes, but probably not a real go to must SA book to be slabbed for most of those 17 years. Consignor was probably wishing and hoping for something like this recent movie hype to give a boost to the book before bothering to slab and auction it off because it certainly wouldn't have gone for this type of mollah without the current hype. Looks like his wish is going to come true.

It would be even funnier if the 8.0 Mastro copy turns out to be the exact same copy as the mysterious 9.2 graded copy. Unfortunately, nothing would surprise me in today's slabbed marketplace.

I noticed that and the first thing that came to my mind was the GL 76 that sold for something like $37K , NM 98 that sold for $12K, or FF 52 that sold for $90K, and Avengers 4 for whatever amount. All books that sold for ridiculous amounts of money and then similar graded copies ended up selling for much less than that as more copies made their way into the marketplace within a short period of time.

+1 Yes indeed, as I was perfectly happy with being able to acquire my nice restored copy of Science 1 at a fraction of the price which an unrestored copy would have cost me and definitely never would have been able to afford.

Unfortunately, different times, different attitudes towards what is seen as good and what is seen as bad. Yes, definitely a shame 30+ years after the fact, but at the time it was viewed as improving the book and adding value to it. In light of having gone down this darkened path once before, how about what's being done to books in today's marketplace to supposedly improve them and add value to them? Isn't that really more of a shame as it shows we haven't really learned from the past and simply repeat our mistakes all in the name of money?

Looks like 2 of the 3 big auction houses are going to be slugging it out for bids next week as CC's Event Auction and CL's Summer Featured Auction are both scheduled to run at the exact same times. Is this common or is this just poor scheduling on the part of both auction houses since I imagine it's not necessarily the ideal situation forboth their consignors and potential bidders?

Any idea if Snyder is still in the hobby after leaving Diamond Int'l Galleries? I always got the impression that John was much more passionate about the other collectibles and was really more of a power broker for comics after he let all of his Church books go.

+1 I would definitely agree with Tim if you are referring to the very small amounts of dried glue and all that. If you take a look at the Jon Berk catalogue with books that were just graded earlier this year, you will see blue universal slabs (both pedigree and non-pedigree) scattered throughout his collection with notes for very small or tiny amounts of dried glue. So, no change in that respect, but there clearly have been other subtle but significant changes made to their undisclosed grading standards over the years. The biggest of which is their increased emphasis on near invisible color and non-color breaking creases and stress lines as this has clearly moved to the top of their hit list. Not to be unexpected though once the marketplace found out that pressing was good to go since it represents not only a huge additional stream of revenue to their parent company, but also assures continual repeat business for them on the exact same book. Why get money only once from a book, when you can get it multiple times and also in different ways.

What books have been going up I got the sens that only AF15 was doing so in the last 1 to 2 years? I seem to be wrong so I would like peoples input. I believe the only person that thought AF 15 was the only book going up in value was just you and you alone, as you was seemingly lost in your own AF 15 centric world. It was pretty obvious to everybody else that other books were also going up in value, although it was quite clear that AF 15 was the one leading the charge in terms of SA books. Glad to see that you have finally managed to break out of your AF 15 prison and able to experience so much more.

Don't believe that is a valid serial number for the slab since it appears to be 11 digits while I believe CGC serial numbers are all 10 digits only.

Yes, wasn't it really Danny (Bad Boy) Dupchak himself that first highlighted some of these books to us with the before and after pictures and as a result, brought this whole pressing and micro trimming fiasco to light on the boards here, before he got royally tossed and banned by the CGC bigwigs. No doubt that Danny Boy must have been jealous and realize that his blatant macro trimming skills were no match, but not even in the same ball park as Ewert's much finer and near invisible micro trimming skills.

I believe Ewert's initial reputation was for having the sharpest eyes in the business as he was seemingly always able to pull 9.6's and 9.8's out of the long boxes like nobody else could? I guess it wasn't his eyes that were sharpest in the business, as opposed to having the sharpest blades in the business.

Were these copies caught by CGC before anybody even knew what Ewert was doing or were these only caught by CGC after the fact when they specifically went looking for these books as part of their review to quell the out roar of the marketplace? I am sure that many of these uber HG books have probably had this type of work done to them. But is it really that scary when nobody, including CGC, can't tell the difference with any degree of confidence at all. After all, the only way we even found out about this whole fiasco was when we had before and after pictures of the book in question and one of the board members had magnified the scan up to the 64th degree or something like that. Boy, what a raucous and riotous period of time and innocence lost that was for CGC and their avid followers when this whole micro trimming and pressing fiasco first came to light.

You know GPA doesn't pick up raw comic sales, right? Oh, that's right right.....my bad! Even if the auction was for a CGC slabbed book, I wondered which final number it would pick up?

Highly doubt this copy would receive even a 9.8 without some additional revenue generating work being done to it. With Matt Nelson and the current grading team in place, although grading standards may have relaxed in certain areas, it seems that creases and stress lines have moved right to the top of their hit parade when it comes to grading. Different time periods and different grading standards, but how convenient that this subtle but significant change helps both the top line and the bottom line of their parent company. Interesting to note that everybody that has seen the book feels that it is overgraded and I have yet to hear even 1 person say that it was properly graded at a CGC 9.9 level: Based upon your last sentence, this is exactly why I believe you will never ever see this copy removed from its current slab. Even with additional work done on the book, it is highly doubtful that it would ever see the same CGC 9.9 grade again.

And yet on the main page of the eBay listing, it gives the misleading impression that the book sold for $13K. I wonder which sale result GPA will pick up, the $8,700 figure or the $13K posted result?