lou_fine

Didn't notice the westerns in the CC auction, but I like Church westerns. Edited 2 hours ago by tth2 But that's only because they haven't hit high enough on a dollar value to even register on your radar yet. The lowest Church western in the current CC Event Auction is only going for $4 and the highest one is going for only $8 right now. Well okay, maybe the condition levels might not be up to level of standard either.

A man with good taste as it looks like you are going after some of the Church classic covers in uber HG condition. I guess you wouldn't be interested in some of the Church westerns in the current CC auction that are still only in the single digit dollars then.

Wow, another Larson winner from you. Absolutely love the whiteness of those pages peeking out at us from the bottom of the book.

Accurate reporting would be 'high grade copies have sold for a million or more.' I just hope he was not stupid enough to quote this $1M figure to the actual owner of the book. Nothing like creating false and unrealistic expectations in the mind of an unsuspecting owner.

Well, all I can say is that if you put Jason Ewert and "razor sharp / nary a nick" together with respect to a particular book, I can think of only one thing.

Comic looked damn nice. Some of the closeups did appear to show enough wear to keep it out of the 9.0 and above family though. It probably would have been a good idea for him to have pressed out the subscription crease and "fixed up" a few of the little defects on the book BEFORE having the big splash story and press about the book. Clearly not as gorgeous as just coming off the printing press. I don't think Gareth is as on top of the market, especially in terms of finer and more extreme points of graded books as he claims to be with his 25 years of comic book experience.

And for all you AF 15 potential buyers out there just itching to get their own personal copy: http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/rare-spider-man-comic-for-sale-in-b-c-could-sell-for-1m-1.3571716 This newscast almost makes Gareth sound like a wanna be Darren Adams or this particular copy of AF 15 to be a wanna be CGC 9.6 graded copy when it clearly is not. I guess this is what they mean when they talk about fake news.

Yes, of what you said about its condition. What that tell me something...is the fact there was a subscription recipient lived (or living?) in Victoria ,whom had got this book in mail originally. Can't prove anyway but I do wonder... Smart of him to have it slabbed, more $$ that way. But definitely not the $1M that he and the broadcasters keeps on emphasizing and "bold" silly enough to include in their headlines.

I totally get that. But what one is buying with all these extra thousands is really the 0.1 grade difference on the label and the whatever feeling of having "the best". Even though unslabbed the 9.8 and the 9.9 one would probably be the same books with a naked eye. But -as always- whatever makes one happy. Bragging rights are everything. Just ask the 181 9.9 guy. A friend of mine missed that boat by a couple hours ( was unaware of the listing and only saw my email too late ). At the time he had a handful of 9.8s, which in itself was a big deal. The census for 9.8s was a LOT lower than it is today. Would your friend's name happen to be Boston and is he an university economics professor, and if so, how is he doing with that CGC 9.9 graded copy of New Mutants 98 which he brought for something like $12K and then proceeded to give all of us an economic lecture on how his purchase was a 100% guaranteed sure fire winner? I imagine your friend must now be happy that he missed the CGC 9.9 IH 181 boat by a couple of hours. From the sounds of what I have been hearing from these boards over the years, the book would be lucky to get a CGC 9.6, let alone a CGC 9.8 grade if ever taken out and sent back in for a simple straight regrading. It sounds as though it would need a perfect alignment of the stars and some serious praying to both the pressing Gods and the grading Gods for the buyer of this book not to lose some serious money on this lone CGC 9.9 graded copy if ever removed from its slab.

Well, look at the census for the extra .1. Some people just gotta have the best regardless of the price. +1 Well, to each their own, I would have to say. Personally, I would be very wary about paying any additional significant dollars for only a 0.1 or 0.2 grade difference since grading is still only a subjective opinion and only at the time the book is graded, as opposed to something that is scientific and can be accurately determined beyond a shadow of doubt. As have already been seen many times before in the past, a book that grades out at a certain level one day can grade out at a completely different condition level on another day, even though absolutely nothing has been done to the book at all. As stated before in the past, I would much rather buy a book where what I am paying for is in the underlying value of the book itself, as opposed to paying for a book where the underlying value is really being determined by that big number in the top left corner of the slab and not the underlying book itself. But once again, to each their own, I would have to say...........whatever turns your crank.

Not a single offer was made on it thru Heritage!? So where did it resell ? https://comics.ha.com/itm/silver-age-1956-1969-/amazing-fantasy-15-marvel-1962-cgc-nm-94-off-white-pages/a/7124-91113.s?ic4=OtherResults-SampleItem-Thumbnail-022817&tab=ArchiveSearchResults-012417 +1 Same question which I have since the link clearly indicates that the book is still opened to offers with none received to this point in time. If there was a completed resale (i.e. offer and acceptance), the link would look like the following: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/all-star-comics-3-billy-wright-pedigree-dc-1940-cgc-vf-85-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7054-91043.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 This link clearly shows that the Billy Wright All-Star 3 which was sold for close to $50K back in February of 2012 was resold a week later for $200K through Heritage's Make An Offer to owner option.

I collected fox books 2008-2012 I believe. Been there, done that , not revisiting. Did you ever finished the entire Fox run similar to how you managed to complete your Centaur run here? Whatever happened to your Fox books or did you already sell most of them off to acquire your centaur books? BTW: You should never say never because is this not your second go round and complete run of Centaur books?

as will be noted in my daily centaur thread, I won the amf 1/2, 1/3, 2/1, 2/2 and 2/5 heritage copies... I already had a comparable 1/4, 2/3,2/4 and 2/6 so didn't go after those...and I took the 1/1 to about 9K before I bowed out, knowing I had the 7.5 Larson coming my way Well, I figured it had to be an avid and passionate AMF collector hoarder like you that was going after all of these books, even though you already have lower graded copies of them already. Looks like you was wiling to not only step up to the plate for them, but also to out battle almost everybody else for them. Don't even think about going Fox hunting since they are out of season right now and also throughout the rest of the year for you.

Probably Snyder to Anderson, that was the usual pattern. The former actually thought he was improving the book, And yet, we live to repeat our mistakes as in a sense, nothing much has really changed except for a finer interpretation. Yes, back then in the so-called good old days, restoration was indeed seen as not only improving a book but also adding value to it. I still remember the articles in the Overstreet guide back then trying to come up with some type of calculation to determine the added value of having books with restoration on them. The gist of it was that a restored book was always worth more than an unrestored book in its original lower grade condition, but never as much as it would be in its higher restored grade condition if it had been an original unrestored copy. Fast forward to today and this is definitely not the case anymore as restored books have gone the other other way and in many cases are worth less than what they were in their original lower unrestored condition. And yet, not only are collectors and speculators continuing to improve their books in today's marketplace, they are actively encouraged to do so. The only difference being that certain activities that were once considered to be restoration are now being conveniently seen as "maximization of potential" and also conveniently need not be disclosed upon selling. So, different times, different attitudes. I wonder if collectors will think differently 30+ years from now when they look back at today's marketplace and see all of the so-called "improved" books and once again wonder why?

Saw this Church copy of Mask 1 in the darkened wood panel library during the Diamond Int'l Galleries grand opening back in the mid-90's. An absolute stunner of a book and it was almost like glowing in the dark with it's gorgeous illuminating bright colours. BTW: Love how you remove these books from their encased tombs so that you can enjoy them for all their glory and beauty.

Wow, the Church copy of an extremely tough book to find in any condition at all. So tough in fact that the CGC census indicates only 1 copy has been graded by them so far and that was only in CGC 1.5 FR/GD condition. Looks like you've got yourself a real winner here.

Thanks for the compliment! I went heavy on V2#3 because I once had a copy and, in an economic downturn, had to sell my collection. I have returned in the last 3 years and have picked up the ones i missed the most. Some I can't replace because they are through the roof right now(Detective 31 and 33 come to mind). I've looked at all the AMF covers, and you are right: there are many cool ones out there. I guess V2#2 I don't like better than #3, so couldn't justify getting into that bidding war. The #2 ended up hammering at about $1000 more than the #3. I love V2#1 and bid heavily(more than on the V2#3), but fell short. The V2#6 is great, too. Actually, I wish I'd gotten all those books, but ya gotta pick your battles. FYI, after bidding on ComicConnect's Berk AMFs, I was so shocked to see all the same books, in higher grades, come onto the market. These books are truly scarce. So I called Vincent Zurzola and asked him if he knew about the Heritage AMFs at the time he was selling Berk's AMFs, and he said no. The first he learned was the same way the rest of us learned: from the Heritage catalogs. By the way, I've attached a 4th image of the book designated by Overstreet as a classic cover. And apparently the bidding public agrees, since it went for significantly more than the others: V2#1 went for $7700, V2#2 went for $5500, V2#3 went for $4300, and the last imaage, V2#5 went for $11,300!!?? Do you agree that the V2#5 is a classic cover? It looks like we have similar tastes as I've always particularly loved the covers for the short run of AMF's from AMF #3 right through to AMF V2#6. An absolutely beautiful combination of colours on those covers there makes them a real standout in any collection. I was lucky enough to nab the Berk copy of V2#2 and it truly looks beautiful in hand and better than the CC scan. I was rather surprised that the V2#2 in the Heritage auction did not go up any further in the live portion of the auction, as compared to all of the other AMF's which did managed to move further up in the live auction. Although the prices were indeed high on virtually all of these early AMF Centaur books, bidding during the 3-minute extended time period left me the impression that for a good portion of the battle at the end, it was really down to only 2 bidders battling it out. Yes, it seems like it's either feast or famine with these HTF Centaurs. We've now had 3 batches of them come out in the past few months starting with Berk's copies during the CC auction, then the Heritage batch which was then followed by the ones from Motor City which they had picked up last year and sold during this year's SDCC. I guess when it comes to books like these or some of the HTF Fox books, you either pay up when they are available in the marketplace or you might have to wait another 20+ years for them to reappear again, as was the case with the Berk Fox books. Now that you mentioned AMF V2#5, I still remembered being down in one of the mid 90's SDCC's and Pat Kochanek was walking around with the Church copy of this book showing everybody that there was absolutely nothing better than a Church with the blues, reds, and greens on the cover.

Yes, Smejkal was definitely a very passionate collector and a very nice person who knew a lot about the books. I remembered sitting next to him at one of the SDCC dinners back in the mid-90's which hosted the DC GA greats. Very friendly and told me a lot about the Hawkeye's and the Larson's. He really perked up when I told him that I had a few of the Hawkeye's in my own personal collection. Extremely sad to hear that he has passed away as I was not aware of this.

+1 Would definitely agree with both of you on your points here. Still remember Borock's former Church copy of MF 52 with similar notes which managed to sell for over guide at the time even though it had similar notes since came with the universal blue label. The Church copy of Adventure 40 was not quite so fortunate as it had the dreaded PLOD label with similar notes and hence was only able to sell for a huge discount to guide after quite a few unsuccessful attempts at selling the book. The asking price of $1.5M is definitely nowhere near current reality given the glue and color touch plus the fact that it is a much later books in comparison to the other big DC keys.

Sounds almost like one of those ashcan copies that DC did for copyright purposes.

Wow, so you are the bidder who beat me out on both copies of this book here, although I must admit that I had already dropped out by then as I about 2 or 3 bid increments behind you in both cases. Although AMF V2#3 does indeed have a beautiful cover image, any other reason why you would go after both copies of the same issue instead of going after AMF's V2#2 or V2#6 since both of these issues also have gorgeous cover images, were in approximately the same grade (CGC 8.0 to CGC 8.5), and their final prices also finished up in roughly the same ballpark? BTW: Huge congrats on your pickups and Welcome to the Boards here as this is an amazing first post from you.

That's why I sold it. Wasn't "complete" Surprised CGC would give the book an Universal label as opposed to a Qualified label then. Since the scan indicates it does have interior pages in there, any idea how many pages and if they correspond to the same pages that's supposed to be in the regular edition of this AMF V2#3?

Any idea if these 3 books were graded copies or if they were still in raw condition? If I remember correctly, not all of the books in his so-called Impossible Collection were slabbed. So, it's quite possible his copies might be just as nice or possibly even nicer if they were indeed still in raw ungraded condition.

or it could be because they didn't feel it was worth a million +1 And exactly how do you guys know that Metro was not one of the bidders for these books here anyways?

It only makes sense for auction houses to have different bid increments according to what the lot is running at. Not only is it CC that has different bid increments, but it looks like Heritage has 18 different bid increments ranging from $1 all the way through to $500,000. It would make no sense to have a bid increment of say only $1 or $10 or some other fixed bid increment for a lot that was currently going for over $10K. These auctions would then be running all day and night with no end in sight.