lou_fine

During the past couple of price guide updates, it looks as though Overstreet has finally gotten around to recognizing that GA books are actually selling very strongly in the lower grades, and in fact are generally not selling in the top grades simply because they are just not even available in the marketplace in that high end condition. Raising the prices of the books at the lower end and decreasing the price spread between the condition levels is actually a more accurate reflection of what is happening out there in the real marketplace.

Still don't care much for this cover at all, although I believe I understand his interpretation now as it hearkens back to the original 1930's concept of the Batman.

It was All-Star 8 (at 49%) according to the Top 100 GA Comics listing, just edging out WW 1 (47%), Tec 36 (45%), Tec 37 (44%), and Tec 40 (43%). Thanks for the info as I have to wait until next week to pick up my copy of the new OS Guide. Looks like my lucky guess about AS 8 was correct by just a nose. I believe this is about 5 years in a row that I've made the right guess as to the top percentage mover in Overstreet's Top 100 Chart. What is the bottom threshold level for the Top 100 this year and which book is listed at the bottom of the chart? Strange that I find the bottom of the Top 100 Chart to be more interesting than the top of the chart since there's usually not much changes up there.

Guess Allan can't complain anymore about the snail like increases in the guide for Flash 86 anymore.

Which book had the largest percentage price increase in the Overstreet Top 100 this year? Was it something like 'Tec 31, Action 13, Pep 22 which used to be your perennial favorites a few years ago or something movie hype related like AS 8, since More Fun 73 already took the crown for the 2016 guide last year?

Yep. Roughly doubling in all grades. Are you saying that Flash 86 in Good is now listed at $1,400 and at $16K in NM-? If this is the case, then this is much more than Allan's nominal 5% increase per year since Flash 86 was listed at only $314 in Good and at $5,500 in NM- only a mere 2 years ago.

From my small sample size of 6 comics I bought and received I tend to agree. I'm going to get graders notes because I fail to see why some of the comics have the grades they do. I tend to bid based on what i can see at least as much as the grade on the label but am pleasantly surprised Looks like Steve Ritter would most definitely agree with you as many of the Berk books which he has resold on his site are graded slightly higher than what the grades assigned by CGC when first sold through CC. A perfect example of this would be the Amazing-Man 21: http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?referral=EAlist&id=713976&title=AMAZINGMAN COMICS http://www.wwcomics.com/comicdetail.asp?Product_ID=AmazingMan_21_12156 Even with the color touch now scrapped off in order to give the book its current unrestored condition status, the book was still able to touch on retaining its same 5.5 Fine - condition grade. Looks like the color touch removal also helped in terms of the PQ status of the book. More evidence that the Berk books were graded on the tight side, especially since Ritter is considered to be an awesome and very accurate grader by virtually all board members here. Interesting and also good to note that Ritter has now gone back in to add in the Jon Berk designation to these books since they were not there last week. This will certainly help with collectors who may want to maintain the provenance of these books.

Unlike the Jon Berk books, whereby the overwhelming majority of them appear to be nicer than their assigned grades, the opposite appears to be the case with these AMF Centaurs here. For example: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/amazing-mystery-funnies-v2-3-centaur-1939-cgc-vf-80-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/7166-91007.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515 Does this really appear to be an accurately graded 8.0 copy with not only that spine wear, but the colors just don't appear to be that fresh and sharp with what we saw in terms of the Berk AMF books which appears to have been generally graded more tightly? Or is it just me and my failing eyesight once again?

Not mine. Just little opening bid so when live bidding comes up I'm ready With some of the bids where they already are, there's a high probability that they will be well past most collector's price range by the time the live bidding starts.

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, Richard, as long standing board members here, I feel that we have both the duty and the responsibility to point out to the newbies and less experienced board members here that they should be staying away from mid-run books and especially for long dead titles if they really want to maintain the financial health of their pocket book. After all, with great experience comes great responsibility. As a perfect example here, although we all know that you would stay far away from long and stone cold dead titles like the Fox Mystery Men run, we should also impart that same knowledge to the younger generation of collectors. And in particular, a middle of the run forgotten book like Mystery Men 10 that nobody in today's comic collecting world has even heard of, let alone would want anywhere near their personal collection. Why, I even heard rumors that a couple of the board members here might actually own the Larson and Allentown copies of this book. Can you actually imagine that ........especially in this day and age of forward thinking where covers such as this and its sister companion book, Mystery Men 11, should be clearly avoided due to its political incorrectness and racial overtones. Instead, we should be looking forward towards the future and guiding the less experienced boardies here to resurging once hot classics like Adventures of the Big Boy 1 and to new rising and upcoming stars like Fatman the Human Flying Saucer because these will surely become the hot books of tomorrow. With our sage collecting and investment advice here , your work is done for the day, so get out there and enjoy your well-earned break at the SD Con.

Let me guess on which ones Well since you guys are most probably talking about the AMF Centaurs, I would have to say that quite a few of them look more like "win at all costs" bids, as opposed to just tracking bids. Especially since the auction just started and there is still more than another 3 weeks to go.

+1 A much sounder and more thorough analysis and one which I would certainly have no problem agreeing with once you take into account the International box office receipts.

So this is the first Silver Age book since it came out before Showcase 4? It's obvious that you do not have the new copy of the Overstreet Guide yet and will have to wait until tomorrow like the rest of us little minions. Yes, you are indeed correct your statement here. From what I heard, Adventures of the Big Boy #1 will now be officially recognized as the start of the SA of Comics in this latest edition of the Overstreet, and hence booting Showcase 4 off to the side as a mere follower.

I had my tongue in my cheek - as usual. No worries as I was simply trying to be sarcastic at that point which appears to have been a pointless attempt on my part as it's clearly evident the intention of my point did not get across to you.

From my small sample size of 6 comics I bought and received I tend to agree. I'm going to get graders notes because I fail to see why some of the comics have the grades they do. I tend to bid based on what i can see at least as much as the grade on the label but am pleasantly surprised From reading many of the comments from other board members who have started to receive their books in the mail, they would also appear to be pleasantly surprised with their books, relative to the assigned CGC grades.

What a pointless remark. I thought it was a very pointed remark.

No, I believe the consignor knew exactly what he was doing and made the right move in this particular situation. Since many of these issues haven't appeared in the marketplace in grade for a couple of decades, the smart move is to let somebody else put their copies into the marketplace so that they can set the bar for you at a record setting level. Since the consignor's copies, "in theory", are generally graded higher than Berk's copies, then it's a simple matter of having his copies go even higher than the record price levels that were just set by Berk's lower graded copies. Now, if the consignor knew in advance that their copies were generally going to grade out lower than Berk's copies, then YES, the right move would have been to ensure his books preceded the Berk auction.

Let me guess on which ones Well, certainly baffles me since you already have all of the Centaurs. Would it be the Pep 22 since you already have a few of the Pep 34's, or would you go "FISHing" for something like a Fantastic 3?

Yes indeed, there are definitely some interesting moves in this year's edition of the Overstreet guide. For example from what I heard from a very reliable source, after being unceremoniously and unexpectedly turfed from Overstreet's SA Top 20 List decades ago, The Adventures of Big Boy #1 has finally and much deservedly managed to clawed its way back into its rightful place in the Overstreet SA Top 20 Chart, with Overstreet admitting it never ever should have been dropped from the chart in the first place.

I am missing your logic here as they usually look at box office trends by drops from a percentage point of view as opposed to absolute dollars decreases. From a percentage point of view, Spidey dropped by 62% from Weekend #1 to Weekend #2 while Wonder Woman dropped by only 43%. Yes, they are both pretty much the same in terms of absolute box office dollars after 2 full weeks since Spidey started off with a bigger opening weekend as you had correctly pointed out. So, using your rationale, since Wonder Woman had a bigger 2nd weekend as compared to Spidey's 2nd weekend, we would expect the drop for Spidey's 3rd weekend to be smaller than the drop for Wonder Woman's 3rd weekend. Since the actual drop for WW's 3rd weekend was $17.2M, then I assume by your logic that the drop for Spidey's 3rd weekend should be less than $17.2M for a 3rd weekend box office receipts of at least $27M or a percentage drop of less than 38%. I guess we will simply have to wait a week from now to see how solid your analysis is.

That's my point exactly.......started out big, but has already fallen behind Wonder Woman's much leggier movie which came in at close to $60M to crush Spidey's box office revenues of only $45M and it only took until Weekend #2 for WW to pass Spidey.

Unfortunately, yes indeed. I loved the Sgt. Rock cover from last year and the Spirit one from the year before was alright. Can't believe that is actually Steranko's interpretation of Batman because it looks like he has definitely lost it.

Hopefully a big YES!!! Or is my dancing a bit premature since the auction hasn't even started yet?

Since I've only seen the covers so far, the only noteworthy thing is that the 3 standard covers, including the h\Hall of Fame version, are just absolutely ugly this year. So horrid, in fact, that it actually made the Liefeld Deadpool Hero Initiative Limited Edition cover look good by comparison.

I just looked at their selection. I'll be watching with interest. I just took a closer look at these Centaurs in the upcoming Heritage auction and a couple point came to my mind: Does it appear to you guys here that CGC may have been just a bit more generous in terms of passing out their grades for these Centaurs when compared to what may have been slightly tighter grades on the Berk AMF's? Even though these Centaurs (especially the AMF's) are generally graded higher than the Berk copies, will the prices not be that much higher since the winner of the Berk copies may no longer be chasing after the ones which they won. Hence, the bidding will be down to the second and third place bidders and in a lot of the cases for the Berk AMF's, I just felt that the final 35% of the price or whatever was just between the final 2 bidders. With one of these guys out of the way, will it drop back down to a duel at the lower price points?