lou_fine

Yes and yes it is a great story. I went back and read the whole thing last night. The stuff dreams are made of. I have often wondered what the "closet" looked like through Chuck's eyes when the door opened. Easily one of the biggest moments in his life. Any truth to the rumors that the Church family had to mopped up the big wet spot on the floor in front of the closet door and they also had to give Chuck a spare pair of pants to change into once he opened the closet door?

Well, since it's already at $9K, I would say that it has a half decent shot of hitting the $10K mark. I will say, however, that the book is already at a pretty strong price, considering that the last copy sold in the December 2016 CC auction was a CGC 4.5 graded copy and sold for just under $18K, or at a price per point of only $4K. So, to top $10K would be a pretty healthy increase in price in such a short period of time, but you never know in today's ultra hot market.

Since it's now the closing day for the Detective's, any changes to your predictions here, and what would be your guess for the closing price on that beautiful looking CGC 3.5 graded copy of Detective 1 which still seems to be running a bit low at this late point in the auction: http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=697754 I will also go completely against my character and make a bold prediction and say that the 'Tec 38 will indeed hit the $25K mark. Especially since this would represent a drop from the last 'Tec 38 auction on CC where a CGC 4.0 copy was able to fetch $35K, or $8,750 on a price per point basis. I don't see prices dropping for these pre-Robin 'Tec's or for the Batman keys yet in this current hot market, and still see them continuing their upwards climb to varying degrees in the foreseeable future: http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=676931 Ok, maybe my prediction wasn't so bold since it's already at $25K. Not sure if this book will see any additional action during the extended bidding time period though, but I tend to believe this particular copy just may have a chance to crack the $30K mark. Especially since it just seems to present so much nicer than its designated grade of 3.0. As for your prediction for the CGC 3.0 graded copy of 'Tec 29, I can certainly see $45K for this book, but not so sure about cracking the $50K mark. This would represent a pretty sizeable increase on a price per point basis when measured against the last copy that sold for just over $40K for a 3.5 graded copy. Although this particular 3.0 copy in the current CC auction definitely presents much nicer from strictly a eye appeal point of view: http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=684452 I guess it's just a matter of waiting a few more hours to see what happens.

What a beautiful matching twin set. Absolutely stunning!!!

Did this sale just take place or was announced today. I had the book under watch. As I had 1 less match from my Want List today ( and not yesterday), the book was taken down today. Guessing purchase happened during this week. Buyer was likely keeping a close eye on the progress of the ComicLink copy. Wow, it's amazing how you guys keep on top of all these things here across all of the various auction houses. I guess I just gotta get around to accepting the tech boom, instead of just relying on my fading memory.

Not faded. Book was printed without red ink. The back cover is also absent of red. That tells me not faded but actually low/no red ink When you go out for a sun tan, do you not turn over to ensure that you are evenly tanned on both sides, or do you just do the front side only?

Tim; It's quite obvious that you don't know me very well at all. My Top 3 major events so far in my life are as follows: 1) Meeting the great tth2 in Hong Kong; 2) Having dinner with tth2 and his beautiful family in Stanley; and 3) Seeing and geeking through tth2's uber HG DC collection. Nothing can beat those 3 life changing events for me.

Oh, now I see, as you and Roy must be referring to the Lasry copy of Hulk 1 that sold on the first 2 days of the auction prior to their regular Winter Event Auction. Correct. The 7.5 copy (with tanning and COW pages) was the first Hulk #1 to auction. The Lasry 8.5 along with the other copies auctioned off the following day. 1st, the inferior 7.5 ending 1st doesn't help. Roy; Just a slight correction here. The Lasry Hulk 1 was the CGC 7.5 graded copy and was auctioned off on Tuesday as part of the Lasry Collection which took place on the first 2 days prior to the regular CC Event Auction. Looks like the slew of 6 other Hulk 1's took place 2 days later on Thursday: http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?referral=EAlist&id=681662&title=INCREDIBLEHULK http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?referral=EAlist&id=682667&title=INCREDIBLEHULK Personally, I believe way too many copies of any one book, let alone a supposedly scarce Hulk 1, in the exact same auction will always only serve to keep prices down on a book.

Did this sale just take place or was announced today. If so, it's almost perfect timing to light a fire under the Detective's that will be coming up for auction today, including their pre-Robin 'Tec's. It would have been perfect timing if they had announced it yesterday in time for the Batman auctions and to also let the news simmer a day for the Detective's.

I don't remember but that sounds about right. It was right after he had bought the collection and before he had time to catalogue it. It was in Anahiem CA at the Casual Con. Check mentions it in an installment on his multipart series on the collection in "From the Database". Well worth Googling and reading that part. He was trying to raise some quick cash and drove out here from CO with a large load. I remember the buzz in the room. The most beautiful books we had ever seen. Most dealers just closed down and picked the boxes. I believe he still had the big books but did not bring them. Lots of DC and other superheroes. I don't remember any Timely's though for some reason. Most hit the "men in tights" books. It was too crowded and there was way more to look at. One of the biggest "feeding frenzys" I've ever seen. I was heavily into pre-code horror, censhorship/SOTI books and esoteric Atom Age stuff. I bought all the SOTI, Parade of Pleasure and Love & Death books he had as well as some Avons, horror, crime and just cool books I'd never seen before. Hardly anyone was looking in those boxes. I remember being disapointed there were no EC's but now I know why. I do remember the grumbling about the "over guide" prices. In retrospect, I really understand why he did it, but it was a first for most people. But we all knew this collection was special. I bought maybe 40-50 books all $10. each and under. I blew my budget and even bummed some money from a friend. Lot of money when I was making like $2.50 an hour to support myself. One of the top experiences in my collecting "career" And no, I never saw the Suspense #3... That's just a fantastic story and it's always nice to hear these types of stories right from the horse's mouth, as it makes me feel like I was right there with you at Casual Con. If you was at the Diamond Intl'l Galleries Grand Opening back in '95, was it anything like the wild and manic "feeding frenzy" that had occurred there?

No parting sorrow ? Deep down sure even a little. Just like with Andre, Brian ... You have to remember that Gator needs to approach these books from a completely different point of view, as compared to us. Being a dealer and needing to put bread and milk on the table for the family, Gator does not have the luxury of simply holding onto these books like the rest of the collectors here such as you and I. That is why he most likely sells them when he thinks they are hot and holds onto them when he believes they still have a lot more room to appreciate in value. For example, I believe he does not have any AS 8 or any of the other Wonder Woman keys available for sale at his point in time, but he does have quite a few copies on hand in his collection/inventory. As I have pointed out before, the comic book market always moves in cycles.

Oh, now I see, as you and Roy must be referring to the Lasry copy of Hulk 1 that sold on the first 2 days of the auction prior to their regular Winter Event Auction. You guys do realize that CC was auctioning off the Lasry Collection as part of that Nov/Dec auction and that collection in itself comprised of over 1,200 individual lots. I am sure the consignor must have requested that all of these books be auctioned off separately from the other non-Lasry lots. And this is exactly why I have stated on many occasions that in a big auction done in this format, you will definitely not realize top dollars on many of your lots, except possibly for your main featured lots. It is easy for what would normally be a big book in a regular auction to get "lost" in the midst of other even bigger books or just due to the sheer quantity of the books being auctioned off. After all, their Action run alone ran pretty well intact form issue #2 though to #433, tons of other big name GA keys like the Solicitation Copy of Wonder Woman 1 that sold for almost $300K. With these kinds of books all coming from one collection, I strongly doubt that they would want to pull the Hulk 1 and slot it in with their regular auction, just because it might get a few dollars more. A heads up here: Since CC will be auctioning off Jon Berk's Collection in their upcoming May/June Auction, there will also probably be many other good deals to be had. Especially with thousands of HTF and never seen books from the 1930's right though, it will be easy for many books to be "lost" as collectors will simply not be able to focus on such a large quantity of books at the same time, except for the featured books such as the Church copy of Fantastic 3, Action 1, 'Tec 27. Big big money for the collection as a whole, but definitely not top dollar on the individual books on a book by book basis if it had been piece meal off and sold slowly over many years.

Not quite sure if I am following you here since CC's auction for the so called red hot AF 15's (all 7 of them including the 2 wraps) on this go round followed the exact same format as the auction for the so called weak Hulk 1's (all 7 of them ranging from 8.5 down to 1.0) in CC's Nov/Dec auction. Their auction listings always goes from highest graded down to lowest graded if there are more than 1 copy of the same book in their auctions. Cannot speak to the Hulk 1's in the last auction since I was not at my computer that time. With the AF 15's this time, the 9.0 copy was the first one to trigger the 3-minute clock, but it was by far the last of the AF 15 listings to end as it took over 30 minutes to end due to all of the extended bids that were being triggered. I was watching the Top 3 AF 15 lots and the first one to officially end was the 4.5 copy, followed minutes later by the 5.0 copy, and then way after that by the 9.0 copy. I am sure that must have been what happened with the 7 copies of Hulk 1's as the highest graded 8.5 copy was the first to hit the 3 minute buzzer, but the last one still left standing at the end. I think the problem with the Hulk 1's was that it has always been deemed to be one of the tougher key SA Marvel books to find. When an auction house puts up 7 different copies of them at the same time, it is not necessarily supporting this theory of perceived scarcity of this book. I am sure this large quantity of a supposedly scarce book was one of the main factors in keeping prices down in the last auction, and the book would have done a lot better if there was only the one copy of it available.

+1 Very well written analysis of what is going on in the marketplace today and I am in total agreement with your points here.

Same here!! And yet, many of these books still graded out as 9.4's or 9.6's, and even some as high as 9.8. Considering that's hard to do with brand new books right off the newsstand today, that's really saying something for books from the '30's. Must be all that free "manual pressing" that he is getting as his fellow collectors are perusing the books.

Wow, I guess the silly money is still chasing after CGC's Highest Graded copies. Even worse than this one here which finished at an even higher absolute dollar value, but at least it was an earlier issue and a Pacific Coast pedigree copy to justify it somewhat: http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?referral=EAlist&id=709438&title=DAREDEVIL-1964

So, since I am a deadly slow writer, I will simply copy and paste a post which I had written sometime last week that kind of speaks to this question you are asking here. I have to apologize in advance for the wall of words, so you can simply skip to the next post if you don't want to read it all: 31 wins and it's not even close. From the point of view of the past 10 years, you are most definitely right! For the next 10 years going forward, I believe the 'Tec 38 is going to win out from a valuation percentage increase point of view. I have always held to the belief that the comic book market moves in cycles. And in this sense, the hottest area within the GA market during the past 2 to 3 years has clearly been the classic covers, with 'Tec 31 being one of the key books leading this march. But what is hot right now does not necessarily mean that it will stay hot indefinitely. And right now, I am starting to see some heat turning back up on the long cold dead traditional keys such as Whiz 2, All-Star 3, and the likes. This latest heat was probably ignited by the recent movie hype phenomenon that has swept parts of this market, as evident by the trio of Wonder Woman related keys which are now definitely on fire after being stone cold dead for the past couple of decades prior to this phenomenon. And the embers of this fire is starting to spread back to some of the traditional GA keys, of which Detective 38 is definitely one of them. If you look back to 20 years ago in the Overstreet guide, Detective 38 was either tied for 2nd or at least the 3rd most expensive book in the Batman run of Detective, and always well ahead of 'Tec 31. Definitely not the case anymore as 'Tec 31 is now clearly ensconced in 2nd place, while 'Tec 38 has fallen all the way to #6 spot. Although Overstreet prices are not necessarily market prices as we all know, they are still useful as a guide in terms of relative prices. Collector interest in classic covers is definitely the main factor that has pushed prices up for 'Tec 31, to the point that it is now the 2nd most valuable Detective book by far. Interesting to note though, that it was only 20 short years ago that a survey was conducted by the readers of CBM in which they elicited something like 175 separate votes for the Top GA Cover of all time. Guess what....'Tec 31 received only 1 single vote out of the 175 votes cast, and if I had not voted for it as one of my Top 5 covers, it would have been shutout completely. Definitely not the case anymore as a recent survey conducted by Heritage placed 'Tec 31 now clearly at the top of the poll for Top GA Covers. Amazing how collector interests are so finicky and changeable over time. As the old saying goes, it's best to buy when something is out of favor, as opposed to buying when something is scorching hot and you are going to have to pay top dollar. In this scenario, 'Tec 31 is most definitely scorching hot and it's going to cost you big money to pick one up. Although on a price per point basis, it does appear to have plateaued a bit or not quite increasing at the rapid pace it was. Detective 38, on the other hand, was definitely a relatively cold book a couple of years ago. Doesn't appear to be the case anymore as there are now clear signs of life with increasing price per point being seen on this book over the past year or so. I strongly believe anybody picking up a decent presenting copy of 'Tec 38 in today's marketplace will not regret their purchase in a few years from now as the flames seems to be growing with increasing strength on the traditional keys after having rested in the doldrums for an extended period of time. Although 'Tec 31 will still beat it from an absolute dollar valuation increase point of view due to its current big head start, I feel that 'Tec 38 will win out from a percentage valuation increase point of view going forward. It should be pointed out, however, that the opinion which I had expressed above is based upon my own personal preference for not buying books when they are hot, and instead, trying to buy them when they are slightly out of favor and even more so, when they are seemingly starting to wake up from an extended slumber and hopefully about to go on a long overdue upwards ride. Of course everybody's different as I have always been a long-term collector who doesn't mind holding onto my books for an extended period of time. Probably would not work for many of today's generation of collectors/investors/speculators who seems red hot to buy in on a particular hot book, but only hoping to discard it 6 months later for the next hottest trend. I guess as the old saying goes: To each, their own.

Doubt he has millions of dollars as he is just like the rest of us poor working slobs who in his particular case, had to toil away everyday as a trial lawyer. It's just that he fell in love with the comic books and their creators since his law school days and was astute enough to pick them up when they were still relatively cheap. A true comic book historian who has written so many articles to educate and share his love for these books with all of us fellow collectors, including right here on these boards. Not sure if he is still working since he is now 67 and has been a caretaker for his comic books for over 40 years, and now feels it is time to pass them onto the next generation of collectors.

That's no fun then as you won't get the full enjoyment value out of your AF 15 then. You gotta be like Jon Berk who's always more than willing to invite his fellow collectors over so that they can thumb through and geek over his comic books: Wonder where Jon's copy of AF 15 is as apparently Spidey was his favorite character and he has all of the books right through to current times, along with a complete set of SA Marvels.

Just making conversation. Thought I'd ask. Not a problem at all as it's always good to have a conversation. It just seems strange to me why CGC would take this stance with respect to Marvel chipping since they seem to take the complete opposite approach to the poor printing issues associated with Cerebus 1. In fact, even Overstreet states clearly in the price guide that most issues of the small 2,000 print run for Cerebus 1 were "poorly printed". I am actually not aware or have seen any scans of Cerebus 1 without the notorious spine ticks that were brought off the newsstand. And yet CGC seemingly continues to downgrade all copies of this book for these production/distribution related defects on the rationale that since Dave Sim was able to scoured the entire print run to locate the few copies that did not have these defects, then they should be fully taken into account in the determination of the final grade.

That's a great question and something I never thought of. Would like to hear a response from someone who knows as well during that time. That's actually a very strange and rather mystifying question to be asking. Have you not seen countless scans of HG copies of AF 15's that do not exhibit any evidence at all of Marvel chipping, including many of the pedigree copies like the Curator and the Pacific Coast? And that is exactly why I do not understand CGC's rationale for either not taking or downplaying the impact of Marvel chipping when it comes to determining the final grade for the book.

It's always good to have the Graders' Notes because you really can't accurately grade a book from just a scan, as opposed to having the actual book in hand. Like I had figured, there appears to be no issues at all that was worth noting in terms of the interior. Interesting to note that out of the 7 comments made by the graders, 5 of them were all about creases. Should not be a surprise here since the grading team is now apparently headed up by the guy that used to own and operate CCS, and their main focus was all about eliminating creases, stresses, and spine ticks.

Awesome! It does look pretty nice except for some of the wear around the edges and spine. I assume it must be pretty solid inside, considering the grade Sounds as though Tbone has been building up his arsenal of affordable AF 15's before they took the huge jump in price.

Well, all I can say is that this CGC 3.5 looks completely different from the GA 3.0's and 3.5's that were coming out from the Sarasota factory during the latter part of 2016. Maybe they forgot to look at the right edge of this book or is this simply considered to be Marvel chipping and ignored when it comes to determining the final grade. Or maybe it's just a swing back to the soft grading period and time to submit books to CGC again.

6 months ago, same book $22,400 http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=668109 Last night: $15,650 Boy, what a party pooper you are! Taking all the fun and games out of wild speculation with real facts and boring history. Seriously though, thanks as it's always good to have the proper info.