lou_fine

Seeing as how the Church Wonderworld 11 and 12 are graded as 9.6 and 9.4 copies respectively, I would have to say that "quite nice" is most likely an understatement when talking about these 2 books. The only copies that could possibly have a chance at even being in the same ballpark might be the Allentown and Larson copies. Okay, probably not so much for issue #11 as the Allentown copy apparently has a rip at the top and the Larson copy apparently has a water stain on the back cover at the spine.

Very interesting as that is definitely the same kind of defect as the one on the CC's 3.0 copy of 'Tec 29. As far as I can tell though, they are 2 completely different copies. Is it just me or does the 3.0 copy in the CC auction appear to be quite a bit nicer from just a front cover visual point of view, as compared to the CGC 3.5 graded copy posted up above?

Interesting to note that the Target Comics Vol 6 #9 with the Church designation on its label does not have the same Mile High code identification markings on the front cover as the Church copy shown in the Gerber Photo-Journal Guide.

Why, is this CGC 3.5 copy of 'Tec 29 up for auction or sale somewhere?

Looks like you've been doing a bit of sleuthing here. Yes, looks like Chuck had it not guide graded at the lowest out of all of the books in the Mystery Men run, but also priced by far the lowest at almost half of the next lowest price books in the run. This would also line up with Geppi and Overstreet's assessment as they also had the Mystery Men 11 priced at by far the lowest out of all of the Church copies sold from this run. Based upon the CGC Census Report, it looks like the highest graded copy for Mystery Men 11 is probably going to be the 2 CGC 9.0 graded copies that's been sitting there for more than a decade. One of these 9.0 copies is the Allentown copy which sold on Heritage way back in 2005 while the other 9.0 copy must be from even further back as it was showing up on CBG's Census Population report that they used to do when CGC first started up. There might not be another higher graded copy out there since this issue is the only early Mystery Men book that is absent from the Larson list.

I wish the announcement had been made before the Heritage auction. I spent money in that auction that I would now prefer to have not spent to save up for the Berk auction. I guess it's quite possible that potential bidders might just hold back on some of their bids, especially for books that should be coming up for auction from Jon's collection here. For example, I noticed that the Wonderworld 11 in the CL auction is just sitting at only $700 while the CGC 7.0 copy of Wonderworld 12 is sitting at only $1,900. Wonder if both of these graded books will go past the almost $3K figure that they were able to hit for raw VG copies on eBay last summer. Also interesting to note that the the second highest graded copy of Fantastic Comics #2 is still sitting at only $215 in the CC auction, albeit still tons of time left to bid. Any bets that these types of books would most likely have ended up selling for more money than what they will be getting here if the Berk Collection was not on the horizon.

As you must already be fully aware of, there are 2 or 3 early Detectives that appears to be pretty nice relative to their assigned grade that just opened on CC's current Event Auction. Seems to be an unusually small selection of pre-Robin Detectives in CC's auction on this go round, especially when compared to the much larger quantities they normally seem to have in their previous big auctions. I wonder if the supply of these highly in-demand early Detectives are finally starting to dry up.

Congrats on your successful sales of some pretty big books here. Definitely a winning formula when you you are holding U.S. dollar based assets when the value of the U.S. dollar currency is rising significantly relative to your own devaluing currency.

Yes, Jon did indeed purchase the Mystery Men run, although I am not sure if this was done on a Friday or a Saturday. Most probably done over both days with an expression of interest on Friday followed up by a closure of the deal on Saturday. I know he did pick up the Larson copy of Thrilling Comics 3 since I initially had that book in my hand to purchase. Jon asked if he could have that copy since it was one that he needed to fill a gap in his run. Worked out in the end for me though since I was able to subsequently pick up the absolutely gorgeous Larson copy of Thrilling Comics #1, courtesy of Robert Rogovin.

No, the Timely's were all left for John Veryzl, who will be the next big time collector to unload his personal collection as soon as Jon's books are out of the way. Followed by Dave Anderson And then followed by Stephen Fishler himself.

If that Tec 31 1.8 with that eye appeal had c-ow, would it fetch $40k? My guess is that it probably should hit $40K with the better pages since 'Tec 31's have been running at a Price Per Point of $20K+ for all of last year. Of course, those auctions were in a different venue and CC seems to be the go to auction house for getting top dollars when it comes to pre-Robin Detective books. For example, the CGC 3.0 copy of 'Tec 29 which they have in their current auction is already at $33.5K after only 3 days since the auction opened, with another 3 weeks to go yet.

No, the Timely's were all left for John Veryzl, who will be the next big time collector to unload his personal collection as soon as Jon's books are out of the way.

agreed, and not a good time to put up serious material on the action block for a while as the pool of comic book collectors money is gonna wear thin +1 Same sentiment that I had expressed in one of my earlier posts here. It was probably also not a good time to be sending your GA books into CGC for grading during the past monthor so. Especially since they were conditioned to seeing so many beautiful rare GA books from Jon's collection, yours would just look like another POS MA book and downgraded accordingly. Similar to how so many beautiful looking GA books were graded so tightly last summer when the Lasry books were going across CGC's grading table.

Like the nice looking CGC 6.0 copy of National Comics #7 with the classic underwater cover that is still sitting out there at only $1,305.

OMG...........you just linked us back into the old boards here! I can definitely see a certain board member here getting a well deserved strike for this bad behavior.

1/2 went to Bob and 1/2 to the ex-wife. Of the ex-wife's share, 25% were sold by Gary Carter and the rest were sold to Geppi. Well, a 50/50 split is a very interesting concept and from what I could see, clearly subject to many definitions.

Yes, they had a nice full color pamphlet with pictures highlighting some of the comics and movie posters as part of the grand opening. I am sure that somebody with good search skills should be able to find this thread for us. As for a list of the sales prices, you can find them in the May 1995 issue of the Comic Book Marketplace as John Snyder had a 2-page summary listing all of the books that had sold and priced out by Geppi and Overstreet during that weekend. For example, you can see that the Terrific 5 sold for only $600, Church Mystery Men 1 for $6,300, etc. Of course, the summary does not appear to include the books that were placed on hold to be priced out by Geppi over the following few weeks.

There were 25,000 GA books in the collection -- it was massive. Bob was in the middle of a divorce and ended up selling his business and comics to Steve Geppi in order to settle matters. Yes, but from looking at both portions of the collection, let's just say that Bob clearly knew what he was doing when it came to dividing up the books.

Whatever happened to their lawsuit against CGC?

The National were sold back in the 90s and the Hits several years ago, none of them through auction. Oh, I see......a private sale then or one that was brokered by a major comic book dealer/broker. So, this scattering of Church Hit books that were auctioned off by HA just last week were most likely consigned by whoever had brought the books from Jon. I'm pretty sure we already told you in the Hits thread that Jon had sold the Hits previously to someone else, and it was the someone else who sold them on Heritage just now. Now, now, Tim.............have you not been told to respect your elders? One day when you get as old as us old fogies (in a few short months in your case ), you'll probably become even more absent-minded than us. Why, we might even have to remind you to go to the potty every now and then. That'll be our opportunity to steal all of your funny books while your pants are down around your ankles.

I don't know whether the Census has includes everything yet or not. He didn't have any books in slabs so CGC has quite a bit of work to do across all of the slabbable comics. Based on what you found it sounds like there are still some to be graded. His was very fond of Lou Fine and Fox and made it clear that selling the Hits and Nationals was one thing and the Fox books another. They were still around this year and so the Fox runs will be in the upcoming sale. Thanks Adam! Don't believe the Census Report can be fully up-to-date yet as there are a few too many HG Fox copies missing. I guess it's just a matter of being patient and I imagine a few more should take care of that.

I just need to stop selling at auction. For every nice surprise there are five results that range from mediocre to just plain bad. Probably the same case with all of the auctions. It's just that everybody focuses in on the headline grabbing sales only and tends to forget about all of the other many results that fails to live up to expectations.

This should hopefully work out in your favor then since a lot of potential bidders might just hold back on some of their moolah so that they can go after some of the books from Jon's collection.

He's missing a book or two from the runs. In some cases the Church copy is not uber high grade though they all look spectacular from the front cover. Adam; Any idea if the CGC Census Population Report for the Fox books have been updated to reflect all of Jon's Church copies or is this still a work in progress? Just wondering since some of the highest graded copies from the census is still only down around the CGC 4.0 to CGC 7.5 condition range, which would not line up with Chuck's grading for what it's worth? Any idea if Jon may have sold off some of the Church copies from his Mystery Men and Wonderworld runs? Especially with respect to the Mystery Men as he had acquired the entire run (less issues #21 - 23) from Diamond Galleries as far as I know.

I remember seeing the Larson copy of Fantastic 1 on display at the Diamond Int'l Galleries Grand Opening back in '95. The book was absolutely gorgeous and almost 3D like with the blazing red colors and Samson bursting out from the wall. Regretted not being able to work out a deal with Fishler for the book at the time as he wanted to verify the authenticity of the pedigree. I can just imagine how mind blowing the Church 9.8 copy of this Fantastic 1 must be.