lou_fine

Yes, saw that picture and write-up in the morning Metro paper. Certainly good to hear that they are going to be able to keep the shop going. And I thought residential home prices were going through the roof at a clip of 25% to 50% per year, although we should be seeing a bit of decline this year. Sounds as though there is no looking back for commercial and industrial property values as they are continuing to motor along at a 40% and higher clip per year, with no apparent relief in sight.

Yes indeed, the CGC 3.5 graded copy of Batman 1 certainly does present a lot nicer than its assigned grade. A check of the serial number indicates that the book was graded back in the summer of 2016 when the Marc Lasry books were probably going through at the same time. So many beautiful GA books going though at the same time makes you kind of wonder if CGC had to use some of their less experienced graders during this time period. Hopefully, they didn't end up drafting the services of the MA graders who are used to looking at newsstand fresh books and graded these GA books the same way. Just take a look at some of the beautiful looking GA books coming up in the next CC auction and yet, they were all graded in this same range as this copy of Batman 1. For example, just take a look at that beautiful copy of Detective Comics #1, along with a couple of the pre-Robin 'Tec books. Besides the fact that they all present much nicer than their assign grade, they were also all graded in the latter half of 2016.

In the last auction with the Peps in there, I thought most of the Peps did not move very much at the end as they were already topped out going into the live portion of the auction. Consignors would not be very happy if the same thing happens here as many of the books in this auction here are sitting there with relatively low bids right now.

+1 Yes, the only real reason why I even clicked onto this thread in the first place.

Well, seems as though you are contradicting yourself here as you claim that you are looking for books for collecting purposes, but at the same time hoping to invest in books that will probably increase in price over the next few months. Anyhow, since you are only 20 years old, your time frame should probably be much longer than only a few months. Unless you are really more interested in the day trading of comics will is much more like this

I believe the type of books you are planning to auction off would be a significant factor to take into consideration with respect to your decision here.

Yes, forgot all about the collapse of the real estate market right when he started to move into that area. Was definitely sad to see how he had to sell off many of his long-held vintage comic books during this period of time to keep the cash flow going.

Looks like the stresses and headaches of the direct distribution comic book market over the past couple of decades is clearly showing on Geppi. Still seems to have a burning love for the vintage comic books themselves though.

Doubtful since they specify restoration check is not included. I'd see a bidder liability issue if someone buys a 9.4 Hulk 181 and the switched books is only a 8.5 with hidden defects. I'm sure there is some disclaimers thrown in to cover their butts. Not sure how easy it would be to switch out the books since the mylar holder is apparently sealed to prevent this type of fraudulent activity from happening, as based upon the following statment from the article: "The grade is displayed on a sticker on the front of the Mylar bag, which is sealed with a tamper evident sticker for security."

You do realize that an overwhelming majority of the books graded by CGC are MA books and out of those books, a further overwhelming majority of them are brand spanking new variant copies fresh off the shelves of the LCS's. A restoration check on these types books is indeed absolutely worthless and nothing more than a waste of your money. For any truly vintage collectible book, I highly doubt this service is geared towards these types of books, as collectors with any brains at all would be sending these books in for grading through the traditional grading service.

My bet is that if CGC had initially come up with this idea, some of the naysayers would be saying what a fantastic idea this was and a nice complement to their current grading services.

I assume, seeing as how the book isn't listed as restored, that the upgrade work was a simple press and clean, but how did the pages get improved from "Cream to Off-White" to Off-White? Hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but there are many other so-called "non-restorative" work besides just a simple clean and press that can be done to book and it would still be considered as unrestored from CGC's point of view. Don't think that is the situation here, but who really knows. As for the change in PQ, grading is really nothing more than just a matter of opinion at a particular point in time, and when it comes to page color, apparently it is one of the least scientific and most subjective part out of the entire grading process.

Noticed that I said "in theory" which means that Heritage would be taking both the BP and SP since we do not know if there were any special deals here. My line of thinking is that if the book hammers at $59K, this means that the final price paid and the one that goes down as the actual sales price would be $70,505 which would include Heritage's 19.5% BP. In theory, the seller would be seeing only $53,100 since Heritage would also be entitled to their 10% SP. Since the consignor originally paid CC just over $50K for the book in the first place, this means they will be left with about $3K to pay for whatever upgrade work was done to the book along with the regrading fees. So, if the final realized price doesn't go over $70K for this book, the consignor could in theory be out some money on his purchase of this book.

Reminds me of the time I was in the Dubai Mall the other year, which is supposedly the largest shopping mall in the world. They had a comic book display right in the center of the mall. Although Dubai is often known for having by far the grandest and most luxurious for most items in the world, their comic books certainly left a lot to be desired.

Wait for it. We all know it's the last day and live auction when things go gaga. Well, I can certainly see this book going back up into the $50K+ range, but I think it's going to be a bit of a stretch for it to hit its breakeven point of $70K+. I guess we'll just have to wait a few more days to find out our answer here.

Have no idea but most likely a whole lot of money it is the highest graded I doubt there will ever be another 9.6 that will be graded by CGC. I thought it was agreed by many board members here already that the book actually looked better in its former incarnation as a CGC 9.2 copy when it sold for just over $50K on one of CC's Event Auctions a couple of years ago. Well, looks like this book is still sitting at only $28K with only 3+ days left to go until the final hammer hits. Still a long ways away from the $70K+ in theory which the consignor will need in order to break even on this book.

I actually find that to be the case for a lot of the Miller story lines. His stories tend to start out so well that you can't wait for the next issue to come out, but usually not so much towards the end of his story lines.

Well, if that's the case then I really should get around to finding one of my copies and getting it graded before it's too late.

+1 I believe it's the same scenario with a lot of the final issues for many of these MA or CA runs.

Based upon personal experience, going from strict memory is not necessarily a good idea in the long run. Especially since I've been collecting for decades and you end up picking up duplicate HG copies of what were common books such as Batman 232, Thor 165, Marvel Premiere #3, etc. that you were chasing after once before. Of course, if you wait long enough, some of these purchasing mistakes like the ones above could turn into winners if you are lucky enough. Seem to have no problem remembering my GA books probably because they were more expensive and so much tougher to find, but when it came to the cheaper and common BA and CA books for only a few dollars a piece back then, very easy to lose track of what you have and don't have.

It is on the GPA but it was talked about in this forum and there was speculation at the time - it may be unfounded but the chatter was there. I'm not saying it's true - just pointing it out +1 Not sure if GPA has the time or is even set up to do a detailed analysis for each individual sale. Probably done on more of an exception basis if they hear something or if a particular sales result is flagged to them. So, I believe it's quite possible that it might have been a cash and trade deal that possibly could have slipped through the cracks.

Yes, collectors will probably find much better deals here than down at the much larger and overhyped Emerald City Con down in Seattle the following week.

Not sure about everybody else here, but I find that the first portion of the AMF run to be far superior from a cover point of view, as compared to the last portion of this run. Bring on the next run here!

Same lack of grade guarantee issue with an encapsulated book, although to a lesser extent. After all, have you not heard of SCS yet?

What's the juice? Does the book come with some hooch? The juice is the 19.5% Buyer's Premium which is charged to the winning bidder by Heritage? Not sure what happened to your earlier question about the grading of the book? I actually had no problem with the original 8.5 grading which was given to the book by the other company. It's just that a lot of other board members stated at the time that the book was clearly overgraded and implied that it would only be somewhere in the 7.0 to 8.0 condition range if the book had been graded by CGC. Looks like they were clearly wrong in the end.