lou_fine

No worries, Roy, as I fully understood the intent and meaning of your posts. Amazing coincidence, however, is that I just got a PM a few hours ago from some lawyer or somebody in a law firm. Asked if I knew where you was located and what your physical address was. Absolutely no idea what it's all about, but there was some vague mention about a subpoena or something, and they sure did seem all excited and hot to trot to talk to you.

the market doesn't accept extensively restored books at the value IGB was expecting. Didn't the earliest book (or books) sell for a strong dollar until the conversation fired up and took on a life of it's own? I think that is what comicwiz was referring to. You have stated the heart of the matter, and the defense of the matter at the same time. You may not realize it, but it is a key to the issue, IMHO of course. That makes a lot of sense, actually. Thanks for that. If this is the case, then this should be pretty easy to track. Would we not simply need to compile a chronological listing of all of their books and what they sold for and then compare the prices before and after the thread in question? I was always under the impression that their books had in most cases always been going for either single digit percentages or very low double digit percentages to condition guide all along, due to their EP restoration rating. Not sure if there was a slight drop after the thread came out.

I hope your point is not to stifle free speech on the Boards. If the book is not on a Board Sales thread, I think it's absolutely okay to comment, good or bad. I'm not stifling anything. I'm just pointing out that negative comments can affect sales. People start to talk something down and it affects auction results. This is not just a Facebook chat room or ComicsPriceGuide.com where people are pumping X-Factor #1. You might have made the argument 10 years ago that it wasn't that big of a site but 17 years in, this is probably the largest, most concentrated gathering of high end collectors and dealers in the world and certainly the forum most focused on slabbed books. And not everyone posts here but many more lurk and read. If something picks up steam here, it catches on out there. Now, now, Roy........you do realize these are the CGC boards here? You should know that your continuing comments in this vain serves only to provide more supporting evidence for the plaintiffs in their lawsuit against CGC.

Am I missing something here? Is this not the exact same book that almost everybody here was basically implying was nothing more than an overgraded POS book that would only be sitting in a 7.0 to 7.5 slab if graded by CGC? Sounds as though everybody's had their eyes checked in the past few months and their vision is so much clearer and now all of a sudden, it's a nice looking properly graded 8.5 book. I still don't think it's a properly graded 8.5 no matter if CBCS or CGC. CGC scan is better however than was the CBCS scan ( not sure what happened there ). I believe it's based upon what time frame you are thinking of. You have to remember that the Voldy 8.5 copy was graded back in either late 2014 or very early 2015. Based upon how books were being graded during that time period, I believe this AF 15 would most probably also had been properly graded at the time as a CGC 8.5 copy. Based upon how books have been graded during the past several months with the new grading team in place, I would tend to agree with you and think that CGC was just a tad generous when it came to assigning the grade on this particular copy. Especially when you compare it to the CGC 9.0 copy which it graded only about 5 short weeks after grading this 8.5 copy. I believe CGC knew exactly what they were looking at and the book's associated history when they graded this 8.5 copy and it was a brilliant strategical business move on their part to assign it the exact same 8.5 grade.

Yes indeed, it looks like the Bethlehem's must have gone right through to the late 60's then. Absolutely loved the Total War and Mars Patrol series of books. I have always felt that they could easily turn this book into a TV series for one of the independent networks.

+1 Can't wait for the New Year now!

So, that explains why I couldn't find this thread in question when I went looking for it earlier this morning. Certainly could be presented as evidence for an argument against CGC since it could be seen as supporting one of the claims being made by the plaintiffs in this action here.

+1 Amazing coincidence as this was also one of the first things that popped into my mind as I started to read this thread here the other day.

I read it as a reactiion to the item being assessed a lower grade than it legitimately deserved. Which sounds like a correct assumption if it eventually was assessed two grades higher at CBCS. I believe it would be very tough for the Meyers to win this type of argument in a court of the law, especially since grading is just an opinion and hence totally subjective within reasonable limits. In addition, it should also be pointed out that both companies most likely do not abide by the same grading standards, since they both have their own unique individual set of grading standards. Hence, one type of defect on a book might be hit more severely by CGC than it would be by the other company, while another type of defect might possibly be hit to a much lesser degree than how it would be treated by the other company. As a result, it could be argued that it is indeed quite possible for a book to be properly graded as a 8.0 by one company and yet at the same time, still also be properly graded by the other company as a 9.0 copy.

I believe if they can't find anything wrong with the book, they are supposed to give it a 10.0 grade. I know you are joking but books grading 9.9/10.0 are supposed to have exceptional qualities, not necessarily the absence of anything wrong. Perfect centering, razor sharp corners, etc. Yes, but if a book has imperfect centering and blunted corners, then aren't these things in and of themselves, are actually things that are indeed wrong with the book.

I agree with this. There will be an audience for the 8.5 and an audience for the 9.0. That's my point exactly. You will now have 2 separate audiences for both of these books. If there was only one of these books up for auction, you would tend to get overlapping interest from both audiences as the 2 grades are actually quite close. A larger audience usually means a greater number of potential bids which usually also results in a higher end result which would favor both the consignor and the auction house.

According to many prominent board members here, what you are stating here is almost sacrilege. They would state emphatically that CGC slabbed books will always sell for much more money than equivalently graded books slabbed by the other grading company.

I believe if they can't find anything wrong with the book, they are supposed to give it a 10.0 grade.

Highly doubt if the consignors would have to worry about paying for any of the slabbing and pressing fees at this stage of the process. I believe if you are consigning books to a reputable auction house for sale, they will pay for these fees upfront for you and simply take it off your proceeds in the end, along with their own auction fees.

I mean, I get what you're saying and all but this is too much of a blanket statement before we see the full catalogue. We just don't know (yet) the quality of books save for a handful. It looks awesome to me and I don't doubt there will plenty of uber high grades for quality books. At the end of the day, not every pedigree will be created equally anyways. +1 Yes, definitely too early to say whether this collection truly deserves pedigree status or not. It will be interesting to see what the mega keys and early DC's hold in terms of both quantity and quality as Marvels are just so much easier to come by. Based upon these 49 books being shown here so far, the average grade works out to only a 8.9 with a range running from CGC 6.5 through to CGC 9.8. Definitely nice since virtually all of them have the coveted White Pages designation, but not really pedigree worthy so far from a SA Marvel point of view. Now, an average CGC grade of 8.9 would definitely be pedigree worthy for a GA collection with the keys in there, but not so much so far for SA Marvel without the keys. I guess we will just have to wait and see what else surfaces from this supposedly pedigree collection here.

Why would you wonder that? +1 And why would you not fully expect that? After all, this is now 2016 and almost going into 2017. It's not like it's the year 2000 in the days of wine and roses and virgin like sweet innocence where this collecting world of ours was supposedly being populated with untouched properly graded books.

That was also one of my first thoughts on the ASM portion of this collection. In order to be a SA pedigree, would it not have to have the keys in there such as AF 15 and ASM 1? Wonder if both of these books are being held back for now in order to drive up their prices by releasing the "lesser" non-keys first?

If you are referring specifically to SA Marvels, I would have to say that there must be several more out there since they were so popular and highly collected even back then. Especially since these collectors or LCS owners are probably just approaching retirement age in the coming years. For example, doesn't Joe Krolik still have his top SA Marvel collection intact after letting his undercopy set go which turned into the Winnipeg pedigree collection?

How about if we call it a variant quasi-sketch cover then? Would that help with the marketability of this unique one and only one of a kind book in the entire universe?

Well, looks like the Billy Wright copy of Detective 28 finally did good on this third go-round for the book: http://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?referral=EAlist&id=685979&title=DETECTIVECOMICS Sold for $64K on CC as a CGC 8.5 graded copy. Originally sold on HA as part of the big BW unveiling as a CGC 8.0 graded copy for $44.8K back in February of 2012 before being flipped for a loss as a CGC 8.5 graded copy for only $38.5K a few months later in May of 2012.

Didn't this TEC 29 just sell last month as restored but no trim noted? I was scared off because it had been mentioned as once trimmed. If it did sell where is the listing on HA? Sure reads like a lot of extra stuff either done or added to the book, yet it received only a Slight Restoration designation.

Wow that is for sure one of the nicest AF15's I have ever seen!! Any guesses on what it will sell for? My guess is that this 9.0 copy on CC will go a long way to keeping the price down on the 8.5 copy coming up at HA. Especially with both copies due out only a few weeks apart. HA must be feeling a bit as the 9.0 copy will certainly steal some of the thunder from their 8.5 copy. This.. well maybe for both consignors I'd say. Talk about terrible timing. You never know, there might possibly even be a third HG copy coming to market as CL seems to be hyping CGC's newest original owner pedigree collection (John G. Fantucchio) in their upcoming Winter Auction. Looks like they are planning to offer the ASM run first, although there seems to be no AF 15 or ASM 1 posted so far. Wonder if these 2 keys are being held back as I highly doubt they would be missing from this supposedly complete SA collection.

Wow that is for sure one of the nicest AF15's I have ever seen!! Any guesses on what it will sell for? My guess is that this 9.0 copy on CC will go a long way to keeping the price down on the 8.5 copy coming up at HA. Especially with both copies due out only a few weeks apart. HA must be feeling a bit as the 9.0 copy will certainly steal some of the thunder from their 8.5 copy.

That was the best thread I've found on these boards to-date. That collection and the story behind them, just amazing. Got a link? I would love to read that. Can't believe you haven't seen this thread yet: http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1628473&fpart=1 Just an absolutely unbelievable collection from Bang Zoom. Can never get enough of it. Hope this holiday season finds him in better health!

Some people are just not risk takers or don't trust their own grading skills. If I had 6 figures to sink into a book I'd have bid on it. I had a feeling from the old voldy scan, something wasn't right about the scan. The risk at this level can be hard to swallow for most, but can be rewarding. In hindsight, at 77K is quite a good deal, but the sales tax for some could be another 7-10% (at least for me). Well, the sales tax at $77K last time will definitely be a lot less than the sales tax at $150K or whatever it goes for on this next go round.