lou_fine

What would be so difficult about having a numeric scale? It relies on counting. Getting people to agree on counting is a very difficult thing. I'm getting scared even metioning it. Give yourself more credit. You are quite adept at counting between 8.5 and 9.4 (thumbs u This is actually a very good point and one which I completely fail to understand when it comes to adopting a 10-point restoration rating system for restored books. Over the years we have seen the hobby moved away from the 3 category grading system (Good/Fine/Mint) into the full 10-point CGC grading system. Everybody stated how this was a boon to the hobby and the marketplace as it facilitated greater integrity and consistency when it came to grading standards. As a result, more collectors entered the marketplace and prices shot up as a result. When CGC tried to introduced a numerical restoration rating system to replace the current 3 category resto rating system (Slight/Moderate/Extensive), there was all sorts of furor within the industry and on the boards here. It was claimed that such a numerical system was misleading, fraudulent, lead to total confusion, and would only facilitate scam artists to flourish within the hobby. I totally fail to understand how the 10-point CGC grading system can be such a boon by introducing independent grading transparency to the marketplace, while a 10-point restoration system would only introduce total confusion and misleading information into the marketplace.

'Tec 1 for me also as that is just such a key and iconic book. (thumbs u In addition, I consider the Adventure #72 to be one of the most over-rated and overvalued DC GA books out there. Imagine a book like that guiding for $19K. Now if it was a Adventure #73, that would be much more of a competition as I just love that classic Manhunter cover and also a very very HTF book.

I would have to say that the $750K appears to be a bit on the aggressive side as I simply do not believe a restored book would be discounted all the way down to the 10% level of a unrestored book.

In total agreement with you on this matchup here! (thumbs u

AA 16 for me based on the simple fact that it is an important GA key book. Even though this copy of AA 16 is rather ugly looking, I am also biased since i already have a copy of Suspense #1 and certainly not looking for another. On the 2 pre-Robin 'Tec's, however, even though I already have an issue 31 and need a 35, I would still take the 31 on the basis that it will continue to have higher relative demand going forward.

Adam; I believe you are correct as I have just sign on here. (thumbs u Getting closer as I only missed this easy one by a few minutes this time.

I'll be posting another Quiz at 7PM (EST) if anyone wants to check back to see if they recognize the image. BZ; Thanks for the advance warning! (thumbs u Didn't seem to help though as I just got back home from a long and late dinner. Took me all of two seconds again as I used to have the Allentown copy of this book. Maybe I just have to spend more time on the boards here as I'll never win one of these contests at the rate I am going.

BZ; This is so true........it took me all of 2 seconds to ID the Mystery Men #2 and the National #7. Winning these contests are often about timing, in the sense of being on the thread when the question is being asked, instead of showing up days later.

I'm with the gator on this one. (thumbs u Steve; Although I certainly agree with your point on the popularity of the Batman character over the Flash, I think Rick's point about availability of similar graded copies tips the scales towards the Flash. It also doesn't hurt the fact that the Flash has the Church provenance attached to it while the Bats possibly has the Lauterbach provenance attached to it. It should also be pointed out the Flash #1 has already been vetted out by several restoration experts over the years and has always come up clean. This cannot be said for many of the other Church DC keys which have not been able to passed this test. In addition, I feel that the $300K price is a bit over the top at this point in time for the Bats #1. Of course, I also think the $300K might be a bit high on the Flash as my sights would be more on a Action 1 or a 'Tec 27 when you are talking about dropping $300K on a book.

Does CGC ever note the printing on their label? I don't believe they do, though that may have changed. They should really do this for GA books where it is possible to distinguish bewtween printings. Out of This World #1 is another book that they don't distinguish between printings. I don't understand why they don't do this for GA books - they do list the printing number for books from other periods like Zap Comix and TMNT. Jeff My thinking is that the primary reason they do not currently distinguish between the various GA printings on books such as Supes #1, Bats #1, Marvel #1, etc is that they are not yet segregated in the OS price guide. Once OS gets around to segregating the various printings, you can bet your bottom dollar CGC will also do it.

NUDITY COVER! :o West :applause:Wow, the census only lists 3 of this issue graded thus far. A 6.0, 8.5 and a 9.0, Does anyone know if the 9.0 is the Church copy? Just went through all 40 pages of this thread as I was away in China for 3 weeks. Some more amzaing books including some stunning pulps from BZ's personal collection again for all of un minnions to drool over! Anways, this "nude" cover reminds me of the Dell Poughkeepsie file copies I was able to purchased off a retired dealer from the Detroit area back in the early 90's. The dealer had acquired a portion of the collection which included a run of Crackajack Funnies which he was helping to sell for one of his long-time customers. Anyways, I was lucky enough to contact the dealer who sold me several of these file copies from issues #4 through to the final issue at around 65% of guide. Included in it was a copy of this issue #5 in HG condition. Asked him if the collector had anymore such as issue #9 to which he replied in the affirmative, although they were not for sale at this point in time. Noticed a subsequent ad in the CBG several months later listing the other issues. Contacted the dealer who said that he had tried to called me prior to placing the ad, but had misplaced my telephone number. Anyways, took one of the issues in the early 20's (#21 I believe?) and put it up in the Manning Auction as a test of CGC's grading and the liquidity for these low demand books. Graded out as a 9.6 and sold for over triple guide which is not bad for a low demand GA book. BTW: I am still surprised that issue #9 with the first appearance of Red Ryder guides for substantially less than Red Ryder #1 which came out much later. Must be one of the only times that a first appearance of a character is worth less than a subsequent issue.

Let's see...............a highest graded copy of a key book from a much in demand pedigree versus a substantially lower graded non-pedigree copy of a key book. Am I missing something here or is this an absolute no-brainer!

I'm becoming a bigger fan of Lou Fine every time you post another story. Incredible artwork. I love it. Yes, absolutely gorgeous artwork by the master himself! For once, the interior art on some of these Quality books are far superior to the cover art for their books. Certainly not the norm for most of the GA books. Any idea which issue of Smash Comics this particular story of the Ray came from?

Personally, I've always liked the cover to issue #5 myself. The cover image on #5 always reminds me of the cover for Punch Comics #1.

Ok, Ok...how about this one........ both sold 3 months ago for $18,000. Which one would you choose, and why ? I don't have either one...I'll take both! Richard; You don't have a copy of Spawn #1 yet! Doesn't have to be an AA16, I'll trade you a copy of Spawn 1 for any GA comic from your personal collection.

A lot of the major books have, a Tec #31 CGC 5.0 sold for $8,000 in 2004, then $13,500 in Novemeber 2006, the Crippin 5.5 sold for $17,327 a year ago so these books are red hot and no signs of slowing down. And this increase in price all so accurately captured by Overstreet as evident by the following: 1) Value of 'Tec 31 in Fine 6.0 in 2004 guide was $8,445 2) Value of 'Tec 31 in Fine 6.0 in 2007 guide now at $10,200 for an almost 21% increase in value over 4 years As for the doubling in value for the VG 'Tec 27, Overstreet must definitely have this one right as evident by the following: 1) Value of 'Tec 27 in VG 4.0 in 2004 was $62,500 2) Value of 'Tec 27 in VG 4.0 in 2007 now at $67,000 for a huge 7.2% increase in 4 years. Now, that's what I call doubling! Interesting to note that the OS values were a lot closer in 2004 and probably even a bit on the high side as compared to now. Of course, not sure if we've had any sales lately to verify the higher dollars that we are throwing around.

The reaction to this concept of a 10-point restoration grading scale with a uni-colour label seems to be a lot more receptive on this go round. (thumbs u Just don't try suggesting this on the General boards. Whenever I bring it up over there, they seem to think you are the devil incarnate spewing out utter blasphemy.

Not necessarily so! With a 10-point Restoration system in place, I would fully expect CGC to report on all the resto work done on a book that they can detect. As a result, I would also fully expect that some of the current blue-label books without resto notes to come back as R-1 or even R-2. After all, you have to remember that CGC's policies with respect to what actually constitutes restoration has quietly been shifting over the years. They started out with notes on certain activities and have now left out the notes. They stated that only NDP was allowed and now they seem to be alright with pressing and cleaning with staple removal, etc, etc. It seems that since they got the thumbs down on the label changes, they just might have gone ahead anyways and quietly allowed some of the conservation activities on the blue labels. Although the CGC resto check is good, you just never really know what's hding behind some of these so-called blue label "resto-free" books.

Bill; In total agreement with you on the concept of a formal restoration scale as I have been harping about this every since I first came onto these boards back in 2003. (thumbs u Not sure about how complex I would want this scale to be since I felt the one that CGC was proposing was far too complicated. I believe a simple 10-point restoration rating system should be good enough since collectors are already used to a 10-point condition grading system. I actually don't buy the story that a dual colour label system is required and that a move to a one-colour label restoration rating system would only result in collectors being scammed in the marketplace. If this true, then we should probably ask CGC to institute a two-colour label system for the condition grades in order to segregate near-mint books from non-near mint books. After all, would we want some poor unsupsecting collector to buy a blue label 5.0 graded book thinking he was getting a NM copy. If collectors can understand the 10-point grading system, I don't see why they can't figure out a 10-point restoration rating system. Why, they even seen to know that a 9.4 MA book is no good, while a 9.2 SA book is good, and a 8.0 GA book is highly desireable. We don't seem to need a purple label to tell them what is good and what is not good when it comes to condition grading.

what a cluster this would have been....glad the idea was scrapped! We all would have needed reading glasses and a note pad/pen to try to decifer all the small print and figure out what CGC was trying to say....and just imgaine all the eBay ads where Joe Schmoe is selling a graded book and has cheesy pics.....you'd have to email him 15 times to get all the info you needed just to understand what he was offering. I'll take good old blue and purple numeric labels all day long over this train wreck....looks like it was designed by the US Government, not private industry. Steve I agree. Let's keep things dumbed down for the general masses to understand. I mean why in the world would we ever want to put too much information on the labels? Could you imagine if we actually wasted time trying to educate casual hobbyists with the added information CGC could provide? Then they might get too informed and realize that there are some real values out there in the restored comic world. Then where would we be? We would probably have to pay more for those books that have slipped by in the past. BRRRRRRR! ahhhhhhh, but Richard... if this was such a great, informative and much needed change, why was there overwhelming lack of support by our very own educated fellow Forumites?? From my point of view, the major reasons why it fail were threefold: 1) This system CGC was proposing was far too convoluted and too complicated for most collectors to understand as it was trying to separate work between restoration (bad), conservation (good), professional (good), amateur (bad), slight, moderate, extensive, and all the possible permutations of these factors. 2) CGC was trying to implement this system in association with their parent company setting up a sister company (PCS) to provide conservation and restoration removal services to the marketplace. Big red flag here as this was seen as a direct conflict of interest and possible manipulation of the marketplace. Especially since the new services lined up so nicely with CGC's new definition for restoration vis-a-vis conservation. 3) Marketplace was starting to question CGC policies in light of some of the controversies they seem to be embroiled in at the time such as Ewertgate, the Heritage resubmits, crack and press, PCS, etc. I still believe such a system could have and still would be able to work if CGC had simply stuck to a simple stand-alone 10-point Restoration Rating System where books were rated from a scale of R-0 (no restoration) to R-10 (extensive restoration) as the long-term collectors had been asking for.

And that's the entire problem (or opportunity) with the current two-colour label system. This system serves only to stigmitize the restored books irrespective of the type or extent of the work done. It just throws everything into one purple trash bin as buyers are led to separate everything by the colour of the labels instead of what was actually done to the books.

Well, if it didn't have the dot of glue and whatever else was noted on the label, than it would be a completely unrestored book and most definitely would have gone for a lot more money. That's an absolute no-brainer. If I remember correctly, this book was able to sell for a nice premium to guide since the resto notes was on a blue label. If the resto notes was on a purple label, no doubt this book wwould have sold for only a dicount to guide similar to the Church Adventure #40. Of course, if the book was completely unrestored and sitting with a clean blue label, it would have gone for multiples of guide. Now, as you or one of the other posters had mentioned, if the resto notes were off the label and only accessible through the grader's notes or online, any bets the price would have been higher than what it was able to realize? A pretty safe and easy bet for me to make here. Goes to show you the significance of how the restoration information is presented on the label. Are we really paying for the book or are we paying for the label?

I don't think the critical factor is whether the book is key or not. I beleive the critical factor is really more dependent on how rare the book is and how hard it is to find in unrestored grade. For example, many collectors do not have a problem paying above normal restored market valuations for early Centaurs, pre-hero DC's, and any other real HTF books that simply rarely shows up in the marketplace.

2 Comments: 1 2 You're just jealous because nothing of note comicwise ever came out of Van Vancouver collection Yes, the Vancouver Collection that Geppi had recently auctioned off earlier this month on Heritage. Going forward.......how about the still intact Chinatown Collection which is going to be included in the upcoming Pedigree book by Steve Ritter and his gang? I saw some of the junky 9.4 and above Four Color ones. Now if Pat would show me the really good books. Not everyone is privileged like you and was able to see everything. I have actually only seen the Four Colour ones also. Can't really complain about 9.6's and 9.8's from the 1950's though. Not sure if I will get around to seeing the earlier GA stuff. Pat wants to arrange something, but it's really not that easy when you are talking about 1,300 books. And it's really not the same as seeing them raw which I already did several years ago when he first got them from the OO's son-in-law. If I remember correctly, some small runs of all the DC's, Nedors, and Timely's mixed in with a lot of the non-super hero books. Seeing books that have been slabbed is just not the same as being able to hold, touch, and smell them. Especially since I already have scans of all of the books from Pat along with a list of all of the CGC grades from Steve Ritter a few months ago.

I was lucky enough to pay a ton more for it a couple of years ago. Happy to do it! From what I heard, at least you was also lucky enough to pay a ton less than the buyer who picked it up from the Greg Manning auction for $5,750 back in 2000. I have tons of patience. So please keep me in mind! I would love to see it some day. I just think that cover is the bomb! I actually attempted to make a scan of this book a few months ago when AdamStrange was asking me to scan it. I either must have the worst scanner in the world or don't know what I am doing since the scan just looked like krap. Actually, it's probably a lot of both.