lou_fine

Gee, that sounds like a lot of work... Well, since you are too lazy to do this.....................I just gave it a try and can confirm that it actually does work. Learn something new everyday.

Like most comic book collectors (unlike me though ), I imagine you SA collection must be significantly larger than your GA collection? I imagine you must be keeping your best books for Phase 3 which makes me wonder what books are in that grouping there.

With the prices shooting sky high pretty much only since the pandemic started, the only sellers that would be losing would be the ones that brought their books within the couple of years. From a historical collecting POV, that's a relatively short period of time to be holding a book anyways. That is, unless you are into flipping or trading, and as we all know, that's definitely a much more risky proposition and you shouldn't really be crying if you lose at that game because you can't win all the time.

Well, well, well.................an even tougher book with only 5 graded copies in total as compared to the above Comic Pages which had 7 Universal plus another restored copy according to the current Population Census Report. Only reason I remember this book is that I believe @G.A.tor stating in one of his posts from a few years ago that this was the last Centaur book he needed to complete his Centaur run at the time.

Yep, this one here must indeed be a real toughie since I remember @CentaurMan saying it was one of the very last Centaurs he was still missing when he was finishing off his Centaur collection. I still remember those PM's from him about 15 years ago offering up several different books in trade for my nice copy of this book which I must have purchased off Harley back in the day. Ended up accepting deslabbed mid grade copies of both Adventure 45 along with a Comics Magazine 2 since being an old time comic book collector, it's definitely hard to resist a book from way way back in 1936. Was seriously considering another offer which was a slightly restored copy of 'Tec 18 with the classic Fu Manchu cover, but the book didn't present that nicely as it had a rather kind of "dirty" appearance to it which would have bother me every time I looked at the book. From a strict valuation point of view though, this probably would have been the better option to go for and the one that I would have opted for if the book had presented just a bit nicer.

Was it up for sale at 9k before going to auction and selling for 42k on their auction site? Well, now you made me go back and do some real work by taking a look at prior sales from the HA and CC archives. It should be pointed out that the Pennyworth copy for $31,200; the Oakland copy for $31,200; and the non pedigree 9.8 copy that was auctioned off a few Sundays ago for $42K was all done through Heritage. The Metro/CC 9.8 graded copy that was apparently listed for $9K with no takers was probably due to the fact that 9.8 copies were selling only in the $5K to $6K range or thereabouts for most of the past decade. From another thread I was reading or maybe this one here earlier from another boardie, it was noted that Metro bumped their price up into the $30K's after the Pennyworth auction last year even though they couldn't sell it for $9K. From checking their CC archives, I would assume it would be this copy here that sold (i.e. NOT auction) for $35K back on April 10th of this year: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/871157 Like I had said in my prior post, for that kind of money, I would be much more interested in the original (i.e. 'Tec 31), as opposed to this homage cover.

Well, if prices are indeed heading in your favor, you might even be able to pick up a higher graded copy than you had expected for your money.

Well, I guess this one here should be the winner since it has already been tested and "proven" in a court of law, although I am not sure if a poor man can in fact afford a copy of this Wonder Comics 1.

Someone made out like a bandit. Could rebuy the book now.. Totally agree with you and that would most definitely and that would clearly be the seller of the XM1 copy for $158K back in September of 2021.

Agree 100% as that most definitely looks like pisss poor packaging by the sender with zero protection for the contents both outside and inside.

Agree!!! Especially since Action 1 is really nothing more than just the "Rich Man's Action 33 or Superman 19".

a decent chance it will be last g.a. book i own. I sure don't want it. Although the use of reverse pyschology or playing hard to get might have worked for you in the past with the chicks down in Texas, I don't think it's going to help you to get your hands onto this one of a kind GA rarity.

Sounds as though you must still be a chartered member of the Flat Earth Society and not aware of the fact that CGC grades are both 110% scientifically and mathematically accurate and beyond reproach, whereas money is just so wishy washy nowadays that there's not much real difference between $3K and $42K since insignificant differences in amounts like this make them so interchangeable from one day to the next.

Compared to the darkened storm clouds currently encircling the equity markets, the comic book marketplace is definitely a much more fun and less stressful place to be. Especially when you have the occasional ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds or is it bursts of insanity when you see results like this: https://comics.ha.com/itm/bronze-age-1970-1979-/superhero/batman-227-dc-1970-cgc-nm-mt-98-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7279-92127.s?ic16=ViewItem-Auction-Archive-PreviousPricesHeritage-081514 Sold for a rather staggering $42K for a non-pedigree copy a few Sundays ago and a continuing positive trend from the $31,200 for the Pennyworth copy back in January of 2021 followed by the Oakland copy for $33,600 a few months after that in April 2021. Wonder if Metro was successful in peddling off their equivalent CGC 9.8 graded copy which found no buyers at $9K before they apparently bumped it up to $30K following the Pennyworth auction result? For that kind of money, I would much rather have the original incarnation of this classic cover, but then I imagine it would take 6-figures nowadays to get even a low-grade copy of 'Tec 31 in today's marketplace.

Well, since the Oakland copy sold for some $33,600 a few short months after the $31,200 Pennyworth sale, and now a non-pedigree has sold for $42K, does that mean Metro's 9.8 copy which they couldn't hawk to anybody at a mere $9K has now moved up to $40K?

Hey @Gotham Kid; Is that you in there masquerading as our very own @GreatCaesarsGhost ?

My thoughts exactly. But still, the sun will shine again Well, the good news is that it's not like the equity stock markets or the west coast of Florida where it's pretty much huge storm clouds and total darkness. At least in the GA marketplace, the sun is actually still shining out there in many portions of that comic book world. Just not as bright and sunny as before depending upon the books you are referring to, as there are clearly some clouds approaching in the distance.

I have a pile of books in the current auction along with Oct and Nov, and yeah "bloodbath" is the perfect way to describe the ones that ended so far. Definitely not the case for the consignors who had some of those HTF GA Centaurs in both the just completed CL Featured and CC Event Auctions as those books all sold for record high prices.

I guess this kind of shows that it's a lot easier to be a Fed Chairman when you are simply simply lowering interest rates and putting a ton of money out there, but the job becomes a whole lot tougher when you have to cut back and raise interest rates in order to fight a case of raging inflation.

Yep, I would tend to agree with you that the chart for most GA books would most probably look about the same, with just the timing of the increases and peaks at slightly different time periods. I remember the current GA bull market started off back in 2016 with the pre-Robin 'Tec's taking the initial jump, followed close behind by the early Actions with the Superman covers. It was sort of like the starting gun firing off for the GA market, although the Actions seems to have already cooled back down and even the pre-Robin 'Tec's are starting to slow except for the perennial 'Tec 31 with the classic Bats cover which still seems to be going great guns for now at least. Your chart for CSS 22 would confirm my thinking that the EC books were a couple of years behind before the GA heat cycled around to their part of the market. I still remember Matt Baker being super hot a couple of years ago, with the resulting heat moving onto the L.B. Cole and PCH books after that. Starting to feel a bit like 1996 in terms of the GA market right now with what seems to be an approaching pause as the heat is starting to narrow a bit and focusing more on HTF and classic cover books where the real strength in the GA marketplace has been for awhile now.

Greatly appreciate you taking the time to put this sample listing result for us for ASM 14 as I think it's probably a pretty good reflection of how the comic book marketplace tends to perform over the long term. In other words, extended long periods (i.e. decade long or more) of plateau or slow growth in valuations a la Overstreet's 3% or 4% per year which is then punctuated by a shorter, but rather explosive period of pricing gains before it settles back down in a rinse and repeat cycle. Definitely still remember the 80's when the SA Marvel books went into a slumber for almost the entire decade and even dropped back down a bit before being shaken awake by the approaching SA earthquake at the end of the 80's. Clearly remember this as I had stupidly turned down a HG set of ASM 2-10 for a mere $1K or slightly less than top of guide just about a year before the SA rocketship took off. Still my biggest non-buying regret from a pure comic book POV since I missed out on all of those key Spidey villians' first appearances. Decided to make my move into GA instead at that point in time which remained relatively flat during the new book (i.e. Image & Valiant prior to Deathmate) and SA explosion which took place in the early 90's before the GA books did an explosive catch-up for a couple of years there in the mid-90's. The GA books then went into their usual slumber before having that initial short term spike of irrational exuberance when CGC first came onto the scene and most of those inital buyers ended up losing money on their purchases as the GA market settled back down for the next decade or so. Pretty much of a bull market for the GA books starting around 2016, but this unusually long time period of pricing growth seems to be showing signs of getting a bit long in the tooth with the big valuation increases becoming more and more narrow and starting to appear to limit themselves more to the hard to find, high grade, and/or classic cover books as time goes on.

Agree to disagree. I’ve had an All Winners 14 that I’ve dropped from last price to around 15% off the last price over the last half year with no takers. Unfortunately, in a market that's falling or showing signs that it's about to fall, these non-key mid-run issues are usually a leading indicator as they are the first to drop as there's now less big reason to buy them from a demand point of view.

Maybe the hurricane will blow them into the Fast Track pile. Well, if we get an announcement next week from CGC that their year+ long backlog has somehow miraculously cleared up and that they are now running weeks ahead of their stated target turnaround times, I guess we will know what this means. Seriously though, all the best and stay safe to all of those that's going to be affected by this approaching behemoth monster of a storm.

Not sure what you mean by recently since I clicked onto her board name and it indicates she last visited back on March 15th of 2018.

Well, that's probably because a lot of the old time boardies have left the comic book marketplace after making a short pit stop here. For the newer generation of collectors or should we say speculators, this no longer seems to be the place to be now that we have so many other comic book related social media forums to go to. Clearly evident by the fact that some forums here can now go for hours without a new posting, whereas back when I first started here, you would see new posts every few minutes. Definitely miss the good old days from before when this was a much more fun and lively place to be.