lou_fine

So, there was some pretty heavy insanity in this Baker focused auction, nonetheless this Promise flip did quite well, maybe the first time that's happened. Yep, probably the first time and looks like our thinking in this copy here was pretty close, although it did finished in the middle of the range, as opposed to the lower end as I had initially thought:

I agree with namisgr, I think the 9.4 copy has morphed into the 9.8 I think the 9.2 is a different copy When it comes to the books from the Curator pedigree, is it not out of the ordinary to see more than one copy of a particular issue? Just wondering since I picked up several copies from John Hauser back around 15 years ago at what I thought were relatively cheap prices for a Curator pedigree book, so figured there must be multiple copies of some of these issues.

Yep. Many are the times I lamented not winning 3 or 4 books instead of 1 trying to defray shipping costs. My early days of Heritage buying were definitely bumpy. I still have an early purchase from Heritage (also an early purchase of a CGC book)- a copy of Doomsday +1 9, from the Don Rosa Collection in a green label (due to a missing staple) and I had no idea what a green label meant. I think it cost me like $54 with shipping and BP which really rained on my day after I was all excited about winning it for like $13 or something. The way to avoid this egrgious cost of shipping problem is to simply ask them to hold your books until you request themto be sent to you. I am actually surprised that Heritage does not charge the winners a storage fee to hold onto their winning lots for such a long time.

A quick check of the CGC Census Population Report would confirm this as it shows only 1 graded copy of FF 213 in CGC 9.0 or above, 2 copies of FF 215 in CGC 9.0 or above, and inthe Bronze position would be FF 212 with 3 copies in CGC 9.0 or above. And way way back light years away in dead last place would be Famous Funnies 210 with a whopping 36 graded copies to date in CGC 9.0 or above.

Some of the books were trimmed to varying degrees, others not. I don't recall this one specifically. But I wouldn't trust CBCS to catch trimming. I thought that if a book's been trimmed to be put into a bound volume, the trimming tends to lean more towards what I would call macro-trimming and generally even easy for Mr. Magoo to catch. Now, if you are talking about micro-trimming where the purpose is to get a higher grade and more dollars for your book, then I wouldn't trust either of the two major grading companies to catch it.

Definitely a pretty nice looking "piece of rag" from what I am seeing here, as you clearly got the most important part of the book intact.

Well, I imagine this would now be two very strong showings on two consecutive Mondays for this book here with the CGC 3.0 going for $5,040 last Monday, and now this nicely presenting relative to its CGC 1.8 graded copy fetching $3,360 in last night's Heritage Auction: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/mystery-men-comics-2-fox-1939-cgc-gd-18-off-white-pages/a/122232-13607.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515#

Being part of a bound volume, I would expect all of these books to have been trimmed in some fashion or other as per past practice. The thing I can't figure out is why they simply didn't get binders that would fit with the size of the comic books, instead of having all of these comic books trimmed in order to fit the binder? Or is this something that simply wasn't done back in those days as I've also got one bound volume in my collection, but once again, all of the books have been trimmed to fit the binder.

I've heard this point being made by quite a few collectors, but i don't believe it's actually true. I believe the guide is based upon a combination of prices for both certified books and raw books, with the key being the normal sales avenue that a particuar book is sold in. For example, key high dollar value GA books is generally always sold after being certified, so prices for these books would be based upon their certified sales results because there are no raw sales results to go upon. At the other end, most non-key non uber HG MA books are sold in raw condition, so guide values would be based upon raw sales results, because the only real certified sales results would be for CGC 9.8 or possibly CGC 9.6 graded copies and as we all know, the top of guide is only for 9.2 condition books. Hence, what I am saying is the the guide valuations are really based upon how a particular books is normally sold, whether it be in raw condition or in certified condition, or in some cases, probably even a combination of both.

The best part about books like this Lightning 6 which finished up at $2,520 or something like 30X its condition guide value is that you don't need to worry if it's in HG or not, because books like these carry value in all grades across the entire condition spectrum as evident by this raw condition Fair graded copy. Looks like the 7 other issues surrounding this copy here, also all in raw lower graded condition, were not far behind in terms of the final prices realized.

Doesn't Tom still own these Curator Marvels or did he eventfully end up selling them off and left the hobby as there hasn't been much about him?

Well, although we've clearly seen the demand side of the equation for this particular book (i.e. Spidey 300), I feel that we've barely scratch the surfacr so far when it comes to slabbed HG copies of this book here. Especially when you go to any local comic book convention and virtually every single dealer table still have HG raw copies of this book sitting there for sale at hope for full slabbed prices. Whenever I go to a comic con, I see an overwhelming much higher proportion of raw HG copies of this books as opposed to slabbed HG copies.

Well, definitely NOT a bear market across the board since prices are still going great guns for certain books as I just noticed this listing here: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/lightning-comics-6-ace-1941-condition-fr/a/122232-13530.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Already sitting at $2,400 with still another couple more hours to go, especially since the condition guide value for this FAIR entry level copy is only at $84. The other low grade raw condition copies in this run also don't appear to be doing too badly at this point in time since they are already sitting at several hundred dollars, with a couple more already hitting 4-figures. No idea how they are doing from a year over year POV, but with these collectible comic books, isn't it really more in terms of their longer run valuation trends, especially if you are a vintage comic book collector as opposed to a shorter term speculator or flipper.

Great job on your part in compliling these stats and summary graphs for us here, as I am sure it must take quite a bit of time to do this. Too bad there's really no info on the GA market, as I guess many of these slaes are really more like one-off sales since the supply is so low.

That sounds perfect and a solid plan going forward. I actually would have gone in, but since I was busy running around all day and it was close to 4 PM, figured there was not much point since I wouldn't have been able to spend much time there as my better half wanted me back home to help her in the garden. I really need to do a much better job when it comes to my daily activity planning schedule.

Pretty much what I had expected for the FF 209 CGC 6.0 since an equivalent graded copy sold for $2,280 back in the hot period of Sept. 2021. Looks like a continuation of the relatively strong prices for these Frazetta Famous Funnies as all 3 of these books finished at about 3X the new Overstreet condition guide values.

If there's 7 new vendors there, did all of the regulars leave as I dropped by and noticed that the con was limited to only the smaller back room, instead of the 3 rooms they had the last time I went to a comic con at the Croatian Cultural Centre? Although it was not that busy since the parking lot was only half full, with the attendees and tables jam packed into such a small room, it certainly didn't look very Covid safe, so decided to head back home to work in my garden instead.

No, just wondering how far OFF this one would finished away from the other two results as I already stated that it would't finished close at all. It's hard to tell with these Frazetta covers sometimes, as it really depends on who's bidding, as I was totally shocked by this result here last year: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/famous-funnies-212-eastern-color-1954-cgc-vf-80-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7248-97077.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Finished up at what I would consider to be a rather stunning outlier of a result at $19,200 although I guess this particular issue is a toughie to find in tru high grade. Still, was rather surprised when Overstreet lumped it in with the much more in-demand FF 213 and FF 214 classic cover issues and jumped the valuation up by some 158% all the way up to $8K at top of guide.

And both also much tougher to find and in grade when compared to Famous Funnies 209, as confirmed by the CGC Census Population Report.

I guess we will get a much better idea of where the Frazetta Famous Funnies market is after tomorrow's Heritage Sunday auction with lower graded copies of both FF 211 and FF 215, along with this mid-grade beauty here: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/famous-funnies-209-eastern-color-1953-cgc-fn-60-off-white-to-white-pages/a/122232-13317.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Based upon the current bidding action with this copy here at only $780 with the Heritage BP juice included, I imagine it won't finished close to the $12K and $9K which the equivalent graded CGC 6.0 copies of FF 213 and FF 215 were able to fetch the previous two Sundays. Especially since both of those copies were already sitting in the thousands at this same point in time, as I imagine the CGC labels inscribed with "From The Estate of Frank Frazetta" was a driving force with those two copies there.

I believe you might actually be correct here and this copy here might just finished somewhere the first round $14.4K and the $26.4K (but probably closer to the lower end of this range) which the Seven Seas 3 Promise copy was able to get in the same auction. Especially since the close up cover shot of the Seven Seas Girl on SS 5 is a superior and more attractive cover image than the smaller more distant shot on SS 3, albeit the Seven Seas 3 was graded as a CGC 9.6 copy. Definitely will be fun to watch and see what happens here.

Removed, or past away? I believe he is most likely referring to oue favorite punching boy on these boards here, namely Dylan Schwartz, who was actually not listed as an Overstreet advisor starting with last year's guide. As for the new advisors on Page 208 of the guide, it looks like the Class of 2022 had only 2 inductees, namely Chris Simons from I Like Comics in Vancouver, WA and Jeff Walker (In Memoriam) from Pristine Comics in Seattle.

I was referring to there supposedly being no copies of either a Seven Seas 4 or a Seven Seas 6 in the Promise Collection, not the Church Collection. I am fully aware of the Church copy of Seven Seas 6 as I was bidding on the book during the auction, but came nowhere close to winning it. In speaking with some dealers, the feeling is that the Church run of Seven Seas is scattered off in various directions and most likely locked away in the private collections of a few different collectors. Actually, my initial interest in the Seven Seas run was really all about Seven Seas 6 since I just loved the colors on that cover with the water and all that. Can't remember exactly who since it was so long ago, but called some dealers asking for a HG copy of Seven Seas 6. Sadly, they all said they didn't have a copy at the time, but one dealer said that they had a nice copy of Seven Seas 4 and he would give me a good deal on that book if I wanted it. Gave it some thought and decided to take it and use it as a placeholder until I managed to find a copy of Seven Seas 6 for my collection. Needless to say, over the years I ended up acquiring HG copies of the rest of the run, with the sole exception of the Seven Seas 6 which is still a big hole that I now know will never be filled based upon the current price point for the book.

Not sure about the online list you have, but I get the feeling it's the same 184-page hardcopy list that I have from back in the day. If so, that list is definitely not the complete list since it would have excluded the first $10K worth of books at guide that Burrell Rowe received for loaning Chuck the $2K which he needed in order to acquire the collection from the Church family. I believe he went for all of the nice covers such as the early Fiction House titles including the entire Planet run. If you take a closer look at the list, you'll also notice a lot of the keys are absent because they were already long gone by the time Chuck came up with his catalog. Perfect example being the Action 1 to 21 run which was picked up by Snyder to pass them onto Dave Anderson since Dave did not have direct access to acquire any of the books from Chuck back then. And as we all know now, although it was first thought that there was no Suspense 3 in the collection, it was later determined that this book had been sold off to some random collector very early on after Chuck acquire the collection. So bottom-line: That list you are referring to is far from complete and not having a book in there does not mean that the Church copy does not exist.

I guess there's still no sighting of the Promise copies for the much in-demand classic cover issues of the run, namely Seven Seas 4 and Seven Seas 6? Especially since some boardies here at the time had suggested that these 2 issues might just have been snapped up by somebody with the right connections prior to the Heritage auction since the rest of the run was there? Which makes me wonder where the Church copies of this short run is since they were all graded as NM+ copies at the time save for SS 2 and SS 6 which came in at NM condition. Interesting to note that the two go to issues at the time were Seven Seas 1 and Seven Seas 3 at $27 and $22 respectively, or pretty much double what the rest of the issues in the run were listed for.