lou_fine

Well, from the way I am reading this in the Scoop article, it defiitely sounds like the same old fixed annual valuations that's in the guide plus a bunch of other cataloging features: https://scoop.previewsworld.com/Home/4/1/73/1012?ArticleID=263233

Speaking about the Frazetta Famous Funnies issues, received an email from Heritage yesterday which highlighted this mid-grade copy of FF 213 in one of their upcoming auctions: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/science-fiction/famous-funnies-213-eastern-color-1954-cgc-fn-60-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/122230-17289.s?ctrack=473536&type=spotlight-5-comic-news-tem072122 Any guesses as to where this nicely presenting copy will finished up at since it's already sitting at $3,720 with the Heritage BP juice in there or touching on 3X its new and much higher condition guide value?

It was also about time that it finally dawned on him that the pricing on the Frazetta Famous Funnies classic covers were not necessarily all going for the same price point in the marketplace. Although he had a nice bump up on the Frazetta FF run with the top of guide valuation going from $3,100 up to $4K, he went even further with the hugely in-demand FF 213 and FF 214 issues as he did a full double after that and rocketed them all the way up to $8K for a whopping 158% YOY percentage increase. Only surprise here to me was that he also included the not quite as high profile Famous Funnies 212 in this group that shot all the way up to $8K. I guess he must have taken note of the CGC 8.0 copy of FF 212 that sold at Heritage in late 2021 for some $19,200 into account, along with the 2 mid-grade copies that sold for over $3K which is still pretty much close to triple the condition guide value in the new guide. Then again, Overstreet really needs to do a lot more of breaking out some of these groupings. Perfect case in point being his groupings of 10's or what you for the pre-here Adventure and More Fun books. Haven't we seen so many sales of low grade raw condition copies or even incomplete slightly restored copies selling for up to 20X condition guide value this past year. I guess like you said, baby steps indeed, as they were bumped up by only 3% - 5% in this year's edition of the guide. So, instead of low grade raw copies selling at up to 20X condition guide, they are now selling at up to 18X to 19X condition guide value.

Well, probably not quite 20+ years for the Guide to pick up on the trends, especially since it did seem to catch a pretty bad case of the L.B. Cole fever this year. And it still seems to be suffering from some of the lingering effects of the rampant Matt Baker fever which was spreading like wildfire a couple of years ago. Just take a look at Seven Seas where not only SS 4 took another 33% jump up to $16K in top of guide and SS 6 took another 54% jump up to $10K, but Seven Seas 3 took a humongous 150% jump as it rocketed up from $2,400 all the way to $6K in top of guide.

I believe that good old Chuckles from Mile High would strongly and vehemently disagree with you on this matter here.

Yes indeed, and totally surprised that Bob (or was it his ghost writer or analyst?? ) took some time and went to the trouble of actually writing something in his Market Report this year, entitled Interesting Times. Especially as I believe it's now running on close to 10 years since he actually wrote up something in his market report besides an introductory paragraph or even an introductory sentence before simply launching into a bunch of cut and paste exceprts from his individual advisors' market reports. I guess he was probably quite taken aback by all of the million dollar sales as his market report was focused pretty much entirely on all of the million dollar sales that took place so far in 2022 up to about April or May. From seeing some of the larger percentage price increases that went in on some of the books this year, it almost makes me think that he or somebody in his group were probably spending some time lurking on these very boards here in terms of picking off some of the hot books over the past few years. Then again, I guess it's probably pretty obvious which were the hot books that needed a bigger increase if you were paying any attention to the marketplace at all.

Well, it would be at least one more (if not even more than that) if he had not forgotten to include Amazing Man 22 in both this year's and last year's Top 100 chart which took a 25% jump from $40K last year up to $50K in this year's edition of the guide. Being a long-time collector, rather surprised since I am so used to seeing Amazing Man 5 as the most highest valued A-Man book out there, and now it has finally been surpassed and quite handiy at that, after some 50+ year of guide valuations.

I don't have a 105 but I would value it higher. I certainly like 105 better. Well, it looks like even old slow conservative Bob would agree with you as he took your sage advice and rocketed the BB 105 up by 186% from a mere $3,500 all the way up to $10K in top of guide, while bumping up BB 115 by a not so modest 100% as it went from $3K up to $6K in this year's edition of the guide.

Looks like it has jumped up 4 spots from the #8 position at $70K last year and now tied for the #4 spot with Showcase 4 at $180K.

Yes, there is, as you must be referring to the Overstreet Hall of Fame cover for this year's edition of the Guide: https://scoop.previewsworld.com/Home/4/1/73/1017?articleID=257347

And yet, most likely due to the lower starting price point, it's the books outside the Top 100 that seem to have the largest percentage prices increase as evident by the Mask 2 and Blue Bolt 105 as mentioned in my previous post above.

Well, looks like Overstreet would tend to agree with you as he jacked the X-Men 1 up by a whopping 157% while Spidey 1 went up by only a paltry 14% in this year's edition that just came out today. Seriously though, X-Men 1 for me and it's really a no-brainer from my POV since it's a first appearance and origin issue while Spidey 1 is not.

As I've stated here every year when the guide comes out, FINALLY.......it's about time as Overstreet really should have done this a whole decade ago. Now, that's an understatement considering the huge percentage increases he had already given to these 2 books a couple of years ago. I guess he just couldn't ignore the seemingly never ending auction sales for these two books during the past couple of years and jacked their valuations up by 67% and 185% respectively. Another L.B. Cole classic cover, albeit with fewer sales, that took the same 185% leap was his Blue Bolt 105 classic si-fi cover which jumped from $3,500 all the way up to $10K in his top of guide valuation. From his Top 100 GA Chart, the one that took the biggest percentage leap was the Fantastic 3 with the classic robot cover which jumped by a full 100% in top of guide, although the only sales that I was aware of were the very few entry level sales that took place at Heritage in 2021. No surprise though that even as the bottom of guide for this book jumped up by a very strong 80%+ for this year's guide, all 3 of the entry level sales at Heritage still took place at a multiple to the new 2022 condition guide valuation.

Like always, I assume they would be available at all of your larger neighborhood local comic shops. Rather surprisingly, the LCS which I went to had mostly the more multi-color EC cover version, as opposed to the dark unicolor Winter Soldier cover version. The LCS owner said it was pretty much a no-brainer this year as to which was the better cover, and very appropriate as the bright blue, green, and red coloured outfits for the EC Horror Hosts is an apt sampling of the coloured interiors on every other page as you flip through the guide.

After a long day of running all over the city, finally sat down and cracked open the new edition of the Overstreet Guide. It totally floored me as it looks like they finally went from the Dark Ages to the 21st Century as with all of the B&W comic covers at the top of every other page are now printed in full beautiful blazing color. Needless to say, a big big improvement in terms of just the look and presentation of the whole book, let alone some of the very surprising and rather un-Overstreet like percentage price increases on some of the hot GA and SA books during the past few years. Relative to previous editions of the guide over the past few years, kudos to the Overstreet group for a job well done and well worth the 20% price increase. And for those who tend to buy the guide only once every few years because they are always the same old, same old, this is most definitely the year to be picking one up.

Not sure since I am either so old that I can't remember anymore or still so young that I haven't yet learned how to count. BTW: Have you seen that signed copy of Hulk 181 that was posted on these boards here..........now that one was a real doozy for sure. And are you one of those grumpy old men who are too old to have a sense of humour anymore?

They most certainly DID as I believe they raised the price for this year's edition of the Overstreet Guide by 20% or thereabouts.

Are you sure that's what it is, as I thought it was somebody's scrawled shopping list or a fugly scrawled list of their previous lovers defacing the cover artwork?

Not sure if I am reading his chart correctly, but I believe it says that ASM 3 has actually increased by something like 34% over the last sale and by 5% over the 90-day average. Well, at least in CGC 4.0 grade, so don't know how useful that is on an overall comparion basis. With respect to GSXM 1 which I assume you would be referring to...............for the 9.8 graded copies at least and again FWIW, I believe they are now trading generally in the $40K to $50K price range, as opposed to less than $10K back in 2018. Maybe what we all need to do is take a look at the longer term trend for these books as opposed to trying to match up one time (possible outlier) auction sales results by grade. Let's all run out to our LCS and grab the new edition of the Overstreet Guide when it comes out tomorrow.

Ummmm......................I believe if a book doesn't have ANY wear or defect at all, it is considered to be a 10.0 Gem Mint book, not a 9.8 NM/M book which is really nearly perfect, but NOT QUITE as they do have very minor imperfections. BTW: Those two corners on the right hand side of the BB 105 looks pretty sharp to me and the ones on the spine appears to be a minor bindery issue which IS allowed in a 9.8 grade. And I have clearly seen some Modern books with the same small subtle color breaking creases encased in a CGC 9.8 slab. Then again, no idea if that's a 9.8 worthy book or not since you really do need to have the actual book in hand as opposed to just looking at a scan of a book when it comes to grading. Are you also thinking more in terms of the squashed pancaked look that most Modern Age CGC 9.8 books tend to have after getting the living dickens pressed out of them? Seriously though, not sure about the Blue Bolt 105, but when it comes to the earlier GA books with their much larger 68-page size, I believe there are indeed printing issues such as bindery chips that tends to be more of an issue as opposed to the thinner MA books. As such, I also believe that CGC is gnerally supposed to take production related issues into account when grading a book.

From a strictly historical comic book collecting POV, I think it's important that these pedigree books don't lose their provenance over time. Especially in the case of a book such as this copy of Wonderworld 3 since it's not from a pedigree with thousands of extant copies, but rather one from the small, but still highly sought after Allentown Collection with a total of only 135 known copies in existence. I guess the fact that this was not a #1 issue per say, made it a whole lot easier to identify since it would not have other HG pedigree copies out there such as the Carson City, Windy City, and Denver which is the case with a book like Mystery Men 1. Of course, there's the Church copy of Wonderworld 3, but probably pretty much everybody already knew that the Church runs of both Mystery Men and Wonderworld's were already locked away in Jon Berk's private collection by that point in time. Although there might posssibly be other HG copies of WW3 out there in the wild, I am only aware of one other HG copy which would be the Larson copy. Read about it in an article on the Larson pedigree in one of the early CBM magazines authored by Dr. Pat Kochanek in which he listed some strict HG Larson's, including the Wonderworld 3 amongst others. I guess this tends not to be the norm for most of the Larson books, as the collection was supposedly stored in a barn for decades and hence suffered foxing and other minor defects. This would seem to be confirmed by the original Larson List as Joe Tricarchi had graded the Wonderworld 3 as a NM/M copy without any qualifying notes to detract from its collectibility. Would be nice to see this one hit the marketplace one day as the the CGC 9.4 graded Allentown and Church copies of WW 3 are the only known HG copies to this point in time, with the CGC census indicating a big drop down to CGC 5.5 for the 3rd highest graded Universal copy before the remaining 14 slabbed copies drop even further down to CGC 4.0 and below. Like other HG Larson keys including the WW 3, figured these copies are probably locked away tight as a drum in private collections with the key thrown away for now at least. Used to think that some of these Larson keys were in the hands of Kochanek himself, but probably not since I believe he switched over to original art quite awhile ago.

From seeing just a bit of this video, it's a reminder that I would have to say this really depends on what you have in your personal collection. If you have an Action 1, 'Tec 27, AF 15 or the likes in your personal collection, you are probably pretty safe and good to go. Now, if you talking about books like a Spidey 300, Eternals 1, SME 15, or the likes, than maybe not so much.

I believe the exaggeration works to the extreme on both ends of the market, whether it be on the up side or on the down side. And are we talking about the comic book market here or the equity markets as some of the speculative high profile high fliers over there have cratered by some 60% to 80%+ from their recent highs, while even the big boys have dropped off by anywhere from 25% and up.

And just as fast, if not even faster, they will all run for the exits as soon as the movie hits the silver screen, TV network, or what have you.

Maybe we need Moses to lead us out of this quagmire as this looks pretty much like a sea of red to me. Then again, if you are a longer term collector as opposed to a short term speculator or day trade flipper, I am sure you are still doing just perfectly fine if you compare today's prices to what these books were going for only a few short years or from a longer viewpoint, even decades ago. Yep, if you brought your high flyers during the peak of the crazed comic book marketplace last year and sent them into the CCS/CGC long term storage facilty for some TLC and marinating and still waiting to get them back, you are definitely not looking so good.