lou_fine

Not sure about artist appreciation since that is really more of an individual subjective opinion, but FWIW, if you are talking about financial appreciation, it's clearly L.B. Cole miles ahead of Raboy based upon the prices which we are seeing in the comic book marketplace.

Although most boardies here tend to talk about the demand side of the equation, I've actually wonder if the recent falling equity markets have had an impact on the supply side of the comic book marketplace? Especially with respect to some of the GA books which have shown up in both recent and upcoming auctions from long held collections whereby the owners have finally decided to put them into the marketplace after all these long years. Psychologically speaking, bad negative vibes from either paper losses or falling balances in your fiancial investment statements can often be assuaged or offset by some positive real world gains in your bank account through a few choice select comic book sales. Then again, probably just a good time to be selling with some of the crazy record setting prices which we have seen in the HTF GA marketplace.

I guess it's really a case of to each their own when it comes to storage and presentation of their books. Personally, I prefer to have them encased in glossy mylar where they present so beautifully, as opposed to a bulky CGC case which makes it seem so much more like an industrialized commercial product for sale.

Sad, but true and if anybody really thinks prices are not falling on "relatively common" so-called once hot key books that are available in multiple copies in various grades in every single auction, they really must have their head in the sand or living in their own fantasy world. One positive is that this will certainly help with CGC's turnaround times by the time it's all said and done in the end. Was at a local comic convention the other weekend with more than one person saying that they had sent a bunch of books into CGC for grading over a year ago and had still not received them back yet. They were expecting them to take only 6 months and they said, never ever again as the value of their books had already dropped by something like 50% and not sure what they will be worth by the time they actually get them back. Then again, I am not sure if this drop in comic book prices can be laid entirely at the feet of the bear market in equity stock prices, or also due to a sense of rationality returning to the comic book marketplace where buyers are simply no longer paying crazy town prices for books that are readily available on a regular basis.

I believe you missed the next 2 posts right afterwards with respect to this listing for the Rampaging Hulk #1-#27 run:

Well, need we say anymore other than that we really need to see one of these in high grade condition come to market: Especially considering the fact that after all of these long years of certification, this appears to still be the the highest graded copy that has come into the marketplace, and this copy here was from all the way back in 2003. Like @LearnedHand had stated in his post below, I believe his analysis is bang-on as to why there have been so few copies of these early Masters with the much in demand Raboy covers graded and brought to market, as this Master Comics 27 has only 14 Universal copies slabbed to date and only 3 copies graded in CGC 7.5 or above, with the last one being way back in 2005: To add further support to this analysis, another hugely popular but also HTF early Master is Master 33 with the iconic swatiska smashing cover which has only a total of 17 Universal copies graded to date, with only a single copy graded aove CGC 7.5, with this being a CGC 9.6 copy graded and slabbed all the way back in 2000/01 when CGC first opened their doors. My personal belief is that should a high grade copy of either of these 2 early Raboy classic cover Master books were to hit the open marketpace, they would have no problem fetching 5-figures even though the Fawcett market is generally considered to be so damn cheap.

Any truth to the rumours that 1 CGC working day is defined as 7 Earth calendar days?

My thinking is that once they started to make the information associated to CGC stats in terms of their census and relative grading status, the book would have built-in obsolescence no matter what year it came out. It would have made a lot more sense to have stuck to their original format in terms of just the history, owners, founders, discovery, etc. of the pedigree and didn't bother with all of the CGC associated stats.

I could tell from your Batman 27 avatar that you was clearly also into collecting vintage comic books and really meant more as a general comment on the hobby more than anything else. Heck, at least you was smart enough to have made only one speculative buy and that was for your son, whereas I have made hundreds of speculative buys back in the day and I don't think any of them has really worked out that well at all. Your $300 figure reminds me of a funny story that I have told on the MA boards here before. Went into one of the suburban LCS's in my area in the latter part of the 80's and the owner hands me a book which he had special ordered for one of his customers. Told me that he could also special order a copy for me direct from the publisher and it would only cost me $300. Being a mainstream type of comic book collector, I opened up the book and thought right away who in their right mind would shell out $3 for this fugly putrid piece of toxic looking doggie poo poo, let alone 300 big ones. Boy, what kind of a no-brain idiott or sucker did he think I was. Handed the book back to the LCS owner as fast as I could and if this had been 2021 or 2022, would have gone for the bottle of hand sanitizer as fast as I could. To make matters even worse, being a Miller fan at the time, I ended up instead ordering a signed and numbered limited eidtion of the Dark Knight for $40 which is probably worth less than that nowadays, which is certainly not the case for the TMNT 1 which I had just passed up on.

Well, that's why buying into movie related hyped books or buying into CGC 9.8 graded books which are otherwise relatively common and carries no real value is a tricky business and not as easy as it seems as it's all about trying to time the market perfectly before the bottom falls out. To each their own, but personally for myself, I prefer buying books which tends to carry value in all grades across the entire condition spectrum, and even more so, if they can sell for a premium or multiple to condition guide value, even in raw or restored condition as that's the sign of a true vintage collectible comic book. Like you said though, $300 DOES seem like a pretty safe point to jump into one of these #1 issue books, so what the heck.

Well, in this case then, probably more like 94-95 when the first big Gold rush hit the comic book marketplace when GA books started to sell for multiples of guide as top of guide for Adventure 40 was only $14K back in '93.

now i see that it looks like the same insufficiently_thoughtful_person is selling the WHOLE DAYUM RUN! All kidding aside, this is an absolutely amazing and astonishing feat to put the entire 92-issue run together and to see it like this. Big big congrats to you and best wishes for getting like what Richard said, BILLIONS (well, okay millions at least) out of this sale.

That book will sell for BILLIONS! Still, nothing compared to the Twilight copy which sold for TRILLIONS!!!

Since the highest graded Universal copy of Adventure 40 is still only a CGC 8.0 after all this time, any bets that the stunning copy which you saw back in the day was probably restored up to the nice condition copy you saw?

They nearly got me as I was actually thinking of putting the advance deposit down on the book as they had suggested, but thankfully decided not to in the end.

Is that because you are basing it on only $24 for the cost of slabbing, because if you had read my post, I was also factoring in the cost of shipping plus pressing which would definitely bring the full total cost to more than $24?

Err, I see your CGC 1.0 and raise you a restored raw Good condition book: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/adventure/adventure-comics-38-dc-1939-condition-apparent-gd/a/122207-13010.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Archive-ThisAuction-120115 Seriously though, why waste both your money and time (months on end TAT) getting books like this graded and slabbed when you can simply sell them raw and fetch $4,320 or something approaching 12X unrestored condition guide.

Well, my bet is that it's much more than 4,000+ items and at least well into 5-figures if you include the cost of shipping and also toss in the cost of pressing that some of these slabbed books might have gone through.

In this case then, I hope you've already placed your order and made an advanced payment for a copy of The Pedigree Book.

My experience is for both stickers, some look real nice and some look pretty bad. At this point I just look at the scan myself and decide. And as some boardies have stated here, I guess this is where the old axiom kicks in.....................buy the book as opposed to buying the sticker or the label, especially when they are so subjective, and as history has shown us, clearly subject to artificial manipulation in the case of the latter.

I guess it's really a case of to each, their own. Being a long term collector though, I've never really quite understood the concept of buying a book when it's already blown up in price and also knowing full well that it will eventually only end up cratering in price. For me, I have always enjoyed the fun of spending time in the marketplace, as opposed to trying to time the market which is often not that easy to do. Not sure, but what's the latest on UF 4 as I thought it was probably the hottest Modern out there, or has it become the latest poster child for avoiding movie related hyped books, similar in vein to Eternals 1, SME 15, MSH 13, etc., etc............and the buyers of this book at the $30K+ price point might just be feeling a bit underwater right now?

So, you ARE confirming that it seems more like the Promise Collection pedigree, albeit probably more accurately graded without all of the controversial soft grades that some of the Promise books are so well known for.

Definitely some very strong prices here on these low grade Fox Wonderworld books as most of them sold for strong multiples to condition guide, but not as outlandish as what we saw with some of the pre-hero raw low grade copies of the DC Adventures and New Adventures earlier in this past Spring going for double digit multiples to condition guide. Then again, as a consignor, you certainly can't complain too much when it comes to a book like this one here which still managed to fetch pretty much 10X condition guide at $2,640: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/wonderworld-comics-28-fox-1941-condition-gd-/a/122226-17870.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

Sounds like the type of eBay seller that buyers should be doing their best to avoid like the plague.

If so, I imagine you would then be surprised at the number of Church book at were listed at only single dollar prices, including even some in the non-super hero genre or non-high grades at only $2 or $3 a piece.