lou_fine

This is probably true because I remember asking Fishler about a book which I owned that had rustry staples and he told me it was best to put it in a mylar and leave it as is, and the rust shouldn't get any worse. Now after some 25 years, the book looks pretty much in the same shape as before with the rust still there, but not migrating any further. The only thing that Fishler told me to do with the book was to be sure to contact him when it came time for me to dispose of the book.

Always a possibility, especially if something like a recession takes hold, but don't really see that happening with the way the consumer is spending and seemingly throwing money after being "locked down" for the past two years.

Ahh...........the old Warren Buffet approach in terms of spending time in the market, as opposed to trying to time the market.

Yes, that's clearly a very "interesting" way to try to time the market.........wait 6 months into a market downturn and then decide to go all into cash. I would tend to agree with @Aman619 here and say that it's clearly too late as it seems the market is fishing around for a bottom right now and most probably have only about another 10% to go at most, if that. Now, if you friend waited until 6 months into a downturn when most of the stocks already got bitten by the bear, any bets that your friend will end up waiting a few months intio a market upturn and getting run over by the bulls before seeing the signal to get back into the market. Yep, waiting until even the big boys like the Fang stocks to take a hit before selling out might not be perfect timing here, especially when Nerflix has dropped by 75% from its recent highs, Facebook by 50%, Amazon by over 40%, and even the big winners like Apple and Google by 25%. Definitely too late to cash out now and best just to hold on to these big money generators for now, as they will eventually start to go back up. The only thing that I would look at selling right now would be the oil and gas stocks as it's never a good idea to overstay your welcome in this particular sector, especially if you had picked some of them up back in October and November just before they started their big runup.

Definitely not any breaking news here, as hasn't this been the historical trend for EVERY SINGLE BOOK that's gone up in value due to movie/TV, or similar related media hype?

Well, try telling this to the bidders who just fininshed bidding up an Andy Warhol portait of Marily Monroe up to $195M earlier this week: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/andy-warhol-marilyn-monroe-auction-1.6447532#:~:text=Iconic Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,artist ever sold at auction&text=The Associated Press)-,Andy Warhol's Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sold for a cool,artist ever sold at auction.

Based upon the prices paid for most of these Promise Collection books, I would tend to agree with your assessment here, but still nowhere close to the 70% to 90% wipeout that we have seen in some of the former high flying big name Nasdaq growth stocks.

Yes, when I first moved away from collecting new MA comics off the shelves of the LCS's, I moved right past the SA and GA time periods and started my first (but very short) foray in collecting vintage collectible comic book with the very early pre-hero time period from early 1938 and before. Although each of those years were just a single year, it just seem so much more than that simply because every year you moved back just seem so much tougher to find. Sure, books from 1937 were tough to find, but nice copies of DC's or Centaurs from 1936 were even much tougher, and of course DC's from 1935 were almost impossible to find. As I had mentioned in some of my previous posts here, this might be due in part to the perception by many collectors here that some of these rather forgettable 3rd and 4th tier titles (which I can't even remember now even after all of these Promise weekend auctions ) were not worth slabbing due to their perceived low demand and relatively low value in the marketplace. Especially if collectors had only the odd or random copy here and there within their collection, as opposed to the small runs that were present in the Promise Collection which made it a lot easier to hype and build up some degree of interest in them. Probably a case of to each their own, but from my own personal POV, I thought there actually wasn't too much of the classic GGA or classic PCH cover books in the Promise Collection once you got past the first couple of Heritage Signature Auctions. Just a lot of small runs of rather forgettable titles that sold for realtively crazy money where I believe the winners are going to have to hold onto them for a long long time if they hope to ever get their money back on them.

I am actually not that surprised you haven't brought any books from the Promise Collection because based upon some of your more recents posts on these boards here, you seem to be approaching the point in your collecting life cycle whereby you are starting to downsize your personal collection, as opposed to significantly adding to it. Based upon what I have heard from other long time collectors along with some boardies here through PM's, it seems that although they did acquire some books from the Berk Collection, it's pretty much nada from the Promise Collection to this point in time. Nothing definitive, but this sort of confirms my initial thinking or gut feeling that the distribution of the books from the Berk Collection was more widespread and indeed most likely did go to a much wider range of long time collectors.

I totally understand how you feel in terms of your post here as I also feel exactly the same way when it comes to my collection now. Unfortunately for me, I just don't seem to have the same intestinal fortitude like you to actually go through my collection to sort and catalogue everything and sadly, never ever did. All I know is that I enjoy looking at them and then simply put them back in the same bag and order I found them in. It just seems like an unimaginable task to sort and catalogue at this point with respect to the back issues I had brought back in the day since I had a nasty habit of leaving them in the order which they were brought. So, it's certainly a nice feeling to come across a few minor BA keys like Thor 165, Werewolf by Night 32, Iron Man 55, etc. which I never even remember ever having and right in there amongst all of the worthless drek titles like Man from Atlantis, Human Fly, Death's Head, etc. which had long been burned right into my mind. No such luck when it comes to the GA books because I have so few of those and they clearly did cost me some money to acquire in the first place. The only exception being a nice copy of More Fun 67 right there in amongst the other ones I had, and for the life of me, just can't remember when and where I had gotten it from and for how much. Clearly only a few hundred dollars or else I would have remembered the book, but it's always a nice feeling when you come across little hidden treasures like these that you never thought you had in the first place.

Athough I would tend to agree with you from a strict theoretical logic POV, it should be noted that theory often does not line up with what actually happens in real life practice. Although there were clearly dealers like Ritter (i.e. clearly the most obvious one) who were sweeping up some of the books from the Jon Berk collection for a fast and highly profitable resale, the actual number of Berk books coming back onto the secondary market is still actually only a very small percentage of the original collection which numbered something around 3,000 books or thereabouts. Although the Promise Collection is going to be around 5,000 books by the time it's all said and done, I wish there was some way to survey the number or proportion of long time collectors who had picked up the books from the Berk Collection, as opposed to the proportion from the Promise Collection. Personally, I picked up close to about a dozen books from the Berk Collection for my own personal collection, but I highly doubt that I will end up with any of the Promise Collection books by the time it's finished. I have heard the same thing from a few of the other collectors here, but then that might be due in part to the fact that I tend to swim in the shallow end of the pool, as opposed to the more deeper pocketed buyers like you who tend to swim in the deeper end of the pool. Definitely more importantly, however, I was also highly influenced by the fact that I much prefer to acquire books from the HTF 1930's time period like the ones which Jon had in his collection and which seemingly never ever shows up for sale in any condition, as opposed to the much later books from the 1940's which the Promise Collection was primarily made up of. Although it certainly can't be proven, I somehow just tend to get the feeling that the Berk Collection books went to a bigger and wider range of collectors, as opposed to the Promise Collection which probably was sold to a narrower but deeper pocketed range of collectors and newbies entering into the marketplace during the past couple of years. Well, let's have a survey of two collectors (one from the shallow end and one from the deeper end ) here anyways, did you or will you most likely end up buying more books from the Promise Collection as compared to what you had purchased from the Jon Berk Collection?

That's probably because the original CL Auction thread got lost in the shuffle for awhile there and now there's multiple threads for the CL auctions.

Sometimes it whispers before it yells at everyone Well, if you pay to have a special room built in the CGC facilities to have just your books graded, then you should be entitled to some of the associated benefits. Instead of having my books graded along with everybody else's in a brightly lit room equipped with light tables and diamond loupes for the graders, I would certainly prefer the special Heritage grading room where there are no lights and the blackout curtains are always drawn and its mandatory for all graders to wear darkened sunglasses before entering the room to grade the books. and yet sadly, there just might possbily be a tinge of truth in there, as based upon some of the examples which we have seen on the boards here.

Can't remember for certain, but since Steve was the original founder (but probably not the money man) for CBCS, I assume he would have had at least partial ownership of the company when it was sold off to the huge Beckett Collectibles group or wharever they was called. Since history tends to repeat itself as you have already stated, I guess we shouldn't be surprised if there is a BCBGS (i.e. Borock Comic Book Grading Service) company in place to compete with both CGC and CBCS once Steve's anti-compete clause with the Beckett Corp. expires.

guess the plunge protection team is on vacation this week Like a roller coaster ride for the past several months whereby it's like a dance where you go forward one step and then back two steps until you eventually fall off the cliff, depending upon how much runway you have built in therebefore you get to the edge. And for the long time vintage comic book collectors here, doesn't it make you simply happy that you've got a growing portion of your retirement portfolio (even though it was never initially intended as such) coming from your personal comic book collection which seems to be a relatively far safer bet in times like this.

Actually, any thoughts from the GA boardies here on the grading evnironment going forward now that the competition is supposedly weaker with Borock leaving CBCS to join up with MCS?

I think it really depends on how long his "non-compete" requirement clause with Beckett states that he has to adher to when he left CBCS.

Yes, wasn't that a wild and raucous time on the boards here when it first came to light what both Nelson and Ewert had been secretly doing to their books and then foisting and laundering them onto an unsupsecting collector base, when both of these activities were clearly considered to be restoration at the time. And as we all well know by now, CGC ended up giving the green light to what Nelson had been doing and a big flashing red light to what Ewert had been doing. I guess this means that when we see Ewert installed as Head Grader or President of CGC, then it's time for all of us to run down to the Loonie Store as fast as our little feet can take us so that we can buy the sharpest pair of sccisors there are before they are all sold out.

How soon we forget because it's rather obvious that the strategies used to auctioned off these two collections were completely different, and probably due to the fact that they just might have had two different purposes in mind. With the Berk collection being auctioned off all in one shot like that, it was acknowledged by many boardies here at the time that this strategy would clearly not get top dollar for all of the books in the collection, but would result in the books being spread much more widely to a far greater number of buyers. As Jon himself had stated, this was a collection which he had been the caretaker of for all of his collecting life, and the sale of it was to see the books passed down to the next generation of comic book collectors to treasure and take care of them like he had. Although I might be a bit naive here, but with the sale of Jon's collection, I never once got the impression that it was about the grades or the money, and by the time it was all said and done, I believe it did achieved the purpose that Jon had initially set out to do. On the other hand, with the Promise Collection, the impression that I got was that it was nothing but all about the grades and getting nothing but top dollar for the books right from the moment when they were first unveiled. Maybe just a sign of the times, but it seem that the Promise books were targeted not so much for the regular comic book collectors, but more for the ones with the deeper pockets including hopefully bringing in some of the newbies from outside the comic book hobby with their new found money. And as such, by the time it's all said and done, I believe Heritage will have achieved the purpose that it had initially set out to do. In this age of certification with the CPR game in full and active play, the mere fact that we have not seen even one single upgrade to date or heard of anybody even dare to try for an upgrade speaks volumes. I guess it says that if you really want to get maximum top grades for your books and not be shortchanged, you should really be sending your books through Heritage for followup grading instead of sending them directly to CGC yourself.

What an absolutely unbelieveable and amazing collection, especially since it seems that every single book has White pages which must be unheard of for books from this early SA time period. While you are asking Heritage about their Search function, ask them to check their scanner because it makes it look like a white line running down the length of the spine edge for these 3 books or is that just the natural fold for these 3 books?

That's disappointing to hear. Some *spoon* head ruined a bunch of books by having Ken Bald sign them in Sharpie; they've been showing up on HA lately. Ken Bald! Is there anyone on the planet who actually cares about owning Ken Bald's signature? Complete waste of a lot of nice books. Many of them were mid grade, but some of them were high grade. Yes, but aren't all of these Verified Signature books which means that CGC is not only encouraging this destructive process, but actively facilitating and knowingly participating in it even though they are clearly aware of the damage being done to the underlying books themselves. Then again, maybe it's really nothing more than just a case of to each their own, as one person's definition of "destruction" might just be another person's definition of "beautification".

All I will say is that CGC really needs to fine tune and upgrade their grading standards in order to treat all of this horrid writing on the covers as a major defect and hammer the living daylights out of the books when it comes to the final grade. Then again, we all know the chances of that happening is absolutely zero because it's all about the money and this severely damaging, but readily avoidable and deliberate wanton destruction of the comic books have been built into their business model from the get go.

Well, I'll see your gorgeous Master 23 and raise you a classic Master 27: Must be a true toughie to find in grade as this is the highest graded copy image that I could find and it's from way back in 2003 and the CGC Census Population Reports indicates a total of only 14 graded Universal copies to this point in time.

How timely and apropos as Heritage has a copy of this book coming up in their Sunday Auction ending in only a few hours from now: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/horror/ghostly-weird-stories-122-star-publications-1954-cgc-vg-fn-50-off-white-pages/a/122220-15312.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116 Still, no way as nice as your Cosmic Aeroplane copy that you posted up above, but for any boardies that might be interested in obtaining a copy of this L.B. Cole classic for their own personal collection.

Now, totally agree with your choice here as this is an absolutely gorgeous and classic Wood cover and one that is pretty tough to top.