lou_fine

Surely his masterpiece cover as it had long been recognized as being a Fine cover by many, even to the point of Overstreet breaking this issue out separately in his guide back in the mid-90's and denoting it as a Lou Fine cover, with a higher valuation than all of the other issues in the run, save for Mystery Men 1 -3: George Tuska:

For a lower profile and lesser name recognized artist, then this must be consider to be his masterpiece cover: Paul Reinman:

Well okay, on a more serious note here: Fred Ray:

Well, if this was the case, then it would have been easy: Liefeld:

Triple yikes!!! in this case here, but is this pricing action really at all that surprising to anybody here except possibly for @Mmehdy. After almost a full year of auctions with Promise Collection books in there, is anybody aware of even one Promise book that has managed to sell for a higher price point after coming back to auction on a second go round? Although a different environment at the time, still a stark comparison to the Jon Berk Collection from almost 5 years ago where I believe that virtually every single Jon Berk book was sold at a higher price point in subsequent auctions right from the get go. Based upon these Promise Collection results here, it confirms my thinking that most of the bidding on the first go round for the Promise books were by bidders who were heavily influenced by both the Promise pedigree hype being generated plus the grade on the CGC label. On the second go round for these exact same Promise books, the bidding was probably more likely done by longer term collectors who were bidding based much more upon the underlying book itself and relatively less influenced by the initial Promise hype and CGC label grade.

Do you have a link to this CGC 3.0 graded copy of Supes 1 that took place at Goldin earlier this year that sold at the same $720K price point?

I saw that. I wonder why that happened. Well, as I had already stated in another thread on the GA boards here, any bets that this book along with many others from this particular collection would probably have gone for more money in a higher profile regularly scheduled Heritage Signature Auction with the usual big dollar eyeballs. Especially when this copy here was auctioned off in another one of these one-off standalone auctions (i.e. the Pablos Verdes Auction) where many of the regular Heritage clientale probably didn't even pay any attention at all to this particular auction here.

Do the pressing services charge on a percentage of FMV like CGC does? Yes, I believe it's the same percentage of FMV that CCS charges for their pressing disservice as CGC charges for their grading fees. I am sending mine's in as soon as they start charging based upon a percentage of original cost of the book. Now, let's see.....................what's a percentage of a nickel for a low grade beater hopefully Good condition copy of X-Men 1.

Oh, you mean take the Heritage Sunday auction approach where all of those low grade raw pre-hero Adventure/New Adventure and More Fun books seemingly sold for big dollars and at much much higher multiples to condition guide as oposed to those graded and slabbed copies of the same books that sold in their higher profile Signature Auction a month later.

Just took a look now and it's in the system as being graded on April 29th of this year. Graded at the same time as copies of Detectives 71, 69, 62 with the Joker covers and stories along with a copy of 'Tec 40.

Well, from many of the no name titles from the Promise Collection I saw going for rather insane huge dollars, are they actually hard to find in decent grade or previously perceived to have no real demand and relatively low dollar value that they were not worth slabbing in the first place until Heritage (and Mitch of course ) came along to hype the heck out of this collection?

Oh, come on now, Tim.............you are giving me far more credit than I deserve as I am nowhere even close to the $100K or $125K finish line. I am still stuck in the starting blocks where I just can't bear the thought of paying exponential multiples more to slab the book as compared to what I had to pay for the actual darned thing in the first place. Especially if I have to double that exponential cost in order to play the game by CGC's shifting rules.

And yet, this doesn't explain why much bigger money were paid on these Promise Collection books on their first go round a few months ago.

Especially if you also toss in these two words here.......................Margin Call I was watching some of the CNBC talking heads on TV and boy, some of them seem to be visibly upset and almost sweating bullets the past few days. Although Cramer often says a stock can only go down and stop at zero, it can actually go below zero for a speculator if it was brought on margin. So much better for the longer term comic book collectors who are probably much more diversified and their equity investments are not the be all and end all of their retirement funding plans.

Well, a 30% drop in some comic books is just a tiny boo boo and pretty much slow motion dullsville in comparison to the stock market where some of the stocks jumped up by around 30% or more just in one day today. Then again, if you consider the fact that some of these same so-called growth stocks were bludgeoned by 90% from their recent highs during the past 6 months, I guess a 30% uptick in one day means they are now down by only a mere 87% for the past 6 months. Now, that's what I call being taken out to the woodshed in the back and having the living daylights beaten out of them. OUCH, OUCh, OUch, Ouch, ouch............

How in the world can this be, especially since I believe @Mmehdy has been on these boards ever since the Promise Collection was first unveiled on these boards a year ago that if we didn't pick up these books from Heritage on the first go round when we had the chance, the prices would definitely sky rocket so much higher after that.

Well, without having the book in hand or even bothering to take a closer zoom in look at both of these copies here, I would have to say from this distanced front cover view, it would appeared that the Metro/CC copy presents much nicer than the Heritage copy even though both of them are sporting the same equivalent CGC 7.0 grade.

Just imagine in this day and age with all of the ongong news stories about collectibles being worth big money, and yet, she had absolutely no idea at all and was actually willing to pay to have it taken away. Clearly there must not have been any communication at all between Janet Steele and her husband when it came to his love for his treasured comic books.

There's a simple solution to this dilemma which you are facing, but definitely too late for you though....................DON'T START SELLING!!!

Yes, I clearly remember those side by side ads that CGC used to run for prices on raw copies versus prices on CGC slabbed copies. Obviously some comic book hedge fund investor must have really bought into it because I still remember Overstreet showing a picture of a copy of DC's Shadow 1 in one of their price updates at the time when CGC first started up and it sold for what I thought was a rather super ridiculous $2,500 at the time. Not 100% sure, but if I remember correctly, it might even have only been for a CGC 9.6 graded copy since there were no 9.8 graded copies at the time. Definitely remember the $2,500 price point thopugh as I throught it was either totally nutso or a big time boo boo typo on Overstreet's part. Flash forward to 2022 and there are now over 150 copies of the book in CGC 9.8 graded condition with close to another 250 copies knocking on the door in CGC 9.6 graded condition, with GoCollect placing an estimated market value of only $140 for a CGC 9.6 graded copy now.

Although this might indeed be the case in a much more high profile regularly scheduled Signature Auction which all Heritage clients are used to, it might not be the same with all of these one-off auctions like this Palos Verdes Showcase Auction which they are having tomorrow. Seemingly far too many of them that some clients might not even bother to check out some of these offerings in these auctions. Heck, this is actually the first time that I even went in to check a book in this particular auction here.

Totally agree with your statement that pensions, especially if they are locked in and guaranteed like how most of them are, can indeed be considered as real investments since they certainly do pay the bills and hence can fund your future retirement. Not sure though what you mean by investments being your real investments because that can certainly be a pretty wide umbrella and even include your vintage collectible comic books under there.

This is absolutely and totally 110% true as my personal opinion is that any monies that I throw into the equity markets or into my comic book collection is really nothing more than so-called "play money" which I can afford to lose. Especially when you take the risk factors into consideration and the fact that none of that money is actually required to fund any of my ongoing daily needs during retirement, so any monies I can get back out from these two additional sources would really be nothing more than just an extra bonus. Even more so since comic book collecting has all been about fun and enjoyment for life long collectors like me, so if they've indeed truly gone up in value and I can "squeeze out" some money from them when the time comes, it really is just an unexpected bonus.

Did he specify in March or April of what year?

All I can say is that it's on days like this when the naysayers say that comic books are not true investments like what equity stocks and bonds are that I am just super glad that the values on my vintage comic book collection seems to be holding up much better, and in fact, probably good enough to fund a nice portion of my retirement going forward.