lou_fine

Well, based upon some of the prices paid for the Promise books from some of these never heard of niche titles, I believe some of these winners might be losing a whole lot more than just their shirts and might even stand a good chance of getting themselves arrested for indecent exposure.

Are you saying that the FF1 and TTA 27 in CGC 9.0 and the TOS 57 in CGC 9.8 are the UKPV versions, because I got the impression they were just the regular cents version or else Heritage would have pointed this out in their email release?

To each their own, but if you don't see any value in a pedigree or a label, it's definitely good that you can side by side the books and use your own eyes and hands to see and determine for yourself which copy is the better copy.

So do I. To hold my Spawn 1. I remember picking up a couple of these back at one of the SD Con's back in the mid 90's or thereabouts, but never did end up using them. Pretty much just an earlier verison of the slab, but much more unwieldy, bulkier, and even less attractive than simply putting your books into mylar sleeves where the real beauty and colors of the books just shines right through.

Pooh pooh about the so-called key Marvels as they show up in virtually every single auction and are pretty much as common as dirt on the bottom of your shoes. So, tell us....................how much DID you pay for that copy of AS 8 in CGC 9.4?

Absolutely no surprise here as in this age of certification that most of the CGC generation of collectors/speculators would place the importance of the CGC label above everything else. I guess no surpise here, but being a longer term collector from long before CGC was even a thought in anybody's mind, I would tend to disagree to a certain extent here. Although I believe it's always a case of to each their own, but I feel that a pedigree will always be a pedigree, but this is definitely NOT the case with the certified grade of a book as history has clearly shown us that grades are easily changeable through gradeflation and artifical manipulation of the book itself. I will agree though that the concept of a comic book pedigree has certainly become more watered down with the addition of much lessor pedigrees like the Cookville, Eldon, Harold Curtis collections and the likes which seem to be more significant for their size, as opposed to the actual quality of their condition, as most books from these pedigrees are not in HG condition. Of course, we all know the real reason why they were added in by CGC as pedigrees. With the grading game being juiced up and in full play with the current grading regime in place right now, I actually feel that the significance of the old line major pedigrees such as the Church, Allentown, Tom Reilly, etc. have actually risen, especially in comparison to the first few years of CGC. Personally for myself, I know that I would definitely take a slightly lower graded Allentown pedigree book over a slightly higher graded non-pedigree book any day of the week, especially if that book had been "doctored up" from a lower grade in its prior life. After all, it's pretty tough to beat having an Allentown book in your collection, especially since it is only 1 out of a grand total of 135 possible books or the same with a nice Denver since it is only 1 out of a grand total of 153 possible books out there.

That's speaking more from a long term collector's POV like you and me who have been collecting for decades where time can indeed heal virtually all purchasing errors. Especially since we have no problem waiting because it's really more of a hobby for us than a need to make money on the venture. Unfortunately for Parrino, he was nothing more than a newbie from another collecting field who main interest was probably to dive in and try to make some fast money and had no interest in waiting the 10 to 15 long years that it might have taken for him to come up smelling like roses on his purchases. Are you sure it's safer right now when you consider some of the ridiculous prices that are being paid right now for the Promise Collection books. Now, if you think Smash Comics is silly stuff, at least I've heard of the title and it is a long running GA title. I certainly can't say the same thing about a large majority of the titles from the Promise Collection and I certainly hope the buyers have done up their wills properly because you just might have to wait for the heirs to cash out if the buyers hope to make a profit on some of those already long forgotten titles.

Ummmm..........................I believe both Jay Parrino and Gary Keller would be able to put up a good argument against your point here.

Do they still hand out strikes if a book is overpriced? I believe the best person to ask about this particular issue would be our dear friend here, @MrBedrock , since I believe he has had fond and unforgettable memories of prior enjoyable experiences with the Mods on this very subject matter here.

Come on guys.......................9.8's are so yesterday and just so common, but looks like Richard's starting on the right path here. You gotta be ahead of the crowd and go for 0.5 Brittle and Incomplete so that you can have the single lowest graded copies for all the entry level buyers paying insane monies for these books because that'll give you the highest ROI on your purchases. No, it's much better as the "He's So Fine" collection:

Definitely NOT as you are over generalizing since it's not a case of one size fits all. I believe you really need to read my post a bit more carefully or maybe I should have qualified it a bit more since it really depends on the kinds of defects which we are talking about, because it is quite clear to me that the undisclosed grading system under the current regime is starkly different than what it was when CGC first opened their doors. The additional revenue or money generating defects and we all know which ones we are talking about here are clearly being graded much tighter now while everything else on a comparative relative scale is being graded a lot looser. The reason why we think that grading is much looser now as compared to the old days is that the former types of defects are hard to see from just looking at scans while the latter with all of their clearly visual defects can be readily seen. As a result, grading would certainly appear to be looser now as compared to before if you are simply looking at scans, because it is always easy to see an obviously overgraded book, but pretty much impossible to see an undergraded book unless you actually have it in hand, or at least access to the Graders Notes. It's really a case of to each their own, but I guess I am the type of collector that simply prefers the old school grading more than where it SEEMS the current grading system is. As such, I prefer books that still has that natural full body feel and curve or bend to it, as opposed to the now seemingly technically superior flattened pancake look and feel to it. In addition, I guess tiny near invisible defects which I can't see from a scan but probably need a magnifying loupe to really see tends to bother me a lot less than books with more clearly visible defects and off-center covers. Although it might seem strange to most boardies here who tends to focus on the label, I personally would much rather have a lower graded book that presents nicely relative to its assigned CGC grade, as opposed to a technically higher graded book that doesn't appear quite as nice relative to its assigned CGC grade. To me, it's always really been much more about the "look" or appearance of the book, and as such, I don't really need a numerical label that's been determined by somebody else to tell me if the book is nice or not as I can simply use my own eyes to do that. Anyways, time to hit the sack, but will post a few scans tomorrow night since a picture is worth a thousand words sometimes.

It is. I sold it. Indeed, big congrats to our boy Roy here on this huge huge sale, but hold your horses here as congrats might be a bit premature here..................was this a public auction sale or just another one of those so-called "private wink wink nudge nudge" sales? Maybe we are going to have to call on our resident transaction verifier on theses boards here, namely our very own @Jaydogrules to vet this transaction for us here to see if it pases the mustard or not.

Oh, crappers.........WTF, now you tell us after all this. Now I am going to have to look for that bottle of glue to stick that darned "period" back onto the book that I just finished scraping off.

Well, I guess I was saying this because I thought that my copy of X-Men 1 which was pretty much a POS beater that would grade out no higher than a 1.0 Fair on a good day, and yet it looked a bit like that Hulk 1 which all of you are saying is in the 2.0 Good condition range when I thought 2.0 graded books looked more like this nicer presenting copy here: Well, since this is now 2022, I guess the old used books stores would all be up to speed and the storekeeper would immediately pull out their guide so that they can figure out what top of guide is they are going to charge you for this beautiful looking "mint" copy of Hulk 1. Sadly, no more of this 5 cents nickel stuff for old used comic books like the good old days.

Totally true and now I can cancel my doctor's appointment now that I've figure out why it's so painful every time I try to sit down on my big fat xxxx. Totally agree with you again, until they AREN'T as recent history has clearly shown us, their grades can be so easily manipulated and changed. Simply amazing as I must totally agree with you once again, but this won't be until it comes time for him or family members to sell and I certainly don't see this happening anytime soon and hence pretty much irrelevant at this point.

Now watch all of the Bat 1 holders take out their big eraser and and try to scrape away that horrible looking "valuation reducing" period.

Even so, my bet is that most collectors still don't know about this slight distinction, especially since even I can't remember off the top of my head if it was the period or no-period copy that is the rarer of the two, without first checking. But we all know that October comes before November. At least I hope so and if you don't, then there's really not that much I can do for you here.

Was this before or after our resident fellow boardie trillionaire, Mr. Tim Frommelt himself, arrived on the scene throwing bags of imaginery money around for the best of the best?

I believe the first big GA book where we will see this type of distinction would be Marvel Comics 1 since it's a very clear and obvious difference right on the front cover which anybody can easily see. Especially since this distinction has also been outlined in the Overstreet guide for decades now (albeit still no separate valuation listings ), whereas this has yet to even happen for both Batman 1 and Superman 1.

good lord. Yes, all bow down to the new lords of the CA, as that has been Transformers 1 has now been booted back out to do toilet cleaning duties.

Well, of course I clearly knew that...................just trying to be sarcastic here, but probably overplayed it a bit too much.

As I've always said, it's really a case of to each their own, and in this particular case, it probably really depends more upon Dave's mindset and whether or not he even cares what other collectors or speculators might think. Does he even really care about what numerical label his copy is going to get since he probably feels more than comfortable and secure in his own mind that he's still got the superior copy as compared to the Church copy of Superman 1. Especially when his copy might be a truly unrestored copy as compared to the Church copy which was rather kind of looked down upon back in the day, as many of the collectors really thought of it as a "double restored" copy that had been worked upon and then worked upon a second time to have the restoration removed, albeit not all of it. No surprise about the resurgence in the importance of the bigger more established pedigrees in relationship to the CGC grades themselves. Especially when a pedigree is always a pedigree, whereas the same definitely cannot be said about the grade or restoration stauts of a book with all of the grade manipulation and restoration definition changes in this current environment to maximize the dollars for ALL parties involved. Heck, how much money do you want to really put down on a book based upon just the CGC grade if you can even see a GA book go from an already HG CGC 9.0 all the way up to a CGC 9.8 and yet it still looks exactly the same from just a visual scan.

Not even the same category. Cool book, but... It's not in the same category as books that feature characters that people still care about Now, how can you even think that about poor old Granddaddy Supes just because all of the hip generational fanboys of today thinks he's really so much the Man of Yesterday?

It's not going to get cheaper and it's not going to get faster, so what're you waiting for? Waiting until it comes time for me to sell since it's just not the same to have your books imprisioned in an industrial looking slab where they simply can't be readily enjoyed the way they were meant to be. In addition, slabbed books also don't look as gorgeous as when they are encased in a nice bright glossy mylar where the book's true beauty with all those colors just shines right through. Plus, having them in mylar also sure saves on a whole heck of a lot of storage space. Besides the cheaper prices and faster TAT's back then, I guess the other key thing that I will regret is missing out on the way that books were graded when CGC first started up some 22 years ago. Much more aligned with the old school grading standards before they eventually got around to "fine-tuning" them (especially after Heritage arrived on the scene in 2002) and making them more and more about additional revenue generating defects as time went on. I still remember sending in about a dozen or more of my GA books in for grading as a test of this new CGC certification grading system back in 2000 in time for the big Greg Manning Auction later that year. Rather surprisingly, they all came back graded from CGC 9.2 through to CGC 9.6, with the only exception being a PLOD copy (SP) of Cap 20 graded as a CGC 8.5 even though it presented just as nice as all of my other higher graded books. My bet is that there would be a zero percent chance of me getting back the same high grades on these books if submitted today unless I dished out even more money on top of their now higher grading fees in order to "prep" the books in order to align with the "new and improved" undisclosed rules of the CGC grading game. Extremely sad to say but most likely, if sent in straight raw for grading without at least a review pre-screening and "prep for grading" work of some sort, those same early graded 9.2's to 9.6's would probably come back as only 8.0's to 9.2's. Especially with the types of money generating defects to which they have shifted their focus to over time until we are where we are today where many submittors dare not even think of sending a book straight in just for grading only, lest they be taken out to the woodshed in the back to having the grading sledgehammer applied to them.

From my point of view, it's all a really simple equation here and doesn't require a lot of thought: DA's old school grading > Church pedigree >> CGC's grading Hence: DA's old school grading >>> CGC's grading!!!