sfcityduck

Remember, TATs are an estimate, not a "Promise."

For me, the one's that hurt are the Standard and Fast Track Economy books that made it through CCS, got received (second time) by CGC, and have been languishing on "Scheduled for Grading" for weeks. I'm used to getting books out of "Schedule for Grading" a few days later. As for unpacking my books, I've got 5 books that were delivered to CGC in late April that are not yet even showing "received." They include a couple of really high grade GA books, and my GS X-Men 1 I've owned for over 40 years and finally decided to encapsulate, so I'm anxious to see them get in the process.

MAGAZINE MODERN (+CCS)Estimate at submission: "74 working days"Delivered: 1/15/21Received: 1/26/21 (Interval to = 6 business days) VALUE (+CCS)Estimate at submission: "89 working days"Delivered: 1/15/21Received: 1/26/21 (Interval to = 6 business days) These books have now been at CCS for 80 days. They have not even made it back to CGC's second "received" yet! Anyone want to start taking bets on whether I get them back before Halloween? For the sake of transparency, CCS/CGC should get rid of the "working days" thing (which doesn't count Con days) and just give estimated TATs in months for these tiers.

You drive a hard bargain, but you missed my latest overly generous offer: 10,000x of what Chuck paid. Damn, I'm feeling so generous, you might be able to get me to add another 0. I'm guessing though, you might want a wee bit more than that. LoL!

You're killing my story! Too bad that New Adventure 26 has that horrible miscut, it could have been worth something. I'll take that ugly thing off your hands for 1000x of what Chuck paid for it. Heck, I'm feeling generous, how about 10,000x of what Chuck paid!.

How did Crowley come out?

His motivation was clearly professional. They were reference material. But, they were rarely used by him for that purpose. The weirdness is that he didn't let his kids read the comics. That would not have blown his ability to use the comics for references, and it would have brought joy to his kids. Instead, he locked them away. (Unless the secret to what happened to all the Dell funny animals is he let his kids have those and they trashed them!) I've often wondered if Church actually learned at some point that his comics were valuable. After all, it is also strange as hell that there is just one book in the whole collection which has his name on it - and it is the Action 1. Why? Was it because he knew it had value and didn't want it stolen? My theory: Mitch killed him. He saw the article about Mitch paying $2,000 for an Action 1, got scared it could be stolen, went to his closet, pulled the book out, signed it so he needn't worry about thieves, carefully put it back, closed the closet door, and then keeled over with a heart attack brought on by his shock at realizing the value he had. Only for his family to find him gasping as he pointed at the closet: "$2000, $2,000, $2,000" as he died. Not knowing better, that's what they charged Chuck for the whole collection. [I can't wait for someone someday to relay the above story to me as fact not fan fiction.]

Superman wasn't inspired to be a hero by the death of his planet, it was just back story. Batman is iconic and probably the first, right? A lot of others weren't though.

Love the colors in your sig line!

Didn't Jerry Buss (Lakers owner) once own the MH Planet run until he had financial troubles (I'm thinking in the 1980s) or am I misremembering? If so, did they get broken up a bit, or did the whole run stay intact until Fishler/CC sold it?

On the video, Matt and Brian both agreed that the MH books are superior to the Promise books. Better structurally, page quality, and preservation. Matt made it clear that MH is undoubtedly better than Promise (and he also gave a nod to SF), and as the chief grader for CGC he should know. But, its a really good point that the MH did not go straight into encapsulation, so Matt's comment is talking about the well-preserved MHs. The area where Matt and Brian saw the Promise as far superior to the MHs was in the backstory. I completely agree. Far superior. And I'm not talking about the backstory told by Heritage. The MH story is important to comic collecting history, but it is a story a man perhaps placing his livelihood above his family and about a family relationship that seems more than a bit sad. What kind of dad cares more about comics than his kids? As for the Promise backstory, Matt and Brian said they are going to take their place near Okajima on backstory, and that statement by them was definitely not hype.

From the eBay homepage hit: "Shop by Category" (right of logo), then "collectibles" (in pull down menu), then "comics" (list on left), then "comics" again (shop by catetory list on left), then "Era see all", then "Golden Age" (in the pop-up menu). And then, if you want, you can hit a specific genre and also can sort by newly listed, highest priced, etc. It's doable. Takes a minute.

You can pull up all the Golden Age books and sort them so the newly listed are on top if you just want to browse.

45 of the 340 comics were top 100. Which is impressive.

How could that not be the MH? I can only think of a few not in the MH.

“Could” not “will”

I've heard he's stopped buying. I've wondered if that may be due to his family's position in the Arab world. His father was assassinated, and here's an interesting article about one of his brother's experiences: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-politics/lebanon-accuses-saudi-arabia-of-holding-its-pm-hostage-idUSKBN1DF18A

I always said I could be wrong in my speculation, so I'm feeling no regrets. The story of the two brothers I shared IS a good and informative one. The Korean War aspect especially. Now I know the definitive identity of the right two brothers, and the stories have important common aspects. A reflection of history most don't know. I won't be giving up the names of either pair of brothers, but I would be surprised if the true OO's name does not come out prior to the June auction. The Heritage story is not entirely forthright, but what they are misstating or leaving out is a better story than anyone could ever make up. The pedigree's name is very apt, but in IMHO for a different reason than Heritage states. I am sure that Heritage wishes they could market this pedigree differently, and I strongly suspect that the family will ultimately let the full story out. But, if you like good stories, don't hesitate to buy these books.

The Chinatown is sitting in slabs and could be sold at any time. The 2,500 early GA WTG (probably W.T. Gilchrist) collection that BangZoom has amazed everyone on these boards is still out there. Since you don't have many posts and may not have seen it, here's some pics:

I suspect a lot of the big bidding wars are not just for the best copy, but the best available copy. How else do you explain Action Comics 1 8.5 on 2021/04/06 ComicConnect for $3,250,000.00? There is a MH copy out there that is probably best, the CGC 9.0 white, and the Cage copy CGC 9.0 cream/ow. That 8.5 bidding was not a frenzy for the "best copy," that's a frenzy for the best copy not owned by the Dentist or Hariri. Scary thing is for that buyer is that Hariri could dump two better copies on the market if he loses interest in comics, and there are other very nice copies that might hit 8.5 out there.

I still can only speculate as to which pair of brothers had the "funny books." Time will tell, I'm sure. But, that's a question only Heritage or the implicated family can definitively answer.

I am now aware of a second set of brothers, who fit the bill and have an almost identical story to the two brothers I just mentioned. It is eerie. The big difference? The older brother in this pair died last year as Heritage represented. Very eerie that the story is so similar. And, this story is also much better than the story told by Heritage. I looked at the decedent in this new pair of brothers, but I could not discern how he fit a key fact as told by Heritage. I still can't. But, I am convinced this pair fits the bill close enough. So I'm going to withdraw my prior speculation and not release the name of the two brothers whose story I told. I'll leave the thread up since I never identified the brothers. Based on my research so far, I still have some of the same concerns about the story as told by Heritage that I expressed in this thread. Heritage and the family could clarify this easily. But I can say, whichever of the two pairs of brothers it was, the story is primarily about brotherly love, about family, and about heroism. The "funny books story" that Heritage has either chosen to focus upon or been forced to focus upon is the least interesting thing about the story. I think everyone can confidently bid on the collection with confidence that the books have a connection to valor in the Korean War. It would be nice for Heritage and the family to clarify the situation and for the truth to come out. Enough said.

I am now aware of a second set of brothers, who fit the bill and have an almost identical story to the two brothers I just mentioned. It is eerie. The big difference? The older brother in this pair died last year as Heritage represented. Very eerie that the story is so similar. And, this story is also much better than the story told by Heritage. I looked at the decedent in this new pair of brothers, but I could not discern how he fit a key fact as told by Heritage. I still can't. But, I am convinced this pair fits the bill close enough. So I'm going to withdraw my prior speculation and not release the name of the two brothers whose story I told. I'll leave the thread up since I never identified the brothers. Based on my research so far, I still have some of the same concerns about the story as told by Heritage. The concerns I expressed in the other thread. Heritage and the family could clarify this easily. But I can say, whichever of the two pairs of brothers it was, the story is primarily about brotherly love, about family, and about heroism. The "funny books story" that Heritage has either chosen to focus upon or been forced to focus upon is the least interesting thing about the story. I think everyone can confidently bid on the collection with confidence that the books have a connection to valor in the Korean War. It would be nice for Heritage and the family to clarify the situation and for the truth to come out. Enough said.

Yes, it would. But we're forced to speculate as to what that name was.

Distributor markings and dates were common. They aren't really a unique identifier for a pedigree. Especially since back then everyone learned to write cursive in fairly similar manners. There are a lot of D's on comics that aren't "D copies." Also, does anyone know how big a regional area a distributor making distributor markings would have covered? The biggest issue I have with my theory is that the "Armand" written on the books post dates when the "Jr." in my tale enlisted. But, it could be that is because that was not written by "Junie," but by someone at the store where the comics were bought. Basically, it could be at some point a stack was held aside for the absent soldier with Armand written on the top comic in the stack so when someone came in and said "I'm here for Armand's comics," the stack was readily available.