sfcityduck

I'm not sure if you are talking about the differences in the two badges (which I knew about - copper dark stripe next to face and bronze/brass light stripe next to face) or differences in the envelopes (which I didn't), but this thread has three versions of the envelope in it. The difference being the position of the CA graphic in relation to the letters directly above it. The envelope for the complete set I've seen with the postcard from May 1941 is the same graphic placement as the Von Hake envelope and his postcard was also May 1941.

OOPS! Thought I was posting to GA. Wrong forum. Oh well.

A few fun facts about the CA Sentinels of Liberty set: To my knowledge there is only one complete set still intact. That set comprises the outside envelope, the inside envelope in which the badge was sent, the badge (with the original tissue it was wrapped in), the membership card, and, most importantly, the acknowledgment postcard that was sent separately before the badge and membership card were sent out. The real value is in the acknowledgment postcard. There are only two postcards that I know of. They are both dated in May of 1941, and that is probably around when the sets first shipped. A postcard alone sold on Hake's for about $5K, dwarfing the value of the badge and membership card. The above Hakes postcard was part of a set (complete or incomplete I don't know) that was pieced out. That was probably the oldest known set, issued to a Carl Von Hake of Philadelphia. The postcard sold in one auction, the envelope sold in another with a membership card for someone else and a badge (whose, I don't know). What happened to the Carl Von Hake membership card is a mystery to me, but since his postcard has an earlier date (by a few days) than the other postcard, and his main envelope is the only one (I think) that was hand addressed not typed, it seems a fair supposition that it was about as early as anyone's seen. Interestingly, the membership numbers for the full complete intact set was in the 12,000s. In all likelihood, that means they started the membership numbering with 10,000 or 12,000. It seems highly unlikely that they'd circulated 12,000 badges by May 1941 because the first Sentinels of Libery ad appeared in CA 2 (cover date April 1941, estimated on sale date of February 10, 1941).

Just worth noting that we've seen a lot of new members join the club of comics that have sold for over $1M recently - six in the last three years. In order of their club entry, the $1M+ books are: Action Comics 1 (2010) (undoubtedly more $1M+ Action 1s than any other comic - likely anything from CGC 5.5 up might be $1M+) Detective Comics 27 (2010) (the clear number two in quantity of $1M+ copies) Amazing Fantasy 15 (2011) (seems like there should be nine $1M+ copies, but emergence of more high grade copies seem likely and would have an impact) Marvel Comics 1 (2019) (likely four $1M+ copies) Batman Comics 1 (2021) (probably number three in $1M+ copies with double digit numbers) All-Star Comics 8 (2021) (maybe only two $1M+ copies) Superman Comics 1 (2022) (maybe only two or three $1M+ copies just due to rarity in high grade) Captain America Comics 1 (2022) (right now I'm saying five $1M+ copies) Fantastic Four Comics 1 (2022) (could be eight $1M+ copies, but again emergence of more high grade copies could have an impact) What could be next up? I was voting for AS 8, but I found out yesterday it had already made the club in a private sale. I'm thinking one of these two: Flash Comics 1 - a MH CGC 9.6 sold for $450K in 2010 (ages ago); X-Men 1 - a PC CGC 9.8 sold for $492K in 2012 (also a long time ago). Other contenders such as the best copies of AA 16, Whiz 2, All-Star 3, etc. are locked up in collections, like those of the Verzyl and Anderson families, and seem very unlikely to emerge. Longshots could be best copies of Detective 31 or 33 given how the Promise "cover" books did, or maybe even an Action 7? Possible non-Marvel or DC contenders? Right now, I'd say the Whiz 2 MH or the Pep 22 MH copy would have a very strong chance, but they are locked up. A crazy possibility would be a new "best" copy of WDC&S 1. Your thoughts?

Hey! If you move that 8 over one spot he'd have sorta broken even!

Congrats to Roy!

P.S. Someone's trying to flip the Phantom Lady 16 (maybe my favorite cover from that run) CGC 9.2 for $21K after buying it last June for $16.8K (a 25% mark up). There are two other 9.2 and four 9.4s. So this is high grade but not top of census. Probably not a surprise that it has been sitting on eBay since at least March 10.

Promise flippers are getting burned on eBay. Only one other transaction has made at least lunch money once the fees are factored in. Some big losses - 20% to 40%: Marvel Family 43 CGC 9.2 - ebay $549.99 BIN (sold on Heritage for $750) Captain Marvel 92 CGC 8.0 - ebay $399.99 BIN (sold on Heritage for $360) Black Cat 26 CGC 6.0 - ebay $475 BIN (sold on Heritage for $384) Master 41 CGC 8.0 - ebay $801.36 auction (sold on Heritage for $1020) Kid Colt Outlaw 5 CGC 8.5 - ebay $525.52 auction (sold on Heritage for $850) Action 147 CGC 5.5 - ebay $565.17 auction (sold on Heritage for $552) These aren't the super-high grade books, but given how much publicity the collection got, and how furious the bidding was, hard to see how a quick resell is going to make more than when the books came out fresh.

It seems more likely that the period was the original, and they just chiseled it off the plate because it was in the wrong place. I know this debate took place at least once on this site, maybe ten years ago or so.

With CGC in play, the import of a pedigree seems vastly diminished. The top 3 CGC graded Action 1s (9.0, 9.0, and 8.5) are not pedigrees. They have blown away the prices paid for the two pedigree 8.0s despite the increment being only a .5 or 1. That's not going to change. Today we have videos, photos, third party grading company's, etc. We can trace books through the upgrades. And the books which have gotten the biggest upgrades include pedigrees (e.g. MH Supes 1, Allentown CA 1) so the pedigree status gives you no certainty about the CGC grading. The benefit of the whole "pedigree" concept, an additional reassurance that the book you are buying is as described, has largely evaporated with the internet and CGC. Today you can compare the books and make your own judgments based on photos and videos plus have the input of CGC (which for most is the final word). We can all be DA today and side by side books. And if DA ever gets his Supes 1 graded, and it grades out above the MH Supes 1, who is going to doubt that his copy is the best copy? My guess is very very few even though it is not a pedigree. The only price boost a book should get from being a pedigree now is if the pedigree represents a value adding story (such as Okajima camp books). Otherwise, there's no reason for a lesser graded and lesser quality pedigree copy to surpass a higher graded and quality non-pedigree.

DA supposedly has the best since he chose after looking at the candidates. There are two or three printings distinguished by an internal house ad which says “coming soon” in one version and “on sale now” in the other. CGC has adopted the “bury it” attitude towards this very material info which should result in price variations.

Yep. I've sold a number of $10K books, but the most I paid for one of those is $300. I am not buying $10K+ books so far. I can get all the collecting joy I want searching for interesting and unusual books, while staying out of the market for the books that take only money to acquire. If you were first collecting sometime up to the early 80s, it is probably hard to not own a $10K book. Really popular books, GSX 1 and IH 181, etc., have inflated beyond anyone's dreams. No rarity to those books at all. And the vast majority are not CGC'd, I"m sure, just sitting in some 50+ year olds boxes.

Some other post said there was a Canadian buyer. I was not extrapolating from Roy's involvement, but I have no knowledge if that's right. [Correction: Richie Rich in comics and comic knowledge is right, I misread a comment up thread that referred to a "Canuck" as being about the buyer when it was about Roy. I am never too proud to admit when I'm wrong.] "Something else in the deal" could mean anything given the vagueness of the comment (either more people or different consideration -- like a part cash part trade deal), so I speculated. But does it matter? No. The stuff we need to know we know. Real buyer, real dealers involved, and presumably a real buyer who is just as anonymous as any auction buyer.

The reason why those of us in the shallow end of the pool should care about the price increases on the deep end is that they tend to "trickle down" to the shallow end of the pool. Deep end results, especially the mega keys such as Action 1 etc. can sometimes drag the whole market upward, not just for those books. So its good to know if they are legit. Which this certainly appears to be! Maybe a bigger issue on that front is the Promise Collection results. They are going to have an impact on what sellers and dealers want to get for their lesser graded examples of books that sold out of the Promise Collection for exorbitant prices. Because the Promise Collection is so large, those results effect a very wide swath of books. It will be interesting to see how identically graded non-Promise books do compared to the Promise results. Will we see comparable results, or will there be a "Promise bump up"? I will be interesting to see if Promise Books maintain or increase their prices on resell. It will be interesting to see if the Promise results have a long term effect on pricing of much lesser graded books. Only time will tell.

So it was generally from Redbeard's MH stash to Bechara Maalouf (who we all knew owned the book) to the Canadian buyer (who is not Roy, its his client). And, per Rob's relaying of Redbeard's cryptic comment maybe there was an intermediary owner or flipper between Redbeard and Bechara or Bechara had a partner at one point (or maybe it was just that the price included some OA as trade) - which is pretty much irrelevant to the present circumstances. So what is the mystery again?

Auctions may, if held in a state where shill bidding is illegal, yield results that are the best evidence of the actual market value. Unfortunately, Texas is not one of those states. And we have had at least one very prominent admission of shill bidding on this site. Even without shill bidding, auctions can encourage stupidity followed by corrections when the books are re-auctioned later. My guess is that even the Allentown CA 1 9.8 would yield a higher value than any of the four AF 15 9.6s. If the MH MC 1 grades 9.8 also, it would beat those four books out too. AF 15 does not make my top 5. I expect that more high grade AF 15s will appear over time. Too many guys still alive and sitting on their collections today were collecting comics in the 1960s.

Here's my question: Why isn't a Retored book given a grade for what it would grade out at if the restoration was removed or had not occurred? IMHO, from the perspective of making sure that books are not damaged in a quest for money, this book would be better if it was assigned a 6.5 restored grade with the notation that it is estimated it would be a 5.5 if the restoration was removed. That way, the book could get a 5.5 price without damage to the book. Of course, I'm also mystified (1) how the unrestored version of the book has eliminated the white dots on the upper right of the shorts and lower left inside of cape without a CT notation and (2) why we want to encourage the removal of reversible seals that are intended to prevent further tearing to a book. Strange that removing the seal yields an "unrestored" book even though the unreversible glue still exists. Wouldn't it make more sense for the unrestored grade to treat a tear seal as if it wasn't there? E.g. the book with a seal is assigned an unrestored grade of 5.5 with a notation that it has a reversible tear seal that was not factored into the final grade (e.g. it was graded as if tear was unsealed).

Good points! My concern has always been with an original record of a resubbed book NOT being deleted because it messes up the census counts and creates phantom non-existent (anymore) books. But, I get your points and your solution is better.

Equal Grades is an easy hierarchy, and for me top copies follow the same hierarchy. I don't care if you have a 10.0 Marvel Spotlight, it will never be more valuable to me than a 9.6 FF 1 or a 9.2 Action 1 etc. Grade only matters to value for books of the same issue - it does not matter to comparing values of different issues. The top Action 1, even if a 9.2, is always going to be worth more than a 9.8 CA 1. Here's my rank: 1. Action 1 - First comic to feature a superhero (a cover no less) and that iconic superhero, Superman, is still popular today. 2. Detective 27 - First Batman. 3. Superman 1 - The very first comic dedicated to a single superhero! Very historically important. Superman 1 has the first appearance of the Kent's in the origin (which is another selling point), but that book is so historically important it is going to rank out higher that everything else below it just because of what it is - the very first single superhero comic book. When that book came out, Detective 28 (2nd Batman) was on the racks. The superheros covers on the racks were Action 13, Superman 1, Keen Detective Funnies 13 (Masked Marvel), and Wonder World 3 (the Flame). It was an incredibly early book. And it is the rarest of the big GA books in grade. If a 9.8 existed, it would be a solid no. 3. 4. Batman 1 - First Joker and Catwoman. Very hard to beat those TWO first appearances. I don't think CA does it. Plus, it is the first Batman comic, a series that still runs to today. 5. Marvel Comics 1 - First Marvel Comic. Again, very historically important. I rank the first appearance of the Marvel brand as more important than the first appearance of almost all Marvel characters. Doesn't hurt it has the first newsstand appearances of both the Human Torch and the Submariner (I tend to think MPFW was never distributed). Those are two of the big three for Timely's GA. And arguably those two not only had more GA appearances than CA, they also had more staying power based on the evidence of the Atlas revival (nine covers for HT and Subby, three covers for CA). 6. Admittedly, CA 1 is not even the first appearance of a patriotic superhero. CA was a trend follower of the Shield. CA 1 came out late in the GA (1941 versus 1939). However, CA 1 is merely the first appearance of CA. That might mean a lot to many comic collectors, but personally I don't rate that appearance higher than the first newsstand appearances of the Joker and Catwoman (Batman 1) or the Human Torch and Submariner (MC 1 -- I tend to think MPFW was never distributed), or of Captain Marvel. So CA 1 is destined to be no higher than top 5 for me. BUT, I put him no. 6 due to his present rep. I could slot in Whiz 2 here. As for the next big $1M sale: All-Star 8 is an easy choice. The CGC 9.4 sold for $936K four to five years ago and it may be the buyer will want to cash out. No AA 16 has yet broken $300K and it does not seem that Verzyl's copy is coming to market. I could see a really nice D31 or D33 also going $1M. The long money would be on the MH or SF More Fun 52 hitting the market. Or a 9.0+ Pep 22 (MH is locked up with DA, maybe Bangzoom's copy could hit that?). Is the MH Whiz 2 locked up with DA, that would be an obvious contender as well!

I'm pretty sure we have the info for a buyer or seller for the above three where you are not including it. The Action 1 info comes from an AP article which I believe names the buyer. The MPFW info also comes from a news article (Overstreet's market report on 1976 says $6K). I will check my info. The D27, I thought you knew.

Congrats to Roy!

The laudable thing about DA is that he has on more than one occassion chosen to keep the better book and get rid of the pedigree. In one case that paid off for him because it led him to acquire not only the non-pedigree comic, but also the entire collection of what that book was a part (essentially his own yet to be graded private pedigree - the same as BangZoom). But, I think that it shows that DA is a true high grade collector - buying the books, definitely not the label or the pedigree, because he appears to trust his own eye and judgment.

How can you tell if you don't have pre-staple replacement pics of the book? For the good of the hobby and preserving fragile aging comics, I do not think that collectors should be incentivized to let books suffer staple deterioration.

That is a REALLY BAD analogy. Here's the history on that manipulated (maybe even forged) card and the transactions it underwent: The most famous T206 Honus Wagner is the "Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner" card. The card's odd texture and shape led to speculation that it was altered. The Gretzky T206 Wagner first came to attention in 1985, when small-time Hicksville, New York card collector Alan Ray contacted Bob Sevchuk, the owner of a Long Island sports memorabilia store, to arrange a potential $25,000 deal for his T206 Honus Wagner card. Bill Mastro, a sports memorabilia dealer who later founded Mastro Auctions and became one of the most powerful figures in the industry, heard the news, and immediately jumped on the offer. Mastro, with the financial backing of friend Rob Lifson, sought to improve the offer and had Ray add 50 to 75 of his other T206 series cards, including the rare T206 Eddie Plank, into the deal. Ray, who later stated he "had a money situation," agreed to Mastro's terms of the deal. Mastro sold the card two years later to Jim Copeland for nearly four times the price he had originally paid. Copeland's sizable transaction revitalized interest in the sports memorabilia collection market. In 1991, Copeland sold the card to ice hockey figures Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall for $451,000. Gretzky resold the card four years later to Walmart and Treat Entertainment for $500,000 for use as the top prize in a promotional contest. The next year, a Florida postal worker won the card and auctioned it at Christie's for $640,000 to collector Michael Gidwitz. In 2000, the card was sold via Robert Edward Auctions to card collector Brian Seigel for $1.27 million. In February 2007, Seigel sold the card privately to an anonymous collector for $2.35 million. Less than six months later, the card was sold to another anonymous collector for $2.8 million. In April 2011, that anonymous purchaser was revealed to be Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks. In October 2013, Bill Mastro, CEO of Mastro Auctions (the owner of Robert Edward Auctions) pleaded guilty to mail fraud in U.S. District Court and later admitted to the court that he had trimmed the "Gretzky" Wagner card to sharply increase its value. In August 2020, the T206 record was broken when a Mike Trout 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Superfractors series rookie card with a card count of 1, a manufactured collectible, sold in August 2020 for a record setting $3.93 million. Other T206 Wagners, both legitimate and fake, have surfaced in recent years. Some of the real cards have fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars in auctions. One particular T206 Honus Wagner owned by John Cobb and Ray Edwards has attracted media controversy over its authenticity. I hope to God comics are not equivalent to baseball card collecting, but I fear that is or may be becoming the case.

I am willing to give DA enough credibility that he can side by side two books and pick the better copy. Everything you just said are reasons to NOT view CGC as the arbiter. For me CGC has taken some credibility hits recently. Which is too bad because the role it plays is essential for many.