sfcityduck

Don't you own an Okajima? Did you have to pay a premium over a similarly graded non-Okajima example of the comic? That seems standard with the camp copies now.

Heritage certainly agrees with you on the value of a good story. For the Promise Collection, they love hyping the story ... even though they never actually tell it in any detail. They even attempt to distinguish it from the SF story, which is virtually indistinguishable (soldier goes off to war, he dies, and his comics are preserved by his parents until they die), but don't explain why the the Promise story is any different. Brian Weidman, Consignment Director at Heritage, made these comments during an interview of him and Matt Nelson (President of CGC) by Dino on Tales From the Flipside Ep. 180 in July 2021:

I was pondering why the Okajima back story propels even mid-grade camp books into multiples above the price of equal (and higher) graded comics. My conclusion was that the Okajima camp books are a symbol (and an artifact of) of a shameful episode in American history which saw thousands of American citizens (and want to be American citizens - immigrants from Japan) lose their rights and their property, and also a symbol of (and evidence of) the resilience of the internees in maintaining their dignity as they strove to live the most normal life they could under the unjust conditions their own government had subjected them to. The back story adds a lot of value because it is fascinating history. And I think comic collectors tend to care about history. So the back stories do seem to matter when they have some sort of historical significance. If so, they will boost the values of even mid-grade examples. To me this is a thing entirely apart from pedigrees getting a bump in price because they have superior gloss, structure, etc. Mile High's got a big bump in price before anyone knew or cared who Edgar Church was because they were just incredibly well-preserved comics. The Church story is interesting, but I don't think it adds anything to the desirability of a MH copy versus some other copy. The best evidence of that might be DA rejecting MH copies of some key issues because he preferred better examples. Representatives of Heritage and CGC do think a good story boosts the value of a pedigree, specifically citing Okajima when discussing the Promise Collection. So what do you guys think: Does a good story add significant value to a pedigree? Outside of the Okajima's, any pedigrees where you think the back story boosts the values of even mid-grade copies by multiples (making them worth more than higher graded better examples that are not from the pedigree)?

Honestly, I think those are all incredibly awesome! Most I've never seen. And man are they in great shape! Thanks for posting something I haven't seen before.

How about a list of the top 5 non-pedigree books? I'd think the Action 1 9.0 white would top that list. The 9.4 All-Star 8 white and 9.4 Batman 1 white would also make the top 5. Maybe the WW 1 9.0 white solicitation copy? There are plenty of great non-peds that are better books than the same issues in most of the pens.

Not sure what the quibble is with my statement that they are "presently very rare in the marketplace." Aren't we in agreement on that? More could come up for sale. A very few have hit the market already.

They just screwed up with California residents. You can safely disregard it. They did not send a 1099 to the IRS or the FTB.

I got it too. But "be aware" of it, NOT "beware" it!

Nice copy of the first appearance of any content that ended in Maus (Prisoner in the Hell Planet)! My slab is my undercopy of that, but Funny Aminals is the first "Maus" story - an early version that was expanded.

To me, the pedigrees that are most likely to add value over an equivalent book in the long-term are: 1. Okajima camp books - GREAT back story about the history of the Japanese internment, OO was clearly a huge comic fan who preserved the comics through her time in the camp, and the irony of the WWII anti-Japanese books being in this collection ticks every historical coolness factor in existence. 2. Promise - 'nuff said. 3. Gaines - EC association copies once owned by the great Bill Gaines - clearly better than owning an ordinary EC in the same condition. 4. Chinatown - Really interesting back story about a blue collar immigrant from China who collected the comics to aid his acquisition of English (and they are presently very rare on the marketplace). I think the interesting story and weird geographic twist could make these an item folks will seek out just for the uniqueness. 5. Pay Copies - Ok, a cheat for sure. But the Lloyd Jacquet "Pay Copies" deserve "pedigree status" because they probably have the best provenance of any pre-WWII books and are among the most interesting comics ever!

Moore was a DC savior when he wrote "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" in Superman 423 and Action 538 in 1986. But, back then comics had not become a niche product. If Moore had been a force at DC into the 90s and beyond, would we have seen a Wonder Woman et al. Lost Girls? I'd hope not.

I edited my post for better instructions for eBay.

No email came to me Bob. 1. In My eBay pull down menu click on "Selling" 2. In "Selling" click on "Payments" (at top) 3. In "Payments" click on "Taxes" (at side, also on Payments pull down menu) - might make you log in again after you click taxes 4. You're there.

I don't get your point. You'll have to flesh this out. Let me say this: The only reason that the Constitution limits the "right" of free speech by not protecting a person from prosecution for yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is because the Courts have interpreted it that way. They did so because our Constitution conveys to the Courts the right to interpret it as new fact patterns arise. In that sense the Constitution is absolutely a living document, one that is adapted to new facts, including new technologies, that were not envisioned by the Framers, Adopters/Ratifiers, and earliest interpreters. The Framers and Adopters/Ratifiers knew this process would happen this way. They had explicit discussions of this flexibility during the Ratification and Adoption debates. Moreover, shortly after the original Constitution (drafted 1787) was adopted and ratified in 1788, a Bill of Rights was drafted in 1789 which made explicit in the 11th Amendment that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This amendment was adopted and ratified in 1791. It empowers the Courts to identify and protect rights retained by the people which are not explicitly set forth in the Constitution. So I'm not getting your point at all.

You have to go and get it off of eBay. Mine was available for download today. Note: I'm not a dealer. It was for casual sales.

Time for a Rodney King moment: Can't we all just get along and stick to Maus on this thread?

Apparently not a serious effort. LoL!

Get back to me when the case is over. I will say this now: All federal judges "take seriously" the cases before them, even when the case is not a serious case. That does not mean every ruling by a federal district judge is correct. I get hosed more than I'd like. That's why we have Courts of Appeal and a Supreme Court. As for this judge, I don't know anything about him. Federal judges are appointed for life and even if they make stupid rulings they keep their jobs. Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court exist to correct mistakes. So you can't evaluate cases like this based on allegations and early rulings in the case, or even at the end of the trial court proceedings. You have to wait to see if the rulings are endorsed as broader authority by a Court of Appeal. The facts in your article are not enough to allow me to offer an opinion on what actually happened. The plaintiff is going to have to meet a high burden, with facts not just allegations, to get a judgment that Twitter is a state actor in this limited context. And even if it so deemed, that's not going to establish Twitter is a state actor for all purposes. So I think you are more than a bit overly excited by one guy's filing. But, none of this has anything to do with the Maus situation which is undoubtedly the government, not a private business, censoring. So what's the point?

Sorry, but that's completely wrong and at odds with over two hundred years of free speech jurisprudence in the U.S. The majority of men who drafted the Constitution, the majority of men who voted to send the Constitution to the states for ratification and adoption as the new country's governing document, the majority men in the state legislatures who voted to adopt the Constitution, and the majority of men on the Supreme Court which first ruled on the Constitution all disagree with the view you just stated. There has always been speech which the framers, adopters, and earliest enforcers of the Constitution considered beyond the pale of Constitutional protection.

Are you an attorney? Because the threshold to deem a private business or individual as a "state actor" is very high. I don't think there is any reasonable case to be made that Twitter or Facebook etc. meet that threshold and are "state actors." Certainly, no one has ever been able to make that case in court. I don't think that anyone has even made a serious attempt. The issue of businesses not being allowed to turn away customers of a certain race or gender is an entirely different issue with different considerations. It is not legally analogous. I could go on and on regarding this point, but it would take a deep dive into a bunch of different Constitutional law concepts that really don't belong on a thread devoted to discussing Maus. Suffice it to say that a business' right to turn away customers is not unlimited because no right is absolute. If you want to pass a law telling Twitter that it cannot take down viewpoints that it doesn't like on its message board, you are the one advocating a form of censorship. Twitter will argue that such a law would violate its free speech rights to decide what speech it is willing to provide a platform to, which is true, and will argue that there is no compelling government interest would which justify that law since posters are free to make their own platforms or go to other platforms more sympathetic to their speech. And Twitter would win. There's a place in the internet for everyone. That some are more popular than others doesn't matter under a free speech analysis. You don't have a right to access to the more popular platforms just because they are more popular. You just have a right to access to a platform.

For a private business, it is their choice. They are private actors. Constitutional rights only apply to state action. Again, no one is going to bat an eye if Maus is banned by a private school. I'm sure that it is banned by private schools. But, that's THEIR right. Not sure why folks are so confused about what this thread is about. It is about a government entity, a school board, censoring Maus. It is not about a private actor, such as Twitter, taking down posts. If we are going to talk politics, we should stick with comic-related politics, and if the topic is censorship we should have a very firm grasp on the reality of the scope of the U.S. Constitution. Otherwise we are all going to learn that CGC has the right to take down our posts.

A lot of people get confused when talking about "rights." When we talk about Constitutional rights, we are talking about rights vis a vis government actors. We are not talking about rights versus private individuals or businesses. And, even as to rights against the government, they are not absolute. For very good reasons, we recognize that every Constitutional right has an outer limit and that a compelling government interest can justify government suppression of a Constitutional right. Of course, I'm talking about the U.S. here. Most other countries do not have as robust protections for free speech as we have here.

Your nit pick does not work in this discussion. In the context in which I'm using those terms, they mean what the private business or individual who is taking down the message posted on their board thinks they mean. For some businesses it will mean one thing, for others something else. That is their right to decide.

There is a big difference between government censorship, which is what free speech theory addresses (such as in the case of the Maus censorship here), and an action by private business. If a private school or a home schooling parent wants to ban Maus no one will blink an eye. Because that is THEIR right. You seem a bit confused on this point.

Free speech is about the speaker, not the recipient. All ideas are not entitled to be given equal weight by the viewers or listeners. Just because you post something on a private businesses’ message platform does not mean that business is obligated to help you spread that message by keeping it up on their site. If the message is abhorrent, false, stupid, defamatory, or traitorous it may well be taken down, You can always find another corner of the internet on which to post.