Mmehdy

I looked over each of the 274 Promise books last night online and blow up, and my prior 700K auction estimate is quite low. My new estimate is 1.24 M for the auction lot of books...

The Bat-Man 1 in 9.4 is clearly and historically a much more stable financial climb to that level than X-Men 1 9.6 at one M or 750K. The SA market has been hit by by AMC like investors which have created in my opinion a very unsustainable price level which will in the future be subject to the possibility large price downward price fluctuations or swings. That should have little effect on the historically and truly rare Batman #1 in 9.4. The ability of say Giant Size X-Men #1 to price fluctuation is 1000 times greater due simply the number of copies available that can trade on the open market. Those grow on trees, while 9.4 Batman #1 don't or 8.5 copies of Action #1. Our GA world is safe for the time being. Price manipulation of SA Keys by speculators should have no effect on future value or demand for the Promise books. Because 75% of the books will be the highest graded copies of very rare GA books in that condition it cannot be hyper inflated by multiple sales. Most copies will be bought by savvy GA TCBC and over time those books will get lost into collection holes or by very smart GA dealers who will hold and sell only at the time very slowly. I would assume any combo collector of both Ga/SA would come running over to GA during this price run up of SA books with future purchases for their collection. Even say, a collector/investor of Ga/SA will want to park their money on the good long term Promise books as a safe haven during this very uncertain time of true valuation of SA super hot books and the sustainability of the value which you will currently pay. That is the point here, 1 copy of over 5000 Pedigreed OO GA comic books cannot be duplicated ever again. BUT, there are many, many more SA collections to be discovered or have yet to come to market looking at the future to knock off or reduce in the census your X-Men #1 at 9.6...much risker at $750 that your books will be reduced down the CGC ladder of top existing copy. Buyer Beware at this time, in the CGC SA comic book world. Ha said it right, not in the last 25 years or probably ever again will a true OO over 5000 top graded GA comic book collection will ever surface. We are living in historic times in our GA comic book world. Investors and widget buyers are going into the SA comic book market, AMC stock, Gamestop and whatever ...well so be it...just stay out of Gold...forever

We will find out soon...

is there a web link to the firing?

What is mind-blowing is there are over 5000 of them....what a great time to be a TCBC...GA style

I do not think that simply putting money in play will automatically create a decrease in the value or market desirability of these promise books. I agree speculation is rampant in the SA Giant size X-Men 1 etc. So it makes perfect sense to sell the SA books in which there are hundreds and even thousands of graded copies at a price peak and buy one of the highest graded rare OO GA. I am on board with that...it is called a trade up. What I disagree with is your timeline of price decline. If the President's spending package for infastructure is passed along with the fact that the economy is going to ramp up similar to the roaring 20's this continued spending can easily last over 4 years. I agree with you that at some point...somebody, meaning me and you, are gonna pay for it. The big wigs are figured out that inflation will eliminate part of the value of the Debt which I think today is 24 Trillion dollars and counting. I think some choice GA/SA will increase ,decrease, and flatline over the next 5 years. The Promise collection is the safest place to buy, trade up GA comic books. Yes quality GA books cost money for a reason, they are rare and in ultra top condition. Buying " time" is the key here. When you have over 5000 promise books dumped on the market in the next 18 months...that is the time buy...not after the last promise book is auctioned by HA.

Ha. is the 800 pound gorilla here..Best website by a mile and best catalogs hands down. Any guesses our there on the auction total for the first 274 books? mine is 700K

I think your approach to buying into the "promise" collection is both safe and sane. "Wait and see' is what a number of collectors are gonna do and if this collection was say 1500 books the chances of you getting a few to slip thru the cracks would have been greatly reduced. We are, according to ha.com, over 5000 OO GA comic books coming on the market over 18 months. For those of you who are patient, rewards could very well become reality...lets see,

Where there is two definite sides to this issue. The advantage of a GA/SA comic book, is that it is a tangible assets that exits vs a stock certificate in cyber land. So, while the stock can go down to 0, you can read and have a real asset.The stock market is the ultimate Monday morning quarterback and it always look" easy" to say, I should of bought 500 shares of Amazon at 100 bucks each. I could of, would of , and should of...but real difference is it is very very difficult to know how to purchase and hold Amazon for 20 years. It is much easier to make that decision to buy an Action 1 or Cap 1 of AF15 or Church or SF books. Stocks are easier to sell in an instant thus harder to hand on too when the market trade winds go up and down. Yes, you say the average SP returns are greater overall....but who owns, and holds that over 30 year period...very very few if any. It is in fact just a statistic not a reality that few of any people really get that benefit. One reality for real and sure is Action 1, FF1, Allentown GA books in terms of growth, stability and increased desirability over time..... My advice is stick with what you know and do not get greedy to 5% or 50% more when you are doing a real crapshoot in the stock. market when you are a little fish hoping to catch the whale institutional investors and hedge funds wave. The hedge funds are miles ahead of the average investor and even they do not get it right some times. Comics are 100% more stable, more investment recognizable for the purchaser, and tangible that stocks will ever be. I would say this, comics and stocks are DIFFERENT investments all together , like apple and orange...neither is better but to me as a TCBC GA/SA comic books are a heck of lot safer and cooler to own.

Acceptance is great but not the only factor in this current major GA/SA price growth, and acceptance especially in the books breaking 1M and above, or 3.25 million for A1 8.5 which quite a remarkable price without a wimpier or hint from the media that the price received was overpaid. The media today just accepts the price paid as the actual value as opposed to 48 years ago. The major factor I see is increased demand....worldwide for that matter which means increased completion. Increased awareness creates more demand by its very nature but there are many other growth factors out there contributing to our booming GA/SA comic book market. Inflation is a factor in price growth and I agree with that statement ...but that is not a new thing, I remember buying a new 1974 Mustang for $1500 back in late 73...Yes I agree, the Promise books can act as an inflation hedge, just like rare coins or gold or Real Estate...something tangible which is not just paper money which is currently decreasing in value by over 4% yearly and we have seen nothing yet, that rate is going to go up with all of this money printing...it is gravity. However, I would never advise a collector to buy a promise book on a straight inflation hedge alone. I think if you buy wisely, condition pedigreed promise books, that is today' GA/SA comic book market, it is the safest bet you can make as a TCBC. I assume as a TCBC you can hold your position for longer than the widget fast food 12 mins those newbies want to make a flip and profit. Given the uniqueness of these Promise books, I do see a number of collectors, who have not been in the market for a long time, making a noise . These are very smart veteran collectors who are in this for the very long term. I think those collectors will be either on the sidelines watching or bidding and even winning during the next 18 months. I disagree that in the foreseeable future that you can make the call that prices will remain flat. I can not. they have the possibly of going up, down or flat as you say....we know where we have been in the past 50 years of comic book collecting price growth ..we are there now, so my advice has been unchanged ever since I was and still am a collector for the last 50 years...Buy the GA book itself for the GA book itself as a TCBC and over time with all the ups and downs and sideways you will end up being just fine.

That is the point of having this on the boards, we have now and in the past some "super" posters who have shared their knowledge to make our comic book world even better. This board is famous for getting tough questions, especially in "Gold section" and coming up with some amazing answers. those that you mention are well worth consideration, but if you had to pick one...who would be?

Aman619, let me respond to a couple of points here from your post and thank you for the interesting post. 1-"there are few mega keys in promise collection that will survive any downturn". That statement would apply at the time of purchase to the "church" collection which was available at 300% of current market Overstreet pricing. A lot mega keys where purchased by whale collectors and those never hit the comic conventions as there were probably 15,000 books. The Church and SF books "mega Keys" as in the SF collection Mr. Rowe got the Tech 27 and Whiz #1 (there was not Action 1) right off the top. "mega keys" is an overrated term in my opinion. To me Cap #74 is a mega key...a great GA Comic Book, Cover and history making horror and Ga crossover transition time in our comic book time line. There can by my definition 100's of mega keys depending upon who you are as a collector, what need to complete your collection, or buying one great pedigree GA book from the OO. No, although the promise collection has Cap#1..who cares...Mega Key is "to each is own" in our GA/SA comic book world. Downturns have occurred thought out the last 50 years. Early in the 1970's EC's were very hot, then the Russ Cochran reprints hit, the EC comic book market was flooded and prices were stuck, after that also the "Gaines " file copies hit...and wow it took about 20 years to absorb them in the expanding GA comic book market such that prices could begin to appreciate again. Everything went up and they crept up from collectors saying , wow these at a great price..and look today as the EC market is strong and recovered both price and demand wise. Ok so there will be a downturn at some time, I agree with you, but the one thing that has kept value, that has survived whether it a mega key or not was the demand and price stability of the SF and Church collections overall and the fact that they are pedigreed and in outstanding condition. 2-" it does not feel the right time to go all out competing wildly for these 5000 books". It never has and never will. I remember going back to church, SF etc and If you bought a SF 5years ago or 40 years ago you always second guess or whether you went to high, buyers remorse. To me you buy the "book" and in this case you have 5000 or more top grade condition issues to chose from.Go with your GA collecting heart knowing where you are headed. Competition today is you against the world, whether it is on Ha.co, E-bay or CC etc..it is not wild, it is more intense but that is not going to be limited to the promise books, if you have a top graded SA/GA comic book without the pedigree you are still gonna end up in a fight. You might as well fight for the good pedigree stuff where you are out there. 3- "you always promote a giddy carefree excitement for the future of the hobby" I would change "hobby" to livelong comic book collector and I hope everyone here is the same and gives it 20 or 30 years...LOL Once you are a TCBC, even if you sell everything , you still are one of US in that love of our GA/SA comic book world. It is not "giddy" for me, but looking back over 50 years, saying "Yea....we did it" we made it and now the whole world accepts comic book collecting as legitimate. Every board member knows that coming into this pandemic I was scared, I mean we all were...the whole world shut down and I for one, said sell. what you don't need and trade up and get quality GA/SA books which should outlast the pandemic. I thought prices would adjust downward, and I was wrong. I admit it and own it. But I cannot allow the fact that just because some stimulus money was given out to small businesses and $600 in unemployment benefits to people effected by this economic shut down that this was the "cause" of the "frothy" GA/SA comic book market. I cannot agree with you, when the world shut down, people had a chance to stop, read, learn and appreciate things that they never had time for. Our GA/SA comic book market grew in terms of price and demand because simply put Ga/SA comic books are great, and rare, and collectable, and historical and so on and so on so give he Ga/SA comic book its due..... I do not go on these board as a cheerleader and suggest to our board members here to go out and buy EVERY GA/SA comic book. I never have and I never will. Over the last 10 years being on this board, I have explained to members on this board my opinion that Cap#1 was a great great buy back in 2011 and I still think its great buy today in 2021. A number of great books I have talked about and encouraged GA collectors to acquire. But as you know, early on I had a very strong preference for Blue Label books, and a very conservative approach to the description of is in reality unrestored. To some extent, I still have those feelings. But never once, have I ever advised anyone to buy any GA book in a non responsible manner. If you can make the money payments then you should on equal footing with those who can write a check and believe in it. Once this pandemic is completely over and measures to aid us and business are slowly turned off, the reasons for GA/SA price growth will still be there. There are unlimited amount of great comic book properties like never before on so many different platforms to spread out and hit the planet in terms of promotions and comic book awareness . Who would of ever thought that there would be a "Loki" tv show 25 years ago...you would have be laughed and called me a wacko. Do you see the preview of that show...the creative forces and unlimited potential there...wow just go look the trailer, it is great, amazing and of course great for out GA/SA comic book world. I not being a cheerleader here, I am just reacting to what is happening and saying "wow". I can predict this with pretty much 99% certainly, that parts of our GA/SA comic book world, will up, down, and even out...and my response that is enjoy it, and make your Ga/SA collection ride ever better.

That is something that only a 1970's collector would know, in the early comic conventions the GA pricing and even the SA were priced "forward:..which meant higher than comic shops were. I can remember that after the SF collection came on board, the "comics and comics " pricing changed on all GA after that and comic book stores pricing went forward or significantly above guide, say 40%, even 50%. At the time, you knew you were "overpaying" and had that feeling you were being taken advantage of unless you fully believed in the comic book GA/SA market and its future growth. Long term holds or being a collector due have a way of working things out over time, especially if you bought quality books, such as high grade GA/SA or significant issues. Looking back you say to yourself " I should of bought it all"...well live and learn.

I do not consider it "cheerleading" but expressing my opinion on where the future market lies in terms of price security specifically for this Promise collection. Let me put it a different way, if you are gonna stick you neck out and pay current market prices in 2021 not 1976..do so with choice high grade new pedigree comic books. Aman619 it does not get any better, or safer than this for 2021. I doubt that in the future we will see another 95% ultra high grade OO 5000 + GA comic book collection hit on this market again. We are putting skin in the game, every day as TCBC who chose not sell at "nosebleed" prices when looking back to the 1970's. We are still in the game, you and I every TCBC that maintains a collection as collector/ investor . We are just limited on the buy side, due to the "good old days of pricing". But there are two sides to the collecting fence. "caution" should be replaced by intelligence and safe and sane financial practices when buying. The Promise collection is as good as it gets in our GA/SA comic book world. The "gravy train" is in fact the "reality" train that today more than ever before GA/SA comic books have reached acceptance among the collecting communities such as Fine Art, Rare Coins as something with inherit value and rarity. Basically our GA/SA comic book market has grown up and has been recognized by the "big boys" as a member on the true value investment club It has taken us many years and many roads to go down to get there.. Yes, the negative side effects of the current GA/SA comic book market growth have also contributed to price increases...Savy widget buyers have entered out GA/SA comic book market looking to turn a quick flip..and we as TCBC have to deal with them. Finally. "past performance is no guarantee of future gains" and I respond to you, we as TCBC should be thankful of that outstanding 50 year price history of clear and sustained gains in value and demand and increased awareness. and acceptance. This is a roadmap to me as to where we have headed in the past, and where our path will take us in the future. Aman, great post, thank you

Strange when Church copies hit the market at 3x guide, that is exactly what they said at the time back in 1970's. A number of dealers said you will never get your money back. Over time, based upon my 50+ years of living the GA/SA comic book market, my opinion is the same, when I bought those Church copies at 300% of mint guide, if you can buy and hold, you not will lose one penny, same here on the promise collection, over time the price you pay on these very high grade pedigree books will appreciate greatly. At the time when you paid 300% of guide there were very few options if you needed a quick resale on the church books. No dealer and very few collectors would bail you out. Today with a worldwide comic book market you have a much better chance to recover your purchase price. Looking back, the Promise books are a much safer buy that the Church's were in the 1970's.

It is a valid concern, however there are over 5000 Promise books to be auctioned in the next 18 months, so at some point either during the weekly auctions or Signature there will be an opening to get some books from this collection without the feeding frenzy. I agree if it was Billy Wrights '367 over two auctions the competition would be stiff. But, I think if you are patient there will be some "sane" deals out there that both you and I come across.

That is the point on that 12 month financing...to protect the TCBC...the flipper widget buyer is not gonna wait 12 minutes let alone 12 months to get possession of the books. The key to those investors is buy, flip, and make a profit. Gold, Silver whether comics or coins there is no difference. I would never advise any board member here not to buy responsibly...EVER. Some of you take a chance and dive off the board, but is should be done with careful consideration of your entire financial picture. Yes, you have to do a balancing act between getting these Comic books once every 20 years mega OO collection books. But MatttheDuck you are spot on and I too would rather see the promise books in the hands responsible collectors who can respect and appreciate these books for what they are. The time payments creates a somewhat equal footing for the TCBC to get a part of the promise collection against the economic forces who have a investment bankroll.

I would check with Ha.com..I would suppose if you were buying a large number of books, you be able to get them to adjust that fee, as opposed to buying a single book. I generally pay by E-check which is no fee directly out of my checking account or by check.

great videos thanks

6% apr on annual basis on the remaining balance after your 25% down with one month for free, so it works out to about 5.5 annual if you take the full year on the balances due that month. If you belong to a credit union you might be able to bet a much better rate but, you have nothing to lose you could put down 25% and at the end of the 30 days pay off the balance in full with no interest charge. If you pay with credit card even if they ding you 2.5% and its interest free balance transfer that could be another way to go. We over 5000 OO GA books, so you have a lot of options available to you.

HOW TO VIEW AND BUY THE PROMISE COLLECTION: 1: View the promise collection: As a lifelong Ha customer, you learn things. A: Go to the auction main page B:Click "view or download printable catalog" C: Click "download FDF"...this will take a while D: Scroll down to the 3d Catalog which is the "promise collection part 1" D: you will see the largest blowup of any "promise" book available, every detail will be present it is amazing. E: Always look at largest blowup before you decide what to bid, on any Ha.com Signature item. Once you discover this your future auction research will never be the same in terms of what you are buying. 2: To purchase a promise collection book consider the following: A-On page 5 of the promise catalog you have special "promise" auction terms of purchase": "25% down payment> Then up to 12 equal monthly payments with the first 30 days free. Then 6% APR interest. Delivery when the invoice is paid in full." B- Go online and check best new credit card offers of 0% or 2% balance interest free for 6 months, 9 months or even one year. I hope this is helpful to one and all...check out that blown up PDF Your fellow TCBC, Mitch

CVA to means means its too close to call on the next grade up...I agree a premium needs to taken into consideration but limited to possible the next higher grade price level. Top grade choice GA books cost money and I am sure overtime you prices will seem reasonable and not crazy.

I think the new generation of "newbies" are plugged into the "marvel universe" full throttle. When it comes to GA...it the grails from 1939-1941 that is gonna attract them. But the beauty of this collection is about 0% care about All Winner's 19, 21 Phantom Lady. So, I think this promise collection does not fit their buy mode, as it is not easy unless you have some real collector interest or knowledge to chose the right ones among the over 5000 OO Ga books. Allentown, Billy Wright for sure they would be a major bone to contend with. I think the dealer/investor aspect...dealers who know the long term value of this collection book by book are going to be the bigger competition for the promise collection. They definitely have the holding power and will wait for perfect timing on resale or to help pay for their very long term holds. There are so many promise books hitting the market over the next 18 months that every TCBC will have a shot for couple of these great books "newbie" free.

There is no panic, only reality here. 5000+ OO GA books with 95% top grade speaks for itself. There is no hype either, its one the last OO GA comic book collections on this size to ever appear. I do not believe that any SF copy or Chuck copy original purchaser has ever lost on those buys. Yes this is 2021. You can buy an sell anything for any price at any time, however using common sense and purchasing from a collector's standpoint with an ability to hold these books for 3+ years I do no see a number of re-sold at a loss with that program in mind. Are widget buyers more likely to lose, yes if they have no holding power. If you are a collector, a TCBC who is buying the book itself in the best possible condition, then I disagree with you that a loss always happens with over hyped auctions. This is not over hype, but the real deal.

I agree with that, it is going to see how this bidding is going shape the future of other Promise auctions, still I think there will be one or two books which get "lost' for someone wanting to get a book or two at a reasonable price, When we are about empty say at 4800 promise books sold, the panic of getting left out will probably take the last books to a very high price level. Buy the book you want when it becomes available sooner rather than later.