From Worldwide Comics website:
"The Golden State collection was amassed by a meticulous collector residing in the San Francisco area who carefully filed away his newsstand copies each month. The core of the collection ranged from the early 60s to present, but also included a very impressive run of Golden Age as well.
The owner finally decided to part with the Golden and Silver Age portions of his collection in the early 90s, and much of it entered the market through a national dealer. Unfortunately much of the Silver Age was never documented as the Golden State collection, although one can still find random CGC graded issues floating about. The average grade of this period was 9.4 and 9.6, truly amazing books.
Fast forward to 2008, the original owner has finally decided to sell the remainder of his collection, which consists of late Bronze Age to present. WWC is proud to offer this last section of the Golden States to collectors starting this week. Just about every single title and issue from Marvel, DC and most 80s independents are there, with the vast majority grading CGC 9.8. WWC will be releasing over 5,000 CGC graded Golden States throughout the rest of 2009 and early 2010. Each book will display a Golden State sticker on the CGC case."
It was Dan Greenhalgh of Showcase New England who acquired the Silver Age part of the collection and started selling the books in 1997. I know that because when I heard Dan got the collection, I drove from NYC to Dan's office in Wallingford, CT to get my hands on the books. As far as I know, only one collector, John Sergeant, beat me there. But John managed to wipe out large parts of the Silver Age Marvel runs.
I still managed to buy 137 GS books from Dan on that trip – all priced at 2.5 x Guide.
In early 2000, John Sergeant sold his collection to Joe Verenault and the books hit the market again. CGC hadn't yet opened its doors, so obviously the books were still raw.