tth2

On 2/28/2024 at 3:47 PM, tth2 said:

Par for the course for the Promise books.  

However, I need to check Master Chief's list as this may be one of the first super hero Timelys to be resold.  If so, it shows that they're not immune to the standard Promise price correction either.  

Checking back on the most recent list, there have been some previous Timely superhero resales, but only a few compared to resales of almost complete runs of DCs and others.  Mostly Captain Americas and Marvel Mysterys, along with a Sub-Mariner and All Winners.  A few have actually been flipped for a profit, but for the most part most resold at a loss, although generally for less than the average loss on all books.

On 2/28/2024 at 7:31 AM, Rick2you2 said:

unless someone has put in a price protection bid on their own stuff

Price protection bids are not just put in by people on their own stuff (which would be shilling).  Price protection bids are put in by people who are not the owner but who own similar pieces and want to protect the value of their pieces. 

On 2/28/2024 at 2:48 AM, MAR1979 said:

What already has occurred is its become a sector of the hobby for the wealthy or those who got in a long while ago.

On 2/28/2024 at 9:21 AM, batman_fan said:

Ouch on this one.

How it started

How it ended

Par for the course for the Promise books.  

However, I need to check Master Chief's list as this may be one of the first super hero Timelys to be resold.  If so, it shows that they're not immune to the standard Promise price correction either.  

On 2/27/2024 at 9:46 PM, Bronty said:

Is there a blondie reprint collection you'd recommend?

Not aware of any.  I only became aware of what it was like in the early years from reading the early strips that came on Heritage.    

On 2/27/2024 at 4:32 AM, Gotham Kid said:

it is all part of the marketing strategy

each item won will be a total surprise, no more of that 'what you see is what you get' nonsense.

CC are going old school, back to when CGC first came into existence and dealers wouldn't provide scans of slabbed books because "You've got the CGC grade, that's all you need to know." 

On 2/26/2024 at 8:35 PM, Bronty said:

On 2/26/2024 at 1:43 PM, tth2 said:

FTFY 

Ehhh.   You could say the same thing about any strip that’s been running 40 years.    As we’ve discussed, refer to exhibits Patty and Marcie. 

I totally agree.  I would've made the same revisions if someone had posted the same thing about Peanuts.

It's why I really only collect most comic strips from the first few years of their runs, because that's when you can expect that their creators were still really doing the work and the stories/gags were still strong.  For example, having read "Blondie" since the early 1970s, I always thought it was a terrible, stale strip.  But seeing strips from the early 1930s when they've been auctioned by Heritage, when Chic Young was still doing the work and there was a really interesting story between Blondie and Dagwood unfolding, has been a revelation. 

I have massive respect for Bill Watterson because he walked away while C&H was still going strong rather than continuing to milk it, even though I'm sure he left many millions on the table as a result. 

On 2/26/2024 at 3:47 AM, Bronty said:

He also continued to write recycle the strip for... I don't know how many years but when he stopped drawing he was still writing recycling the gags, drawing the preliminary panels, and just passing off the finished art. 

FTFY 

On 2/26/2024 at 6:08 AM, buttock said:

On 2/25/2024 at 5:49 PM, adamstrange said:

If you're tall but you're un-athletic, you have a lot of downsides with little upside from the height.  If you reached that height from Marfan Syndrome, even $50M isn't going to seem enough compensation.

Yeah, for me the absolute floor was $100M.  It would have to be enough to not only cover all the inconveniences, but also to still be a life-changing amount afterward.  

Being 5'6", I would definitely prefer to err on the side of being too tall than too short.   (Obviously setting aside major health issues, but it's not like short people can't have health issues too.)

I would certainly rather be 7' tall than 4' tall.

On 2/26/2024 at 1:53 AM, Darwination said:

No matter how much it catches on, there's gonna be some issues now where it's more common to see them slabbed than "raw" (and I can't even believe I'm using that word).  So to get (what's already likely an expensive issue in the first place) you're paying at least the extra 50 bucks someone paid for the grade and press and likely much more extra because "look, it's in a shiny box."  In the comics down in my lowroller ballpark, viola, a 75 or 100 dollar book is now instantly a 250 or 300 dollar book.  Not to mention it's giving a helluva lot of agency/cream to a third party.  I see around here all the time "buy the book not the grade," then why the hell pay all the extra costs for the grading?  In the Baker thread, for example, I see books in the 3.0 range that are much more appealing to the eye than others graded up around 5-6.  If the comic ain't leaving the box anyways, why pay multiples more for a book that looks half as nice?  Worried about resto or trimming? Because other people are?  Because you're worried about your investment?  If you don't know it's there, should it really bother you?  I see on threads where people are perfectly happy with a book until some little defect comes to their awareness and then they just have to sell.  Because of the idea of perfection.  What I truly get a kick out of, though, are the people that are slabbing willy nilly, like some modern book in mid-grade.  It's like, bro, put that slabbing cost towards a better copy and you could own 3 of the mintiest of the same book.  And then there's the fact that sometimes a book being CGC'd actually creates a situation where a buyer has no recourse.  A pal bought a slabbed expensive book to get some missing pages for a scan, cracks it, and, viola, missing cf.  Is the seller at fault?  Not really, how's he supposed to know?  No returns on slabs - and now it's not slabbed anyways.  CGC gonna kick down in this instance? sheeeeeit.....

I had to doublecheck to see if I hadn't somehow opened a thread from 2003.

I am absolutely gutted.  I've been working with Ed for over 20 years, such a great guy and a class act. 

My condolences to his family. 

RIP. 

RIP. 

The only comic artist ever mentioned in an episode of "Entourage".  

A fair number of slabbed pulps are going to be in the April Signature Auction, including a 7.0 copy of the Weird Tales batgirl issue.

The Watchmen page is getting the obligatory early "price defense" bids.

On 2/23/2024 at 11:15 PM, buttock said:

I have a group of friends with whom I grab beers from time to time and I threw out the question "how much would you have to get paid to be 7 feet tall?"  For those of us who are financially comfortable the number was at least $50M.  One of us, who isn't financially comfortable was at $250k.  That amount of money would change his station in life, but not for the rest of us. 

I've read that 25% of all 7-footers in the world have played in the NBA.  For a 25% chance to play in the NBA, I would've thought that most people would be willing to pay to be 7 feet tall, not have to be paid.  

On 2/24/2024 at 4:58 AM, delekkerste said:

Yeah, I guess they're moving these to focused sales with the lower-rent stuff placed in the weeklies. 

But the real question is whether they decided to remove them from the Signature auctions because they thought they would do better separately or whether there were just too many NoGarfielders and NeverGarfielders complaining about all the Garfields in the big sales.  

Don't forget the GarfieldBirthers. 

On 2/22/2024 at 2:07 AM, adamstrange said:

Fawcett is not a hot company and the cover has none of the usual aspects that drive demand, so that seems the more likely explanation for the lukewarm market interest.

Which makes the selection of Goldin as the auction venue for such a niche book even more puzzling.

On 2/21/2024 at 1:22 AM, adamstrange said:

On 2/21/2024 at 12:59 AM, tth2 said:

I just went to check out the previews for the upcoming April Signature Auction and there were so many low grade GA books that for a second I thought I had accidentally opened up the ComicConnect auction.

Heritage should reimburse you for the time you wasted, and, more importantly, the trauma you suffered.

You get me. 

I just went to check out the previews for the upcoming April Signature Auction and there were so many low grade GA books that for a second I thought I had accidentally opened up the ComicConnect auction.

On 2/20/2024 at 11:44 AM, drdroom said:

And let me take this opportunity to remind everyone that the first couple of days are JUST for tracking bids. Please just place the minimum bid (up one increment). You are NOT trying to win the piece at this early stage. There have been times the bids went up so fast I was nervous to place a tracking bid that might actually win (this being a piece I didn't actually want or couldn't afford at that price, but still wanted to track what it went for).

Good luck with that.  It's clear from OA bidding across all platforms that there are bidders who put in what I call "defend the price" bids right from the start on OA, particularly high profile pieces.  

Bidding patterns are very different from most comics, where even high profile books will typically see pretty restrained bidding at the start and there's no concern in putting in a tracking bid, while OA prices jump so quickly from the start that there can be some trepidation at putting in a tracking bid. 

On 2/18/2024 at 6:35 AM, cstojano said:

I quit smoking easier and permanently over 25 years ago.

Congrats on quitting smoking.

On 2/18/2024 at 8:00 AM, Fischb1 said:

ComicLink (unlink HA and CC) doesn't have a "watch item" function. No watchlist.

So everyone bids early, prices that everyone knows won't be the winners, so that items go on their "Auction Bids" list, which essentially functions as a watchlist. This happens every auction. As an effect of this, many items get most of their bids early and barely move at the end.

 

I don't know if the absence of a watch list makes that much of a difference.  Most people I know put in a tracking bid on Heritage, even though they do have a watch function, because it's a pain to toggle between a watch list and a bid list.  It's easier just to consolidate everything someone is watching on one page, which ends up being the bid list.  

In addition, many OA owners feel compelled to put in "defend the price" bids from the start to establish floor prices for the art and to goose the bidding.  This is true on Heritage as well as as Clink.  Combined with the tracking bids that many bidders put in, this quickly drives the prices up, but then they'll usually sit for a couple of weeks after the initial flurry.   

Deleted at request of various posters who'd been quoted.