tth2

Someone's tune has changed in the space of a few months!

$264k for a raw VG unrestored October 1912 All-Story.

I remember the Gary Keller collection on HA which I thought was a somewhat similar situation. Which raises the question whether this seller was also selling so quickly because of financial duress.

The history of this hobby, for as long as I can remember, has been one of new deep-pocketed collectors getting their faces ripped off. Was this particular buyer steered towards their big ticket purchases by a particular dealer famed for being the dealer to the stars?

So did the owner. It would be amusing if the seller was also the same person selling all the Promises.

Especially considering that CGC has reportedly graded another copy that received a blue label and significantly higher grade.

Really? I guess it depends on perspective. Most of these big books previously changed hands privately and I think money has been lost on most of them. That just means someone way overpaid in a private deal. Compared to the last public sale of some of these books, they did very well.

It needs to top $1.5mil + to not be a loss.

Even pitchers used to get hits every now and then.

That's not the decision most people are coming to, particularly dealers/flippers who are buying restored CT books. They only care about making money off the book. They could care less if the books are damaged as a result, all they care about is getting an unrestored label with as little a drop in grade as possible and successfully arbitraging the difference between the value of the book as a restored CT book and the value of the book as an unrestored CT-scraped book.

I still don't see the problem. I don't think someone has to actually have a piece in their physical inventory to sell it, so long as they can obtain it to fulfill the purchase. I know a number of comic dealers back in the day who offered me comics that they probably didn't have physically in hand but knew where to get them from other dealers or collections if I pulled the trigger. In fact, especially if this was back in the old days where I'd have no idea that a piece was available and who had it, and thus would never have been able to acquire the piece but for this guy bringing it to my attention, I can't see how I'm worse off. If he wasn't doing this, I would never be able to acquire the piece in the first place. Now, if after paying the guy he for some reason couldn't get the piece from a dealer and then didn't refund the money to me, that's a whole different issue.

If the buyer wasn't willing to do the legwork to find that piece wherever else it was publicly on sale, and thus would never have known that the piece was available elsewhere and therefore would never have otherwise acquired it, I have no problem with that buyer being charged extra. He's got a piece that he otherwise wouldn't have, he was willing to pay the price, and the seller got compensated for the extra legwork that he had to do to put the piece in the buyer's hand. Isn't this basically what every wholesaler/distributor does?

Correct! It's basically just my attempt to express "Whatever you think it's going to go for, double it and then add a lot more on top of that!" in mathematical terms. The key is actually getting "A" (realistic estimate) correct. If you're clueless and believe, for example, that a realistic estimate of a Ditko ASM page with Spidey in it is $10k, the formula won't work.

That one was a much better image, to boot! I'd love to see that one come back to the market.

I've read this sentence several times now and still don't understand it.

The Promise CGC 9.4 Action #136 in the current Heritage Signature Auction was previously sold as a CGC 9.2 in the April 2022 Signature Auction, so Promise books do get upgraded occasionally. It sold for $3,120 previously, so it'll be interesting to see if it still loses money this time around despite the upgrade.

You are probably right, already at 10k. WOW! Formula for OA pricing in the 2020s: (A x 2) + B where A = your good faith estimate B = multiple of $40 (depending on what A is; i.e., if A = double digit, then B = $40, if A = triple digit, then B = $400, and so on)

How could you let that escape your clutches?

Luckily, your hands remain unsoiled by all that filthy lucre. But I like filthy lucre!

The crazy thing is that even though the sellers of the Promise books have been taking an epic beating, they're still too expensive for me to have bought any!

I was more surprised by the fast start of the Byrne X-Men pages.

Isn't any Ditko ASM page that features Spidey going to be 6-figures?

I'm a buyer, so this is what I'm praying for:

... and they're off!