wiparker824

On 8/3/2023 at 2:57 PM, Dr Hfuhruhurr said:

I just bid on a comic and got this... however, the bid was accepted (I was immediately outbid by some elses max bid).

So things are still a bit flakey.  Proceed with caution!

Oh yah… someone definitely gave the green light on some freshly untested code. 

On 8/3/2023 at 2:33 PM, Chaz G. said:

Curious to see if the outage will affect bidding on this round of auctions.

Can’t speak for everyone but I have open bids on many items and I’m a bit hesitant to proceed without any explanation being given. Luckily I’m not bidding on anything tomorrow so I guess I can wait and see how that goes. 

Nice list. I’d have ‘Tec 66 (1st Two Face) over Wolverine 66 personally. 

On 8/3/2023 at 11:42 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

Books may down in general, though. On both HA and eBay I've bought books at auction this year for significantly less than what the same copies had sold for in the past. There have also been a couple of times where I've thought, "Man, if I I'd known the book was going to go that cheap, I would have tossed a bid at it." My tiny amount of anecdotal info doesn't mean much, but I'm curious whether others have noticed the same thing.

I mean yes a lot of books have been trending down since covid highs but generally speaking books are going to go for less when potential bidders are redirected to a random other site when they try to log in… which is what was happening before it went down entirely. Particularly on CL that doesn’t have any sort of anti-sniping measures in place like HA, MCS, CC and others have to extend the auction with last second bids. A lot of people wait until the last possible second to drop a final bid on CL, which doesn’t work when you get sent to another website.

And just after saying I didn’t get tracking info yet for my 7/24 win I just got the text from FedEx. And it’s an update that FedEx actually has the package in hand not just that the label was created… so someone is alive over there dropping off packages at FedEx.

On 8/3/2023 at 8:54 AM, nearmint said:

I don't know if it's related, but I charged two books on my credit card from a CL auction win Monday of last week.  That charge still isn't showing up on my credit card statement. 

FWIW I had a win and paid on 7/24 (last Monday), it showed up on my CC on 7/26. I’ve not received any tracking but wins from 7/24 seemed to have been processed as usual for me.

Also just noticed CL seems to be deleting comments off their FB now, and “limiting who can reply”. There were like 15 comments on their last post from a couple days ago all talking about this and they don’t show up anymore for me. Unless I just don’t know how to use FB anymore which also seems possible. 

Edit: Seems I was correct, deleted their last insta post which had a couple comments and made their Twitter account private. Guess we are in the damage control portion of the show.

On 8/3/2023 at 7:50 AM, Mijael.Levy said:

 One of my books that finished in the monday auction sold for a ridicoulus amount. I just contacted them to ask if they are also repeating that auction

I don’t see how they can keep those as valid sales. You can’t tell me redirecting people to nefarious sites (which is what was happening then) didn’t limit the bidding potential. But some of those people may have even paid on those books they won before they went down… that’s going to be messy. 

On 8/2/2023 at 5:14 PM, Chaz G. said:

I was winning an auction that's supposed to end on Friday night. If they're back up and running by tomorrow or Friday AM, curious to see if they're gonna keep it going or scrap it and start over.

Guessing they’ll add time to the auction before they scrap it. That would seem only likely in a complete data loss scenario IMO.

On 8/2/2023 at 4:49 PM, Telegan said:

Don't fret! Your personal info has probably already been compromised by the thousands of other data breaches that happen yearly!

Yeah but those ones didn’t include how much I spend on comic books. This one is serious. 

Anyone selling in the current auction? I’m only bidding in this one, which is mildly annoying but can imagine if I was selling in it I’d be wanting some answers as to what the ETA is and plan moving forward.

On 7/31/2023 at 8:58 PM, tth2 said:

It's always heartwarming to hear about children getting their parent's prized possessions and immediately selling them for cash.

From the kid:

”He also unintentionally left my mom with some massive bills to pay from closing his business after his passing. This meant without having my mother sell her house and wiping out her life savings, my dad's collection was the only easy thing left to sell to pay for bills. I still have lots of comics and items left but nothing quite like what I'm selling.”

Sounds like he kept some for keepsake and used the rest to bail his mother out of of financial ruin. Which is what I’d want my kids to do when I pass in that situation. 

https://www.reddit.com/u/Speirs_101st/

Check out his post, he’s the son who inherited it. Posted some pictures raw with the story over several posts and comments.

That same guy has come back to reddit and confirmed the book was not pressed:

this guy was also posting pictures of the books raw weeks ago with the story so it seems pretty legit. So yeah, I guess you just have to have the cojones then to crack and press a half a million dollar book and hope for a 9.8 lottery ticket.

Because Disney and Barbie still aren’t coming close to this:

On 7/28/2023 at 6:26 AM, namisgr said:

Thanks for the additional info.  I still suspect that, given Hake's financial incentive to have the comic hit its best possible hammer price, it was most likely worked on if there were a chance that being so might improve the grade.

Unless they weigh in somewhere impossible to know for certain but all I can say is the guy who posted it had indicated his family was in a really rough spot financially and needed the quick cash. The guy said he paid “10k for ASM 1 and AF15 to be graded each” and that his total bill for grading the whole collection from CGC was near $100k. But you’re right it’s possible he didn’t know what he was paying for and Hake’s subbed to CCS or whoever they work with first. He didn’t seem like he knew a lot about comics or grading so it would have been wise for Hake’s to guide him. 
 

In any case I can’t imagine cracking an ASM 9.6 to press and regrade, and just hoping it doesn’t come back a 9.4. But I also don’t have a half a mil to blow on this book in the first place. 

On 7/27/2023 at 2:37 PM, namisgr said:

It's a virtual certainty that a comic of that valuation has already 'reached its full grade potential'.

Not necessarily. The guy who owned those posted on Reddit a bit ago. Indicated he didn’t even know how to grade them or have the funds to do so (they were his dad’s who passed and didn’t believe in grading) and that he sent them to Hake’s raw and Hake’s fronted the grading fee because he couldn’t afford it. It’s possible Hake’s fronted the fee for CCS and sent there first and he didn’t indicate it in his post but these weren’t passed around by tons of dealers who knew what they were doing.

Guy’s dad passed and he needed quick cash. 

On 7/27/2023 at 8:56 PM, Nick Furious said:

Much of the industry marches to the beat of the same drum as we are all influenced by the same information, more or less.  So it's fairly predictable that a large number of collectors will be at the entrances and exits at the same time.  

Yeah I get it. I’m not a dealer, not in the hobby to make money but I would probably have some better books if I could figure out how to stop buying the peaks and selling the valleys. But, such is life. 

On 7/26/2023 at 4:46 PM, Beastfeast said:

Continuation of my buying/selling experience - Books I’m auctioning are easing big time and the ones I’m bidding on are going up. 

Most relatable thing in this entire thread. 

Came across this one on eBay. MCS will probably get their price here too, can’t imagine what a 9.0 is going to run you… but if I had to guess probably at least a quarter mil. But then again it also may take a decade to see one surface at auction, and who knows what the going rate will be then.

Got me thinking maybe you are Jeff Bezos? Which if so can you guys stop packaging my hard cover books with just one of those loose air bubble strips? 

On 7/26/2023 at 7:34 PM, Dark Knight said:

I was also shocked at the results for both the ASM #1 CGC 9.6 (a record price selling for that much!  Last sale was last year for $336k old label). And a huge bounce back for sure for AF 15! It sure was a pretty looking 7.5, which in fact helped the hammer price.  I even considered bidding on it, but I have books higher up on my wantlist. I mentioned this a couple weeks back at another thread, but I feel that we are seeing SA keys bouncing back up in prices from the lows of earlier this year.  I expect this trend to continue... We'll see..

That ASM 1 price is bonkers. It makes you wonder what would the price be if one of the 9.8’s of ASM 1 known to exist went up for auction next month.

Whichever one of you mad lads dropped half a million on this one hats off. I guess you own the club now.

On 7/26/2023 at 7:08 PM, DC# said:

Went for $520k.   Two more books for the list out of Hakes (which seemed surprisingly strong for a lot of books) 

 

AsM 1 9.6 for $520.4k

AF 15 7.5 for $170.8k

 

 

That’s the thing with these books in the top grades… like I said you get the 2 right bidders, 2 people who have endless money and want the best copy that’s currently on the market and off you go. Still would have never guessed 520k. Good for the seller though, he was posting on Reddit about his dad passing, and selling to help his family during hardship. Glad he got a good price.