Jaydogrules

For the life of me I still can't figure out how any casting director could look at this image or any like it and immediately think: "Topher Grace" -J.

Excuse me ? Pointing out the reasons why a poorly managed, under funded company with bad ideas failed is not taking "joy" in its failure. -J.

Don't give it a second thought. There are some on here who are knee deep in Voldy slabs and are nervous if not terrified that the bottom just fell out of whatever value there was in those slabs. So their deflections and petty asides are understandable. My advice to them- CPR to CGC so you won't lose any (more) sleep (or money) over it. -J.

I'll just say point blank what a lot of other people are politely skirting around for some reason. Here are the Top Ten reasons why Voldy Foldied (aka Failed): 1) They could never have hoped to be anything more than a distant second, look alike, also ran company. 2) The routine sales of its slabs at every widening discounts to comparable CGC copies only proves the point more. 3) Their initial practices of "restoration disclosure" on their labels was at best, sketchy, and at worse, downright duplicitous to prospective buyers of their slabs, and was obviously a low attempt to attract submissions from sellers looking to play "hide the ball" with their restored books in blue labels. 4) "Verifying " signatures of non-witnessed and dead people. 5) Consistently over grading books early (probably also had something to do with their books selling at discounts). 6) Cheap slabs and ugly labels. 7) Putting their grades on raw books and not slabbing them. 8) Never putting up their census (obviously because they didn't want people to see how low their volume really was). 9) Clearly under-staffed and under funded- It was nearly impossible to get a live person to answer their phone at their office. 10) Ever decreasing presence at the various seasonal cons. Being bought out by Beckett isn't going to help anything either, it might make things worse. There are LOTS of collectors in this hobby who rue some of what they perceive to be te negative influences of card collectors into the comic book marketplace, so Beckett will already be coming into this with a certain negative stigma attached. Voldy may very well have been started hoping for a buy out- but from CGC, who obviously continued to see them as such a miniscule presence, non-factor in the market, that they either didn't see the value or the point, and concluded their virtual monopoly was secure. I, for one, am just glad to not be holding any high dollar (or any) Voldy slabs with this announcement having been made. -J.

All extrinsic signs point to the former. -J.

Definitely in my all time top 5 for him for sure. It's just a really great image. Nice pick up! -J.

That's a great grade, congrats again! -J.

Based on Lethal Protector? That would be AWESOME. Lots of symbiote on symbiote violence in that. FYI- #'s 4 and 5 are the ones with all of the significant symbiote first appearances in that series. How tough are those in a 9.8? Not many of either on the census. -J.

Okay thanks! This was done in 2000 so he was a very young artist when he did it. -J.

Are you sure that is a cover by Dell'otto? -J.

This is still factually incorrect and is simply continuing the revisionist history that I keep referring to. First, the 5.0 didn't "double" over night, at least not according to many of the self-annoited comic book gurus on here. According to them, at the time at least, that book sold for what it did because it was "clearly upgradeble" and that simply must have been what was on the buyer's mind when he paid that price- to CPR it. When people pointed out that the grade would have to go up past a 5.5, past a 6.0, up to at least a 6.5 for that to pay off (at the prices at that time), they were either poo-pooh'd, condescended to, or ignored. Now those same people who argued so vociferously against it even being a valid comp want to point to that one random sale as something grandiose and hobby changing? Sorry, I think not. And that sale did not happen in a vacuum. I'm not sure why so many of those same self-annoited comic gurus are now pretending that it did. Very little in this world or in this hobby happens in a vacuum, and no, nobody woke up that day and decided "you know what, today's the day I'm going to pay double GPA for a comic book". To wit, the sale of the 9.0 in that same auction was also double the price of the prior sale for that grade, which itself was triggered by the highly publicized sale of Ghosttown's 9.2. Indeed, both Josh Nathanson and the author of the bleeding cool article I linked accurately predicted the ultimate scramble for lower grade copies, as what happened with Hulk 1 in 2014-2015 after its big 9.2 sale and that particular comic connect auction was simply the beneficiary of good timing, and nothing more. As I have said repeatedly, and will continue to say, there were multiple sales of 6.5's going back to June 2016 that themselves were more than 60% higher than previous sales for that grade already. Those sales were just as widely discussed and parsed on these boards as well. Do we all suddenly have amnesia ? Those sales were precipitated by the sale of the 9.4 in January 2016 before that. There has been a "frenzy" for this book in all grades this year, from the top down. The super strong sale of Ghosttown's 9.2 in Jan, 2017 pulled up prices in all grades from 8.5 down. That sale even pulled up the price of the same 9.4 that sold in January 2016 when it was flipped earlier this year for over $700k. Those saying, "oh well those expensive books are for millionaires and they happen in a bubble and don't have any effect on other copies" is patently incorrect. Very little in this hobby happens in a vacuum. It's those sales that make the headlines. It's those sales that make hay, that get reported on, get people's attention. No, these copies don't always come up for sale and yes they are very cost prohibitive for most ordinary folk.... Which is precisely why we saw (and are seeing) the "freny" for the lower grade copies that are more within reach. -J.

Moving on..... -J.

Yes and this where the disconnect is. The way was already paved by Ghosttown's record setting price before that, which was paved by the record setting price (then) of the 9.4 before that. In between there were multiple record breaking prices in 6.0 and 6.5 grades. You canalmost literally draw a straight line starting with the 9.4 sale in January, 2016 all the way through to now. That's where it started. Just like it did with the blockbuster hulk 1 9.2 sale three years ago thstkster trickled down to lower grades. It is literally the exact same thing. -J.

Yeah, that 5.0 sure must have been reeeeallly upgradeable since that's why you originally said it sold for that price. Revisionst history keeps striking ! So what do you think of 9.0's going from $200k to $400k in under a twenty month period (thanks again, almost entirely, to Ghosttown's 9.2 sale for $460k in January, 2017)? http://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?id=1164117 https://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=701480 -J.

This is still false and patently illogical no matter how many times you repeat yourself. Even Josh Nathanson disagrees with you. https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/01/16/amazing-fantasy-15-cgc-9-2-first-appearance-spider-man-sells-record-460000-comic-link/ -J.

Actually it was the 9.0 that sold for $395k that was also in that same auction in March, 2017, and also sold more than 100% higher than the prior public sale for that grade (that the history revisionists also fail to mention) that lifted the lower grades in that auction. Kinda like how that 9.2 Hulk 1 sale lifted the lower grades' sales and prompted a similar price spike for it a few years back. And that 9.0 AF 15 is easily traced to and was directly caused by the sale of Ghosttown's heavily discussed and publicized 9.2 for $460k in January 2017, just two months earlier. https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/01/16/amazing-fantasy-15-cgc-9-2-first-appearance-spider-man-sells-record-460000-comic-link/ Of course the realized sale of the 9.4 copy in Jan 2016 for $454k no doubt had something to do with that. Good luck continuing to try to convince people that a couple of low/mid grade copies (that only sold for what they did because they "looked upgradeable", remember? ) had anything to do with the prices we are seeing and were anything more than a simple continuation of the escalating prices we were already seeing in higher grades (kinda like what happened with Hulk 1). -J.

But but but...I thought that 5.0 was an outlier and only sold for that because it looked so awesome for the grade and the buyer "must have" been planning to upgrade it. Now suddenly it was the catalyst for everything? Please. Spare me. Revisionist history at its finest. -J. And PS- the 9.2 Hulk 1 selling for $320k a few years back is what's generally considered the catalyst for the price spike in the lower grades with that book as well, so yeah, this isn't unprecedented.

Actually, I think the only person who has agreed with you is Lou Fine. And maybe he will also re-think that as well after the comp recap I just did (again). Keep trying to revise history and tilting though. Between that and your inability to tell the difference between fact and opinion, or ever cite any data points or any real evidence of any kind at all whenever you decide to bless us all with your grand, sweeping proclamations and indisputable wisdom are really helping your credibility as a "long time collecting dealer" around here. -J.

Right, but there is also a bit of some clever attempted revisionist history going on here now. When that 5.0 sold on Comicconnect for $57k, there were pages and pages and pages of one or two people claiming that the reason that book sold for that was because it was so obviously and significantly upgradeable and that "must" be the explanation of the price. If anything, it was THAT sale that was presented as an "outlier". That is when I came in and frankly scoffed at that notion and originally pointed out the prior sales and build up that I just pointed out again (as well as a few others) that had already indicated a spike. If you want to say that things "came to a head" with that sale, that's fine, but it certainly didn't "start" anything, things were well underway loooong before that sale, as the many comps I have cited indicated. To now come in and purport that "that" one sale, was in fact "the beginning of it all", not only goes against the very point that you just made in your post above, it is also utterly and hopelessly disingenuous, and wrong. -J.

Yes, you are right, people talked a lot about that 5.0 sale. But prior to that they buzzed in January, 2016 when an earlier 5.0, seemingly out of the blue, sold for $26.5k, a full 25% increase over a prior copy that sold just five months earlier. At the time, that might have been perceived as an outlier. In hindsight now, we see things clearly did not stop there.... In February, 2016, that huge, realized, publicly reported sale of the 9.4 happened. Yes, I understand that Metro had an open general offer out for 9.4's and other high grades at the time. However.... there is a BIG difference between a theoretical, speculative price being offered for a book, and an actual sale. Between June and November 2016, the boards were buzzing again about sales of three 6.5's (4 if you count the one that was on Comiclink) that all sold for around $50k in a row, boom-boom-boom-, which was a 40% increase over the last publicly recorded sales at the time. The boards were buzzing again in February 2017 when a 6.0 broke $42k. But if you ask me, the sale that really put things over the top, even more so than the 9.4 sale, and was more buzzy than any of these other sales results, was the sale of Ghosttown's 9.2 copy on Comiclink for $460k, in January, 2017. That was $6k higher than the 9.4 that sold less than one year earlier! More than any other sale, the sale of THAT copy, for THAT price really seemed to cycle things to the next level and start bringing out the big numbers, of which the subsequent Comicconnect auction was simply the result of a combination of good timing and having two copies that both presented very well for the grade, and was simply a continuation/confirmation of the spike that had already been occurring in sales prices for quite some time previously. -J.

Yes they were spiking. Big new GPA highs, seemingly out of the blue, across multiple grades. Particularly in the 5.0-6.5 grades going back as early as Jan 2016, and of course the blockbuster sale of the 9.4 for $454k in Feb. 2017 that really kicked things into high gear. I cited at least a dozen sales indicating a spike much sooner than that sale in March 2017. As married as you seem to be to that fallacy, it is simply wrong and easily disproved by even a casual perusal of GPA. Feel free to scroll back for a full refresher. -J.

Again, prices were shooting up way before that one sale in March. -J.

$80k-$90k -J.

That's a mighty tight looking 6.5. -J.

In either scenario the point is rather powerful- the removal of just one single persistent shill immediately removed 25% of the book's fake "value". But that is definitely not the only shill. Just another reason why shillers keep shilling. -J.