Jaydogrules

We call them ViQueens around here... Also noticed the poll is leading away with over 22,791 estimate. And 55% of respondents estimate about 11k or less. (thumbs u -J. There can only be one winner and first place goes to over 22,721. I don't think this particular kind of poll can (or should) be viewed that way. -J.

We call them ViQueens around here... Also noticed the poll is leading away with over 22,791 estimate. And 55% of respondents estimate about 11k or less. (thumbs u -J.

That's a sweet looking 4.0. Will look nice in that awesome sig line of yours. -J.

You have at least one. Telling you you're wrong and that there are at least 10k copies or more out there. We have not had any National Dealer make any posts yet in this thread. Dale Roberts and Greg Reece are "national" dealers and I've averaged over 20 AF15 purchases and sales a year across the nation, even if I don't fit the "national" dealer mantra Yes I forgot Greg did answer, didn't see Dale's though. I did ask some of bigger National Dealers and their responses probably wouldn't be agreeable as you would think. But you can ask them as well. Who did you ask? My guess is the Rick acquires and sells more big books than a lot of them in a given year....... Wrong guess then. outside of metro, did any dealer you talk to sell (over past 18 months or so) 3 action 1s 2 tec 27's 2 superman 1 1 batman 1 1 captain America 1 24 copies of af15 oops. only sold 17 copies...(bought 24)...my bad 8 copies of All Star 8 30 copies of ST 110 96 copies of hulk 181 1 copy of action 7 2 copies of tec 31 and those are just the "highlights" if not, I would say his guess (at least for last year) is very correct Impressive sales figures Gator. I'm still bummed we couldn't work out a deal on that low grade Tec 27. By the way, Greg mentioned he's only come up on one raw, 3.0-ish AF 15 in the last year. How many of those 24 copies that you acquired were raw? -J. I believe only 5-7 were "new" raw copies...others were obtained already graded (thumbs u -J.

You have at least one. Telling you you're wrong and that there are at least 10k copies or more out there. We have not had any National Dealer make any posts yet in this thread. Dale Roberts and Greg Reece are "national" dealers and I've averaged over 20 AF15 purchases and sales a year across the nation, even if I don't fit the "national" dealer mantra Yes I forgot Greg did answer, didn't see Dale's though. I did ask some of bigger National Dealers and their responses probably wouldn't be agreeable as you would think. But you can ask them as well. Who did you ask? My guess is the Rick acquires and sells more big books than a lot of them in a given year....... Wrong guess then. outside of metro, did any dealer you talk to sell (over past 18 months or so) 3 action 1s 2 tec 27's 2 superman 1 1 batman 1 1 captain America 1 24 copies of af15 oops. only sold 17 copies...(bought 24)...my bad 8 copies of All Star 8 30 copies of ST 110 96 copies of hulk 181 1 copy of action 7 2 copies of tec 31 and those are just the "highlights" if not, I would say his guess (at least for last year) is very correct Impressive sales figures Gator. I'm still bummed we couldn't work out a deal on that low grade Tec 27. By the way, Greg mentioned he's only come up on one raw, 3.0-ish AF 15 in the last year. How many of those 24 copies that you acquired were raw? -J. If Greg Reece's Rare Comics doesn't have a copy, does that mean it's not rare, or that there are zero in existence? Yeah, seriously. I mean wtf man. Besides, I was addressing Gator anyway. -J.

You have at least one. Telling you you're wrong and that there are at least 10k copies or more out there. We have not had any National Dealer make any posts yet in this thread. Dale Roberts and Greg Reece are "national" dealers and I've averaged over 20 AF15 purchases and sales a year across the nation, even if I don't fit the "national" dealer mantra Yes I forgot Greg did answer, didn't see Dale's though. I did ask some of bigger National Dealers and their responses probably wouldn't be agreeable as you would think. But you can ask them as well. Who did you ask? My guess is the Rick acquires and sells more big books than a lot of them in a given year....... Wrong guess then. outside of metro, did any dealer you talk to sell (over past 18 months or so) 3 action 1s 2 tec 27's 2 superman 1 1 batman 1 1 captain America 1 24 copies of af15 oops. only sold 17 copies...(bought 24)...my bad 8 copies of All Star 8 30 copies of ST 110 96 copies of hulk 181 1 copy of action 7 2 copies of tec 31 and those are just the "highlights" if not, I would say his guess (at least for last year) is very correct Impressive sales figures Gator. I'm still bummed we couldn't work out a deal on that low grade Tec 27. By the way, Greg mentioned he's only come up on one raw, 3.0-ish AF 15 in the last year. How many of those 24 copies that you acquired were raw? -J.

I think Joey D. sold a copy for about $50k few months back. And I'd wager that even if someone made a full price offer for that copy on comiclink that it would be conveniently "unavailable". -J.

Mission accomplished. -J.

As bad as it is to say....I agree. No way can she be MJ. Please get the casting right on MJ! And, grab those Spectacular Spider-Man #1s. Why? Because of the title ? Come on. I really hope that's a joke. -J.

Let's consider these criteria for a second. As has been pointed out by many, the CGC census is only a part, and a very, very small part, of the bigger picture. As of right now, there are 2,777,868 listings on eBay in the "Comics" category. Of those listings, 72,391 contain the letters "CGC." This includes listings for books that aren't actually CGC'd, but contain the letters in the title (no small amount, either.) It excludes any listing that doesn't contain the letters "CGC", but actual CGC'd copies that don't list "CGC" are so rare as to be statistically negligible. So, you're looking at about 2.6% of all the listings on eBay being CGC or CGC-related. That means 97.4% of all the eBay listings in Comics have nothing to do with CGC. Then, you suggest GPA. GPA, naturally, is only a part of the part, and only includes information for slabs actually sold. Now, granted, it paints a broader picture than a single eBay snapshot, but still...it only represents a fraction of what exists. It currently lists 1,791,001 sales, including duplicates, or a little more than half the total number of books CGC has graded...together, they don't come up with a greater number of copies than the print run of Superman #75 by itself. Comiclink/Heritage, et al. - valuable resources but again...these only reflect sales of books, not actual extant copies. Look at it this way: I could, right now, call up Image and commission my own RMA variant...minimum order is 1,000. I could obtain that variant, keep it in cases on my floor, and sell 3. Looking at sales figures, one might come to the conclusion that there were only 3 that existed. But, we know that's not true. With this illustration, it's easy to see how sales...especially sales data limited to the last decade and a half....isn't going to paint a full, or even realistic, picture of what exists. Lastly, we get to "Reputable Dealer Reports." That's the real rub. Because, in reality, that should read "Reputable Dealer Reports (From People Jay Considers Reputable Dealers.)" That would be the completely honest answer. There are people who don't consider me "reputable", for no other reason than "they don't like my tone." True story. They dismiss my analysis for reasons that have nothing to do with the merit of the analysis. Now, I'm not a dealer (per se), but I've spent 95% of the last 25-26 years dealing with comics on a daily basis, selling them since 1998. Consider the Sandman #8 variant. Among people on this board, there is likely no one who has more direct experience with this book than Schmidt. Lots of us may come close, but this is one of his specialties. And yet, you argued with him about it, and cited the census to do it. Clearly, you didn't think his opinion on the book were reputable enough, right? Is it reputable if you agree with it? There are people on this board who know more than anyone else (at least on this board) about various comic-related subjects. Flying Donut has direct experience about the comics market from the 70's and 80's I could only dream of having. We sometimes disagree, but it is very, very rare. He knows what he's talking about. Branget knows Walking Dead, among other things. If I needed information about the state of brand new books, Beachbum would be who to ask. And very few people know the Sig Series program like Richie, Partouche, and Triston. Oh, and Triston is a master of late 40's/early 50's Pre-Code Horror. And that's just a few. So, it doesn't so much depend on "Reputable Dealer Reports" as it does the criteria of what and who you consider to be reputable. 94% of the time, I agree with your statement. But you're trying to apply it, here, in a way that cannot ever be done, because it is information that cannot ever be known. There is no way to figure out exactly how many of any one thing exists, especially 50+ years after it was produced and distributed to the four winds. It's simply not possible. And so, you go by what works: estimates, by people who deal in those markets on a routine basis. The census is NOT useless at all, and no one's suggesting that. It is a wonderful tool if used and viewed properly. But Lazyboy hit the nail on the head: you're a blind man trying to figure out the elephant by only feeling its ear, and suggesting that the elephant is like a fan, because you don't see the rest of the elephant. And this is completely untrue. Not only is the data not "complete" in any reasonable manner, but no one is making "naked conjecture." Quite the contrary; this so-called "naked conjecture" is far, far, by leaps and bounds, more accurate than the picture the census paints. You're just not willing to accept that. I don't necessarily disagree with many of your points. Probably the only one I might take some exception to is substituting the opinions of dealers for my own. I respect their opinions, and for crying out loud I have bought many high dollar books from several of the dealers who have posted in this thread even. But respecting their opinions does not necessarily mean that I adopt those opinions in lieu of my own, or in spite of other available data sources. It is but one tool in the toolkit that I, as a buyer, have at my disposal. I have stated my own opinion on how many copies (and their respective likely condition) of AF 15 I believe to be out there still in the raw. Some have said similar amounts, others have said different amounts. I do feel my own personal estimate is solid, however, and I stand by it. (thumbs u -J.

(thumbs u Sorry, I must have missed the part where someone said that. -J.

+1, especially to the bolded part. -J.

Who's calling anybody a "liar"? People have offered their "opinions". No one posting here, dealer or otherwise, has seen "all raw copies" first hand. So no one can post with absolute omniscience. I choose to extrapolate from the hard data that is available with an eye towards what some reputable dealers have stated as well. There is some disagreement in the estimates among them so that brings me back to the hard publicly available data. There is more than enough out there to make reasonable extrapolations. Others may choose to extrapolate differently. That's the beauty of opinions- everybody is free to have one. Mine is based primarily on what I see and can see based on records extending back 15 years. -J.

You have at least one. Telling you you're wrong and that there are at least 10k copies or more out there. And there have been at least two dealers who have disagreed with that estimate as well. (thumbs u -J.

Keeping with the theme of conjecture: There are lots of things made from all eras that were popular with a less than 10% survival rate. Cards, toys, books, etc - very little survives (Americans are kinda wasteful). Particularly when we are talking about something that kids were responsible for the care of. They may have loved that book, but most kids are notoriously bad at keeping things and even worse at keeping them in good condition. We are talking about a time before prevelant bags, boards and known storage. They would have read, reread, spilled on and eventually lost many many copies to mothers and fathers ambivalent of the value (monetary or otherwise). Anyway, different line of thinking: if this data is true it leads me to believe that the overwhelming majority are not interested in selling. While I can believe it is a coveted book, it is hard to believe so many people couldn't or wouldn't want to capitalize on a minimum of a $4,000ish payday... Ignoring the absolute number of be census, why wouldn't it's numbers grow each year at least closer to the price increase growth curve? The more it became expensive, the higher likelihood that people would start to sell right? Again, this is definitely conjecture, but if greater than 90% of owners are pure collectors not interested in selling (to buy more books, to buy a car, to pay for kids/grandkids college, to take a trip of a lifetime, etc) - shouldn't more people on here own a copy? This is a very focused group with many experienced collectors that lived through all of this and experienced it all first hand. Wouldn't a lot own a copy? Maybe they do and aren't sharing, but That seems like a high number. It's all relative. Old time collectors are just that...collectors. Most have what they need. What doesn't work in this equation is applying ones own standards (ie you would sell for a 4k profit) to those that have. Today's cgc collecting era is surprisingly diff from the last collecting era. In the next 5-10 years I believe many of these collection will be sold/liquidated and then, and unfortunately not till then, will we get a better feel for extant copies. I get it, difficult to speculate to people's motivations. What about this point then: Shouldn't the AF 15 club show the raw list outpace the slabbed list by far and away? I get it, this is sponsored by the CGC. But isnt this place first and foremost a "Collector's" society right? +1 That's another good point. It seems folks would rather place more weight on the unverifiable and un-quantified than what is readily apparent and documented before them. To each his own I suppose. -J. Probably because that "readily apparent and documented data" has issues of its own. However, even if assume that number is 100% fact, it still only tells you how many slabbed copies are in existence. I understand wanting to be able to quantify something based on hard data but the numbers on the CGC census can be flawed data. Agreed. Re: <<>>> -- there is so much wrong with that. First it calls it verifiable that a person says on a board that they have a copy, while simultaneously calling it unverifiable that people on the same board say they have seen many copies. And it implies that an anecdotal "verified: compilation of existing copies is somehow verification of the lack of other copies. This is working backward from a desired conclusion and wanting that conclusion to sway the market. "Verifiable and Quantifiable": 1) CGC census 2) GPA 3) Comic Link, Heritage, etc auction results/listings 4) Ebay Listings 5) Reputable Dealer Reports "Unverifiable and Anecdotal": 1) "I know a guy who knows a guy...." 2) "I heard of a guy who saw a guy...." 3) "I once saw an LCS with 10 copies for sale 30 years ago..." 4) "I have seen 50 copies for sale at a convention 20 years ago..." I give 99% of weight to the former and 1% to the latter. I go by and extrapolate from what I can see and verify for myself. We live in the information age where the necessary data is readily available to the masses. Too many people are attempting to disregard/ignore hard data in favor of hearsay and assumptions. They call the data "incomplete", yet it is certainly more complete than the naked conjecture that they are attempting to rely on. And yes, we do have enough hard data to derive a statistical extrapolation, whether some people believe so or not. My 2 cents. -J.

Keeping with the theme of conjecture: There are lots of things made from all eras that were popular with a less than 10% survival rate. Cards, toys, books, etc - very little survives (Americans are kinda wasteful). Particularly when we are talking about something that kids were responsible for the care of. They may have loved that book, but most kids are notoriously bad at keeping things and even worse at keeping them in good condition. We are talking about a time before prevelant bags, boards and known storage. They would have read, reread, spilled on and eventually lost many many copies to mothers and fathers ambivalent of the value (monetary or otherwise). Anyway, different line of thinking: if this data is true it leads me to believe that the overwhelming majority are not interested in selling. While I can believe it is a coveted book, it is hard to believe so many people couldn't or wouldn't want to capitalize on a minimum of a $4,000ish payday... Ignoring the absolute number of be census, why wouldn't it's numbers grow each year at least closer to the price increase growth curve? The more it became expensive, the higher likelihood that people would start to sell right? Again, this is definitely conjecture, but if greater than 90% of owners are pure collectors not interested in selling (to buy more books, to buy a car, to pay for kids/grandkids college, to take a trip of a lifetime, etc) - shouldn't more people on here own a copy? This is a very focused group with many experienced collectors that lived through all of this and experienced it all first hand. Wouldn't a lot own a copy? Maybe they do and aren't sharing, but That seems like a high number. It's all relative. Old time collectors are just that...collectors. Most have what they need. What doesn't work in this equation is applying ones own standards (ie you would sell for a 4k profit) to those that have. Today's cgc collecting era is surprisingly diff from the last collecting era. In the next 5-10 years I believe many of these collection will be sold/liquidated and then, and unfortunately not till then, will we get a better feel for extant copies. I get it, difficult to speculate to people's motivations. What about this point then: Shouldn't the AF 15 club show the raw list outpace the slabbed list by far and away? I get it, this is sponsored by the CGC. But isnt this place first and foremost a "Collector's" society right? +1 That's another good point. It seems folks would rather place more weight on the unverifiable and un-quantified than what is readily apparent and documented before them. To each his own I suppose. -J.

obviously the 2 folks I know that have "hoards" of raw copies are highly likely the exception...that much I think is reasonable...a statistical anomaly if you will...I can grant that no problem J, you are the only one in your area that has an af15....I know of 6 serious spiderman collectors in my little town...all 6 have af15's, only one of them is slabbed...other 5 have raw copies, all bought some time ago... that is one store, in one little town, not really representative, I would think, of a collecting mecca (like Ny or Los Angeles, etc) what I guess the minimalist fail to comprehend or acknowledge (not sure) is that thousands and thousands and THOUSANDS of copies were sold in the 60s-90's... that is the "pre" cgc collecting era... all of the "older" timers acknowledge the high likelihood of thousands out there... seems only the "younger" folk can't acknowledge that.... and to a degree, I guess I can see how living and collecting in a cgc era, and I suspect large portions of comic interactions are here on the cgc board, would skew one's opinion... but take it from those of us that have been around the block buying and selling for 20-40+ years... in every case (contributions to this thread), we have all concluded there are thousands and thousands of copies our there... how many, no one will ever know...but to think that there are only hundreds out there not slabbed, that simply cannot be... I guess I'm just one of those people who only likes to believe what he can see, or what can be reasonably extrapolated from a data pool. I don't believe the census to be gospel but I do believe it to be enough of a data pool to make a reasonable extrapolation. Based on that extrapolation I would put the number at 3000-5000 extant, with the vast majority of those being low grade and 33-50% of them also having some type of restoration. (thumbs u -J.

It sure would be nice (not to mention helpful) if someone other than myself or rfoii could cite numbers, statistics, sales and/and percentages, instead of just anecdotes, supposition and assumptions with meaningless emojis in support of their position. Just sayin'. -J.

A quick look at the census numbers are revealing, and, IMO, do not point to thousands upon thousands of copies likely being out there. In fact, in most years, even with the prices of this book publicly skyrocketing, the additions to the census have ranged from modest to downright puny (blue labels only). Going back to 2005... 2005: 79-ish copies 2006: 67 copies 2007: 68 copies 2008: 97 copies 2009: 89 copies 2010: 70 copies 2011 (the year of the $1.1 Million dollar sale): 122 copies 2012: 146 copies 2013: 237 copies 2014: 108 copies 2015: 17 copies (so far, on pace for 70) As you can see, there have only been four years where there have been more than 100 submissions, and that was only after the big sale that happened in 2011, with the subs peaking in 2013. Notice that less than half the amount of submissions were received the following year (in 2014), even though the book continued to perform well. And if the current pace for subs this year continues, it will be the least amount recorded since 2010 and back to the 2006-2007 levels. It seems that people want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to this book. On the one hand, its common knowledge that a big sale and a skyrocketing book will bring out tons of new books to the census. Yet when it comes to this book, even though a copy sold for well over seven figures four years ago and it continues to break records in sales prices for all grades, people are positing that really no one is submitting it or people are submitting it at an infinitesimal rate, which would be in direct opposition to every other book that experienced a price spike, let alone sustained growth over a multi-year period. That simply makes no sense. This kind of drop off does not point to a statistical likelihood of their being "thousands upon thousands" of remaining copies in the wild. And with the average grade of all copies being submitted over the last 15 years being just 3.67, it is also highly unlikely that any significant number of the few remaining raw copies out there are even mid-grade, let alone high grade. These are facts. This is what we know. Fifteen+ years, and 2000+ submissions are more than enough to make a statistical extrapolation. Sure we can account for the statements of high volume dealers like Gator, but we should not also discount the statements and experiences of other dealers like SOT and Roulette. And even a layman can look at what actually comes up for sale and peruse the offerings at cons and see for themselves that, no, there just aren't that many raw copies being offered out there anymore. Are there some super rich comic book collectors out there with a box of 50 copies? Gator says he knows a few so I take him at this word. Are there hundreds of people out there like that? No way. Are there hundreds of people possibly out there with two or three raw copies? And are other collectors who post on these boards likely to know a few people out there like that? Sure, why not. But at most, that might give us 2-3000 raw copies left out there. But certainly not thousands upon thousands. Speaking even from my own personal experience, I know a multitude of collectors, and I am the only one of my group that owns even a single copy of AF 15 in any grade, and I got hand shakes and congratulations when I unveiled it for the first time. It was kind of a big deal. And I would wager that my situation is probably closer to the norm among the collecting masses than any of the other stories we've been hearing on here. My 2 cents. -J.

not everything else...some of us have seen/held/counted copies... at least to me, that is "fact" and I can include those copies in my "estimate" Of course your personal observations will aid you in your estimates. That is indisputable. I would, however, ask that you also factor in the (great) likelihood that many of the raw copies you have observed in your career are now living in slabs. (thumbs u I have never stated that I think the only existing copies are the slabbed ones or that there are only a few hundred left out in the raw. I am on the record believing there are likely a few thousand still left. Maybe as many as 5000 (a large percentage with restoration). However, let it be noted that there are numerous examples of high dollar/rare modern variants with numbers on the census that exceed 50% of their entire print runs. So it is most certainly not outside the realm of possibility or even probability that half (or more than half) of all extant copies of AF 15 are present and accounted for on the census at this point. -J.

I don't see how only looking at blue labels on the census as a baseline (since those are, after all, the "Universal Grade" books, and not the niche and restored copies that have been materially and verifiably altered in some way and appeal to a far narrower market segment) is "wishful thinking", when that is, in fact, the only hard number that we actually have. (And even that is not wholly accurate, as the prevailing belief Is that that number on the census is most likely even too high, meaning there are actually LESS copies accounted for.) Everything else beyond that with regards to what may or may not be out there is where all of the conjecture, tall tales, hearsay, and speculation begins. -J.

+1. A 9.6 also just went for just under $6k on ebay as well. -J.

Jim, rfoii's point is well taken and his data is tangible, whereas yours is not. First, we have the census. A 15+ years worth of information that has been compiled. We see less than 1450 blue labels recorded by them, and the most common grade being a 3.0. Next, we see the vast majority of copies being sold as being slabbed. There are some raw copies that trade hands as well, but the VAST majority are slabs. Further the notion that people only slab a copy when they intend to sell is disingenuous and presumptuous. I personally own one copy and I slabbed it for preservation and presentation, not to sell. If people just slabbed to sell, why don't we see 2000 copies on the market right now instead of 20? I will slab a crappy modern if it gets to be worth a couple hundred dollars. And I'm just one guy. Am I the only person who slabs his own personal collection for this reason ? Hardly. (thumbs u -J. It's true that not everyone slabs to sell. However, many slab because they will eventually sell. I'm also not so sure how accurate that 1450 number is due to crack/press/resub. CGC is not always made aware of the fact that a comic has been deslabbed. It's been suggested that census numbers may, in some cases, not be as accurate as the actual number would indicate. Again, speculation admittedly but taking that 1450 number as gospel is naive. I certainly don't. And I agree that the CPR game probably reduces the actual number by 10-15% if not more. On a book like this the incentive to do it is massive since just a 0.5 bump can be a difference in $10k or more in value. -J.

-J. The question is: will the transaction actually be completed? I know the seller, so I'll find out. The seller has already left positive feedback for the buyer on the $1475 sale. Deal looks legit. (thumbs u http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=alterverse&ftab=FeedbackLeftForOthers -J.

With due respect, I just can't get behind this logic either. High dollar and high liquidity books are going to be far, far more likely to be slabbed than other books. Dealers scour OO collections looking for these things and slab them immediately. And from what I am hearing and seeing, they just aren't turning up as frequently as they used to. AF 15 is the monster book of the silver age, and that's why its census population is as high as it is, when even compared to FF 1. -J.