VintageComics

Fluorescent lights will fade books.

It always depends on how large and deep the stain is and how it affects the rest of the book. There is no single rule.

Or lower their prices so the books don't sit long enough to fade.

As far as what was in the collection, there is a smattering of most publishers beyond the big two - Dell, Harvey, Lev Gleason, ACG, even Classics Illustrated. All books are from the late 1950's to mid1960's. The largest runs though, were the Dell Disney books and MLJ books. Much of the runs are not in extremely high grade - think 5.0 - 9.0 range, which is likely why the collection didn't receive a Pedigree status. There are several things that I found interesting about the collection. The most expensive books, the keys, all happened to be in reasonably nice shape but there were almost no runs of Marvel. There were some short runs of DC books. In some cases, some of the key books were inexplicably missing. For example, there was a TOS #38 and #40 but no #39. And why did the owner buy keys but not runs? They're obviously all bought off the newsstand as most of the books contain the same hand written date markings. This is the stolen ASM #1 for reference in case someone spots it.

That's correct.

I hope you and Roy realize it was obviously said in jest hence the tongue in cheek emoticon. I knew it was a joke.

It was found in the US.

That as quite a story. It involved 10 days working with a Private Investigator, what we believe was a person in FBI witness protection trying to get someone to bite and hand them a bag of cash for a collection of comics that ended up being hand picked restored books from various sites that at first glanced looked like a high grade Golden Age and Silver Age collection. The guy who as planning the hoax went into great detail with the back story to the point where at first glance it even checked out with local obituaries. It was pretty elaborate. Maybe I'll tell it in detail one day.

Of the comic books, Roy. Come on, man. You gotta specify with him or it gets weird. For Park and Park alone.

Also check tracking on both USPS and CanadaPost. It is possible that it's been pulled for inspection. It's also possible that this time of year is extremely busy due to Thanksgiving and Christmas and the mail normally starts to slow down anyway. I wouldn't worry just yet. I've had books sit in customs for weeks and still show up fine.

Still up in the air as to how they will be sold.

CGC has certain criteria - state of preservation, depth of runs, breadth of titles, etc. Obviously if you have enough quality in one area that can make up for deficiencies in other areas. For example, if the earliest keys were all higher grades that may have made up for lack of depth or breadth. In this case, there just wasn't enough over all to satisfy them. For example, there were only 3 or 4 FF books, no ASM books, 3 or 4 JIM books, etc. Just a very eclectic collection. And I guess runs of SA Disney and Pep books is not enough. It's still a phenomenal find.

Ladies and gents, I thought this would be a fun topic for a thread. This is not a for sale thread because the books are not yet available for sale but I know collectors like to hear about these sorts of things and this was an impressive find. Wanted to share with you a part of a new collection find I have been a part of for the last few months. Some of you might remember my post about the stolen Amazing Spider-man #1 from this collection, which was owned (literally) by two little old ladies after the owner of the collection passed. It seems that at some point someone came to the owner's place and switched out an original ASM #1 (1963) with a GRR reprint (1966). We know that the collection contained the ASM #1 originally because the owner at one point had the entire collection photo cataloged and the book was missing at the time of purchase. So far the ASM #1 has not turned up. These are the books from the rest of the collection. ---------------------- I got the call back in August about the possibility of these books existing. As it always goes, you don't put much faith in phone calls like this. Most of the time you're dealing with books that are either over graded, or not real (I was part of a large potential collection find once that was supposed to make the Edgar Church find look like small potatoes but it turned out to be an elaborate hoax), or stolen or the books just ended up getting scooped before you can get to them. Since then I had gone back and forth with the person responsible for bringing the books to market from the owners. A few weeks ago, after months of waiting and speculating I was brought in to curate the collection. The books were assessed by CGC for a Pedigree designation. CGC determined that the collection wasn't worthy of a Pedigree designation, not because the books weren't nice enough but because there wasn't enough depth and breadth. The collection consisted of nearly 5000 books ranging from the late 1950's to the late 1960's and covered many publishers including Marvel, DC, MLJ and Dell / Gold Key Many of the big superhero keys are in the collection. Strangely (and unfortunately) the collection is very scattered. Each major Marvel and DC title only contains one, or a few books but there are fairly deep runs of Disney and Pep comics from the 60's along with other assorted titles. We sent the top 22 books in to test the waters and we're very happy with the results. There are still several hundred books in the $300-800 range to be graded on slower tiers and there will be another 20 - 30 x 4 figure books being graded as well. All in all, it was a heck of a lot of fun handling a collection of such quality. It's the largest find I've ever been a part of. As you can see, for the most part the books were well preserved with exceptional page quality and low wear and tear. Here is a list of the books that have been graded so far. I'll post some pics when I can. Enjoy! Action Comics #252 CGC 8.0 OW Adventure Comics #247 CGC 7.0 OWW Amazing Fantasy #15 8.0 OWW Batman #121 CGC 6.5 OWW Brave And The Bold #10 CGC 9.4 OWW (WOW!! it was surreal seeing this book) Brave And The Bold #28 CGC 8.5 OW Fantastic Four #1 CGC 8.5 OWW Fantastic Four #4 CGC 9.0 White Fantastic Four #13 CGC 9.2 White Flash #123 CGC 9.2 OWW Green Lantern #1 CGC 9.2 White Incredible Hulk #1 CGC 8.0 White Journey Into Mystery #83 CGC 7.5 White Journey Into Mystery #84 CGC 9.0 White Justice League of America #1 CGC 8.5 OWW Showcase #24 CGC 9.0 OWW Strange Tales #89 CGC 8.5 OWW Tales of Suspense #40 CGC 8.5 White Tales To Astonish #7 CGC 9.4 OWW Wonder Woman #98 7.5 Lt/OW Wonder Woman #105 CGC 7.5 OWW

I wasn't after that book. Andy / October was. He saw the book raw and offered over market for it.

That's the 5.0 that went for $57K in the spring of 2017.

Last I heard CGC does examine each reholder to make sure the book is the correct grade. CGC 9.8 books have defects and many of the defects you have pictured (like the color loss on the black areas of the back cover) are generally common on that book.

Your comparison is ridiculous. You're not grading baseball cards. You could have a 9.8 looking copy and if the water stain is large enough it could grade below VG Whatever keeps the grade down on the 2nd 5.0, it isn't the front cover.

Interesting results because there was a small house auction in Maryland the other day and the Hulk #1 8.5 went for north of $160K (w/ BP)

The new CGC cases are thicker, causing books to sit higher from the glass than the old cases. In the case of my scanner, it causes the book to look washed out. Not sure if this is the case or not for the Clink copy, but just compare the same book scanned with two different scanners below (the new holder being the duller looking one - same book in both holders)

Flawless transaction. Thank you for your purchase!

GPA is mostly good but can be misleading. For example, I've sold two CGC 5.0 copies at WAAAAY over GPA in the last 6 months because GPA has two sales at $33K and $35K but those copies were both badly chipped and so not entirely relevant to unchipped copies. So you do need to do more than just look at the raw numbers to have a real picture.

What is there to analyze? They're right in the range of where they roughly have been ($95-125K for a 7.0 and $150ish for a 7.5), although these are exceptional looking copies so they are on the high side of the range (although I did get $175K for a 7.5 last fall ) Book seems to be holding it's own.

James, it's an awesome copy and I'm so happy for you. Congrats! I'm going to close the thread gang. The dorks will have to move elsewhere to congregate now.

That all depends on who the underbidder was.

No. The books are driven back to Sarasota and graded and encapsulated there and then brought back to Orlando for delivery.