VintageComics

This could be scanner artifact and nothing more. Or debris in or on the holder. It's really important to remember that scans show books differently than holding them in hand.

That book sold for a crazy number at the time.

The Dentist is just a nickname for a well known collector who owns some of the nicest books in the hobby (and they are not available at any price). His real name is Dave Anderson. It's not a secret. People just enjoy using the nickname.

Equal grades is a tough discussion because some books don't exist in some grades. Marvel #1 is raw but rumored to be a 9.8 Cap #1 is a 9.8 Action #1 top book is rumored to be a 9.2ish copy with 2 slabbed 9.0s on the census Tec #27 has a slabbed 9.2 but not sure on The Dentist's copy Batman #1 is a slabbed 9.4 but is there a nicer copy? A better discussion might be where each top copy of each issue should fall in the hierarchy...or would it? You'd have to establish that first.

No conspiracy theories!

On April 1 2023 The Dentist will trade the Church Action #1 for a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15. You read it here first.

Pretty sure Comiclink started as an exchange site. The auction portion came in the late 2000s or early 2010s once Heritage REALLY started to pick up. Remember, comics weren't HOT 15 years ago. They had hot genres but some stuff like GA Batman was dead in the water (relatively speaking). It was around the time of the economic collapse of 2008 IIRC that comics started to noticeably heat up across the board, multiple Pedigrees were found (Twin City, Billy Wright, etc) and Comiclink and Connect started their auctions to compete with Heritage. Then Doug launched Pedigree. We had the conversations here, wondering how so many major auction houses could compete and prices actually got soft for a while for common stuff. Some thought the market was doomed and that many auction houses were the 'death knell' of the hobby. Here we are.

Thank you! I brokered the deal. I worked on it for some time before we could finalize it. I have to say, it's pretty surreal to turn a hobby I always loved, and used to get bullied and beat up for in grade school and middle school and turn it into something like this. Back in the 70s and 80s it wasn't cool to be a comic geek. It was considered fringe. We were thought of as losers and nerds and I even got beat up for it at times as a kid. My parents never understood it as they were always throwing my comic books out. I never backed down and always stood my ground, though and it's a little surreal now. My dad passed away in 2004 and before he passed he even apologized for taking such a negative view on my comic books. I suppose if he could see my life now he'd be impressed. Funny the things we carry with us. I do appreciate it very much.

Are you really tryimng to say that all comic book sales are invalid except for those sold through a public auction process? I remember it was not that long ago when virtually ALL comic book sales were done so-called "privately" beween a dealer and a customer and virtually no books were sold through a public auction process. People who are new to the hobby may not realize that auction houses have only been a primary means of selling comics in the last decade. Go back more than 10 years and there was only Heritage. Comiclink, Comic Connect and even Pedigree are all recent venues.

Thanks. Don't worry about it at all. I'm not offended. There are just a lot of opinions and I wanted to clarify on some things. It's all good!

The 9.8 cap 1 might be worth more than the best supes, but it’s kind of an anomaly due to the grades. Any kind of grade to grade comparison the supes will win. Imagine if a 9.8 supes 1 existed. I would think if you had an imaginary catalogue selling the best known copy of each book, they'd all fall into a well agreed upon order. Like the nicest Superman #1 on earth would likely be ahead of the nicest Cap #1 on earth but behind the Action #1 and Detective #27. Cap #1, Batman #1, Marvel #1 would all be vying for 4th through 6th spots. Something like that.

I suppose I have to say something otherwise people will think I have something to hide. Like all the witnesses who see all details in a public auction? Anything is possible of course but if you've followed my posts on those topics in the past, I've exposed some of the methods used to inflate prices. This is a real sale. Neither the people nor the book are a secret to most old school collectors. And let's face it, this isn't the only big sale in the last year. We've seen Batman #1's, Cap #1's, Superman #1's, Action #1's, Detective #27's, AF #15s etc all sell for record numbers in the past year and they ALL fall into a range where they were expected to, relative to each other. There would be almost NO benefit to artificially inflating the sale of one book compared to all the other books around it. It would stick out like a sore thumb. More importantly, a Superman #1 CGC 7.0 sold for $2.6MIL 5 months ago. This is the highest graded copy and a Church to boot. Even before the sale happened, Superman #1 was readily accepted by most to be a top 4-5 or more likely a top 3 book of all time. The discussions were had both here and even in the SA forum so is this book really an outlier? Has CGC ever announced the previous grade on a book when the grade has changed? No. So why would you expect them to do so here? People have complained for years that CGC changes serial numbers on upgrades as though they are trying to hide something. Now they keep the same serial number and they still complain. And why on earth would they remove the color touch notation if the color touch is still there? But, but, but...the Superman #1 had white pages. This is a public sale. You know as much about this sale as you do about an auction house sale.

Mods notified. For UNDERPRICING a book.

Hey buddy. Sorry, I haven't been around here much. Yep, to me Marvel #1 is my favorite book of all time. I never dreamed about owning other GA keys but I always dreamed of owning a Marvel #1.

Yep. There's no 'book value' on top items. There's only what the seller is willing to accept to part with an item and that usually has to be a strong number. If it wasn't a strong number, everyone would be jumping at the opportunity to buy the book, wouldn't they?

Correct. Glue is another that gets a pass as a notation on GA books if it doesn't improve the grade. Outside of those two rules, I think anything else (or enough CT and glue to improve the grade) all get Restored designations whether they are MH or not.

CGC has from the beginning allowed a very small amount of color touch into blue labels on GA books. The criteria (loosely paraphrased) basically are that it has to be GA and the touch can't improve the grade of the book. It's been that way since CGC opened.

Back in the day it was 3K for a 6.0 ! One of my earliest 'big' sales on here was selling an AF #15 6.0 (or was it a 6.5) on here for about $11K around 2008 or so, I think.

Fudge me, you just stated what I did 5 minutes before me. Agreed.

"Hot' or 'thriving' is relative. How 'hot' were comics when CGC started? They certainly became HOTTER after CGC made it easier to commoditize them. Now that I've had time to think about it, what probably affects collectibles the most is how closely they're linked to popular culture. You don't see kids these days talking about countries or history but they all talk about sports and cartoon characters. Most kids don't have the attention span to care about stamps and what they represent. That might be the single largest reason stamps have suffered.

I knew the grades of the submission before the invoice arrived...but I actually submitted that book hoping for (or even expecting) a 9.9 so I wasn't too surprised. But I was pleased.

I slabbed the 2nd copy. It was also a newsstand. Sold it about 3 years ago for about $7500

Weird, I didn't see that. How it affects prices is that certified and sealed items are commoditized and the increase in faith in the product increases prices. It's happened in every slabbed product. And stamps really are not very different from sports cards, but sports card prices benefited from certification as well. The certification is what has caused the large increases in prices that we've seen.

There is a certification company for stamps. I did a quick search. I saw a grading company but do they seal them in a tamper proof holder? Or do they just authentic and grade? I checked on eBay and didn't find any certified stamps.

Wouldn't the fact that there isn't a certification company for stamps have something to do with prices? Also, EXPENSIVE stamps are still expensive. The Black on Magenta just sold last year for $8.3MIL and is now being offered for fractional ownership.