jimbo_7071

Manhole to porthole.

Wizard to magician.

Revealing top to revealing top.

Coming out to a hero who has recently come out.

Injecting skeleton hand to grasping skeleton hand.

Up from the fire to up from the fire.

Green blonde to green bald guy.

Our Gang to Our Gang.

Felix to Felix.

Hand candles to bill candle

You could right be about Heritage—if the shill bidding is live. Shill bidding in an online auction is wire fraud and is a federal offense, and all federal offenses are felonies. I haven't been tracking it lately, but I used to see quite a few books show up in multiple auctions on CLink within a short span of time. ETA: I'm not talking about shill bidding by CLink staff; I'm talking about shill bidding by consignors.

Tricorn hat to fedora.

I'm not sure about the 50%; most of the restored copies I've tracked have sold for much less than 50%.

Lovers to love triangle.

Crowley to Crowley.

Green cape to green crown.

Yeah, that fifth one really makes you walk crooked. I wasn't going to say anything, but since you brought it up . . ..

I don't know where the CGC graders buy their cream, but I'll be taking my coffee black if I'm ever at one of their houses.

Hot coals to hot metal.

Prison bars to human zoo bars.

Intentional drowning to possible drowning victim.

Hit to punched in the face.

I'm not surprised with respect to the page quality. They are really hammering pressable defects now—which is why pressing is profitable—so the grade drop doesn't surprise me too much, either. I think they also hit books harder now for tanning of the inside covers—and they've completely changed how they treat tape.

You sold your Mile High More Funs through Greg Manning Auctions, right? I think you made the right call. I'm sure that those have increased in value, but I think that the increases have been modest compared to many other titles. (I'm not even sure whether the More Funs have outpaced inflation.)

I haven't seen many with that big of an increase percentage-wise. I remember passing on a VF Cap 1 for $40K back in 2000 or 2001, and a VF recently sold for $395K on CLink, so that's a 10-fold increase over a period of about 20 years. If you're talking about horror or romance books that could be had for a song ten years ago, then yes, ten-fold increases are common, but I don't think you'll find too many ten-fold increases in books that were already selling for 4 or 5 figures.