jimbo_7071

I have to agree. At that point collecting is an addiction rather than a hobby. There's always another comic book. In fact, there's always another copy of the same comic book, as the purchaser of this comic has indubitably learned by now.

Maybe—I guess it depends who owns them. Values only matter to people who intend to sell. I couldn't care less what my books are worth. I think of money spent on comics as money spent—full stop. The few books that I might sell (because they don't fit my collection any longer, if they ever did) are ones that aren't worth very much anyway.

Timely female hero toTimely female hero.

I was kidding—I didn't actually pay more based on the stickers but rather the appearance of the books (based on my own judgment).

Your comments make me wonder whether my books with CVA stickers were worth the crazy multiples that I paid for them ....

So do Mylar sleeves. I figured that out back in the 80s by buying books from dealers racks without pulling the books out first. Unfortunately, the type of defects that don't show through a Mylar sleeve also don't show in scans, so I've had similar disappointments buying books online.

But Mitch, you know that auctions like this always attract newbies who will lose interest in the hobby in less than three years. Many of these books will resurface in a year or two. Some will never be seen again. Unfortunately, most of my Grails are from 1939—1942, so I don't expect to see any books that I'll feel compelled to go "all in" on, and it would be hard for me to justify paying a strong price for any book that isn't a grail.

I agree that the panic over being left out will affect this auction—but it won't last into auctions where the books are resold. Some books may be locked away in permanent collections, but others will be re-sold at a loss. It always happens with over-hyped auctions.

Raven-haired loser to blonde-haired loser and raven-haired winner.

Parachuting to parachuting.

Do-Do to Koko.

Agreed. For most people it's all about making a fast buck. The only thing you can do is try not to let them make a fast buck off of you. If you think a book has been pressed, pass it by. If you see a copy on the block less than five years after the last sale of the same copy, pass it by—no matter how high it is on your want list. Don't be an enabler.

Like you, I will pay a premium for page quality. I paid north of $5K for this book because it had white pages and was graded in the era when CGC was more strict about page quality. I really didn't care about the pedigree designation. If the pages had been OW/W, then I would not have bid over $2,500. CGC has relaxed their page quality standards quite a bit, so "WHITE" doesn't mean what it used to, but even with newer slabs, I'll bid more for WHITE than for OW/W. (I don't bid on anything below OW/W unless the book is in an old-label slab, and then I'll occasionally go down to OW.)

Bad guy in a suit and orange socks to bad guys in suits and red socks.

Red sky to red sky.

I've only owned one brittle book—a random issue of Magic Comics. It looked good in the polybag, but when I opened it, the pages were crumbling in my hands. That was over thirty years ago; since then I've avoided brittle pages like the plague.

I definitely don't like the fact that the newer slabs are thicker. It seems like they went in the wrong direction. What I like about slabs is that you don't need a backing board, so you can look at the back cover easily.

Pearl necklace to pearl necklace.

To me, any book with brittle pages is a 0.5/Poor. I've never understood some collectors' willingness to buy books with brittle pages.

There should be a meme for that because it is so often true.

It's definitely the same book. The discoloration around the staple is a dead giveaway. And yes, it looks worse after pressing—yet it has a higher grade; that's how CGC rolls.

I didn't say they were all overgraded by 4 increments I said 2–4, and I stand by that. Every 9.6 I've looked at looked like an 8.5—9.2 to me. I tried to find a high-grade book that. was within one increment, and I couldn't. (By the way, I've done very little buying over the last two years; I think I've bought about six slabbed books in that period, and only one of those was slabbed recently enough to have the page quality on the white sticker, so I haven't been influenced by any recent tight grading.)

That response is disingenuous at best. Many collectors were justifiably upset about the ridiculously loose grading. Nobody denigrated the books in any way. It would have been an exceptionally nice collection even if it had been graded accurately, but as it stands most of the books appear to be overgraded by 2–4 increments, and collectors cannot give CGC a free pass on something like that—especially when it just so happens that the books are being brought to market by HA, which is a part owner of CGC. (A few collectors who are shills for Heritage and/or CGC might, but most won't.)

What you're saying about the books selling for "way more after" certainly isn't true for all of the Keller books. Take the Mile High Green Lanterns #26. It sold on HA for $10,755 in 2010 . It then sold on HA in 2010 for $7,468.75. It then sold on CConnect in 2013 for around $4 or $5 K. (Maybe someone with a GPA subscription can find the exact price.) The other Mile High Green Lanterns had a similar story. When Keller sold them, he lost money, but they weren't through going down. When he sold them, the prices were temporarily buoyed by the high prices that he had paid—the GPA effect. Then they went down even more the next time. Let's look at a non-Keller book lest someone get the mistaken impression that that situation was unique. The Vancouver Namora #1 in 9.8 is a suitable example. It sold for $13,800 in 2006, but then it sold for $7,767.50 in 2009 (both times on HA). That example offers a good parallel to the Promise books because it was a loosely-graded book that was initially offered in an auction with a lot of hype.

"If ANY TYPICAL COMIC DEALER LIKE MUCK WILSON OR DUNG SCHMELL got a hold of the slab . . ." Fixed it for ya.