jimbo_7071

My money is on Snyder as the vandal who added color touch to the book.

I haven't studied the collections, but my only Cookeville is an 8.0. This is the only probable Cookeville I've seen for sale lately; it's a 9.0. I've seen many mid-grade books out there, too, though. Once more books get slabbed, it'll be easier to get a handle of the distribution of grades. I haven't seen enough slabbed Eldon books to get a clear idea of the average grade, but I have seen some nice ones. Of the 466 Harold Curtis books sold in the May 2006 Heritage auction, 206 were 7.5 or above. Of those, 57 were 9.0 or above. So it was no Mile High collection, but there were more nice ones than what your post suggested.

One thing that's worth mentioning about those pedigrees is that they all have markings that are recognizable to collectors. For that reason, that story behind those collections was of interest to many GA collectors long before CGC approved the pedigree designations. That's a good enough reason to acknowledge the pedigree status on the labels. I would support recognizing the Cape Cod collection for the same reason. Some collections, like the Guy Holcombe books, are trickier because they are interesting to collectors but fall far short when it comes to grades. At least the three collections mentioned above have many books in the VF range, which most collectors consider the threshold for high grade. Maybe books from known lower-grade original-owner collections could be tracked with a notation on the label the same way that the provenance of some second-owner books (Ruben Blades, Nicolas Cage, etc.) are tracked.

Experienced collectors are savvy enough to value each pedigree on its own merits. Most collectors would not value a Church copy and a Crippen copy equally just because they're both "pedigrees." The pedigree designation provides extra information. While that information may not always mean much, it can't hurt, and the background stories are interesting to many of us.

I don't own any. The only ones I ever see are in very poor condition. If I ever saw any nice ones from the 50s, I'd buy them, but them may not even exist in mid grade let alone high grade. Some may not exist at all.

Bald guy to bald guy.

It's supply and demand. The strong prices on low-grade copies were the result of a handful of passionate collectors trying to get their hands on copies when copies where scarce in the marketplace. Those strong prices brought other copies out of the woodwork, so now the lower-grade copies aren't going to fare particularly well.

I'm somewhat surprised that the RH would be that high with A/C—but then I don't live in the Carribean. I know that 1950s comics from the Phillippines, where the humidity is high, are virtually impossible to find in any grade above "rag." High humidity and comic collecting don't seem to mix.

Humidity will destroy book in slabs or out of them. I live in Michigan, where the humidity is far less than what it is in the Caribbean, I'm sure, and I would not even consider keeping my comics books in a room without air conditioning.

I agree. They practically live virtually. They're always on their phones. I've known Millenials who collect tennis shoes and Pokémon cards, and I'm sure there are a few here and there who collect other things, including comic books, but the next generation—the Zoomers—aren't interested in collecting anything so far as I can tell. They only seem to care about social media (watching TikTok videos, etc.). The concept of collecting could be an anachronism fifty years from now.

I get the picture. I think I'll pass.

I'm still not familiar with OnlyFans (and I'm not going to bother Googling it) so I don't get what's funny.

I went without health insurance for 9 years in order to continue collecting comics. I finally caved in and bought health insurance in 2021 after COVID hit. (I've been to the doctor twice in the past three years, so I often think ruefully about the extra comics I could have purchased if only I hadn't caved in and bought health insurance. I may have a problem.)

A person may be amenable to changing his or her standards over time, however. There was a time when I would not bid on any book graded below VF—now I really don't care about grade. I care about freshness, including page quality, and eye appeal, but the number in the corner doesn't mean anything to me. I'll take a 5.0 with good eye appeal over a 9.0 with obtrusive foxing and a weak color strike. The grading of the Promise Collection really opened my eyes. I see grading as a gimmick at this point.

All of CGC's designations refer to suppleness rather than color, but there's a strong correlation.

I need to educate myself a bit more. I returned a book from eBay a couple of years ago because the right edge looked trimmed: it was cut square like a square-bound book instead of having the slight V that I'm used to seeing on saddle-stitched books. But would books from all publishers have that V, or did some publishers trim their saddle-stitched books with a square edge at the bindery? The copy was wider than average, not narrower, which is what made me wonder whether it was definitely trimmed. However, the right edge was perfectly square. I returned it because I wasn't willing to take a chance.

The only thing that bothers me more than trimming is brittleness. I would not buy a brittle book, and I would not buy a trimmed book—full stop.

For now, but his plagiarism could cut into those numbers significantly once it's more broadly known.

If I were buying, I might pay $200 for the Wow 58, $100 for the Mary Marvel 18, and $75 for the Mary Marvel 16.

Sidekick being saved by a knife to sidekick being menaced with a knife.

Many of the most sought-after Edgar Church / Mile High books were scooped up in the late 70s/early 80s and have never been slabbed or re-sold. The same is probably true for many San Francisco books; I wouldn't be surprised if many of those have been sitting in the same 2nd-owner collections since the 70s. Back in the 80s, I used to read every GA book I bought—once, with extreme care. After that, it never left its Archive. I don't know that old school collectors were reading their high-grade copies. I think that most guys who wanted to read books collected lower-grade books or bought second "reading" copies. GA books aren't too fragile; I think it's the Atom Age books with flimsier covers that are less likely to surface in top grade. This GA book still slabbed out as a 9.4 despite my having read it. (I bought it in '88 and did not have it pressed.)

I think there are still many high-grade books out there in 2nd-owner collections. Top census books that are 9.6s or 9.8s have a good shot at retaining their positions, but 9.0s and 9.2s? Nope. It's hard to put numbers to anything, but my impression is that for any GA book, there are far more raw copies out there than slabbed copies.

Ummm . . . Robin with a blonde pompadour that looks like a phallus? Sorry, that's just weird.

I buy and sell items on eBay every once in a while, and I also work two jobs. Just because the post office is open on a particular day, that doesn't mean that I can get there that day. I typically have one or two days a week when I might be able to stop by the post office (which where I live means standing in line for a good thirty minutes). I often need more than four days to ship out an item, and so do the sellers that I buy from. That's the reality of dealing with casual sellers. Even many of the full-time comic dealers on eBay travel to cons over the weekend and aren't always able to ship immediately. One of my best sources typically takes about a week to ship books, but I've always been happy with his grades and his prices—and I've never failed to receive an item. You've been involved in online commerce since '93? eBay and Amazon weren't even founded until '95. What online sellers were operating in '93? I'm just curious. Even in the early 2000s, purchases on eBay were usually paid for with a check or money order. It was typical for sellers to wait a week or two for a check to clear before shipping an item.

Bare-legged sidekick to four-legged sidekick.