jimbo_7071

Matt Nelson and Bill Ponsetti posing as pirates in 1950 to Oswald the Rabbit posing as a pirate in 1946.

Unlike some posters, I don't blame corruption for the inconsistent grading on the collection; I blame the exponential growth of CGC and the fact that the graders that they have now don't have the same level of experience as the graders did twenty years ago, when most of the graders were also long-time collectors. If I'm not mistaken, they also used to have three graders look at every book, and I don't think that that's happening now. There have been a couple of times now when we've seen periods of slightly tight grading followed by periods of extremely loose grading. After the learning curve of 2000–2001, grading was pretty darn consistent from about 2002 through at least 2007. It got pretty tight by about 2008 or 2009, and then by 2011 it had gotten really loose. I suspect that the loose grading was an overreaction to complaints from submitters about the grading being too tight, but who knows for sure. The pendulum does seem to swing back and forth. It seemed like the grading was a little tight throughout 2019 and 2020, and then it was followed by the loosest grading we've ever seen around the time the Promise Collection surfaced. I saw loose grading on non-pedigree books that were showing up on eBay around that time, too. Add in the likelihood that the graders were probably slightly enchanted by the mystique surrounding the Promise Collection, and wa-la!—you have the perfect recipe for many extremely loosely graded books within that pedigree. The books are nice books, but there needs to be an asterisk next to any single-highest-graded book from that collection, in my opinion. That's not to say that every grade is wrong, but the soft grading that the collection as a whole enjoyed can't be overlooked.

Maybe it's an exaggeration to say that they were all overgraded by that much—but many of them were. The ones from the first few auctions where they were offered were probably among the worst overall. The ones that were offered later didn't appear to be overgraded as badly, but the grading was still soft on most of them. Somebody just posted the Gangsters Can't Win; it would be pretty difficult to defend the grading on that one without being disingenuous. Your Airboys didn't look bad; they were at least reasonably graded. Based on the Promise purchases you've shared, I would venture to guess that you passed on quite a few books that you knew were softly graded and targeted the rare few that were graded more tightly than the rest. I'm assuming that the label on the Mary Marvel #6 below has a typo and that the outer cover is actually the 8.5. If that's the case, CGC is saying that the outer cover is an 8.5 even those that cover has two corners chewed off. And the inner cover, which has one cover chewed off, is a 9.2. That's just one example. @Phill the Governor can peruse the Promise threads to see more examples. I will mention one more: The notes on this Subby 23 say "moderate bindary chip out left bottom of whole book." Does that look like a bindery chip to you? It sure looks like a mouse chew to me (and would even if I didn't know that mouse chews were prevalent within the collection).

Back in 1989, a local LCS owner offered me a white-paged, NM copy of Batman #11, but he wanted a significant percentage over guide for it—maybe double guide. I'm not positive, but I think guide was $350 and he wanted $700, or something like that. Back then I was very reluctant to pay over guide for anything, so I passed on a number of nice books for the same reason, but that one really stands out. So does the Mile High copy of Batman 41, which I was offered for $300 at a con in 1988. I probably would have bought that one if I hadn't already purchased a high-grade copy of the same issue the same day. My copy looked just about as nice in the Mylar sleeve, but the dealer pulled out both books and pointed out the difference in page quality. 'Nuff said. If only I had stopped by that dealer's table first, I would have purchased my first Mile High that day.

Most of the Promise Collection books were graded about three increments higher than CGC norms. Some were overgraded even more than that. I saw some that looked to be overgraded by about 5 increments. The book that you posted actually appears to be one of the less overgraded ones. The midgrade books appear to have been graded a little more accurately, but there were plenty of "single-highest-graded" copies from that collection that aren't even close to being the nicest copies out there. (There were books with 9.6 grades that had noticeable mouse chews, etc.)

In a different venue, I think it would have been lucky to fetch half that amount.

The appearance belies the grade. The colors look quite good—in the manipulated HA scan, anyway.

Atom Age.

Unpleasant surprise from above to unpleasant surprise from behind.

Murderous cat to murderous mouse.

The Tecs and Batmans might sold for high prices the first time around, but I didn't think that the Actions and Supes sold for particularly strong prices, so those don't have as far to fall. Those could do about the same. I didn't follow the Wonder Womans and Sensations that closely.

Cole black to Cole black stippled with white.

Grabbing a kid around the waist to grabbing a kid around the waist.

It's decidedly unambitious compared to most eBay sellers, who use the formula "Maximum I could ever expect to get X 10, unless it's an absolute rag, in which case, maximum I could ever ever expect to get for a NM copy of the same issue X 10."

I disagree with that strongly. I much prefer the three-minute extension. It gives me a chance to think about whether I really want a book badly enough to go over my pre-auction estimate. Most of the time, I don't. I have tended to buy books at auction because of a perception that I might be able to get a good price, but it seldom happens. I've thought about switching to only buying books offered as for sale at a fixed price. I don't really think the auctions are worth the stress. My want list is basically Gerber Vol. I and Gerber Vol. II. I like some books a lot more than others, but the list of books I like a lot is a mile long. There are no particular books I really consider grails. Maybe there were 30 years ago when I wasn't aware of as many great covers as I am now.

You call the number of seconds you have on HA "quite a few"? It isn't an adequate amount of time to make a good decision—FOMO takes over—as evinced by the numerous times I've paid far more for books than I would have if I had had time to think.

I've seen some books sell for very strong prices, but I've seen some lackluster results, too. HA seems to be mostly immune to any softening of prices. Maybe HA bidders have more liquidity than the customer bases of other venues. I don't think it's fruitful to go by anecdotal information because the extremely strong and extremely weak results are probably the ones that people notice and remember. Dealers are in the best position to know whether the books priced as buy-it-nows are selling as quickly as they were in 2021 at the same price points. That would be the best indicator of the health of the GA market. (If things have slowed, some dealers might not be totally forthright about that.)

Duck to duck.

Elephant drum to elephant.

Color harmonies and diminishing perspective?

Neither of those is my favorite Fox PL book, and for me PL 23 is close to the bottom of the list. I don't think that one has particularly good cover art. I don't think of myself as a GGA collector, though, so I'm probably not focusing on the same things as the typical GGA guy.

Since you seem to be genuinely interested in feedback, I would say that the "SLIGHTLY BRITTLE" pages are the reason. I have no problem paying by check or money order when I buy a book—in fact, I prefer it because I don't use PayPal often enough to remember that process (or even how to log in). However, "Slightly Brittle" pages are an absolute deal breaker for me and for many other collectors as well. I would never consider a book with slightly brittle pages for any price. I might consider cream-to-off-white* pages for a very scarce book if the price was right. But slightly-brittle pages? Never. Not every collector cares about page quality, so I do think that the book would sell through a venue that put more eyes on it than the CGC boards. I have no idea what it might sell for, but I would expect it to sell at a significant discount versus a book with cream-to-off-white pages. You could try My Comic Shop if you're not comfortable with the no-reserve auction format. They cross-list everything on eBay (at a slightly higher price in order to cover the fees). *"What about light-tan-to-off-white?" you ask? It would have to be an extremely rare, highly desirable book with known pages quality issues, such as Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1—in fact that's the only book I can think of off the top of my head that I might consider buying with light-tan-to-off-white pages.)

Interesting. It used to be that you couldn't give away a #3 or a #5. I'm not a run builder, so I never paid much attention to either.

Fervent appeal to buy war bonds to fervent appeal to buy war bonds.

Parked rocket to parked rocket.