jimbo_7071

Check out the Cole Schave thread if you're interested in this topic. The consensus back then was that CCS had amped up the heat and humidity used for pressing in order to reduce cycle time. Cover shrinkage became the norm, apparently. I don't doubt that comics can be pressed carefully with minimal risk of additional damage, but CCS certainly isn't the place to do it. It's all about the throughput there. Care for the comic books doesn't seem to be a consideration. I have also seen many, many pressed books with additional stress around the staples. The books sometimes get higher grades, but they look worse. Based on what I've seen, a comic should never be pressed it the staples are offset onto the cover of the book instead of being aligned on the spine. Books with offset staples look completely trashed after pressing. ETA: I would hope that they would be more careful with rare GA books than with moderns, but I personally wouldn't risk it.

Caught in a web to caught in a web.

I picked this one up more for the back cover than the front cover.

Bad guy who looks like Pete Townshend to good guy who looks like Burl Ives.

What you said about the third category is certainly true. I'm not sure whether those collectors have an impact on the high-grade slabbed market, though. I tend to think those collectors are more likely to go after low- or mid-grade raw books or reprints. I could be wrong. I enjoy the stories, too, but I usually read them in reprint form or even online for the ones in the public domain. (During the last few years I've done more reading of comic books on comicbooksplus.com than in paper copies.) Sadly, I don't think there are many collectors left who fall into that third category. Again, I could be wrong.

This sale really highlights the fact that there are two camps in comic collecting: people who collect books for the art (especially the cover art) and people who collect key issues. Obviously, the people buying those two books are in the latter camp. As someone who collects for the cover art, neither 'Tec 140 nor 'Tec 168 appeals to me much. I do want to pick up some D.C.s because I don't have many, but the cover art seldom grabs me. In every auction that comes along, there invariably ends up being something I like better than whatever D.C.s I'm thinking about pursuing. 'Tec 31 is one of my favorite DCs, but I've basically been priced out of that one. (I don't buy lottery tickets, so I can't even say, "Unless I win the lottery.") Back when it was affordable, I could never find a copy with nice pages. Now I wish I'd bought a copy with C/OW pages so I could trade up in page quality.

Plummeting from a ship to plummeting from a car.

1. Fantastic! 2. He sounds a little like Ed Wynn.

It can be a tough call with scarcer books. I paid $5K for this one, which was a steep price. The thing is, I have no idea against whom I was bidding. Was I bidding against someone who would have re-listed the book a year down the road, or was I bidding against someone who would have locked it away in his private collection for decades? The Mile High copy is still raw, and I have no idea where that one resides or whether it's still in the same condition it was when Chuck sold it. Did it spend a summer turning brown in someone's shed down in Texas? Did somebody's cat pee on it? When will it be offered for sale? Collecting would be so much easier if only I were omniscient. If only . . .

This one is only marginally related to comic books.

And this is the skid row bum's Batman 1: https://www.ebay.com/itm/325431390449?hash=item4bc538f0f1:g:H3EAAOSwsm5jQ3Mn&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoA6U4XHpYMTkbNJBWLlW3fV32r3jWCf5KvMwwTlfFHBzvWFXIDny5lKJYnbMcal4GA8e1NYupVARXtxNyXBBWT%2BAaL4vCqw0SLWsoqof8xeCk%2Fft2vtMfceJqLdq0D%2FArzLegX6KaITxnzxgoWmWAt8kxDJZPE%2F0mNi9811i%2FpXFscQx%2BKD%2B4SHA8VFz%2F6vHoLysDupwzxzD%2FUOaMfquhqU%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR9j1m9eSYQ

I have no interest in a Hulk 181, but I have no interest in vintage cars or motorcycles, either. If I see a price like that, the only thing I think is, "If I were the seller, what GA books would I buy?"

"The Mummy Who Never Died" to a living mummy.