MasterChief

Perhaps I'm not using the reworked GPA interface correctly, but the last recorded sale I see for a 5.0 is $95,600 in May of 2018.

The book appears to have not seen the treatment during the certification age. What are the chances it was acquired for the purposes of manipulation, thus the GPA record price?

From my vantage point, the original 2002 Heritage auction back cover scan gives a pretty good indication of what this book may look like in hand. The brown page color and other defects are clearly visible and defined. Conversely, the third Heritage back cover scan, as well as the recent CC back cover scan, appear to be juiced white, thereby minimizing, for the most part, those defects.

And the moral of this story is: "In the short-term, certified comic book collecting is a popularity contest. In the long-term it is a weighing machine." BTW, you're getting pretty good at the detective work.

That very same book sold in its original holder (old label) for $10, 350 on July 4, 2002 via Heritage. With its current sale (same serial number, 2nd generation label) at $107,000, the realized gain is a whopping 933.82%.

I've been watching this action for quite a while now. I suspect it is a very limited number of PF collectors driving up prices for top-tier books to flush out high-grade collections (remember when Brulato was paying nosebleed prices for 9.8s?). In my opinion the prices are short-term and not sustainable. That said, the action has more than likely attracted manipulators which will eventually create more supply than demand, especially for some of the more esoteric titles. Just my . And I agree with you, Bob. The new GPA site is a clicking disappointment! Hope all is well with you Framers out there!

Let's hope so... but something tells me the certificate may be long gone. The book you bought is part of an effort to recover ~$9M in embezzled funds. The backstory is a rather sordid tale of a corrupt lawyer and dirty cops. Many links on the web about the case, here's just a few... Tadano America comic book embezzler named one of top 10 costliest frauds Texas Police Accused of Stealing Pricey Comics Comic Conman, A True Crime Tale of Comic Books, Corruption, and a $9 Million Vanishing Act

It's a collection of original owner comics brought to market in 2005 by Marnin Rosenburg. Here's the Scoop article for the Detroit Trolley Collection from April 29, 2005.

I lost out on the OA I was gunning for... but was able to walk away with this.

Congrats on the book. And it's the Detroit Trolley copy to boot!

No consensus,in fact there was a tendency to try to brush this whole situation under a carpet..But a couple of very knowledgeable boardies know the whole story and that the Tec was trimmed. I remember that whole affair quite well. Allegedly, Daniel Dupcak, disguised in blond hair, walked into Greg Eide's shop in 2007 claiming to have found 71 Golden Age books in an attic. One of which happened to be a TEC#27. Eide's spent approximately two hours or so examining, listing, and grading the books. He was convinced that many of the books were worked on, including the TEC#27, which appeared to have been trimmed. In the end, Eide made an offer and the Dupcak character rejected it. The seller then went to Todd McDevitt's store and McDevitt, who reportedly wasn't a GA specialist, bought the Tec#27 outright and it became national news. The remainder of the books were shopped to Steve Geppi who scooped many of them up and quickly had them graded and then liquidated at Heritage. The whole situation played out here on the boards, which quickly got heated. Several of the posters where banned a few days after appearing (supposedly Eide and Dupack themselves) and then it spilled over into the Comics Corral boards. Talk about fun! Anyway, below is an image of the suspect seller and a scan of the TEC#27. (Love that mug shot! )

With much anticipation I watched the auction today while juggling work at the office. I honestly was expecting fireworks and a tug-of-war for the MC#1. However, the live auction was anticlimactic for me as it appeared as though only two bidders were involved. And, if I remember correctly, the auction was extended just once after it was announced as about to close. In any event, the history of the 1939 publication, the Wind City pedigree story, and the run-up to the auction was enough to motivate me toward purchasing the Folio Society exclusive of Marvel: The Golden Age 1939-1949. I received it a couple weeks ago and only tonight did I have the courage to break it out. Great looking stuff, true to form. The Marvel Comics #1 is a magnificent exemplar of the historic book. It also included a special structural characteristic, too. A non-color breaking pressable defect in the upper right corner of the cover!

Well, as we all know here, the book was purchased in the end by the 2 architects behind the Impossible Collection (i.e. Fishler & Vinnie) who compiled the collection on behalf of Ayman Hariri, the son of the former Lebanese prime minister. I guess when you are a wealthy billionaire, you can afford to have both of the highest graded copies of Action 1 in your collection, along with so many other primo books that were unveiled as part of his collection back in 2016. Ahh, yes... since the real story of the book was actually being discussed here on the boards where it was revealed to be a recycled CGC copy that started out as an 8.0 with glue on the cover, manipulated into an 8.5, and then eventually into a 9.0 by way of extensive dry cleaning, let's present Mr. Hariri with an award to showcase next to his cedar chest treasure...

I was in it. We'll see if it matters in this market - after all, look at what happened to the Action 1 (CGC 9.0 W) that was "upgraded." Are you referring to the Action 1 that was supposedly stored in a cedar chest, been in the hands of a dealer for 30 years, and had never been publicly offered for sale: Are you saying that we should not believe this hype story about the Action 1 and the fact that these 2 guys in the video are deliberately misleading any potential bidders by leaving out some rather significant facts about the history and timeline of the book? Now, I would find that absolutely impossible to believe. Wow... what a fantastic story! A "cedar chest" Action Comics #1 stored in a pristine environment for decades unspoiled by human hands discovered by happenstance. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of. Too bad it is was all BS. A fairy tale sold from a carnival barker perspective to collectors who love a story.

Anyone have any background on the "Sun City Collection" included in the current auction? The Hucksters at Heritage have produced a video with all the hyperbole and catchphrases to capture the imagination of any starry-eyed collector. Not quite on the level of the promotional product for the "cedar chest" Action Comics #1, but enough to cause one to question claims of “stored untouched for over 60-years at high-altitude.” Here's the video... https://comics.ha.com/c/auction-home.zx?saleNo=7212&ic=hero-Comics-Auction-AuctionInfo-7212-110119#AO-WSlkibKk’

Thank you, Gary. I'm delighted by the fact that your legacy will forever be linked to this extraordinary copy. Also, appreciate you mentioning the name of the newsstand owner's son. Don't recall it being revealed before. Good to know another nugget of information to help document and improve provenance. I'll update the timeline accordingly. Meanwhile, I took the liberty to enhance one of the original images of the book you posted. Basically, I enlarged the image and tried to remove the orange tint while improving clarity and restoring color values. Not sure I achieved the best possible result but the image looks somewhat better. Hope it represents the book's appearance of 40+ years ago. That said, I must say that the spine looks quite round or "plump" in the old imagery. Quite the difference from how it appears now in the slabbed copy scans where it seems uncharacteristically flat.

During the pressing debates of the earlier 2000s, some forum members made the point that CGC was able to detect pressing because there were examples of restored books with label comments that included "cleaned and pressed." Steve Borock, however, came on the boards and clarified that the only time CGC would put the term "pressed" on a label was when they determined a book had been cleaned by the aqueous or solvent method as the two procedures of cleaning and pressing went hand-in-hand.

We've seen a lot of nonsense during the certification age so I would not be surprised if that has been tried. Here's some additional information on the book. An excerpt from the April 2005 eBay auction description. The seller's copy is somewhat foretelling as to what would eventually become of the book. Apparently, the seller was "in the know" but didn't try it themselves... "It is my understanding that the very small tear seals can be professionally undone, leaving only the cleaning and pressing as the least possible form of restoration done to this magnificent pedigree book. It is also my considered opinion that many books that have been cleaned and/or pressed have made it through the grading process without receiving the restoration label at all." See the link below for full auction description. It's from rob_react's website It's All Just Comics, which is a great resource. https://itsalljustcomics.com/2005/04/10/1483/

ESPN: Rare Tom Brady Rookie Card Sells for $400K at Auction Now it's one of many cards that is under suspicion of trimming having possibly passed through the hands of a certain dealer - look at page 1 of this message board thread for details, and also the instances where trimming was detected (before/after photos of cards that got grade bumps). It makes it look terrifyingly easy to micro-trim and upgrade cards; if these cards didn't have unique identifiers being part of limited edition runs, I wonder if they would have been caught. Also makes you wonder how many harder-to-detect examples of trimming have passed through the hobby...probably countless by this point. I occasionally dabble in the odd sports card (strictly small time and 100% nostalgia based), but, this has really killed my interest in participating further. Late to the discussion but ran across the below recently and thought I'd share. (BTW... I have a footlocker full of late 80s and 90s sports cards. Mostly unopened. When I heard about the Upper Deck revelation it was a real bummer. )

To be honest, my first inclination is that there's something in nefarious going on. But to be fair to CGC, another possibility is that the first assessment of the book being cleaned is actually incorrect. It wouldn't be the first time that CGC over called restoration. either way, they either missed cleaning on this one, or inaccurately called it the first time. Not a good look. You bring up a good point about making inaccurate restoration calls. However, I ran across the thread below when drilling down on the history and Metropolis sold the book raw in 2004 prior to initial certification. They mentioned the restoration in their description. As a result, I figured with their determination and that of CGC's first grading, the assessment of cleaning was more than likely accurate. https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/39713-bethlehem-amazing-spider-man-1-cgc-94-slight-p-sells-for-169k/

Looks like your wish was granted...

Throw some dirt on it? I didn't consider that but the mental image of some knucklehead doing so is too funny. In all seriousness, I was hoping to hear what others thought as my initial inclinations were that (1) CGC missed the restoration/conservation during the certification process, (2) CGC grading standards have changed, or (3) old rumored allegations may be true – CGC awards "gift grades" to certain submitters. While I would like to believe my first inclination is the case while the second plausible and the third absurd, it may be helpful to add, by way of additional information, that the ASM#1 was submitted for recertification along with the (now designated) Windy City copy of Marvel Comics #1 and this copy of Showcase #22, which is also in the current Heritage auction.

You are missing the basic equation comic - restoration = $$$ Masterchief; During your leave of absence, CCG like any other successful business enterprise seeks to maximize both their top and bottom lines by adding in as manay additional streams of revenue as possible. One of these additional streams of revenue would just happen to be restoration removal which falls under the business umbrella of CCS. How nice that they can make money by offering restoration services and then double down again by offering restoration removal services on the exact same book. The sign of a good business model is one where you can make money on the same product (i.e. comic book) not just once, but as many times as possible. I understand the process of removing tear seals... but how does one remove cleaning, whether it's the aqueous or solvent method, to achieve a Universal Grade?

Yes, I believe they made this change back somewhere around 2014 when they came out with the updated Restoration Grading Scale, as it's now considered to be only Conservation as opposed to the much dreaded PLOD restoration: Conservation Repairs Conservation repairs are performed with the intent of preserving the structural or chemical integrity of a comic book using professional techniques and materials. It excludes aesthetic repairs such as color touch and piece fill. All conserved grades must satisfy the CGC quality scale of "A" and quantity scale of "1". Tear seals Spine split seals Reinforcement Piece reattachment Some cover or interior cleaning (water or solvent) Staples cleaned or replaced Some leaf casting De-acidification Funny how the worm turns. So, by those standards, the Bethlehem Copy of ASM#1, which is in the current Heritage auction, should be in a restored or conserved holder. But it's not. It was recertified on 9/12/2019 and went from a 9.4 Restored Grade with a label notation of "two tear seals, cleaned and pressed" to a 9.0 Universal. What am I missing? The Amazing Spider-Man #1 Bethlehem Pedigree (Marvel, 1963) CGC VF/NM 9.0 Off-white to white pages

Having been away for awhile, I guess I missed this too. Mark Wilson employs solvent cleaning and it's not considered restoration?