TheLexLuthorCollection

About 10 years ago, I saw a Golden Age Action Comics graded 9.0 on e-Bay. I asked the seller for the grader notes. When he saw the notes, he was surprised that it indicated that there was a slight dab of glue which was not noted on the Blue label. When he contacted CGC's top grader, he was puzzled and could not confirm whether the book had glue or not. Eventually, the seller decided to resubmit the book for pressing and regrading. The book came back as a 9.2. The label did not indicate any glue and I did not ask about the revised grader notes.

Thanks for your recommendations. I will certainly look into these dealers

The jump in grade from 7.0 to 9.4 for the Okajima book certainly sounds mind boggling but the 7.0 looks to me that it was under graded. Personally, I find that the grading companies provide a valuable service despite the recent reholder scandal and this issue with the Okajima book. I don't trust any dealer to grade a book accurately. The temptation to over grade is too great and every sight unseen purchase that I have made has been a disappointment. With most of the premium stuff being sold at auction and through the internet, I welcome companies such as CGC.

Swagglehaus (Mickey Finnegan) on You Tube actually covered this suspicious sale recently. He suggested that perhaps there may be some money laundering going on. Automatic Comics (Ryan) on You Tube also noticed exorbitant prices being paid for "run filler" DC books on Heritage. For example, 2 weeks ago, he pointed out three Teen Titans issues at 9.8 selling for between $12K- $21K each. A few months ago, he pointed a Superman #35 CGC 7.5 selling for $5K and a Superman $45 CGC 6.0 selling for about $4k. Something was definitely off with all these sales given that it takes "two to tango" to reach these prices so it can't be just one "dumb bidder". It should be noted that Heritage is not obligated to report auction transactions to the IRS which tends to give some credence to Swagglehaus' suggestion that money laundering may be at work.

My guess is that it was a different person. Many of the Promise Books that recently came back for re-auction were DC Books. With the exception of the grail books like Superman #1 and All Star 8, the Golden Age DC's in the current auction are largely mid-Grade or less. Folks who buy 9.0+ graded books like the Promise Collection would not have mid-grades in their collection to sell.

I noticed that the book was recently listed on Steve Ritter's Worldwide Comics website. In April 2022, the book was acquired for $3120 at HA. At the time, the book graded at 9.2. It looks like the book was pressed and re-graded to 9.4. For the current HA auction, the seller (Steve?) sold it for $4200. Of course, there is the seller's premium and press and grading charges. Still a tidy profit.

Most of the books that have been identified by CGC as part of the reholder swap scam are newer books were there are a huge number of high grade books which makes the swapping much easier. The Showcase #4, however, is extremely rare to find in high grade (especially for a 9.6) and a swap would be very difficult. With that said, when I take a close look at the scan, the top left corner is not close to perfect and there is spine wear. Not sure if it is a 9.6 and it may have been over graded.

Hi Dwight, I apologize but I did not mean to come across as condescending. Rather, I was interested in trying to fill in some blanks in the backstory of the collection. In particular, the silver age Marvels. At the time of my purchase, Calvin was not interested in selling them or the Green Lanterns. A few years ago, I did ask Matt Nelson of CGC why the Slobodian's were not classified as a Pedigree by CGC. What he told me was that Calvin's collection was not all original owner copies which disqualified the collection from being called a Pedigree. Your mention of Calvin also having acquired some Larson's and Cosmic Airplane books supports Nelson's comments. Although, my guess is that the vast majority of the Slobodian collection was purchased by him off the newsstand and to disqualify the whole collection does seem to be a bit harsh. Anyway, based on what you said, it all fits. No, I am not Ron F.

You may have handled some of the DC Slobodian books that I sold. I bought the DC collection directly from Calvin Slobodian in 1976 through an ad that he placed in The Buyer's Guide (I may still have copies of my correspondence with Calvin). I still have the Action Comics, Superman, Superboy and World's Finest books but I sold the rest a few years after acquiring them. As I recall, for the Showcase books, Calvin only sold me the Flash and Tommy Tomorrow titles. Mr. Slobodian, at the time, wanted to keep the Jack Kirby Challengers of the Unknown and the Gil Kane Green Lantern books. Anyway, it is great learning more about this amazing collection. I should have kept the Showcase #4 :-( Thanks.

For a $10K and $100K book, CGC charges $400 and $4000 respectively for grading. Surely, CGC can afford to put the expensive books in more secure slabs. A $1M book would cost $40K to grade and deserves more than a cheap, plastic slab. Keep the current slab for books under $5K.

Around 1975, I purchased most of Slobodian's DC collection including the Showcase comics. Showcase #4 was at best a 7.0. I no longer have it since I sold it years ago.

I agree that reholders need to be regraded. I also agree that the slabs need a more secure design. But isn't it odd that a $3M book has the same slab as a $10 book? Given the amount of money that we are talking about with expensive books and the cost of grading these expensive books, CGC should offer different slab designs for different book values. Surely a $5000 book deserves a much more secure slab design than the $10 book.

Anyone notice the prices realized from the recent Heritage auction of the Joker Collection of Robert Ben Garant? It had 4 Promise books including Detective Comics #124 and #149 which originally sold for $120,000 and $102,000 respectively in June 2021. However, on Thursday these books sold for $40,800 and $26,400 respectively. That is a $ loss of $154,800. Neither of these books are keys. I am not aware of other six figure Promise books that realized such % losses. Not a great day for Mr. Garant and a demonstration of the risk in having a dedicated auction in one's name.

Can anyone tell me who is Brulato?

I thought a Superman #1 CGC 7.0 sold at Goldin a few months back? What made that sale remarkable was that the same copy sold also at Goldin previously for about $2.5M. Anyone know if this is the Goldin copy?

I would not say the Promise books auctioned in the Heritage June and September signature auctions were "obscure players". Rather they were largely Superman (including Action Comics), Batman (including Detective Comics) and Wonder Woman. To an astute and experienced Golden Age collector, they may not be "Hall of Famers" but to a novice collector, it is all he/she knows.

I did not ask that question at NYCC but 2 years ago during the Promise Collection frenzy, I did ask this Heritage person whether the insane prices were being driven by traditional collectors or newbies with deep pockets. He told me the latter.

When I was at New York Comic Con, I spoke to a Heritage Auctions representative who confirmed my suspicion that most of the Promise Book consignments from the last two Signature Auctions came from a single individual. That person took a huge bath and presumably has sold everything which could explain the absence of Promise books for this auction.

I am sorry but I have to disagree that the reason the Action Comics did relatively well compared to the Detective Comics in the last Signature Auction was due to a few bidders logging in late. If we look at how Wonder Woman did in the last Signature Auction, 18 were offered for auction. 7 showed about 20% losses. 2 were about the same but 9 showed increases in winning bids. A pattern similar to the Action Comics. Yet all 12 Detectives offered for auction showed declines. I have to think that there were more "deep pocket" Batman buyers during the first go around.

Agree. Although it was a bit odd. All the Promise Detective Comics took a bath ranging from 10-45%. However, the Promise Action Comics had four issues that sold for more (including Action Comics #100 which previously sold for $12K but sold for $20.4K in this auction). Four that saw little change, three that suffered about a 15% decline and four issues that saw declines of 30% or more. Not sure why the Detectives took a bigger hit than the Actions. Perhaps, their previous prices were more inflated during the frenzy of 2021.

I recently won on Heritage Auctions a custom painted Hot Toys Batmobile. The size of the box was 37 inches x 14 inches x 27 inches. After I won, I was concerned that I would be receiving a huge shipping charge. I also bid and won a second item which was about 20x20x4 inches. To my surprise, the shipping charge was only about $57 via Federal Express. The total value of the 2 items was about $1000. I received the items in 3 days.

"if someone shows up with a guide and a stupid story, to throw them out ..." How very true.!! I have told my family the same thing. For Golden Age, the prices listed in Overstreet are just unrealistically low. My suspect that dealers use the guide to show uninformed sellers looking to sell with the pretense that they are "willing to offer a great price of 70-100% guide. In the 52nd edition of the Overstreet Guide, page 172, John Verzyl II said "A part of the reason that there are so many Guide nay-sayers is because they do not understand it. Most people think that this magic book is supposed to tell you the current value of a specific issue, but it is supposed to tell you the LOWEST possible value of said issue". Huh?? Does Verzyl mean the dealer buy price? Anyway, at the 2022 San Diego Comic Con, I attended an Overstreet Access Presentation. During Q&A, I asked JC Vaughn about Verzyl's comments in the Guide. JC was adamant that the statement was incorrect. That the Overstreet Prices are accurate and do not reflect the lowest possible value. I find this to be an odd statement. If you look at page 172 of the newest Guide (#53), there is a list of Key Sales from 2022-2023 for Golden Age Sales. Almost everyone of these 44 books sold for well above 2023 Guide. The 44 books sold include many books which I do not view as Key comics such as Superman #4 and #7 as well as Action Comics #33. Those sold for 5.3x, 1.95x and 1.94 of Guide respectively. How can a Guide claim to be accurate when its own data shows that it is not? There was no way that I would sign up for Overstreet Access. Why would I want a service that summarizes information which under values my books? Especially, if I decide to insure the books or use the values for Estate Planning???

The Superman #63 and the Promise Superman #68 (sold for $26.4K) are both 9.6. They are extremely rare. I would argue that of all the Superman's being offered in the June auction, these two were the rarest. Both were printed in the early 50's when comics had lost their popularity. Also, in the Auction was a Superman #101 (1955) which sold for a record $6K (previous high was $1800 in 2018). Collectors are starting to realize that these early to mid 50's Superman's in 9.4 and up, only rarely come up for sale. If you want them, you need to pay the big bucks.

Despite the huge drops that we saw on the Promise books, the prices realized yesterday were, for the most part, higher than what was the market value pre-Promise in June 2021. Things are just trending back to "normal".

As a high grade Action Comics collector I was following today's auction very closely. The four Promise Collection Action Comics were the ones that appeared in the first Promise auction on June 2021. That auction was where we saw some real crazy prices. Subsequent Heritage auctions saw excessive prices but not as insane as the first. With that said, despite the seller taking a huge bath, the prices. realized for the four Actions sold today were still high compared to the expected market values just prior to the first Promise auction.