Pantodude

We can stop them to nothing can stop them...except...

We did have Blade in August 1998, with Blade 2 in March 2002. And in 2021, we had Black Widow and Eternals, I think.

Oh yeah? Well this gotta be the biggest war stamp I've ever seen on a comic!

@lou_fine It's no biggie. Like I said, you raised interesting points. It didn't really matter who said it. The point being that the implication (grandfathered into your post, if that's the case) remained the same, and I just wanted to address it, as an alternative view. I expressly referred to the more modest results during the Fall 2022 and Jan 2023, just didn't want to litter the post with even more data. Just clarifying that my reference to the 28.8-33.6 range was as a potentially reasonable ceiling at this time for a solid SS#4 in 9.6 OW/W, i.e., the book need not be a 9.8 candidate to get there. A recurring outlier might not really be an outlier, with enough perspective, like if the book most recently sold for $31.6K, the 4th time in that range in just 1.5 years (18 months). But "possible outlier" seems fair. It's really the suggested reasonable ceiling that intrigued me.

Howdy. Interesting, but your suggestion that a Silver Surfer #4 graded 9.6 and at least OW/W would not fetch $30K unless it were a 9.8 candidate seems off. Silver Surfer #4 in 9.6 has fetched $30K or so in each of the last three years (4 times in all) without necessarily being such a candidate: 3/30/23: 9.6 OW/W = $31200 on H; 5/12/22: 9.6 OW/W = $28800 on H; 4/8/22: 9.6 W = $33600 on H; 9/9/21: 9.6 W = $28.8K on H. Consistent with that possibility, I checked the grader notes for all those referenced 9.6s, and they suggest that they could be nice 9.6s but not necessarily candidates for 9.8. If any of those 9.6s had been bought at a premium as potential 9.8 candidates (as opposed to just legit, nice 9.6s), the greedy gene in all of us suggests those books would have been resubmitted to CGC by now. But all their certs remain active on CGC (yes, I'm assuming we are all census-conscientious players). BTW, census for 9.8s has remained unchanged since at least June 2021, while # of 9.6s has been either 74 or 75 since June 2022, and only the 9.4s went up some. This suggests that if those 9.6s had been resubbed for the 9.8 lottery (w/o cancelling the origional certifications), the submitters lost that gamble. So these approx $28.8K-33.6K results could simply refllect the currently reasonable ceiling for a nice 9.6 since the June 2021 sale of a 9.8 for $90K. The much more modest results during Fall 2022 and Jan 2023 could be explained by market jitters, which arguably makes the recent $31200 sale more remarkable, in a bullish way. Just a thought. Besides, SS#4, with one of the best covers in all of comicdom, could simply be a $30K book now in 9.6. An uber grade for such cover-heavy books could (should?) be more impactful than an uber grade for other keys that do not have an historic cover, even if more scarce.

Ponder this. What if that blue 7.5 book on Heritage today were originally an apparent purple 9.6, with what we can see must have been slight color touch (in light of the few scraped areas). You would hope the book otherwise exceeds a typical 7.5 in other respects? I'm referring to insignificant/minimal wear at all edges, great colors, above-average brightness, no stains, no significant creases, etc. Bonus if back cover is clean and bright, too. Well, this 7.5 seems to meet all of those criteria. Except for the small scraped areas, the book is quite uncommonly sound all around. Seriously, take a look at those hi-res Heritage scans, front and back. Seen in that light, this 7.5 arguably should have fetched at least whatever a typical blue 7.5 would. Maybe it did fetch that (and the buyer did fine) but we won't know until another sale of a blue 7.5. Maybe it went for less than what a typical 7.5 might get today, in which case the buyer arguably did better than fine if the book went too cheap -- again, assuming it has great all-around condition (something a potential buyer might not really appreciate without having the book in hand). So perhaps today's buyer of this 7.5 will be all smiles once he has the book in hand. That would be a happy story and quite at odds with the negative sentiment in the above posts? Maybe we'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Yet another thread on this Detroit find! The more the merrier! Now three threads and counting? This, the other one in Comics General and the one in Golden Age.

I don't know why, but I can't help but dwell on the contrast between the way this discovery of a family-owned and special hoard was brought to the public and handled since, and the way the Promise collection continues to remain a mystery in numerous respects. It gives me pause about the authenticity of the whole Promise story (not of the books, but of the circumstances surrounding the books, including whether it was just a single "regular" family who owned them as opposed to a group of scheming collectors/dealers who figured out a way to cash out big). Of course I hope it was/is legit! But this is why, for me at least, transparency is so important in this hobby. For example, to this day, not one interview with a family member relating to the Promise stuff, and everything about it was controlled by the auction house? And no more details of the location of the books since the announcement of the find? Is that right? Please correct me if I'm wrong (and I'll revise this specific post accordingly). I would much prefer to restore my faith in that find, as it affected the pricing of many non-Promise books along the way, and to this day. The inclusion of Promise sales on GPA/GoCollect inevitably continues unduly to affect how one prices the books in surrounding grades of the same issue. Because the Promise stuff included formerly obscure and dollar bin GA books that now went for a lot more (sometimes A LOT more) due the Promise label, it also likely affected the pricing of numerous formerly unremarkable run books. Someone less experienced with the hobby surely made the mistake, at least temporarily, of thinking all GA books were valuable due to being uncommon/old after seing that Promise result in GPA or GoCollect, etc. I recall some examples of the really crazy prices fetched by not just Promise books, but non-ped versions of formerly unremarkable books since the Promise event. Some of those were posted here by boardies. That the Promise event caused this wide-reaching price distortion is unfortunate for the unwary, but it likely would have happened regardless of the authenticity of the circumstances of the Promise books. So while also troubling, the wide-reaching distortion would be easier to accept if I could at least be less suspicious of the alleged circumstances/story of the Promise find, and relatedly, its initial valuations.

@SargNah, this must be the greatest GA back cover of all time. Ok, maybe not. But where else do you get a full "story" for free on the back cover? Who can guess where this one is from? No cheating!

Since the boom, yes, if you consider the single sale in mid-2022 was for $81K. But we expected stuff to drop since then. The recent $58K sale would have been top-two for 2020, which had sales for $26K, $34K, $45K, along with $75K and $56K at year end. Put in perspective, leave it to y'all whether decent.

Hi. If the old (2003) purple label said restored for “slight (P)” for reinforcement or a tear seal (which I understand today is considered conservation because it was slight and professional and thus reversible), would the reholdered book receive a gray conserved label without having to go through the regrading process?

I was going to comment on the stickers issue, but this issue seems to warrant some investigation first (comparing scans, etc). Perhaps they have their place.