10centcomics

I audibly gasped when I saw the grade. This was the furthest I've ever been off!

On 8/11/2023 at 11:14 AM, tth2 said:

Some people don't enjoy collecting if there's no challenge.  

In any event, 9.0 is not the very highest graded copy in existence for many of the Showcases, even the earlier issues.  

I mentioned in my post that Showcase No. 2 doesn't exist in 9.0 or higher (here's a link to the census:https://www.cgccomics.com/census/grades_standard.asp?title=Showcase&issue=2&publisher=D.C.+Comics&year=1956&issuedate=5-6/56) I guess we could hope for a raw one to turn up one day but I'm not holding my breath.

Regarding the "challenge" of collecting, I agree with that sentiment but I would argue that a full run of Showcase in ANY grade would be a monumental collecting achievement, and out of reach for the vast majority of collectors. Adding the 9.0 minimum grade requirement on top of that makes the entire endeavor almost impossible.

I'm a big fan of Showcase and love seeing collectors go for full runs! I'm a run collector as well which is why I feel the need to weigh in here with some constructive advice!

Why set a 9.0 grade minimum? That is most certainly setting you up for disappointment. Aside from the astronomical financial cost of the mega keys in 9.0+, I don't think some of early books exist in that grade. A quick peek at the census reveals no copies above 8.5 for Showcase No. 2 for example. Only universal 8 copies exist for Showcase 4 above 9.0, and Heritage has only auctioned off 2 copies over 9.0 since 2009.

Another important aspect that others have highlighted in this thread is the importance of picking up the keys first. They are the ones that are likely to grow fastest in price so doing this will make the entire endeavor cheaper in the long run. I acknowledge that is tempting to go for the low-hanging fruit here to build momentum.

All that being said, why not just go for a full run without any grade minimums? You can target higher grades for the later books and chase down low-grade but well-presenting examples of the rarer keys. You could try saving up for a G or VG copy of Showcase 17 or Showcase 22. 

Obviously, you can collect however you want and in a manner that brings you joy. I'm just afraid with the high grade minimum you will hit a wall soon. Good luck!

On 8/6/2023 at 7:06 PM, KirbyJack said:

I personally love Boy Commandos #1, regardless of pedigree or even condition. I think it’s a great wartime DC key. And, I’m not positive, but isn’t it also the first appearance of Liberty Belle? 

It is! Love this book, too and the Liberty Belle debut story is a great one!

Scrapping off CT should be viewed in the same light as trimming. Shameful and I hope grading companies will disincentivize it in the future.

On 5/5/2023 at 1:31 PM, Ssj4Wolverine said:

Thank you! It just screams 'historical' to me. 

Going to display it prominently on my wall once graded

Awesome book! I'd highly recommend against displaying it on a wall though. Unless the room is in complete darkness with no windows, sunlight and florescent lights will fade the colors on the cover over time.

On 5/9/2023 at 8:20 AM, nubis said:

I just bought a mystery men 7 with stated cream to off-white pages only to discover the grader notes stating "brittleness splitting interior." I find this extremely frustrating because I usually do not buy brittle page books. I feel duped by CGC not the seller. So frustrating!

Ugh sounds like a similar situation to mine! I feel like if the words "brittle" appear in the grader notes, then it must make it onto the label in the PQ section. Out of curiosity, what was the overall grade of the book?

(On a separate note, it looks like my image links are broken. I'll re-upload a photo later tonight)

Purchased an All Star 19 from Sharon. Super fast shipping and very securely packed! Hope to purchase again in the future!

On 4/25/2023 at 8:02 PM, skypinkblu said:

I'm waving, but I really want to get popcorn now;) 
Next are some All Stars.

 

All Star 19, CGC 5.0 OW, 1943, Gardner Fox story, Joe Gallagher cover, Sheldon Moldoff, Bernard Baily, Stan, Aschmeier, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon art.

42 blue labels on census, 47 total.

Last sale in this grade was 3 years ago, so I prorated some others.

 

Bin $595

Take per PM! Thanks!

I also keep track of all the prices I paid for books in my collection. But I think it might be overkill to try to track values of raw comics by trying to devise your own index average. Keeping up with that won't be worth the effort as comic book prices change all the time. I think zzutak's guidance is a good one. You will learn patterns like Silver Age DC non-keys are usually worth less than their listed guide values while Golden Age Timelys are often worth multiples of their guide value. As long as you keep track of what you paid, you will always be able to compare to whatever the current market value is. I like looking at eBay sold listings, following auction results, and seeing what dealers are listing the book at to get a general idea.

On 3/20/2023 at 5:36 PM, zzutak said:

Put me in the "let it go" camp.    However, I would suggest you do two things before archiving the book and never thinking about this again:

1. Place the chip in one of those small glassine envelopes used by stamp collectors (to ensure that it doesn't get damaged or lost).  Keep the envelope with the comic (behind the backing board).
2. Unfold the tiny flap (while the paper is still supple).

This is the right advice. Unfortunately it is no longer NM but I wouldn't risk any further damage by messing with the book. Forget about the mishap and enjoy the book.

3.0 - I would not risk a press on this. The grade isn't changing and it already presents nicely despite the obvious defects.

On 3/21/2023 at 11:20 PM, Point Five said:

Great pickup on the YA #15 by the way! I've always loved that cover.

Certain oddball covers have long been misattributed to Schomburg... I've argued here before (but with love!) against All-New #5 & #6, Green Hornet #15, Speed Comics #29 and the aforementioned Young Allies #14. He's got an incredibly distinctive style and we have hundreds of examples of it; none of these convincingly look like his work to me. 

 

Yeah the goblins and their carbon monoxide poisoning machine... what's not to love??

Thanks for sharing those other books--I agree they don't quite look like Schomburg's work. Usually the trend is the opposite: attributing a cover to a famous artist to boost its desirability and value. But in this situation, we have a book which is so obviously the work of a famous artist but somehow credited to someone else!

I recently picked up issue #15 of Young Allies as I work on finishing the run. I was surprised to learn that this cover is NOT credited to Alex Schomburg, but rather to Sol Brodsky. To me there is no mistaking Schomburg's trademark style on this cover. I don't think there is any possibility that anyone besides him drew it. It makes me think that the notation in Overstreet is a typo, and the misattribution cascaded from there onto GCD and CGC labels. I looked at the other Young Allies covers between #5 and #19 and there does appear to be one that doesn't look like Schomburg's art (even though it is attributed to him): #14. I added a pic of the Promise copy for comparison (check out how different Bucky looks!). This makes me think Overstreet meant to notate #14 as the non-Schomburg cover instead of #15. What do folks think? Is Sol Brodsky capable of copying Schomburg's frenetic style?

Yeah the book seems to be around 1K per point. So a 4.5 might be worth around $4500. 5K isn't a gross overpayment. I wouldn't worry too much about it, especially if it's just for your collection. I expect a DC key like this to steadily grow in value. 

On 3/14/2023 at 3:41 PM, Happyfarm said:

Yes, a 6.5 of the Mexican Spider-Man wedding issue sold in the fall for $ 35,000.

The Hombre Arana 128 in this auction sold for $24,999.

On 3/10/2023 at 1:05 AM, Tony S said:

Every hustler claims there is no hustle here.  Otherwise they are not a hustler. 

And the hustle isn't tanking scissors to a CGC graded high grade book after cracking it out. The hustle is already having a high grade book missing a coupon - then purchasing a complete CGC graded  high grade copy of the same book and swearing when you cracked it out the book was missing the coupon. 

I am not making accusations. I can't possibly know for sure. CGC can't possibly know for sure. I'm pointing out the endless wave of claims that could come CGC's way if they pay out. The owner of the book that decided to bust it out and regrade  rolled the dice and they lost.  Maybe the next roll of the dice will go better. Maybe they will decide to quit gambling.  If you can't stand losing sometimes you should quit gambling. 

Your scenario is even more unlikely. There are only a handful of high-grade examples of a GA book like Startling 47. And someone can easily tell if it's the same book or not by comparing minor defects/imperfections, how the cover is wrapped, etc. In this particular case, there is writing on the cover which makes it even more obvious that it's the same book.

On 3/9/2023 at 11:54 PM, Tony S said:

I don't want to appear....cold hearted.  But crack press and resubmit (CPR) is not guaranteed $$. It's a risk/reward equation. Maybe CGC missed something the first time. Maybe they are more strict on certain defects today than they were years ago. 

Most importantly, you have to have balls the size of King Kong's to crack a 1947 CGC 9.6 book hoping for 9.8. That is truly a high risk / high reward gamble. The owner lost this time. 

And the obvious problem here is that it COULD be a hustle.  CGC could end up paying out constantly to people that claim - with no real proof - that a coupon was clipped or page was missing.  CGC has it's own in house pressing service.  If you send the book in still encapsulated to them to CPR and it flips from blue to green or purple you have a good claim for compensation. Otherwise CGC has every right to say "no". 

To my knowledge there was never a time when CGC would grade a book with a clipped coupon as a blue label 9.6. This isn't an issue of CGC being stricter on this defect.

To your second point, I agree there are risks associated with a CPR. Maybe you put an oily fingerprint on the cover as you yank it out of the inner well. Maybe you drop it and blunt a corner. Maybe it gets damaged in shipment or during the pressing process itself. But that's not what has happened here. In this case cracking it open revealed a major oversight from CGC. We are letting the controversial practice of CPR-on-a-high-grade-book distract us from the issue at hand which is CGC missed a clipped coupon in a book.

To your last point, there is no hustle here. There are many grifters in this hobby but this is not one of them. I cannot see any situation where someone thinks they can make reliably make money from purposely taking scissors to high-grade books and getting refunds for it. The only explanation for this is that it was missed. Mistakes happen and hopefully CGC will do the right thing here. 

On 3/9/2023 at 5:20 PM, Foolish Mortal! said:

And you're missing my point that we never would've known it had a clipped coupon if it wasn't for greed

I guess you're just trolling here. You're okay with owning misgraded books as long you don't know about it? And books can be cracked out of their CGC cases for many reasons besides CPR or "greed" as you call it.

On 3/9/2023 at 5:10 PM, Foolish Mortal! said:

The reason the book was cracked in the first place was greed 

You seem fixated on the wrong thing here. The issue at hand is CGC missing a clipped coupon during their grading of this book.

On 3/9/2023 at 5:06 PM, Foolish Mortal! said:

The greedy part that I was referring to is what I quoted above:

". I wouldn't play CPR with a 9.6 GA semi-key"

 

Yeah I got that. I'm making the point that the greediness doesn't factor into this discussion at all. You can also imagine a situation where someone cracks open a book and wants to keep it raw in their collection and discovers a clipped coupon. In both situations, the buyer deserves to get an accurately graded comic book.

On 3/9/2023 at 8:06 AM, Foolish Mortal! said:

That's what you get for being greedy.

This is a really bad take. While I also don't support the practice of CPR, that doesn't mean this person doesn't deserve to have their collectible accurately graded. They made a buying decision based on the grade and label color and it turns out something huge was missed. Call me naive but I also don't think there is any possibility that the owner intentionally did this. The most likely scenario is that the clipped coupon was missed by CGC in the original grading.

This case actually sounds pretty similar to my own situation that I shared on the boards a few days ago, although the financial loss was much smaller. I cracked open a blue label 5.0 Archive 47 (not for CPR, but I like to keep books in my collection raw so I can read them) and it was missing the pin-up page. I'm appreciative that CGC is doing the right thing and refunding me the cost of the book. Hopefully that happened in this case, too.

On 3/8/2023 at 2:28 PM, october said:

ASM 38

5.0

$110

I'll take the following:

ASM 38

ASM 41

Wonder Woman 202

Avengers 16

On 3/7/2023 at 5:19 PM, JollyComics said:

@10centcomics  Did the seller know about it?  The book was graded on October 2018.

Oh I have no reason to believe the seller knew about this! I don't hold him at fault in this at all.