DC#

On 6/7/2024 at 10:26 AM, auboy77 said:

I would take low grade over restored all day, every day , —no matter how good the restored book looks. I’m an “original” condition guy.  I would take a 1.0 unrestored over a 9.8 restored . 

What if it were a choice between a low-grade restored or nothing?    What if the only way you could ever land a Batman 1 or a Detective 31 (or whatever your passion book might be) was a 1.0 Restored?    

On 6/7/2024 at 8:32 AM, grendelbo said:

With key books from any era I too am of the thought that any grade is better than no grade. I would still prefer the book to be presentable but even that is not a deal breaker. Ever seen my copy of FF1?

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If it's Copper or newer I'd prefer my books to be VF or better. For Bronze or older books I actually think the FN range is the sweet spot. I enjoy handling and browsing and reading my books. In this grade range I can do so without any worry of damaging an issue. There's also something aesthetically pleasing for me for older books that are FN or lower. I expect old comics to have had a journey before they ended up in my collection. Love equals wear in many cases.

Looks like it could have White Pages!   

Interesting conclusion drawn from watching weekly census results of Star Wars #1.   It was inferred that someone dropped a big load of 9.8/9.6 SW #1s hoping to get one elusive 9.9 back - the first in the census. 

If that is what went down - the fact that none achieved the higher grade starts to support what Matt said in the Swagglehaus interview that noT all books have the same likelihood  of hidden 9.9s within the ranks of the lowly 9.8s.   
 

I had the wrong GPA data for TOS 57 9.0 - was showing a crazy increase.    Makes more sense now.

On 6/3/2024 at 9:12 PM, NewWorldOrder said:

Mike the CGC 9.8's for example on WLS #1 would have a small effect, but nothing drastic.  CGC 9.8's wont become the old CGC 9.6 price.

Most people will not shell out money for a CGC 9.9 so CGC 9.8's will still be in high demand, especially if CGC 9.9 arent always available at auction.

Always a chance my friend. I got (2) New Mutants #98 CGC 9.9's on the same invoice before back in 2016.   BTW I did grade them both at 9.9 or 10.0 so I was not shocked.

In the video around the 20 min mark - Matt actually talks about Wolvie 1 and ASM 300 specifically and why one is more likely to have 9.9/10.0 

Superman #1 2.0 - Goldin 100 Auction    $170.8k 

On 5/30/2024 at 12:41 PM, Stefan_W said:

Can't wait for the @DC# breakdown of the current CL auction. Everything I have bid on so far went well above GPA. 

Working on it      There were some crazy strong results.     I started to bid on this one but quickly realized there were others with a much stronger itch.    Attaching the last sale on Heritage as a comparison.   

On 5/28/2024 at 6:23 PM, trademarkcomics said:

Hmmph. I have a set of 1-6 all 9.8. No grades higher until this. I had to look that one up. Now you have me worried.

I hate to jump on the bandwagon here but...

It seems unfair to give a book a higher grade just because of a miswrap.

The white strip of the back cover showing on the front could be the reason you can't see any wear. Longshot 5 was also printed without the usual black border line. 

For all we know if it had been printed with the border line and not miswrapped, this could have been a 9.2-9.4 copy...or less. 

^Note the black line showing on the edge of the back cover. Total miswrap...

Here is another one that is coming up on a Clink Auction.    Freshly graded on 5/16/24.    I got into a debate earlier in this thread on the topic of miswraps being allowed on books called "Mint" - but I align with you.   It doesn't visually look Mint and it is sort of a cheat on non-white covers to avoid spine color issues. 

https://www.comiclink.com/Auctions/item.asp?id=1785219

Two from May 28th ComicLink results

Feds got involved here……

Whatever happened - It was definitely one part carnage 

As kind Boardies pointed me toward http://cgcdata.com/cgc/ recently - thought I would look to see if there were any trends happening with 9.9s/10s.     I only looked at pre-2000 books because the crystal clear reality in looking at the numbers is almost all of the new 9.9s and 10s are in Modern Books.    I would bet the vast majority are 2015 and newer.   

I would say there is no strong evidence of change yet - going back into 2022 or earlier would be helpful just to confirm but no time right now.     Yes, the 1980's and 1990's books seem to be trending ahead of prior year - but it doesn't seem like any difference is statistically significant.   Even doubling the number of Mint/Gem Mint books in 2024 it still likely represents less 1% of all books submitted from that era in the year.    Though I appreciate that might not be much comfort if you paid $10k for a Secret Wars #8 9.9 only to see two more 9.9s and one 10.0 hit at some point.   

My belief remains that the pre-screen option is really geared for the bulk Modern submissions.  And the existence of that pre-screen shouldn't automatically trigger a boom in pre-2000s books.   

By the way - many of these new 9.9s are just random books.   Marvel Fanfare #3, Secret Wars II #5,  Longshot #5, Fantastic Four #337, Spider-man #19.....books that might otherwise be found in the $1 bins.   

On 5/19/2024 at 10:12 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

You're not the first to call Marwood that 

Well played…..

Thanks so much for the quick response.   What a great tool!  

Does anyone know if there is a way to find historical data for the CGC Census?    A YouTuber recently made reference to a title adding 40 copies to census since April.    Got me curious about trends in census count growth for key issues from different eras.   
 

I started a small list to start tracking some but would really love if there was something out there already 

A little burb on the art market from Puck this week.  I took the liberty of bolding some points:  

Sotheby’s Monday blues: Let’s start with the good news: Sotheby’s, the global art auction powerhouse, made just over $267 million on Monday night, with very strong sell-through on the lots offered and only one lot withdrawn due to lack of interest. (In this case, the work was said to have been shopped around privately long enough to alienate potential bidders.) The lone withdrawal—even if the lot had been estimated at $6 million—was an encouraging sign that sellers’ expectations are getting back in line with buyers’ appetites. 

The hammer ratio for the evening tells a different story, however. Calculated by dividing the aggregate hammer price of all the sold lots against the aggregate estimate, the hammer ratio shows us the strength of bidding, and measures whether the estimate level was too high or too low. At .94, the hammer ratio signals estimates are still too high. 

Of course, you wouldn’t have needed an abacus to determine that something was off in the auction room on Monday night. Almost from the beginning of the evening, the Sotheby’s staff seemed somber. One bidder who spoke to me afterward pointed to the very thin bidding as the cause. On most lots, there was only a single bidder, possibly two. That doesn’t give the staff much to do but stand there and stare off into the distance.  

The most obvious signal of the depressed market were the hammer prices of the top two lots, which came in below the estimate level. Francis Bacon’s portrait of his former lover George Dyer, from 1966, sold for a negotiated price of $27.7 million with fees, or 18 percent below the asking price (more if you include the expected fees). Speculation in my channels is that the buyer was Turkish collector Halit Cingillioglu—and Sotheby’s did say the work ended up in a very good collection, yada yada, which would fit the theory. 

The other top lot, Howard Rachofsky’s bright yellow Lucio Fontana painting, came very close to the asking price of $20 million, but still got hammered down at $19.7 million after desultory bidding. The first bid, of $19.5 million, was presumably the third-party guarantor. The second bid, just a sliver more at $19.7 million, should have provoked a response. It didn’t. Clearly, the guarantor was happy to take their fee instead of taking home the painting

On 5/10/2024 at 11:15 AM, Telegan said:

 

I watched it last night and was happy to see he isn't offended by opposing viewpoints.  To me these indexes are kind of fun to look at, but I'm not sure I take them too seriously with the way collectibles are "traded".

And it's always a floor.... until it isn't.

The video Swag references is below (another guy whose channel I enjoy watching) :

 

I understand his points - but there is a difference between indexing and projecting future values.   The Nasdaq and DOW are indexes that provide a view of historic value relevant to current value but those indexes themselves do not speak to the future value.   And those indexes do not represent the entire equity market.   

So an index like Swaggle's - in my view - does provide an interesting view into where his index of books sit today vs where they have been.    And agree the collectibles can't be valued like equities because there is no real underlying stream of value creation.   But an index of commonly traded Silver, Bronze, and Copper comic books should be a good barometer of where things stand at the moment as long as the measurement is consistent.   

On 5/7/2024 at 3:20 PM, Math Teacher said:

Amazing Spider-Man #14 CGC 6.5 from an IG user:

I assume this looks much better in person than in the original IG photo.   Colors look great 

Congrats 

Here is AF chart through April.    

On 4/30/2024 at 6:53 AM, Neo "The One" said:

I mean, ok.  He could have ben losing money - and that is understandable - but honestly he should have just returned the books.  It seems he was a small operation (I hesitate to say 1 man since he had the NJ location) that got in way over his head.  That is understandable.  What is not ok is stealing - which is what this all boils down to.

Absolutely - my comments were not about letting him off the hook in any way.    More questioning if he ever had the business acumen to make this business work in the first place.    And creating necessary cash flow for such long-duration activities through advance payments can quickly turn into a sort of Ponzi scheme if you aren't actually making any money on completed items.    The next person's advance covering the losses for prior work.  

On 4/29/2024 at 11:07 PM, Pat Thomas said:

I used Mike's services for my Avengers 1 and ASM 1 close to a decade ago due to multiple references from others who had first-hand experience with him. After looking over his work on his website and talking to Mike about the process, I sent him the books with a deposit that was supposed to go toward the final bill. At the time he said he had at least a 6-month lead time before he could even begin on the first book, and that the whole process would take about a year. Payment in full got my Avengers 1 in line, and I left him alone for over a year before deciding to check in. I found out then that he was a year behind, but my book would be up soon. Every 3 months I checked status for about a year until it was finally ready to ship back to me. He still had my ASM1 and I considered asking for him to send it back, but I figured I might as well wait another two years to end up with an ASM1 I was happy with (It was in so much worse shape than #2-forward in my collection and really bothered me). But my experience this time was much worse. I had a lot of going on in my life and didn't really think about my comic most of the time, so I went a year without checking on it. When I did, Mike said he was behind and wouldn't give me a lead time anymore, so I would check on it periodically. This went on for 3 years, but I finally got an email that it was ready. I had him send it to a CGC Stan Lee signing (one of the last ones he did) before it eventually came back to me. It had been in his possession for over 5 years, but I guess I'm lucky I got it back at all. I think it was already starting to come apart back then and he was still trying to do right by people.

I don't know how he could have ever accurately priced out his costs like this - dozens if not hundreds of books in various states over the course of months and years.   He could have been losing money on each and every book from the start