bluechip

You believe an EP restored Cap 1 could get 125K? I don't have the time to go back through the threads, but aren't you the guy who said the recently found poor condition Action 1 wasn't worth 50K? Even if that book was given the most expensive resto ever performed that would mean you value a restored Cap 1 about 70K more than an equivalent Action 1.

May 20, 1889

very cool

This cover is even better when you've had too much egg nog

Both great covers! Like the casual use of "chicken" referring to Jughead's date. Also interesting to me is that Jughead was sometimes shown in potential romantic scenarios in his first two decades, and his dislike of girls didn't seem to be played up as it would be moving into the 60's and 70's. I recall one early story of Jughead hitting on women like a horndog. But otherwise it seemed like he was always oblivious or avoiding them.

I didn't win the cover, so, no, I'm not "talking my book" here. But, Spidey #96-98 is my 2nd favorite Spidey story arc of all-time after ASM #121-122. Go re-read those issues - the story is superb all the way through (the interior art is admittedly a bit hit or miss, but at least the the #97 and especially the #98 covers are so good). And no one should have to justify why one of the best Spidey vs. Goblin covers ever is awesome as much as I have - it's as obvious as the truths that "We the People" hold to be self-evident... I just re-read ASM #96-98 this morning and they still hold up even for an adult audience, unlike the lighter Silver Age fare or McSpidey issues which were both written at particular times for a particular (young) audience. They really represent a high point for Stan Lee and Marvel, challenging the CCA and going ahead with the bold and challenging storyline, taking on matters of race, class and drugs/crime. And, it's Spidey, so people might actually want to read these relevant issues as opposed to...Green Lantern, no matter how good those issues are (and, yes, I've read them - I've got my GL/GA TPBs in front of me now...zero desire to re-read them though I do like flipping through them and looking at the pretty pictures). The following (from the beginning of the story arc in #96) works just as well in 2015 as it did in 1971. Maybe even better - it's outstanding storytelling. Agreed (except that for a long time I despised 121-122 for killing off Gwen; I came around only after I saw what an excellent adult story it led to with Mary Jane. Then I grew to despise it again for the way it blinded the producers of the latest film into thinking they had to adhere to the comics story, despite the fact they had struck chemistry gold with Emma Stone (and instead of killing off a character that had "nowhere to go," they killed off one of the best things they had going) The point here is that the Spider-man storytelling has been excellent in the comics and that is something most civilians (non comic collectors) are aware of, even if they don't know many specifics. But if they know any specifics, the ASM drug storyline is one they are most likely to have heard of. (barely a week goes by that Stan Lee doesn't recount to some journalist about defying the comics code with that story). So when a book or a page appears from a classic story, the auction house generally makes note of it because their experience has shown them that most buyers find it a plus.

YOu mean 0.000001 vs 0.000002% ? Well... it's safe to say that close to 100% of the bidders knew about both those things because Heritage made it a point to stress them in the descriptions.

Understood. But one man's 1/10 motivation can be another man's 9/10.

I don't think this reflects the opinion of the layman, though. Well the true layman wouldn't even be familiar with 10 spiderman covers. Would they even be familiar with 1? So whether its the pure layman, or the layman--editor of TMZ, the lists/opinions thereof are farcical as you say. Laymen's awareness of a character, a story, a book, or a cover, can make something more popular just because collectors know that their decision to buy something and display it will be less likely to garner odd reactions from their friends and colleagues who are not hard-corps fans. I remember when I was younger and business colleagues looked askance if and when they discovered I had a comics collection, but that would be far less likely today. I have seen a huge shift in the number of people in my circles who consider it cool to collect comics and/or comic art, and I know people who have bought items they would not have bought prior to the increased awareness. They feel more comfortable with it because everybody they know is aware of these comics their stories and their characters and their value is more generally accepted.

Not sure what you are talking about - my entire original point was that the Spidey #98 cover would look nicer on the wall next to the GL #76. My whole point was solely about how the image looks and how people relate to it. With the GL #76, you have to write an essay to explain why it's the better, more important, more valuable cover. The Spidey cover speaks for itself - "look at me, I'm awesome." That's actually not what I wrote. I think (with a new modified logo especially), the GL 76 cover looks better than the Spidey 98. Period. Better drawing. Better inking. Better layout. Bigger impact. Not even close. GIl Kane=Neal Adams? Please. And oh yeah, it has some serious history and distinction to sweeten it's appeal, but like all things this is just my Scott Regarding "serious history and distinction," I would bet that more layfolk are familiar with the spider-man drug story defying the comics code than are familiar with how the GL 76 issue figured into the history of DC's turn toward relevance. Doubtful. I'm a comic guy and couldn't tell you about the spidey story. Gl 76 is one of the iconic comic covers in comic land. No denying that. The asm 98 cover is nice but nothing memorable to people outside those that grew up with spidey during that period. I was referring to the general awareness of the ASM 96-98 storyline. It has been retold countless times in books and articles and in interviews with Stan Lee. I would have to agree with Michael Douglas' double (that;s easier than checking the spelling on his board name) that the average person is unlikely to be aware of either storyline, there's no question that among the small percentage who know of either or both, there is almost certainly a higher percentage of average people aware of the Marvel drugs comics code story than they are about the significance GL 76 -- and that's just aside from any facts or opinions that one is or isn't a better work or art, or has more impact on hard corps comics fans,

Not sure what you are talking about - my entire original point was that the Spidey #98 cover would look nicer on the wall next to the GL #76. My whole point was solely about how the image looks and how people relate to it. With the GL #76, you have to write an essay to explain why it's the better, more important, more valuable cover. The Spidey cover speaks for itself - "look at me, I'm awesome." That's actually not what I wrote. I think (with a new modified logo especially), the GL 76 cover looks better than the Spidey 98. Period. Better drawing. Better inking. Better layout. Bigger impact. Not even close. GIl Kane=Neal Adams? Please. And oh yeah, it has some serious history and distinction to sweeten it's appeal, but like all things this is just my Scott Regarding "serious history and distinction," I would bet that more layfolk are familiar with the spider-man drug story defying the comics code than are familiar with how the GL 76 issue figured into the history of DC's turn toward relevance.

LESS.... You'd know better than me, you're probably right. Personally I'd rather have a character drawn by the person that came up with the idea. Being this a mainly nostalgia based hobby, people collecting now probably feel a connection to Romita. Using the 25 year rule you might wanna consider McFarlane as the connection. Even McFarlane is done now, it's all about Bagley (whose work makes me lust nostalgically for the days of ..McFarlane...GAG). Somebody just dropped a crapton of interiors on Romitaman, and...well I guess it is what it is. But the rule is the Twenty Year Rule, not twenty-five Bagley and/or Todd. Depends on what you grew-up with. Romita, Kane, whomever. Each generation doesn't want the one that came before as they were never exposed to it or they got exposed to it through their fathers. In either case it makes that era a none starter for the next generation of collectors. Yes, there are examples of items outside of that generalization but for the most part it holds true. I don't desire to own a Neal Adams page, a Romita page, whomever from that era. I wasn't exposed to them growing up. I don't have the "feel good" memories they bring. They are nice but not what I am interested in having in my collection. I don't have a friend my age that collects OA that is interested in adding them into their collections either. We are interested in the guys who came out of Image, and the era of independent books. The generation after ours is interested in the books they read growing up. While I do have some Finch, Mitch Genard and other newer artist pages I can't say they hold the appeal that a Lee and/or Liefeld page holds for me. I use the 25 years as a rule. Yes, I do know what the 20 year rule is. Why do I use 25 years? The prices of OA art really makes it a 25 or 30 year after the fact before your average guy is gonna plunk down the money to start collecting now a days. I read guys in here discussing purchases starting in the mid-5 figure range and moving up from there. Heck, the major discussion in this auction is about a $454,000 vs. a $ 154,000 cover. Most people can't afford nor will they ever be able to afford that type of hobby purchase in their lifetimes. While I have a pretty nice collection it has been built during a time when OA art was cheaper. I could not rebuild my collection if I started today as it would be cost prohibitive to do so. I totally get what your saying, but there must be some kind of other collector out there....look at the prices for high grade grade comics from the golden age, from my limited observation they continue to escalate, would comic art be that much different? It seems that stuff is before people's area of nostalgia. Dunno, I'm just thinking out loud on this board. The 20 or 25 year rule gets misused by people who think too narrowly. It's supposed to be -- and it is -- the average span that it takes for something to JOIN the ranks of what is collectible. It is not about the time when everything 20 or 25 years old REPLACES everything that came before it. That works only if you're talking about something which has faded away because it hasn't survived to remain relevant in any way decades later and nearly all those who remember it or ever heard about it are gone. But it doesn't work when you are talking about characters that continue to be loved and sought after in a medium and a genre that continues to be relevant and whose original stories remain in print or get adapted in new stories. Most of the people collecting golden age were not around to buy fresh new copies off the stand. And a whole lot of silver age collectors were not around to buy those books off the stand. But they saw those books and that art in reprints, or they've seen the covers reproduced and homaged and referenced countless times. Or they just like the new stuff and find it cool to seek out the old stuff just to see what it's like. If you like ONLY the stuff that literally was published for the very first time in the days of your adolescence, great. More power to you. But to presume that stuff "before your time" will never be sought by any of your contemporaries (or the people who come after you) is to ignore mountains of evidence to the contrary. I guarantee you that every person who has paid over a million for a Honus Wagner card was not around in 1909 when the card was published. But each of them, most likely, collected sports cards when they were a kid, and remembered hearing or reading that the Honus Wagner card was really valuable. So when they grew up and got rich, they decided to get one, based on the nostalgia they experienced hearing about it when they were young. I just purchased a piece of art the other day that was from a time long, long before I grew up or was even born. And it evoked a time period in history that was also well before my experience. But, you know, I like the character, whom I discovered only decades later. And I have heard and read an awful lot about that time in history ever since I was a kid. So even though the piece originated well before my time, by an artist whose work I never once purchased fresh off the stand, the piece still held a nostalgia for me. For most people, nostalgia doesn't happen based on when something was made, but when you first heard about it (or something like it) Umm, if you read my post you will find that I stated their were exceptions to the generalization. I am speaking from the collector car market which is another collector's niche market. Niche markets generally react the same. Sure there are vehicles that continue to increase in value and outperform others. However, most of the generation that collected the vehicles of their youth that came before the current one see their values decrease as they leave the market. There isn't anyone that wants/desires those vehicles as they had been before and there suddenly is a glut of them on the market. General overview/example I can offer is the pre-world war II collectible vehicles. The price rose form the 1970's through the late 1990's. As the collector pool aged and vehicles got snatched up the prices went up. However, when my grandparent's generation who fought WWII began to retire they began to sell their collections off. A glut in the market occurred and prices fell. On the whole they have not recovered. Examples now occurring as the baby boomer's start to sell off their collections as they retire: The 55-57 Thunderbird. Use to be a vehicle that had a solid core following and the prices went higher and higher. Then in 2006 they flat-lined in the 40K range. The generation that collected them and remembered them were selling them off and the interest wasn't there like it had been. You can still pick-up a very nicely restored 55-57 Thunderbird for around 40K and it is almost 2016. Another example, the same years as the Thunderbird Bel-Air. The value on them has remained constant and has slipped during that same period. In other words, since 2006 you can pick one up for 90-95K. The OA market has and is expanding in price. However, the higher end pieces are owned by the baby boomer generation and they are at the point in life where they are looking to start cashing their collections out. It should be interesting to see where prices go as that occurs are a faster and faster rate as they age. My response was not just to your post but also to the others you quoted.

Same here. Initially as a kid I just wanted the stuff I had been too young to buy directly. But I thought for things to be really valuable they should be older than me. Then I just began to appreciate the stuff that captured the spirit of my experience and went beyond it. When I saw the art to Superman 17 I was impressed not because I had bought it off the stand; It was long before I was born I hadn't even seen the cover in any form until a year earlier. And not because I was a fan of Fred Rays (at the time I didn't even know his name and certainly couldn't have recognized his style). But I did see it and say "wow, that's Superman throttling Hitler!" Two names that are known in just about every household in the world and will continue to be known long after all of us are gone. All of that (and not personal nostalgia) made me think this would be a good item to have (though I was outbid by far). If I had first seen a repro of that cover when I was 12 at the same time I was learning all about world war 2, then it would've also had the whole childhood nostalgia thing, despite the fact it had existed long before I did.

thanks

LESS.... You'd know better than me, you're probably right. Personally I'd rather have a character drawn by the person that came up with the idea. Being this a mainly nostalgia based hobby, people collecting now probably feel a connection to Romita. Using the 25 year rule you might wanna consider McFarlane as the connection. Even McFarlane is done now, it's all about Bagley (whose work makes me lust nostalgically for the days of ..McFarlane...GAG). Somebody just dropped a crapton of interiors on Romitaman, and...well I guess it is what it is. But the rule is the Twenty Year Rule, not twenty-five Bagley and/or Todd. Depends on what you grew-up with. Romita, Kane, whomever. Each generation doesn't want the one that came before as they were never exposed to it or they got exposed to it through their fathers. In either case it makes that era a none starter for the next generation of collectors. Yes, there are examples of items outside of that generalization but for the most part it holds true. I don't desire to own a Neal Adams page, a Romita page, whomever from that era. I wasn't exposed to them growing up. I don't have the "feel good" memories they bring. They are nice but not what I am interested in having in my collection. I don't have a friend my age that collects OA that is interested in adding them into their collections either. We are interested in the guys who came out of Image, and the era of independent books. The generation after ours is interested in the books they read growing up. While I do have some Finch, Mitch Genard and other newer artist pages I can't say they hold the appeal that a Lee and/or Liefeld page holds for me. I use the 25 years as a rule. Yes, I do know what the 20 year rule is. Why do I use 25 years? The prices of OA art really makes it a 25 or 30 year after the fact before your average guy is gonna plunk down the money to start collecting now a days. I read guys in here discussing purchases starting in the mid-5 figure range and moving up from there. Heck, the major discussion in this auction is about a $454,000 vs. a $ 154,000 cover. Most people can't afford nor will they ever be able to afford that type of hobby purchase in their lifetimes. While I have a pretty nice collection it has been built during a time when OA art was cheaper. I could not rebuild my collection if I started today as it would be cost prohibitive to do so. I totally get what your saying, but there must be some kind of other collector out there....look at the prices for high grade grade comics from the golden age, from my limited observation they continue to escalate, would comic art be that much different? It seems that stuff is before people's area of nostalgia. Dunno, I'm just thinking out loud on this board. The 20 or 25 year rule gets misused by people who think too narrowly. It's supposed to be -- and it is -- the average span that it takes for something to JOIN the ranks of what is collectible. It is not about the time when everything 20 or 25 years old REPLACES everything that came before it. That works only if you're talking about something which has faded away because it hasn't survived to remain relevant in any way decades later and nearly all those who remember it or ever heard about it are gone. But it doesn't work when you are talking about characters that continue to be loved and sought after in a medium and a genre that continues to be relevant and whose original stories remain in print or get adapted in new stories. Most of the people collecting golden age were not around to buy fresh new copies off the stand. And a whole lot of silver age collectors were not around to buy those books off the stand. But they saw those books and that art in reprints, or they've seen the covers reproduced and homaged and referenced countless times. Or they just like the new stuff and find it cool to seek out the old stuff just to see what it's like. If you like ONLY the stuff that literally was published for the very first time in the days of your adolescence, great. More power to you. But to presume that stuff "before your time" will never be sought by any of your contemporaries (or the people who come after you) is to ignore mountains of evidence to the contrary. I guarantee you that every person who has paid over a million for a Honus Wagner card was not around in 1909 when the card was published. But each of them, most likely, collected sports cards when they were a kid, and remembered hearing or reading that the Honus Wagner card was really valuable. So when they grew up and got rich, they decided to get one, based on the nostalgia they experienced hearing about it when they were young. I just purchased a piece of art the other day that was from a time long, long before I grew up or was even born. And it evoked a time period in history that was also well before my experience. But, you know, I like the character, whom I discovered only decades later. And I have heard and read an awful lot about that time in history ever since I was a kid. So even though the piece originated well before my time, by an artist whose work I never once purchased fresh off the stand, the piece still held a nostalgia for me. For most people, nostalgia doesn't happen based on when something was made, but when you first heard about it (or something like it)

LESS.... You'd know better than me, you're probably right. Personally I'd rather have a character drawn by the person that came up with the idea. Being this a mainly nostalgia based hobby, people collecting now probably feel a connection to Romita. Hard to say. Ditko pages aren't;exactly t suffering. The splash to 32 is virtually as bland as a page can be yet it went for about 9K. But that said none of Ditko's goblin stories are considered historic.the way the stories are which came after. Once the goblin learned peter's identity it catapulted him from a decent but ordinary villain to the top of the heap. And even people who know very little about spider-man often know the arc of the goblin story post ASM 39 -- which of course includes the drugs and comics code authority story that culminate in ASM 98 and the death of Gwen in 121-122. Whereas little or no cultural observers or casual fans of the movies who haven't obsessed over the comics knows about the goblin stories which came before 39.

I think the composition on the ASM 98 is exceptional - much better than standard Kane for the era. The GL 76 cover is just way too sparse for my liking - it loses a ton in B&W vs. the published cover, whereas the Spidey cover is dripping with some of Giacoia's best inks. Hanging on a wall, the ASM cover would display a lot, lot better. Unless your audience is Albert Moy, Scott Williams, yourself and tth2. I know you're an Adams guy, Mike, but, from a purely composition/content/aesthetic basis, this cover isn't even remotely close to his best. Wonky anatomy, way too much blank space...it's all about the significance of the book itself. If this was the cover to GL #77 and another cover had kicked off the run, the for this cover would be a lot, lot less than it is. The history and the perception of its relevance were emphasized by Heritage because they wisely understood that the cover has appeared in countless books and articles about comics ever since it was published. Enough that it got tons of exposure over the years not just to collectors but also to casual fans and observers (some of whom become converted collectors,, who generally are most willing to spend big bucks on stuff they heard was important before they started collecting.)

59 is twice up, I believe. No its just at the start of the change over to standard size. Listed in auction as "The page is produced in ink over blue pencil on Bristol board with an image area of 10" x 15"" They are 10 x 15. Seem like good prices considering how much Heck's style dominates in those pieces; but they had great character content. One page has that big reunion kiss and the other (sort of) had the issue's cover scene.

They are 5 hours away from me. I drove the books there so i did not have to mail them.The books were done 30 years ago with little money to spend. I was told they could be redone today with better results so this works great for now I also had the Tec 27 on ebay as restored VG+ with a 20 or 25k reserve. The book went to 17k so i thought getting graded 3rd party cheap and fast would help. No reserve auctions on ebay are a great place to sell Golden age keys to people who are looking to resell them within a week for twice as much.

Help me with the per point value thing. So lets say .5 1.0 1.5 1.8 and 2.0 are the grades. If you say $20K per point that would be 1.0 value then 2.0 equals $40K? Then just take 75% of the $40K for 1.5 grade? The last .5 incomplete missing back cover sold for $19000. Anyone have a picture of that Bat 1? This is .5 incomplete but as with any comic once you hit SB or Brittle pages it turns off probably 95% of buyers. Eye appeal was definitely lacking on this .5. The difference between slight brittle and brittle can be enormous and I am not sure people understand how broad the range is or how much it is open to interpretation and possible inconcistency. I have gotten books slabbed that I remember as supple and 98% offwhite only to see they got a brittle designation because of one small area that was tanned. And at the same time I've seen other books I used to own and remember as brittle and flaking reappear in slabs without any brittle designation. With this book, however, there was little room for doubt. Even if it weren't brittle it suffered the same sort of damage that people fear will occur from brittleness

I sold one with slight to moderate resto for 10K that later got slabbed as a slight or mod 9.2 Wanted to hang onto it but experts said that's as high as a restored bat 1 would ever go and I should worry it might even drop.

Not everyone denies it's a factor. Just some. It's not because they haven't seen evidence to the contrary. They just believe, personally, that movie hype should not be a factor and that people should value things for the same reasons they do. And some believe that so strongly that not only will say they say it shouldn't be a factor, they will insist it isn't, and never has been. Me, I've always thought it was undervalued. And I think that it will go up in price now just because I've sold every copy I had .

Looks to be a sequence for ASM #39, pages 17, 18, 19. The Ditko pages and nothing to get too excited about. The splash should be an opportunity to get a "splash" on the cheap because its the weakest of the bunch. There's just something fishy about it. fishy ? how ? It's a shot of an underwater lair with fish swimming around it.

Such an awesome book!!! (thumbs u Absolutely, & unique concept. Fortunately, the publisher wisely vetoed titling the book "Conscientious Objector Comics." I thought I'd seen every variation of the war themed comics until I saw this. Now I want one

Ironically, Schomburg's versatility may be one of the things that has suppressed his fame a bit. A layman could look at three Schomburgs and reasonably assume they were done by three different people. Many great artists have that versatility, but it's usually one style which stands out that people regard as their signature look. But Schomburg has several signatures looks and it may make it difficult for people to pigeonhole him