bluechip

And because an evil computer programmer is such a ground-breaking concept

They're only doing this because characters like Dr. Doom simply don't work today and need to be updated to what's hot today. That's why they're improving the Star Wars franchise by making Han Solo a wise-cracking judge of an intergalactic dance contest.

Cherry-picking a couple of data points isn't an accurate way of depicting the market. The guidance provided was a range that denotes a large amount of scenarios and was accurate. Not sure if you are unhappy because you own a restored book and "want" it to be worth more or something else, but this is just silly. If we are to talk about what's silly, hen the market itself gives us plenty of accurate examples of silly behavior in regard to resto. Originally, the idea of identifying resto was to say "it looks like a certain grade but it's actually a lower grade books that's been repaired or made to appear better." That then evolved into a desire to identify books not just as restored but "desecrated" so it was judged not based on what the grade was prior to the work and how the grade was changed but on the intent behind the work. Thus, a book with giant red scribbles on the focal point of the cover became worth more than a book with a couple dots of red ink in a red field of the book, and a book with a tiny tear seal was valued less than a book with a much larger tear that had not been sealed. A book with color touch in a corner was worth less than a book with a large section of that corner torn away. The information about values may be accurate. But I think if we call a person "silly" for pointing out anomalies in the prices realizes, it begs for someone to point out the anomalies in pricing which result from silliness.

I once had an 8.5 AF 15 with slight resto, just color touch in a couple spots (an amount that might not have lowered the grade much at all if it had been defacing marks), and it sold for less than people are asking today for a 3.0 or even a 2.5 That much reduction is too steep and I am sure the person who bought it either sold it for much more or will sell it for much more if and when they do. But I would say that AF15s are common enough that there is little or no reason to get them restored in the first place, so people who don't care for resto will feel even less need to compromise than they would with a GA book that might be more rare.

many hidden treasure in those comics. Not least of which is first appearance of *Golden Age" Thor)

The value of in demand volume beats out the value of rarity all the time. That's why, for example, high end wine makers don't bank as much as jug wine companies. And there's another factor you aren't considering: Price point. Far far far more people can afford a 181 than can afford a Batman 1. So there is a lot more money available to buy 181s than to buy Batman 1s. Re: "The value of in demand volume beats out the value of rarity all the time" I wasn't comparing Hulk 181 to a copy of Life Magazine from 1940. I was comparing it to Batman 1. It seems odd to imply that Hulk 181 is "in demand" whereas Batman 1 doesn't have and couldn't generate the same demand and has only a greater "rarity.". I was talking about books that should have similar demand if they existed in equal numbers, yet we see that books with similar appeal (or even lesser appeal) get values greater than the other not because they are more in demand but specifically because they are greater in number. And I was pointing out that that occurs because the fewer copies of a book that exists the fewer there are dealers who have them (and fewer dealers are confident they can supply as many as they get requests for) so the sellers underplay the value of the rare items in favor of the more plentiful items that they have (and can easily get) price point explains the interest in books that are substantially cheaper. But when you high grade copies of a common book selling for more than presentable low grade copies of a rare book with equal or greater significance, fame, etc even when there are far more copies of the common item in high grade than total copies of the rare item, then the common item can only reach higher prices through strategic hoarding and strategic hype of items that easily replenished.

The bidding exceeded its current market price. Not that I don't think a copy in that condition should be worth that. I think it should be, and will be. But it's not at the moment, and you can get copies six to ten times as good for three or four times that money. How long that will continue, I don't know. But for now, if you believe most other keys are worth what they're getting, then Bat 1s are way below what they should be, comparatively speaking.

And that's a fraction of the ones that could be slabbed and get similar grades, especially if they were slabbed without any concerted attempt to limit the number of nosebleed grades. None of which is to say that they aren't worth something. Or even that it's really any of my business whether a guy can convince somebody to buy a 9.8 thinking it will put his his grandkids through college. But when the same guy(s) can't stand to see any rare desirable item they don't own go for the same money, and they work hard to suppress it while pumping their longboxes full of 9.8 commons then they're inviting clarification. Hulk 181 is a cool book, ,and kids all over the world love it. But nobody who took the time to think about it would agree that all the world's existing copies of Hulk 181 should logically be worth several dozen or a hundred times more than all the existing copies of Batman 1 But that's what you'd probably get if you took sample sales results and multiplied them by the actual census of slabbed and unslabbed copies.

Agreed. That`s how it usually ends up with comic books that get discovered after sitting in long boxes ignored all of these past decades. Once a movie is announced there will be a huge bump in price, until the movie comes out where the price levels off, but it will never go back to it`s low price of being found in a dollar box. So in conclusion Comic book found in dollar box before big movie announcement = $1.00. Comic book during movie hype = highest peak pricewise, much more than original $1.00. Comic book after movie hype = A lower correction pricewise,but still more than that original $1.00 it was bought for before the movie hype. That holds up when you're talking about a dollar. But not when you're talking about hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars. And not when you're talking about books that number in the tens and even hundreds of thousands in newsstand like condition. And not when you've go people insisting that those books are worth more than the likes of a Detective 33, just because the Detective 33 isn't "high grade" and only books in high grade are valuable, so people should ignore the fact that there are thousands or even tens of thousands of copies of NM 98 as good as a 9.8 or better for every copy in any condition of Detective 33. Not when you consider that the owners of common books are essentially seeking to assure their buyers that the prices will hold no matter what, which must mean the market cap of all existing copies of New Mutants 98 is many times greater than the market cap of all existing copies of Action 1 and Detective 27 put together (simple math multiplying the value achieved of the "rare" top grade copies will lead to that conclusion) And not when you consider that the top grade books are virtually identical in the top grades and the only thing that really differentiates them is the number put on the label, so you are relying not on the near-cetainty that a truly rare book will continue to stay rare but instead you rely on the assumption that none or just a few of the nearly infinite high grade books out there will not be given similar or better grades in the future

Sorry, let me clarify. Yes, I agree he's been popular for a long time...consistently popular. I was a big fan when the issue originally hit the shelves. But "blew up"...$400 to $1,000, a new post about NM98 popping up every other day, comparing NM98 to IH 181, etc....all within the past few months. This is not a valid comparison. Look at the census numbers for NM 98. Almost a little over HALF of all submitted are in 9.6 or better. These prices have to be unsustainable over the long term. I could be wrong, but I hope not as this does not paint a healthy picture for the vinatge comic book market as a whole. There is nothing wrong with steadily increasing prices, but here is the issue: there is a direct coorelation between movie announcements and speculation. It has never been this bad before. There is also a direct correlation between the number of copies that exist and the number of people who own those copies who will tell newbies it is valuable,

It's not about how much people like the character or want the book, it's about how many of the books exist, and the ratio between those who want and the copies in existence ("in existence" and "in the market" are not the same thing. The book is not like the Detective 33 in your sig line, which has limited supply because there just aren't as many copies in the world as there are people who'd like to have it. Everybody out there with multiple copies of that book could divest of their dupes and it would still be rare. But if everybody with multiples of New Mutants 98 divested of their dupes, those dupes could line the floors a million bird cages. The "limited" supply of NM 98 has entirely to do with the fact that there are many many copies which are being held by people. These books were not thrown out. The vast majority were treated carefully and very many of them weren't even read before being tucked away. Not even unsold copies were destroyed. There are more people banging the drum touting the value of common books because there are more people who have them to sell. But all it would take to impact the value would be a few of those people to stop banging that drum, either because they're unloading (or have unloaded their copies) or because they want to push something else (like something they have even MORE copies of), thank you Bluechip for a brilliant analysis ! the simple logic and factuality of your post is by and large ignored and ridiculed by many on these boards sad but true.. I have said all along that golden age has most of the only true rarities (where demand outweighs supply) almost NO coppers or moderns will ever come close to the demand outstripping the supply and NM 98 is a joke , reminds me of the so called " rare " camel beanie baby I have been looking for common sense posts and for someone's who's opinion I can respect so thank you ! The post was well written to be sure but I don't think anyone has said NM 98 is "rare". Comparing it to a book like Tec 33 with only 40 blue labels on the census is literally going from one extreme to another. NM 98 hasn't spiked a few hundred dollars recently because it is "rare". An increase in demand spiked it, be it speculator activity, or bandwagon collectors who just like to lock in on the next "big thing". NM 98 is simply a book a lot of people want to own. And it is more people today than it was a month ago. GA books are legitimately rare and many people cannot afford them. At least NM 98 is a newer "key" that is within reach of the masses, and that is why it should and probably will hold value. -J. Supply and Demand The simple truth is there are thousands of copies people are sitting on, tens of thousands. I have personally seen long-boxes full of NM-/NM copies. As in more than one long-box full. At some point these copies will flood the market and the price will reset. When that happens is anyone's guess, but I imagine around a month or two before the movie release (if it ever happens) is a fairly good guess. High grade copies have been hitting the market for years and it hasn't stopped prices from rising yet. -J. It's not just the number of copies hitting the market but the number of copies would are out there. For every copy of Detective 33 -- in ANY condition -- there are thousands or even tens of thousands of copies of New Mutants 98 in "nosebleed" grades. The best way to judge if something is undervalued or overvalued is to calculate or guestimate the market cap (or the value of all existing copies/shares). Should the market cap (the value of all existing copies) of NM 98 be more than the market cap of Detective 27? I wouldn't think so. But if you take the highest (or the average) prices realized for each of those books in each grade, and then multiply by how many copies exist of those books in those grades, and you will get a (supposed) market cap for NM 98 of many, many times that of Detective 27. Would those values hold if there was any kind of a sell-off? That brings us to another method for assessing vlue. That is to guesstimate what would reasonably happen if a large number of shares/copies came onto the market at once. If ten percent of all copies of Tec 27 (or 33) came onto the market all in the same month, there would be some bargains picked up but the values would hold pretty well and in very little time come back and continue to rise But if ten percent of all existing copies of NM 98 were to come on the market all at once it would be an unmitigated disaster.

It could be twice that and Bat 1s would still be one of the most under-valued books out there, at least when you compare it to the values other books are getting. Superman 1 is approaching six figures in good, and many would not question question 8K bids to date on the likes of a 9.9 ASM from the 'copper age.' There might be more Bat 1s than the average GA key but it's also a lot more than an average key, and huge numbers of extant copies doesn't seem to make a lot of difference in the prices realized on many other books with existing numbers much higher and significance much lower. Well put. "Huge numbers" may be a bit excessive as we're still talking about a GA book, but I understand where you're coming from. Despite recent upticks in prices for this book, it still has a lot of room to grow. When I said "huge numbers" i was referring to other books, not Batman 1 Bat 1 has more known existing copies than Superman 1, but far far below the numbers of any silver age key, let alone bronze age books. There are silver and bronze books which sell for more than 12K in high grades. If you look at Hulk 181, for example, there are more copies in "nosebleed" grades of that issue than there are total existing copies of Batman 1 in any condition. Yet people pay for them who would never buy that low grade Batman 1 because they believe that only high grade books are valuable and don't stop to think how the total numbers should affect the value. Should the market cap (the value of all existing copies) of Hulk 181 be more than the market cap of Detective 27? I wouldn't think so. But if you take the prices realized for the copies in various grades, and then multiply it by the number of existing copies in all those grades, the market cap of Hulk 181 would far exceed Tec 27. But how would the figures hold if there was a sell-off. I doubt the value of Tec 27 would fall too far if ten percent of all existing copies came available in the same month. But do that with Hulk 181 and it would be a disaster.

It's not about how much people like the character or want the book, it's about how many of the books exist, and the ratio between those who want and the copies in existence ("in existence" and "in the market" are not the same thing. The book is not like the Detective 33 in your sig line, which has limited supply because there just aren't as many copies in the world as there are people who'd like to have it. Everybody out there with multiple copies of that book could divest of their dupes and it would still be rare. But if everybody with multiples of New Mutants 98 divested of their dupes, those dupes could line the floors a million bird cages. The "limited" supply of NM 98 has entirely to do with the fact that there are many many copies which are being held by people. These books were not thrown out. The vast majority were treated carefully and very many of them weren't even read before being tucked away. Not even unsold copies were destroyed. There are more people banging the drum touting the value of common books because there are more people who have them to sell. But all it would take to impact the value would be a few of those people to stop banging that drum, either because they're unloading (or have unloaded their copies) or because they want to push something else (like something they have even MORE copies of),

It could be twice that and Bat 1s would still be one of the most under-valued books out there, at least when you compare it to the values other books are getting. Superman 1 is approaching six figures in good, and many would not question question 8K bids to date on the likes of a 9.9 ASM from the 'copper age.' There might be more Bat 1s than the average GA key but it's also a lot more than an average key, and huge numbers of extant copies doesn't seem to make a lot of difference in the prices realized on many other books with existing numbers much higher and significance much lower.

You guys are all approaching this from the wrong angle! Yes, everybody already knows that this book is as common as dirt with thousands of copies already graded in CGC 9.6 or 9.8 condition, yet super rare and impossible to get in CGC 2.0 or lower. That's where the big money should really be going! The problem is that it's hard to tell whether a book is 2.0 because it's a rare example of a book somebody actually read and enjoyed during its original release or if it's one of the millions that were put into mylars in perfect condition that have been taken out trecently and manipulated by professional comic abusers to look as if they were read.

There is no limit to how many books can be labelled rare because they were manufactured as limited edition collectibles in the first place, whether they be "editorial variants" or "dealer rrp" copies, or whatever. Especially when you add in hoarding and a focus on label numbers. When a publisher today makes and sells a few hundred to a few thousand copies of a variant, virtually none are destroyed and few are even read (at least not carelessly). I understand that people may like some of them, but it intrigues me when the people extolling their value the most turn out to be the same people who say that something truly rare in any condition is worthless if it doesn't have the same grade. Although I have to respect that view when people are consistent and they not only insist on high prices for their 9.8 RRP editions but they are also willing to sell the truly rare but lesser condition item for a pittance. I've met very very few like that, however. Less than a handful, all told. But one of them got a "rare" Platinum Edition of the 1991 Spider-man comic from me and happily exchanged it for a poor condition copy of Pep 22. That's consistency.

Interesting. Where did you get this information? Just took a quick look at the census. -J. There are 34 copies on the census. What makes you think the census represents all surviving copies? ...."known" copies. There were what only 600 originally made and handed out in just two locations in California ? That particular issue has been sought after for some time. It's a safe bet the majority of them are known to the market at this point. (thumbs u -J. Those that aren't known to the market probably just haven't been brought to the market. Unless somebody made a huge effort to acquire and hoard them and then just happened to get caught in a hurricane or a fire, I'd guess that instead of 34 known copies there have are less than 34 copies from the original run that were destroyed and that only a small percentage have been damaged to less than newsstand condition.

The story of the year is the grade bumping of major keys....both in terms of actual grade and amount of restoration. The rise in price from 155K to 595K on the restored DT 27 is greed fueled. What can stop this....what has ever stopped making a profit. It is very important that this record breaking comic book not be a "grade bump" book.... Mitch, grades can change simply because CGC sees a book differently. Nothing necessarily needs to be done to a book. What is happening is these books are all vying for position (best, 2nd best, 3rd best, etc). Eventually they will settle into their respective positions. Interesting business model....change the standards every 5 years and regrade and regrade . Right now its grade bumping 1 grade and possible 1.2 grades higher. What happens when it it two grades higher....buying at the top is dangerous to say the least. But VC when know what is done to comics today to restore or unrepair to grade bump. Vying for a position does not mean what is occurring is a good and healthy thing. Mitch where have you been the last 10 years? Maybe if you participated in a few threads outside of Action #1's you would have noticed that people have been talking about this since day one. At no time has anybody made 2million on a grade bump/ press or whatever. So the book bumped 100 bucks ten years ago... But this trend is deeper, more profitable... And it is just beginning with ga mega keys....the new saying ..."crack and press"...and make 2+ million profit on a single book....it is coming big time. I think we saw a near unique opportunity with the action 1. It was a beautiful book initially graded with a couple of removable flaws. Flaws that these days most remove before submitting for grading, thus eliminating the potential for upgrades. Will folks continue to try to manipulate books into higher slabs, of course. It's human nature. Folks have been trying to improve books for profit as long as even you have been collecting Mitch (restoration was once widely positively accepted as increasing a books value) However I'm pretty reluctant to think we will ever hear of a 2mil bump on a comic again, it is just not statistically probable. Let's look at the 9.4 bump on the D27 from 9.2....was 155K now 595K... if that bump is even greater even more dollars up. I see in todays Hollywood Reporter an article as to WHY Metro paid over 3.2 million dollars for the Action One...give it read...interesting...here I will sum it up for you....i "it is gonna be worth more".... If you own a GA Key....and can grade bump it .2,.4. or a full grade...what are you gonna do...Gator the 2 million dollar profit Gold Rush( see Chuck R market comments)..has just began..just too much greed and money on the table NOW. mitch, here's my rebuttal...first, greed and money on the table is nothing new...been happening for the past 10 years since the advent of cgc, and happened the previous 30 years to that (just on a diff scale)... second, the tec you bring up did change in grade, but until someone actually buys it, it has not changed in value...I can "ask" anything I want for a book ,but ask yourself, do you think a 9.4 mod Tec 27 is worth 595K? (don't even consider what it was before, just what it is now)...we've never seen a restored Key even sniff 200K, have we? so don't panic just yet... I will keep asking this... why do we care that a book in a PURPLE RESTORED LABEL got a grade bump? I am not a blue label grade absolutist, so I don't get bent out of shape by a bump on a blue label book, but this is the first time I've heard anyone get crazy about a grade bump on a book that is LABELED AS RESTORED. Since it's labeled as restored... someone did some work on it and got a grade bump. Or maybe it just looks nicer to a different grade and it gets .2? Why are the pitchforks out for this book? Part of it is due to the fact that hand in hand with price enhancement comes price suppression. I don't know how nice the book was prior to restoration, but that should be the biggest factor working for it. Suppose it was very solid to begin with, possibly worth 400K if it had been "untouched." And suppose the touching was just color touch and suppose it was so limited that the same amount of added color -- applied in a way that defaced the cover, would have knocked it down in value just a small percentage or not even at all. But instead the touching improved the look of the book. Does it make sense that touching which improves the look of a book slashes the value to a fraction while the same amount of touching, or even more, doesn't affect the value at all not just despite the fact that it defaces the book but actually because it defaces the book? Whatever the 9.4 restored copy is worth today, I don't know. But if the gap between its original price of 155K sold months ago to 595K asking today is partly due to its being overvalued now then perhaps the gap is also due in part to its being undervalued before.

If this is the "Windy City" copy I had a chance to buy this and wanted to but didn't simply because work got in the way and communication with the seller was a little off-putting (I was hearing about it from him as well as from several other people who were telling me of a "better" book which I realized later was actually the same book which they were apparently going to buy from the seller and then resell to me. The prices quoted ranged literally, from 43K to 125K. The guy who actually had it quoted me a price toward the lower side and I was interested but then he sold it without telling me (for a price below what I was prepared to pay). When I asked him why he said that he hadn't paid for the book in full and was worried because he was told by others that "nobody wanted it." Can't tell you how many times I have heard that the "word" on this book or that was "nobody wants it" only to hear later that "everybody wants it". Why would there be a Windy City copy of Tec 27? That collection contained only #1 issues. But it does sound like a story about the "other" high grade Detective 27. And the fact is that it kind of wasn't paid for twice. Jerry originally purchased the book from Geppi and only gave him a 5K deposit. Shortly after this sale the first Sotheby's copy comes to auction and sells for $55K. Of course now Geppi wants to get paid for his much nicer copy (and why shouldn't he?) Jerry initially didn't have all the money to complete the purchase, so I agreed to buy half of the book for 20K which he could give to Geppi and finish paying for the book. Only Jerry never gives Geppi the money. So now I own half a book that is unpaid for and the original owner is getting upset and I think telling other dealers/collectors not to buy it from us as it's not paid for. I tell Geppi I can't pay him for what's owed on the book when I've already given Jerry 20K, and tell Jerry he needs to get this settled immediately and get Geppi and I both paid. He sells the book for an incredible discount to Oklahoma Dave, pays Geppi and I off and Oklahoma Dave turns around and flips the 27 back to Geppi for $81K and sets a new record price for a book at the same time. A pretty sour experience all around. Just to be accurate here - there was no copy of Detective 27 in the Windy City collection. I thought it said Windy City. Was first offered with a price off 55 but was gone when in inquired. Learned Jerry Jacobs had it and he offered it to me at 65. Jerry evntually told me he had actually agreed to pay 43 (with a down payment) and had to sell it to pay off the balance for a profit of 10K at 53 (which I would have offered immediately except that I thought he'd paid 55).

I'm not sure the market cap is quite the same as you're describing. The high roller collectors don't have just the top books; some of them have many other books as well. Looking at the recent auctions I was struck not by the price of the Action 1 (which makes sense to me) but the prices of many many other books that garnered thousands and even tens of thousands despite being titles nobody remembers filled with characters who were never really successful in the first place, let alone famous today. Or they featured characters who are very well known but whose early comics' appearances are not rare in high grade. Add up only a short stack of those books and you get enough to surpass the cost of that Action 1. Add up all of them sold and you get hundreds or even thousands of Action 1s and Detective 27s. If the market can support such values for books in the numbers that they exist, then it can easily absorb large increased in the golden age keys which are not only more famous but will never approach those numbers in regard to market cap (measured by the number of copies and the value of each individually)

If this is the "Windy City" copy I had a chance to buy this and wanted to but didn't simply because work got in the way and communication with the seller was a little off-putting (I was hearing about it from him as well as from several other people who were telling me of a "better" book which I realized later was actually the same book which they were apparently going to buy from the seller and then resell to me. The prices quoted ranged literally, from 43K to 125K. The guy who actually had it quoted me a price toward the lower side and I was interested but then he sold it without telling me (for a price below what I was prepared to pay). When I asked him why he said that he hadn't paid for the book in full and was worried because he was told by others that "nobody wanted it." Can't tell you how many times I have heard that the "word" on this book or that was "nobody wants it" only to hear later that "everybody wants it". Why would there be a Windy City copy of Tec 27? That collection contained only #1 issues. But it does sound like a story about the "other" high grade Detective 27. And the fact is that it kind of wasn't paid for twice. Jerry originally purchased the book from Geppi and only gave him a 5K deposit. Shortly after this sale the first Sotheby's copy comes to auction and sells for $55K. Of course now Geppi wants to get paid for his much nicer copy (and why shouldn't he?) Jerry initially didn't have all the money to complete the purchase, so I agreed to buy half of the book for 20K which he could give to Geppi and finish paying for the book. Only Jerry never gives Geppi the money. So now I own half a book that is unpaid for and the original owner is getting upset and I think telling other dealers/collectors not to buy it from us as it's not paid for. I tell Geppi I can't pay him for what's owed on the book when I've already given Jerry 20K, and tell Jerry he needs to get this settled immediately and get Geppi and I both paid. He sells the book for an incredible discount to Oklahoma Dave, pays Geppi and I off and Oklahoma Dave turns around and flips the 27 back to Geppi for $81K and sets a new record price for a book at the same time. A pretty sour experience all around. This brings back some memories of my conversations with Jerry about what must be the same book. I had seen it advertised for 55K and Jerry was asking 65. Since I had recently seen it for 55 I figured his markup was 10K, but I learned later he'd only "bought" it for 43. Anyway, I had spoken with him about it and was interested even if the 65K had to be the price. So I asked him to send me a scan. He said he would. Then never sent the scan. Next thing I heard he had sold it. He knew I had the cash to pay for it but just didn't follow through and made a worse deal. It was a strange experience. But what he'd told me was real. There was much effort to suppress the price -- concurrent with pressure to finish the payments quick or return the book. So apparently he got played. Though at the same time he was playing others (including me, on that book and on others I'd consigned to him), so it was a two-way street, I guess.

If this is the "Windy City" copy I had a chance to buy this and wanted to but didn't simply because work got in the way and communication with the seller was a little off-putting (I was hearing about it from him as well as from several other people who were telling me of a "better" book which I realized later was actually the same book which they were apparently going to buy from the seller and then resell to me. The prices quoted ranged literally, from 43K to 125K. The guy who actually had it quoted me a price toward the lower side and I was interested but then he sold it without telling me (for a price below what I was prepared to pay). When I asked him why he said that he hadn't paid for the book in full and was worried because he was told by others that "nobody wanted it." Can't tell you how many times I have heard that the "word" on this book or that was "nobody wants it" only to hear later that "everybody wants it".

Re: Bill Finger and Bob Kane (and Jerry Robinson) An earlier post vilified Kane for "what he did to Bill Finger." I cannot deny that Kane sometimes behaved poorly, but "what he did to Bill Finger" was to pluck the guy from a job selling shoes and get him hired by DC comics. They became a team, and Kane didn't share credit. Perhaps he should have, but in that time period it was standard procedure for the guys who ran the shops to take all the credit. In fact the publishing houses encouraged that, even sometimes insisted on it. Siegel and Shuster were partners on Superman and Siegel gave co-creator credit to Shuster even though Siegel came up with it on his own, and had even worked with a different artist before they sold it). But outside their partnership, they had lots of artists who worked on the comics without credit. (an important distinction with Siegel and Shuster is that they were partners together working on speculation. In situations like that, creators like Siegel, who couldn't draw, will understandably give co-creator credit to a collaborator in order to get the project financed or sold. (And not always do people offer co-creator credit; sometimes all that is offered is a job if and when the project moves forward) So, whereas Shuster worked without pay for years as they shopped Superman, Finger was earning paychecks the same week that Kane brought him aboard. Re; Jerry Robinson. What Kane did to Jerry was to hire him on the spot when they met on a tennis court. Changing his life, as it changed Bill Finger's. Did he take credit for Jerry's ideas. According to Jerry, he did. But there's where it gets fuzzy. This was 75 years ago and in collaborative endeavors people tend to disagree about who had which great idea(s) first. Kane says he created Robin. Bill Finger says he created Robin Jerry Robinson says he created Robin. Yet, to hear Kane's biggest detractors, neither Finger nor Robinson are liars. But Kane is. Which is not merely biased. It's not even possible. I don't disagree that Kane was often a d-ck, but the degree to which his haters go, reconstructing the creation of Batman as if they were present at the time, and giving all the credit to others and virtually none to Kane, reaches strange levels at time. (I read one article in which Kane's biggest detractor started to say he gave Kane credit for one thing only, the name Batman. Then, he quickly backed away from that, as if giving Kane any credit whatsoever was too distasteful for him. The guy (Kane) ran the shop, made the decisions. And he was a smart man. It's inconceivable that he didn't have a lot of ideas, or that he didn't get a lot of ideas from his staff.

He acquired a second hand low grade copy of Batman 1, I heard, in the 1960s. (I could see someone having an interest in that, but I understand why the hobby doesn't consider second-hand copies to be the same. Otherwise, comic creators could acquire dozens of copies for the purpose of resale), and that would greatly diminish the appeal Kane acknowledged that everything he'd owned, originally, had been thrown out. Even discussed that on a few TV programs, I am told. To my knowledge he tried to re-acquire a Detective 27, but never did.

All the Kane copies were trimmed on all sides to fit them into the bound volumes. That's what I thought I was seeing. I still don't understand why this isn't mentioned anywhere on that label. -J. I would like it to say the same thing on each label. But the book received a grade of poor. And I've seen many books graded poor by all companies which did not list every defect on the label. Here that largest defect is obvious upon the most brief examination of the book. And was stated in the auction listing. That the the auction was "non-CGC" shouldn't be taken as any dissing of CGC. Comicconnect said that both CGC and CBCS were prepared to certify the books as Kane copies. If somebody prefers a CGC label, I can't imagine CGC would not slab it in the future, just because it had been slabbed previously by CBCS (which was founded by one of CGC's founders) As for the other comments: People collect things for historical value as well s cultural value, in addition to its condition. Otherwise my perfect condition copy of Readers Digest from May, 1939 would be worth far more than a beat-up copy of Detective 27, published the same month. That the "same money could buy a 2.5" is a comment I would not disagree with, but I would do so by adding that it's unique (there will never be another found with this provenance) and that to many its provenance makes it preferable to a 2.5 (or one graded somewhat higher, for that matter). Along that same point, I am certain that many people outside the inside informed of the hobby would ever think that a 2.5 would actually cost that much, because they would believe that the Overstreet guide price is accurate when it says the book is worth only about 22K in good. That information (widely acknowledged here as incorrect) was featured prominently in ComicConnect's auction listing. I've seen poor condition copies from Stan Lee's collection of Silver age books sells for the going price of a near mint copy. Some would say "but Stan Lee is beloved by billions," while other would say "it shouldn't be worth that because nobody cares." I've heard the "nobody cares" argument so many times about collectibles when the person using the phrase really means to say "I don't care." But people collect things for all kinds of reasons. Otherwise everybody would go after the same things. I saw many books sell in that auction as in every auction for prices that I wouldn't have paid even a small fraction of. But that's how it is. And I don't want to use this public forum to try to push people away from the things I don't want to buy myself.