bluechip

This is another intersection where logic diverges. Because cleaning something is "restoration!" and removing it is not, so better to discard and destroy a part of the book than to see the entire book labelled as desecrated?

Many years ago a quality repro cover was difficult to do. Now it's easy as hehl, so I see no added benefit from a repro being included with a coverless book, much less using the repro cover to hide the actual genuine interior you're buying. What bothers me more is that the prices have gotten so high for parts there seems to be little to no point in attempting to complete something. Once in a while I see something which sparks a memory and makes me think "wait, would that complete my copy?" and then I look at the price and say "doesn't matter if it would because the price of this part by itself is more than I'd expect to get if I put it with my incomplete book and ended up with a complete married copy".

If you're a Batman 9.8 collector this is junk.

Make no mistake. 90K is still absurd because it's not rare in any condition that 99.99999 % of people could even discern, let alone agree with or care about . Part of the reason it's 'iconic' is that occurred during a peak time of Bat-frenzy and when they printed mountains of books and almost NOBODY was throwing them out. Uncirculated copies of the book were freely available less than a dozen years ago from warehouse finds.

The Batman 181 is 'iconic' for many reasons. It's an oft-reprinted cover and I believe it was the Batman book on the newsstands when the Batman TV series debuted, so if you learned about Batman through the show and went looking for it at your local store, it's what you saw. So it likely got burned into many a child's memory.

Fortunately for "9.8 Batman collectors," they're very plentiful with more being manufactured every month.

Production art color guide page goes for nearly 10K.

You're the Howard expert. In fact, I most likely got "all over the place" from you.

Howard prices all over the place. The 18 cover went for half what it once sold for, but still not low enough to entice me to be the high bidder because the cover image just doesn't appeal to me. In published form (i.e. in color) it works great, but barely at all (for me) in black and white.

You mean rare in a CGC 9.8 holder. Yes, CGC has standards and cachet, but you are still talking not about something that is rare at all in total numbers or scarce at all in copies which would look just as good to 99 out of a 100 people. Even if you were to accept the 9.8 grade as objectively infallible and inarguable, you should not expect the population of 3 will remain as low (based on what's happened in the past). CGC itself has frequently attempted to warn people that all grading is inherently subjective and that census populations should not be taken as a forever and never-changing thing. Sure this is a nice looking copy but this comes from a period in which virtually nobody was throwing books away. When they were printing vast numbers of books and even unsold books were no longer stripped but put into "comic packs" of four and sold for a (very slight) discount. As I mentioned I saw such a pack with this book on the top and it looked absolutely perfect. The price was 500 and I was told by the dealer by way of disclosure that it had come from a warehouse find. So forgive me or anyone else for saying it seems like 90K is a tad much -- considering that same price could get you a decent Batman 1 or an early detective that is rare not just subjectively but objectively. You could buy multiple copies of Batman 181 that are objectively indistinguishable from this one by the overwhelming majority of people and have enough left over to buy several ultra early Batman books that don't exist in total numbers as much as the 181 exists in uber high grade.

I find that the level of detail ascribed to the most important artist on the team varies in direct proportion to whether the person making the determination is trying to buy or sell it.

Ohhhhhh. Right.

Either you're writing from the future, or you meant to say the original Burton Batman film

Many people don't realize that Captain Marvel debuted in the same calendar year as Batman. Same with the Flash and Hawkman. And Cap 1 was on the stands not in 1941 but December 1940.

Hey, people can believe whatever they want. And they are free to WANT whatever they want whenever they want it. And I won't get into how the question of subjectivity and rarity based on the subjective number grading of books as opposed to hard number rarity. But I will say that in general the number of high grade copies of books, especially silver books, is far more likely to go up than down. You don't have to search long or wide to find many examples of such. So, if you say "find me a bunch of 9.8's (fill in the blank) ...and I'll believe ya," well, in the long run, somebody will, indeed, be able to do just that. None of which means you can't want the top number subjective grade holder and you want it now. But you should do so knowing and understanding the difference between "rare because there's only x out there" and "rare because there's only x in a subjective holder with a certain number on it". Also the diff between "rare today" and "rare forever".

Even though I never sought out information about that book over the years, I remember seeing plenty of high grade copies and saw evidence of a warehouse find of uncirculated copies in comic packs. The ones I saw looked as perfect as this one (at least so far as I could tell looking at them through the plastic bag). So that plus the fact this came out during the very height of the Batman TV phenomenon when copies were printed in huge runs and saved by countless fans, there's more than ample reason to believe that the book itself is very common and that there are more than enough similar condition copies in existence that the "existing supply" (as opposed to the "currently on the market supply") exceeds the long-term demand for that price. If you want and need it today and the money doesn't matter and life is short so get it now, fine. But if you're thinking it will forever and always be as "unique" as it seems today, you shouldn't.

I think you meant to say "seeder copy". You plant these bits and hope some Action 1s will sprout.

I know of at least one guy who is planning to bid by carrier pigeon

I remember seeing this book in uncirculated comic packs which were available for a few hundred bucks. Maybe a dozen years ago.

You should go to a more metaphysical/spiritual banker, who could explain my point. Everything is temporary, including us. Whether you "own" something or control it, either way it's temporary. That goes not only for the art itself but also for any money (or tax break) you get from it.

The only thing given up is the right to say "I own these personally" without incurring tax obligations. They can see them anytime they want and prevent others from owning or seeing them. They can sell them and buy other things which they will also "control." Ultimately, nobody "owns" anything. Unless you're immortal, every form of possession is naught but temporary "control".

That and the fact that on this cover Reed Richards looks more like a Kirby self-portrait.

I'm sure there were other artists selling for 2K in the 30s whose art would be worth no more than that today (or perhaps less).

I said I knew the name but beyond that I bought all the albums and saw them in concert for the Animals tour. I even reviewed them as a teenaged rock reporter. But as much as I love the band I know its cultural impact is the barest fraction of that of Superman, and that a guitar selling for 4 million should be taken as a sign that something is valued out of whack by a small number of people bidding irrationally, not that it's only begun to show its value and is certain to rise to skies.

I fail to see the consistency of logic when you say that a copy pf Action 1 has increased 15X times in 23 years and you say it's clearly topping out at 2 or 3 mil for the best copies, THEN you go on to say that music memorabilia is "the future," meaning, I presume it has not topped out and things you can obtain should achieve multiples much assuredly. and the example you use is a piece that is ALREADY at 4 Mil and, while I recognize the name of the musician and the make of the guitar, I know that his name recognition worldwide is the barest fraction of Supermans and that the guitars he owned and used in his lifetime most certainly would outnumber the uber high grade Action 1s, and yet you're postulating it will have the same kind of increase as Action 1 over the last couple decades, which would mean this example of "music memorabilia" (the FUTURE) stands a better chance in your view of being worth 15X in 23 years (aka 60 MILLION) for a guitar once owned by by David Gilmour (aka from most of humanity: "who?")