Aman619

Wouldn’t accounting have been able to match job codes on the art to invoices and/or vouchers and vendor payments? Of course assuming management cared to spend the time and resources matching it all together. was this a large ad agency? or magazine ?

Yes that’s the larger danger happening. The COVID year has brought a lot of new enthusiastic buyers not afraid of current prices like we are …who frankly won’t all stick around. And Blackstone could explode the market further! But not sure Blackstone is just looking for short term profits, cause it will take years to expand CCG beyond the collectibles it already handles.

I agree. I think that’s what Blackstone see as CCGs potential for them. Which also means that preserving CCGs reputation is key to extending it into new areas of collectibles. So what all the moaning and doomsaying???

Odds are Matt will be spending a lot of time learning how to slab a LOT of objects in the coming months and years! Lol

I don’t know this guy, maybe he’s very knowledgeable about comics? But he is just rambling on about the CGC deal based on his limited personal experiences, full of generalizations like after a buyout the old owners slack off? Usually they don’t get all their money so when they stay on for a few years, they DONT slack off. Their full payout has contingencies to protect the buyers. And if they do get paid in full, they are gone so they can’t slack off. And comparing Blackstone buying CGC to Becket buying Voldy is apples and oranges. His problems at Voldy weren’t because of Beckett. And Wall Street buying CGC is very different from a card company buying a grading service. Anyway... where is the rational inside scoop of how this went down instead of all this “who moved my cheese” whining ?

Yes. I’m not thinking they will monetize in becoming a seller of the products that certify, BUT, you make an interesting point. If they were to create from scratch a new Comiclink style consign or sales platform, they could take the slabs as they are graded and post them for sale ASAP. Submitter decides the ask price, CGC does the rest. for all flippers and collectors who slab to sell, it’s convenient one stop shopping, and you save on one or two shipping fees too. overall though, I think the dollars in Blackstone eyes are more long term. They must think they are buying a key component of the collectibles market cheap, with room to multiply their leverage across all slabbed objects known and to come. The companies to but stock in perhaps are the plastics the slabs are made from. Gonna be a lot of it going they Sarasota before they are done. Not ghat this is on the same scale as buying Apple suppliers stocks though.

Right for starters. Use CCG to get the lead in lots of as yet uncertified areas. downside of course is, as cynical and money chasing many here accused CGC of being, that Blackstone might do things that would make Steve and Mark blush!

yes. this deal is a bet that they can control and grow the burgeoning collectibles market while its still young. To take CCG to another level: adding new collectibles, and utilizing their partners for special access to sports etc.. Blackstone is looking at the potential on top of what CGC has already carved out, and they and their investors see a long way they can push it... Hopefully not too cynically that they break it instead.

X-men 1 won’t sell for. Million this year because fir that to happen one of the owners would have decide to sell it. I doubt they think they need to hurry to cash in just cause one of the other guys sold his copy. And… The underbidder isn’t always still hungry for the book they lost out on. Sometimes they are relieved! So there’s a downside to selling right away trying to piggyback a huge sale number.

My guess is that the next 9.6 AF 15 to sell will be for closer to 2M. So since the 9.8 XMen 1 at 1.5M is the outlier guesstimate, I’d say Spidey is still safely ahead for some time to come. But if the new money drifts away we may face a boring few years of non exciting sales across the board.

The backgfounds when colored in say all red, or blue etc are crazy decisions…. But that’s what cement the whole comic book vibe. Keeps it graphic and the eye focused on the important elements.

thats what I was looking for. As I stated, I read posts here that seem to be saying that they are tracking the status at CCS... so what they really were saying it seems is that they check the CGC submission page and the only movement they see is that happy day when their books status changes from RECEIVED to SCHEDULED FOR GRADING.... my misunderstanding. I had assumed you could track the progress within CCS before it moved to CGC. (Received, step 1, step 2, processed, quality control"... That would be nice.

That’s a great summary of the work flow, thanx.. but I keep reading posts here saying they were looking up the status of their books at CCS. I’m trying to understand whether the CGC site displays a submissions status at CCS by itself, and not just for the slabbing…. Or is it only that if the invoice number is not RED, it means it’s still at CCS?

thanx. but where do you go to see the CCS invoices? I can find CGC submissions, but not CCS submissions, and Ive clicked pretty much everything!

Nearly every monitor displays colors rear are not true, very few are calibrated well, even artists monitore. And if they are, when their work is submitted as a file or pdf, he is at the mercy of whatever the client is seeing on his monitor.. this will never be solved… so long as dozens of monitor makers are out there, running different system software, and the monitors in use range from brand new to 15 years old, and never calibrated… and if they were still just means what they see matches only what others with same monitor brand of same model # and same vintage… that was also calibrated with same software at the same time. Of course that’s all one thing, cause if the scans are off because they were sloppily made, or at bad settings and are too dark or washed out, and no one knew how to fix them, or company feels it’s a waste of time fixing each in photoshop? Garbage in, garbage out.

When you submit to CGC and CCS, can you track the status at CCS online like we can for CGC? Or only once they get to CGC for grading?

Haha. Good luck with THAT argument ! Lol

Ah, but the sales records are made by a slim few people , not the 100,000 at a convention, most of whom aren’t even buying comics.

Lon did a good job. He wasn’t some salesman, and was somewhat shocked by the recent run up as we are. Imagine if they interviewed Mehdy! Seriously though, I think we are all finally coalescing around what’s led to this windfall, and probably all expect it to taper off at some point. The recent prices though will still etched as targets for the next ramp up.. assuming of course the new guys don’t lose their shirts on comics and take it all down with them. also as with all media outlets, the existence of an article like this is not the result of a deep dive research project at the publication for topics to write about. Usually comes from someone in the hobby, or a friend who suggests it, or it’s from a press release that catches their attention. But it’s good promotion for comics. I forwarded it to my financial guys who mocked my comics collection!

To save a search just make a bookmark after you run the search. All browsers do that and you can rename them as you want... There are lots of books listed, but they wipe away a lot of sold items from time to time. if you sort by list date, and search through the first 20-40 pages you’ll get to choose from recent listings, and there won’t be any fossils in there. Unfortunately, a search for a particular issue just gets you all copies of it, but unless there’s a list date, (not every book gets one) you have no context for how old it may be. when you make a bid, you will be instantly rejected if it’s below a % of the ask price that the seller has listed it for. This saves everybody time. Eliminates ridiculous low offers. Usually it’s 50-70% of the list price. Seller can counteroffer, and there a time window to agree on a price. After that your bid remains so that others will see that anything less won’t be accepted either.

But seriously. !

Done and done!

I loved John Carter too. My take for it’s abysmal reception was that it was so faithful to the original stories — and so many of Burroughs ideas inventions and concepts had already been seen by kids in other movies , that it was boring to them. Looked a copycat movie! im not sure when in the production they bought Lucasfilm, but they pulled the plug once test screenings all said it was a dog. I went in week 2 and sat all alone in the theatre. Which was great.

So is the thinking there are 5-10 copies? 10-25? Or more than 25. Or LOTS more? anyone have an edjumacated guess?

I recall Koch’s comic store on the Upper West Side of NYC had a back room full of Atlas monster art. Looks like maybe part of this pile? I don’t recall any Hulk pages, but they would have already sold, leaving the random monster stories behind.