rob_react

The numbers, including 1965, are actually pretty good for my argument. 9.8s are really rare, even if you include 64 and 65. They're just rarer looking at 61-63. But even the numbers including 64 and 65 don't indicate that there should be a flood of 9.8 Amazing Fantasy 15s out there.

Ah, got it. ToS 47

Yeah, the 65 set it to include the broadest range of keys but not to get so far into the collector/dealer era that it's just silly. For AF15, 61-63 is for sure where the better comparison is going to come from.

Yeah, that's why I'm double checking. I could be wrong, but i don't remember three

Oh, i just saw the 9.9s in there, i wonder if there are like... German editions in the data. When i get home I'll do a little digging.

Hell yes! I answered my basic question in five minutes 🙏🙏🙏

The hammer price is meaningless, other than as an input in a calculation, for auctions with buyer's premium. I don't track the hammer price, at all. All the record prices are what the buyer paid (minus taxes and shipping, since those would vary wildly and would be unknowable). In some cases that is the hammer price (eBay, ComicConnect,) in others, its is inclusive of buyer's premium.

I'm going to look through the query and parcel out the superhero titles and then the keys, but, out of all the Marvels graded between 1961 and 1965 only 666/241,069 got 9.8. Books CGC Label CGC Total Avg. Grade 10 9.9 9.8 9.6 9.4 9.2 9.0 8.5 8.0 7.5 7.0 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.8 1.5 1.0 0.5 884 BOOKS Universal 241,069 5.82 0 0.00% 2 0.00% 666 0.3% 2,578 1.3% 5,666 3.7% 7,217 6.7% 10,958 11.2% 14,143 17.1% 16,088 23.8% 16,793 30.7% 18,696 38.5% 17,218 45.6% 16,439 52% 14,782 59% 17,483 66% 16,720 73% 17,214 80% 13,064 85% 12,313 90% 7,691 94% 4,878 96% 3,124 97% 2,552 98% 1,740 99% 3,044 100% Of the books from 1961 through 1963 only 117/89,562 Books CGC Label CGC Total Avg. Grade 10 9.9 9.8 9.6 9.4 9.2 9.0 8.5 8.0 7.5 7.0 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.8 1.5 1.0 0.5 449 BOOKS Universal 89,562 5.00 0 0.00% 1 0.00% 117 0.1% 432 0.6% 993 1.7% 1,280 3.2% 2,184 5.6% 2,973 8.9% 3,876 13.2% 4,505 18.3% 5,604 24.5% 5,710 30.9% 5,706 37.3% 5,570 43.5% 7,069 51% 7,220 59% 8,085 68% 6,611 76% 6,931 84% 4,626 89% 3,131 92% 2,109 95% 1,828 97% 1,259 98% 1,742 100%

There might be one, but there aren't many 9.8s of the early Marvels in general. Time to take a look at Census data, to figure out how many there are!

The one Doug had is the second best book I've ever seen in person (the Church Superman #1 is the best)

Yeah, but Spider-Man is so boring.

I'd rather have 1st Joker and 1st Catwoman than 1st spider-man. 10000%

I'd take the batman #1 all day every day.

True, but Comic Connect is more sensitive to the records then Heritage is. Big books is one thing. The world record is another. They'd want to respond if they could.

I'm convinced it will. And then ComicConnect will start checking underneath the couch cushions for a spare high grade Detective #27 or Action #1.

I spoke to him about his books a few years ago. He can talk! It was a great conversation, although I mostly listened.

"piercing the corporate veil" It sounds so dramatic. Safe, to say- Blackstone is pretty good at not being pierced.

None of this stuff is dictated by anything other than the agreement you have with the auction house. They have standard terms, but if you have something they want you can negotiate. That's not really a point of contention, is it? Without thinking about it for more than five seconds you could say to Heritage- "I could get a much better deal at ComicConnect and they've broken six world records, why should I bother paying 38% to you?"

Good point. They're in Florida. I don't know what the facility looks like but there's a lot of potential for natural disasters in Florida. Even if the facility isn't flattened, water damage is a big issue for paper collectibles. Having gone through a merger recently (one big investment manager buying a slightly less big investment manager) there was a lot of discussion about risk, right off the bat. This would certainly be a topic of conversation. I still think it's more in the lines of an "easy win" for CGC, milking auction houses.

Sotheby’s Suffers Losses on Guaranteed Prices - The New York Times Sotheby's took a bath on guarantees. They're not a bunch of rubes. It's not as common as it once was, when it was a major tool to gain consignments, but for the best of the best- this is the way you should be approaching these places. They live on high quality consignments.

I'm talking about the biggest of the big books. If you had a $5,000,000 book with Heritage and you didn't lose the seller's commission and grading fees right off the top, you're not trying hard enough. "ComicConnect doesn't have a buyer's premium. I'll save 20% over there." The reality is, with some material you can make up the difference with Heritage. They're really good at what they do. With a world record book? eBay set a world record. It doesn't matter where you sell something like that, really. ComicConnect would do just fine with material like that and you're going to do much better there than you would at Heritage without negotiating. I've heard that some people have clawed money out of the buyer's premium for some consignments. Again, I'm talking Detective #27 Church copy level. If you're selling a world record book, you should act like it! In the fine art world people negotiate guarantees that ignore the hammer price entirely. If you've got the best of the best, that's the model you should be aiming for with the auction houses.

I should bubble this up, since I danced around this earlier and didn't spell it out. That way I see it, the idea of removing the cap has nothing to do with soaking collectors (although it has that side-effect.) To me it's about using the dominant market position to take some easy $$ out of the auction houses. If I was selling an as-yet-ungraded $5,000,000 book I would say, up-front, the auction house can eat the grading fees. And they'd say, "Sure! Please just give us your book! We'll fly to you, drive the book to Florida and make your dreams come true!" Those are the folks that are actively looking for the trophies. And even lower down the totem pole where you might have less leverage to make the auction house eat the fees, it's not like you'd be out of pocket for the grading fees. They'll just end up as a line item on your invoice. The consigners of the Promise Collection didn't have to pony up $1,000,000 before Heritage would take the books. I do wonder what the deal looks like between Heritage and CGC. What does their FMV percentage look like?

That's the point. CGC is aware of this. CGC used to hide books in the census for collectors. They're not in the business of hyping up every book they grade. The idea that they're going to chase books and give up grading fees for the prestige of grading them is not backed up by the evidence. The Tec 27 9.2 snuck into the census. The two books that are the focus of this thread showed up and I had to piece together confirmation that they were pedigree copies (including one of the most significant pedigree books in the hobby.) If they were looking for prestige these two books would be at the top of the list! CGC isn't handing over grading fees any time soon.

No one has ever said anything about the most valuable CGC graded book in existence in 7 years. They will hype books if they can, but they're also happy to quietly grade three of the top 20 books in the hobby without so much as a peep.

There was discussion of the Rockford here and it's VF, so yeah. Unless it was a "finger-bends" 8.0