"The Dentist" transaction date

[rodan57]

the traditional collecting merits of a particular book

 

This is a great phrase. It gives dignity to loving a particular book or run of books.

[VintageComics]

Here is a side story that is quite amazing, and had quite an impact back in the day. For some of you old-timers, you might remember the name Alex Acevedo. He decided early on that he wanted to put the MH collection back together. So he starting buying every Edgar Church/Mile High copy he saw for a number of years. Because collectors & dealers knew he was trying to buy them all, and because he was VERY well off financially, the prices he was paying for the Edgar Church/Mile High books really started to take off and the multiples of guide paid for these books jumped significantly.

 

At this point Alex had accumulated 4200 Edgar Church/Mile High books. He then contacted John Mclaughlin (whom also was very well off) in an attempt to get the 3000 Edgar Church/Mile Highs he owned. Well, that did not go well, and due to a misunderstanding John said he would NEVER sell his books to Alex, so Alex could never put the entire collection back together. It was at this point Alex got fed up & frustrated with the whole thing & decided to sell all 4200 of his books.

 

He then went to Geppi and offered him all 4200 books for $420,000. Once again, due to things not going the way he wanted, that deal fell through and Alex walked away from the deal, later selling all 4200 books to Verzyl in a deal that took 5 years to complete. I won't go into further detail, but it was probably the largest single movement of Edgar Church/Mile High books since the initial purchase.

 

John told me that story the last time I saw him. What an incredible story to hear.

 

 

[Moondog]

Here is a side story that is quite amazing, and had quite an impact back in the day. For some of you old-timers, you might remember the name Alex Acevedo. He decided early on that he wanted to put the MH collection back together. So he starting buying every Edgar Church/Mile High copy he saw for a number of years. Because collectors & dealers knew he was trying to buy them all, and because he was VERY well off financially, the prices he was paying for the Edgar Church/Mile High books really started to take off and the multiples of guide paid for these books jumped significantly.

 

At this point Alex had accumulated 4200 Edgar Church/Mile High books. He then contacted John Mclaughlin (whom also was very well off) in an attempt to get the 3000 Edgar Church/Mile Highs he owned. Well, that did not go well, and due to a misunderstanding John said he would NEVER sell his books to Alex, so Alex could never put the entire collection back together. It was at this point Alex got fed up & frustrated with the whole thing & decided to sell all 4200 of his books.

 

He then went to Geppi and offered him all 4200 books for $420,000. Once again, due to things not going the way he wanted, that deal fell through and Alex walked away from the deal, later selling all 4200 books to Verzyl in a deal that took 5 years to complete. I won't go into further detail, but it was probably the largest single movement of Edgar Church/Mile High books since the initial purchase.

 

John told me that story the last time I saw him. What an incredible story to hear.

 

 

4,200 MHs for $100 each? Why would he sell them so cheap? Is there a typo and the deal was actually 4,200 books for $4.2 million ($1,000 each)?

[sacentaur]

Just wanted to say that it is very classy of you to stand up for people and ideas that always have been slammed here on the boards. It is so nice and refreshing to hear a balanced perspective on old stereotypes.

 

tb, a genuine (not snarky) question here: are you doubting the validity of the "stereotype" tales about those "always slammed" here on the boards, or are you just tired of hearing about them?

 

...to understand how people were thinking back in the 80s and how that could have led someone to do things that they'd never do today.

 

For honest and good men like John Snyder, yes indeed. But for those who remain unethical, no - they have adapted and found additional new ways to ply the same old trade.

 

And yes agreed, Lou Fine is a very good man (and friend) - I'd sing his praises even more if he posted scans of some of the amazing books he owns!

[tb]

sacentaur,

 

By "stereotypes", I meant to refer to the particular situation with JS and the color touch on Church books. I always had the impression that this was considered the closest thing to pure evil that ever happened in the hobby so it was interesting to see Mr. Fine's more nuanced comments.

 

Since I don't go to conventions and very rarely get the opportunity to meet other collectors, I appreciate whenever anyone is willing to take the time to share their own experiences here. I just happen to love Golden Age comics and am trying to buy them as safely as I can.

 

Sorry for the late reply. I am on a business trip in Europe.

[sacentaur]

tb, thnx for the reply and clarification.

 

As I previously stated, I have nothing against John Snyder at all. It's some of the other parties who handled the books after him - and the deceitful methods they used to resell those books to collectors in order to satisfy their own greed - is where the point of contention is.

 

Have a safe trip.

[trmoore54]

WARNING: Skip to the next post if you want to avoid a long and boring one.

 

 

John was a true power broker in the big comics back at that time with lots of stories about the big collectors such as Geppi, Overstreet, Carter, Anderson, etc. It was extremely interesting and almost like being a fly on the wall to hear about some of these transactions, the personalities involved, and their reasons for buying and/or selling at the time.

 

Did Snyder ever discuss selling restored Church books to the "Dentist"?

 

I thought for all you old school GA guys, restoration was not only okay, it was desirable?

 

Steve;

 

Although Tim is only trying to tease you with his comment, what he says actually has quite a bit of truth to it. Back in the days of the 70's and the early 80's, restoration was seen in a much more favorable light as compared to the late 80's and the pariah is has become nowadays in the CGC era of the PLOD.

 

As you obviously know, Bob Overstreet was seen as the leading authority in the field back then, as he still is today (although probably to a much lesser extent nowadays). I just dug out my price guides from the late 70's and early 80's to see what they had to say and to refresh my memory. Not suprisingly, they did talk about restoration (a lot) and the value of restored comics. It's quite evident they were extolling the virtues of restoration which in no doubt was a reflection of the thinking in the marketplace during those years as evident through some of the following comments:

 

"There are two major categories of restoration. In the first category no new elements are added to a comic book. Processes in this category include dirt removal, spine roll correction, whitening, deacidification, tape removal, etc. These processes do not alter the original state of a comic book, and consequently the comic book will reach the value equivalent to books which needed no restoration to begin with. In many cases, the value gain can be enormous."

 

"The second category exists when new elements are added to a comic book where portions were destroyed or damaged. In instances such as repairing missing pieces and tears, touching up colours or replacing missing pages, the current consensus of value is approximately one-half grade less than a book which did not require the restoration."

 

Bob goes on to talk about his major recommendations for collectors to protect their comic collections and one of them is as follows:

 

"6) To enhance the value of your comic book, have it professionally restored."

 

The prices guides in those days had countless articles written by acknowledged experts such as Bill Sarill, Ernst Gerber, Richard Smith, etc. talking about restoration and the preservation of comic books. They even had bar charts and graphs on various techniques and chemical treatments to extend the life of your comic book. I remember they even had some type of mathematical equation to try to estimate the added value of a restored book. Not a single word or warning in those days as to the negative consequences of restoration and nothing at all about disclosure or the lack thereof.

 

Fast forward to the very late 80's and the price guide has their first warning about restored books:

 

1) "It has been brought to our attention that some dealers have been selling these books to unsuspecting collector/investors - not telling them of the restoration. In some cases these restored books are being priced the same as unrestored books."

 

2) "Restored books must be graded as such; i.e. a restored book grading Fine might only be worth the same as a Very Good or even a Good copy in its unrestored state. The value of an extensively restored book may improve a half-grade from its original unrestored state."

 

Based upon the above comments, it is quite evident that the marketplace's opinion towards restoration had changed significantly over the ensuing years from the 1970's to the late 1980's and issues were now just being raised about lack of disclosure. Extensively restored books had dropped in value from half a grade lower than its restored state down to half a grade higher than its original unrestored state. Lightly restored books had dropped in value from equivalent to its restored state down to a lower condition state.

 

I guess I really haven't answered Steve's question to me as the above was simply to generate some idea about the mood of the marketplace at the time.

 

No, John did not tell me directly that he had sold restored books to Dentist. But he didn't have to as he told me indirectly and I can add two and two together by myself. My first foray into GA comics was in response to a CBG ad from Snyder in 1987. Being new to GA comics, John was very patient and would always take the time to explain to me the importance of condition and to always go for the best copy (where possible) because one day the market will come to realize their true value, scarcity of certain books, pedigree books, key books, what books to avoid, how to build a collection with long-term growth potential on a very limited budget, etc.

 

And yes, John did bring up the topic of restoration (many times) during our conversations. He told me to be very careful about restored books and to stay away from them as the mood in the marketplace had changed. What was once seen as good was now starting to be seen in a different light. He talked about new collectors who had entered the marketplace in the past who didn't know any better at the time and had done minor work on some books. Not so much to increase their value, but more just to get them in the best condition that was possible, even though they were already in almost perfect condition.

 

He talked about how this was even done to some of the pedigree books and how these collectors now deeply regretted doing that work. From the sound of his voice, I could tell that this was always a very sensitve topic for him. From the stories he told me about about the pedigree books that passed through his hands, I knew this was a very personal issue and there was no need for me to ask any further.

 

 

Did Snyder ever discuss selling restored Church books to the "Dentist"?

 

Yes he did. John and I talked about this at length a year or so ago when he expressed his regret over doing that (touching them up), and freely admitted what books they were.

I made a post about this (with John's permission) with a lot of details after our conversation.

 

Now that's really interesting - I wonder how touched-up Church books suddenly became unrestored while in the Dentist's possession, he sold them as such, only years later to have them (e.g., Green Lantern 1) receive PLOD's from CGC?

 

 

 

Steve;

 

Although I completely understand and sympathize with what you are saying here, I am not sure if it is a fair comment that you are making. It seems that you are trying to apply the standards from one era to the activities from another era where standards may have been different at the time. The definition of restoration has changed over the decades and what was acceptable at one time is no longer acceptable right now. On the other hand, many of the restoration activities that were not acceptable in the past are now fully embraced in the current times.

 

The most obvious of which is "the pressing out of wrinkles on the cover" which was seen as restoration and clearly defined as such in the Overstreet guide for over 35 years. Only 5 years after the fact did it come out in the marketplace that somebody or some group in the know had decided to remove this from the definition of restoration and were now calling it "maximization of potential". Unfortunately, they forgot to inform everybody else in the marketplace as only a small group of insiders knew about this change and were able to use this to their financial advantage in what was clearly an unlevel playing field at the time. This was made worse as these newly acceptable activities were retroactively deemed to be okay in the marketplace even though there was and generally still is a total lack of disclosure.

 

I don't think we need to go back to 25 or 30 years ago to see what were some of the "bad activities" that were happening in the marketplace. As already mentioned above, times change and what was once good may now be considered as bad. We could simply look at today and who's to say that in 20 years from now, collectors won't be looking back at us and saying what in the world were we thinking of: disassembling books, cleaning them, pressing them, manipulating them whichever way we could as long as we could laundered them through CGC and foist them upon an unsuspecting marketplace.

 

It's clear and totally understandable how you feel about Snyder. But how do you feel about today's generation who are basically doing the same thing? Not really so much to improve the book to its best possible condition, but really moreso to see the book reach its maximum possible price. How do you feel about the big-time dealers and collectors of today who are doing whatever they can get away with just to squeeze a little bit more and a lot more dollars out of books that have been sitting untouched for decades?

 

Why do we feel that it's okay for today's generation to manipulate the books, but yet it was so wrong for yesterday's generation to have done it? This generation really has less of an excuse as they should have learn from history. And I most certainly don't seem to feel any sense of regret from today's generation as to what is being done to the books, only a rampant desire to do more. How would everybody feel if tomorrow's generation using more advanced restoration detection techniques changes their definition of restoration once again and deems most of our "highest graded copies" and maximized books to be the PLOD's of tomorrow.

 

And I congratulate anybody who actually took the time to make it though this long and tedious post. (thumbs u

 

 

Great post!

I'm an SA guy and found this link through JazzMan's post...really appreciate the post and the history explained...THX!

[sacentaur]

lou, we have known each other for a long time and I am not going to debate the issue any further.

 

The core point is not about John Snyder (whom I respect) nor restoration but is about integrity (and a lack thereof). Please trust me when I say that "I know what I know".

 

I have no interest in a revisionist history of the egregious "Dentist" events that took place, nor in mitigating their impact. Sorry.

[CentaurMan]

Great thread. Thanks to everyone for contributing their first-, second-, and third-hand knowledge.

[comicdonna]

Great thread. Thanks to everyone for contributing their first-, second-, and third-hand knowledge.

It's good to see you posting!

[tth2]

Great thread. Thanks to everyone for contributing their first-, second-, and third-hand knowledge.

Fourth-hand knowledge never gets any love.

[adamstrange]

Great thread. Thanks to everyone for contributing their first-, second-, and third-hand knowledge.

Fourth-hand knowledge never gets any love.

Don't forget rumor and innuendo. Can't have too much of those! (thumbs u

[hockeyboy13]

what ever hand the info is, John Snyder color touched a very large portion of the Church copies that came across his desk. and he color touched many non church also. i had an action i i got from john and it had a small "hickey" (printers term for ink that didn't lay down on the paper) and he colored it with a light blue felt marker. i sold that book in 1995. it supposed showed up in mastro auctions later and i have no idea if it was still touched or not.

[PrechterFool-migration]

great thread for sure