Doug Schmell cashing in his vaulted massive collecion. Poll: Is this the top?

[sufunk]

I haven't said it yet and now feel bad for saying it after the thank-you, but congrats on the great book, Jason! I predict a Vision movie and hushed whispers in the halls of comic-cons everywhere about the dude who snagged the sweet 9.8...

 

No worries man, you know I think you're the man!

 

Although I should be pissed at you since without your dang sales threads I could have snagged 3-4 more sweet books this auction!

[drdonaldblake]

the PC TOS were very very strong and the 9.6 TOS #58 pedigree but non PC

[LordRahl]

Expectations must be mighty high to characterize Doug's return as soft when there are hammer prices like these:

 

Avengers #2...$39,000

Avengers #12 in 9.6...$8000

Avengers #93...$7000

 

Daredevil #2...$26000

Daredevil #10...$5300

Daredevil #23...$2100

 

Fantastic Four #8 in 9.4...$15000

Fantastic Four #16 in 9.6...$10000

Fantastic Four #19 in 9.6...$5300

Fantastic Four #30...$10000

Fantastic Four #31 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #42...$8300

Fantastic Four #49 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #61...$4500

Fantastic Four #74 in 9.6...$1500

 

Strange Tales #120...$5600

Strange Tales #134...$3800

Strange Tales #159...$3100

 

There were plenty of both strong and weak prices. I think the final tally was strong enough to be considered a major success.

 

 

Agreed. Overall the prices were on the strong side and the auction did top the estimates that were originally being thrown around on this forum. Given all it had working against it, I don't see how this auction can be seen as anything but a success and a positive for the SA market in general. Although the usual suspects are predictably spinning it as a failure and the beginning of the end... again.

[sufunk]

Expectations must be mighty high to characterize Doug's return as soft when there are hammer prices like these:

 

Avengers #2...$39,000

Avengers #12 in 9.6...$8000

Avengers #93...$7000

 

Daredevil #2...$26000

Daredevil #10...$5300

Daredevil #23...$2100

 

Fantastic Four #8 in 9.4...$15000

Fantastic Four #16 in 9.6...$10000

Fantastic Four #19 in 9.6...$5300

Fantastic Four #30...$10000

Fantastic Four #31 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #42...$8300

Fantastic Four #49 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #61...$4500

Fantastic Four #74 in 9.6...$1500

 

Strange Tales #120...$5600

Strange Tales #134...$3800

Strange Tales #159...$3100

 

There were plenty of both strong and weak prices. I think the final tally was strong enough to be considered a major success.

 

 

Agreed. Overall the prices were on the strong side and the auction did top the estimates that were originally being thrown around on this forum. Given all it had working against it, I don't see how this auction can be seen as anything but a success and a positive for the SA market in general. Although the usual suspects are predictably spinning it as a failure and the beginning of the end... again.

 

BINGO!!! WE HAVE A WINNAH!!!!

 

 

 

[Paratrooper]

Expectations must be mighty high to characterize Doug's return as soft when there are hammer prices like these:

 

Avengers #2...$39,000

Avengers #12 in 9.6...$8000

Avengers #93...$7000

 

Daredevil #2...$26000

Daredevil #10...$5300

Daredevil #23...$2100

 

Fantastic Four #8 in 9.4...$15000

Fantastic Four #16 in 9.6...$10000

Fantastic Four #19 in 9.6...$5300

Fantastic Four #30...$10000

Fantastic Four #31 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #42...$8300

Fantastic Four #49 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #61...$4500

Fantastic Four #74 in 9.6...$1500

 

Strange Tales #120...$5600

Strange Tales #134...$3800

Strange Tales #159...$3100

 

There were plenty of both strong and weak prices. I think the final tally was strong enough to be considered a major success.

 

 

I think it's a 100% return for Doug, considering he stole the money from old Ladies to buy the books in the first place.

[shrunkenhead]

Pin. Drop.

[WEBHEAD]

Pin. Drop.

 

 

[VintageComics]

It's more than just Doug not bidding. At the time of the Avengers craze, there were at least 4 big guns literally competing with each other (2 were forum members, one was a best selling author and one was Doug) for the best copy in a very short period of time. Money was not really a problem for them and each wanted the best at the time.

 

Books that were generally $400-800 books in 9.8 were fetching $3000-4000 just 3 years ago.

 

That's not a market top. That's an anomaly.

 

From what I've seen (and I realize there are exceptions) most of the books have just fallen down to what might be considered a reasonable number - meaning middle of the road values.

 

I could be wrong, but that is just my perception.

 

What you have described is a market top, plain and simple. Plenty of market tops across various asset classes have been formed in a similar fashion.

 

Sorry, you are correct. It is a top for some books, but I don't believe it's the top for the entire market.

 

Poor choice of words on my part.

 

 

 

[seanfingh]

Expectations must be mighty high to characterize Doug's return as soft when there are hammer prices like these:

 

Avengers #2...$39,000

Avengers #12 in 9.6...$8000

Avengers #93...$7000

 

Daredevil #2...$26000

Daredevil #10...$5300

Daredevil #23...$2100

 

Fantastic Four #8 in 9.4...$15000

Fantastic Four #16 in 9.6...$10000

Fantastic Four #19 in 9.6...$5300

Fantastic Four #30...$10000

Fantastic Four #31 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #42...$8300

Fantastic Four #49 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #61...$4500

Fantastic Four #74 in 9.6...$1500

 

Strange Tales #120...$5600

Strange Tales #134...$3800

Strange Tales #159...$3100

 

There were plenty of both strong and weak prices. I think the final tally was strong enough to be considered a major success.

 

 

I think it's a 100% return for Doug, considering he stole the money from old Ladies to buy the books in the first place.

 

According to the record of his disbarment proceedings, full restitution was made to everyone.

[fantastic_four]

Yea, you have to throw the huge prices from early 2009 and particularly the summer of 2009 completely out the window on nosebleed Silver Marvels. Some guy with hugely deep pockets was throwing insane bids out there, and surprisingly, someone was bidding them up. I suspected someone was shilling that one guy up back then and I still do suspect that was happening at least sometimes, but obviously I can't rule out that there was a second deep pocket who similarly didn't care how much the prices he was paying related to market prices.

[Gotham Kid]

 

I think it's a 100% return for Doug, considering he stole the money from old Ladies to buy the books in the first place.

 

According to the record of his disbarment proceedings, full restitution was made to everyone.

 

Yeah, but that part is less interesting...

[sufunk]

Expectations must be mighty high to characterize Doug's return as soft when there are hammer prices like these:

 

Avengers #2...$39,000

Avengers #12 in 9.6...$8000

Avengers #93...$7000

 

Daredevil #2...$26000

Daredevil #10...$5300

Daredevil #23...$2100

 

Fantastic Four #8 in 9.4...$15000

Fantastic Four #16 in 9.6...$10000

Fantastic Four #19 in 9.6...$5300

Fantastic Four #30...$10000

Fantastic Four #31 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #42...$8300

Fantastic Four #49 in 9.6...$9000

Fantastic Four #61...$4500

Fantastic Four #74 in 9.6...$1500

 

Strange Tales #120...$5600

Strange Tales #134...$3800

Strange Tales #159...$3100

 

There were plenty of both strong and weak prices. I think the final tally was strong enough to be considered a major success.

 

 

I think it's a 100% return for Doug, considering he stole the money from old Ladies to buy the books in the first place.

 

According to the record of his disbarment proceedings, full restitution was made to everyone.

 

 

Don't ruin the fun of people imagining that you can steal from trust funds and just walk away without paying FULL restitution despite having million dollar homes and 10 million in comic books

 

Not to excuse what he did but if EVERY lawyer that ever dipped into a trust account was caught, theres be about 500,000 less lawyers out there. It never starts out as stealing, its always just "borrowing" a little planning to put it back before anyone notices and then you either get caught before replacing it or get to far behind to make it up. Again, im not excusing it but mismanaging trusts is probably the #1 problem for lawyers. I was criminal so i never dealt with trusts but i can only imagine how easy it would be to screw up and dip a little into an account that you have sole control over with 10's of millions of dollars in it!

[VintageComics]

Yea, you have to throw the huge prices from early 2009 and particularly the summer of 2009 completely out the window on nosebleed Silver Marvels. Some guy with hugely deep pockets was throwing insane bids out there, and surprisingly, someone was bidding them up. I suspected someone was shilling that one guy up back then and I still do suspect that was happening at least sometimes, but obviously I can't rule out that there was a second deep pocket who similarly didn't care how much the prices he was paying related to market prices.

 

There were a few people who were going hard after SA Marvels at the time, Doug Schmell obviously being one but we had a few board members who were bidding at the time as well. I don't think there was any real reason to shill bid...bidding was quite fierce just among the collectors.

[fantastic_four]

There were a few people who were going hard after SA Marvels at the time, Doug Schmell obviously being one but we had a few board members who were bidding at the time as well. I don't think there was any real reason to shill bid...bidding was quite fierce just among the collectors.

 

There was a fantastic reason to shill bid--there were rumors going around that the one guy was typing insanely high bids in, bids nobody would ever beat. We discussed it on the boards back then--rumor had it Josh called the guy because he had typed in something like a $200K bid on a book whose market value was a tenth of that. These were overwhelmingly books Schmell wouldn't have been bidding on as he already had them. Books with high populations due to warehouse finds were going for high prices as well--a JIM 124 CGC 9.6 going for several thousand dollars pops vividly to mind, which is a book that usually never exceeds $400-$600 due to the relatively high supply. It was a summer of huge prices on books that just aren't that tough. Much of it happened on ComicLink and is hidden from GPA, but some of it also went down on Pedigree and Heritage and can be seen.

 

I ALMOST put a few 9.6s on the market that hadn't been seen for years solely so this guy would buy them for what I was hoping would be huge prices, but I held onto them--I've still never sold more than five books, ever. I believe that's the same summer Barton sold his early FFs. I'm sure I lost quite a bit of money by not selling some books that summer.

[VintageComics]

Well, there was a legitimate buyer who would basically "go crazy" (those were his words) on books they wanted and some of those crazy prices were legitimate buys. They would generally go hard after perfectly centred, white paged copies with no writing or markings on them - basically what they thought was "the perfect copy".

 

While I can't speak from a position of providing any proof, I don't personally believe anybody shill bid the Clink or Heritage auctions. To me, even if I wanted to pump my auction prices, if I was a big auction house, it would seem nuts to shill bid a book to multiples of it's value on common books and raise flags and spotlights.

 

The alleged shill bidding on Pedigree is another story that has been discussed in detail on here.

 

I don't remember the exact instance you are talking about but I do remember vividly the RM Avengers going off on Clink and there was talk of shill bidding but obviously, it was just Doug or other collectors just going hard after the books.

 

What interests me more is the crazy prices in the recent Heritage auction (2 auctions ago) and some of the books reappearing back on the market only to sell at a huge loss. That is disconcerting to me as it makes for a very volatile market.

[shrunkenhead]

 

What interests me more is the crazy prices in the recent Heritage auction (2 auctions ago) and some of the books reappearing back on the market only to sell at a huge loss. That is disconcerting to me as it makes for a very volatile market.

 

Who knows for sure, but I can't imagine any sane person dumping those Billy Wright books while thinking they were going to make out ok. It looks to me like somebody did some senseless buying and then dropped the books for any price because they needed the money back.

[fantastic_four]

While I can't speak from a position of providing any proof, I don't personally believe anybody shill bid the Clink or Heritage auctions. To me, even if I wanted to pump my auction prices, if I was a big auction house, it would seem nuts to shill bid a book to multiples of it's value on common books and raise flags and spotlights.

 

The alleged shill bidding on Pedigree is another story that has been discussed in detail on here.

 

I don't remember the exact instance you are talking about but I do remember vividly the RM Avengers going off on Clink and there was talk of shill bidding but obviously, it was just Doug or other collectors just going hard after the books.

 

There wasn't one instance--there were dozens of insane prices on both tough and not-so-tough books. Many of them have dedicated threads here in these forums for each issue--I think there's a thread for an FF 26 CGC 9.6 that went for around $26K and another for an FF 112 CGC 9.8 that went for around that same amount.

 

With regards to shilling, I doubt ComicLink, Heritage, or Pedigree was doing the shilling--it wasn't that hard to figure out which books this guy was going for. Just based upon when the insane prices started (early 2009) and the fact that he was paying those same insane prices for easy-to-find books, the strong indication was that the guy was new to the market and that any new 9.6 or 9.8 that hadn't been on the market in 2009 was likely to be bid on. I got to the point where I just mentally wrote off any 9.6s or 9.8s if they were the first example to hit market that year because I knew they'd end up going for insane totals. I watched auctions like that, but I figured they'd go for record amounts--and most of the time, they did.

[VintageComics]

There wasn't one instance--there were dozens of insane prices on both tough and not-so-tough books. Many of them have dedicated threads here in these forums for each issue--I think there's a thread for an FF 26 CGC 9.6 that went for around $26K and another for an FF 112 CGC 9.8 that went for around that same amount.

 

Those books were both sold through Pedigree Comics.

 

 

 

[fantastic_four]

There wasn't one instance--there were dozens of insane prices on both tough and not-so-tough books. Many of them have dedicated threads here in these forums for each issue--I think there's a thread for an FF 26 CGC 9.6 that went for around $26K and another for an FF 112 CGC 9.8 that went for around that same amount.

 

Those books were both sold through Pedigree Comics.

 

 

 

Yep. As I said, the insane prices occurred on all the auction houses, which is why I doubt the houses themselves were involved.

[VintageComics]

I don't think the #26 sold at auction.