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Recent Sign Auction

Started by Murph,

31 posts in this topic

Murph

Murph

Posted
Posted

How'd everyone come out? I chased the ASM 2, 9, 13, 45, and 73 a bit but they were all structurally unattractive. Personally I thought some of those early ASMs looked overgraded.

Anyone else pick up any good buys?

 

Brian

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sfilosa

sfilosa

Posted
Posted

I had bids on a lot of the Marvel Silver-Age issues, but there were no bargains to be had.

 

I only got one book (and it wasn't something that I would have pick as my top fifty books from this auction).

 

Plus the Atlas books (that I collect) had mostly been in other auctions, and still had high reserves (i.e. did sell again).

 

Also, they didn't have any early TOS, JIM, ST and only one TTA (which had a very high reserve but did sell).

 

In less you want Silver-Age Spideys, there pickings were slim.

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namisgr

namisgr

Posted
Posted

Agree that prices were too steep on many of the Spidey's. Was especially surprised at seeing an ASM50 9.2 go for $1955 (!). High grade Spideys continue to bring high prices, from what I've seen...

 

I did win a Showcase 61 in 9.0 with white pages, excellent registration, outstanding color preservation, and a bone-white back cover. cloud9.gif For guide, too. I guess the grade is too low to attract the attention of the fat-wallets.

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goldust40

goldust40

Posted
Posted

That's the same book, all right.

 

Funny how the first slab from the earlier auction doesn't denote that it's the Ohio copy. In the current slab the book looks brighter with less soiling on the back cover (that could be to do with Heritage's bright scans). No notation of cleaning or pressing, either, which I assume was a possibility.

 

What happened, dare I ask? frown.gif

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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
Posted

As for me, I was seriously planning to bid on the VF+ copy of Crash Comics #5 with the 2nd appearance and first cover appearance of Cat-Man. I felt this was an undervalued book in the guide since there appears to be no premium in the guide for his first cover appearance and priced lower than some of the early Cat-Man issues.

 

The foxing didn't look right on the ULC of the book. As a result, I decided to check the Heritage archives and found this exact copy sold as a F/VF 7.0 in an earlier Signature auction this spring. From the two scans, it was obvious this was another clean and press job. Just glad that Heritage has the auction archives for us to check these books out prior to bidding. I am starting to get tired of all these books with undisclosed work being done to them and then hidden behind blue CGC labels. 893naughty-thumb.gif893frustrated.gif

 

Funny thing is, whoever purchased the book and had the work done ended up losing money on the book. The price in the Spring auction when it was graded 7.0 was $1,207.50 and the price this time at 8.5 was only at 1,265. Looks good on the original purchaser to lose some money on this attempted clean, press, and flip. 893applaud-thumb.gif

 

Personally, I strongly believe that all of this undisclosed work being done on books (esp. GA books) will only end up killing the demand and subsequent prices for HG GA books. Collectors will unfairly associate undisclosed restoration (ie. cleaning and pressing) with all blue label HG GA books. Actually, this might already be happening with some of the prices that we have seen for GA books. frown.gif

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goldust40

goldust40

Posted
Posted

Thanks for your input, Lou. What I still don't get with this buy, clean, press and flip situation regarding the book I won is how the page quality improved (I always thought cleaning was to do with the covers only). Admittedly the graders may have simply thought differently the second time, but that doesn't explain how the book got a pedigree designation the second time and not the first.

 

Doesn't Heritage bother to check their own archives, or is it just a glorified version of ebay for the high rollers, wherein the central tenet is, caveat emptor?

 

As for the "unfair" association between all high end GA books and undisclosed restoration, well, what do you expect? I am gutted and have lost a lot of confidence in both Heritage and CGC.

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goldust40

goldust40

Posted
Posted

Concise and to the point as always, Sterl. Nice avatar, btw.

 

God I'm down. Somebody come up with a nice yet intrinsically meaningless platitude (aren't they all?) to make me feel better.

 

Better still, is it worth complaining about this? How did the book go from Tan/ Off White to Cream/Off White pages and gain a pedigree and half a grade?

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tth2

tth2

Posted
Posted
God I'm down. Somebody come up with a nice yet intrinsically meaningless platitude (aren't they all?) to make me feel better.

 

Golddust, I think you're overly torturing yourself, for no good reason. Let's first remember that the people at CGC are just that, people. Grading is not a precise science, and anyone who submits to CGC knows that there is a standard range of variation, particularly for books that are "tweeners". Perhaps your book was a very sharp VF or a mediocre VF+, and didn't get the benefit of the doubt the first time and did get it the second time. Who knows? My point here is that a book can change from 8.0 to 8.5 without any work being done at all, because believe it or not there is a level of imprecision in CGC's grading. When I first read this thread, I thought uh-oh, it's another of those big jumps, from say 7.0 to 8.5, but when I checked the original Heritage auction out, I wondered why all the fuss. 8.0 to 8.5? You know that can happen.

 

As for color, I wouldn't necessarily attribute the brightness of the cover in the current auction with cleaning. As you rightly point out, it could just be the way the scan settings were set in Heritage's initial auction. Scans are way too variable for you to beat yourself up over that and automatically attribute the difference to undisclosed cleaning.

 

As for page quality, again this was an incremental jump, and not a huge jump. Clearly there was pretty wide variation in the pages to start with, hence CGC's original designation of tan to OW, and now cream to OW. Again, if it was a "tweener", it could just be how CGC perceived the book on one day as opposed to another day.

 

Finally, as for the pedigree, there are lots of reasons why it may not have received a pedigree designation first time around, such as the submitter not having all the provenance available the first time, and the next submitter getting all the required documentation/support. Based on my own experience, this is extremely plausible.

 

Bottom line, you got a gorgeous 8.5 Blonde Phantom with C-OW pages at a decent price. Full stop. The changes in the grades are not so extreme that there should automatically be suspicion of undisclosed work. Don't experience paralysis due to overanalysis and let these doubts rob you of the satisfaction of winning a very nice book.

 

-Tim

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tth2

tth2

Posted
Posted
I had bids on a lot of the Marvel Silver-Age issues, but there were no bargains to be had.

 

I only got one book (and it wasn't something that I would have pick as my top fifty books from this auction).

 

Plus the Atlas books (that I collect) had mostly been in other auctions, and still had high reserves (i.e. did sell again).

 

Also, they didn't have any early TOS, JIM, ST and only one TTA (which had a very high reserve but did sell).

 

In less you want Silver-Age Spideys, there pickings were slim.

 

The pickings for HG SA DC were pretty poor too, except for some phenomenal 9.8s, but they were all mid- to late-60s issues and set at extremely high reserves. I don't covet these books enough to pay those kind of prices. Amazingly, all of them sold except for a SSWS. One of these days I need to attend a floor auction to see just who is throwing the big money around.

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