detective #400...cgc 9.8!!! GL #76 cgc 9.6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[uclapeterg]

These are beautiful books, but I can't understand why people think that GL 76 is so hard to find in high grade. Even if this the first 9.6 copy in the census, it is a mainstream title from 1970 which almost by definition means it's not rare in HG, and was drawn by a very popular artist so undoubtedly got hoarded. There are more 9.6s out there, if not even better!

 

This is one case where rock solid logic has been so far trumped by reality. Not a development that has pleased me since this is one of my favorite books from the Bronze Age and I'd love to get a straight 9.4. I just don't want to pay the going rate for one. A $5,000+ sale will certainly help the cause if there really are a bunch of copies out there. Of course, I thought the same about the $2000+ sales for the handful of 9.4s. Time will tell.

 

I can't believe that there aren't more 1970 15 cent book(s) out there.

[JohnBull]

Thanks to you and Zonker for filling in many gaps.

 

Year GL76 HoS92

 

1979 $24 $24

1980 $30 $27

1981 $45 $24

1982 $56 $24

1983 $56 $20

1984 $56 $24

1985 $48 $24

1986 $48 $24

1987 $42 $24

1988 $33 $24

1989 $45 $25

 

So in 10 years, HoS 92 only put on $1 and GL 76 rollercoastered its way to an almost doubling in value.

 

1990 $50 $35

1991 $60 $65

1992 $75 $120

1993 $100 $225

1994 $105 $375

Then in 4 years, HoS 92 went up 1000% and GL76 doubled in value again.

 

I don't really understand this 2nd period as it comes a bit after Alan Moore and the film. But to long-time dealers GL76 wasn't really a mover to nearly the same degree as HoS92 was after it's stagnation period. I'm sure this must have affected the composition of early submissions, if only subconsciously.

 

OT - In those halcyon days pre-CGC, can anyone come up with another book that went up tenfold in value in a 4 year period [ignoring books that were either i) less than a couple of dollars in value initialy or ii) only a year or two old to start with]? There can't be many, surely?

[joe_collector]

OT - In those halcyon days pre-CGC, can anyone come up with another book that went up tenfold in value in a 4 year period [ignoring books that were either i) less than a couple of dollars in value initialy or ii) only a year or two old to start with]? There can't be many, surely?

 

There are thousands.

 

Check any Marvel Silver Age comic priced from 1986 to 1989-90 and you'll see everything going up exponentially. Stuff like ASM 50 moving from $10 to $200, and FF 48 from $20 to $300. Silver Age mushroomed at that point, far exceeding the 10-fold mark in most cases.

 

Not only that, but Bronze also took off, with Hulk 181 moving from $30 to $500, and ASM 129 from $5 to $250, just to mention a few.

[JohnBull]

OT - In those halcyon days pre-CGC, can anyone come up with another book that went up tenfold in value in a 4 year period [ignoring books that were either i) less than a couple of dollars in value initialy or ii) only a year or two old to start with]? There can't be many, surely?

 

There are thousands.

 

Check any Marvel Silver Age comic priced from 1986 to 1989-90 and you'll see everything going up exponentially. Stuff like ASM 50 moving from $10 to $200, and FF 48 from $20 to $300. Silver Age mushroomed at that point, far exceeding the 10-fold mark in most cases.

 

Not only that, but Bronze also took off, with Hulk 181 moving from $30 to $500, and ASM 129 from $5 to $250, just to mention a few.

 

Of course, Marvel! Why do I always forget about them?

[Amazing_Bag_man]

det #400 cgc 9.8

 

 

GL #76 cgc 9.6

 

 

I think what you left out was this..... or you would hope it was!?

[Bronty]

Yeah, I remember that like it was yesterday. Overstreet was putting out bimonthly updates and it seemed like every semi-key silver age book was going up $10 or $15 every two months. Cap 100, Iron Man 1, etc went from like 18.00 to around 200-250, just by steadily going up $15 every two months.

 

I don't think ASM 129 was ever $5 in the mid/late 80s, I remember it as being $20-25 in the guide back then, but you're right that it did go to 250. This is old news to you, I'm sure, but for anyone that wasn't there/doesn't remember, that book was so hot at one point that it was absolutely unbelievable. Spontaneous combustion hot. I remember in the heyday copies were sold multiples times between dealers at the same show, going up in price every time. I.e. first dealer puts it up at $35, by the end of the show it's gone through four dealers and is stickered on someone's wall space at $85. That may not seem like a big deal now with ebay on the scene, but back then it was absolutely unheard of!! Part of it may have been that I was a kid then and then the 35/85 dollars sounded a lot more impressive, but still, the overstreet values until then had normally gone up like 10% a year, so to see the asking price of a book more than double in a day warped my fragile young mind

 

Those old overstreet bimonthlies were fun reads though - without ebay and the internet it was really the only source of pricing news out there, so the 'market reports' section was always read voraciously. I remember reading an old overstreet update when AF 15 was starting to climb to about 2-3k in NM (5k was still quite a ways off) and a dealer in the market reports section predicted we would one day soon see a 10k 1960s marvel. The thought of 10K for a silver age book was nearly preposterous at the time, borderline offensive, but even then I knew he'd be proven right, although the thought had never even entered my head until then. $1k had always sort of seemed the silver age ceiling. And now... six figures!!

[PovertyRow]

Those old overstreet bimonthlies were fun reads though - without ebay and the internet it was really the only source of pricing news out there, so the 'market reports' section was always read voraciously.

 

Amen to that. Remember John Warren's monthly or bi-monthly comic guide? What was the name of it? Danged if I can remember!

[supapimp]

ASM 129 was around $5 prior to the Punny MS coming out, then it spiked big time! i remember my LCS sold a VG ASM 129 for $25 as soon it was put on the wall. i remember asking him why so much when OS had it listed for $5. he chulcked and told me the OS values were not up to date like the Comic Value Monthly. ahhhh......the early days of collecting education.

[Bronty]

Comic Source? That wasn't bad, and he had a cool movie poster mag as well... or was it a combined publication? Memory's getting blurry

[Bronty]

I guess it's just semantics but by the 89 guide (#19, only older one I could easily find) it was already 75, and I think it was 22.00 in #15 or #16 which would correspond to 1985/1986. Anyone have those guides handy to check?

[Bronty]

Comic Values Monthly.... GRRRR

 

As a collector, I hated that rag. It had all the books I wanted at twice the overstreet price!

 

I think I've told this story before, but when I was 14 or so I traded a copy of fugitoid to the LCS one day because CVM (that rag! ) had made a typo at listed it at $96 for one month (actual value at the time, and now , about $5). Kinda fun to screw them back for all their CVM-induced overpricings!

[drdonaldblake]

it was the astute joe verenault who predicted silver keys breaking the 10k barrier in 1990/1991 in his market reports

 

it truly is incredible that bronze age keys have consistently broken the $ 5 k barrier in the last 3 years, and some the $15k barrier

 

as far as silver keys breaking $200k in 10 years time??? very interesting question as there may not be enough moneyed players even tho the supply of them may not increase

the fact that none of the captain tripps vault books over $50k have sold suggests this ultra high end market may have reached a ceiling andis very limited and will depend on new money coming into the hobby

[Norrin_Radd]

I guess it's just semantics but by the 89 guide (#19, only older one I could easily find) it was already 75, and I think it was 22.00 in #15 or #16 which would correspond to 1985/1986. Anyone have those guides handy to check?

 

Here is ASM 129 throughout the 1980's........

 

Year ASM129

1980 $1.50

1981 $1.80

1982 $2

1983 $2

1984 $2

1985 $2

1986 $2

1987 $14 (BIG jump... and 1st time listed separately)

1988 $22

1989 $75

 

I think the trend is the same in the 90's for ASM 129, as well as MS5, (ie huge jumps in the late 80's/early 90's then went nowhere until the latest huge jump in the late 90's/early 2000's). Does someone want to do the research and put up the 90's OSG prices?

 

I think (HOPE!) that these two books will level off and drop in the next few years. ASM 129 has already deflated since the movie broke. Here's hoping the same thing happens to MS5.

 

I (for one) would like to buy a nice slabbed copy of these two books without paying the current nosebleed prices. After the movie hype has blown off in a few years, I expect you'll be able to pick up a slabbed 9.4 copy for around $650 each. Then hold on to the next speculative blow up to $5k.

[Foolkiller]

Thanks for all the data guys.

 

But, I definitely believe there's a few more 9.6s out there as well as 9.4s. My experience has always been that DC collectors tend to hold their books much longer and as more of the "collector" side of the hobby than Marvel collectors. There are many speculator/investor/collectors on that side (think Brulato/Schmell) than on the DC side. So I have no doubt there are some beautiful GL 76s sitting in collections that have not been slabbed with no current intention of doing so.

 

BUT, I think that comparitively speaking, GL 76 should have the elevated status its receiving. To me, it's one of the most important Bronze Age books, I certainly don't believe it's in any way common, just based on the time expended trying to find one.

[tth2]

So in 10 years, HoS 92 only put on $1 and GL 76 rollercoastered its way to an almost doubling in value.

 

Then in 4 years, HoS 92 went up 1000% and GL76 doubled in value again.

 

I don't really understand this 2nd period as it comes a bit after Alan Moore and the film. But to long-time dealers GL76 wasn't really a mover to nearly the same degree as HoS92 was after it's stagnation period. I'm sure this must have affected the composition of early submissions, if only subconsciously.

 

Caper, I agree that it's odd that HOS 92 went up when it did. You'd think it would've made it's first big move when Swamp Thing was resurrected by Alan Moore in the mid 80s, but instead it's much later. But 1990 is consistent with my memory of being the time period when suddenly every dealer and his brother started hyping up the book as impossible to find in NM. Why they suddenly started doing that, I have no clue. I find it hard to believe that there was suddenly a groundswell of demand for a book that had been relatively dormant all those years.

 

If this 9.6 GL 76 gets the kind of prices that people on this thread are predicting, the gap in price will have definitely closed, and I would not be surprised to see 2 or 3 more appear within the next 12 months.

[tth2]

GL was a very poor seller for DC back when Adams/O'Neill took the book over, so I imagine initial orders were not that great on the book. And, unlike with today's hype machine, nobody was pumping up Adams to no end to get advance orders up. I think the book got temporarily cancelled anyway, as the Adams run was completed as a backup in the Flash.

 

This is one book that I believe has a similar popularity base to a lot of Marvels, and is often looked at as a key book.

 

Although I think some of the prices paid on the book are little crazy, given two years ago top guide was $175 or something, it's been significantly undervalued for a long time, and I hunted for one for over a year before I found a satisfactory copy.

 

Foolkiller, you raise an interesting point, but I think initial orders and big sales off the rack are not the only thing that lead to high quantities of high grade copies. Sometimes it's whether copies get hoarded by collectors relatively early in the life of the book. What I mean is that it was still a mainstream title, so a decent number of issues did get circulated. Then, if I recall, Adams (along with Steranko and Smith) started breaking out in various price guides and mail order catalogues around 1975 or so. So even if Adams wasn't hugely popular at the time the book came out, he definitely was a few years later, which was soon enough for copies to get stashed away while they were still relatively easy to find in high grade.

 

Personally, I think part of the answer is in the last part of your post, the historically undervaluation in the Guide. That, combined with the fact that it probably really is relatively scarce in HG, for whatever reason (sometimes, these things just happen, just look at DD 7 which is just so much harder to find in HG than any other DD, including the issues immediately around it), has suppressed the number of HG copies that have surfaced. It's only been recently that there has been this steady drumbeat supporting this book, and combined with the high prices that are being commanded, I'm sure the numbers will begin to at least approach HOS 92.

[PovertyRow]

Comic Source? That wasn't bad, and he had a cool movie poster mag as well... or was it a combined publication? Memory's getting blurry

 

I don't recall t being a combined publication - just comics. He did have a sort of OSPG for movie posters that was a separate publication. There have been 3 or 4 re-issues of that since the mid-80's with updated info.Haven;t sen the newest one but he often seemed to be trailing behind in the prices of many.

[drbanner]

Comic Source? That wasn't bad, and he had a cool movie poster mag as well... or was it a combined publication? Memory's getting blurry

 

I don't recall t being a combined publication - just comics. He did have a sort of OSPG for movie posters that was a separate publication. There have been 3 or 4 re-issues of that since the mid-80's with updated info.Haven;t sen the newest one but he often seemed to be trailing behind in the prices of many.

 

Yeah, Comics Source was focused solely on comics...I still have many of those issues. It was ebay before the internet was invented!

 

As I recall, Warren was also the editor of the monthly OS updates that came out around 1991? As Bronty mentions above, most early/key silver and key bronze age books seemed to have automated price bumps in every single issue, resulting in huge price jumps between the OS annuals.

[Jeffreykli]

As Bronty mentions above, most early/key silver and key bronze age books seemed to have automated price bumps in every single issue, resulting in huge price jumps between the OS annuals.

 

Man, those were the days!! I was in college, and bored when I wasn't drunk. Since I'm originally from LA, I'd go home on vacations and check out what's hot at the LCSs. Then, I'd go back to Western Massachusetts, and visit all of the comic stores, buying the hot comics (like McFarlanes). Bring them back to LA, and trade these $1 comics for SA Marvels and DCs.

 

Plus, knowing the Overstreet was lagging, In 1990, I hounded a guy and finally convinced him to sell me his ASM #14 and TOS 58 for $300 total. Both are VF+ or so shape.

[Norrin_Radd]

tth2: I find it hard to believe that there was suddenly a groundswell of demand for a book that had been relatively dormant all those years.

 

WHY?! It happens all the time in the comics marketplace! Everyone seems to realize around same time that a book is important and they want it so they chase the price up!