What percent of existing copies of Action 1, Detective 27, Superman 1, and Batman 1 are already CGC graded? 1 1

[Chicago Boy]

9 minutes ago, pemart1966 said:

Where does the 207K figure come from?  Sounds like a pretty (no pun intended) odd number...

I heard it came out In the testimony between DC and Fawcett over the Supes & Captain Marvel lawsuit 

[sfcityduck]

17 minutes ago, Wayne-Tec said:

CGC has slabbed 69 copies of Action #1. What was your estimate for total number of remaining copies?

Gator answered your question on page 1:

Quote

 

there are a LOT of raw GA keys out there in collections...until they are ready to be sold, most owners are not motivated to spend money to grade their comic, or ship it to Fl from their home etc.

we will never know how many there are...

my estimate is 150+ of action 1 and tec 27 and with already 250+ batman 1 slabbed, I think my 300-500 est is pretty safe... Captain America 1 might be a tad less than Bat 1, and I think superman 1 a tad less than that...

but no one knows

 

I've heard other high end dealers give larger estimates, more in the range of 300 copies of Action 1 total.  Obviously, there are also Action 1s that are slabbed by companies other than CGC which don't publish census figures (that I know of ).

[Sqeggs]

19 hours ago, lou_fine said:

And if the collector has had them long enough, resto tends to have less relative importance as even a restored copy would most likely be worth multiples of what they had originally paid for the books.  The passing of time is often a great healer of even some terrible purchasing mistakes.  

Well, what they paid for it isn't relevant to what the book is worth now.  So resto is just as important whether they bought the book in 1965 or last Tuesday.  I would think they would want to know roughly the price of the book, which they can't without a resto check.

[Chicago Boy]

8 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

Gator answered your question on page 1:

I've heard other high end dealers give larger estimates, more in the range of 300 copies of Action 1 total.  Obviously, there are also Action 1s that are slabbed by companies other than CGC which don't publish census figures (that I know of ).

Like GAtor said. We’ll never know but 300 seems high.  I’d love for the other high end dealers here on the boards to comment. Publications I have read ha e both AC 1 and Tec 27 at 50-100 existing but GAtors 150 + with his experience seems like I number I cud reasonabally Quote if asked and feel secure 

[Sqeggs]

1 hour ago, G.A.tor said:

That’s my point. There are many many many older time collectors that have, or know of copies in collections etc that are not active or publicly plugged in. 

The existing slabbed number is a good representation across the type of conditions etc, but represent a relatively low number of existing copies “known” out there 

I guess we can go around and around on this without ever really being able to resolve it, but if all the people who know of collectors holding ungraded copies of Action 1 (I don't personally know any) were to put their heads together and list the names, would the total be more than 20?  Actual specific people who are known to still own ungraded copies.  "Many, many, many" sounds like hundreds.

I'm not saying that there aren't hundreds, but, man, it just seems implausible to me.  

[rjpb]

6 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Well, what they paid for it isn't relevant to what the book is worth now.  So resto is just as important whether they bought the book in 1965 or last Tuesday.  I would think they would want to know roughly the price of the book, which they can't without a resto check.

Not all restoration needs to be verified by a third party for the owner of the book to be aware of it. It is interesting how large a percentage of slabbed major keys have restoration though, so perhaps that desire to resolve uncertainty drives more restored copies to be slabbed. Or maybe folks just spent more effort "improving" big keys than they did other books. 

[Crowzilla]

6 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

So resto is just as important whether they bought the book in 1965 or last Tuesday.  I would think they would want to know roughly the price of the book, which they can't without a resto check.

Actually if they bought the book in 1965, a resto check is way less important. Restoration was pretty much unknown outside of tape and marker until William Sarill came along in the mid-70s.

But why do you automatically assume that collectors can't detect restoration on their own?  Especially 70s/80s work which is easily distinguishable from today's procedures.

[Sqeggs]

8 hours ago, tth2 said:

Don't forget that if there's one thing collectors have learned over these many decades is that prices always go up for Action 1 and Detective 27.  So assuming that the vast majority of owners are seasoned and knowledgeable collectors, there's always the fear that if they sell now, even if it's for life changing money, it'll be worth even more in another year.  So if there's no pressure to sell, why not just hold on?

I guess the snarky response is that the prices of these books will always go up ... until they don't.  Putting $1 million to $2 million or more into an Action 1 or Detective 27 strikes me as an investment whose expected return is too low to offset the risk you are taking on, unless you truly are very wealthy, so you can ignore the risk.  But that's the investment you are making if you hold on to these books rather than sell them.

[Crowzilla]

1 hour ago, Mr bla bla said:

I wouldnt live in a trailer park for 10 years on noodles without family to be able to purchase an Action 1. Just sayin ....

No one mentioned a trailer park, 10 years, or without family.

[Sqeggs]

2 minutes ago, Crowzilla said:

Actually if they bought the book in 1965, a resto check is way less important. Restoration was pretty much unknown outside of tape and marker until William Sarill came along in the mid-70s.

But why do you automatically assume that collectors can't detect restoration on their own?  Especially 70s/80s work which is easily distinguishable from today's procedures.

I wasn't automatically assuming anything, but even seasoned dealers and collectors miss resto all the time.  On these books, missing resto means a big difference in value.

[Ze-man]

3 hours ago, G.A.tor said:

Time frame

Most all 1930s released comics are rarer in existence today compared to later year issues (1940s). Probably more of a took a little time to take hold/interest and initials print runs (risk/reward) against an unestablished market. Once Comics gained traction after a few years (beginning of the 40’s) publishers had more confidence and printed more copies (greater potential for survival rates today)

Keep in mind too that Action 1 and Tec 27 were bought and read by a wide variety of readers back in the day. Most not being aware of what a Superhero even was.  So it would make sense that many copies were  probably trashed after making the neighborhood rounds of trading.    With Batman 1, and Supes 1 being stand alone books, printed at bigger numbers due to extreme popularity I could see a lot more initial comic buyers keeping these books for a longer period of time..even if they cut off the back covers or not.  

[rjpb]

2 minutes ago, Ze-man said:

Keep in mind too that Action 1 and Tec 27 were bought and read by a wide variety of readers back in the day. Most not being aware of what a Superhero even was.  So it would make sense that many copies were  probably trashed after making the neighborhood rounds of trading.    With Batman 1, and Supes 1 being stand alone books, printed at bigger numbers due to extreme popularity I could see a lot more initial comic buyers keeping these books for a longer period of time..even if they cut off the back covers or not.  

Maybe, but census ratios don't seem to support that. But as we've been discussing, they may not be an accurate gauge for extrapolating respective extant copies. I mentioned earlier that an opposite scenario could be true, in that the higher sales meant a higher percentage of the print runs ended up in the hands of casual readers who didn't think to save them after reading, even to trade away.

[Ze-man]

15 minutes ago, rjpb said:

Maybe, but census ratios don't seem to support that. But as we've been discussing, they may not be an accurate gauge for extrapolating respective extant copies. I mentioned earlier that an opposite scenario could be true, in that the higher sales meant a higher percentage of the print runs ended up in the hands of casual readers who didn't think to save them after reading, even to trade away.

Agree,  I suppose its just hard for me to take off my "collector hat" mentality.  And remember that back then, they were just comic books.  Not collectibles!

 

 

Edited July 29, 2018 by Ze-man

[Crowzilla]

5 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

I wasn't automatically assuming anything, but even seasoned dealers and collectors miss resto all the time.  On these books, missing resto means a big difference in value.

True, but again to my buddy who paid $6500 for his 30 years ago, restoration or not doesn't make a lot of difference to him (though I can pretty safely say that after looking through it many times it's an unrestored mid-grade). If it turns out he was wrong and it is restored, it won't make a difference to his lifestyle and he still has no desire to sell it either way.  If the price stops going up, he's okay with that. If the price of Action #1 gets halved over the next few years, that won't affect him either - since he's not selling, and it probably means other issues he still wants might go down in price a similar percentage so he can buy more.

He's a collector, not an investor. I think that is the main part of these unslabbed stories that people are forgetting. I don't believe he's ever purchased a slabbed book, but he still finds great joy in finding some pre-code horror book for under $100 at the local shows, or whatever else he's currently hunting.

[rjpb]

While knowing the restoration status of a book is would be useful for valuation, if one isn't planning on selling in the near term, would one really want to know if the book they have cherished for decades has undisclosed restoration they were unaware of, and even if they did suspect or know, would they want to reminded by the stigma of the PLOD, every time they took the book out to admire it? 

[N e r V]

Well I can only speak for those whom I know/knew but anyone back then I crossed paths with buying GA and SA was well aware of restoration. That’s how I was first educated on it. The view point was 1) you bought a restored book with full disclosure that it was done by a professional (this is no longer fashionable with collectors) 2) someone was either dumb and didn’t know or more likely trying to rip you off without disclosing it. Restoration and detection is not new. There were black lights back then (maybe more than today). People knew about trimming (even the slight cuts). To assume a large percentage of collectors back then bought big priced books (at the time) without knowing about restoration is a stretch. If it is true I’m ashamed for their ignorance if they bought more than a few books restored (there’s always a learning curve). My bad experience began and ended with Fantazia quickly. I actually made money on the books in the end so no harm, no foul. 

There was also the problem back then that when someone got burned they tried to pass it on to the next sap if they were dumb enough. I’m talking about other dealers now.

 

The only thing that’s changed in collecting with restoration is the viewpoint on if it should ever be done. We all knew what was going on. I literally almost punched out a dealer for trying to sell me restored books at SDCC because I was so pissed of years of these crooks peddling their wares. If I didn’t think I’d have lost my tables....

 

Anyway if someone actually bought an Action #1 with undetected restoration for it’s then kingly sums of 1970s or 1980s dollars than I’d say that was one dumb uninformed novice in collecting and probably should have done a better job at educating themselves. I can see someone buying it knowing it had restoration and being good with what was done and figuring it into the price. Just like today.

 

Most people I knew/know that get burned with undetected restoration is usually very slight like a tiny color touch. Even the best of dealers/collectors aren’t perfect but it’s usually pretty minor misses.

[Aman619]

right.  and with the increase in values, even if they found out their Action 1 had restoration, its far too late to buy an upgrade to cure the problem in hole collection. Just settle for a 1000% gain and not a 10000% windfall.

[sfcityduck]

1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

Putting $1 million to $2 million or more into an Action 1 or Detective 27 strikes me as an investment whose expected return is too low to offset the risk you are taking on, unless you truly are very wealthy, so you can ignore the risk.  But that's the investment you are making if you hold on to these books rather than sell them.

Uh ... no.  If you bought an Action 1 in 1980, to use my example, for $6,000.  You have zero risk.  What my friend paid $6,000 for was the opportunity to and joy of ultimately being able to complete his Action run.  The joy of owning the most important comic.  For less than the average price for a car that year (slightly more than an El Camino, $500 less than an F150 truck).  There is no risk.  No matter what you do, that Action 1 will garner you a big profit.  Five years ago, you might have thought that profit would be $500K.  Today, you might think it is $1M+.  So what?  Especially, if you derive more joy from the book than the money.  

Here's the thing, the guys who started collecting in the 60s were able to buy a lot of what newer collectors view as out of our range comics for cheap.  They did it because they were fanatics about comics.  They hold on to those books because they are still fanatics about comics.  For them, its about the comics, not return on investment.  Mainly because they really don't have significant money invested.  Bangzoom once said the most he ever paid for a comic was $75.  

 

[N e r V]

Hence the reasoning you can never apply what you would do to what someone else would do. People do different things for a variety of reasons both logical and illogical.

 

[sfcityduck]

43 minutes ago, Aman619 said:

right.  and with the increase in values, even if they found out their Action 1 had restoration, its far too late to buy an upgrade to cure the problem in hole collection. Just settle for a 1000% gain and not a 10000% windfall.

Well, to use the $6,000 Action 1 purchase example, a 1000% gain (10x) would be only $60,000.  These days, the right Action 1 with minor restoration is pushing the 10,000% (100x or $600K) gain level.