Heritage's Next Event Auction has started posting books ! 31 31

[tth2]

On 4/11/2022 at 11:04 PM, TheLexLuthorCollection said:

An example is the Dentist (aka DA) who perhaps has the most impressive collection of Edgar Church books.

But his main Church runs aren't from the late 40s or early 50s.

But you're right that perhaps it also indicates how many more Churches remain out there unslabbed.

Edited April 12, 2022 by tth2

[tth2]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:22 AM, Aman619 said:

I say we let CGC grade the books, unless anyone else wants to take over the job and sort out the complexities of balancing the grading weight of all the kinds of defects and combinations of them.

Exactly, and since there are big scans of the books, each potential buyer has the opportunity to decide whether or not to buy a specific book.  I was thinking back to the early days of CGC and the internet when just the CGC grade was considered to be enough for the listings description, and scans weren't even provided normally.  Even when they were, it was a perfunctory low-res scan.  A lot of times PQ wasn't even mentioned.

[Professor K]

Anybody here get this today? I hope so. I wanted it bad but alas someone with more money to spend than me wanted it too. Although I prefer the covers of Eisner and Fine , Mr. Simon did some darn nice work with this cover.

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Professor K
spelling correction

[Professor K]

And this one surprised me. But with only 4 on the census , 2 of which are restored I guess anything can happen. Other than Detectives 1,2,3, I believe it is the first DC cover that wasn't cartoony looking. 

 

[lou_fine]

On 4/11/2022 at 1:52 AM, Dark Knight said:

Talk about night and day 8.5 books 

Yes, but that's only a front cover visual difference between two equivalently graded books. and as we all know by now, you really can't accurately grade a book unless you actually have it in hand.  

Although it does appear to be night and day from the front cover scans, it would definitely be interesting to see the Graders Notes in hopes of shedding some light as to why both copies received CGC 8.5 grades.  Especially since Dell File Copies from the late 30's and very early 40's are usually individual office file copies as opposed to the bulk warehouse file copies from the late 50's and 60's, I would supsect the interior of the Crackajack Funnies to be pretty much immaculate with all of the grade defects being limited primarily to cover defects.  But that's just my guess since I don't have access to the Graders Notes.   

[Gotham Kid]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:24 AM, fsumavila said:

I'm mostly an observer in the GA collecting pool, but was following the two copies of More Fun Comics #73 that were up in the latest Heritage auction.

Found it interesting that the 2.0 finished at $72K, while the 6.5 hammered at $102K.

The buyer of the 6.5 copy has to be feeling pretty good, since another 6.5 OW-W book went for $192,000 less than 3 months ago!

 

Mike

someone who for sure isn't feeling all that tingly is our own MF73 cheerleader (can't recall his board handle), that result likely sent him into hiding...

Edited April 12, 2022 by Gotham Kid

[lou_fine]

On 4/11/2022 at 4:08 AM, Ryan. said:

On 4/10/2022 at 5:45 PM, lou_fine said:

I don''t believe the final grade is based upon an average of the 3 grades like before in the prior grading regimes, as I have heard from some other boardies here that the final grade is now determined by the Finalizer and it's up to him whether he takes the grade input from the other graders into account or not.    

If that's true, and I have no idea if it is one way or the other, then it renders the first two graders useless. 

Not necessarily so since I believe the Finalizer does take the grade input from the previous grader(s) into account, but does not have to use them in the determination of the final grade if he finds something that the previous grader(s) may have missed in their assessment.  Since he is the Finalizer, and in this particular role, he does have the final say in what the grade on a particular book will be.  

In theory, this should not present a problem in a perfect world if the graders do not know who submitted a particular book for grading.  In the real world though with large collections and/or six or seven-figure books being sent in for grading, it would be virtually impossible to maintain this level of true anonymity.  As such, it's bound to raise possible questions of unintended biasness or unintended influence if you place too much responsibility in the hands of just the Finalizer.    

[lou_fine]

On 4/11/2022 at 7:51 AM, mwotka said:

I was honestly shocked looking at it.  The Gangsters Can't Win also is pretty rough with those color-breaking surface scratches.  However that top corner damage could be a production defect, a common occurrence back then, and I've heard of/seen those top and bottom binding tears being somewhat overlooked. 

Actually, I remember a post here where some boardies were analyzing the surface scratches on the Gangsters Can't Win book and determined that they must have been production scratches and as such, therefore explained why the book received the grade it did.  

All I can say is that I hope the graders are still thinking that exact same way whenever I get around to sending some of my books in for grading, and hope they don't see these same scratches and spine corner tears as post production defects when it comes to my turn.   I wish!!!  

 

[lou_fine]

On 4/11/2022 at 8:04 AM, TheLexLuthorCollection said:

On 4/10/2022 at 7:48 PM, tth2 said:

I knew this was the case with books from the early 50s, as Edgar Church's buying petered out, but I thought he was still going strong into the late 1940s and therefore the census would already be populated with slabbed high grade Church copies.  But apparently that's not the case, particularly with non-mainstream titles.

Many of the most desirable Edgar Church books have not been slabbed.  These are owned by long time collectors who, for various reasons, have elected not to slab their books.

Exactly right as most long term collectors don't see any real reason to grade and imprison a book until it comes time to sell them.  

Then again, that might have been a big mistake considering the continuing egregious price increases CGC have been putting in for grading your books.   

[lou_fine]

On 4/11/2022 at 10:20 AM, buttock said:

I think this is one where you need to see the book in hand to know.  This book along with 2 or 3 others have become the flag bearers for those who want to convince you that every Promise book or book on HA is overgraded.  But the fact of the matter is that there were 5000 other books that had pretty accurate grading by what I've seen.  

I would tend to agree with you here, as simply looking at front and back cover scans allows you the capability to see when a book is possibly overgraded just by the visual defects alone.  

And yet visual scans on their own don't provide you with the same ready capability to see when a book is possibly undergraded, and it's quite possible that there are indeed some undergraded books in the Promise Collection.  Just hard for us to see and determine given what we have.  

[tth2]

On 4/12/2022 at 3:09 PM, lou_fine said:

Then again, that might have been a big mistake considering the continuing egregious price increases CGC have been putting in for grading your books.   

It's not going to get cheaper and it's not going to get faster, so what're you waiting for? 

[lou_fine]

On 4/11/2022 at 6:24 PM, fsumavila said:

I'm mostly an observer in the GA collecting pool, but was following the two copies of More Fun Comics #73 that were up in the latest Heritage auction.

Found it interesting that the 2.0 finished at $72K, while the 6.5 hammered at $102K.

The buyer of the 6.5 copy has to be feeling pretty good, since another 6.5 OW-W book went for $192,000 less than 3 months ago!

 

Mike

All I can say is that sure looks like a couple of shockingly right out of this world prices for the CGC 2.0 copy at $72K and the previous CGC at $192K.  These entry level bargain hunters are definitely paying a high price for their copies on a price per point basis, while the $192K sale definitely appears to be an outlier to me from my own personal POV, even though I am sure some here will disagree with that sentiment.    

Personally, I've always loved More Fun 73 and was dead set on acquiring a nice copy for my personal collection back in the early 90's.  Especially since I figured that all of the other earlier DC first appearance/origin issues were beyond my price range by then, plus the bonus point of 2 key first appearances in this book in terms of both Aquaman and Green Arrow.    

Unfortunately, the few copies that I did run across were at best only in the VF range and asking for $4K or thereabouts.  I figured if I was going to have to pay that kind of money for that book, it had better be a nice fresh copy and a book in the type of condition that Fishler used to called a "killer copy" at the time.  Never did run across a copy in the type of condition that I wanted back then and made the classic mistake of waiting way too long to find just the "right" copy that the book ended moving well above and beyond my purcahse price point.    

Edited April 16, 2022 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

On 4/12/2022 at 6:25 AM, tth2 said:

On 4/12/2022 at 12:09 AM, lou_fine said:

Then again, that might have been a big mistake considering the continuing egregious price increases CGC have been putting in for grading your books.   

It's not going to get cheaper and it's not going to get faster, so what're you waiting for? 

Waiting until it comes time for me to sell since it's just not the same to have your books imprisioned in an industrial looking slab where they simply can't be readily enjoyed the way they were meant to be.  In addition, slabbed books also don't look as gorgeous as when they are encased in a nice bright glossy mylar where the book's true beauty with all those colors just shines right through.    

Plus, having them in mylar also sure saves on a whole heck of a lot of storage space.  

Besides the cheaper prices and faster TAT's back then, I guess the other key thing that I will regret is missing out on the way that books were graded when CGC first started up some 22 years ago.  Much more aligned with the old school grading standards before they eventually got around to "fine-tuning" them (especially after Heritage arrived on the scene in 2002) and making them more and more about additional revenue generating defects as time went on.  

I still remember sending in about a dozen or more of my GA books in for grading as a test of this new CGC certification grading system back in 2000 in time for the big Greg Manning Auction later that year.  Rather surprisingly, they all came back graded from CGC 9.2 through to CGC 9.6, with the only exception being a PLOD copy (SP) of Cap 20 graded as a CGC 8.5 even though it presented just as nice as all of my other higher graded books.  My bet is that there would be a zero percent chance of me getting back the same high grades on these books if submitted today unless I dished out even more money on top of their now higher grading fees in order to "prep" the books in order to align with the "new and improved" undisclosed rules of the CGC grading game.  Extremely sad to say but most likely, if sent in straight raw for grading without at least a review pre-screening and "prep for grading" work of some sort, those same early graded 9.2's to 9.6's would probably come back as only 8.0's to 9.2's. 

Especially with the types of money generating defects   to which they have shifted their focus to over time until we are where we are today where many submittors dare not even think of sending a book straight in just for grading only, lest they be taken out to the woodshed in the back to having the grading sledgehammer applied to them.      

Edited April 17, 2022 by lou_fine

[tth2]

On 4/18/2022 at 2:29 AM, lou_fine said:

Extremely sad to say but most likely, if sent in straight raw for grading without at least a review pre-screening and "prep for grading" work of some sort, those same early graded 9.2's to 9.6's would probably come back as only 8.0's to 9.2's. 

Considering that all you do is complain about the gift grades that you allege CGC are handing out these days, you are contradicting yourself.

I for one believe that they were much tighter in the early years, as they were trying to establish their credibility in the market.  

[Cat-Man_America]

On 4/17/2022 at 1:29 PM, lou_fine said:

Waiting until it comes time for me to sell since it's just not the same to have your books imprisioned in an industrial looking slab where they simply can't be readily enjoyed the way they were meant to be.  In addition, slabbed books also don't look as gorgeous as when they are encased in a nice bright glossy mylar where the book's true beauty with all those colors just shines right through.    

Plus, having them in mylar also sure saves on a whole heck of a lot of storage space.  

Besides the cheaper prices and faster TAT's back then, I guess the other key thing that I will regret is missing out on the way that books were graded when CGC first started up some 22 years ago.  Much more aligned with the old school grading standards before they eventually got around to "fine-tuning" them (especially after Heritage arrived on the scene in 2002) and making them more and more about additional revenue generating defects as time went on.  

I still remember sending in about a dozen or more of my GA books in for grading as a test of this new CGC certification grading system back in 2000 in time for the big Greg Manning Auction later that year.  Rather surprisingly, they all came back graded from CGC 9.2 through to CGC 9.6, with the only exception being a PLOD copy (SP) of Cap 20 graded as a CGC 8.5 even though it presented just as nice as all of my other higher graded books.  My bet is that there would be a zero percent chance of me getting back the same high grades on these books if submitted today unless I dished out even more money on top of their now higher grading fees in order to "prep" the books in order to align with the "new and improved" undisclosed rules of the CGC grading game.  Extremely sad to say but most likely, if sent in straight raw for grading without at least a review pre-screening and "prep for grading" work of some sort, those same early graded 9.2's to 9.6's would probably come back as only 8.0's to 9.2's. 

Especially with the types of money generating defects   to which they have shifted their focus to over time until we are where we are today where many submittors dare not even think of sending a book straight in just for grading only, lest they be taken out to the woodshed in the back to having the grading sledgehammer applied to them.      

But hypothetically, if you sent in enough books at one time, claimed those magnificent books all originated from your grand-pappy’s collection, then you might’ve been able to swing one of those spiffy pedigree labels ...the Grandpa Fine Collection, for instance... and perhaps they’d all have come back 9.6 to 9.8! ...Who knows? 

[MrBedrock]

On 4/18/2022 at 12:22 PM, Cat-Man_America said:

But hypothetically, if you sent in enough books at one time, claimed those magnificent books all originated from your grand-pappy’s collection, then you might’ve been able to swing one of those spiffy pedigree labels ...the Grandpa Fine Collection, for instance... and perhaps they’d all have come back 9.6 to 9.8! ...Who knows? 

6.0 brittle most likely, given the name.

Edited April 18, 2022 by MrBedrock

[jimbo_7071]

On 4/17/2022 at 10:51 PM, tth2 said:

Considering that all you do is complain about the gift grades that you allege CGC are handing out these days, you are contradicting yourself.

I for one believe that they were much tighter in the early years, as they were trying to establish their credibility in the market.  

I think that many of the books were tightly graded in the early years, but in many cases collectors and dealers have spotted the very tightly graded ones and resubmitted them, with or without pressing. So I'm not so sure that the population of old-label holders that's still out there contains especially tightly-graded books. There are some out there, sure, but I think it's a mixed bag at this point.

[woowoo]

On 4/18/2022 at 10:22 AM, Cat-Man_America said:

But hypothetically, if you sent in enough books at one time, claimed those magnificent books all originated from your grand-pappy’s collection, then you might’ve been able to swing one of those spiffy pedigree labels ...the Grandpa Fine Collection, for instance... and perhaps they’d all have come back 9.6 to 9.8! ...Who knows? 

I think there is a Cat Conrad collection out there somewhere 

[tth2]

On 4/19/2022 at 1:22 AM, Cat-Man_America said:

But hypothetically, if you sent in enough books at one time, claimed those magnificent books all originated from your grand-pappy’s collection, then you might’ve been able to swing one of those spiffy pedigree labels ...the Grandpa Fine Collection, for instance... and perhaps they’d all have come back 9.6 to 9.8! ...Who knows? 

The only possible name for Lou's collection would be "The Vault (The Greatest Night in History) Collection".

[tth2]

On 4/19/2022 at 5:11 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

I think that many of the books were tightly graded in the early years, but in many cases collectors and dealers have spotted the very tightly graded ones and resubmitted them, with or without pressing. So I'm not so sure that the population of old-label holders that's still out there contains especially tightly-graded books. There are some out there, sure, but I think it's a mixed bag at this point.

Yes, but Dean isn’t talking about selling old label slabs.  He’s saying that current grading is tighter than early grading.