Was scrolling through the Comiclink auction results today... 3 3

[kav]

A lot of the information given in this thread is available in Comic Book Marketplace.

[EastEnd1]

1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

2 hours ago, EastEnd1 said:

The place was packed with many big dealers. There were gasps from the prices realized.  Parrino got most of the keys. A 9.4 JIM #83 is coming to mind as selling for $35k... a total shock at the time!!  I still have that catalog with the "crazy" prices realized somewhere.

Yes, and sad to say, but Jay lost a ton of money with his purchases since he was indeed paying "crazy" prices at the time and also did not have the patience to stay in the market long enough for it to catch up to the prices which he had paid for them.  

Yes, that is how it turned out for old Jay.  Someone else had to bid him up to those "crazy prices" though so there were at least two people!!

Here's a little Jay Parrino story for you guys...

At the time, I was really into collecting ECs and Greg Manning had my grail book: a Gaines copy of Crypt of Terror #17 in GORGEOUS 9.6 condition!  I went to the auction specifically for this book and I was prepared to go after it aggressively (or at least what I THOUGHT was "aggressive").  Well, once the auction started and the "crazy new CGC graded prices" started to hammer, my confidence slowly evaporated and Parrino got the book for around $7500... WAY beyond what anyone expected and, more importantly, what I had ever paid for a comic before!!  I felt so small . 

Well, a few weeks later, I couldn't stop thinking about it and with loser's remorse I decided to give Jay a call and see if I could talk him into selling it to me at a small profit (apparently I got adjusted to the crazy new prices pretty quickly... or at least with regard to this book!).  I told him it was my grail book and asked if he would he be willing to sell it to me for $8k.  He seemed pretty understanding but wanted $10,000 for it... pretty nice appreciation over a few weeks!  That was a bridge too far for me, but I hesitated in responding.  At that point, Parrino then asked if I knew a lot about comic books.  I said I'd been collecting since the early 1970s and knew a decent amount.  He told me he was just starting to get into comics, thought they were cool, but knew nothing about them!!  After spending all that CRAZY money I thought ??  Well, for the next hour or so, he basically interviewed me to learn as much as he could from what I knew.  Was actually a pretty very fun conversation.  At the end, he said, "You've given me some good information... at least $1000 worth.  You can have the CoT#17 for $9k!"

Well that was nice, but still a bridge too far so I passed and we said goodbye.  Not long after this, another 9.6 copy sold for around $17,500.  I was SO aggravated with myself for not taking Jay's offer.  And even worse I figured my grail book was beyond my reach forever!

Flash forward a couple of years, and Heritage auctions has spent a few years flooding the market with Gaines file copies, totally tanking the pricing on them.  In 2006, I purchased my grail for $9500, just a bit over Jay's offer... I had gotten my second bite at the apple!!  And I am NEVER letting that book get away from me again!!     

[lou_fine]

41 minutes ago, EastEnd1 said:

In 2006, I purchased my grail for $9500, just a bit over Jay's offer... I had gotten my second bite at the apple!!  And I am NEVER letting that book get away from me again!!     

That's an absolutely fantastic story and certainly glad to hear that you got a second chance at your Holy Grail and took full advantage of it.    

Wish you had made out as well as Geppi did though.  If I remember correctly, Geppi apparently sold the Pay Copy of Masrvel Comics #1 to Jay back in the early 2000's for $350,000 or what was then the highest price ever paid for a copy of Marvel Comics #1.  When Jay left the comic book market a few years later, apparently Geppi was able to pick this exact same Pay Copy back for something like only $200,000.  

I guess he basically "rented" out the Marvel Comics #1 to Parrino for a few years there and got back $150,000 in compensation.    

Edited September 2, 2019 by lou_fine

[RockMyAmadeus]

Parrino is cautionary tale #1 for why you should never spend lots of money on a field you know next to nothing about.

[EastEnd1]

3 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Glad to hear that you got a second chance at your Holy Grail and took full advantage of it.    

Wish you had made out as well as Geppi did though.  If I remember correctly, Geppi apparently sold the Pay Copy of Masrvel Comics #1 to Jay back in the early 2000's for $350,000 or what was then the highest price ever paid for a copy of Marvel Comics #1.  When Jay left the comic book market a few years later, apparently Geppi was able to pick this exact same Pay Copy back for something like only $200,000.  

I guess he basically rented out the Marvel Comics #1 to Parrino for a few years there and got back $150,000 in compensation.    

Sweet!!

And thanks!!

[lou_fine]

Just now, RockMyAmadeus said:

Parrino is cautionary tale #1 for why you should never spend lots of money on a field you know next to nothing about.

What was the name of the real estate guy that spent a ton of money on SA books and lost an absolute bundle on them when he had to sell out during the real estate crash?  

Was it Gary Keller or something like that?  Nevertheless, I belive he would be challenging Parrino for the crown here.  

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 hours ago, Brandon Shepherd said:

That's fantastic. I have my Heritage catalogs, and I consider them resource gold...ESPECIALLY the ones prior to GPA. 

Thanks for sharing that, Brandon.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Just now, lou_fine said:

What was the name of the real estate guy that spent a ton of money on SA books and lost an absolute bundle on them when he had to sell out during the real estate crash?  

Was it Gary Keller or something like that?  Nevertheless, I belive he would be challenging Parrino for the crown here.  

You're in a better position to know than I. You're more connected to the high-end market buyers.

[RockMyAmadeus]

49 minutes ago, EastEnd1 said:

Flash forward a couple of years, and Heritage auctions has spent a few years flooding the market with Gaines file copies, totally tanking the pricing on them.  In 2006, I purchased my grail for $9500, just a bit over Jay's offer... I had gotten my second bite at the apple!! 

That's a FANTASTIC book. Did you consider upgrading to the 9.8 file copy that sold at Heritage in 2012 for a (relative) song? 

[lou_fine]

22 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

26 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

What was the name of the real estate guy that spent a ton of money on SA books and lost an absolute bundle on them when he had to sell out during the real estate crash?  

Was it Gary Keller or something like that?  Nevertheless, I belive he would be challenging Parrino for the crown here.  

You're in a better position to know than I. You're more connected to the high-end market buyers.

Well, all I can say is that you must have me confused with somebody else as I am much more like the bargain basement type of comic book shopper.  

Speaking of Gary Keller, it would appear that he did not do so bad on some of his purchases, but if I remember correctly, unfortunately not so well on a lot of the other ones that he had overpaid for:

https://www.cbr.com/hulk-1-smashes-record-at-125000-heritage-auction-comics-event/

Well, at least not well enough to write up a book on comic book investing like the other 26 odd books he had authored in terms of the real estate market.  

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Just now, lou_fine said:

35 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

You're in a better position to know than I. You're more connected to the high-end market buyers.

Well, all I can say is that you must have me confused with somebody else as I am much more like the bargain basement type of comic book shopper.  

I was trying to be polite and not just come out and say that you're wayyyy older than me...

 

[lou_fine]

16 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

18 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

52 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

You're in a better position to know than I. You're more connected to the high-end market buyers.

Well, all I can say is that you must have me confused with somebody else as I am much more like the bargain basement type of comic book shopper.  

I was trying to be polite and not just come out and say that you're wayyyy older than me...

Well, that certainly goes without saying, much muchhhh younger man.    

[Logan510]

3 hours ago, kav said:

A lot of the information given in this thread is available in Comic Book Marketplace.

Apparently CBM can also tell me who was hot and who was not even though I lived through it 

Always amazed at the insiders knowledge of these boards.

[kav]

Just now, Logan510 said:

Apparently CBM can also tell me who was hot and who was not even though I lived through it 

Always amazed at the insiders knowledge of these boards.

zap!

[Xenosmilus]

On 8/29/2019 at 9:15 PM, romanheart said:

Seriously. I don't know where the boom happened all of a sudden. Are people converting their investment to books to ride out the incoming recession?

I'm new to collecting again (stopped in the late 80's and started again last year).  I think it has to do (for me anyways) with the movies that have rekindled nostalgia of middle age people to collect again and also the ease of it with eBay and online comic shops! I didn't start again as an investment but I do hope not lose too much money if I do decide to stop again/sell.  Gone are the days when you lose a lot of your money selling back to your LCS which is another reason I decided to collect again.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Xenosmilus

[RockMyAmadeus]

Who cares what anyone "lived through"? Unless they wrote about their experiences at the time, memories are the very last thing any reasonable, scholarly person should consider about pretty much anything. It's not useless...but of far, far more value is recorded experiences at, or shortly thereafter, the time the events occurred. 

From an study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences on the limitations of "eye witness testimony:

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=18891

"In addition, memory is often an unfaithful record of what was perceived through sight; people’s memories are continuously evolving. As memories are processed, encoded, stored, and retrieved, many factors can compromise their fidelity to actual events. Although the individual may be unaware of it, memories are forgotten, reconstructed, updated, and distorted."

No one alive "lived through" the US Civil War. However, because of scholarly research into records made at or near the time in question, researchers and historians have a clearer picture of the events that took place during the war than most, if not all, of the people who actually "lived through" it. And the same will be true of all of us.

We should be supporting scholarly practices, not dismissing them. 

[MGsimba77]

On 8/29/2019 at 11:13 PM, ThothAmon said:

Picked a good hobby to spend my 70’s paper route money on. If you ever take the time to compute the annual compounded returns the numbers are staggering. The only explanation is that interest rates at near zero for over a decade cause asset bubbles and comics are b a d a s s. Doesn’t look like rates are going up anytime soon either. 

Rates going ⬇️❗

[Lazyboy]

7 hours ago, kav said:

But once you read something you're then relying on the memory of what you read and it's back to square one-

You've truly mastered the art of trolling.

[Ken Aldred]

8 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

"In addition, memory is often an unfaithful record of what was perceived through sight; people’s memories are continuously evolving. As memories are processed, encoded, stored, and retrieved, many factors can compromise their fidelity to actual events. Although the individual may be unaware of it, memories are forgotten, reconstructed, updated, and distorted."

 

Completely agree.  Happy memories tend to become more euphoric and intense, traumatising memories tend to become increasingly buried and distant.

One reason that I proceed with caution when nostalgia is evoked, especially when it comes to purchasing newsprint "mementos".

[Turtle]

Switching gears a bit...

I've bid/purchased from ComicLink before.  Before I do a deep dive on their terms, maybe someone here can answer:

Is there a certain bid threshold that requires an additional layer of bid verification?  $10K?  $50K?  $100K?

I know they require a verification period before any bids can be placed.  Once verified, are there any additional limits worth noting?