They're Still Out There! 22 22

[sfcityduck]

4 minutes ago, sagii said:

..which why I said or something like that.

I remember that the fact that there were so many in the collection,  that was a big part of the marketing campaign.  Im sure I'm slightly off, it has been 9 years 

45 of the 340 comics were top 100.  Which is impressive.

[sagii]

4 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

45 of the 340 comics were top 100.  Which is impressive.

Thanks! I was sure i remembered there was some boasting about how many were in the collection. 

But silly me I should have known Church would be king 

[Robot Man]

There is the Church collection and there are all the rest...

[cheetah]

3 hours ago, jimbo_7071 said:

I have comics in the registry, but I couldn't even tell you who's in first place, let alone second or third. Many of the nicest collections were built up before slabbing was a thing. These guys with the "highest-graded copies" don't necessarily have the nicest existing copies. They have the highest-graded copies out of the very small number of copies submitted to a particular grading company and graded subjectively. On a different day, their 9.6s might be 9.4s, and somebody else's 9.4s might be 9.6s. The loose grading of the Promise collection proves that "highest-graded" doesn't mean that much. It's way too subjective. I've been collecting since long before CGC glimmer in the money grubbers' eyes, so I see numerical grading to the tenths place as something of a marketing gimmick, albeit a successful one.

 

I looked through it this morning.  With the exception of our own member Timely, all the top people are SA Spider-man collectors.  Mr. Illmannered and his PCH hoard is the only other GA collector that I recognized. As I said before, applying SA spider-man collectors’ approaches to GA collectors seems misplaced.

And if you want the best copy of a GA book, it’s usually going to be Church’s copy regardless of what the slab says.  I’ve owned enough to see the difference.  There are other pedigrees that have beautiful books and, occasionally, there might be a superior copy.  For the Promise Collection, I’d want to compare the books side by side before I decided if they really better than Church’s copies.

Edited May 20, 2021 by cheetah

[batman_fan]

14 hours ago, cheetah said:

Truth is that it is not common with GA.  I used to put all my books in the registry and typically I was the only person with more than one or two books in a title.  While I never collected the ‘big’ titles like Action or Timelys, I never saw a push by anyone to maximize GA points.  It might be common with Amazing Spider-man but not anything I ever collected.

And, FWIW, there are registry sets that include scans of all the books.  It’s not a waste of time to scroll through some of the sets and see the cool books that are out there.  I’ve seen the counterphobic attitude that registry is for narcissists and point chasers for years.  I’d counter there is plenty of pettiness in this just like there is in the ‘true collector’ tripe that comes out on the boards with regularity.  

I have a lot of my books in the registry but they are marked private.  I use it to have an easy access to what I have, grade, and PQ. Has definitely come in handy several times.

[Aman619]

31 minutes ago, cheetah said:

I looked through it this morning.  With the exception of our own member Timely, all the top people are SA Spider-man collectors.  Mr. Illmannered and his PCH hoard is the only other GA collector that I recognized. As I said before, applying SA spider-man collectors’ approaches to GA collectors seems misplaced.

And if you want the best copy of a GA book, it’s usually going to be Church’s copy regardless of what the slab says.  I’ve owned enough to see the difference.  There are other pedigrees that have beautiful books and, occasionally, there might be a superior copy.  For the Promise Collection, I’d want to compare the books side by side before I decided if they really better than Church’s copies.

Agreed.  I was going thru some GA books, including various pedigrees, and as nice as the others were, once I unmylared a Church copy my eyes widened. Whiter, cleaner, basically “virginal”.  Where the others were structurally tight, they just didn’t sing like a Church does. I never really appreciated this fact before. In this regard, only Lon and the graders will have experienced both Church and Promise books in hand to answer.  But in the video, this is what they say... same feel and state of  like new preservation absent exposure and handling.  So maybe that’s the answer.  Wish I bought more Church books... but they were SO expensive!  Lol

[N e r V]

32 minutes ago, cheetah said:

I looked through it this morning.  With the exception of our own member Timely, all the top people are SA Spider-man collectors.  Mr. Illmannered and his PCH hoard is the only other GA collector that I recognized. As I said before, applying SA spider-man collectors’ approaches to GA collectors seems misplaced.

And if you want the best copy of a GA book, it’s usually going to be Church’s copy regardless of what the slab says.  I’ve owned enough to see the difference.  There are other pedigrees that have beautiful books and, occasionally, there might be a superior copy.  For the Promise Collection, I’d want to compare the books side by side before I decided if they really better than Church’s copies.

Exceptions might be those Mile Highs that people stupidly decided to play around with and those who aren’t really Mile Highs after all. Even with something called Mile High you’re going to need to check under the hood  and take a test drive before buying.

 

(side point. Mr. ill mannered has a enormously fun collection to look at but SA Spider-Man collections in high grade exist like grains of sand on the ocean…)

[N e r V]

5 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

I have a lot of my books in the registry but they are marked private.  I use it to have an easy access to what I have, grade, and PQ. Has definitely come in handy several times.

…until hackers break in and threaten to let it all go public unless you pay them…

[cheetah]

3 minutes ago, N e r V said:

Exceptions might be those Mile Highs that people stupidly decided to play around with and those who aren’t really Mile Highs after all. Even with something called Mile High you’re going to need to check under the hood  and take a test drive before buying.

 

(side point. Mr. ill mannered has a enormously fun collection to look at but SA Spider-Man collections in high grade exist like grains of sand on the ocean…)

I agree on the Churchs.  The Fiction House books have many poor examples due the way they were stored after they were purchased from Chuck.  Metro also had books listed as Mile Highs that CGC disagreed with.  Unfortunately, the FH books in the Promise Collection just look like the normal poor-colored FH books.  I didn’t see anything yet that would have made me want to rush out and buy one.

[cheetah]

6 minutes ago, N e r V said:

 

(side point. Mr. ill mannered has a enormously fun collection to look at but SA Spider-Man collections in high grade exist like grains of sand on the ocean…)

I have always felt that Gabe/Mr Illmannered was largely responsible for the renewed interest in PCH.  He bought an outsized number of books from me when I closed out.

[Mmehdy]

16 minutes ago, Aman619 said:

Agreed.  I was going thru some GA books, including various pedigrees, and as nice as the others were, once I unmylared a Church copy my eyes widened. Whiter, cleaner, basically “virginal”.  Where the others were structurally tight, they just didn’t sing like a Church does. I never really appreciated this fact before. In this regard, only Lon and the graders will have experienced both Church and Promise books in hand to answer.  But in the video, this is what they say... same feel and state of  like new preservation absent exposure and handling.  So maybe that’s the answer.  Wish I bought more Church books... but they were SO expensive!  Lol

SF collection up there with church, both from both, both the best I have ever seen until promise...we will see after 5000 of them are revealed.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Mmehdy

[N e r V]

1 minute ago, cheetah said:

I agree on the Churchs.  The Fiction House books have many poor examples due the way they were stored after they were purchased from Chuck.  Metro also had books listed as Mile Highs that CGC disagreed with.  Unfortunately, the FH books in the Promise Collection just look like the normal poor-colored FH books.  I didn’t see anything yet that would have made me want to rush out and buy one.

This is probably a dumb sounding comment (somewhat) but my first reaction to Fiction House books as well as 1950’s DC comics is to look at the level of color first, structure next. Because it’s so damn difficult getting a good level of color on those books it’s often worth pulling the trigger on any one that pops in that area but most don’t. My cousin patiently built his raw complete Planet collection taking well over a decade by hand picking each issue with its grade AND quality of color and it shows to me as a benchmark.

[cheetah]

9 minutes ago, N e r V said:

This is probably a dumb sounding comment (somewhat) but my first reaction to Fiction House books as well as 1950’s DC comics is to look at the level of color first, structure next. Because it’s so damn difficult getting a good level of color on those books it’s often worth pulling the trigger on any one that pops in that area but most don’t. My cousin patiently built his raw complete Planet collection taking well over a decade by hand picking each issue with its grade AND quality of color and it shows to me as a benchmark.

I found it easier to do with Jungle and Jumbo Comics.  Getting well-colored Planets was much more difficult.  After a recent period in the Planet Comics thread where people posted all their copies, it was clear to me that the few years I spent on Planets was nowhere near long enough to have put together a good looking set.

[Robot Man]

10 minutes ago, Mmehdy said:

SF collection up there with church, both from both, both the best I have ever seen until promise...we will see after 5000 of them are revealed.

Other than the Church and yes maybe the SF collections, two of the best collections I have seen for page quality are the Blankis/Salida and Vancouvers. Truly bone white. 

[Robot Man]

1 minute ago, cheetah said:

I found it easier to do with Jungle and Jumbo Comics.  Getting well-colored Planets was much more difficult.  After a recent period in the Planet Comics thread where people posted all their copies, it was clear to me that the few years I spent on Planets was nowhere near long enough to have put together a good looking set.

I can’t tell you how many FH books I’ve actually downgraded to for bright cover color. I don’t care about the technical grade nearly as much as I do the color. I have upgraded a few several times until I get that color saturation I want. 

[cheetah]

2 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

Other than the Church and yes maybe the SF collections, two of the best collections I have seen for page quality are the Blankis/Salida and Vancouvers. Truly bone white. 

Central Valley books rival Church copies but the titles are generally weak.  Deciding to by a Fritzy Ritz Church or Central Valley copy would not create much of a conundrum.  Just by them both and spend the change on lunch.

[N e r V]

5 minutes ago, cheetah said:

I found it easier to do with Jungle and Jumbo Comics.  Getting well-colored Planets was much more difficult.  After a recent period in the Planet Comics thread where people posted all their copies, it was clear to me that the few years I spent on Planets was nowhere near long enough to have put together a good looking set.

Yeah I have to bite my tongue sometimes when someone posts an absolutely beautiful structured Planet comics but the color just isn’t there when you’ve seen copies that really pop. I first got into Planet comics myself in the late 1980’s when I discovered #1 and you could get nice colors on copies through at least the 1990’s but I’ve decided they must have all got locked up in collections (like a lot of stuff) now because I rarely see copies surface that excite me. 

[Robot Man]

6 minutes ago, cheetah said:

Central Valley books rival Church copies but the titles are generally weak.  Deciding to by a Fritzy Ritz Church or Central Valley copy would not create much of a conundrum.  Just by them both and spend the change on lunch.

True, I forgot about those. I only have a handful but the pages are amazing. And hey, I LOVE those Fritzys...

[sfcityduck]

14 minutes ago, Mmehdy said:

SF collection up there with church, both from both, both the best I have ever seen until promise...we will see after 5000 of them are revealed.

On the video, Matt and Brian both agreed that the MH books are superior to the Promise books.  Better structurally, page quality, and preservation.  Matt made it clear that MH is undoubtedly better than Promise (and he also gave a nod to SF), and as the chief grader for CGC he should know.  But, its a really good point that the MH did not go straight into encapsulation, so Matt's comment is talking about the well-preserved MHs. 

The area where Matt and Brian saw the Promise as far superior to the MHs was in the backstory.  I completely agree.  Far superior.  And I'm not talking about the backstory told by Heritage.  The MH story is important to comic collecting history, but it is a story a man perhaps placing his livelihood above his family and about a family relationship that seems more than a bit sad.  What kind of dad cares more about comics than his kids?  As for the Promise backstory, Matt and Brian said they are going to take their place near Okajima on backstory, and that statement by them was definitely not hype.  

[N e r V]

7 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

I can’t tell you how many FH books I’ve actually downgraded to for bright cover color. I don’t care about the technical grade nearly as much as I do the color. I have upgraded a few several times until I get that color saturation I want. 

Not Fiction House but I had a copy of DC’s Star Spangled #129 that was decent but washed out colors which I knew. I’ve seen a number come and go since with much better colors I thought about upgrading to. Then a friend I’ve know for years who schooled me on 1950’s DC comics colors back in the day pulls out his copy which is impressive in itself because it’s structurally a 9.2++ but I have never seen any copy yet that rivaled those colors. He purchased most of his DC’s in the 1980’s/1990’s and told me he would spend years looking for the right colors on each one. Damn it showed…