The Promise Collection 3 3

[The Lions Den]

2 hours ago, nooncee said:

..aside from "proof" most will agree it's certainly a major concern in regards to a "conflict of interest"..

All I can say is that in my experience I've never seen or heard of Jim Halperin doing anything shady. And I just thought there'd be more enthusiasm toward this collection. But OK...

[jimjum12]

Just now, The Lions Den said:

All I can say is that in my experience I've never seen or heard of Jim Halperin doing anything shady. And I just thought there'd be more enthusiasm toward this collection. But OK...

I've bought WAY too many slabs from Heritage that were, imho, undergraded AND unpressed for me to assume any corruption. All he's guilty of is buying up too much of the good stuff  GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Badger]

7 minutes ago, jimjum12 said:

I've bought WAY too many slabs from Heritage that were, imho, undergraded AND unpressed for me to assume any corruption. All he's guilty of is buying up too much of the good stuff  GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Same here. For every auction where that nagging voice goes, , there are 4 more that closed below my max bid and at least 1 that closed waaaaay below my max bid. I have had some amazing deals off of Heritage. None this year but that is more a reflection of the market than Heritage.

[jimbo_7071]

15 minutes ago, The Lions Den said:

All I can say is that in my experience I've never seen or heard of Jim Halperin doing anything shady. And I just thought there'd be more enthusiasm toward this collection. But OK...

I can't point to Halperin's personal involvement, but I've looking at the Promise copies on Heritage that are graded 2—4 increments higher than what random books would get. That's proof enough that the relationship is malignant.

[jimbo_7071]

9 minutes ago, Badger said:

Same here. For every auction where that nagging voice goes, , there are 4 more that closed below my max bid and at least 1 that closed waaaaay below my max bid. I have had some amazing deals off of Heritage. None this year but that is more a reflection of the market than Heritage.

Not all books in Heritage auctions are submitted by them for slabbing; most likely only the larger collections are (this one, the Billy books, etc). It also depends on what books you're buying. I'm sure they don't bother to press books that don't have a real chance of being worth X amount.

Edited May 12, 2021 by jimbo_7071

[namisgr]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned CGCs fee structure for grading.  Books valued at over $3,000 are automatically graded in the walk-through tier, and the grading fee is 3% of the comic's fair market value after a $150 minimum.  It presents an air of partiality to the grading of high value books - with that said, I'm in no way suggesting it's come into play with this or any other collection or set of submissions, just that partiality is built into their fee structure.

[Badger]

3 minutes ago, jimbo_7071 said:

I can't point to Halperin's personal involvement, but I've looking at the Promise copies on Heritage that are graded 2—4 increments higher than what random books would get. That's proof enough that the relationship is malignant.

Some of the grading on that collection is truly horrendous and wrong. I'm hoping that when seen in person, out of the slab, the preservation of inks and gloss make the grades a little more understandable but yeah, some of those grades are . Still, I've seen other books graded just as poorly and out of 5000 you will find some that are mistakes. I'm not ready to say the whole collection is suspect because of a handful of very obvious and atrocious mistakes.

[Badger]

1 minute ago, namisgr said:

I'm surprised no one's mentioned CGCs fee structure for grading.  Books valued at over $3,000 are automatically graded in the walk-through tier, and the grading fee is 3% of the comic's fair market value after a $150 minimum.  It presents an air of partiality to the grading of high value books - with that said, I'm in no way suggesting it's come into play with this or any other collection or set of submissions, just that partiality is built into their fee structure.

Now this did make me upset. Not having a cap on the fee makes it awfully tempting to bump up a high priced book half a grade or more which can add tens of thousands of dollars to a value. Next step would be to give a bonus to graders for the value of books graded with no complaints. CGC could be the Pep Boys of comic grading.

[jimbo_7071]

2 minutes ago, Badger said:

Some of the grading on that collection is truly horrendous and wrong. I'm hoping that when seen in person, out of the slab, the preservation of inks and gloss make the grades a little more understandable but yeah, some of those grades are . Still, I've seen other books graded just as poorly and out of 5000 you will find some that are mistakes. I'm not ready to say the whole collection is suspect because of a handful of very obvious and atrocious mistakes.

It's more than a handful, though. It's all or nearly all of the books posted so far.

[The Lions Den]

2 minutes ago, Badger said:

Some of the grading on that collection is truly horrendous and wrong. I'm hoping that when seen in person, out of the slab, the preservation of inks and gloss make the grades a little more understandable but yeah, some of those grades are . Still, I've seen other books graded just as poorly and out of 5000 you will find some that are mistakes. I'm not ready to say the whole collection is suspect because of a handful of very obvious and atrocious mistakes.

I haven't seen the whole collection yet, but what I have seen looks really nice...   

[Badger]

2 minutes ago, jimbo_7071 said:

It's more than a handful, though. It's all or nearly all of the books posted so far.

There are roughly 270 books currently listed. I am aware of what, 15, shown on the boards with very questionable grading? I'm sure there are others but, no, it is not nearly all of the books.

[The Lions Den]

5 minutes ago, Badger said:

Now this did make me upset. Not having a cap on the fee makes it awfully tempting to bump up a high priced book half a grade or more which can add tens of thousands of dollars to a value. Next step would be to give a bonus to graders for the value of books graded with no complaints. CGC could be the Pep Boys of comic grading.

Another thing I've never seen...  

[jimjum12]

11 minutes ago, jimbo_7071 said:

Not all books in Heritage auctions are submitted by them for slabbing; most likely only the larger collections are (this one, the Billy books, etc). It also depends on what books you're buying. I'm sure they don't bother to press books that don't have a real chance of being worth X amount.

Not sure about now, but you could look at the serial number and determine which was a Heritage account submission in past years ... it was 091******* for ages. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Badger]

2 minutes ago, jimjum12 said:

Not sure about now, but you could look at the serial number and determine which was a Heritage account submission in past years ... it was 091******* for ages. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

The Promise Collection starts with 197*******.  

[sfcityduck]

2 minutes ago, jimjum12 said:

Not sure about now, but you could look at the serial number and determine which was a Heritage account submission in past years ... it was 091******* for ages. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Heritage stated in the Bleeding Cool ad that the books were submitted by them to CGC.  

Quote

"When I first heard about this incredible collection that Lon and Ed were bringing in I was jealous not to be there at the moment of discovery," Heritage Auctions Comics Buyer / Consignment Director Rick Akers adds. "I have, like many collectors, always dreamed of coming across an untouched trove of comical gems from the 1940s. As these books came in, before being sent to CGC, I was able to look through several boxes of Timely and esoteric titles and my breath was taken away with the glossy inks and white pages. The Promise Collection experience is definitely the highlight of my time in comics up to this point and I think this one will be pretty difficult to top."

 

[The Lions Den]

4 hours ago, jimbo_7071 said:

I can't point to Halperin's personal involvement, but I've looking at the Promise copies on Heritage that are graded 2—4 increments higher than what random books would get. That's proof enough that the relationship is malignant.

I've been looking these books over and there are some similarities between this collection and other pedigrees I've seen.

The pencil writing on the covers and the sun/dust shadows on the cover edges are similar to some of the Mile High books (the Church copies). So if you can accept those things, the books themselves look very solid and the colors and inks are great. 

As far as any malignancy goes, from what I've seen so far CGC graded these books exactly how I've seen them grade other pedigrees in the past. If you don't agree with it (sometimes I don't either) I can respect that. But I see no signs of any obvious attempt to vary from the guidelines they've already established...

[lou_fine]

4 hours ago, Badger said:

4 hours ago, namisgr said:

I'm surprised no one's mentioned CGCs fee structure for grading.  Books valued at over $3,000 are automatically graded in the walk-through tier, and the grading fee is 3% of the comic's fair market value after a $150 minimum.  It presents an air of partiality to the grading of high value books - with that said, I'm in no way suggesting it's come into play with this or any other collection or set of submissions, just that partiality is built into their fee structure.

Now this did make me upset. Not having a cap on the fee makes it awfully tempting to bump up a high priced book half a grade or more which can add tens of thousands of dollars to a value.

Yes, I am kind of surprised that there's not a lot more fuss about the removal of the cap on the fee which they used to have in place prior to this latest change at the end of last month.  Then again, I guess it's not really that many boardies with books that would have been hitting their old cap that was in place, whatever it was?  

The whole part of this fee structure that I really can't understand is how do they expect the submittors to come up with the estimated market value of the book in the first place.  Especially since in today's hyper red hot marketplace, it's relatively easy for a book to go over $3K depending upon the grade, and isn't that the exact reason why we are sending the darned thing into CGC in first place?  And are we really expected to know if the book has restoration or not which would really crush the value of the book?  

Oh heck, maybe they should really be giving us a huge discount on these egregious fees of theirs if they expect us to do their job for them in the first place before we can even submit the books into them.  

[lou_fine]

11 hours ago, Badger said:

I'm hoping that when seen in person, out of the slab, the preservation of inks and gloss make the grades a little more understandable but yeah, some of those grades are .

As far as I am aware, I believe that color strike and gloss are considered to be more like non-technical factors of the book and as such, are not taken into consideration as much as the technical and structural factors when it comes to the final grade determination of the book.  

If you are concerned more about color strike and gloss, this is really where the CVA and QES stickers are in theory supposed to come into play. 

Edited May 13, 2021 by lou_fine

[Badger]

5 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

As far as I am aware, I believe that color strike and gloss are considered to be more of like non-technical factors of the book and as such, are not taken into consideration as much as the technical and structural factors when it comes to the final grade determination of the book.  

If you are concerned more about color strike and gloss, this is really where the CVA and QES stickers are in theory supposed to come into play. 

Oo, ow! Hey, play nice! 

They are not supposed to be but it does go back into my whole, "If you love comics and you've graded a couple of hundred of these your grading skills may become forgiving over time." Not the way it is supposed to work but it may have.  

[lou_fine]

38 minutes ago, The Lions Den said:

The pencil writing on the covers and the sun/dust shadows on the cover edges are similar to some of the Mile High books (the Church copies). So if you can accept those things, the books themselves look very solid and the colors and inks are great. 

Although there's been some comments from the non-pedigree crowd with respect to coded markings on the book and dust shadows which I personally don't have that much concern with, it's really more about the damaged corners, edge tears, and impacted staple areas and tears that the graders seem to be giving a free pass to relative to the assigned grades (for some of the books) which I am much more concerned about.  

Although I am sure the majority of the collection should HOPEFULLY be graded within the bottom portion of their acceptable grading range, it's just the really obvious and blatant overgrades that now puts the overall grading of this whole collection into question.  Heck, I would love to bid on some of these books here, but now it's up to ME to be really taking a much much closer look than normal at these books, which is not the easiest thing to do since we have only the cover scans to work from, and not the actual book in hand.    

Edited May 12, 2021 by lou_fine