Post your Promise Collection wins! 17 17

[adamstrange]

On 6/21/2022 at 10:04 AM, GermanFan said:

I didnt get the hype when it was brought to the market. Maybe people associated it with the Mile High collection? "Promise Collection", nice maketing ploy. But promise what? Loss?

The Promise Collection consists of 5000 GA books fresh to the market.  Of those, maybe half are top census, with hundreds of 9.6 and 9.8 copies with nice pages and colors.

This is a very unusual circumstance to the point that there has been nothing like it in the last 30 years.  There was some hyping by Heritage that overstated the percentage of highly desirable issues, but otherwise the collection has lived up to initial expectations, from both a historical perspective and resulting sales.  I'm not sure of the total, but I think we are looking at a $30 million dollar find.

[Robot Man]

On 6/21/2022 at 8:07 AM, adamstrange said:

The Promise Collection consists of 5000 GA books fresh to the market.  Of those, maybe half are top census, with hundreds of 9.6 and 9.8 copies with nice pages and colors.

This is a very unusual circumstance to the point that there has been nothing like it in the last 30 years.  There was some hyping by Heritage that overstated the percentage of highly desirable issues, but otherwise the collection has lived up to initial expectations, from both a historical perspective and resulting sales.  I'm not sure of the total, but I think we are looking at a $30 million dollar find.

A simply amazing collection no matter where it originated from. Never have we seen so many draw dropping books all at one time. It was VERY carefully curated and marketed. And the timing couldn’t have been more timely. A brilliant business move on the part of HA. 

 

[jimbo_7071]

On 6/21/2022 at 11:07 AM, adamstrange said:

The Promise Collection consists of 5000 GA books fresh to the market.  Of those, maybe half are top census, with hundreds of 9.6 and 9.8 copies with nice pages and colors.

This is a very unusual circumstance to the point that there has been nothing like it in the last 30 years.  There was some hyping by Heritage that overstated the percentage of highly desirable issues, but otherwise the collection has lived up to initial expectations, from both a historical perspective and resulting sales.  I'm not sure of the total, but I think we are looking at a $30 million dollar find.

Most of the books are only top-of-the census copies because they were so softly graded. Besides, many of the Mile High copies from that era are still raw, including most of the Timely superhero books.

Edited June 21, 2022 by jimbo_7071

[tth2]

On 6/20/2022 at 7:16 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

I think that an inordinately high price will buoy the sales price the next time around. When Gary Keller paid very high prices for some Mile High DC's, they eventually came back down to earth, but it took having them sell two more times. Whatever they ended up losing, they lost about half with the first resale and the rest with the next resale. If this book follows that pattern, it should sell for around $20,400 if it is sold again in the next few years.

I have seen a similar pattern many times over the years. For some reason when a book sells for an astronomical price, collectors seem to think that it has somehow magically increased in value completely out of proportion to historical trends instead of recognizing the sales price as the outlier that it is.

 

I remember Keller's fire sale very fondly. 

[jimjum12]

On 6/21/2022 at 1:39 PM, Robot Man said:

A simply amazing collection no matter where it originated from. Never have we seen so many draw dropping books all at one time. It was VERY carefully curated and marketed. And the timing couldn’t have been more timely. A brilliant business move on the part of HA. 

 

... and the Family. 

It was mostly vicarious for me, but many books rarely seen in ANY grade. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Cat-Man_America]

On 6/20/2022 at 6:16 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

I think that an inordinately high price will buoy the sales price the next time around. When Gary Keller paid very high prices for some Mile High DC's, they eventually came back down to earth, but it took having them sell two more times. Whatever they ended up losing, they lost about half with the first resale and the rest with the next resale. If this book follows that pattern, it should sell for around $20,400 if it is sold again in the next few years.

I have seen a similar pattern many times over the years. For some reason when a book sells for an astronomical price, collectors seem to think that it has somehow magically increased in value completely out of proportion to historical trends instead of recognizing the sales price as the outlier that it is.

 

I'm not being critical of your assessment, but it might be useful to also consider other factors having an impact on hammer prices.  

Two observations worthy of scrutiny:  

1) the economics of the period (in Aug. 2010 the market hadn't fully recovered from the home mortgage/lending crisis of 2008; the first of the two Heritage auctions occurred prior to the crisis, when investment dollars were stronger)

2) the 3rd auction looks like an entirely different animal (I'm assuming it's either CC or CLink, but that's a guess). If so, the bidders, bid methodology & bidding environment would be apples & oranges (...or rather passion fruit & lemons to the consignor, judging from the result).

Other unknown factors are what other books were being auctioned at the time that might've generated competing interest.  The one thing I can say with some confidence is that the auction from 2012 seems to be the outlier.  The boosted chroma image from from the first to second HA is interesting too, as it obviously didn't do anything to boost the bidding. 

Edited July 10, 2022 by Cat-Man_America
Ran out of popcorn.

[whomerjay]

On 6/21/2022 at 3:25 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Most of the books are only top-of-the census copies because they were so softly graded. Besides, many of the Mile High copies from that era are still raw, including most of the Timely superhero books.

The multiple positive facets of this pedigree would be more widely accepted had CGC not graded so many books softly. Instead we have a pedigree where the first thought in the mind of many die hard collectors is “puzzling number of books overgraded as part of a marketing campaign.”

I can live with prevalent foxing on Crippen books, and the PQ on Crowley and Lost Valley, and that CGC largely ignores those in the grade. The grading of many promise books was a great disservice to the collection.

[jimbo_7071]

On 6/22/2022 at 3:12 AM, Cat-Man_America said:

I'm not being critical of your assessment, but it might be useful to consider other factors that might've had an impact on hammer prices before contemplating a trend line.  

Two critical observations that bear scrutiny:  

1) the economics of the period (in Aug. 2010 the market hadn't fully recovered from the home mortgage/lending crisis of 2008; the first of the two Heritage auctions occurred prior to the crisis, when investment dollars were stronger)

2) the 3rd auction looks like an entirely different animal (I'm assuming it's either CC or CLink, but that's a guess). If so, the bidders, bid methodology & bidding environment would be apples & oranges (...or rather passion fruit & lemons to the consignor, judging from the result).

The other factor that's an unknown are what other books were being auctioned along side it that might've generated competing interest.  The one thing I can say with some confidence is that the auction from 2012 seems to be the outlier.  The boosted chroma image from 2010 is interesting as it obviously didn't do anything to boost the bidding. 

The third result was from ComicConnect. I was tracking the book that night and thought about bidding on it but decided not to. I'm not positive why I held off, but I did buy my Subby 30 the following night. I guess I wanted a Subby 30 in 8.0 more than I wanted a GL 26 in 9.6.

You make some valid points, but I'm not sure the GL 26 would have sold for much more on Heritage. I personally haven't gotten any bargains on CConnect.

Edited June 22, 2022 by jimbo_7071

[tth2]

The Promise 9.8 Planet Comics #38, which sold for $21,600 in June 2021, is going to be in the upcoming September Signature Auction. 

Anyone think it's going to reach that price again? 

[tth2]

Some other Promise recycles coming up:

9.6 Planet Comics #40 ($19,200 in June 2021)

9.2 Flash Comics #91 ($10,800 in June 2021)

9.6 Flash Comics #88 ($31,200 in June 2021)

 

[sagii]

On 7/9/2022 at 11:57 PM, tth2 said:

The Promise 9.8 Planet Comics #38, which sold for $21,600 in June 2021, is going to be in the upcoming September Signature Auction. 

Anyone think it's going to reach that price again? 

 

On 7/10/2022 at 12:17 AM, tth2 said:

Some other Promise recycles coming up:

9.6 Planet Comics #40 ($19,200 in June 2021)

9.2 Flash Comics #91 ($10,800 in June 2021)

9.6 Flash Comics #88 ($31,200 in June 2021)

 

Well at least in this case the seller(s) waited a year to hold 

[jimbo_7071]

On 7/9/2022 at 11:57 PM, tth2 said:

The Promise 9.8 Planet Comics #38, which sold for $21,600 in June 2021, is going to be in the upcoming September Signature Auction. 

Anyone think it's going to reach that price again? 

I just looked at it. The cover colors aren't excitingly good, but Planets are still hot, and it's a 9.8 according to the label, so I won't be too surprised if it bucks the trend of Promise books selling for less the second time around. Inflation has been averaging about 0.717% per month over the past year or so, so the book will need to sell for about $23,900 to match $21,600 in June 2021 dollars.

[tth2]

On 7/10/2022 at 12:57 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

so the book will need to sell for about $23,900 to match $21,600 in June 2021 dollars

I'll be impressed if it reaches $21,600 in September 2022 dollars!

[lou_fine]

On 7/9/2022 at 8:57 PM, tth2 said:

The Promise 9.8 Planet Comics #38, which sold for $21,600 in June 2021, is going to be in the upcoming September Signature Auction. 

Anyone think it's going to reach that price again? 

Have you tried reaching out to Mitch on this particular issue here as I believe he has always been of the opinion that prices would only go up on the Promise books once Heritage was done with their auction of the collection?  

[lou_fine]

On 7/9/2022 at 8:57 PM, tth2 said:

The Promise 9.8 Planet Comics #38, which sold for $21,600 in June 2021, is going to be in the upcoming September Signature Auction. 

Since green is my favorite color, needless to say I've always loved the cover for Planet 38 and would also love to acquire a copy one day.  

Being a collector who's always cared more about the appearance of the book itself, as opposed to the CGC label, this copy here would look just perfect if it was sitting in my personal collection:    

Especially since it was graded as being only a CGC 6.5 copy back in 2007 or thereabouts, if I remember correctly (need to check my spreadsheet), which should hopefully help to keep the price down at a much more reasonable level.  

Edited July 10, 2022 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

On 6/20/2022 at 10:12 AM, tth2 said:

$23k haircut (not even counting the fees) in 6 months!  Yikes! 

 

On 6/20/2022 at 10:16 AM, buttock said:

I saw the second sale result, not having known that it had already sold for more and thought the price was inordinately high.  

Well, with some of the supposed shenanigans that we read about taking place with some of these auctions here, have you guys ever considered the possibility that there was no $23K haircut here and the first $66K result for the All-Flash 32 might possibly have been used to find a real life patsy for the second transaction at $43.2K?    

Although I personally doubt it as I tend not to believe in these kinds of conspiracy theories. 

[jimbo_7071]

On 7/10/2022 at 4:29 AM, lou_fine said:

Especially since it was graded as being only a CGC 6.5 copy back in 2007 or thereabouts, if I remember correctly (need to check my spreadsheet), which should hopefully help to keep the price down at a much more reasonable level.  

I would take that one over the Promise copy based on the cover colors. The front cover looks nicer than 6.5. Some defects, like a non-color-breaking subscription crease, could bring the grade down that much without showing up in the scan, though. It's also possible that the book has back cover defects or a loose centerfold, etc. 

I'm with you on valuing the eye appeal of a book over the grade, but the latter seems to be the primary driver of the price, so some collectors clearly feel differently.

On 7/10/2022 at 4:45 AM, lou_fine said:

 

Well, with some of the supposed shenanigans that we read about taking place with some of these auctions here, have you guys ever considered the possibility that there was no $23K haircut here and the first $66K result for the All-Flash 32 might possibly have been used to find a real life patsy for the second transaction at $43.2K?    

Although I personally doubt it as I tend not to believe in these kinds of conspiracy theories. 

I think that those kinds of shenanigans occur with eBay auctions—guys will shill bid a book to get a fake sale into GPA, etc.—and maybe on other venues, too, but I don't think that it would occur with a Promise book being offered for the first time. The consignor of these books is doing just fine without needing to do anything like that.

I imagine that buyer's remorse is pretty common with these bidding wars, though. I don't know what would happen if someone bid a book up to $60K+ but didn't pay. Would Heritage litigate, or would they just ban the bidder and re-list the book? (Asking for a friend. ) Would they keep the auction result in their archives even if the sale didn't actually go through?

[lou_fine]

On 7/10/2022 at 3:59 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

I would take that one over the Promise copy based on the cover colors. The front cover looks nicer than 6.5. Some defects, like a non-color-breaking subscription crease, could bring the grade down that much without showing up in the scan, though. It's also possible that the book has back cover defects or a loose centerfold, etc. 

Well, hopefully some of these books will finally be coming out once Heritage is all done with the Promise Collection, but I somehow I still doubt it as it's already been over 20+ years and they still haven't hit the marketplace yet.      

 

On 7/10/2022 at 3:59 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

I'm with you on valuing the eye appeal of a book over the grade, but the latter seems to be the primary driver of the price, so some collectors clearly feel differently.

Like you said, since I value eye appeal over the technical grade, this suits my pocket book just fine.  

[jimbo_7071]

On 7/10/2022 at 12:45 PM, lou_fine said:

Well, hopefully some of these books will finally be coming out once Heritage is all done with the Promise Collection, but I somehow I still doubt it as it's already been over 20+ years and they still haven't hit the marketplace yet.

Some of what books? I don't know what copy that is.

[lou_fine]

On 7/10/2022 at 12:24 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Some of what books? I don't know what copy that is.

The Chinatown pedigree copy:  

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/8508/