Church/MH Superman 1 record sale in January 7 7

[MyNameIsLegion]

I"m waiting for CGC to move the goal post and not just allow minor color touches, but to actually charge to make them for you as part of the guarantee not to get a PLOD.

[MrBedrock]

On 4/15/2022 at 9:22 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

 Everything. Period. 

Final answer?

[rob_react]

I'm going to start ignoring the weird skepticism of this sale. As I pointed out the vast majority of the record sales in the history of the hobby have been private sales. The idea that this famous, beautiful book (which held the record once before, mind you) is somehow part of some elaborate and weird fraud because it wasn't sold at auction is super strange and I'm just going to ignore it going forward. I will continue to discuss the book and the sale however because it's fun to do so 

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 4/15/2022 at 10:39 AM, MrBedrock said:

Final answer?

[G.A.tor]

On 4/15/2022 at 11:45 AM, rob_react said:

I'm going to start ignoring the weird skepticism of this sale. As I pointed out the vast majority of the record sales in the history of the hobby have been private sales. The idea that this famous, beautiful book (which held the record once before, mind you) is somehow part of some elaborate and weird fraud because it wasn't sold at auction is super strange and I'm just going to ignore it going forward. I will continue to discuss the book and the sale however because it's fun to do so 

I typically only engage because I’m curious why folks think that way. Sale is 100% legit so if someone questions that’s on them. But my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes

[LDarkseid1]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:45 AM, rob_react said:

I'm going to start ignoring the weird skepticism of this sale. As I pointed out the vast majority of the record sales in the history of the hobby have been private sales. The idea that this famous, beautiful book (which held the record once before, mind you) is somehow part of some elaborate and weird fraud because it wasn't sold at auction is super strange and I'm just going to ignore it going forward. I will continue to discuss the book and the sale however because it's fun to do so 

Now a days, it's much more chic to buy into conspiracies then what's known. It's the new new lol.

[batman_fan]

Wondering if anyone remembers many years ago (late 1980s) a big scandal tied to a Marvel Comics 1.  I think it was a story in an issue of the CBG.  If I remember correctly a Marvel Comics 1 was sold to a group of investors.  The book was restored which I thought wasn’t disclosed.  Anyone with a better memory than me know of the story?

[VintageComics]

On 4/14/2022 at 10:56 PM, Gotham Kid said:

That logo was modified after auctions were added. Comiclink has been around since 96. Their auctions haven't. Their auctions have been around just over a decade. 

[VintageComics]

On 4/15/2022 at 10:48 AM, szav said:

Roy as the center and actual subject of the conspiracy theory ,,,, he must be thrilled.

Why am I not surprised.

 

[VintageComics]

Just to be clear, I brokered the deal, made it happen and nothing more. 

People read into things way too much and the internet loves a good soap opera but there isn't one here. 

 

[PGEAR12]

On 4/13/2022 at 10:07 PM, szav said:

I don't see how inviting scrutiny, by government/an IRS auditor, or anyone, of the money involved and by publicly stating something other than what gets reported on the relevant tax forms is advantageous for the seller, or why he would participate in the fraud.  I guess its possible people who aren't very bright were behind all this. but it just doesn't seem likely.  Or maybe there are ways to bury the real information and this sort of proposed scheme has some benefit I'm not seeing.

What future sales are they maximizing, the dozens of other Superman #1s they have?  I love a good conspiracy theory, but maybe it just took this long for CGC to put it on the front page  because they did their due diligence in verifying it was a real sale and that took time?

 

Any one know the sales history of this particular book? Haven't been able to find it online, but admittedly, haven't looked too hard.

[Primetime]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:03 AM, G.A.tor said:

I guess a couple of points (and these are generic questions/points, not necessarily directed just to you)..1)why do you feel need the need to have the sale proved to you?...were you involved? do you have first hand interest? does this sale somehow affect you or deals are you involved in?...if so, and you have (or anyone) has a legal right to know the details,  they can be provided if a judge orders

2)what bothers you the most? sale price? or public notice of the sale 3 months after it happened (just curious)?

how about this hypothetical :

maybe the seller had a net price in mind he would be willing to sell the book for....maybe (hypothetically) the price was, say $4 million...maybe (hypothetically), an accountant calculated that the tax owed on such a sale, would be 1.3 million...so maybe (hypothetically), and agreed upon price of 5.3 million is what it would take for the seller (well known who it is) to accept the buyers offer (say its all cash)... or maybe it is the 90 days after the rumor/report of the sale that bothers some...now maybe the buyer, between the contracts and legal documents, wanted/needed 90 days to make said price payment in full....you certainly wouldn't announce completion of a sale until such a time, right? or maybe the seller wanted a retract clause, that would allow termination of the sale for any reason, say, within 90 day period?...and there are other reasons to delay announcing, but thats NONE of my business...who knows, this is all hypothetical, but certainly might explain both the price and timing?... I have no clue, just thinking outloud

Sounds like you have previous experience with high dollar transactions and vintage comics? 

[rob_react]

On 4/15/2022 at 1:37 PM, PGEAR12 said:

Any one know the sales history of this particular book? Haven't been able to find it online, but admittedly, haven't looked too hard.

Redbeard's Book Den sold the book in a private sale for $170,000 in 1996. Private, but super public since the sale was on CNN and there's a photo of the two of them with the book out there somewhere. I don't remember where the book was in the 80s and 90s. Someone will know.

[MrBedrock]

On 4/15/2022 at 10:53 AM, G.A.tor said:

I typically only engage because I’m curious why folks think that way. Sale is 100% legit so if someone questions that’s on them. But my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes

I agree with Gator.

[Primetime]

On 4/15/2022 at 11:24 AM, MrBedrock said:

I agree with Gator.

Tall Texan truth 

[woowoo]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:39 AM, MrBedrock said:

Final answer?

[Robot Man]

On 4/15/2022 at 11:11 AM, rob_react said:

Redbeard's Book Den sold the book in a private sale for $170,000 in 1996. Private, but super public since the sale was on CNN and there's a photo of the two of them with the book out there somewhere. I don't remember where the book was in the 80s and 90s. Someone will know.

I spoke to Ron yesterday. That apparently is not what he told me. Let’s just say there was something else in the deal. By they way, not only was he unaware of the sale, he was unaware of any color touch. His response when I told him was “Why? It is such a beautiful book”.

It would be great if he came on here. But, he has moved on and I respect that.

I will leave this to you experts. Frankly, none of us will ever own it, nor reap any financial gain from it. We are all just kids looking in the candy store window.

Now, I will just slink back to the baby pool and just enjoy my carp…

[sfcityduck]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:25 AM, rob_react said:

Information on the buyer in the 1990s  didn't have to come from Redbeard. That sale was on CNN. My mother called me to talk about it since she had met him a few times. I did some work for him in the 1990s. She called me and said, do you know anything about this? Your friend was on CNN. 

So it was generally from Redbeard's MH stash to Bechara Maalouf (who we all knew owned the book) to the Canadian buyer (who is not Roy, its his client).  And, per Rob's relaying of Redbeard's cryptic comment maybe there was an intermediary owner or flipper between Redbeard and Bechara or Bechara had a partner at one point (or maybe it was just that the price included some OA as trade) - which is pretty much irrelevant to the present circumstances.  So what is the mystery again?

Edited April 15, 2022 by sfcityduck

[sfcityduck]

On 4/15/2022 at 11:41 AM, Robot Man said:

 

I will leave this to you experts. Frankly, none of us will ever own it, nor reap any financial gain from it. We are all just kids looking in the candy store window.

 

The reason why those of us in the shallow end of the pool should care about the price increases on the deep end is that they tend to "trickle down" to the shallow end of the pool.  Deep end results, especially the mega keys such as Action 1 etc. can sometimes drag the whole market upward, not just for those books.  So its good to know if they are legit.  Which this certainly appears to be!

Maybe a bigger issue on that front is the Promise Collection results.  They are going to have an impact on what sellers and dealers want to get for their lesser graded examples of books that sold out of the Promise Collection for exorbitant prices.  Because the Promise Collection is so large, those results effect a very wide swath of books.  It will be interesting to see how identically graded non-Promise books do compared to the Promise results.  Will we see comparable results, or will there be a "Promise bump up"?  I will be interesting to see if Promise Books maintain or increase their prices on resell.  It will be interesting to see if the Promise results have a long term effect on pricing of much lesser graded books.  Only time will tell. 

Edited April 15, 2022 by sfcityduck

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 4/15/2022 at 2:00 PM, sfcityduck said:

The reason why those of us in the shallow end of the pool should care about the price increases on the deep end is that they tend to "trickle down" to the shallow end of the pool.  Deep end results, especially the mega keys such as Action 1 etc. can sometimes drag the whole market upward, not just for those books.  So its good to know if they are legit.  Which this certainly appears to be!

Maybe a bigger issue on that front is the Promise Collection results.  They are going to have an impact on what sellers and dealers want to get for their lesser graded examples of books that sold out of the Promise Collection for exorbitant prices.  Because the Promise Collection is so large, those results effect a very wide swath of books.  It will be interesting to see how identically graded non-Promise books do compared to the Promise results.  Will we see comparable results, or will there be a "Promise bump up"?  I will be interesting to see if Promise Books maintain or increase their prices on resell.  It will be interesting to see if the Promise results have a long term effect on pricing of much lesser graded books.  Only time will tell. 

This is all very rationale and logical…..you sir need to leave….