Attempting to collect DC Showcase 1-104 in 9.0 or better! 7 7

[FloridianDemon]

On 4/25/2024 at 11:11 AM, Chiparus said:

Hi FD,

Nice pick up. One more checked off the list. Are you updating your set list? Would like to see how your getting on overall. 

I had a good go at the #5 on Heritage recently but lost out. Shame, I really thought I would get it. That one hurt. 

Good point! I will update it with these new additions shortly. Yeah the low numbered issues are gonna be a pain for me lmao. getting there though! Comiclink has two big ones I need next month

[FloridianDemon]

Another comic link win! FINALLY got this pesky one down. Still mad when ebay froze on me and I couldn't bid on this last year lmao thankfully I got for the same price!

[Silver Surfer]

On 1/13/2024 at 7:54 PM, tth2 said:

As I said in that thread, the sad fact is that there are a lot of well-heeled SA collectors who will simply never touch a DC, no matter how cool or historically important that DC might be.

I thought this one would have been an exception. The buyer must be extremely happy. 

[adamstrange]

On 1/13/2024 at 10:54 PM, tth2 said:

As I said in that thread, the sad fact is that there are a lot of well-heeled SA collectors who will simply never touch a DC, no matter how cool or historically important that DC might be.

The sadder fact is that there were just enough well-heeled SA collectors who wanted DC to block my progress.

[tth2]

On 5/10/2024 at 1:34 PM, adamstrange said:

On 1/14/2024 at 11:54 AM, tth2 said:

As I said in that thread, the sad fact is that there are a lot of well-heeled SA collectors who will simply never touch a DC, no matter how cool or historically important that DC might be.

The sadder fact is that there were just enough well-heeled SA collectors who wanted DC to block my progress.

[FloridianDemon]

Comiclink has some BIG books I need at auction rn. RIP my wallet

[Silver]

On 5/9/2024 at 10:34 PM, adamstrange said:

The sadder fact is that there were just enough well-heeled SA collectors who wanted DC to block my progress.

I thought you were one of those collectors 

[adamstrange]

On 5/20/2024 at 12:34 AM, Silver said:

On 5/10/2024 at 1:34 AM, adamstrange said:

The sadder fact is that there were just enough well-heeled SA collectors who wanted DC to block my progress.

I thought you were one of those collectors 

I'm just a heel.

[Chiparus]

Looks like Ronnylama has put his Showcase set up on Comiclink to start next week. 

Some lovely books. Might try for a couple upgrades. Plenty for you to try on FD.......

Lost out on #41 a couple days back. Gutted. 

Edited May 31 by Chiparus

[FloridianDemon]

On 5/31/2024 at 9:05 AM, Chiparus said:

Looks like Ronnylama has put his Showcase set up on Comiclink to start next week. 

Some lovely books. Might try for a couple upgrades. Plenty for you to try on FD.......

Lost out on #41 a couple days back. Gutted. 

I noticed man! I have some money saved for it, so if I cant win I will do some damage!

[FloridianDemon]

On 5/31/2024 at 9:05 AM, Chiparus said:

Looks like Ronnylama has put his Showcase set up on Comiclink to start next week. 

Some lovely books. Might try for a couple upgrades. Plenty for you to try on FD.......

Lost out on #41 a couple days back. Gutted. 

Im realizing how many 9.0+ books there are in this auction starting to today! its kinda hard for me to choose which to get!

[MAY1979]

IMHO go for the pre 1960 issues as on some of them the chance may not come again for a decade.

[FloridianDemon]

On 6/10/2024 at 8:27 AM, MAR1979 said:

IMHO go for the pre 1960 issues as on some of them the chance may not come again for a decade.

Took your advice, bidding on the lower numbered ones

[Mississippi Mudcats]

On 9/26/2023 at 2:16 PM, Chiparus said:

These are the other two WP books discussed:

Hi Guys, I just saw your discussion on the Showcase Western Penns that I am fortunate enough to now own. It took me about a year to negotiate their purchase in a private deal. The previous owner had owned them all for over a decade I believe-at least that Is what I was told. They were their current grades when I purchased them. I think they are gorgeous books, especially the #34, which is one of my favorite covers. 

The Slobodian book has been a topic of discussion for some time. I do believe the reported sale on GPA of over $200k is a fake and said so in my registry set. Doug had it listed for sale for years, but I do not believe he was ever the owner. At the time, he told me the guy who did own it  was kind of crazy and wanted $45k for the book. I think that would be a decent price today, it was not then. It has also been listed for sale at over $200k on CL and CC. 

I do question where the reported sale came from? I am not  sure what my book is worth, but I think it’s probably considerably less than $100k, which makes the listing of the 9.4 for over $200k just absurd. 

I do like the Showcase run quite a bit, but I am not sure we will ever try to complete it as money is limited and we collect too many titles. But if anyone comes across a nice Issue #39 in 9.0 or above, we (my son and I) would very much like to upgrade our #39 8.5. I have not seen one for sale since we started our Metal Men set. 

[Mississippi Mudcats]

On 1/13/2024 at 9:33 AM, DanCooper said:

As impressive as the final number for this Showcase 4 CGC 9.6 was, rumblings over in the Heritage thread in the Golden Age forum, alluding to it may have been sold privately over the past year for $1.5 million!

If so, that would amount to a MASSIVE $750,000 LOSS! Considering Heritage gets 20% from the buyer side ($150,000 minus from the $900K) AND the seller didn't get hit with a commission from Heritage also.

It did. I have never owned the book, I have a 9.2, which I have owned for over a decade. I still regret trading my 8.0 Nick Cage copy for $25k to buy that one. 

The long-time owner who bought the book for $179k got I believe  around $1.3 million for the book. So the sales price could have been around $1.5 million. 

The same owner also owned the B&B #28 9.6 and sold it during the year. In that case, I believe the SP was $650,000. So the new owner probably lost about $500k on the two books. Per Heritage, the same guy owned all the keys in that Auction and was rich enough that he could have lost $10 million on them  and never felt a thing-must be nice LOL. I think in total he lost about a million. The prices were better than Heritage expected. 

BTW, Heritage only gets 10%, they calculate the amount due the seller as 108% of the hammer price. 

[Mississippi Mudcats]

On 9/26/2023 at 9:17 AM, Chiparus said:

$30k at best???

I think it’s probably worth  more than that, maybe $40-45k. Hell, who knows, with the price fluctuations we have seen since COVID, I’m  reluctant to value any book. 

 

On 9/26/2023 at 10:15 AM, tth2 said:

That is indeed a fantastic set!

Upgraded from its previous 9.4 slab.  I shouldn't be shocked, but I still am because it wasn't a 9.6, in my opinion, even with a press.  I had a chance to buy the WP copy but determined it was not as good as the Slobodian copy, although it was a tough decision because I ended up buying the WP Showcase 35 & 36 from the same seller and hated breaking up the WP set.  

Interesting, not sure that I agree, but in my case the WP was already a 9.6 when I got it. Sounds like you have owned some great books. I assume you owned the WP #35 and  #36 over a decade ago? 

You don’t happen to have a high-grade Showcase #39?

[Mississippi Mudcats]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:21 AM, tth2 said:

That's funny because it was owned by another Tom (not Brulato) for a long time.

Interesting, I never knew Brulato ever slummed enough to buy any DCs. I would love to see his books registered, what would he have 30-40 million registry points?  It would just be fun to see all the pics. 

[DanCooper]

On 6/15/2024 at 2:20 AM, Mississippi Mudcats said:

I do like the Showcase run quite a bit

GREAT to see you posting here Mississippi Mudcats (Tom?)!

Is your Showcase Registry set still up for viewing or is it being updated? (maybe I'm doing something wrong in viewing the Registry). Phenomenal set when I did see it prior in the Registry!

I'm sure a Showcase 39 in 9.0+ will surface soon. Seven copies on the Census in 9.0 - 9.4 range. Definitely looks harder to find issue than the other Showcase Metal Men, especially when compared to the prior Showcase 38 MM issue, which has a whopping 46 copies in 9.0+ plus three in 9.8! Must have been some kind of warehouse find.

[Mississippi Mudcats]

On 6/15/2024 at 9:32 AM, DanCooper said:

GREAT to see you posting here Mississippi Mudcats (Tom?)!

Is your Showcase Registry set still up for viewing or is it being updated? (maybe I'm doing something wrong in viewing the Registry). Phenomenal set when I did see it prior in the Registry!

I'm sure a Showcase 39 in 9.0+ will surface soon. Seven copies on the Census in 9.0 - 9.4 range. Definitely looks harder to find issue than the other Showcase Metal Men, especially when compared to the prior Showcase 38 MM issue, which has a whopping 46 copies in 9.0+ plus three in 9.8! Must have been some kind of warehouse find.

Hi, thanks for the kind comments and it is Tom. We always go through the annual debates on whether to make our sets public or not. I have some collecting friends who think we are nuts to display them, while my son would probably like to display them on a website or Facebook or something like that. Personally I’m not even on Facebook, but I guess it has become another alternative marketplace. At any rate, we have debated delisting all our books as you kind of feel stupid when the fact that you may have overpaid for a book is disclosed to the world. I feel like that was suggested a little in this thread on our Showcases  #34-36 and that may be right, but I can promise you we paid nowhere close to six figures for the set. But then again they might have been cheaper at auction, who knows? 

Our Showcase sets are for the most part just our books that fit into other sets. We do have a nice run between #30-40 and have debated trying to acquire more through the years, but currently there are far more books on the market that we already collect than we can afford. 

Please don’t remind me of the #38 9.8s. I think we acquired ours when it was single highest graded and paid a good bit more than they are now worth with three 9.8s in the census, which is strange considering there is just one #37 9.4. 

We are working, the “we” being mostly “me” LOL, to update our registry sets this month and some are already public. I must say though, this could be the last time we do this, as getting them right is very time consuming. I was also disappointed that CGC did not make any changes to scoring this year, as I was hoping they would introduce some kind of percentage of completion component in scoring sets. I always feel badly when we get banners for sets that have only a few books in them and have debated just leaving them obscured. That may be why our Showcases are obscured, I will have to check if they are updated. 

The whole scoring system is kind of a mess in my mind, as I am not sure what exactly the points even mean? if they are supposed to reflect values then they often are not even close. It seems to me that CGC updates the points frequently for high population issues that trade regularly, but the rare books that never trade are usually significantly undervalued. And without some percentage of completion component, one big book can outscore a complete set of high-grade books. For instance, the Showcase #4 9.6  discussed in this thread is worth more registry points than our 251 book Flash set where every book but our Showcase #4 9.2 is at least second highest graded. It’s all kind of screwy to me, what exactly are we trying to measure? 

The discussion on the Showcase #4 9.6 still stings as we had numerous chances to acquire that book, but just could not afford it. Well I guess could not afford it is not exactly right, if we had crashed most of our collection we might have gotten there, but we certainly never had that kind of cash laying around. I guess that’s the big difference between collectors and investors, we are always trying to put sets together rather than buying a few big books that we send to vaults. Those guys have been great for pushing values up, but they do squeeze collectors like us out. Hell, I just watched the King of Collectibles this week and questioned why we even do what we do we are so outgunned. 

It sounds like CGC may be doing away with the plaques this year? Personally, I would much prefer them to some cheap banner. Perhaps they are keeping the plaques for the annual awards and giving banners to the top set in each title? Otherwise, it seems like they are removing the best part of the awards. 

If anybody does come across a nice Showcase #39 we would be very interested. We have the Twin Cities copy, but it’s just an 8.5 and 2-3 steps below the rest of our Metal Men, which is an absolute bear of a set to finish. We would obviously be willing to trade our book and cash or do an all-cash deal. We may not be able to afford a Showcase #4 9.6, but I think we can get there on any Showcase #39 LOL. 
 

Thanks again for your kind comments. 

[tth2]

On 6/15/2024 at 2:20 PM, Mississippi Mudcats said:

Hi Guys, I just saw your discussion on the Showcase Western Penns that I am fortunate enough to now own. It took me about a year to negotiate their purchase in a private deal. The previous owner had owned them all for over a decade I believe-at least that Is what I was told.

I can help fill in some of the chain of ownership on these books.

I bought the WP Showcase 35 & 36 in 2004 directly from Tom Hanlin/Linmoth, who is the guy who slabbed them after having bought them directly from the OO (I think).  They were originally 9.6 OW-W and 9.6 OW, respectively, in old label slabs.

I sold them in the same slabs in May 2007 on Heritage.  It turns out I knew the collector who ended up buying them, so when a big SA collector told me he was looking for them, I was able to help broker a deal in 2009 (still in the same slabs).  The funny thing is that this collector was the same collector who had sold me a big run of Western Penn Flash back in early 2003 (yes, it can be a very incestuous hobby at times).

I unfortunately fell out of touch with this collector, but apparently at some point he sold them to a couple of other collectors who starting from 2009 began sweeping up just about every ultra-HG mega-key SA DC they could get their hands on.  For all I know, the collector I brokered the deal with was himself brokering a deal for these other collectors!  Then 4 or 5 years ago those collectors started shopping their collection around.  Whether they were the sellers to you, or there was one or more intermediate purchasers in between, I don't know.  And clearly the books were reslabbed and regraded at some point after 2009.