Showcase auction books

[drbanner]

A friend of mine picked up 2 big lots of 70's Marvels from Showcase New England's recent auctions...listed as 9.4/9.6 "with a few 9.8's". Anyhow, without further adieu, I quote some of his comments on the books:

 

"foxing, rusty staples- and I mean really badly corroded, like they have been sitting in water -, yellow spots and some light oxidizing on the interior page edges, odd ones have one inch corner creases, spine pulls, corner impacts"

 

"at least one black covered issue has been colour-touched, and pretty crudely at that."

 

"utterly defaced by ink, where it has slopped onto the covers and you can see that the comics have been stuck together" (he's talking about distributor's ink, which this collector hates, but I don't mind if it doesn't overspray onto the cover)

 

"Some of the polythene bags some of them are in are litterally dull with fungus residue or dust."

 

Ouch!!

 

Wonder if Jgreen is happy?

[musicmeta]

I hope your friend is sending these back for a full refund.

[drbanner]

Yep...not a happy camper as he lives in the UK and shipping is a killer...

[BronzeBruce13]

I've heard several on this board say they were happy with SNE's grading and also mentioned they've heard the same. My experience, and those of many I've spoken with who have bought from them is quite the opposite a good percentage of the time. I'm not surprised... It "may" be why Susan Barret is unloading a bronze lot acquired from them as well. She states that they were books graded NM+ by SNE, but does not mention if she agrees or not... I figure she does not.

[Foolkiller]

my experience buying books from SNE has not been good... for the most part they are badly over graded, sometimes more than a full point. However, like anything, I've also heard mixed reports about the grading and some people who are satisfied. I've bought maybe 15 books or so and stopped after that because it was so inaccurately graded I couldn't contiue buying from SNE. I find the grading to be unreliable, and the primary thing i ask for is consistency (even if you over grade somewhat, if you do the same for every book, at least you know what to expect, then the issue becomes pricing. to me grading is really only a gage for pricing. I don't want to overpay. Obviously, if I buy a NM book I want one in that condition, but if I happen to get a VF and paid VF price, then at least it was a total rip off).

[drbanner]

Yep, I've read the reviews here people have given them too.

 

I get the impression (and it's pretty obvious from his comments) that these books had been stored in a humid environment (regardless of Dan's claim they were kept in a "humidity controlled environment"), resulting in the books getting that "stiff" feel, in addition to the foxing and rusty staples. I've purchased books from them in the past, and felt, on average they were overgraded by maybe a grade step or two, with maybe some at or slightly above the stated grade range. In one case the books did have signs of moisture exposure.

 

He's sold so many near-complete runs that I wonder if he simply has a humongous supply of silver/bronze marvels (re: rumor of a "Large East Coast Dealer" w/a long box of AF 15's?), or was this collection recently acquired? It seems every few months he's auctioning "A near complete run of Marvels, the largest complete run ever offered on ebay", or something to that effect.

 

I'd be curious to hear what some of the forum members that actually won any of these books (and I know you're out there!) think?

[Crackandpresstoan11]

I mentioned in another thread a few weeks ago that one of these full Marvel runs he auctioned off a few years (2 maybe?) ago was the real deal. All of the books were shipped in those old Robert Bell bags. These books looked brand new... even the poybags looked new which I thought was weird since anybody who has seen 25 year old polybags will tell you that they degrade pretty badly.

[Foolkiller]

see... that's the thing. I know that there have been people that have gotten books from him stating that they've been happy with the books, they're true NMs etc. Unfortunately, what I find to the problem, as I said, is that far too often the he says these are spectacular books, and they're fairly disappointing and really over graded. A few years ago I sent the company an email saying that i was disappointed with the grading and felt they over graded on some books I purchased and although a refund was given, whoever sent the reply was highly offended and gave me a run down of their extensive history with such a solid reputation. I just stopped buying from them after that. It's like they're the only ones in town, and there's plenty of other really solid dealers out there who are consistent graders.

[joe_collector]

>>"foxing, rusty staples- and I mean really badly corroded, like they have been sitting in water -, yellow spots and some light oxidizing on the interior page edges, odd ones have one inch corner creases, spine pulls, corner impacts"

 

Thanks for posting this, and if you remember back to the original jgreen thread, I couldn't believe anyone could see those scans and think they were 9.4/9.6 comics. Granted, your comments above are worse than even I imagined, but the books looked like VF at best and most around F to F/VF.

 

In the MTIO 1-X lot, you could see creases, tattered edges and other damage, but still people (jgreen mostly) bid these up to astronomical levels, based on the descriptive text alone.

 

Unbelieveable.

[drbanner]

Yep, and it's a shame. This particular collector is about the pickiest/strictest grader I know (which is much different from the most accurate grader!), but there's not much room for exaggeration in "rusty staples" or "one inch crease".

[BronzeBruce13]

It shows the value of using "Overstreet Advisor" as a selling point perhaps. I didn't even look to see if they used it in this round of offerings, but remember it being promoted in their past auctions. I have to think that it may influence some buyers in terms of trusting the grading.

 

Being a big outfit with at least a mixed grading rep seems to do the trick also. Don't they by and large receive higher than normal sales on nearly all of their raw offerings?

[OldGuy]

I won two lots from them about three months apart (last year). The first lot were three SA X-Men and they were graded perfectly (all 8.5). The next lot were five SA FF books. The grading on those was terrible, anywhere from half to 1.5 points off. One book had amateur resto and another had tape removed. The staples on all five were rusted. Needless to say I've not done business with them again.

[Polyphemus]

I've bought a half dozen or so books from them. My experience is they really differ by the collection they are selling. I bought 20-50 Submariners and not only were they all graded correctly, they screwed up and put many doubles in there that weren't listed. I think when they are listing bulk runs, they don't pay as much attention as when it is a 1 or 2 book auction.

 

On the other hand, I've bought auctions that didn't discloes date stamps or other such imperfections.

 

I always keep track of there auction but I try to measure the collection's original owner by looking at the collection overall, if there are any CGC books mixed in, and what era they are from as his Bronze if usually better than his Silver grading.

[clobberintime]

I hope Mr.Green didn't get any of those! If he did, he surely overpaid for overgraded Manthings and Godzillas. I thinkSNEs problem is that he does not thoroughly look at the books prior to grading. Does it like a drive by real estate appraisor.

[Rickdogg]

If I ever bid on raw books from SNE...I bid as if they are 7.0-7.5's since their books are most likely overgraded. Thank GOD!

[drbanner]

Well, that's certainly one strategy, although from what I can tell the winning strategy is to bid as if they're CGC-graded 9.6's and 9.8's!!

[Bugaboo-migration]

Well, that's certainly one strategy, although from what I can tell the winning strategy is to bid as if they're CGC-graded 9.6's and 9.8's!!

Yeah......butt only if you got a lot of Greene.

 

Hardy har har.

 

::: crickets chirping :::

 

hello?

 

hellooo?

[garthgantu]

I've purchased maybe 20 books from SNE, usually in lots of 3-6 comics. I've been pleased with all, but have to say that these were mid-grade books, such as 5 or 6 Barks 4-colors all in about VG. SNE's method of selling is odd to me.

 

In trolling the message boards at eBay for the past couple of years, I've seen far more negative references to SNE than positive ones.

[Hensley300]

I bought a run of Bronze X-men from them, I think issues 107,109-like 115. Then I bought some modern Spider-man from 290-301. Both lots were sold as NM+ to NM/MT 9.6/9.8. I had some graded by cgc and I graded some myself. Both came out about the same. CGC graded most of their books at 8.5 to 9.2. I gave mine the same grade. I won't be doing biz with SCNE again for ungraded bronze and modern books.