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GL 76 -- HG Prices Still Going Up

Started by Foolkiller,

2,418 posts in this topic

Zonker

Zonker

Posted
Posted
181 has thousands of copies out there in HG. Most from the warehouse. GL 76 was a dying title on its last legs with a hail mary creative switch. And it has generally been accepted here that GL/GA success only affected printr runs starting with #79/80 when the snail mail sales returns told a surprised DC they had a hit, and collectors/fans began amassing copies.

 

Actually I doubt DC altered their print runs upward over the life of the O'Neil-Adams run, but at this point, who really knows? Instead, I think what changed was that as of #77, then-current fandom was on notice of the new direction, and Neal Adams collectors made sure to start hoarding subsequent issues by hook (off the newstand) or by crook (off the truck, or out the back door). Reading Beerbohm's recollections in this very thread, as well as the relative paucity of then-current in-house hype for the #76 new direction, leads me to think #76 just flew in under the radar with collectors in 1970.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think #77 commands much of a premium compared to #78-#84. If the scarcity was due to a low print run later adjusted upward, you would think there would be a different valuation pattern. Instead, I'm betting the same number of copies were printed of #76, but it just wasn't hoarded sufficiently at the time to have survived in mass quantities of high grade today.

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Aman619

Aman619

Posted
Posted

I dont have the facts, but I recall our discussions as keeping 77 as "scarcer" than the subsequent issues, meaning 76 slipped under the radar and 77 did to a lesser degree (in terms of saving/doubling up)

 

as for print runs, again, I dont have the facts, maybe going from bimonthly to 8x a year was the bump up DC gave its hit book. But if so Id think theyd order a few more too.

 

or am I remembering Beerbohm saying that many copies were siphoned off the distrib system before reaching newsstands? So DC got misleading signals back.

 

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Zonker

Zonker

Posted
Posted

Publication frequency actually went the other way. The 1970 issues (incl. 76) were published 8 times a year, while the 1971 and 1972 issues were bi-monthly. Seems we have a couple of theories about this

 

1- Infantino has always maintained that despite the publicity the series received (especially the drug issues 85 & 86) sales were poor and so the book was cancelled.

 

2- The revisionist theory proposed by Neal Adams (quoted and to some extent endorsed by the Beerbohm article) is that the publishers had no way to know what was actually selling due to affadavit fraud. And on top of that, it was the fan-favorite books that were hoarded outside the official (legal!) distribution channels, but reported as unsold/destroyed, and so you had the perverse outcome of the collector-favorite titles being highjacked and never reaching the spinner racks and those books being cancelled due to "poor sales." :frustrated:

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mrlatko

mrlatko

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Amazing result for that old label 76 at 9.2 OW. Very tempting to put my perfectly centered white paged CGC 9.2 into an auction, but this thing shows no signs of slowing its roll. I have a probable 9.0 at CGC now, that one is definitely going to auction if it doesn't sell to a boardie here first.

 

Can you guys think of other books to compare this to as far as the crazy high grade money increases over a few years time for a bronze age book? Is this the DC equivalent of Hulk #181 now as far as popularity goes? Sure seems that way to me.

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tth2

tth2

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Posted

There really IS no comparison, to ANY book from ANY era. There is not another book with 19 9.4 or better copies in the Census that can still command $18K in 9.4.

 

And while that number of copies in the Census doesn't exist for any SA or GA mega-key, I almost wonder if many of them would go for that much in that kind of quantity. I mean, suppose someone came out with a warehouse find of AF 15, FF 1, ASM 1, Showcase 4, Hulk 1, B&B 28, JIM 83 or X-Men 1 tomorrow, and suddenly the Census for those books matched GL 76's (43 copies in 9.0, 31 in 9.2, 18 in 9.4 and 1 in 9.6). Would their 9.0s sell for as much as a 9.0 GL 76? 9.2? 9.4?

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Bronty

Bronty

Posted
Posted
There really IS no comparison, to ANY book from ANY era. There is not another book with 19 9.4 or better copies in the Census that can still command $18K in 9.4.

 

And while that number of copies in the Census doesn't exist for any SA or GA mega-key, I almost wonder if many of them would go for that much in that kind of quantity. I mean, suppose someone came out with a warehouse find of AF 15, FF 1, ASM 1, Showcase 4, Hulk 1, B&B 28, JIM 83 or X-Men 1 tomorrow, and suddenly the Census for those books matched GL 76's (43 copies in 9.0, 31 in 9.2, 18 in 9.4 and 1 in 9.6). Would their 9.0s sell for as much as a 9.0 GL 76? 9.2? 9.4?

 

Tim, IMHO if you had a warehouse find of AF15's they would absolutely still be more than 18k in 9.4. The potential bidder pool would be so much deeper and there are so many people who would love to have one and could afford 20k but not 300k

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mrlatko

mrlatko

Posted
Posted

By comparing GL 76 to Hulk 181, I only meant in the way they both had a huge and sustained price and demand increase over a short period of years and became mega-keys of the bronze age after rising from relative obscurity. Hulk 181 has been THE Marvel bronze book for a while now, and it looks to me that GL 76 now has that title on the DC side.

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kimik

kimik

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No worries, I was just saying that to try to draw in a few lurkers who like debating things on this thread from time to time (is JC banned?). I would agree with you that it is the Hulk #181 equivalent for BA DCs as it is the book that collectors need to have.

 

It will be interesting to see if the movie hype can drive 9.4s into the $25K price range, AND what the trickled down will be in lower grades. :wishluck:

 

 

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paperheart

paperheart

Posted
Posted
Looks like another 9.4 white just sold. Listed as sale pending on CLink for $15k.

 

http://www.comiclink.com/itemdetail.asp?back=%2Fsection%2Easp%3Fid%3D1052%26f1%3Di%2ELastUpdate%26ODire1%3DDESC&id=813224

 

just saw that. was that the same book that was listed for $10k and then pulled when the $18k sale happened? forget it- i checked, that one is still listed at $17,500.

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