Canadian edition Church Copy???

[Theagenes]

This was listed for a day in last week's Amazing auction as the Church copy, then pulled immediately. It has been relisted this week as a Canadian edition, but still the Church copy.

 

Buck Rogers 100

 

Does this make any sense to anybody? How did Edgar in Colorado get ahold of a Canadian copy? Does anyone know of any other Canadian Church copies? For the record, I have the Church copy of #101 (also from the McGlaughlin collection) and it's the regular Toby version. So what gives?

[jimm94]

It is no longer listed as a Church copy. The description currently states: "Based on this copy's provenance and the excellent page quality, we suspect this may be a pedigree copy!"

[Theagenes]

It is no longer listed as a Church copy. The description currently states: "Based on this copy's provenance and the excellent page quality, we suspect this may be a pedigree copy!"

 

Man, they sure are back-peddling in a hurry on this one. I think I'll steer clear of this one.

[esquirecomics]

This is unfortunately becoming a pattern for Heritage, and one I do not particularly find encouraging confidence.

[whomerjay]

It is no longer listed as a Church copy. The description currently states: "Based on this copy's provenance and the excellent page quality, we suspect this may be a pedigree copy!"

 

pretty lame

[Theagenes]

It's funny, I got kind of excited when I first saw it listed last week. I would love have the Church 100 and 101. But then when it got pulled after a day, the first thing that crossed my mind was "Great, it'll probably show up in the January Signature auction as a CGC 9.2"

[Theagenes]

 

The Saga of the Canadian "Church copy" continues. The Heritage auction with this book ended on Nov. 5, with a final price of $59.75 including buyer's premium.

 

Heritage auction link

 

I decided not to bid on it, though I was tempted. I need this issue for the Buck Rogers run I'm working on and I figured even if it's a non-pedigree Canadian edition it would still make a nice filler for the time being. But there was just too much weirdness about this auction for me so I passed. I had forgotten about it until a little over a week ago when I saw it listed on eBay with Heritage as the seller:

 

eBay auction

 

Naturally, I started tracking it, but after three days the auction was ended with no bids. Again with the weirdness! If nothing else I think this clearly shows that Heritage bids on its own auctions, and NOT just Heritage employees bidding for their personal collections. No, let me rephrase that - Heritage SHILL bids on their own auctions. Period.

 

Anyway, a few days later it pops back up again on eBay. This time I said *spoon* it, I'm going to just buy the damn thing and be done with it. So I put in a lowball snipe and won it this morning.

 

NEW eBay auction

 

I figure it's worth $25 just so this damn book isn't haunting me anymore. So now I have a cheap filler copy for my run and who knows, maybe ol' Edgar picked this up back in 1951 while he was vacationing in Canada.

[rob_allan]

I'm confused. So do we think they bid on their own auction or is it possible someone didn't pay up?

 

I'm not saying I doubt they bid on their own books. I just wonder if there's other indication of this with other books.

 

This is very interesting indeed.

 

Regardless, congratulations on your win.

[Theagenes]

I'm confused. So do we think they bid on their own auction or is it possible someone didn't pay up?

 

I'm not saying I doubt they bid on their own books. I just wonder if there's other indication of this with other books.

 

This is very interesting indeed.

 

Regardless, congratulations on your win.

 

Well, that's a good point. It's possible it was a non-paying bidder I suppose. Maybe I was a little hasty.

 

But why not just list it in another Amazing Auction instead of trying to dump it on ebay? Perhaps because they thought it would do better in a different market? They have said that their employees are allowed to bid on books for their personal collections, but this case would seem to suggest they were just shilling to create a false reserve. It seems odd that they would go to so much trouble for a low dollar book, but of course when the book was first listed as a US Church copy they were probably expecting to get quite a bit more. It would be interesting to see if any of their other ebay-only sales were books that had previously "sold" a few weeks before on their own site.

[jmg3637]

I don't think there is anything much strange about this pattern.

 

1) Due to questions about it being a Church book or not it did not sell in the initial Heritage offering.

 

2) They probably offered it as a second chance on the heritage site and again it did not sell

 

3) they offered it for sale via ebay but pulled it after a few days due to a listing error

 

4) they then listed it again.

 

perhaps they bought it directly from the seller first, or perhaps they are still auctioning it for the Mclaughin estate.

 

I know that Heritage will buy your books outright as well as consigh them as I got a letter from them to that effect a little over 1 month ago.

[Theagenes]

I don't think there is anything much strange about this pattern.

 

1) Due to questions about it being a Church book or not it did not sell in the initial Heritage offering.

 

It was pulled in the first auction before there was a bidder, probably because it was noticed that it was a Canadian edition and not a U.S. edition, and yes, surely at that point whoever noticed that it was Canadian should have questioned whether or not it was a Church copy. No problem.

 

2) They probably offered it as a second chance on the heritage site and again it did not sell

 

In the second auction it was initially offered as the Canadian edition, but still as the Church copy. Later in the day, the Church designation was removed. The second auction WAS completed and there WAS a winning bidder. So unless that bidder did not pay, as you suggested as a possibility, then they bid on their own auction.

 

3) they offered it for sale via ebay but pulled it after a few days due to a listing error

 

4) they then listed it again.

 

perhaps they bought it directly from the seller first, or perhaps they are still auctioning it for the Mclaughin estate.

 

I know that Heritage will buy your books outright as well as consigh them as I got a letter from them to that effect a little over 1 month ago.

 

Whether they owned it or it was on consignment doesn't change the fact that somebody won the heritage auction and then Heritage was selling the book again a couple of weeks later on ebay.