Showcase New England/Dan Greenhalgh answers questions

[PUNYHUMAN]

Hi , Dan . I bought quite of few books off of you back in the 90's . No problems , except one, where my Hulk # 5 wasn;t shipped out . Talked to you on the phone & recieved it the next day . This has been a great thread , Lou Fine , great , great story. Dan , thanks for coming on the boards . BTW your Wife Cindy was always a pleasure to talk to & order comics over the phone.

[adamstrange]

It was not just the "dealers" that viewed the Overstreet books as commodities to wring the last dollar from. Some "sellers" are about the $$$ while others can see $$$ and the hobby as a whole.

[ShowcaseNE]

RE: Adams

RE: Dan & Son

 

I have been involved with the Overstreet guide for quite some time now.

 

I agree, the guide has kind of been reactive in many circumstances through the years.

 

My biggest pet peeve with the guide is that Bob would list many Golden Age books as scarce, or rare, when the reverse was actually true. I am sure that when he made decisions about what was rare, or scarce, Bob thought that they truly were.

 

I remember for the longest time that he would list All American 17 and 19 as scarce.....and, well, they just aren't. These were two of the books that I would remind Bob about for a few years, along with some others, but every year, until recently, these books continued to be listed as difficult.

 

In fact, I think that All American 17 is one of the most over priced books in the guide, along with all Star 1 and New Book of comics 1 (Although there are many books that could give these three a run for being overvalued).

 

New Book of Comics (there are a bunch of them, many in nice grades) is listed as Rare.... it is not remotely close to being scarce....never mind rare.

 

On the other hand, comics like New Comics 1 and New Fun Comics 1 (again...no short list of candidates to fit this profile) are genuinely rare....you will be lucky if you ever see a copy in your life....and yet, neither are listed as either scarce or rare.

 

Other runs of books such as Marvel Mystery 2-10 (with the exception of Marvel Mystery 5, which coincidentally, is the only one listed as scarce other than issue 9), and the early Detectives and Actions are difficult.....most should be designated as scarce.

 

These types of mistakes, especially when the information is available from those whom have handled many of these books, do not need to be made.

 

In Bob's defense.....I was only one of many people providing him information about relative scarcity. I am sure he had several. Additionally, Bob had thousands and thousands of books to deal with each year.

 

Because he has so many books to deal with each year, I give Bob a pass.

 

Frankly, while the guide is not perfect....it is just that , "a guide".

 

On another note, Bob Overstreet and the Overstreet guide is in large part a foundation of the collecting community....responsible in many aspects for where the hobby is today.

 

Bob is the "founding father" of the comic hobby as a whole.

 

He can never be thanked enough for his inspiration, effort and contributions to the collecting community.

 

I have met and spoken to Bob on several occasions. I was always surprised at just how accessible he was. I knew of the Overstreet guide as a young collector in the 1970's.

When I met Bob for the first time, I was in awe just to be in his presence. I don't talk to Bob that often any more, but it seemed that whenever I did need him, he was always available.

 

Anecdote: About 5 years ago I bought an original owner golden age collection in Tennessee that had runs of early DC's in nice grades. In the collection were two copies of Flash Comics 56, which as most every one knows, is the only major book not having it's cover featured in the Gerber Journal. Both books were sent to CGC and came back in the 7.0 to 8.0 range....they were nice copies. I posted them both on Ebay and was surprised that they didn't sell for all that much.....at the time about $500 or so. I guess by the time I got them, most collectors, "in the know", already knew that the book really wasn't all that tough to get.

[ShowcaseNE]

RE; Punyhuman

 

Thank you for the positive comments.

 

Many collectors have thought that Cindy is my wife....but she isn't.

 

After being with me for over ten years...she moved on this past January to spend more time with her family.

[Moondog]

Dan:

 

Remember the Good Morning America Collection? Here's a photo to jog your memory...

 

 

Yep, there are 2 AF 15's, FF 1-5, Spidey 1-5, DD 1, JIM 83, etc. all beauties as you can see!

 

I had just purchased these books from an OO in the Chicago area and at the time was the CEO of Classics International Entertainment. This photo was taken in my office just before the GMA TV cameras arrived. It was 1995 and the company was very cash poor and Dan bought this collection at a time when we really needed the dough...

 

Yes, that's the original Mars Attacks Betty painting in the background...

[Solar]

Just curious, do you own that painting? It's a NICE piece.

[lou_fine]

Lou, great post with great commentary on Dan's great post!

 

He stated that since this was a sales transaction he would have to charge me a premium and priced the remaining 4 or 6 books at 2.5 guide on the basis that he had to pay 2.0 guide to purchase them from Diamond. A true gentleman and a dealer who wanted to ensure that some of the books did go to the smaller collectors.

 

Or you could view it as turning a 25% profit within the space of an hour, which on an annualized basis would make for a very nice rate of return on anyone's investment!

 

Tim;

 

Well, everything's relative, I guess!

 

I considered 25% to be dirt cheap in comparison to the 100% to 300% (or 1,000% in the case of the Terrific #5) that the Big 3 were trying to realized on some of the Overstreet books.

 

Of course, even this would now be nothing but peanuts in comparison to some of the uber HG early SA DC's that I heard some unnamed collector in Hong Kong is selling off in the marketplace.

[lou_fine]

RE: Lou Fine....

 

Your insight and story add the perfect balance......I wonder if anyone else out there could interject their thoughts....

 

 

Dan;

 

Not quite the perfect balance!

 

I reread my story and it seemed to put the three of you in a rather negative light which was not my intention.

 

It should be understood the time of the Diamond Galleries grand opening was in early 1995 when the GA market was just absolutely smoking red hot. Although you guys were asking ridiculous multiples on some of your books, it is only fair to say that you guys were also offering hefty premiums and even multiples of guide to collectors for some of their books. Everybody could have been making money at the time if they really wanted to.

 

I remembered mentioning a Timely pedigree that I had and being offered $10K for it when it was only guiding for slightly over $2K at the time. Since I had picked it up for around $1,500 only a couple of years earlier, I thought you guys were out of your minds until you told me that there were ready buyers for the book at $15K.

 

I also remembered mentioning that the book was most likely not NM and in fact, you guys had not even seen the book yet. I was told that it didn't matter as the pedigree status was good enough to validate the price of the book. And this was not a Church or a SF that we was talking about. Certainly a stark contrast to the current market nowadays whereby the pedigree seems to take a back seat to the CGC label.

 

Yes........although you guys were asking a lot for your books at the time, at least you were also willing to back it up with your own wallets.

 

Now, that's a bit more balanced perspective of the actual situation at the time.

[lou_fine]

Dan;

 

In response to some of your comments:

 

My biggest pet peeve with the guide is that Bob would list many Golden Age books as scarce, or rare, when the reverse was actually true. I am sure that when he made decisions about what was rare, or scarce, Bob thought that they truly were.

 

New Book of Comics (there are a bunch of them, many in nice grades) is listed as Rare.... it is not remotely close to being scarce....never mind rare.

Would certainly agree with you here, especially in the case of New Book of Comics #2. In fact, this was the first GA book that I brought and it was a HG white page copy for something like $750 at the time. Used to just love the squarebound 100 pagers with the cardboard covers when I first started collecting.

 

 

On the other hand, comics like New Comics 1 and New Fun Comics 1 (again...no short list of candidates to fit this profile) are genuinely rare....you will be lucky if you ever see a copy in your life....and yet, neither are listed as either scarce or rare.

I would definitely disagree with you on the New Comics #1 here. I've seen lots of these for sale over the years and think it is one of the most common pre-hero DC books out there. Unless they are all the same copy. Heck, even I own one which must mean it is as common as Spawn #1.

 

Actually, on a more serious note..........we've had many discussions on the boards here regarding the rarest DC books. My five picks have always been Big Book of Fun, New Fun #2, New Adventure #13, Double Action #2, and New Comics #2 in no particular order. Based upon your extensive experience and knowledge of the marketplace, what do you viewed as the five rarest DC books?

 

Always good to see the opinions of a seasoned veteran when it comes to questions such as this.

 

 

On another note, Bob Overstreet and the Overstreet guide is in large part a foundation of the collecting community....responsible in many aspects for where the hobby is today.

You certainly won't get an argument from me on this point here!

[AussieRuss]

Thought I would jump on board with my one and only E-bay buying experience with SNE.

 

Back in July 2006 SNE had several auction up and going for midgrade runs of TOS & TTA books.

 

I won a few auctions totalling about 25 books & remember being amazed at how many snipers came out of the woodwork during the last 20 seconds of the auction.

 

After the auction I exchanged a few pleasant E-mails with someone at SNE and was quite impressed at the level of customer service and willingness to get a good deal on combined airmail shipping to me in Australia.

 

The end result was that the books were within the grades described and Airmail shipping worked out at roughly $1.20 per book.

 

I would have no problem buying from SNE again. The only draw back for me was the amount of people that ended up bidding on the auctions.

 

Regards,

 

Russ...

[Calamerica]

Yes, this is a good thread. I've enjoyed all aspects of it.

 

 

Agree!!!

 

CAL

[ShowcaseNE]

RE Moondog:

 

Those were the days Gary......you look great great in that photo.

 

How about those MoonDog/Dream Factory days?? That brings back some memories.

 

The Good Morning America Collection (GMA) is a very nice set of books.

 

If I remember correctly, I learned about these books from my UPS driver, who walked in the morning you had them on TV, and asked me if I knew about them. Shortly after that I talked with a collector I did a lot of business with....and he identified you as being the owner.

 

I called you right away asking if the books were for sale, and after finding that they were, I flew out to see you. This all happened within a day or so.

 

While I had known who you were at the time...I think it was the first time we did any real one on one stuff.

 

I recall that you weren't bashful about what you wanted for money...but the books became available during a period of time in which I would pay almost anything to aquire collections.

 

We worked out the terms....and I was very, very happy to get the books.

 

This was one of a few deals that you and I did together....another one that I remember with fond memories is the run of early Timely's you came up with. There were about a hundred or so Timely's in that collection, including some nice Captain America's.

 

I remember at the time that I had so many mutiples of early Captain America issues in my inventory....from 1 through 30....that I thought they were common.

 

It is nice to be reminded of the good memories...I wish we could have some of those days back.

[ShowcaseNE]

RE Lou_fine,

 

Again...thanks so much for your positive comments....and your historical recollections.

 

I think your posts and experiences balance some of my experiences perfectly....and I didn't read anything that I would be consider, remotely, to be other than positive.

 

More on your posts later.....I am going to take my son and watch him play in a soccer game this morning.

[batman_fan]

RE; Bullseye

 

Absolutely.....

 

As I said in a prior post....our grading standards have tightened up.

 

I try to be dead on in high grade ranges for individual books. We refund CGC fees when we are off by more than 1 nonmenclature grade....or .2 when you get to 9.0 and above.

 

I always call em as I see them.....but CGC doesn't always agree with me.

 

If I grade 10 individual books as 9.4, I know CGC will grade some as 9.2 and some as 9.6....

 

No one has CGC dialed in to the point where they get it right on the nose every time.

 

Because of the human element involved in grading, even the graders at CGC grade the same book slightly differently the 2nd time around in many cases.

 

Thanks for saying this Dan, as it has been my experience as well but some people don't believe this to be the case.

[Ron_Nasty]

Dan, as a Certified Public Accountant, what would you advise is the best/proper way to file eBay income when filing taxes?

[Ze-man]

Dan:

 

Remember the Good Morning America Collection? Here's a photo to jog your memory...

 

 

Man o Man Gary, talk about a Cheshire grin!

 

It is remarkable to see all those books just stacked loosely on the table. While I am sure you were careful, I doubt you would be so carefree with them today.

 

Great photo of what sounded like a great day.

 

Kenny

[comicdonna]

Hi Dan:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you made it clear earlier in the thread, that you did not allow the books that you are selling to be seen by prospective buyers in person.

 

In your full page 2005 OS ads. it states: BOOKS SHOWN BY APPOINTMENT ONLY WEEKDAYS 9:30 to 5:30 and it gives your complete address and phone #

 

That would lead one to believe that YOUR books that you are selling, could be seen by appointment only.

 

Could you clear that up for me?

[Calamerica]

Dang it!!!

 

Looks like someone wrote on the TOS 39.

 

Oh well still a great collection!!!

 

CAL

[Samurai-Bill]

Dan:

 

 

 

Don't high grade raw books look get your juices going better than slabbed books .

[ShowcaseNE]

RE: Comicdonna

 

My ads are a little outdated......but you are correct......

 

The ads say by appointment only, this is no longer, for the most part, true.