tth2

The PC Superboy Annual #1 was massive. It is a super tough book to find in high grade, let alone 9.8, but $40.8k! Wow.

I don't understand. Why is the story sad? Because he took a huge loss.

Shows how much bigger the dollars have gotten over the course of a decade. Keller's total losses in absolute dollar terms are dwarfed by the losses of these recent consignees. The loss taken on the 9.8 TOS 39 alone is probably a multiple of Keller's total losses.

This was shockingly low. I don't know if it was the writing on the cover that put people off or what, but the consignor must've been pretty disappointed. This was surprisingly high. I can remember when 9.4 was the top grade in the Census for this book, and now there seem to be tons of 9.6s and 9.8s.

Overall, I thought prices on Day 3 were pretty strong, particularly in SA.

For "must have" books, there's often an increased price for the entry level copy because people will take anything. So, when an attractive 3.0 comes along it will garner outsized attention compared to a 3.0 of a random issue in the run. I would agree with you for must have books that don't come to market very often, in any grade. But Cap 1 (and Bat 1) are not those.

You're preaching to the choir. The idea of a 1968 Marvel #1 going for 6-figures seems nuts to me, unless maybe it's in 9.9 and even then it's still nuts to me. It'll be interesting to see if the price is replicable.

The V family's Allentown CA 1 is a 9.8. It was resubbed after the inferior SF was given a 9.4. The AT Cap 1 was initially graded as a 9.6. I guess that wasn't good enough for Verzyl.

Who knows they have been locked away for decades and I don't think that many of them are graded? As far as I know, none of the Church Timely superhero books have been graded except for Red Raven #1.

Haven’t they been worked on over the years like so many other Church books? The Church Timely superhero books are all sitting ungraded in John Verzyl's family's collection, with the only exception I'm aware of being the Red Raven #1 because Chuck held on to that one and then sold it directly a few years ago.

Both! That's my initial feeling too, and that's even without knowing anything about 3.0 prices.

When did that book sell for $2mm? It's listed on Clink somewhere.

Sad story. Reminds me of the guy who bought and sold the Flash Comics MH run. Jay Perrino?

IMO, it's because it just didn't look that good in B&W. In color, it's much more impressive. Still, I thought it would go higher just because it's Moore and Totleben.

Seems like the Gaiman Auction effect is still ongoing. I was very happy to hear that this was her direct consignment so she's getting all the upside from the huge rise in Sandman pages.

Deleted because Gene already said "DC discount".

There's a lot of nostalgia for those 1980s indies among people who were kids when they came out and who are now in the peak earnings part of their lives.

I wouldn't, but I'm trying some empathy exercises my therapist gave me.

Did Lou_Fine hack your account? Yeah, I just tend to think of prices in terms of how they relate to each other. So if a 9.2 sells for $750k and a 3.0 sells for $156k, then in my mind at least one of the buyers should be upset, and maybe even both!

That 3.0 presented exceptionally well for the grade, pretty clean looking with pretty solid colors too. Most of the defects were well obscured spine splits and tape on the interior. I think any other 3.0 goes for way less right now. The thing about paying up for a book that presents better than its grade is the risk that when it comes time to sell, the market response is "Yeah, it looks better than a X.X, but the label says X.X, so the price we're willing to pay is a X.X price".

Sure, I get that, but there's still a valuation component that has to be factored in. If one can get a 9.2 for $750k, then one should be able to get a whole lot more book for $156k than just a 3.0.

The CGC 7.0 W October 1933 ("Batgirl") Weird Tales went for $30k. It'd been sitting at $25k pretty much since the first few days of online bidding, so not much movement during the floor auction. A helpful pricing benchmark for one of the first CGC copies of one of the hobby's most iconic books.

The main thing that people should assume about any ultra-HG SA Marvel key that is publicly available for sale is that it's no better than the second best copy in existence. Even if it's tied for the highest grade, it's probably available only because one collector has assessed it and found it to be inferior to his copy.

That's why I had to have it. Congratulations!

Case in point. To me, $360k is an unfathomable amount to pay for a second-tier SA Marvel key like DD 1. But because of the even crazier prices previously paid for the book, a $360k price is now framed as an abject failure.