7 hours ago, Sanj Mitra said:

Raising money from public....I wonder if there are consumer protection or securities laws which need to be complied with?...

There is a larger topic in comics general where they're discussing all the details but essentially someone pointed out this looks legit on the face of it, FINRA registration and everything.

3 minutes ago, Hollywood1892 said:

I agree

But I can see it happening because people are too hopeful for $$$. People don't actually own a piece of the comic, they own a piece of paper that tells them they own a piece of a comic.

If I own stocks in oil can I trade them in for actual oil?

What if, you were able to amass all or most of the shares for a particular comic? If you had all, would they then surrender the book to you?  If you had most would they allow you to contact the other owners and ask if they would sell the remainder of their shares?

17 hours ago, blazingbob said:

Selling shares in a book is basically the same idea as having co-owners.  You are spreading your risk around and expanding your capital base to buy more books. 

Are they paying the prices the books are listed at?  Or is it the same as venture capitalist bringing a IPO to market where they are setting the value of the book?  Hulk #1 8.0 $89000?  Star Wars #1 9.0 35 cent variant $12K,  last sale was $9600.  DD #1 $11,500,  last sale was $9900.

If they are setting the "comic IPO" price they are a bit in the high range so for buyers of these shares they are already underwater.

Bob

 

That must be where they're making money. They or someone just before them purchased the TMNT on Comic Connect for $59,000, and then turned around and sold it to their investors for $65,000 which apparently took minutes. That's 10% profit on the flip. Not bad.

Well this is news. I just saw that a site called Rally Road rallyrd.com purchased the recent Comic Connect 9.8 (CGC 119928001) that sold for $59K and has distributed shares via its app platform to "investors" apparently @ an initial offering of $65/share of 1,000 shares total. Yes, that values the book at $65K. There were apparently 143 of these initial investors, who purchased about $450 total each.

Here's the link via my app, you will need to create an account to see it I believe. There's other comics there to invest in as well. But this certainly brings comic investing / high value comics to a different level....likely higher prices is the end game in my opinion.

https://app.rallyrd.com/app/assets/comics-literature/TMNT1

Hi all, nothing new per se but I always find the Heritage "offers" section interesting when it comes to high grade listings of this book. Basically if you sell or list a book on HA, you can be contacted seemingly forever with offers from interested parties. Recent ones for 9.8's have come under the recent sales prices. The idea of throwing something against the wall to see if it sticks, I guess:

    SHORT DESCRIPTION                                                           SOLD FOR (WITH BP)    AUCTION DATE    OFFER    STATUS    OFFER DATE    

On 6/24/2020 at 1:23 PM, lou_fine said:

I wouldn't necessarily agree with this statement here as I believe each of these auction houses have their own particular niche customer base.  

For example, I believe that Heritage clearly has the lead by far when it comes to the original art market.  Yet, when it comes to certain comic books such as Action 1 or the high deman pre-Robin 'Tec books, I believe CC tends to be the market maker in this area.  Now, if you are talking about CGC highest graded copies of more recent BA books (especially with links to movies and TV shows), I believe that CL tends to get the highest prices because that's where the CGC label collectors seems to hang around.   

I think in a lot of cases, it just happens to depend on your timing and also luck in terms of being able to get the right sets of eyeballs onto a particular book in an auction when it does come up for sale.  I still think the $90K TMNT 1 result was more of an outlier than anything else, which is kind of confirmed as HA was able to follow this sale up with one for only $52.8K a few months later.  Looks like CC was able to hit a slightly higher price point with their $59K BIN sale, although I still don't understand why the seller would want to take such a big hit on the book after paying $90K only several months earlier and also why he did not reconsign the book back with HA.  I guess his pocket might not have been as deep as initially thought.  

 

You may be right about BA books and timing in general. I don't really follow other high-end books at CC or CL. But with regards to TMNT, if I had a high-end book I would absolutely sell it on Heritage. The two biggest sales to the upside were both there.

BTW: the CL 9.8 is now at $46K with reserve met! Someone is going to own this copy when the auction ends.

https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FSEARCH.ASP%3FPreviewCode%3D2020june%26where%3Dauctions%26title%3DTurtles%26GO%3DGO%26ItemType%3DCB%23Item_1404932&id=1404932&itemType=0

35 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Greatly appreciate you taking the time to call in and dig up all of this info for the rest of us lazy boardies like me.  

So, the timelime and venues for these 4 sales were:  1) $90K at HA in August 2019;  2) $52.8K at HA in November 2019;  3) $50K at CL in December;  and 4) the $90K HA copy reselling for $59K at the end of April 2020 as a BIN consignment.  

It's no problem since I keep a spreadsheet of these sales.  Yes, those are correct.

35 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Hmmm....................this more than confirms that the $90K Heritage sale back in August of 2019 was more of an outlier sale than anything else and also makes me wonder why the buyer was in such a hurry to sell it, especially at such a substantially lower price point.  Probably had something to do with the current economic environment at the time, but I guess only the buyer/consignor would know.  

Thsi would then place the current value of a CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1 back into the $50K to $60K price range that most boardies suspect is where it is.  Will be interesting to see if the current CL copy is able to hit its Reserve price (whatever that is) and I guess only time will tell.  

Agreed. Although with stock prices soaring again, who knows where things go. Heritage clearly has access to a more higher end group of buyers than the traditional CL, CC and ebay. They have consistently sold books higher than market prices. Remember the 9.6 that sold for $26K back in 2017, when 9.8's were going for just a bit higher? That was a HA sale too.

35 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Now, this part doesn't make any legitimate sense to me at all since I thought he had told you that the book was sold and already paid for at a completed $79,950 price point.  

Definitely sounds a bit sketchy to me if he is poaching scans from other copies and then initiating completed "non sales" at substantially higher than market price points on eBay when nothing has actually been sold.    

He said it was sold but not paid for yet. It is sketchy to use other photos but whatevs...maybe he's just lazy.

There are a few high-end TMNT resellers out there and they seem to have an endless reservoir of cash and high end, highly sought-after Turtles books. Sales on ebay are often hit or miss as far as using for price discovery.

On 6/21/2020 at 2:27 PM, lou_fine said:

Hmmmm...........................I thoughtthat CGC serial number looked a bit familiar.  

Well, since I would assume the CC sale didn't take place after the HA $90K result, my guess is that the CC sale took place in late 2018 or early 2019.  Don't really like the fact that CC doesn't have a date for their non-auction sales, but still a whole ton better than CL which has no auction archives of any kind.  Not sure if Heritage includes their Buy Now sales items in their auction archives or not.  

If you are planning to call CC about their TMNT 1 $59K, can you please ask them to add in the date field for their non-auction sales at the same time?  

 

I would tend to agree with this and see the record $90K sale as really more of an outlier at this current point in time.  

Ok the scoop is that the $59K sale is legit, confirmed via phone with CC this morning as a consignment/BIN sale that ended on 4/30/20. It is the same book that sold last summer for $90K. Sooo...our last sales of 9.8's boil down to: $90K, 52.8K, 50K, 59K.

The CL book is up a bit to 44K, reserve not met.

https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FSEARCH.ASP%3FPreviewCode%3D2020june%26where%3Dauctions%26title%3DTurtles%26GO%3DGO%26ItemType%3DCB%23Item_1404932&id=1404932&itemType=0

Also, the ebay book is back up, same selller who also confirmed he has it listed at CC for $85K. So maybe he just wanted a photo of the back and poached one from another book. It's possible if he has it in a safe deposit box or not in hand.

12 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Hmmmm.......................well, that's definitely interesting and food for some thought then.  

Looks like it's got a Reserve Price on it for this go round though which has still not been met yet at this $42K price point which it is still currently sitting at, which makes me kind of wonder what the reserve has been set at and whether it will even be met.  I guess only time will tell if the bidding goes high enough to activate it or not.   

 

Well, maybe there were actually 4 confirmed sales as I don't actually know when this sale took place since it was not part of their usual auction format sale:

https://www.comicconnect.com/item/877988?tzf=1

It would appear that this copy here sold for $59,000 in a non-auction formatted sale.  

Well that's interesting...haven't seen this sale before. This is the same book that sold for $90K last summer. I have a message into CC to see when this was.

5 hours ago, lou_fine said:

As I had alluded to in a previous post up above, is there any chance that the December CL sale might have actually been completed and the buyer is simply putting the book back out their in either an attempted flip for profit or to recoup some of his money back in this pandemic crunch?  

Personally, I don't think so since this December TMNT 1 auction result is no longer showing up in any of their CL highlights which is something they definitely would be promoting the heck out of if it had actually gone through successfully.  

Well, I just messaged Jason and per CL the December sale at $50K is legitimate. The buyer is now selling the same comic at auction. So, in the past year there were 3 confirmed sales: 90K,52.8K & 50K.

21 hours ago, lou_fine said:

That's fantastic that you took the time and went through all of the trouble to contact CC on this book and then post your findings to keep all of us in the loop.  

Thanks, they're usually good about getting back.

21 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Since you think the CL sale back in December might possibly have fallen through, then this means the only 2 completed sales for TMNT 1 in CGC 9.8 both took place at Heritage, with the August 2019 copy going for $90K and the November 2019 copy going for $52,800.

The CL sale that ended on December 5, 2019 was not completed. The same book is now for sale again at CL currently at auction.

Previous:

https://comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FSEARCH.ASP%3Fwhere%3Dsell%26title%3Dteenage%20mutant%26ItemType%3DCB%23Item_1364734&id=1364734&itemType=0

New:

https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FSEARCH.ASP%3FPreviewCode%3D2020june%26where%3Dauctions%26title%3DTurtles%26GO%3DGO%26ItemType%3DCB%23Item_1404932&id=1404932&itemType=0#detail

21 hours ago, lou_fine said:

As a result, it will definitely be interesting to see where this copy goes for and see if it is closer to the $90K range or back in the $50K+ range where the last Heritage copy was and also whenever the last CC copy sold.  I guess only time will tell as it has been sitting there at $42K with only a few more weeks to go.    

Yes,  we're at 42K with 18 days remaining. We'll see if the buyer pays this time! They should ban whoever won it in December and never paid, that's for certain.

21 hours ago, lou_fine said:

I went onto GoCollect and noticed that the sale has now been removed and I received a PM from a boardie saying that it has also been removed from the GPA records.  

Good.

On 6/16/2020 at 2:34 PM, lou_fine said:

Except when it's not, which is CLEARLY the case here when the eBay seller scammer simply stole scans of both the front cover and back cover from 2 different copies to come up with this listing and so-called "completed" sale on eBay.  

Comic Connect got back to me on their BIN copy @ $85K, saying that it has been up since January and that it is from a long-time seller. So it appears you are correct that the ebay sale is a fake sale with pictures from 2 other books swiped to make it look authentic. 

There's really no reason for someone to do this unless they own the same book. Of the 2 copies out there, the CC copy and the CL copy, they don't appear to have any connecion to this "nekobooks" seller from ebay. We will see going forward.

On 6/16/2020 at 2:34 PM, lou_fine said:

 

Will definitely agree with you here in virtually all cases, but unfortunately eBay is a completely different animal and is home for all of the scammers and GPA manipulators.  

 

They most definitely should be doing their due diligence, but unfortunately most of them simply rely on something like the GPA stats on the assumption that they are always correct.  Unfortunately, this is a classic example and the tell tale MO of GPA manipulation with respect to this fraudulent and non-sale of a TMNT #1 for $79,950 Monoploy dollars done for the sole purpose of manipulating the GPA stats to show a high value sale that never actually took place.  Certainly hope that @gpanalysis is on the ball and able to see through this whole scam here.    

They should definitely remove the ebay sale from their records if they haven't already.

13 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Clearly aware that the front cover scan for the $79K eBay copy has the same front cover scan and serial number as the CC BIN copy for $85K.  

The part that I find rather confusing then and highly suspicious is the fact that the back cover scan for the $79K eBay copy appears to be the exact same back cover as the $90K HA copy, as clearly evident from matching tell tale minute details for both of the back cover scans.     

So, the only way this could happen from my own personal point of view is the seller taking a front cover scan from the CC copy and then taking a back cover scan from the HA copy to come up with the eBay copy for his so-called "completed" sale.   The other possibility which I find highly doubtful is that the buyer of the $90K HA copy would decide to take a highly irrational and unconscionable risk by attempting an unsuccessful CPR on an already highest graded copy of a $90K book and then decide to cut their loss by listing it as a BIN on CC for $85K and finally on eBay for the completed sale at $79K.    

It's not entirely clear but a sale is a sale is a sale. Comic Connect, Comic Link and Heritage all will have legit sales so whatever happens with those then that's the price.

People spending $50K and up for a comic book aren't stupid, they're doing their DD.

16 minutes ago, www.alexgross.com said:

lou- theres a great function on the boards called IGNORE. it makes time spent here much more pleasant. and the know it alls can just post to one another. highly recommend you try it instead of working yourself up. 

If you think that questioning someone is enough to be ignored, then please ignore me.

42 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Extremely sad to see that you keep seeming to misunderstand my post as nowhere in there was I saying the Heritage completed auction was being gamed.  Especially since the Heritage completed auction was back in August of 2019 and the eBay auction that is in question was just completed a few days ago on June 10th.  So, I don't see why you would think Heritage is the one that is gaming the system in this particular situation here.  

I am stating that the completed eBay auction for $79,950 is clearly fraudulent as the scammer simply stole the front cover scan from the CC $85K BIN listing and then stole the back cover scan from the HA $90K auction listing.     Just dont want any potential bidders to end up incorporating this obviously fraudulent eBay sale for $79K if they are thinking of bidding on the CGC 9.8 graded copy of TMNT 1 that is listed in the current CL Auction scheduled to end in a few short weeks from now on July 7th.    

Just noticed on the TMNT 1 thread on the CA Forum that Masterchief with his usual top of the game scanning analytical skills has also come to the exact same conclusion with respect to this supposedly "completed" eBay transaction:  

 

Ok, now I see where you're going with this. You should know that the book on Comic Link doesn't appear to have any connection to the $79.5K sale book on ebay (and is now on comic connect). The CL book is likely being sold by dotcomcomics out of Maine, who had it listed as a BIN for $100K in fall of 2019 then a bad sale occurred @ $50K and fell through.

No idea why a back cover photo would be re-used. Dishonest? Yes. Does it mean that the sale is a lie? Not necessarily. I've got a note into Comic Connect to see what's up with the same book being listed for $85K. We'll see.

1 hour ago, www.alexgross.com said:

discussed many times in many forums here. heritage is legally allowed to shill bid their own stuff. 

https://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/2009/09/lifting_the_veil_at_heritage_a.html

That's not what he's saying. He's saying that Heritage is fraudulently listing pictures of a comic book that isn't the book being sold. It's just not happening, sorry if you don't like the price appreciation of a rare comic book.

That site you link to is about shill bidding in non-reserve auctions, and after some checking, doesn't appear to even be a oft-cited claim.

5 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Glad to see that you agree with me that the eBay copy supposedly "sold" for $79,950 is the same as the CC $85K BIN copy since their front cover scans indicate they both have the same serial number.  Also glad that you agree with me that the Heritage copy that sold for $90K is a completely different copy since it has a different CGC serial number.  

The part that I find rather confusing and highly suspicious then is why the back cover scan for the $79K eBay copy is clearly the same as the back cover scan for the $90K HA copy, as clearly evident by the matching tell tale minute details on both of the back cover scans?    

Only reason I am asking is this clearly appears to be the topic of this thread here in terms of possible GPA market manipulation through the use of potential fraudulent listings or so-called "completed" transactions that never ever even actually took place.   

So you're saying that Heritage is being gamed? That's what has to be happening based on your theory. All because a picture appears similar to you. An eBay completed sale can be faked. But Heritage??? Lol, you are smoking some good stuff 

1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

Was over on the CA Forum and just wondering if this would be an example of market manipulation here with respect to this supposed sale of TMNT for something almost $80K?  Hard for me to tell since I am not any kind of experts with scans and all that, but that back cover of the eBay copy that just sold sure looks exactly the same as the back cover for the $90K copy that Heritage had sold last year.    

 

 

 

 

Like I told you on the copper age forum, they are different copies: Ebay's copy for $79 K that just sold and the $90K version from last summer on Heritage. Different CGC numbers.

Why are you pushing this?

On 6/11/2020 at 11:03 AM, pubmonkey said:

Wow! That’s amazing! 

I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the CLink auction 

where are all the 2nd prints?

Second prints are the new black. I sold one recently for double what I thought I would get. Just amazing demand.

10 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Seems rather strange that this appears to be the same copy with the EXACT same front cover scan, lighting, and serial number that CC currrently has for sale with a BIN price of $85K:  

https://www.comicconnect.com/item/873442

 

Of course, since the one on CC didn't come with a back cover scan (go figure that for a $85K book   ), their back cover scan looks exactly the same as the back cover of the TMNT #1 that sold on Heritage last year for $90K:    

BAM! BAM!! And there we go!!!  Maybe NOT $100K next?  

The ebay book that sold for $79K this past week is the same book listed on CC for $85K BIN. I just sent the seller a message to see what's the deal with that.

However, the book that sold for $90K on Heritage last summer is a different book / CGC # than this one. Completely different. Sorry to spoil your conspiracy.

The 9.8 on Ebay apparently just sold for $79,950. I've contacted the seller to see if the buyer has paid and the sale went through. Wow.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles-1-CGC-9-8-Mirage-1984-1st-Print-TMNT-2081174001-/202825006465?hash=item2f394ffd81%3Ag%3A3scAAOSwYoZd0eIk&nma=true&si=OuxN9zQit8aUnboiwM1IVxK2GPw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

8 hours ago, pubmonkey said:

Another 9.8 is on offer at ComicLink in June:

https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FSEARCH.ASP%3FPreviewCode%3D2020june%26where%3Dauctions%26title%3DTurtles%26GO%3DGO%26ItemType%3DCB%23Item_1404932&id=1404932&itemType=0

Last 2 sales were wildly different: $90k (aug ‘19) and $56k (nov ‘19)

 

This copy "sold" on Comiclink on 12/5/19 for $50K, so clearly that sale fell through.

I had the 11/21/19 sale at $52,800...was there another one I missed or are you thinking of this one?  link here: https://comics.ha.com/itm/modern-age-1980-present-/alternative-underground/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1-mirage-studios-1984-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/7212-91102.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

On 5/9/2020 at 7:46 PM, Domo Arigato said:

Here is a link to the full updated list that someone posted in this thread on November 30, 2019.

You can work forward from there and add any new names to it that were posted later in the thread.

 

Thanks for posting this. These were invalid for housekeeping:

Since the crisis I've had a letter and a comic package disappear, working on a second one that hasn't updated status. Not surprising...chaos and confusion can bring out the shiftyness in people. Now I have to get everything scanned and tracked. No more dropping things off unscanned!

13 hours ago, Icculus308win said:

DubaiCollection SS TMNT #1 9.8

🤘🤤🤘🤤

Interesting collector. Looks like he's on a mission. Wish I had that kind of buying power.