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Showing results for 'blackstone'.
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Not sure about an official merger or anything like that, but isn't there already some kind of "indirect" or small partial ownership linkage between Heritage and the umbrella CCG group (now taken over by Blackstone) where CGC falls under?
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Watch for a possible run at CGC with E-Bay and PSA...here is some food for thought 1-PSA/Ebay buys CBCS and then intergrades with existing platforms...least likely 2-PSA/Ebay create a third comic book grading company...most likely 3-CGC buys CBCS and merges them and head off PSA/Ebay...less likely, but in my opinion the best option for CGC to keep market dominance. 4-HA and CGC merge...possible with blackstone taking some equity in HA....longshot Look for the pot to be stirred up in 2025!!!! 5-A comic book storage company is created by THEM - where you buy the GA book on Ebay raw and with a click of a button they send it to PSA and then after grading, they store it for you and put it up on Goldin auctions or back on E-bay as a graded book all at a big discount if you use all services at once, you can buy it from them in auction and then keep it stored and auction it with other auction houses who accept the storage as ownership or back on e-bay...the cycle never ends, except the PSA and Ebay win big time..... your thoughts on this take!!!
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Blackstone Pump and Dump
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Giant Size X-Men #1 Just Graded 9.9. It Begins.....
mattn792 replied to BrashL's topic in Comics General
It’s not an outlandish theory. 9.9s are so rare right now that you have to wonder why anyone would pay for a 9.9 pre-screen when a book in that class is likely to be a 9.8 anyway. But if the 9.9s suddenly see a sizable uptick, driving 9.8 prices down… I was hoping the Blackstone acquisition wouldn’t lead to money grabs like this, but here we are. Glad I cashed in all my mints long ago. -
Just got in this very nice high grade of Super Magician and Blackstone Master Magician run from the 1940s. Great stuff. Yes the Original Owner was a magician but unfortunately there were no vintage Magician collectibles. And it was just these comics and the Spirit sectionals I posted a few weeks back. Most very nice books with very nice pages. Sure not the greatest GA title in the world but still nice to see 1940s books like this. Postage is $5 in the US Unlimited Contact me for Canada. Paypal, Venmo, check, MO, Bitcoin ETH accepted, returns accepted. All the usual rules apply "Take it" posted here trumps private purchase. -
Blackstone Magician Detective 3 F/VF $350 SOLD Odd ball Timely - Bondage cover
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Blackstone Master Magician Comics 3 F/VF $200
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Blackstone Master Magician Comics 3 VG $50
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Blackstone Master Magician Comics 2 VF- $250
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Blackstone Master Magician Comics 2 VG/F $80
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Blackstone Master Magician Comics 1 F/VF $150
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Show me your Timely's and I'll show you mine. Have a Cigar...
Ameri replied to Timely's topic in Golden Age Comic Books
I picked up this souvenir program book from the 1940's of one of Blackstone's shows. E.C. Stoner did the cover. I was surprised to read that Stoner was one of the first if not the first black comic book artist, well before Matt Baker. Some books said Stoner created the Speed Saunders character for Detective 1 but in later interviews he said his first work was in 1939 for Chesler. He worked at Timely for several years and inked the first Flexo story in Mystic 1 and probably drew all the Blackstone stories in the Timely series.
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You two absolutely nailed it. I've been posting this link a lot: https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/blackstone These are all the fines paid by CGC's new parent company and all of their subsidiaries. Once a company is bought out by Blackstone they tend to commit...crimes? I'm honestly not sure if crime is the legally appropriate word but luckily, I'm not a lawyer and it's definitely a morally appropriate use of the word. Blackstone has been fined for lying to investors, ripping off their own employees and destroying the environment. Of course these guys were going to bust out CGC in a glorious blaze of fraud...it's kinda the only thing Blackstone can do. They cannot generate products, improve a companies reputation or innovate in any way. Blackstone's job is to pile on overhead in the shape of marketing and nepotistic hires and then cuts costs around the product to make up for the budgetary shortfall. Then when the cost cutting destroys the product they sell the asset at a loss and claim those losses against gains on the profits form the companies that haven't been completely busted yet. CGC's going the way of Ramsey's Sports. . I don't think this is gonna end well for Matt "Scatino" Nelson.
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If Blackstone works like most multinationals do, and I fully expect that they would, CGC won't have very much excess cash to access on its own. It's cash gets periodically swept up by Blackstone to redeploy wherever Blackstone sees fit in its overall business. I'd imagine CGC will have to come up with an estimate, take a charge, and then either sop it away from incoming cash (if small) or secure funding from Blackstone (if large). Blackstone would function as its "bank". I don't believe Blackstone would let CGC go under, that just seems foolish financially. But I could see them come to the conclusion to prop it up and divest it if the cost/benefit of owning it, based on their internal metrics, no longer makes sense. Really depends how bad this gets financially (probably not too bad) and reputationally (could be bad). There's also insurance to consider if CGC wants to make the claim. -
Edit: there are a few promo comics that were published shortly after 1956 - upon further reflection, it feels right to include those in my Completist Checklist; however, I'm personally still going to cut off Mad Magazine at issue #30 (December 1956) for reasons discussed earlier. COMBINING ALL OF THIS: let me post an updated Official EC ed's EC Completist Checklist (version 03/12/24, which incorporates all of the updates I discuss in the last couple pages of this thread)...note that there are now 478 issues here, compared to the 470 on the original (incomplete) checklist back on page 1: Promotional Comics (18 issues total): Across the Seas in a War Torn World (*note: published by, but not copyrighted by EC) Church that was Built with Bread (*note: published by, but not copyrighted by EC) Desert Dawn KO Punch (*note: published by, but not copyrighted by EC) Lucky Fights it Through (*note: published by, but not copyrighted by EC) Out of the Past a Clue to the Future (*note: published by, but not copyrighted by EC) Reddy Kilowatt issues 1A, 1B, 1B-reprint, 2A, 2B, 2C, 2C-reprint, 3A, 3A-reprint, 3B, and 3C (*note: published by, but not copyrighted by EC) Wonders of Wire Rope (*note: published by, but not copyrighted by EC) *this note about published vs. copyrighted relates to a post I made some years back...to preserve my sanity, I rationalized that I only "need" to have all the books that were copyrighted by EC...a convenient "escape clause" because some of these promos seem impossible to obtain. But, we'll see how that goes... Pre-Trend Titles (133 issues total): Animal Fables #1-7 Animated Comics #1 Blackstone the Magician Detective Fights Crime #1 Crime Patrol #7-16 Dandy Comics #1-7 Fat and Slat #1-4 Gunfighter #5-14 Happy Houlihans #1-2 International Comics #1-5 International Crime Patrol #6 Land of the Lost #1-9 Modern Love #1-8 Moon Girl and the Prince #1 Moon Girl #2-6 Moon Girl Fights Crime! #7-8 A Moon, a Girl...Romance #9-12 Picture Stories from the Bible Old Testament (1946) #1-2 Picture Stories from the Bible Complete Old Testament, printings 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Picture Stories from the Bible New Testament #2-3 Picture Stories from the Bible New Testament #1 (1946 reprint) Picture Stories from the Bible Complete New Testament, printings 1, 2, and 3 Picture Stories from the Bible Complete Life of Christ, 25-cent variant, blank price variant Picture Stories from American History #1-4; #2 distributor cover variant Picture Stories from Science #1-2 Picture Stories from World History #1-2 Saddle Justice #3-8; #6 Comics Code seal variant Saddle Romances #9-11 Tiny Tot Comics #1-10 War Against Crime! #1-11 New Trend Titles (284 issues total): Crime SuspenStories #15(1); #1-27 Crypt of Terror #17-19 Frontline Combat #1-15; #9 "yellow" variant Haunt of Fear #15(1)-17(3); #4-28 Mad #1-30 (inc. 3 cover variants of issue #28) Panic #1-12 Piracy #1-7 Shock SuspenStories #1-18 Tales From the Crypt #20-46 Tales of Terror Annual #1-3 Three Dimensional E.C. Classics #1 Three Dimensional Tales from the Crypt of Terror #1 Two-Fisted Tales #18-41 Two-Fisted Tales Annual #1-2 Vault of Horror #12-40 Weird Fantasy #13(1)-17(5); #6-22 Weird Science #12(1)-14(3); #4-22 Weird Science-Fantasy #23-29 Weird Science-Fantasy Annual #1-2 New Direction Titles (34 issues total): Aces High #1-5 Extra! #1-5 Impact #1 (yellow variant), #1 (white variant), #2-5 Incredible Science Fiction #30-33 M.D. #1-5 Psychoanalysis #1-4 Valor #1-5 Picto-Fiction Magazines (9 issues total): Crime Illustrated #1-2 Confessions Illustrated #1-2 Shock Illustrated #1-3 Terror Illustrated #1-2
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Show me your Timely's and I'll show you mine. Have a Cigar...
BB-Gun replied to Timely's topic in Golden Age Comic Books
So do I have a Blackstone autograph or EC Stoner signing as his character. -
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Blackstone the Magician is a cool funny book which qualifies as a superhero book, as it hides a Blonde Phantom story inside!
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Fair point. More of Fish in Barrel statements on my part. We have apologists here who insisted there would be a response prior to Christmas weekend Apologists will now probably insist CGC will respond before New Years weekend - well those folks can keep clutching; CGC will not respond this week, nor next week, nor next month, nor 1st quarter 2024... The only way CGC/Blackstone makes a statement, or even begins an investigation, is if the flow of submissions sublimates downward. Even then Blackstone may still simply sell CGC once certain profit thresholds are negatively breached and execs begin to fear their large bonus' might be impacted by even a dime. Therefore entirely plausible as long as Blackstone owns CGC nothing will be said or done. Remember folks Blackstone's ownership (via sum of their actions) is a somewhat textbook pump and dump. -
This should be everyone's biggest fear. This whole thing kinda feels like an example of "loss harvesting". Blackstone over pays for this asset, then they tank the value with a negative-engagment marketing campaign and get to claim massive losses against any profits they have from their other businesses. I think CGC is actually more valuable to Blackstone if it's broken and that's very VERY bad for people who think their slabs will be valuable in the long run. -
Heritage's Next Event Auction has started posting books !
lou_fine replied to Gotham Kid's topic in Golden Age Comic Books
Holy mackerel. That is definitely a case of someone buying the grade, not the book. I cannot believe CGC gave that book a 5.5. It should've been a 3.5 at best. It seems like grades have softened up across the board at CGC since Blackstone took over. Considering who the consignor was, I totally agree with you and can't believe that book only managed to get a CGC 5.5 grade. I guess CGC must have heard all of the complaints from the boardies here about preferential grading for certain clients because that is a big drop from the CGC 8's and 9's that we are used to seeing when it comes to "production" mouse chews: -
Heritage's Next Event Auction has started posting books !
jimbo_7071 replied to Gotham Kid's topic in Golden Age Comic Books
Holy mackerel. That is definitely a case of someone buying the grade, not the book. I cannot believe CGC gave that book a 5.5. It should've been a 3.5 at best. It seems like grades have softened up across the board at CGC since Blackstone took over. I wonder if the same thing has occurred over at NGC. If it has, it might be a deliberate attempt to try to make a quick buck through resubmissions while completely disregarding the impact on the company's reputation. If they have one good year, they may sell the company and let the hapless buyer deal with the long-term fallout. If that what's going on, then it's sort of like what some stock market manipulators have done with pump-and-dump schemes. -
I’m sure some of it if not most is insurance and liability, but there are probably other aspects that can only be explained by decision makers within the company. if it’s something of great enough interest that you think the public should know the exact reasoning and cgc would have a reason to publicly make an official statement, consider interviewing cgc or blackstone bosses or consider getting a job there. -
Maybe one more press? But only if 9.9 pre-screen is available. Glad to see you have a sense of humor as these are the funny books after all, and it's not good to always take things too seriously. Speaking of which, isn't "maximization of potential" just SO yesterday and shouldn't we be thinking ahead of the curve and thinking more about tomorrow. As such, just imagine a CGC grading world where the CCG ownership group and Blackstone feel they have maximized and pressed all of the potential out of poor overworked and over stressed Matt and given him his well earned and much deserved rewards in greener pastures. Instead, they now have Jason in his place who has raised the level of grading to an even higher standard with his ground breaking new and next level innovative "Edge Of Perfection" process. Although everybody here claims that they just hate trimming or even near invisible micro-trimming of a book, I can just imagine the endless turnaround times at CCS and CGC as everybody rushes in to resubmit their books hoping no longer for only that 9.8 or 9.9, but now happily dreaming about that Perfect 10.0 pre-screen.
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Very true - Blackstone is simply in it for profit margin. When that dips below their preferred return - whether it's slabbed comics, coins or whatever else - it gets sold or dismantled. Pride of ownership - if there ever was one - was sold off long ago. This group, this board - that is filled to the brim with awesome people is likely one of very few outposts left where people are truly passionate about the hobby and the service CGC provided. Sure, there's FB groups and IG and Reddit, but they are not like this place. The Boards are wonderfully unique, warts and all. I hope it continues on, but the community as a whole can only take so much shellacking before the passion is diluted.
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You make a good point. There are some parts of the collectibles and certification universe where our little pond isn't even known to exist. The idea that Blackstone is in a panic over hiccups at CGC probably stems from not recognizing that the pond we swim in is not the whole universe.
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