TMNT #1 Club 18 18

[Spiderturtle]

4 hours ago, GM8 said:

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.

Interested in the actual sales transaction of this particular book.  That’s quite a huge gap between $90k and $59k.  It appears that a 9.8 is more in the $50-$60k range

[lou_fine]

7 hours ago, GM8 said:

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.

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?  

 

2 hours ago, Spiderturtle said:

Interested in the actual sales transaction of this particular book.  That’s quite a huge gap between $90k and $59k.  It appears that a 9.8 is more in the $50-$60k range

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.  

[Ryan.]

I had the chance to buy a 5.0 cheap about six years ago. I bought it. I still have it. Fin. 

[Spiderturtle]

Anyone hoarding copies in the 7.0-8.0 range 10 years ago is looking really good right now.  Even at current prices a 7.0 or 7.5 is still a good deal.  I see myself saying the same thing in 2030.  It’ll be a bigger grail than any Bronze Age key; even hulk 181.  So  it’ll be in the same boat as other silver age keys

Edited June 22, 2020 by Spiderturtle

[lou_fine]

On 6/21/2020 at 12:41 PM, szav said:

On 6/21/2020 at 11:27 AM, lou_fine said:

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.  

Just wait till they actually make a good movie or other sort of revival...this'll be a 100k book some day in the not too distant future. At that time I look forward to the retelling of the story of how you had a chance to buy a first print #1 cheap back in the day and passed on it...

Why wait since I can ALREADY RIGHT NOW tell you the story of how I had a chance to buy a first print #1 issue back in the day and passed on it..........  

Definitely a sad (at least for me), but unfortuantely true story for me.  

Fast backwards to about 1987 or thereabouts and I am at one of my LCS's hoping to snag a book that will one day go up and be worth a staggering $5 or so in the guide.  The owner knows that I am looking for these kinds of books and asks me if I would like to order a Signed & Limited Edition Hardcover of the new Batman, the Dark Knight Returns by the red hot creator of the day, Frank Miller, for only $40.  He then also hands me over a copy of some fugly looking book with the horrible looking underground type of art that I absolutely abhor and says that he has the book on hold for a customer of his.  He tells me that he can order another copy for me right from the creators themseves for the out of this universe price of only $300.  I flip open the book and take a look at the crude really fugly interior artwork and hand it back to him immediately, thinking at the same time that he must think I am a total looney bin if he thinks I would pay him $300 smackers for a piece of crapola like that.  Then again, maybe he was offering me $300 to take this atomic smelly piece of doggie poo poo out of his store and dispose of it for him somewhere safe and sound.    

Well, knowing me and the el Cheapo guy that I am and being a big fan of Miller's writing and artwork at the time, I ended up getting the Signed & Limited Edition of the Dark Knight book and one that I would probably still not be able to recoup my original price that I had paid for the book some 30+ years ago.     And of course, we all know what happened to the value of the TMNT #1 first print that I passed on for only $300 and probably one that I would continue to pass on to this day if I didn't know its real value.    

Definitely one of the books that I missed out on in terms of not buying back in the day, but not one that I actually think much about since it's not really a book that I care for and there's been other bigger deals that I had sadly passed on.    

[Ryan.]

That story was terrible. 

[Lethal_Collector]

50 minutes ago, Ryan. said:

That story was terrible. 

Yeah, I'm still looking for the 'depressed' emoji.  Sorry to hear that man, but gotta respect the honesty!

 

Jerome

[GM8]

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.

Edited June 23, 2020 by GM8

[TMNT]

Anyone know what 7.0 - 8.0 are fetching? So I can prepare the old piggy bank...

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, GM8 said:

On 6/21/2020 at 11:27 AM, lou_fine said:

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.

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.  

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.  

 

1 hour ago, GM8 said:

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.

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.    

[Keys_Collector]

40 minutes ago, TMNT said:

Anyone know what 7.0 - 8.0 are fetching? So I can prepare the old piggy bank...

From Gocollect:

[lou_fine]

9 minutes ago, Keys_Collector said:

50 minutes ago, TMNT said:

Anyone know what 7.0 - 8.0 are fetching? So I can prepare the old piggy bank...

From Gocollect:

Well, it's hard to say how accurate those fair market values would be since they have the CGC 9.8 graded copies listed at $80K , whereas the last 3 sales actually took place in the $50K to $60K price range.

[TMNT]

15 minutes ago, Keys_Collector said:

From Gocollect:

 

Thanks a bunch! Now to just find a copy... Fingers crossed for me folks! 

[Keys_Collector]

8 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Well, it's hard to say how accurate those fair market values would be since they have the CGC 9.8 graded copies listed at $80K , whereas the last 3 sales actually took place in the $50K to $60K price range.

It doesn't look like they haven't updated the sales of the 9.8s from this year.  I don't think its a stretch though to say that the 7.0-8.0 that TMNT is looking for will fall between that 5750-7500 price which is why I even posted it.

[Subby1938]

I bought my tmnt 9.0 two years ago from comic connect first printing blue label for 5K. Why did I sell that book lmao .... sigh

[GM8]

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.

[lou_fine]

On 6/22/2020 at 2:22 PM, szav said:

On 6/22/2020 at 2:16 PM, lou_fine said:

Why wait since I can ALREADY RIGHT NOW tell you the story of how I had a chance to buy a first print #1 issue back in the day and passed on it..........  

Thank you for regaling us with the tale.  I just wanted to needle you a bit because I know you don’t care for the book.  Appreciate you playing along.

 

On 6/22/2020 at 3:13 PM, Lethal_Collector said:

On 6/22/2020 at 2:21 PM, Ryan. said:

That story was terrible. 

Yeah, I'm still looking for the 'depressed' emoji.  Sorry to hear that man, but gotta respect the honesty!

Actually, not really that terrible or depressing at all as that was most likely back in the 1986/87 time period and the comic book market was completely different back then.  

That was when the squarebound copy of Avengers 93 with the gorgeous artwork by Neal Adams was still the big go to book to acquire for the BA and books like the Hulk 181 was still valued only in the $20+ price range in the guide and Spidey 129 was still waiting to be broken out since Spidey 121 & 122 were the ones to get.  So, to even think of paying a whopping $300 or at huge multiples to top of guide guide to take a huge flyer on a book was just not being done at that point in time and definitely something that most collectors would not be rushing into.  Especially on a B&W book from 2 unknown creators and an never heard of publisher was rather unimagineable at the time.    

Hence, no real regrets since I am pretty much 100% sure I would still have done the exact same thing if given the chance again if the same market circumstances were still in place.  Of course, we all know about the B&W book & bust that would take place in the comic book marketplace during the ensuring few years after that.  So, if anybody here wants to pay good money for first issue classics like Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Boris the Bear, Samurai Penguin, etc., be sure to let me know.    

 

On 6/22/2020 at 2:22 PM, szav said:

Im sure you have far more stories of success than failure making these sorts of decisions.  

Although I don't have any real regrets about the TMNT 1 non-purchase (except from a financial missed opportunity POV ), there would come another non-purchase deal a year or two later that I regretted the minute that I said No and still regret to this very day.  Got a phone call from a power broker in the comic book marketplace who I had gotten to know since I had started to shift my interest from new books to GA after a brief flirtation with pre-hero GA books in the latter part of the 80's.  

Anyways, he calls to tell me that he had just picked up a supposedly uber HG set of Spidey 2 to 10 and that I could have it for the grand sum of only $1,000 which was around top of Mint guide price at the time or a bit under.  The set had been compiled by a very well known collector (mostly GA) who had meticulously upgraded the set over the past 20 years whenever he found nicer copies of each issue.  He told me that since I had arrived on the GA scene too late and had missed out on all of his Church Mile High keys (as if I could even had afforded them in the first place  ) he thought that this might be a good buy going forward for me, especially considering that I was not a deep pocketed collector.  Well, back then Marvel SA books including the keys had been sitting in the doldrums and going absolutely nowhere for most of the decade and in fact, had even dropped down in the guide for a year or so during those early years.  Anyways, he told me that he would hold onto the books for me for about 10 days or so to give me time to think about it and to call him back with my answer.    

After about a week, I receive another call from him and he informed me that another one of his regular buyers with much deeper pockets had expressed interest in acquiring the set and he was wondering if I had made up my mind yet.  Told him that I hadn't and would give him a call back in the next day or so with my answer which he didn't have an issue with.  After thinking about it for a day or so and remembering his constant night time lectures on always collecting the highest grade possible and from the keys or first issues on outwards or else you'll never have any money left when the keys or real good quality books do come along, I decided to say NO since it did not have a Spidey 1 in the set.  I somehow knew in the back of my mind that if I had the Spidey 2 - 10 set, I would end up trying my best to hunt down a Spidey 1 to complete the set and would most likely end up paying ridiculous money for it as it seem the SA Marvels keys and first issues were just starting to wake up from their decade long slumber in the deep freeze.  Looking back now, I really should have been more flexible with my stupid rule as that would have been the perfect time to go into SA Marvels as history has now shown us, they would start their decades long ascent in the late 80's and haven't really looked back since.    

Definitely still have regrets to this day about this poor decision that I had made not so much from a missed financial opportunity point of view, since being a long term collector, I know that those books would still be in my personal collection and not sold off.  Regrets really more from the collector's POV and fact that those issues would be the first appearances and origins for many of Spider-Man's key villians which I could have picked up in HG condition at a very rerasonable price point.      

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

16 hours ago, szav said:

 

Hey, a book which I personally haven't seen before and it looks like you've got yourself a real winner here.  

Especially since there's only 2 graded copies of this beauty here and you've got the highest grade copy in the entire universe right here.  Now, this is in the same category as Centaurs or some of the pre-hero GA DC books where there are less than a handful of graded copies after some 20 years of certification.  Not so sure about the demand though.  

After seeing this, who wants a copy of TMNT 1 with graded copies already approaching the 1,000 mark in total, and over 30 copies also already graded to date at the CGC 9.8 condition level.  Let's not forget the raw copies that's still sitting out there in private collections that has yet to cross the grading table.  Just wait until these Geriatric Gerbils movie rumors hit the social media and they'll be scampering past the turtles and making them eat dust (value wise) just like that.  

[lou_fine]

23 hours ago, GM8 said:

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.

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.  

 

[lou_fine]

22 minutes ago, szav said:

They’re very common but actually pretty hard to come by in minty fresh condition, due to the very cheap paper and having been relegated to dollar bins where they were thumbed through and passed over and not generally handled with care.

After all who handles garbage with care?  They have a lot of nostalgic value to me anyway.

Well, you never know...............even "relatively common" books which are certainly not scarce like Hulk 181, TMNT 1, goes up like crazy if the right demand factors are in place. 

  Toss out a few rumors about a potential Geriatric Gerbils movie and watch as everyone's garbage will all of of sudden become everyone's treasure just like that.  

Edited June 24, 2020 by lou_fine