Doug Schmell cashing in his vaulted massive collecion. Poll: Is this the top?

[TrippyMcSkippy-migration]

The Mayan Calendar ends this year. Maybe the Mayans knew about this major upcoming auction and how it will change comic collecting forever!

[Mark 1]

Here's the thing, he lives around NYC, right? You do realize that it takes a minimum of $100,000 a year to live like a human being anywhere around here unless you're 22 and cool with sharing a place with 4 other guys/gals, right? (And then you don't notice it because you're wasted 5 nights a week.) We barely scrape by on twice that. Seriously, Archie Bunker's house would cost $750K-$1 million now. The "King of Queens" house would be $600-$800K. Monica's apartment on "Friends" would run about $5500 a month. The "Everybody Loves Raymond" house might be pushing seven figures. Aunt May's house would be about $700-$900K (and if she's in Forest Hills Gardens, over a million.) How anyone in the middle class can afford to live here unless they have already made a killing in the real estate market (like I did) is beyond me.

 

So, honestly, a 50something disbarred attorney who sells comics on the internet for a living being forced to sell off his better stuff in order to maintain his lifestyle shouldn't be all that shocking. You need to sell/consign a heck of a lot of good comics to be pulling in over $100K steadily.

 

I think Doug has lived in Florida for quite a few years now.

 

Doug lives in a beautiful home in Wellington Florida. I would estimate his home at about $650-700k current market value.

 

 

[Mmehdy]

This event also combined with the top marvel OA collection could and should make this auction a ALL TIME RECORC BREAKER.....and it might crack the 10 million dollar level.

[Silver Surfer]

you cannot stand it, when I am dead right. As I recall a number of board members said 2011 was it, that all the good stuff had been sold and not another major collection was gonna be found...then Billy Wright....hello...SS this is just the begining of best comic book year in the history of comic book collecting and all of those private sales(batman 1 850K) which are public and the big ones that are not.

Name them.

 

Typical straw man argument and not the good one.

 

Actually Mitch said that the Billy collection was going to be the last, he is arguing with himself. I think its called the Buffoon Man argument.

[TrippyMcSkippy-migration]

Mitch is still "The King of Comics."

[comicparadox]

I can't wait until the cache of high grade Buffoon Man #1 comics hits the market. I hear Parker is going to take a run at the highest grade copy as a punctuation for the Hello Pal collection.

 

Actually Mitch said that the Billy collection was going to be the last, he is arguing with himself. I think its called the Buffoon Man argument.

[bluechip]

Buying CGC top grade is great if you can buy them in a way that you know supply will not exceed demand. But if you're buying something based on the number some third party puts on a label, then you will always be taking some risk as to how rare that label will continue to be. And in the case of relatively common books in uber high grades that look extremely similar if not indistinguishable in the top grades and which are housed in cases that allow them to slide around, and can even change grades after they change owners, I think anybody who advises that is a bulletproof strategy even after a huge sustained run-up, is either consciously or unconsciously leaving out some very important considerations.

 

[Guardian Comics]

 

Quoted just for its awesomeness

[FFB]

Why are you guys giving mehdi so much air time? I swear, every time he pops into a thread, it turns into a "mitch is a dong" thread. Just ignore him. Even if you don't put him on ignore, just don't read his stuff.

 

Edit: This is not directed at cgcworld. That's just the last comment in the thread that I happened to click on when I hit reply.

[lou_fine]

Doug Schmell is cashing in the comics from the vault, in a heritage auction, basically the highest graded 9.8-9.6-9.4s of the first marvel age comics including keys.

 

Interesting to note that he is auctioning them off through Heritage, instead of through his own Pedigree auction website.

 

So, I assume that he is telling all potential consignors to Pedigree that if you have something really valuable to sell, you should really be putting them through Heritage as opposed to his own website.

[lou_fine]

Buying CGC top grade is great if you can buy them in a way that you know supply will not exceed demand. But if you're buying something based on the number some third party puts on a label, then you will always be taking some risk as to how rare that label will continue to be. And in the case of relatively common books in uber high grades that look extremely similar if not indistinguishable in the top grades and which are housed in cases that allow them to slide around, and can even change grades after they change owners, I think anybody who advises that is a bulletproof strategy even after a huge sustained run-up, is either consciously or unconsciously leaving out some very important considerations.

 

+1

 

Totally agree with what you are saying here!

 

Very risky to be putting big money into books that only has value because of their current CGC graded condition status. Much safer to be putting your money into books that have price support across all grade spectrums, with the real winners being the books that can still sell at record prices even if they are restored.

[drbanner]

Wow, I just realized my 10-year anniversary on the boards was earlier this week, I'm getting old!

 

Happy Anniversary, Banner!

 

 

Thanks!

 

The Gator FB team needs to turn it around next year.

[greggy]

Wow, I just realized my 10-year anniversary on the boards was earlier this week, I'm getting old!

 

Happy Anniversary, Banner!

 

 

Thanks!

 

The Gator FB team needs to turn it around next year.

They won't.

[aggr1103]

What I'm saying is that you can't gauge the state of the hobby from the internet alone. It's such a small slice of the pie to try and extrapolate from that it's not very accurate.

 

That's my experience, anyway.

 

 

Totally agree. Just wanted to let you know I used your example in my post as a reference, wasn't trying to single you out at all.

 

Another slice of the pie, albeit a small one, is the fact that non-comic book collectors are injecting money into the market as well. Movie memorabilia collectors are just as apt to snap up key books now that comic related movies are the driving force in Hollywood.

[Mmehdy]

I think the quality of the 678 books being sold by doug speak for themselves, if you are a collector...this is it....put your money where you mouth is...it anit gonna get any better than this.....marvel wise

[Mr.Diggler]

Wow, I just realized my 10-year anniversary on the boards was earlier this week, I'm getting old!

 

Happy Anniversary, Banner!

 

 

Thanks!

 

The Gator FB team needs to turn it around next year.

They won't.

[gyro-1]

Doug Schmell is cashing in the comics from the vault, in a heritage auction, basically the highest graded 9.8-9.6-9.4s of the first marvel age comics including keys.

 

Interesting to note that he is auctioning them off through Heritage, instead of through his own Pedigree auction website.

 

So, I assume that he is telling all potential consignors to Pedigree that if you have something really valuable to sell, you should really be putting them through Heritage as opposed to his own website.

THIS I agree with !

[COI]

Think about all the new books that have come to market and I think it's fair to say there are a lot of buyers out there.

 

There are definitely a lot of buyers, but a lot (maybe most) of those buyers are also sellers, which means that as books are coming in, books also have to go out. At some point there will be too many books out there.

 

Keep in mind that no one has a better idea of how deep or well-heeled the buyer pool is for books of this quality than Heritage does. If the market weren't deep enough to absorb this much material, they would have broken it up into a few auctions to avoid crashing their market.

 

The fact is that Marvel's white-hot movies have resulted in silver age Marvels selling for crazy amounts of money. Celebrities who have millions of dollars and only want the very best for their collections will probably be represented at this auction. I think that the buying pool for a collection like this is as high as it has ever been now, and with million-dollar sales, comic books as an asset class will tend to attract wealthier collectors. James Cameron, Leo DiCaprio, and Kevin Smith are comic book fans. If they aren't interested in bidding on Doug's books, what are they interested in bidding on?

 

Are they fans or collectors? Being comic book fans isn't in itself sufficient motivation to put together a top graded Marvel run. I was listening to a recent podcast that Kevin Smith was on; it isn't a comic-related podcast, but comic book collecting came up in the conversation, and it didn't sound like he was collecting in any significant capacity. So my answer to that question is, maybe they're not interested in bidding on anything. Wouldn't high grade Marvels be fish in a barrel if you had Cameron or DiCaprio's resources?

 

That aside, you're probably right about Heritage, and I would guess that now is probably the optimum time for Schmell to cash out. But again, it's the residual effects on the market this collection will have that I'm really interested in.

 

 

[r100comics]

 

One of the legal definitions of theft is that there is "an intention to permanently deprive", which there doesn't appear to have been with Doug.

 

Not that this makes any difference to those affected or makes what occured any more palatable, but it wasn't theft.

 

 

[Mmehdy]

Think about all the new books that have come to market and I think it's fair to say there are a lot of buyers out there.

 

There are definitely a lot of buyers, but a lot (maybe most) of those buyers are also sellers, which means that as books are coming in, books also have to go out. At some point there will be too many books out there.

 

Keep in mind that no one has a better idea of how deep or well-heeled the buyer pool is for books of this quality than Heritage does. If the market weren't deep enough to absorb this much material, they would have broken it up into a few auctions to avoid crashing their market.

 

The fact is that Marvel's white-hot movies have resulted in silver age Marvels selling for crazy amounts of money. Celebrities who have millions of dollars and only want the very best for their collections will probably be represented at this auction. I think that the buying pool for a collection like this is as high as it has ever been now, and with million-dollar sales, comic books as an asset class will tend to attract wealthier collectors. James Cameron, Leo DiCaprio, and Kevin Smith are comic book fans. If they aren't interested in bidding on Doug's books, what are they interested in bidding on?

 

Are they fans or collectors? Being comic book fans isn't in itself sufficient motivation to put together a top graded Marvel run. I was listening to a recent podcast that Kevin Smith was on; it isn't a comic-related podcast, but comic book collecting came up in the conversation, and it didn't sound like he was collecting in any significant capacity. So my answer to that question is, maybe they're not interested in bidding on anything. Wouldn't high grade Marvels be fish in a barrel if you had Cameron or DiCaprio's resources?

 

That aside, you're probably right about Heritage, and I would guess that now is probably the optimum time for Schmell to cash out. But again, it's the residual effects on the market this collection will have that I'm really interested in.

 

Top Graded, CGC Marvel's are gonna EXPLODE.....