Heritage Fall Signature Auction 5 5

[Sqeggs]

21 hours ago, MrBedrock said:

But "chicanery" is such a great word that it can't be replaced.

Particularly tasty when sprinkled on eggnog.

[Sqeggs]

3 hours ago, Mr. Lady Luck said:

The Crippen copy of Hedy #27 sold for $1,314.50 back in January. Ten months later, the same book sold for only $456 in the Fall Signature auction.

Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to put the Church and Crippen copies in the same auction.

Definitely a sound conclusion!

Given that the January result seems awfully high for a Crippen that's only a 6.5, it's hard to believe the consignor actually expected to make a profit on the flip, although he probably didn't expect to take a loss that large. 

[Sqeggs]

13 hours ago, tth2 said:

It's ironic that Heritage, which provide such great transparency on past sales, gets accused of chicanery so much more than the totally opaque Comiclink does.

I'm not sure anyone has called shenanigans on Heritage about this.  They may just have been the means by which the shenaniganer tried his shenanigans -- if, in fact, everything wasn't aboveboard, which it may have been for all I know.

Just to review the bidding, this book has been reported as sold four times in the past 11 months in various venues and supposedly received these prices:

$14,500

$16,730

$22,000

$9,000

Seems like a whole lot of flipping for a pre-hero DC in such a short time period, even a Church copy.  The buyer who bought the book last month for $9K either got a bargain or was left holding the bag (or some of both?). But, who knows? Stranger things have happened than for a book to have four legit sales in less than a year.  

[143ksk]

1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

Definitely a sound conclusion!

Given that the January result seems awfully high for a Crippen that's only a 6.5, it's hard to believe the consignor actually expected to make a profit on the flip, although he probably didn't expect to take a loss that large. 

I'm sure the presence of the Church copy didn't help, but the Hedy was not the only book with that sort of result. The Crippen Comedy 2 went from $1300 to $500 and the Crippen Junior Miss 31 went from $650 to $240.

[RareHighGrade]

1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

I'm not sure anyone has called shenanigans on Heritage about this.  They may just have been the means by which the shenaniganer tried his shenanigans -- if, in fact, everything wasn't aboveboard, which it may have been for all I know.

Just to review the bidding, this book has been reported as sold four times in the past 11 months in various venues and supposedly received these prices:

$14,500

$16,730

$22,000

$9,000

Seems like a whole lot of flipping for a pre-hero DC in such a short time period, even a Church copy.  The buyer who bought the book last month for $9K either got a bargain or was left holding the bag (or some of both?). But, who knows? Stranger things have happened than for a book to have four legit sales in less than a year.  

It's actually a post-hero DC because, although he's not on the cover, the Sandman started the month before.

[Cat-Man_America]

2 hours ago, RareHighGrade said:

It's actually a post-hero DC because, although he's not on the cover, the Sandman started the month before.

Good point, Peter.  There are just too many factors that might've influenced outlier low-ball bids in this HA.  It's much easier to assess rationales for the big ticket winners.

[Sqeggs]

3 hours ago, 143ksk said:

4 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Definitely a sound conclusion!

Given that the January result seems awfully high for a Crippen that's only a 6.5, it's hard to believe the consignor actually expected to make a profit on the flip, although he probably didn't expect to take a loss that large. 

I'm sure the presence of the Church copy didn't help, but the Hedy was not the only book with that sort of result. The Crippen Comedy 2 went from $1300 to $500 and the Crippen Junior Miss 31 went from $650 to $240.

Very interesting.  I wonder what the backstory is?  Looks like someone decided to raise some dough by dumping them as a group. 

[Sqeggs]

3 hours ago, RareHighGrade said:

It's actually a post-hero DC because, although he's not on the cover, the Sandman started the month before.

I was waiting for you to notice that! 

[Mmehdy]

9 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

I'm not sure anyone has called shenanigans on Heritage about this.  They may just have been the means by which the shenaniganer tried his shenanigans -- if, in fact, everything wasn't aboveboard, which it may have been for all I know.

Just to review the bidding, this book has been reported as sold four times in the past 11 months in various venues and supposedly received these prices:

$14,500

$16,730

$22,000

$9,000

Seems like a whole lot of flipping for a pre-hero DC in such a short time period, even a Church copy.  The buyer who bought the book last month for $9K either got a bargain or was left holding the bag (or some of both?). But, who knows? Stranger things have happened than for a book to have four legit sales in less than a year.  

this type of dangerous manipulation of market forces seems can really do long term damage to the GA market...its a shame.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Mmehdy

[tth2]

14 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Just to review the bidding, this book has been reported as sold four times in the past 11 months in various venues and supposedly received these prices:

$14,500

$16,730

$22,000

$9,000

Seems like a whole lot of flipping for a pre-hero DC in such a short time period, even a Church copy.  The buyer who bought the book last month for $9K either got a bargain or was left holding the bag (or some of both?). But, who knows? Stranger things have happened than for a book to have four legit sales in less than a year.  

I think the buyer at $9,000 got an okay deal, particularly if he/she will hold on to it for a while.  Maybe a bit on the high side but not crazy high.

The buyer left holding the bag was the one who paid $22,000.   

If the run up from $14,500 to $22,000 was the result of the owner and some shills laddering the price to sucker in some poor rube, talk about major failure!   

[szav]

Course it could be the auction house who owns the book and they keep bidding it up and accidentally winning it back ... because they lose exactly zero dollars each time and get to set a new fake fmv on the book.

Guess we’ll see if this one goes up for sale yet again in the near future.  Not sure if HA employs this practice but it sure seems like a few other auction sites are doing this.

[njwis]

12 minutes ago, szavisca said:

Course it could be the auction house who owns the book and they keep bidding it up and accidentally winning it back ... because they lose exactly zero dollars each time and get to set a new fake fmv on the book.

Guess we’ll see if this one goes up for sale yet again in the near future.  Not sure if HA employs this practice but it sure seems like a few other auction sites are doing this.

After what HA did to my Make Offer to Owner with a DD#1 8.0 i wouldn't put anything past them. Right now they are knowingly trying to sell a 7.5 in an 8.0 slab.

[Mr. Lady Luck]

16 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

20 hours ago, 143ksk said:

21 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Definitely a sound conclusion!

Given that the January result seems awfully high for a Crippen that's only a 6.5, it's hard to believe the consignor actually expected to make a profit on the flip, although he probably didn't expect to take a loss that large. 

I'm sure the presence of the Church copy didn't help, but the Hedy was not the only book with that sort of result. The Crippen Comedy 2 went from $1300 to $500 and the Crippen Junior Miss 31 went from $650 to $240.

Very interesting.  I wonder what the backstory is?  Looks like someone decided to raise some dough by dumping them as a group. 

I think that Crippen copies were pretty exciting about a year ago. Then, Heritage had a flood of Church teen humor books throughout 2018 and the Crippens kinda lost their appeal.

Why settle for the Crippen copy when the Church copy will probably show up any day now?

Just a theory.

[Mr. Lady Luck]

The ghosts of Davis Crippen and Edgar Church today:

 

[Mmehdy]

6 hours ago, njwis said:

After what HA did to my Make Offer to Owner with a DD#1 8.0 i wouldn't put anything past them. Right now they are knowingly trying to sell a 7.5 in an 8.0 slab.

Could you explain this in more detail

[njwis]

14 minutes ago, Mmehdy said:

Could you explain this in more detail

here is the thread which explains what i am talking about

 

 

[Mmehdy]

8 minutes ago, njwis said:

here is the thread which explains what i am talking about

 

 

Wow...thanks for the info....

[bluechip]

On 12/4/2018 at 8:02 AM, Sqeggs said:

Definitely a sound conclusion!

Given that the January result seems awfully high for a Crippen that's only a 6.5, it's hard to believe the consignor actually expected to make a profit on the flip, although he probably didn't expect to take a loss that large. 

When consigning it's good to remember that auction house agendas intersect with yours only to a limited extent.  They like to sell high but they also benefit from happy customers who get bargains and, thus, bid regularly.  Having two pedigrees of the same issue confers some bragging rights but doesn't automatically benefit the consignor of the lesser pedigree.  I had a wtf moment after being talked into consigning something that one house was very excited about only to see in the catalogue they paired it with what seemed to me to be the worst possible item, substantially aiding the bids on the other, lesser, piece and establishing a bar that body slammed the bids on mine.   To be fair I will not say which house or what the item was; just saying that it is generally a good idea to follow up on how your thing(s) might be listed and what others might be in the same auction with it.

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by bluechip

[Sqeggs]

7 hours ago, Mr. Lady Luck said:

The ghosts of Davis Crippen and Edgar Church today:

 

I don't think we yet know the full effect of all the Church copies that hit the market in the past year.  As with these books, they've probably caused a significant hit to what had been the highest graded copies.

One of the appeals of the Crippen collection was how many 1950s books it had that weren't in Edgar's collection or where Edgar's copy had been off the market for decades.  There are Crippen copies of a lot of romance books where few other copies are known.  Some of Edgar's romance books that had come on the market before these recent ones had no markings and CGC wasn't willing to acknowledge them on the label.  Bedrock has one for sale in his G/S/B thread.

Here's another one.  Harley swore up and down this was the Church copy.  I swore up and down to the CGC graders that it was the Church copy.  Roughly paraphrasing, here was the graders' response:  "Neener, neener, neener!"

[Mr. Lady Luck]

35 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

I don't think we yet know the full effect of all the Church copies that hit the market in the past year.  As with these books, they've probably caused a significant hit to what had been the highest graded copies.

One of the appeals of the Crippen collection was how many 1950s books it had that weren't in Edgar's collection or where Edgar's copy had been off the market for decades.  There are Crippen copies of a lot of romance books where few other copies are known.  Some of Edgar's romance books that had come on the market before these recent ones had no markings and CGC wasn't willing to acknowledge them on the label.  Bedrock has one for sale in his G/S/B thread.

Here's another one.  Harley swore up and down this was the Church copy.  I swore up and down to the CGC graders that it was the Church copy.  Roughly paraphrasing, here was the graders' response:  "Neener, neener, neener!"

Regardless, that's a beautiful book.

I've heard it said that a true Church enthusiast can verify the authenticity by the smell of the book.