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Who owns the most perfect Action Comics #1?
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205 posts in this topic

The photo of the book is probably kept a secret from us so that no one will be tempted to copy the photo and sell the book on ebay  :idea:  Or, it might not really get that high a grade if graded (due to Dave reading it on the toilet so many times), so the photo is kept from us to avoid embarrassing the dentist. :cry:

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On 5/21/2019 at 2:56 PM, Brandon Shepherd said:

If I had such a book, I would not tell anyone or display it for security and privacy concerns. 

A few years ago Vinny Z was showing off the 9.0 Action 1 at NYCC. There was a plainclothes guard seven or eight feet away, but I could easily have reached across the counter, grabbed the slab, run down the escalator, out through the lobby, and into the getaway car (driven, of course, by @woowoo). A quick exchange with a Russian oligarch for uncut diamonds and ....

In reality, I'd have ended up like the guy in the opening scene of Ocean's 11 -- knocked out cold before I reached the door. :)

IMG_0443_zps21fa7497.JPG

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On 5/22/2019 at 6:20 AM, rob_react said:

Standing up for comics for a minute... Dave didn't do as well as he would have if he'd bought Apple at the time and somehow had the dedication to hold it for for nearly 40 years, but he did pretty well. Split-adjusted, Apple's IPO share price was .39 cents, so a $25,000 investment at IPO would have bought you around 640000. Held hrough many lean years (and offering less enjoyment than an Action #1 for a comic collector), those shares would be would be worth around $12,000,000 today. That doesn't take into account any dividend that Apple would have paid, but the Church Action #1 still holds up okay assuming he's enjoyed owning the book.

I don't know of anybody who's held a large block of Apple since the IPO. Not to say that there isn't someone who has, but you would have had to have nerves of steel (or been in a coma) to have hung in there with a large position through the lean times.  Iirc, Jobs dumped all his stock when they booted him out. 

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28 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

I don't know of anybody who's held a large block of Apple since the IPO. Not to say that there isn't someone who has, but you would have had to have nerves of steel (or been in a coma) to have hung in there with a large position through the lean times.  Iirc, Jobs dumped all his stock when they booted him out. 

If you never saw this read on...

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/why-ronald-wayne-sold-his-10-percent-stake-in-apple-for-800-dollars.html

 

or how you could have turned $800.00 in 1977 to roughly 100 billion dollars today...:nyah:

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21 minutes ago, N e r V said:

how you could have turned $800.00 in 1977 to roughly 100 billion dollars today...:nyah:

I remember reading this article quite awhile ago.

Like he said, he doesn't regret it at all..............if he had kept his 10% share of the company, he would have been dead a long time ago.  O.o

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1 minute ago, lou_fine said:

I remember reading this article quite awhile ago.

Like he said, he doesn't regret it at all..............if he had kept his 10% share of the company, he would have been dead a long time ago.  O.o

 

eyes.jpg

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1 minute ago, lou_fine said:

I remember reading this article quite awhile ago.

Like he said, he doesn't regret it at all..............if he had kept his 10% share of the company, he would have been dead a long time ago.  O.o

I don’t mean this in any way to sound mean spirited or shallow or whatever but not regretting a lot of personal things in life I can fully see and understand. But making a bad business choice is antiseptic in your life and I always have strong doubts in people who say they don’t have any regrets in it. I regret every bad business choice I made. I think a better way to put it is you don’t dwell on your losses. Seriously though that’s a pretty bad financial choice to have to live with...

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18 minutes ago, N e r V said:

I don’t mean this in any way to sound mean spirited or shallow or whatever but not regretting a lot of personal things in life I can fully see and understand. But making a bad business choice is antiseptic in your life and I always have strong doubts in people who say they don’t have any regrets in it. I regret every bad business choice I made. I think a better way to put it is you don’t dwell on your losses. Seriously though that’s a pretty bad financial choice to have to live with...

I would tend to agree with you here.  (thumbsu

If he didn't find some way to rationalize the decision he had made and ended up dwelling on it every day, he surely indeed would have been dead a long time ago.  hm

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1 hour ago, Aman619 said:

Preservation?  It’s been stored the same way lots of long time collectors store their books, even million dollar books.  Mylars, acid free Boards, TL-30 safe, not too hot, not too cold, in the dark, rarely touched...

a winning formula.

I assumed that he kept his books unbagged in 10 foot stacks to replicate their original state. 

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On 7/16/2019 at 10:57 PM, Dinosaur jr. said:

If I owned that Dentists copy of Action 1 I might consider getting it graded just for preservation of it.

Why bother to get it graded if he doesn't plan to sell it yet anytime soon? ???

Especially if he doesn't want to subject it to potential SCS damage everytime he wants to take a look at it.  lol

If I had a book like that or even anything close or not even close to it for my collection, I would certainly not bother to slab it.  (thumbsu

Edited by lou_fine
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I definitely see you point. Personally I sold almost all my raw comics over the years and concentrated on key issue slabs mostly so when I'm gone my son can sell them easily and for top dollar. 

I was really just wondering how it has been stored all these years. So old and such high grade......and so valuable.

I have a friend, 66 years old. He started buying comics in the late 50's through the late 70's. He kept them all. He has almost every comic produced from those years aside from the romance titles. (No BS, even obscure stuff). I helped him inventory and organize it over about a 3 year period and what a thrill that was, it was incredible how he missed pretty much no issues in all those years. He just bought every issue of every series every month for all those years.

Well my point is that he stored them boxed mostly unbagged in Xerox paper boxes. And man did time do a number on them. He read them all so they had wear. Just sitting in those boxes for decades messed a lot of them up. He has a Detective 33 for example , in a bag since the mid 60's, when he took it out it practically crumbled.  Just crazy what time can do to these things even if they aren't handled. I see pedigrees like the Fantucchio collection and can't help but wonder how he handled and stored them to keep them so well preserved.

So I wonder how that Action 1 and other high grade Golden books like it are stored in a way in which time doesnt affect them so much, if at all.

 

Edited by Dinosaur jr.
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1 hour ago, Dinosaur jr. said:

So I wonder how that Action 1 and other high grade Golden books like it are stored in a way in which time doesnt affect them so much, if at all.

 

Low light, low oxygen, cool/cold/stable temp, and compression.

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1 hour ago, Dinosaur jr. said:

So I wonder how that Action 1 and other high grade Golden books like it are stored in a way in which time doesnt affect them so much, if at all.

Considering it has lasted in such great shape to this point, I am sure he has kept it in ideal climate, non-acidic, low-light, etc. type of conditions.  Fine art is not slabbed and the pieces are preserved.  i actually am all for slabbing but I too would not take any risks if it is to stay with me.  

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Wasn't "The Dentist" copy originally the one in the Edgar Church Collection discovered in 1977? If so, I understand that The Dentist bought his high-grade copy from a Sparkling City Comics sale of Mile High Comics in 1984? Do I have this info right?

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24 minutes ago, Getoutandstayout said:

Wasn't "The Dentist" copy originally the one in the Edgar Church Collection discovered in 1977? If so, I understand that The Dentist bought his high-grade copy from a Sparkling City Comics sale of Mile High Comics in 1984? Do I have this info right?

Yes, the Dentist own the Church Action 1. I believe he purchased it in 1982 for $25k. 

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