Action Comics #1 - 3.25 Mil new highest sale! 2 2

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

15 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

I do not think a staple replacement should impact value one iota.  In fact, I think we, as a collecting community which wants to seek books preserved, should encourage staple replacement.  In the fine art world, no one would downgrade a piece of art because an inherently damaging object is removed or replaced.  Comic collectors should not be so dumb as to insist that switching out rusting staples, of all things, for period correct clean staples is a "downgrade" warranting a price reduction.  They are just staples for God's sake!  

In a relatively short time, my view will be the norm.  Don't be surprised.

Edited April 7, 2021 by onlyweaknesskryptonite
That would be one staple down. Also documented.

[sfcityduck]

3 minutes ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Now we know the exact discount a staple replacement should yield - something less than the $410 value of scraps of paper plus an Action 1 staple.  

 

[sfcityduck]

1 hour ago, Mmehdy said:

 

 My opinion on the purchase price is that he/she overpaid. Not because of the time involved between sales, which was considerable. But that in my opinion, having rusty staples is MAJOR defect which can only be repaired by downgrading the book to either restored or conserved. 

 

 

What has a greater upside:  (1) an untouched book with oxidizing staples or (2) a book that has been "restored" or conserved by a staple cleaning or replacement?

For me, the answer is obvious.  And the market is going to find it obvious as well.  In the near future, staple replacement will be a cash cow for CGC and carry no stigma.

[ThothAmon]

6 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

staple replacement will

 

6 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

carry no stigma.

If that’s true the above bag of flakes with an original staple might be worth a cool million. I saw Vincent in my local newspaper with the recent sale. You just can’t buy the type of advertising those Action 1 sales have gotten over the years. 

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, Mmehdy said:

The two most important things for me after cover quality is paper and then staple. Bad pages which are gonna someday disintegrate or have a staple which is slowly going to do the same thing over time, decrease value and demand.

Hate to break the news to you, but this is no longer the Stone Age as that is just so passe, since it is now the 21st century and we are all living in the Age of Certification.    

The two most important things for today's marketplace are the color of the label and that big big number along with the PQ on the top left hand corner of the slab.  It's all about buying the label, and much less so about buying the book like the good olden days of yore when some so-called young foolish kid would pay the unheard and outrageous amount of $1,800 and change for a copy of Action Comics #1.    

[LDarkseid1]

11 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Hate to break the news to you, but this is no longer the Stone Age as that is just so passe, since it is now the 21st century and we are all living in the Age of Certification.    

The two most important things for today's marketplace are the color of the label and that big big number along with the PQ on the top left hand corner of the slab.  It's all about buying the label, and much less so about buying the book like the good olden days of yore when some so-called young foolish kid would pay the unheard and outrageous amount of $1,800 and change for a copy of Action Comics #1.    

Can we go back to those days, when an Action Comics 1 sold for $1800? 

[kimik]

20 hours ago, G.A.tor said:

In 1973 or there about when Mitch paid 1800+ for a copy it was reported that there were only 9

Pre internet , the number grew to 100 and was repeated for decades. 
 

but now we know of 130+ and figure 50-60% known (just a guess) so 200+ is probably accurate but “unknown is unknown till known”

I wonder if it is not even higher than that. I know of two raw copies that are still here in town as of last year to the best of people's knowledge, along with  potentially another 1 or 2 low grade copies that surfaced in the late 90s that no one has seen since (I do not know if the LCS owners are talking about the same copy or not). If Mitch's print run estimate of 250,000 is accurate, then having just 0.08% of the print run survive seems low to me. 

Edited April 7, 2021 by kimik

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

Mention a bag of pieces and a staple and.. 

[lou_fine]

9 hours ago, ThothAmon said:

What a book. Timing is serendipitous given Vincent and ComicConnect just started a big auction ...

And yet at the shallow end of the pool where buyers like me without the deep pockets hang out, if you take a look at their current Event Auction just over 20% of their auction lots are still sitting in single dollar digit territory or still even awaiting their first bid.  

[Crowzilla]

2 hours ago, Mmehdy said:

 Bad pages which are gonna someday disintegrate

First time I have heard this in reference to "Off-White to White" pages.

If OW/W is in danger, almost all our books are at risk

[Mmehdy]

1 hour ago, sfcityduck said:

I do not think a staple replacement should impact value one iota.  In fact, I think we, as a collecting community which wants to see books preserved, should encourage staple replacement.  In the fine art world, no one would downgrade a piece of art because an inherently damaging object is removed or replaced.  Comic collectors should not be so dumb as to insist that switching out rusting staples, of all things, for period correct clean staples is a "downgrade" warranting a price reduction.  They are just staples for God's sake!  

In a relatively short time, my view will be the norm.  Don't be surprised.

I agree it should not matter to the degree that it would cause the label to change, especially if replaced by "similar" staples from a other comic book from the time. But SFCduck, that is not the reality. This purchase, not matter how unwise it is, must judged by the rules which exist today.

 Under todays rules, even you would not  purchase that book for 3.25 M given the conditions, we could buy some serious and great GA and not have worry about this issue, the damage caused by the rusty staple staying on the book for the last 75 years or so.

 But my point is why pay the world's highest price for a book with issues...whether you think they are going to be changed down the road.....and how about cleaning the rust from the pages, it that gonna get it conserved?..too many issues with too high of a price..... 
 

[Mmehdy]

4 minutes ago, Crowzilla said:

First time I have heard this in reference to "Off-White to White" pages.

If OW/W is in danger, almost all our books are at risk

I never said the pages of that book were brittle...I will however challenge that the pages were the same quality that the previous record holder, as I talked to the dealer who found that book, Joe said the pages were pure white.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Mmehdy

[sfcityduck]

2 minutes ago, Mmehdy said:

I agree it should not matter to the degree that it would cause the label to change, especially if replaced by "similar" staples from a other comic book from the time. But SFCduck, that is not the reality. This purchase, not matter how unwise it is, must judged by the rules which exist today.

 Under todays rules, even you would not  purchase that book for 3.25 M given the conditions, we could buy some serious and great GA and not have worry about this issue, the damage caused by the rusty staple staying on the book for the last 75 years or so.

 But my point is why pay the world's highest price for a book with issues...whether you think they are going to be changed down the road.....and how about cleaning the rust from the pages, it that gonna get it conserved?..too many issues with too high of a price..... 
 

I agree a strong case can be made the buyer paid too much.  

[Mmehdy]

17 minutes ago, kimik said:

I wonder if it is not even higher than that. I know of two raw copies that are still here in town as of last year to the best of people's knowledge, along with  potentially another 1 or 2 low grade copies that surfaced in the late 90s that no one has seen since (I do not know if the LCS owners are talking about the same copy or not). If Mitch's print run estimate of 250,000 is accurate, then having just 0.08% of the print run survive seems low to me. 

Look at Superman #1...which has 4x the print run over 3 printings do we have 4x as many Superman #1's out there, I would say yes, I have seen owners with Multiple copies, as well as the famous convention table with 20 copies of Superman 1 many many years ago.

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

CGC just sent out this email.

[woowoo]

1 hour ago, sfcityduck said:

I do not think a staple replacement should impact value one iota.  In fact, I think we, as a collecting community which wants to see books preserved, should encourage staple replacement.  In the fine art world, no one would downgrade a piece of art because an inherently damaging object is removed or replaced.  Comic collectors should not be so dumb as to insist that switching out rusting staples, of all things, for period correct clean staples is a "downgrade" warranting a price reduction.  They are just staples for God's sake!  

In a relatively short time, my view will be the norm.  Don't be surprised.

Yes put time correct old staples in and the old staples can still be put in the case with the book. The staples will damage the book if left there.

 

[sfcityduck]

Lots of big books purchased dirt cheap (by today's standard) lie buried in the collections of guys who got their start in the 60s and 70s.  Remember Bangzoom!

This 8.5 has changed hands three times in the past 11 years and accounts for 3 of the 9 (33%) transactions that have topped $1M and 3 of the 6 (50%) of the transactions which have topped $1.5M.  Is that a sign of strength?  Not sure.  

I do know that the serious comic collector who paid $1.5M for it in 2010 died, leading to the $2M+ auction in 2018.  I just hope this is not a redux of JP The Mint.

Edited April 7, 2021 by sfcityduck

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

For the most part we all seem to think that this was an overpayment of this book, but if we take almost everything mentioned in the thread so far there are several avenues that could easily lead to profit. 

The media attention.  Buyer could now publicly post his book through a social media site and gain views, reactions, and a check from ad space.  It could be sold or used in things like Rally Road, NFTs, etc. Or even worse sell PPV video disassembly/butchering it into pieces to be sold off through a public event where most collector's might have a chance to own a piece/pieces of this historic issues, all while gaining profit from said media coverage . Chances definitely are WAY against the last one, but still this is a whole new age of collectors and there is no real way of knowing what the new owner intends to do with this book until it happens. 

 

P.S. really hope it is not to butcher this book. 

[valiantman]

52 minutes ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

For the most part we all seem to think that this was an overpayment of this book, but if we take almost everything mentioned in the thread so far there are several avenues that could easily lead to profit. 

The media attention.  Buyer could now publicly post his book through a social media site and gain views, reactions, and a check from ad space.  It could be sold or used in things like Rally Road, NFTs, etc. Or even worse sell PPV video disassembly/butchering it into pieces to be sold off through a public event where most collector's might have a chance to own a piece/pieces of this historic issues, all while gaining profit from said media coverage . Chances definitely are WAY against the last one, but still this is a whole new age of collectors and there is no real way of knowing what the new owner intends to do with this book until it happens. 

 

P.S. really hope it is not to butcher this book. 

I always felt like the most likely avenue for "fractional ownership" (not part-time possession, the book would stay in a vault or museum) would involve Action Comics #1 and a lot of publicity.  RallyRd and others have tried going big, but not that big, so the concept hasn't gotten the kind of attention an Action Comics #1 would get.  RallyRd is about to put up a copy of the Declaration of Independence, so this could be their next move.  At any rate, the simplest idea would be that anyone with $100 could own a tiny fraction of an Action Comics #1 the way that anyone with $100 can own a tiny fraction of a company through stock (even fractional shares of stock).  The exact methods and venues to make that happen were always subject to all kinds of variables, but someday, it will be as common to buy/sell shares in Action Comics #1 as it is to buy/sell fractions of bitcoin.  Between the two, Action Comics #1 can sit in a museum under guard visible to the world while a dozen bitcoins still don't even really exist... or do they? 

[Albert Thurgood]

22 hours ago, comicdonna said:

Zurzolo said that while there were hundreds of thousands of copies initially published, it’s estimated only about 100 exist today, and in varying conditions. He said this copy is among the best-kept ones.

 

I believe there are more than 100 surviving copies.

Depends how many cigars Krusty has had lately.