ComicLink Winter Featured Auction
The March 2012 ComicLink Winter Featured Auction has just ended and boy were there ever some nice books available to purchase!
I’m going to call this auction the “Thank you Billy Wright” auction. If you’ll remember just recently the Billy Wright collection sold on Heritage for $3.5 million and the news was reported all over the world! Local papers, national papers, magazines, news and business TV programs all reported on the record results of the collection. Big B Comics in Hamilton felt the “Wright Effect”, we had at least 5 collections walk through the door within 2 days of the news. I couldn’t figure out why the stampede but then it came to me. Its obvious to me anyway that this ComicLink auction also experienced the “Wright Effect”.
The top 50 comics were dominated by Marvel with 35 entries. Interestingly there were 10 of the big early Marvel Keys in the top 50 (a couple of them multiple times). If you were looking for Marvel Keys, this was your auction. You would have had to pay for those Marvel Keys though as I believe at least a few of these sales were record prices for the grade including the $43K for the Amazing Fantasy #15 in CGC 70.
DC chimes in with 5 Golden Age entries and 5 Silver Age entries, E.C. had 2 books place in the top 50 while 3 different restored Archie’s made the cup as well. There was a CGC 5.0 restored Canadian Super Comics that reprinted Pep #22 and it got a whopping $11k plus!
Big B Comics was very active in this auction, we had 3 books up for sale (the X-Men #21 9.8, X-Men #95 9.8 and the JLA #116 9.8). We sent three off but we’re getting three back, we won the TTA #57, 9.2, the ASM #129 9.2 and the Wonder Woman #156 9.4. Definitely advantage seller on the Wonder Woman #156, I have an obvious soft spot for the book and I got a bit carried away with the bidding. The book does look gorgeous though!
I wanted to win more auctions but found the prices exceeding even my optimistic expectations on almost all the books that interested me. Thanks for nothing Billy!
Here are my highlights for this auction.
Wings Comics #94, Fiction House, (June 1948) Graded by CGC at 8.0 White pages sold for $1,323.00 on ComicLink on March 8th. The Overstreet price guide value for this comic at 8.0 is $144.00.
Holy Moly! About 6 years ago I had a nice run of Wings Comics, not sure if this one was in there but what I am sure of is that they wouldn’t sell. Man, these things were slow! I eventually moved them at about half guide. This lucky seller abot 9 times guide.
I mean come on! I think half the covers in this era of the book have some girl tied up don’t they?
I wouldn’t put too much faith in census data with this book as it’s never really been deemed worth slabbing, up til now.
Advantage Seller.
Betty and Me #1, Archie Publications (August, 1965) Graded by CGC at 9.2 with White pages sold for $700.00 on ComicLink on March 6th. The Overstreet price guide value for this comic at 9.2 is $300.00.
You know, there are cottages all over Northern Ontario hiding millions of dollars in comics according to this result.
I think we’re going a bit overboard with this Archie stuff. Yes the Pep #22 and the Archie #1 and the Pep #36 I can see but a 1965 copy of Betty and Me #1? There are only 3 of these slabbed, because why would you? Two of these graded copies are 9.2s.
Again, look for the census on this book to change very shortly.
Advantage Seller.
Marvel Mystery Comics #8, Timely Comics (June 1940) Graded by CGC at 8.5 with Cream to Off White pages sold on ComicLink for $$14,137 on March 7th. The Overstreet price guide value for this comic at 9.2 is $14,250.00.
This was a heavy hitter!
The Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner battle for the first time in this comic. The story continues into the epic Marvel Mystery #9 and even spills over into issue #10. These are musts for serious Golden Age collectors.
The buyer picked this book up for under guide! There are only 2 copies that grade higher than this book. I think this is a good pick up, if the book I had up for sale would have miraculously sold for 6 times more than they did I would have made a play at this one.
Advantage Buyer.
Weird Fantasy #21, E.C. Comics (October 1953) Graded by CGC at 9.8 with White pages sold for $9,309.00 on ComicLink on March 8th. The Overstreet price guide value for this comic at 9.2 is $925.00.
This one went through the roof with like 1 second left. What a pump the seller must have got when he or she saw the price go up over $3,500 in basically one second at the very end! Like winning a lottery.
Oh the power of a Frank Frazetta cover. I believe this is the only Frazetta credited cover in the series so it will always enjoy strong demand. There was a 9.6 Gaines File copy that sold for over $6,500 a few years back so I guess this price is not too far out of whack.
Most of the Gaines File copies in this auction went from 2 to 4 times guide, none of them were 9.8s mind you but still they were tight crisp copies. Weird Fantasy #21 is one of those run books from the E.C. Sci Fi stable that happens to have a Frazetta cover, he did a lot of covers.
Advantage Seller.
X-Men #35, Marvel Comics (August 1965) Graded by CGC at 9.2 with Off White to White pages sold for $800.00 on ComicLink on March 8th. The Overstreet price guide value for this comic at 3.5 is $525.00.
Just when comic collectors were starting to worry me someone pulls off this purchase and restores my faith.
Check out the visuals on this book, tight, clean, not over bound, not underbound and all the while perfectly square.
Obviously a couple of savvy buyers were as impressed as I was by the lay of this book and decided to override the CGC grade at the top.
If you were buying this book based on the grade assigned you would not have bid $550 as historically the book does not get that much. CGC 9.4 copies trade in the $800 price range and at least two buyers were confident enough to head up into that realm.
Advantage Buyer for having the balls to question the assigned grade.
Two copies of X-Men #56, Marvel Comics (May 1969) One graded by CGC at 9.8 with Off White to White pages sold for $1,028.00 while the other graded by CGC at 9.6 with Off White to White pages sold for $475 on ComicLink on March 8th. The Overstreet price guide value for this comic at 9.2 is $225.00.
OK I might have to take everything about my restored faith all back!
Take a look at the 2 scans above. Look at that 9.6! Wow, you cannot get a better centered or more square book, look at the corners, damn!
Now have a look at that 9.8. What gives, it’s all crooked and the 2 bottom corners seem a bit rounded.
Advantage Seller on the 9.8
Advantage Buyer on the 9.6
This was really quite an event! So did you win anything?
Some of the board members noted that this auction went higher overall than anticipated as well… but you attribute this to the “Wright Effect”? Interesting, and completely plausible I would say.
So does this mean you see prices coming back down and normalizing next auction… post Billy Wright?
I was eyeing the X#95… didn’t realize it was yours. Are you happy with what you got for your 3 books? These auction can be a crap shoot sometimes…
I do believe it is the “Wright Effect”.
Please do me a favor Charlie and link my post to the forums, I’m really not good at that stuff!!
I do think we’ll come down a bit but long term I’m confident of the market. Investing in comic books is passing from being a fad of celebrities and becoming more and more accepted in the mainstream (like everything comic related).
I don’t want to give anything away but I am posting a Market Trends report this time next week on where I think the market is heading.
I was happy with the X-Men #95. I’m not big on Bronze 9.8s long term so I’ll take what I get. The X-Men #21 was different but it must be my aversion to 9.8s that make me want to list it!
Did you pick up anything?
Walter,
Thanks for buying that big book from me.I hope you had a great show. I did win a few Avengers cgc 9.8s and a Batman 9.8. All were key issues i picked up for a nice price although the rest of my 40 bids got shot down quickly. I am actually still a big big fan of bronze 9.8’s despite all the repeat pressing so long as the book presents itself as a 9.8 Too many have that 9.4, 9.6 look to them so I have to be selective. As prices decline I do look for value on key issues which have the bounce back effect due to desirability of many keys from this era. Sure the census on 9.8’s increases but there is point where it slows down as you can only sandwich them so many times. Keeping in mind cgc has hired a new grader so grades maybe all over the place in these coming months.