Anybody see this auction?

The Spider · Post by **The Spider** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 8:21 pm

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 05647&rd=1

Man, that's a lot of duplicates.

ZephyrWasHOT!! · Post by **ZephyrWasHOT!!** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 8:29 pm

Wow. These books will be coming out more and more as the people who collected them originally start dying off.

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 8:46 pm

Holy cow ZWH, that's harsh!

I like it.

Required reading for comics collectors should be the story of Chuck Rozanski and the Mile High Collection. It's on his web site.

The Spider · Post by **The Spider** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:35 pm

That picture of the Wolverine #1s makes me think of a Warhol painting.

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:43 pm

I might have said "likely story" on the kid hitting the BIN button, except my 5-year-old tried to order more than a grand worth of Megaman stuff once.

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 10:13 pm

Do you think the seller would let me use a credit card with paypal for this? Or do you think he doesn't want to pay the fees?

Mr.V · Post by **Mr.V** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 11:55 pm

The seller is a poster on CGC's message board. He actually got screwed on his first try with these books. Apparently, some young kid hit the Buy It Now of $250,000 toward the end of the auction and was forced by his parents to "back out" of the auction. As you could probably imagine, the seller was NOT VERY HAPPY. As for paying via Paypal, I would very much doubt he'd enjoy incurring that hefty fee, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

V

Vault-Keeper · Post by **Vault-Keeper** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:53 am

This is a great collection, but it sends up red flags for me. If I were to ever have the serious coin it would take to buy this, I would have to personally go over the entire collection, hands-on.

What is the overall restoration factor on these? He says the Superman & Batman have been restored. How many of the others? Here is where you tread dangerous ground!

Still, some of the photos are truly mind-boggling! The Wolverine/Warhol analogy is right on the money. What a weird photo!

I'm sure this guy could have made his 1/4 mil (or more) by either piecing this collection out, or finding a big dealer to broker or buy them. He is definitely losing out on a greater overall total, IMO, unless there are many restored or damaged books.

I have around fifty damaged Marvels from the early 60's. They look great when you're looking at the cover, but each one has part of an ad page cut out. Without the damage, they are easily $1,000+ worth of books. With the damage, I might be lucky to break $200. It makes me wonder just how good are the issues this guy has pictured? Two AF #15's in Poor condition? Sounds like missing pages, because the issues look alright in the photo.

I'd like to know where this collection came from also. Any pedigree to the collection? Someone obviously spent a long time compiling it....---Steve G

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 9:00 am

I was just amused by the obligatory "seller prefers paypal" in the listing, but really I must agree with VK and wonder how anyone can bid major $ on a collection like this, I thought the description was kind of vague considering the magnitude of this auction, no grades on major issues really spoken of other than "poor" on the older books. This also could be the seller's way of screening the interested buyers.

DawgPhan · Post by **DawgPhan** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 9:00 am

Vault-Keeper wrote:This is a great collection, but it sends up red flags for me. If I were to ever have the serious coin it would take to buy this, I would have to personally go over the entire collection, hands-on.

What is the overall restoration factor on these? He says the Superman & Batman have been restored. How many of the others? Here is where you tread dangerous ground!

Still, some of the photos are truly mind-boggling! The Wolverine/Warhol analogy is right on the money. What a weird photo!

I'm sure this guy could have made his 1/4 mil (or more) by either piecing this collection out, or finding a big dealer to broker or buy them. He is definitely losing out on a greater overall total, IMO, unless there are many restored or damaged books.

I have around fifty damaged Marvels from the early 60's. They look great when you're looking at the cover, but each one has part of an ad page cut out. Without the damage, they are easily $1,000+ worth of books. With the damage, I might be lucky to break $200. It makes me wonder just how good are the issues this guy has pictured? Two AF #15's in Poor condition? Sounds like missing pages, because the issues look alright in the photo.

I'd like to know where this collection came from also. Any pedigree to the collection? Someone obviously spent a long time compiling it....---Steve G

He said that he wants the money to buy a house. That is why he is doing it like this. He also says that there could be some restored books in the colelction. Nothing major or professional but with that many comics something is bound to turn up. Also he went to a few of the bigger players and I dont think that any really wanted the whole set. They all wanted to buy the keys at a deep discount and leaving him with the commons and less money. I dont really think that this is the best way to do it, especially if he really is buying a house since he could better maximize the utility of his collection by sending off some of the books to be graded. Selling others raw and selling smaller runs. The rolling the money into CD's to pay for the house note...This auction has been talked about at great length over on the CGC board. Nearly everyone thinks that he should have sold it off piece by piece but whatever...it is his collection and I think that he might still turn a profit...

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 12:46 pm

I guess it all depends on your current financial situation, but I too think that he would have been better off selling them a few at time. Wish I had that kind of spare change lying around cause that is an awesome collection.

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:29 am

It does seem kind of weird. I mean, putting together that kind of collection takes some serious effort (unless you're so damn rich you don't have to worry about things like house payments). And most people wouldn't put that much effort into something unless it really meant something to them.

And then to ditch the whole thing in one chunk?

DawgPhan · Post by **DawgPhan** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 7:51 am

depluto wrote:It does seem kind of weird. I mean, putting together that kind of collection takes some serious effort (unless you're so damn rich you don't have to worry about things like house payments). And most people wouldn't put that much effort into something unless it really meant something to them.

And then to ditch the whole thing in one chunk?

Well from what I understand he still has a sizeable golden age collection. I think that he just put this colelction together over the years and now is ready to cash out. he says that he needed the money because he has no credit history and could not get a loan to buy a house...I guess he has been living off cash all these years because most everyone has a credit history and with the way that they give out loans today I sure that he could have gotten a loan, but that is his story....

ikcizokm · Post by **ikcizokm** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 5:18 pm

I'd be wary of buying this too, without doing some hands-on work with it. But for that kinda change, you can afford to buy a plane ticket to fly to New York and inspect it personally, maybe as a proviso to completing the purchase. I hope he sold it to the high bidder, even tho it didn't get to the reserve, because if this thing gets listed again it'll never sell.

As for the kid who bid and then the family backed out... there are a lot of sellers on eBay who would sue over that kinda money. There's ways to argue either side, tho, so it probably would never fly. But at least the seller has some class.

I hope he gets a nice house. But I'm also worried about what the sudden introduction of so many of those books all at once into the marketplace could do to their value.

Brother J · Post by **Brother J** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 6:18 pm

hope he sold it to the high bidder, even tho it didn't get to the reserve, because if this thing gets listed again it'll never sell.

He ended the auction early because he had a buyer that apparently met his price. Since that kid popped the BIN, when he relisted he kept the BIN option available but didn't do it officially, he just said the Buy it Now price was still available and he would end the auction early if someone met that price.

When I first saw this auction, I thought it would be a great buy for someone who had that kind of money available because they could probably break these books up, send the best ones to CGC and make a big profit. However, I think there was a fear that quite a few of these books were restored, so I guess that's why none of the big dealers decided to pounce on this. Man, I wish I had a collection like that to sell off!

Eric Jackson · Post by **Eric Jackson** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:56 pm

some new interesting text put up on the auction now.. not quite sure what to make of it.

DawgPhan · Post by **DawgPhan** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:17 pm

I think that he is interested in selling some more books and he edited the auction text to reflect that...I think that the auction has long since pasted 100,000 total for this and the first time it was listed....that is a lot of people...also I think that someone stole the images from his auction and was hot linking them to their own (fraud) auction...I think that he changed the pictures with pictues of that text, but the names are the same so that they appear in his auction....see what I am saying? of course now that I look for the other auction I cant find it...but facemuie* and facemuie are both new ebay id's...