A&A Gold 9.8 (not mine)

drmirage · Post by **drmirage** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 4:04 pm

As expected.. another A&A #0 Gold CGC 9.8 for sale from the same seller with a $249 starting bid.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Archer-Armstron ... 53f264b262" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The seller still has 5 more A&A #0 CGC 9.8 Golds from the original submission not including this book.

It will be interesting to see if these books will sell or not at what prices.

Knowing that the last two CGC 9.8's sold for $250 and $279 affects the collectability of this particular book.

GGSAE · Post by **GGSAE** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 4:56 pm

drmirage wrote:As expected.. another A&A #0 Gold CGC 9.8 for sale from the same seller with a $249 starting bid.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Archer-Armstron ... 53f264b262" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The seller still has 5 more A&A #0 CGC 9.8 Golds from the original submission not including this book.

It will be interesting to see if these books will sell or not at what prices.

Knowing that the last two CGC 9.8's sold for $250 and $279 affects the collectability of this particular book.

I think they will, just each one will take longer and longer. It sucks for the other sellers with books listed higher, oh well, that's the free market.

drmirage · Post by **drmirage** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 5:06 pm

GGSAE, I know what you mean.... ZWH "comic-sutra" had one listed for $499 BIN with a $399 starting bid and its hasn't sold for several relistings this month with 0 bids.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ARCHER-ARMSTRON ... 2c6ae6efdb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another seller from HI sold a cracked slab for $250 with OBO. The original listing was $499 BIN. http://www.ebay.com/itm/ARCHER-ARMSTRON ... 7675.l2557" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

When you play the slab game, this happens. Collectability on these high value books seem to be concentrated on a very small population.

If a slab reaches over 20+ in the census... its creates too much supply from then on....

There aren't many Valiant CGC 9.8 completionsts.... The bigger ones seemed to be mostly in Canada.

Another issue is to those collectors who purchased these books for $400-$500 years ago. These buyers lost a large % in there investments on these books and will not be wagering $$ on Valiant CGC 9.8 slabs any longer.

I have no doubt that we will see more and more VH1 CGC 9.8's of Harbinger #1 in the census in the future with 48,000 copies printed of that book. When someone finds a couple more 10 packs in the wild or from someone's permanent colleciton. The $500 market value of the Harbinger #1 will be even much much lower. $350-$450?

GGSAE wrote: I think they will, just each one will take longer and longer. It sucks for the other sellers with books listed higher, oh well, that's the free market.

greatbrandino11 · Post by **greatbrandino11** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 8:12 pm

I thought about asking the seller if he will be putting up any more copies of this book but I didn't want to seem like I was fishing. Unfortunately, collecting comics is like playing the stock market. You may hit the jackpot or you may lose your *SQUEE*. The $279 may not be as good of a deal as expected this time in 3-5 years, but for now, I am still happy with the transaction.

GGSAE · Post by **GGSAE** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 8:35 pm

greatbrandino11 wrote:I thought about asking the seller if he will be putting up any more copies of this book but I didn't want to seem like I was fishing. Unfortunately, collecting comics is like playing the stock market. You may hit the jackpot or you may lose your *SQUEE*. The $279 may not be as good of a deal as expected this time in 3-5 years, but for now, I am still happy with the transaction.

If you bought this book I think you got an amazing price! I thought about buying to flip, but having caught wind of the increased population, knowing more were apt to surface, I declined. I doubt the price of this book will go a lot lower than here, barring some sort of financial apocalypse where society and civilization has ended. All the VH1 variants except for the chromiums are very tough to find in high grade, I doubt we'll ever see a very high number of them.

FormerReader · Post by **FormerReader** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 8:47 pm

GGSAE wrote:
greatbrandino11 wrote:I thought about asking the seller if he will be putting up any more copies of this book but I didn't want to seem like I was fishing. Unfortunately, collecting comics is like playing the stock market. You may hit the jackpot or you may lose your *SQUEE*. The $279 may not be as good of a deal as expected this time in 3-5 years, but for now, I am still happy with the transaction.
If you bought this book I think you got an amazing price! I thought about buying to flip, but having caught wind of the increased population, knowing more were apt to surface, I declined. I doubt the price of this book will go a lot lower than here, barring some sort of financial apocalypse where society and civilization has ended. All the VH1 variants except for the chromiums are very tough to find in high grade, I doubt we'll ever see a very high number of them.

I agree. I wish I had picked the book up at this price. I paid a lot more I'm afraid. I figured after 20 years if there were more copies they would have shown up. It appears I was wrong. You win some, you lose some.

bosco685 · Post by **bosco685** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 12:57 pm

FormerReader wrote:I think I should have waited a little longer before I bought mine. Oh well.

Just kidding.

greg · Post by **greg** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 2:46 pm

I would not have predicted this many copies to turn up. There's got to be an interesting story behind it. Anyone want to ask the seller? (Especially if you bought one from him... maybe he'll spill it.)

That's a really early gold book (the earliest), so how do you earn/acquire 10+ pristine copies?

greatbrandino11 · Post by **greatbrandino11** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:49 pm

Since he has put up another copy of the book, I decided to send an inquiry to him. We'll see if he is willing to divulge this information.

bosco685 · Post by **bosco685** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:12 pm

greg wrote:I would not have predicted this many copies to turn up. There's got to be an interesting story behind it. Anyone want to ask the seller? (Especially if you bought one from him... maybe he'll spill it.)

That's a really early gold book (the earliest), so how do you earn/acquire 10+ pristine copies?

If you look at the scans/photos, take a glance down by the lower left corner. I have seen two copies now with the production spine split that shows up every once in a while. I think CGC has started treating this as an acceptable manufacturer error, and opened up the grading on this book.

By the way, if you look at his 9.4 and 9.6, they have it worse. And the 9.6 had a few spine stress lines that stood out on the top of the book that I was even surprised.

GGSAE · Post by **GGSAE** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 9:47 pm

bosco685 wrote:
greg wrote:I would not have predicted this many copies to turn up. There's got to be an interesting story behind it. Anyone want to ask the seller? (Especially if you bought one from him... maybe he'll spill it.)

That's a really early gold book (the earliest), so how do you earn/acquire 10+ pristine copies?
If you look at the scans/photos, take a glance down by the lower left corner. I have seen two copies now with the production spine split that shows up every once in a while. I think CGC has started treating this as an acceptable manufacturer error, and opened up the grading on this book.

By the way, if you look at his 9.4 and 9.6, they have it worse. And the 9.6 had a few spine stress lines that stood out on the top of the book that I was even surprised.

So it's a lesser 9.8? (Seems stupid to say it, but it's true). And check his refund policy, if it's no refunds on slabs, then I guess we know the answer.

ckb · Post by **ckb** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 11:42 pm

If the stuff about the spine splits is true, and Bosco and I have talked about it privately and I have no reason to doubt him, (except my own incredulity at CGC overlooking spine splits as production defects) I would not touch one of these without an iron clad return policy.

drmirage · Post by **drmirage** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 2:42 am

Pardon my ignorance, but how can you see the spine splits from the images of the listing. Also, I've noticed a lack of due diligence on behalf of CGC lately on 9.8s. Isn't a 9.8 still a 9.8 regardless.

IMO, if a buyer wanted an AA #0 Gold, $279 is a better deal than paying $399 ($499 BIN) from comic sutra. It's really a good deal if you think about it. It's a buyers market for these. It's also not sold this low for awhile now.

If I collect VH1 slabs, I would have bought one already. If someone had a found a couple of ten packs of Harbinger #1 and the Census of 9.8s increased by the same percentage as the AA 0 Golds, we would be looking at probably the same price of $279 for a CGC 9.8 for Harby 1.

bosco685 · Post by **bosco685** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 7:59 am

Here is the lower left-hand corner of his 9.6 graded by CGC. If this is a 9.6, I have four 9.8s to submit into CGC immediately.

Here is the corner of the 9.8, which has what I have found out in talking with CKB to be a more common defect than we realized. It will be an open corner split that when you look close enough, it will expose the white paper under the printing ink. Some are worse off than others. It also comes up frequently with Eternal Warrior 1 Gold Flat, as I found out from a few purchases.

I think CGC has graded enough of these they are starting to realize the corner split is a manufacturer defect, and they are not taking points away on the grade. I've had at least four copies I tracked down from different dealers that had this defect.

greatbrandino11 · Post by **greatbrandino11** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 9:11 am

Well, I can post a picture of the one I just purchased but I cannot seem to follow the FAQ instructions on how to post an image. Any ideas?

GGSAE · Post by **GGSAE** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 9:21 am

bosco685 wrote:Here is the lower left-hand corner of his 9.6 graded by CGC. If this is a 9.6, I have four 9.8s to submit into CGC immediately.

Here is the corner of the 9.8, which has what I have found out in talking with CKB to be a more common defect than we realized. It will be an open corner split that when you look close enough, it will expose the white paper under the printing ink. Some are worse off than others. It also comes up frequently with Eternal Warrior 1 Gold Flat, as I found out from a few purchases.

I think CGC has graded enough of these they are starting to realize the corner split is a manufacturer defect, and they are not taking points away on the grade. I've had at least four copies I tracked down from different dealers that had this defect.

It blows my mind that with an open hole in the cover like that the book would still get a 9.8. One of the other reasons I've gotten out of slabs, CGC isn't quite as iron clad as it used to be.

drmirage · Post by **drmirage** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:03 am

The only way to share an image is to upload it to a website and share us the link.

You can sign up for photobucket also, it's free.

greatbrandino11 wrote:Well, I can post a picture of the one I just purchased but I cannot seem to follow the FAQ instructions on how to post an image. Any ideas?

bosco685 · Post by **bosco685** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:34 am

greatbrandino11 wrote:Well, I can post a picture of the one I just purchased but I cannot seem to follow the FAQ instructions on how to post an image. Any ideas?

greatbrandino11 · Post by **greatbrandino11** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 12:21 pm

drmirage wrote:The only way to share an image is to upload it to a website and share us the link.

You can sign up for photobucket also, it's free.

greatbrandino11 wrote:Well, I can post a picture of the one I just purchased but I cannot seem to follow the FAQ instructions on how to post an image. Any ideas?

Thanks. I've never used Photobucket before. Here is the issue I am receiving. In my opinion, it looks like many of the CGC 9.8 A&A Gold I have seen for sale in the past. Also, I have received no response from the seller about his other issues for sale.

BloodShot · Post by **BloodShot** » Thu Jan 03, 2013 6:57 pm

drmirage wrote:As expected.. another A&A #0 Gold CGC 9.8 for sale from the same seller with a $249 starting bid.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Archer-Armstron ... 53f264b262" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The seller still has 5 more A&A #0 CGC 9.8 Golds from the original submission not including this book.

Well, not suprisingly, this one finally sold earlier this afternoon for his starting bid price of $249.

What's at least a little suprising is he hasn't listed one of his remaining five copies.

Yet

...

drmirage · Post by **drmirage** » Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:52 pm

A last minute bid @ $249.00 by the buyer.

What is really interesting is there was only 1 bid.

The CGC 9.8 Pre-Unity Completionists must all still be on vacation.

BloodShot · Post by **BloodShot** » Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:57 pm

drmirage wrote:A last minute bid @ $249.00 by the buyer.

What is really interesting is there was only 1 bid.

The CGC 9.8 Pre-Unity Completionists must all still be on vacation.

Either that, or they spent just a lil' bit too much stockin' up on extra egg nog

.

greatbrandino11 · Post by **greatbrandino11** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:36 am

He finally responded to my message. He simply told me it is his last one. Not sure if that means he has sold them all or if it is the last one he is selling. My guess is that he is going to hold on to a few.

ckb · Post by **ckb** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:12 pm

greatbrandino11 wrote:
drmirage wrote:The only way to share an image is to upload it to a website and share us the link.

You can sign up for photobucket also, it's free.

greatbrandino11 wrote:Well, I can post a picture of the one I just purchased but I cannot seem to follow the FAQ instructions on how to post an image. Any ideas?
Thanks. I've never used Photobucket before. Here is the issue I am receiving. In my opinion, it looks like many of the CGC 9.8 A&A Gold I have seen for sale in the past. Also, I have received no response from the seller about his other issues for sale.

That one looks good, a little miswrap.

ckb · Post by **ckb** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:20 pm

bosco685 wrote: Here is the corner of the 9.8, which has what I have found out in talking with CKB to be a more common defect than we realized. It will be an open corner split that when you look close enough, it will expose the white paper under the printing ink. Some are worse off than others. It also comes up frequently with Eternal Warrior 1 Gold Flat, as I found out from a few purchases.

I think CGC has graded enough of these they are starting to realize the corner split is a manufacturer defect, and they are not taking points away on the grade. I've had at least four copies I tracked down from different dealers that had this defect.

The cracking ink on the spine is not unusual on a number of early valiants. The Vintage Magnus series, Rai 2, Harbinger 1, etc. A&A 0 is late, though, relatively. You can still find this defect on books today - mostly ones with heavier cover stock. I saw it a few days ago going through a stack of the massive ASM 700.

I have seen CGC overlook the ink flaking on the spine - I once bought a 9.8 Rai 2 and returned it to the seller because it was so bad. It's definitely a "buy the book" world if you actually care deeply about condition. This is why I submit myself.

There is a line to be drawn with ink flaking on the spine and exposing the white cover paper and actual spine splits where the cover paper has separated. Harbinger 1 is the poster child for this. I hope CGC has not crossed that line - manufacturing defect or not.

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