Evidently, a little league baseball coach made a great impression on one of his 8 year old charges thirty years ago. That kid's Mom had a single card made up of her son who presented it to his coach. Kiddingly, the coach asked him to sign it for him, as the kid had a tremendous season, batting .920 - surely going to be an MLBer someday. Looks like young Mark hadn't conquered cursive penmanship back then. Evidently, he did excel in other areas. Look closely and you can't mistake that face!
And...ComicConnect (Metropolis Comics) just auctioned it off. It sold for $105,000! Who and why would someone pay this much for it? You might be thinking, "Why is Paul even aware of this? Was he bidding on it?" No, but I follow ComicConnect's auction, especially since they are handling the sale of a good friend's collection.
If you read a previous blog, we lost a good friend a while ago, and his wife needed some advice about how to sell the collection. Having both had good experiences with Metropolis Comics in the past, Joe D. and I suggested using them. Working with Rob Reynolds, Vince Zurzolo, and Stephen Fishler was terrific. They offered very reasonable terms and with the reputation of their firm, we were sure to reap good results.
And good results are coming in! I had vetted the collection of roughly 50 boxes, pulling out the ones that I considered the cream and created two short boxes. The ComicConnect team went through the remaining issues and grabbed a few more to list in auctions. They made an offer to buy the "bulk" and upon acceptance, paid right away, and even gave a cash advance on the sales of the "good stuff". Recently, just prior to Event #51, Rob sent us reports/lists of how the comics were being sold. A chunk of them, all "raw" (not third party graded) had sold during some August sales, and according to ComicConnect's grade, they brought in roughly 31% more than listed in Overstreet! The vast amount of these were either first appearances or first issues, but not necessarily in the best shape.
Event #51 just ended, with the last days of bidding spread out over 5 evenings, and those results are in. All of our friend's books had been sent away to CGC, even the low grades, and again, the sales were well over what Mr. Overstreet suggested would be retail prices. None of our friend's books were in the first group that ended on a Monday evening since this night's offerings consisted of art work, specialty items, even role-playing games cartridges! The Tuesday through Friday listings were alphabetical, so Tuesday consisted of A through Batgirl, and so on. Our Amazing Fantasy 15 graded 4.5 by CGC was at at $26,000 with three hours to go before bidding was due to start ending (unlike eBay, they use a "slow close" method. Time is added if bids are placed at the last few minutes - no sniping!). It sold for $38,000, not counting the Buyer's premium of 15%. I am sure it would have gone for more if not for what looked like two "holes" in the cover. When I first saw the book, I thought they were holes, but it turned out to be just two small spots of lost color. The CGC label did not say it had holes, but prospective bidders might have assumed so. Guide said it had a value of $29,000. Also, there were 7 copies of this book in the auction and even a coverless copy of AF 15 sold for close to $9,000! (You made a good investment, G.K.!)
Occasionally, reprints sell for decent money - later ones of the "Death Of Superman" run, Hulk 377, for examples. The big outliers to me were the three Golden Record reprints that our friend had. The Amazing Spider-Man #1 reprint came back as a 2.5 according to CGC. Overstreet gives this about a $55 value. It sold for $3,500!! not counting the BP. It was clearly marked and noted in the description and CGC label. A mistake by the multiple bidders? Was this going to be removed and corrected? Nope. The Fantastic Four #1 reprint was due to go off the next night. It was only a CGC 2.0. It sold for $3,100. They were up to the "J's" the third night when the Journey Into Mystery #83s were finishing up. Our reprint was in sad shape with large pieces off the cover, lowering the grade to a 1.0. Guessing that equated to a $12 Overstreet value, I was still astonished when it ended up at $1,550. Can anyone explain this to me?If you see any, grab 'em!
There are about 100 issues yet to be sold. ComicConnect has monthly sales and "events". The latest email says Event #52 is about to start. I see some of those 100 among the offerings. Watching and reporting to our friend's family and buddy has been exciting for this old retired funny book dealer.
By the way, Captain Blue Hen Comics used to sponsor little league teams 'back in the day'. Yours truly actually coached a few. I told the parents that since everyone paid the same, everyone was going to play the same. Back then, regardless of whether you were in the field or not, everyone batted. I set up a batting order for the entire season. If batter # 7 made the last out in a game, batter #8 was our lead-off man in the next. Plus, everyone played the same number of innings. A schedule of when eveyone was to go in and out was made up before the season actually started. We had a happy team! All of the parents bought into it and we actually took the title one year! I believe I have a 30 year old card of a young slugger somewhere around the house. A local photographer offered baseball cards made up for the kids if they wanted, as a fund raiser. Like the guy pictured above, this coach's son (a potential Ohtani) never made it to "the bigs". A ruptured ACL during his first and only attempt at skiing, just prior to trying out for baseball at college, led him down a different path.
Create an Account
Sign In
