"Holy Grail" of Comic Books
 

I don't think it would earn a 10 with a 1/2" tear on the back page! Really, I'm surprised that it even earned a 9.0 with such a visible defect. I inquired to be sure I wasn't seeing things and the seller replied by telling me that the comic book had been torn at the factory. So I guess in the world of comic book grading a factory-produced tear is equivalent to a printing defect? I suppose if that rip was owner-induced it would have graded lower. Sheesh!

As Kramer would say - "I'm out!"

Which is the greater 'Holy Grail'?
 

Our 'native bias' aside, anyone want to share their feelings on which is the greater 'Holy Grail' - this Comic Book or the Gretsky Wagner?

I don't know how many original copies of the Comic Book have survived and I've heard at least four different totals for the Wagner. Input Requested.

The Gretsky Wagner card has long been assumed to be, by far, the Wagner in the best condition, but we have already heard of one Comic Book that may be better than this one.

The Wagner is 27-29 years older. Aside from that, what are your opinions?

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If I hit the lotto, I'm finding the guy who won Mike Eruzione's jerseys and gold medal from the 1980 Olympics and offering whatever it takes.

Depends on how you look at it. Action #1 had a HUGE impact on comic books in general, and super-hero comics in particular. To say there wouldn't be super-hero comics without Action #1 is a bit of a stretch (like saying there wouldn't be PCs without IBM or MS), but it did effectively jump-start the genre, which in turn jump-started the huge wave of comics in general. Right comic at the right time. Anywhere in the world you could easily find someone who knows who Superman is. Action #1 had a bigger impact to the overall culture.

No one could reasonably see the Wagner card (or Wagner) causing the same impact.

Now if you are talking specifically about COLLECTING, that's open for debate.

So I would offer that those card collectors seeing the Wagner as a "holy grail" rather than a copy of Action #1 are more "collecting niche nerds" than comic collectors. :D

It really is quite simple.

While card collectors think of the Wagner as the "holy grail" of the hobby, comic book folk consider Action #1 in the same way. I find it interesting that 1 of the best known examples of each sell in the same $2 million plus range.

One's personal knowledge of the census of high-end collectibles is irrelevant to the question you posed.

I think as you move outside the niche of baseball card collecting in particular, and card collecting in general, you will find the urgent NEED to encase everything in plastic with a number grade assigned diminishes greatly. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with slabbing/grading, but it's not for everyone. From what I understand, the current owner of the Edgar Church Collection copy of Action #1 has quite possibly THE most valuable comic collection in the world (including what are estimated to be the highest grade copies of Detective #27 and Superman #1 as well), and refuses to have any of his comic books slabbed/graded. Why? I don't know, but that's his choice. That's not to say that they are not protected in any way (well, now anyway, though if you know the history of the Edgar Church Collection, the comics literally sat in piles for decades, raw, in the basement of Church's home before Chuck Rozanski bought the collection in the late 1970's). To say that he is "foolish" because of his preferred method of collecting is a bit presumptuous to say the least.

I'm not really trying to start an argument here. I just don't think you can apply baseball-card-collecting logic to all areas of collectibles.

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One of the reasons MIGHT be that it is much more difficult to see the INSIDE of a comic when it is slabbed, and some people (even serious collectors) actually like to OPEN their comics once in a while. Especially when they show them off (to other collectors).

Now balance that with this question. How much time do you seriously spend trying to look at the EDGE of a card? You can begin to see why slabbing a card might have much less impact (on the enjoyment of the card) than slabbing a comic.

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solution-
 

buy it graded......play with it when won......re slab when selling:)

For that kind of money I would be a "scaredy cat". It would go straight into a safe deposit box. Then I would go buy another one, low grade, to read :).

I think most comic collectors read the reprints and not the (expensive) originals. There are clubs at some Comic shops that trade reprints just for reading purposes.

This begs the following questions

Are comic book graders required to read the comic book they are grading?

Could there not be a flaw on Page 13 that would affect the final grade?:eek:

I had around 2,000 comics to sell - because most were so old I had to go through them looking for ink and other marks, clipped ads and pics, etc., so that my descriptions would be completely accurate. The last thing you want to do is piss off an ebay comic book collector. You think card guys are difficult...

Nice that they accept Visa and MasterCard
But it might exceed my credit limit.

Scott F : "The last thing you want to do is piss off an ebay comic book collector. You think card guys are difficult..."[/QUOTE]

That is a scream!! Funny, funny!!:p LOL ---Brian Powell

I just got my cc limit raised to 4.0 million, I am all set.

**according to the view counter on the auction page it has been viewed over 680 thousand times!!

Place Your Bets
 

The Morning Line

Bidder

b***k currently in first odds 2 to 1
e***r currently in second odds 7 to 2
y***i currently in third odds 9 to 1
the field odds 3 to 2

Missed out on tonight's Mega Millions, for the umpteenth time. Looks like I'll be reading a reprint.

Leon that is almost as many as my N167s (jk)

They definitely got some views when they were auctioned. That was an interesting night for sure.

I don't know what the fuss over Action Comics #1 is about... it's just an old comic book, read it once and leave it behind...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...74477109_n.jpg


In all seriousness - yes, it's possible to get serious about a comic book - all of you Net 54 people might be interested in knowing that Action Comics #1 has some actual baseball content. The inside back cover has a feature, "Odds 'n Ends," by Sheldon Moldoff which has caricatures of various baseball players, including Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. I'm not going to waste your time making you read a written description of the page, because I can run an image of it right here.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3155/...79a25e94_b.jpg

That seals it, the book is as good as mine!! It is a neat side story anyway...thanks for the info..

and it's up to 2.3 Million.....how high will it go?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Action-Comic...item486c0b5949


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$2.75 million. This could have made a good Net54 contest.

$2.75 Million. Now that's truly comical.:rolleyes:

i am guessing 3.4 million with it going up 1 million in the last 15 minutes I have my popcorn ready!

Interesting that at the $2.35 million level, the bid increment is still only $100.

gulp...nevermind

$3.2m

3.207! 500k snipe!

Amazing piece of comic history but I could have some really nice cards and not have to ever work with that kind of change

That's awesome. Congrats to the seller and new owner.

Oh my.

I got a funny feeling 10 years from now, $3 million will seem cheap for this comic.

Final Cost:
 

$3,207,852.00

FREE shipping I assume.

That's a lot of EBUCKS earned

...of course, if he had sold it to one of us away from the 'bay, he would have saved the $32,078.52 in fees.

I personally had to pass because of all the family birthdays coming up this decade.

I think the rumor is that Kevin Feige won it.

Selling fees are capped at $250, so in light of the final bid, practically free. And I would hope that for $3.2 million, the book would be delivered personally. I'd hate for the bubble mailer to arrive with a slit in it and an "I'm Sorry" note from the post office attached :eek: ;)

That would be ironic that the producer of all the Marvel superhero movies would win the greatest DC comic of all time.

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One possible reason for the duplication of the same bid is a nervous trigger-finger...I've done it myself...with much, much lower amounts involved, of course.

I think that also might be a snipe set up from two totally different sniping software programs. I have seen that happen when a bidder thinks one is going to fail. They do it to ensure that at least one is going to work.

I think that is the hope of whoever bought it.

The sniping program that I use always registers two bids, even when I'm the only one who bid. I've always just assumed it was a built in safety measure to ensure that at least one registered with ebay in that last-second crunch. I think the identical time stamps would rule out anything physical like a double-tap with the bidding finger. What I don't understand is why ebay would register, and display, two identical bids from the same bidder. Seems like ebay's software would recognize them as being identical and only display one in the bid history. But then, that certainly wouldn't be the first quirk shown by their software.

For $3.2M I'd expect it to be delivered to my city by Lear jet then to my home by limousine in a suitcase handcuffed to the deliverer. Oh, and armed security personnel as well. :D

Maybe it's been discussed and I missed it, but this particular comic book has sort of an odd history - bought off a newsstand and stored by the original owner, for decades, in a cedar chest !?!?! I wonder what else he saved?