I'm slightly disappointed that it didn't set the record for a comic book sale overall, but it is still a very significant sale. The book was bought by John Dolmayan, the drummer for System of a Down.
Two important points:
- It's the record for a comic book at auction, beating the Mastro Detective #27's longstanding record by a healthy margin
- It's the highest public sale (auction or dealer) and the first public sale over $300,000, beating the ComicLink Batman #1 by $37,000.
One thing that obviously hurt the book is the crazy bid increments in place at Comic Connect. I don't know exactly how the bidding went down, but if this book had been listed at Heritage with the $25,000 bid increment for items over $300,000 it likely wouldn't have ended at $200 over the underbidder. $300k wouldn't have crawled to $317k, it would have gone straight to $325k. Other scenarios would have earned the consignor even more ($290k > $310k > $335k.) If I'm a seller of a high ticket item I've got to take that into account when I'm looking for a place to consign my book.
That aside, Comic Connect did do a great job of publicizing the book and they should be commended for that. Any exposure at this level is good for the hobby.
I just want to be able to purge those two terrible JP purchases from the top of the chart!