The 3rd most valuable comic book in the world surfaces? Or is it another copy? I'm going to be clicking refresh on the CGC forum thread until I get some answers.
Will it be at Baltimore?
(I will be, by the way. I'm not setting up, so it's going to be purely shopping/hanging out with my geeky brethren.)
Strong result, I think. I know it's only around a 10% bump from the last sale, but that was an aggressive number at the time, so any improvement should be looked on as a positive.
It was the crown jewel of the Pedigree Grand Auction that closed tonight.
Sorry! I've been busy.
I thought I might as well post them and point out that I updated the all time record comic book sales.
Metropolis sold this book for a ridiculous amount of money:
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I should point out, I valued this one correctly when it was announced.
And just like that, we have a new record and the 3rd seven figure sale. A remarkable month.
With this stake in the ground, the questions start to form- what's the Allentown Detective #27 worth? The Church Action #1? My gut says $2,500,00 and $3,000,000 respectively.
I really need to rework the top ten article, don't I? When I wrote that I had the Church book valued at $2,000,000, the Allentown 'Tec #27 at 1.5 million and this book at $800,000. Times have changed!
Word on the street (okay, word on the internet) is that Comic Connect bought outright the 8.5 from its present and longtime owner. The price paid is reportedly more than the 1,075,000 paid for the Detective 27 at Heritage last month. It follows, therefore, that that asking price will be significantly higher than that. My estimate for the book after the recent sales was 1.5 million. We'll see how that number fares when it actually comes time for the book to change hands.
All I have to say is- what a month! My head is spinning.
This book now represents the 3rd, 4th and 8th highest prices paid for a comic book.
Here's what Heritage had to say:
That was the most exciting auction I've ever seen.
In a furious round of bidding it hammered out at $1,075,000 with buyer's premium.
More on this later, when I catch my breath!
To cut right to the punchline here, this is the 2nd best known copy of Action #1.
Yeah, I was surprised, too.
What about the "other" high grade copy, you ask? This is it.
Let that sink in for a while.
Stephen Fishler emailed me last night alerting me to that (remarkable) detail. I've been discussing this stuff with people for years and no one has connected the two books before now. Some people even wondered if the Kansas city copy was the "other" book. We had the story about Dave comparing two books and keeping the Church copy and we had the 8.5 copy in front of us in the CGC Gallery. I always wondered where that "other high grade" copy was and who had it. I now know that it's been hiding in plain site this whole time.
He said:
I asked Dave about it recently. The book that was later graded 8.5 is the 2nd best copy he had ever seen. He compared it to the Mile High years ago. The Mile high was clearly better.
So the anecdote about the "new" book that Dave compared to the Church copy was actually referring to the 8.5 we know and love.
This new info, of course, changes the landscape significantly both for the Church copy (now, clearly the best copy and only known 9.+ copy) and the Kansas City copy that just sold. Depending on how nice the Larson copy is, the KC copy could be the third best copy in existence. Which makes $1,000,000 seem like less of a premium price- which is probably why he had the above conversation in the first place. Negotiating a $1,000,000 comic book sale is tricky business.
I'll be reworking the $100,000 club list today. I'm going to rework the the World's Most Valuable Comics article to reflect all of these new data points (no "other" copy, the All American 16 CGC 9.4, the new Detective 27 CGC 8.0 and the Kansas City Copy.)
What a crazy week.
The Kansas City Action #1 CGC VF 8.0 is listed as Sold on the Comic Connect site.
It's the first publicly reported sale over $1,000,000 of a comic book.
It's actually the first publicly reported sale over $500,000, but who's counting?
The price is stronger than what I feel the book is worth (by about 25%), but I'm happy to be wrong in this situation. $1,000,000 is a nice round number that will generate a lot of press. Press= good for the hobby (as long as any new people stay away from the books I want to collect 
)
With the speed of the sale, it's clear to me that there's a possibility that this transaction was prearranged or even consummated long before the book was even announced. Comic Connect would have been smart to do so, so as to guarantee the maximum exposure and publicity for the sale and to protect against a protracted, potentially embarrassing (if it went on long enough) $1,000,000 listing with no takers.
Here it is, the belle of the ball.
