Would you pay $60 for a FAKE Cerebus #1?

[Matt Hawes]

I was talking with a customer of mine today about the number of counterfeit comic books that are known to exist in the marketplace. There are counterfeit copies of several high-dollar black and white comic books, like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" #1, and "Cry For Dawn" #1, etc. The one comic that sparked our conversation was the counterfeit copies that exist of the rare black cover variant to "Venom: Lethal Protector" #1.

Well, to my astonishment, the customer pointed out to me that "Comics Buyer's Guide" lists counterfeit comics and their "value" in the magazine's price guide. The "Overstreet" price guide does list counterfeits, as well, but it does not assign the books any value. And why should it do so? A counterfeit is a fake, and it is ethically wrong to assign any value to such copies, as it validates that act of deceit.

The customer pointed out to me the listing for the counterfeit edition of "Cerebus" #1 in the December, 2004 edition of "Comics Buyer's Guide" (#1599), which had the copies valued at $60. There were other counterfeits listed in that guide, as well. The customer told me that he had written to "CBG" some months ago when he first had discovered the listings. A "CBG" editor wrote back that he had saw no problem with listing the comics, as the prices accurately represent what people are paying for those counterfeit copies. My customer couldn't believe that "CGB" would try and justify this practice, and was put off by the reply that he did not pick up another copy of the magazine until recently. He was disappointed to discover that the magazine still lists a value for counterfeit comics.

You have to wonder, where does "CBG" get these prices? I mean, what respectable dealer would report that he sold a customer a counterfeit comic book? And are there any consumers out there that would truly pay a hefty premium for a book if they knew that it is a counterfeit copy? Is "CBG" trying to justify the listings by suggesting there is some sort of journalistic integrity in reporting the prices because there really is some dealer is out there reporting getting such prices for the fakes? Is it not a more serious breach of ethics and integrity to validate, and therefore support such deceitful practices? Can "CBG" verify that the person paying the $60 for a counterfeit "Cerebus" #1 was fully aware it was a fake copy?

What do you think? Should price guides lists values for counterfeits?

All I know is that if someone were to try and knowingly sell you a counterfeit comic book, you should pay that person with fake money. It's worth about the same value, in my estimate.

[Chesscub]

It's an interesting question. Personally, I wouldn't pay $60 for a counterfeit comic. Now bootleg CDs on the other hand... ;)

I could see this one of two ways. On the one hand, so long as it is clearly marked as a counterfeit item, I see no particular problem with a shop selling it.

On the other hand, I could see disreputable shops selling it without marking it as such. I've gone into shops where the people have an "I don't care. I'm going to screw you anyway possible" attitude.

Jeff

[perk9600]

I'm with the Mag. If people want to buy them and are buying them then they have value.

This is contingent that the person knows they are buying a fake. So I say list it.

By listing it you also serve to get the information out that fakes exist and may help someone to avoid buying one thinking it is the genuine article.

[Mr Wesley]

The thing is, an item is worth what you are willing to pay for it. If you want to buy Cerebus #1, and you find a dealer that tells you he has a reproduction that you can buy, go for it.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you know going in it's a fake, then where's the harm? There's no difference in doing that and buying a "Kolex" wristwatch on the street.

Now, if you believe you're really buying the genuine article and are duped into buying a counterfeit.

However, no matter how you break it down, it is counterfeiting and buying and selling illegal products. But that doesn't change the value to someone who wants it.

[Darth Presley]

Yes! If I was mentally retarded!!

[Matt Hawes]

I guess the question here is: Does the person that pays $60 for a fake know that they are buying a fake? Is there anyway for a magazine like "CBG" to verify this?

[Matt Hawes]

I wrote to "Comics Buyer's Guide" about this matter, basically using the same text that I used in my first post on this thread. I received a reply from editor John Jackson Miller (a really nice guy that I met at Wizardworld Chicago a year ago, BTW).

Here's his reply on this subject:


Hi, Matthew!

I may have been the editor who responded to your customer. I think I said that we're in the business of disseminating information for collectors, and that includes both reporting on things like the fake Eastern Color Printing file copies (as we did in CBG #1600) and acknowledging any sales that actually take place -- defining them as distinct from the original, of course. So our policy on counterfeits differs for each of our products, taking into account the needs of customers who buy them. It's the result of some years of internal debate and feedback from our readers; at the bottom of this e-mail, I've pasted a feature we did on the topic a few years ago that also discusses the Venom Black issue where we sought some of that feedback.

The purpose of the STANDARD CATALOG OF COMIC BOOKS is to serve as a collector's utility and a "books-in-print"; as such, it's important for us to acknowledge when counterfeits exist and explain how to differentiate between copies. I believe we only list four counterfeits: Cerebus #1, Cry for Dawn #1, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 and #2. We intend to add Venom Black to the list once we get a chance to compare a fake one ourselves (as you see in the piece below, which it is depends on a certain degree of coloration). Observed market values for each appear; declaring them worthless, as Overstreet does, would be to make up a price -- which we don't do.

CBG only lists 60,000 or so of the items from the STANDARD CATALOG, so we have to try to zero in on things people have an interest in and/or that have sales histories on the secondary market. That's why we list the fake Cerebus #1, which absolutely does has market value. It's a historical conversation piece -- it's the first counterfeited comic book to be discovered and widely reported, after all.

CGC has slabbed it, labeling it as counterfeit; we have a record of one 9.4 (NM) copy selling for $59 on eBay. We've seen other unslabbed copies up there, as well, though none at the moment. You can find one right at Mile High Comics at http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=fullsize&issue=15704489854%201%20COUNTERFET. They want $100 for a VF copy, which we find a little steep. I'm aware that quite a few reputable dealers besides Chuck have handled the book, as well. (A Cerebus completist, I, myself, bought one several years ago. Dave Sim has done joke autographs for a lot of them; I'm hoping he'll get to mine one day.)

The TMNT and Cry for Dawn issues have tended to attract less of that kind of curiosity, and I think we have all three at a cover price, more or less. It looks like Dawn's not listed in CBG but the TMNT issues are -- I think that's a result of the automated opt-in we do for the whole series. The TMNT issues would be ones I think we'd be likely to drop from the magazine -- I'll see if we can do that manually. Cerebus #1 stays in, though -- based on the response to the 2001 piece we ran below, I think we'd hear it from the completists if we didn't.

We certainly appreciate your customer's feelings on the matter, so we'll try to find out what others have to say. I'll ask our price guide editor, Don Butler, to open up the topic again for discussion in CBG, now that it has a larger audience. We've covered quite a few speculator runs based on things we thought were morally (as opposed to simply financially) questionable -- I, myself, have done pieces looking at the aftermarket demand for the "slur" issue of Wolverine and the run on the 9/11 "Twin Towers" Superman issue that DC recalled. I think our view is that the moral responsibility to sell or not sell things like counterfeit copies -- or, say, the "slur" issue of Wolverine -- lies with the retailers. If they choose to sell and people buy -- and our primary job is to report the market value of comics that have market value -- simply pretending nothing happened may not be the best way of handling them. Open to suggestions, of course...


Best regards,
John Jackson Miller
Editorial Director, Krause Publications Comics & Games Division
Comics Buyer's Guide * Comics & Games Retailer * Scrye
The Standard Catalog of Comic Books * The Scrye CCG Checklist & Price Guide



------------------------------------
These pieces appeared in CBG #1435, May, 18, 2001


A QUESTION OF COUNTERFEITS
Another change by Overstreet directly concerns the owners of the first and best-known comic book to be graded 10.0 by CGC, Phil Dispenza and Gary Platt of Edison, N.J. Last year’s Overstreet gave the Black Variant of Venom: Lethal Protector #1 (one of a reported 300 copies whose red foil was stained black) a value of $125 in NM. This year’s edition: “counterfeit, valueless.”

“Overstreet took a step backwards” with the change, Dispenza told CBG. “Overstreet for years has given this a value and, for some reason, decided to say they are [all] counterfeit like Wizard used to do.”

Wizard said all copies were counterfeit until its October 2000 issue, when it began listing a price and noting that “counterfeit copies exist.” (Its latest price is $225.) This move coincided with CGC’s grading of Dispenza’s Venom Black, which was also announced in that issue — indicating that Wizard perhaps took CGC’s grade as an authentication.

And, indeed, CGC stands behind the six copies of Venom Black (including Dispenza’s) it has slabbed as authentic. “We’ve put enormous amounts of research in this,” said CGC’s Steve Borock. “There absolutely was a printing error. John Taddeo, in production at Marvel back then, confirmed that part of the run went out to certain retailers with a printing error.” Borock also said that CGC had turned away copies it judged to have been doctored. “The legitimate error copies have a little bit of embossment. We’ve seen ones with large color touches that we did not slab.” Borock said that the presence of a slab on a copy should be taken to mean that CGC has found the copy to be what it purports to be.

In the last week, we have seen at least one other Venom Black issue slabbed by CGC close on eBay. On April 17, a copy (seen at right) signed by Mark Bagley and graded a Qualified 9.0 (VF/NM) closed for $416 without meeting the dealer’s reserve. “CGC took over two months making sure this book was indeed a genuine book and not a counterfeit,” said auctioner Outer Limits Comics of Carthage, Tenn.

Mark Huesman, pricing coordinator for Overstreet, told CBG the change was made based on input from one of the guide’s advisors. Huesman said Overstreet would check its records from the advisor and evaluate the new information from CGC to determine what should be done with the listing. This could come as a relief to Dispenza and Platt, who had expected their copy to bring a premium over guide and clearly want that issue in the guide to begin with.

SHOULD GUIDES LIST PRICES FOR COUNTERFEITS?

There seems to be no clear consensus among the price guides — or even between listings in some guides, including CBG’s own — as to whether counterfeited issues should receive valuations. Take the treatment of perhaps the best-known example of recent decades, the fake Cerebus #1:

• As late as its 19th edition (1989), Overstreet ran an offset listing for the issue and acknowledged what that it was selling for “between $50 and $70” without declaring its own price. Since then, the counterfeit has been noted in the same way by Overstreet, only with no price listed.

• Wizard priced the counterfeit up to early 1995; issue #43 had it at $50. Issues after that have flatly stated that it has “no value.”

• It’s been regularly priced in Comics Value Annual, and the 2001 edition has it for $50.

• The CBG Price Guide gave it a valuation every year (most recently, $35) until its 2001 edition, when the merger with the ComicBase database resulted in no price being listed. We are evaluating what to do with it for future editions.

Clearly, the hobby has an interest in discouraging counterfeiting. But when counterfeited items also have a proven value in the open market, does NOT pricing them go against a guide’s primary function: price-reporting? This writer has seen the bogus Cerebus #1 for sale at conventions for $30-40. And such a notorious example likely has some monetary value as a pure conversation piece — Dave Sim has written that he signs fans’ copies of it as “Neal Adams” or “Frank Frazetta.”

There’s the quandary: Reporting a price encourages future mischief, omission leaves a guide incomplete, and saying “no value” is simply inaccurate. What’s a guide to do? Let’s hear your thoughts on this. Drop us a line at ohso@krause.com!

[WebHobbit]

That's BS. A FAKED COPY of a comic should have no value. With my scanner and printer I could crank out tons of nice looking fakes. Anyone can. Why should this kinda thing have any official value.

This is just another example as to why the Overstreet Guide is the best.

As for the question "whats a guide to do?".

They should have a disclaimer at the beginning of the book as to WHY they don't list them and then simply ignore fakes.

[Matt Hawes]

I understand that "Comics Buyer's Guide" wants to accurately report what is going on in the marketplace, and I can respect that position, but I disagree with that being used as justification for helping to promote the idea that a counterfeit is somehow valid.

A fake is a fake.

As noted in my first post, I think that giving validity to such a deplorable practice as making and selling counterfeits is a worse breach of ethics on the side of a price guide than not reporting that there are actual sales from the sell of a counterfeit comic.

[cyclopsfan]

next they will be listing torrent prices...:rolleyes:

[Rich Johnston]

When price guides try to define the prices of comics, you get Wizard on Valiant.

Price Guides reflect what's out there. They shouldn't take moral stands, or decide what *should* be listed or not or at what price. They reflect what *is*.

I wouldn't pay $60. I'd pay about $30. The Counterfeit Cerebus 1 is part of the book's history.

[Rich Johnston]

Originally posted by WebHobbit
That's BS. A FAKED COPY of a comic should have no value. With my scanner and printer I could crank out tons of nice looking fakes. Anyone can. Why should this kinda thing have any official value.

This is just another example as to why the Overstreet Guide is the best.

As for the question "whats a guide to do?".

They should have a disclaimer at the beginning of the book as to WHY they don't list them and then simply ignore fakes.

Teh Counterfeit Cerebus referes to a very specific fake of the book, made at a certain time in its history. I'd like a copy... unless it was a counterfeit of the counterfeit.

[WebHobbit]

Originally posted by Rich Johnston
Teh Counterfeit Cerebus referes to a very specific fake of the book, made at a certain time in its history. I'd like a copy... unless it was a counterfeit of the counterfeit.

I just know you're smart enough to realize the absurdity of the circular nature of that statement.

:D

[leez34]

I want to one day own every issue of Cerebus. I assumed this would include a copy of the famous counterfeit #1. As long as the dealer tells me it is the counterfeit, I would be fine with it. If I owned 2 copies of counterfeit #1s, I'd be upset, but there are ways to tell the difference.