lou_fine

And when does DC officially state Superman 4 was released ... ? https://m.readdc.com/Superman-1939-2011-4/digital-comic/T0823700045001 Oops. -J. I definitely wouldn't go by what DC is saying in those links which both of you have posted here. Based upon all we know and have seen with respect to comic book cover dates, the ones you are referring to here appears to line up more with recall dates for the books to be TAKEN off the shelves, as opposed to their actual release dates. Since Action 23 has a cover date of April 1940 and cover months have always been about 2 months after publication, then it only makes sense that Action 23 was pulished and released in April and then to be subsequently recalled and taken off the shelves in the late March or very early April time frame. Since Supe 4 is a Spring 1940 edition, there is no way it would have come out after the cover date and been release in the summer of 1940. All you have to do is take a look at the history of how comic book cover dates have always worked and it's quite obvious that both of these dates from the attached links cannot be their actual release dates.

Sounds like you really managed to scorebig time here as it's not that easy to find books from some 80+ years ago that looks fresh off the press. Any of the truly HTF rare ones like the Big Little Mother Goose Book / Big Little Paint Book or the uber expensive ones like Mickey Mouse the Mail Pilot or Mickey and Minnie at Macy's?

Do you really think it's impossible for a copy of Cerebus 1 to exist in CGC 9.6 graded level of condition? Is there any chance that Dave Sim just might have held back one last copy (i.e. his best copy) for himself and finally decided to get it signed and graded now?

Yes, I thought Sim went through the entire 2,000 print run and pull out all of the best ones which didn't have the tell-tale spine breaks on them. I guess with going through so many copies, he might have missed a few of them. I just find it rather surprising that CGC doesn't allow for this printing and distribution defect when it comes to grading Cerebus 1's, but yet allows that nasty looking Marvel chipping to go relatively scot free when it comes to grading the very early Marvel SA books. Especially since the spine breaks on the Cerebus 1's were endemic on virtually all distributed copies of the book, while Marvel chipping was evident on only a much smaller fractional proportion of the early Marvel SA books.

Shall we start the Hulk 181 valuation discussion argument fight here again?

+1 Yeah, sure love those super sized scans. But HA juice up the colors though, so don't learn too much. +3 on the use of the lousy magnifying glass. I actually prefer their old 3-size (i.e. small, medium, & large) system which they used to have in place as "large" was big enough for me to see everything already. I acutally prefer it over HA's never-ending supersizing of scans which can be so overdone to the point of seeing things that actually aren't there.

+1 Yes, this is the exact same scenario as the Sandman in terms of Adventure Comics 40 and New York Eorld's Fair 1939. For the longest time, Overstreet used to incorrectly have Adventure 40 as the first appearance of Sandman, before finally correcting it in his guide. Now, he notes Adventure 40 as the first conceived Sandman story while he has NYWF 1939 as being the first published Sandman story. I believe Overstreet will eventually get around to doing this same long overdsue correction with Superman 4 and Action 23 if enough collectors point it out to him. Either way, even if it eventually gets corrected, I strongly doubt it will have much impact on the valuation between the 2 books, similar to how the valuation for Adventure 40 is still multiple times higher than the valuation for NYWF 1939.

Found Action #22 with preview ad of Superman #4 available Feb. 15 (1940?) before Action #23(?): Hey Allan; Great research on your part here and it looks pretty conclusive from my point of view here.

Or maybe it'll be like the CGC 9.4 graded copy of AF 15 at HA the other week and simply reappear again just like that.

Wowzers, an absolutely beautiful piece of original art. Although this piece lacks the instant character recognition that comes with the Action 15 cover artwork, this Adventure 34 cover image is a superior piece of artwork from my own personal point of view. except for the fact that I would never be able to afford it.

Must be a good sign that a Tec 27 will be up for auction Well, that's definite sign of progress regress as that's one less than the 28 books they had there all week. Makes me wonder if one of the consignors got upset with the whole shemozzle and decided to take their book back out? I will say those very early pre-hero DC books do look quite tempting as books like this hardly ever come to market, especially in unrestored mid-grade condition.

Based upon the lin you provided to us, I assume this copy of 'Tec 30 must have sold through CC, as opposed to going through auction since it has no posted date. Looks like their auction site is very very slowly starting to come into form. Have strong doubts though if they will finish it in time for their usual February / March scheduled Event Auction.

Congrats on your pickup here. Hopefully, the auction house offered the book to you at lower than your losing bid, say at the point that the 3rd place bidder dropped out. Especially since the bidding possibly only managed to get that high because of the delinquent winning bidder who refused to pay in the end.

Yeah, he didn't seem to miss much did he? Most of his earlier books had pencil arrival dates and what appears to be the number of copies received by the store in the upper right. Being, that he seemed to get everything though, I wonder if his store did not order them for him. Strongly doubt they were just ordered for Edgar hinself only, as I believed the Mile High codes indicate they were all multiple copies since the code also included a count of the number of copies ordered as the last number in the MH code.

That's the big waving red flag to indicate it's nothing but a scam. Like they say, if something is too good to be true, it most probably is.

I have always view the usefulness of the CGC population census report as an indicator of relative scarcity only, as opposed to absolute scarcity. Especially since the large majority of books are still residing as raw copies in the private collections of long term collectors. From my own personal point of view, this would apply not only to these types of early HTF pre-hero books as you have alluded to, but also to more recent high demand more common books like AF 15, Hulk 181, etc.

Makes me wonder what kind of outlet good old Edgar went to since he had an extensive cross section of pretty much everything in his collection.

+1 They most definitely do. I assume the type of water or solvent cleaning that Mark Wilson used to do back in the day must now be good to go (i.e. no longer the nasty PLOD Restoration, but now considered to be the more acceptable quasi blue/grey Conservation) since he has been a prominent member of Heritage's consignment staff from around the start of 2019.

Yes, Unfortuately I believe this is exactly what happened here. Right again as this is definitely something that should have been done as running a parallel system offline before rolling out and going live would definitely have prevented this situation from happening.

Rather surprisingly, it would appear that a noticeable number of former board members here actually never bother to make the switch and simply left.

This is technically incorrect, according to their most revised grading standard. Again: I did the conservation work on the Tec 29. Marriage, if done with other work that is all archival and reversible, falls under the umbrella of conservation with a notation on the label of the marriage. It's pretty straightforward. If there were color touch, or extensive pieces added, or a chemical cleaning, it would be restored with a marriage notation. CGC isn't trying to hide anything, they are trying to educate and let people know that there is a difference between archival techniques vs amateur non-reversible work, and that using original parts is counted as conservation - which it should be. Just like using vintage period-correct staples in a book that aren't original - that is also conservation. They are both original parts of other books, not completely re-created pieces. I never said that CGC was trying to hide anything here with respect to their Restoration and Conservation processes. If what you are saying is indeed accurate, then CGC themselves might be adding to this whole confusion between what constitues restoration as opposed to conservation. If so, they really need to update their website along with the detailed write-up which they did for the Overstreet Price Guide this year. Especially when they clearly state that both married covers and married interior pages falls under Restoration while some cover and interior cleaning (both water and solvent) are considered as Conservation repairs. It would be fantastic if you could provide us with a link to CGC's revised Restoration Grading Standard since I can't seem to find it. No doubt because I am not the most computer literate person around and probably technically challenged in this area when it comes to searching things out.

I never see it for sale and it's one of my favorites. Another I never see is the 17 and a quick census check puts it right behind the 15 as second rarest in all categories, universal, qualified and restored at only 7. The 17 is nowhere near my favorite, just one that I don't ever see offered. Yes, the CGC census would confirm that NA 15 is indeed the rarest of the lot and wins the Gold by a long shot with only 2 Universal mid-grade copies graded to date, along with a third being a restored copy. New Adventure 17 grabs the Silver with only 3 Universal copies, but has another Qualified along with a further 2 restored copies for a grand total of 7 copies. It then looks like a neck and neck race for the Bronze between NA 12 and NA 28 with both having 5 Universal copies, but NA 28 by a nose with just 2 restored copies versus 3 restored copies for NA 12. Any idea how rare these 2 books are and how often they tend to show up, especially with respect to NA 12 since Heritage indicates only 1 previous sale of this book whioch was way back in 2005? Surprisingly, it looks like NA 13 which Overstreet designates as Rare and both NA 26 and 27 which are also broken out by Overstreet as being Rare and both with huge valuations (i.e. multiples higher than all of the other issues) comes in with noticeably higher census numbers. Of course, it's pretty tough to beat those 2 more adventure theme cover images for both NA 26 and 27, especially with respect to the classic underwater shark cover on NA 27.

Now, this New Adventure 27 has an absolutely gorgeous shark cover and a true scarcity of a book that doesn't show up in the marketplace very often. Looks like there's quite a few of these New Adventure Comics that's actually quite tough to find.

And for those who are into these very early pre-hero DC books, it looks like the upcoming CC auction a few of the early More Fun books: https://www.comicconnect.com/browse/auction/1?page=1 Makes me wonder if they are all coming from the same consignor since they are all unrestored mid-grade copies.

I actually have a copy KJ, which of course, I'd LOVE to upgrade. If only I had an extra 10k laying around …. Absolutely love these Flessel pre-hero 'Tec covers, especially this one here along with my other favorites which are 'Tec 11 and 'Tec 13. If I remember correct, Win had the 'Tec 9 listed as the toughest pre-hero from his Windex scarcity listing, although the CGC census would indicate the honors should go to 'Tec 24 and then 'Tec 3 before it comes to 'Tec 9. That small identifying "S" letter mark appears to look very similar (i.e. with the extended tail) to a lot of the very early pre-hero New Comics from RGH's personal collection.