lou_fine

Well, he shows up on several pages throughout this thread, like this one here below from Page 24:

This is true. +1 That plus the unfortunate fact that they are not considered to be registered investment vehicles that can placed into tax free investment shelters.

I'll leave that to Vincent at Metropolis. He has a much more photogenic hairdo. Well, if you are worry about how your hair looks on TV, then maybe we should get Mike Carbo onto the show.

+1 Exactly my thoughts also and the reason why I think the Church Fantastic 3 will have a good shot at finishing ahead of the Church Suspense 3 by the time it's all said and done. Can't wait for the bidding action to start in May.

Interesting. CLink spread out the Jamie Graham books over I don't know how many auctions. Heritage may still be selling off the Mel Dybdahl books. I've bought multiple books out of both collections, probably at least 20-25 from each. Not sure I would have done that if they had all appeared in a single auction. Hope this works out for Berk, but selling such a large collection in a single auction seems like a recipe for at least some of the books going lower than they otherwise would. I guess we'll see. +1 Exactly my thoughts also, as this is pretty much what I was alluding to way back in one of the first few pages of this thread here. Heritage has definitely spread some of their larger consignments over multiple auctions on many occasions in the past. I don't believe this is a recipe for only some of the books to go lower than they otherwise would. I believe this is a sure fire recipe for virtually all of their run books to go lower, with the only possible exceptions being the highlight headline grabbing keys, classic cover books, and major pedigree books. Especially when you consider that a substantial portion will apparently now be graded directly by Metro staff and sold off raw, without being officially graded and slabbed. But I doubt we'll ever really know for sure since the marketplace is just so dynamic. Since everything is going to be done in just one auction, I am also starting to have some suspicions about the size of this collection actually being comprised of 18,000 comic books. It's probably only at that number if you also include all of the books that he used to have in the past and have sold off over the years, such as all of his Atomic Age books, his Church run of Hits and Nationals, etc. The timeline for getting all of these books to auction in time for May also seems a bit puzzling in terms of being rushed since many of them still seems to be somewhere in the grading pipeline and still needs to be slabbed and subsequently catalogued in time for the auction. We all know what CGC's turnaround times are and these additional thousands of books are now to be also done over and above their normal submissions from their regular customer base.

Your fellow collector friend has excellent taste as the Blue Bolt 105 is just an absolute killer si-fi cover. Definitely still a highly underappreciated cover relative to all of the other classic covers out there. I still remember this cover being used as the frontispiece for some comic art cover book, similar to how Suspense 3 was used for the Gerber Photo-Journal. Maybe the time will come for Blue Bolt 105 to have its turn in the spotlight, as almost everything in comics seems to move in cycles. Similar to how blazing red hot the covers for both 'Tec 31 and Punch 12 are in today's marketplace, but yet was on no collector's list as a top cover back in the mid 90's.

Well, not sure about GPA listed sales, but based upon the Heritage archives, it would appear that Suspense 3 shows up much more often in the marketplace as compared to a Fantastic 3. The Heritage archives indicates a total of 17 different auction listings for Suspense 3 over the years, as compared to only 5 auction listings for Fantastic 3. Of course, some of this higher numbers for the Suspense 3 might be due to relistings, but that's still a pretty significant difference between the 2 books.

I believe you might be right in saying this since there are no Fantastic books at all in the Allentown Collection, and the Larson Fantastic 3 is listed as having a coupon out of the back cover. With the odd exception, I would say the Allentown's and in some cases, possibly the Larson's might be the only copies that could possibly stand a chance of beating out a Church copy of an early Fox book. Of course, there's always the possibility of a stand-alone non-pedigree HG copy popping out from somewhere, but I would really expect that to be as rare as hen's teeth.

Late May? Well, I certainly hope it'll be done way before then since the auction will be halfway over by the end of May.

Well, somebody should have clued Geppi and Overstreet in on Terrific 5 when they sold the Overstreet copy for only $600 bsck in '95, only to have Metro listing it in the CBG at something like 10X that amount a mere 2 or 3 weeks later. Well, Metro paid for that in the end anyways when it came time for Geppi to price out their big piles of books.

Any idea if Metro is going to try and run this special auction over and above their regularly scheduled May/June Event Auction that they have every year. If they are, that's going to be a ton of books for them to try and process, and definitely not a good sign for any other consignors trying to put books through the regular Event Auction. Especially since the pockets of collectors are only so deep and cannot be spread too thin before there's a big hole in there.

It's possible the fp6 six did proceed but we only have firm date on the fps1... Well, it's quite possible that it could simply be the old "print and conceived" scenario versus actual distribution date, similar to what happened with the Sandman's "first appearance" in Adventure 40 and NYWF's 1939.

Any idea if all of the Church Fox books have been graded yet, or is it possible that Jon may have sold off some of the later less expensive issues? Just asking since the CGC Census Population Report is still absent some of the expected high grades which these Church books should be receiving, as based upon the listed grades from Chuck's original Mile High catalogue.

Jon will be contributing artistic and historical context for some of the items. He said he is already hard at work on it. Any idea when this "must keep" catalogue will be printed and ready to ship out?

That's what I was thinking(hoping) as well. Just wondered if anyone who attended knew for sure. CC averages around 1.5-2K books per auction. No way they'll have 18K books in one auction. It would be a logistical nightmare. I am not so sure about this or even if this 18K number is accurate anymore. It should also be pointed out that many of his books are apparently in bound volumes which can add up pretty fast. As noted, he has also been collecting Spidey books right up to the past month or so. So, I believe these kinds of MA books will be bulked up and sold in whichever manner is feasible, as opposed to being individually slabbed and auctioned off. I guess we'll find out pretty soon.

It's fitting that he should keep a Larson.....that one book could easily open the floodgates to ALL the memories of 5 decades of collecting. GOD BLESS... +1 Yes, indeed! Especially since Jon has long stated that his favorite book of all time is Mystery Men 3, and in addition, as we all know, a strong fanatic and advocate of the Larson books. Perfect and fitting keepsake for Jon.

None - they are keepers for him. Ahh......the signs of a true collector. Any other significant books of note within his personal collection, since I assume he would have more than just the Allentown Fox books? Like for example, the long lost SF Nedor books which appears to be as much a mystery as the Church copy of Suspense 3 was until this past week.

The pair would have set you back $27 Well, that's a lot more than what I was expecting to pay. In that case, I'll just take the covers and leave the interiors behind and I should be able to get them both for under $15 then.

Sorry for triggering that PTSD moment for you. (At least you have the Wonderworld 13, which is a lot more Allentown than I can say!) Unfortunately, I don't anymore. You'll have to ask some weird looking tall Texan dude about this one now. I decided to turf this one out since it was at the end of the Wonderworld run that I was unable to complete, and I also wanted to see how CGC's grading was like when they first opened their doors back in 2000. Looks like it came out alright since it got a CGC 9.6 grade and it sold at auction for something like 7X top of guide. Needless to say, apparently the tall Texan paid a lot less for the book in the end, with his superior gun slinging negotiating skills.

Adam; Some fantastic photos that you have here and thanks for sharing with us! Absolutely love those 2 Mystery Men books down in your bottom photo there!!! BTW: Since I don't see 18,000 books out here, did they pass out any breakfast invitations to select lucky collectors for the next day so that they can wheel out cartloads of boxes filled with comics for everybody to scarf away into their own huge piles?

Oh gawd..........don't show me a close-up of that cover! Serves only to remind me of the time that I passed on the Allentown copy of this book when Harley was showing it to me. Took the Allentown Wonderworld 13 instead, when I really should have been more greedy and taken both books. Called Harley a couple of weeks later, only to find out the book was now in the hands of Metro and priced at almost doubled what Harley was willing to sell the book to me for.

That's the likely scenario. I love the idea that someone just spotted this book and grabbed it years before the rest of us caught on. I guess it would have been weird either way. Either someone just happened to pull out one of the biggest books a decade before it was notable ("wow, what a cover") or Edgar missed a month on a title that was otherwise complete (which would have been unlikely.) Well, if I was the lucky individual going through that massive pile of 20,000 books and came across the short 12-issue run of Suspense Comics, I would have taken both the Suspense 3 and also the Suspense 8 with the classic spider cover. In no uncertain terms would I be tossing those 2 books back into the big pile of undesireables.

Adam is correct, as usual - the collector (local to me) has other Allentown Fox books as well. He is not a boardie, and is not really active in the hobby that much anymore. I have the Larson Wonderworld 7, raw (never slabbed) fyi. Well, based upon the route that the book took, as based upon Adam's post, I can guess at a couple of the individuals involved. Any chance the current owner, who shall remain nameless, will be passing the Allentown Fox books onto the next generation of collectors anytime soon? Especially since he does not appear to be into the hobby that much anymore, or are they locked away as a future nest egg for him to draw upon?

Has there been any determination yet as to which one of these books hit the newsstand first, as they both have the exact same November 1936 cover date?