lou_fine

Nice list of the key Duck issues. Without a doubt, I would also add WDCS #31 to this list since it is the beginning of Barks long run in WDCS.

Not only does that copy look tight and bright, but the pages look outstanding for a Timely. You are so right about that being a classic cover -- I've been interested in finding one since Carter put it on the cover of CBM. At least I think he did. Another outstanding Subby cover is issue #13 which is another classic female bondage cover featuring a hugmongous boa constrictor and more hooded villians. Absolutely beautiful colours on this cover. Would Jon or Adam have a copy of this issue they could scan if for us to see?

Awww, the pre-CGC and pre-PLOD days when rare GA books with restoration disclosure would still go for major major dollars. I still remember the 'Tec #1 being snapped up by Dave the dentist for $60 big ones when the Fine price was only $12K and the top of the guide VF price was only $24K. Not a bad multiple for a restored book. As Aman pointed out, the All-American #16 also went for way over top guide even with a coupon clipped out. I guess this goes to show how super hot GA books were at the time after a huge runup in SA prices along with a dramatic collaspe in the Modern fresh off the newsstand books. Hmmm......a possible cyclical pattern in the movement of comic book prices that might repeat itself?

it is quite nice....but not as far as i know....the 4 i got from Wilson from Chuck and the 5 from ernie gerber... Jon; Thanks for your reply. I just checked my copy of the Edgar Church catalogue. Chuck had the #4 graded as a Fine and both the #5 and #7 graded as NM. It appears that these two were the best in the early part of the run with the first three issues grading out at only a VG. Volume 3 #1 was the only issue in the entire run that came out with a NM+ grade. Does Chuck's grading appear accurate for your copies of #4 and #5 or should they be a bit closer in grade? Thanks again; Lou

Jon; I noticed your copy of issues #4 and #5 are the Church copies. Would your copy of issue #7 also be from the Edgar Church collection since they all look quite nice for early pre-Centaurs?

Adam; Certainly brings back memories of my best weekend ever in comics. Do you remember that Torch #8. An absolutely gorgeous book which the lucky buyer was able to flip for some significant dollars. Actually, virtually all of the books looked just so beautiful sitting in their display cases. insufficiently_thoughtful_person that I was, I spent the first hour taking that stupid tour of the Diamond facilities and munching on the goodies without realizing that all of the books on display including the ones in the library were all for sale. By the time I clued in to the fact that everything was for sale, Fishler and his East Coast gang had already scooped up all of the books.

adam; You are posting some rarely seen absolute stunners on some of these threads. Much better than seeing the usuual Marvel SA books which seems to be relatively common in high grade in comparison to early SA DC's. The condition on virtually all of your books look to be right up there. During what time period did you purchase most of these books and what kind of multiples were they going for at the time? With your SA postings so far, am I to assume that you don't have any high grade GA or early Atom Age books within your collection? Keep on posting these rarely seen gems.

I generally agree with this point that you are making here although I do take other factors into account in making my final purchasing decsion. The actual book is always the critical reason as to why I would even consider purchasing a book. Once I have placed it on my purchasing radar screen however, I do take a look at the OS to ensure that it is reasonably priced. I also take a look at the Gerber scarcity ratings since I am always more tempted to buy a book with a higher SI rating. I also take a look at the Church catalogue since a book that does not show up in the listing or has a low grade is another point in it's favor. These along with other relevant information are factors that I use to make an more infomed final purchasing decision. I guess it's similar to how current buyers are using the CGC census and GPA numbers as factors in their current purchasing decisions. I just hope it's not the only indicators they use since the census is still quite young and they could be in for a rude awakening a few years down the line if they do.

Jon; This issue has been discussed in detail on the General Forum through various pressing threads. The key thread being the one where Steve B. confirms that CGC's parent company is holding talks with Chris F. in setting up a separate company under their umbrella to provide this exact (dis)service to the marketplace. Anybody good at providing some links for Jon to review this topic so that we can get his insight on this very critical issue. Thanks!

Timely; I also consider the cover for issue #21 to be a classic. My personal opinion says that a lot of these nicer Nedor covers are still quite undervalued when you compare them to the OS price guide values. For sure, high grade copies of some of these covers will run you substantially more than guide assuming you can find them that is.

Jon; Nice copy of Funny Pages #8 from 1937. I noticed the number "71" on the cover. I guess these coded numbers must be unique since I have the same coded "71" on my Larson copy of Funny Pages #11. Was hoping that you had access to a copy of the number codes for the various titles. This would certainly help in the identification and authentication process for the Larson books. I will check to see what the number is for my Larson copy of Wonderworld next time I am at my safety deposit box. Thanks again!

Jon; Nice to see you back here again. Wish you could grace us with your expertise more often. Since you are the acknowledged expert on the Larsons, could you let us know what the meaning of the numbers on the various titles are? For example, we have 112 for Red Raven, and a 90 on the Silver Streak. I have also seen other numbers showing up on various titles. Would the number "90" be unique to the Silver Streak run of books as other numbers would be unique to other runs of books? If so, would you have list of these numbers handy which you could share with us? Would you happen to know what the number is for the Fox Wonderworld Comics run? Thanks once again for all of your top-notch input on the boards.

What I really was trying to say (without hurting anyones feelings) was that the book doesn't have a "Wow it must be a Pedigree, quality" look to it. What I want out of a pedigree copy is: 1) A incredibly high structural grade for that particular issue/ genre / age, etc. It doesn't have to be NM, if most issues of that book are no better than VG. Then a VF copy is an exceptional copy of that book. tth2; I understand completely what sfilosa is trying to point out here, especially when it comes to some of the newer more recent pedigrees. For an extreme example: There is a world of difference in holding a high grade copy of a 100 page squarebound cardboard cover GA book from the 30's as opposed to holding a high grade BA book from the 70's. The former just has that magical feeling of something special and unique and most likely from a pedigree collection. The latter has a feeling of just another high grade copy and possibly from one of the so many new pedigrees or just another high grade collection. The pedigrees from the 60's and 70's just seems to be so abundant right now that there is really nothing that special or unique about them. You have your Oaklands, Boston, Pacific Coast, Northlands, Winnipegs, Green Rivers, Mass, etc and a strong possibility of more similar quality pedigrees being found in the future. Since high grade books from this time period seems to show up on a rather frequent basis, it tends to lose some of that "pedigree feeling". Especially when you can go back to your own personal collection and see what appears to be equivalent quality books, particularly for some of the books from the early 70's. One other point for me is that the advent of CGC has also help to make the pedigrees lose some of their uniqueness. Prior to CGC, it always felt special when you was able to hold a copy of an actual high grade book in your hands. Just the touch, feel and smell of the book made the entire experience so much more complete. Nowadays, I am just left with the feeling of holding a cold slab in my hands which feels and smells like any other plastic slab. It's just not the same feeling at all.

Banner; In full agreement with you here. This is certainly one of Cole's best covers even with all the clutter and words in there. Best thing is that it is still very reasonably priced in the OS guide. Bad thing is that you virtually never see it for sale in the marketplace. Been looking for a high grade copy for several years now without any luck.

Well, from my point of view,you are probably looking only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low OS value bronze. There are probably a lot of raw HG copies still sitting out there in collections. Due to the low OS value, there is really no big money to be made from slabbing them at this pojnt in time. You have to remember that if these books are guiding at $6.00, then 15X guide only means $90. Collectors with HG copies probably bought them off the newsstand or as back issues in the 70's. The demographics of these collectors are probably such that selling a HG BA book guiding at $6.00 for the outragous multiple of 15X only means selling it for a lousy $90.00. To these collectors, they are probably looking at the absolute dollars after taking off the cost of slabbing, the risk of low CGC grading, the hassle and time involved for packing and shipping, etc. and saying the heck with it. It's not worth the $50 profit and I'll just leave it in my collection until it becomes worthwhile to sell. I know I certainly wouldn't go to all this trouble for a measly $100 or $200 profit even though it might represent 15X guide and I know a lot of other long-term collectors who feels exactly the same way.

Nice pickup for Halloween! That looks better than VG/F to me. Hey Bat_Fan; Let us know what you think about the grading once you get the book. I also agree that from the scan, it definitely looks better than VG/F to me. I have seen other GA books from CGG in the 5.0 to 6.5 range and they tend to look nicer than books in the same grade from CGC. Maybe an opportunity to buy cheaper and resubmit through CGC for a higher resale price!!

I also would like to see the rest of Timely's run, but I don't think this is realistic any longer given that he is now a CGC grader. Unfortunately, I don't believe we have seen any new cover postings from Timely ever since he started with CGC. I guess this is for very obvious reasons, but it sure makes you miss the good old days.

As I have stated before, I consider this to be one of Raboy's classic icon covers with the patriotic cover image against the deep reds and black shadows. Unfortunately, I only have this issue plus #33 in the run. Never was able to find the others in high grade at a reasonable price. With respect to the interior art, I believe you are absolutely right. I don't have the book in front of me to check, but is this the issue with the dark moody story which almost looks grey-tone in appearance? Well, either this issue or #33, but absolutely stunning pages for GA interior artwork.

Jon; An absolutely wonderful and well-researched article. It clearly shows your love for these type of comics. It was great rereading it a second time even though I had already read it back in CBM. As an aside, I used to read every single article in CBM back in the days of Gary Carter. With the new administration, I've found myself selecting only certain articles to read and bypassing the others. Lately though, CBM seems to be heading back in the right direction with wonderful articles such as yours.

While I do have lots of the Silver-Age pedigrees, I agree, there is nothing like a GA pedigree. Basically, GA pedigrees seem to have a uniqueness to them, while I'm not sure that I really could tell the difference between the SA pedigrees. And the Spokane books look extremely nice. Metro has a lot, and they put a big premium on them (and I can see why). You've got a very good point here. Since GA books are so rare in high grade, you can usually reconize a GA pedigree book right away because they stand head and shoulders above the other GA books. With the SA books, there are a lot more pedigrees and HG non-pedigree copies around, it makes the SA pedigree book look like just another book in the high grade branch of the tree.

Two points: [*]You CAN see the interior cover--just open the book! If your response is "but not while it's in the slab!", then my rebuttal is that grading with the idea that the book will always be left in the slab is not the way it oughtta be done; the entire book should be taken into consideration[*]More importantly, CGC grades based upon the higher-graded cover simply because the book could be transformed into that grade by removing the extra cover. If the outer is a 9.0, and the inner is a 9.6, then the book could easily be made a 9.6 by removing the 9.0. I fully understand these arguments since I've seen it countless times, but I just happen to disagree with them to a certain extent: 1) Based upon your argument, CGC is NOT taking the entire book into consideration. They are basically ignoring the outer 9.0 cover when they claim that the book is really in 9.6 condition. Well, just glad that they acknowledge the lower grade outer cover in their small print label notes. 2) May not be that easy to remove the outer cover without incurring some spinal damage to the inner cover which would then reduce it from it's current 9.6 condition. Doesn't really matter anyways. Just that I would never pay 9.6 prices for a book displaying a 9.0 cover. I would probably split the difference and go halfway if I was in a good mood that day. To each their own, I guess.

As a collector, I have never been that impressed with double covers since I always tend to go by the outer cover. To me, it's really nothing more than just another novelty or printing error. I would be a lot more impressed with a double cover if the outer cover was in the same condition as the inner cover. Does anybody have an example of a book such as this. So far, every double cover book that I have seen has the outer cover grading lower than the inner cover. As a result, I have always focus on the outer cover grade (in small print) as oppossed to the larger inner cover grade which I personally view as misleading. I believe the official grading should be based upon the what we can see (i.e. the outer cover) similar to all other graded books. The grading for the inner cover can be placed in the notes where they currently have the grading for the outer cover. In theory, collectors should be willing to pay the same price for the book since it is still the exact same book after all. And doesn't everybody buy the book, and not the label.

If you think the Disneys have a low count in the CGC census, you should check out the census on the GA Archie books. Virtually all of the early Archie books do not even have a single copy graded. I believe that teen books such as Archies were basically bought by readers and were never really highly collected. This has resulted in virtually no available supply at the high-end. Since Archies is only one of three publishers that have been in continuous print since the early 40's, it would not surprise me to see demand picking up on these books. This in turn will result in dramatic price increases due to the extremely low supply of books in existence.

You've got some nice looking books in your collection. Where in the world did you find this copy? What type of grade is this in and when did you picked it up? Also, as you said, this book is definitely MUCH TOUGHER to find than the Exciting #9. Congrats on being able to find one.

Since nobody else has brought up this topic yet, I may as well start: What's everybody's opinion of the latest CBM with the Horriffic #1 cover? This issue of CBM appears to be devoted entirely to the horror genre. Covers everything from GA horror through to BA horror with separate full page full colour cover spreads for books such as: Tomb of Terror #15, Strange Tales #16, Spellbound #4, Black Cat #50, Horriffic #7, Weird Mysteries #4, DC 100 Page SS #4, Weird Mystery Tales #1, etc. If you are a horror fan, you are going to have to take a look at this mag.