lou_fine

Sadly for collectors who are on the hunt for a copy, More Fun 56 seems to be one of those books which tends to be locked up in long held personal collections as it's been pretty much a whole decade since a nice copy has shown up in the open public marketplace, with this one major exception here: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/720102 Sold for $41,500 which I thought was a pretty for a highest graded Church copy back in 2017, and no doubt this white page beauty of a copy which would sell for a whole lot more if it ever came available in today's crypto like red hot marketplace for key and classic cover books like this More Fun 56 here.

Yeah, I just find it hard to fathom some of the seemingly high prices being paid for books at both extreme ends of the condition grading spectrum. Especially in terms of the high end when grading is still just so subjective at times, and then at the entry level end when if you pay just a bit more, you can seemingly get so much more value on a per point basis, with this More Fun 69 being a perfect example: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/900144 To each their own, but it just seems like you are getting a lot more value or ban for your buck with a CGC 8.0 graded OW copy of MF 69 for under $2,500 as compared to paying $780 for a raw Poor condition Incomplete copy with 6 missing pages, and pretty much Brittle pages at that.

I believe you are 100% right with your post here here, as I remember talking to Dave back in the day and he said that he had to pay something like $25K for the Action 1 when it was guiding for only around $10K at the time. I guess Dave didn't have that direct pipeline into Chuck's Mile High books because he came onto the scene a bit late. Snyder was one of the big power brokers at the time with that pipeline and apparently managed to pick up that early Action run from Chuck who then passed it onto Dave for his personal collection. Any truth to the story that Chuck would let a certain amount of the quality books out from the collection every year back then in the early years and if you was in the pipeline and brought the requisite dollar amount that year, you would then be welcome back the following year. If you didn't , you either fell down to the bottom of the pecking order or was dropped off entirely. Not sure who was on this list, but I assume it would have been Snyder, Redbeard, the Carter brothers, Veryzl, Geppi, Overstreet, and the likes.

Not sure about Sure-Fire Comics (3/4), but doubt it's an error when it comes to some of these early Centaurs like the early issues of Star Comics and Funny Pages. Especially since Church had to buy most of these earlier issues from 1938 and earlier as back issues if he could find them, and even if he did, most of them were used mid-grade copies only and not in the typical pristine Mile High condition that the collection was famous for with the post 1938 issues. Since there was no Larson or Lost Valley copy of Star Comics 12, I assume you must have the Billy Wright copy of Star Comics 12. I remember the Jon Berk Auction on CC from a few years ago and I was focusing my atttnetion on some of these earlier issues that did not have a Church copy, but no known pedigree copy at all. Although it's always a challenge and fun to acquire one of these virtually impossible to find books for your personal collection, it oftens tends not to be as financially rewarding going forward as some of the more common books. It's hard for valuations to go up on some of these books when they only appear in the marketplace once every several years or so, since it's a whole lot easier for books to go up in value if they have more frequent sales to reinforce the prices paid which allows the marketplace to continue to drive the prices up on these books in a much more regular basis. For the books that tend to show up only once every sevearl years or after a whole decade later, it's often a case of out of sight, out of mind.

I'm not saying anything exists or doesn't exist. Someone posted a Church list that appears to be legitimate and Detectives 26 through 37 are not on it. I was inquiring if they exist. If so then the list is not accurate. The Church list which you are most likely referring to is actually Chuck's Mile High Catalogue was never meant to be a complete list of all of the Church books, as it is really Chuck's remaining Church books that he still had left for sale at the time he came up with the catalog. As such, it would not have the first $10,000 worth of books at Overstreet guide (e.g. Planet run, etc.) that Burrell kept as his payment for loaning (or giving ) Chuck the $2,000 which he needed in order to acquire the entire collection from the Church family. It would also exclude the books which he kkept for his own personal collection such as Red Raven and the Spirit comics, along with some of the runs or books which were sold off at the start such as the early Actions, early Batman Tec's, Suspense 3, etc. Can't figure out why he would keep the Red Raven book as opposed to either the Action 1 or the 'Tec 27, but then that's Chuck for you.

Did you check for Action 1 - 21 or also any of the Planet Comics or do they also not exist?

Yeah, that's what I had figured in terms of not having any of the HG early SA keys. Then again, shouldn't this also have nixed the Oakland pedigree since I believe that pedigree also didn't have any of the early SA keys within its collection. I guess this collection was given pedigree status quite early on before they "fine tuned" their qualifications as more and more of these later SA and primarily uber HG BA collections started to make their appearance in the marketplace.

Totally agree with you about all of the full helmeted Doctor Fate covers, although you certainly can't help but to also love the classic Spectre covers on More Fun 54 and More Fun 65. If you are into the full helmet Doctor Fate look, the cover that I would go after would be the classic More Fun 56 cover which is not only the first Doctor Fate cover, but seemingly also the hardest one to find since save for the Church copy which was auctioned off through CC back in 2017, I believe it's been pretty much a full decade since the last copy of MF 56 has come into the marketplace. The good news for you is that the Doctor Fate that's coming out in the DCEU version later this year is the full helmet version played as played by the former James Bond (i.e. Pierce Brosnan): https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/pierce-brosnan-doctor-fate-black-adam.html

Big congrats to you on pciking up this very early Church copy of Detective Comics 6, and a great historic background story to go along with it. I guess with all of the other quality books coming out at the time of the big Jon Berk Auction back in 2017, it was probably easy to miss this one back then or else you could have gotten it at about half the price. Then again, I guess a lot of books including even some of these very early pre-hero books were a whole lot cheaper back then.

I guess the early bird gets the worm because I ran down to the loonie store as fast as my little feet could take me this morning and was told they were already all out of magic markers and scissors after that big line up in front of the store before they were even opened this morning. I guess you and everybody else here must have ran out as fast as you could to line up after seeing that purple encased restored and trimmed copy of Detective Comics 6 sell for a big premium to condition guide value the previous night.

Heck, they most definitely did as it seems to be some amazingly high prices being paid for these entry level copies, like this MF 69 here: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/more-fun-comics-69-dc-1941-condition-pr/a/122213-17636.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Multiples of Good condition guide valuations being paid for what was graded as a raw Poor condition and effectively an Incomplete book with a whopping 6 pages missing from the Spectre story along with "fragile" (Hmmm...........Brittle pages ) pages for the rest of the book. Definitely a very strong price here for this copy of More Fun 69.

Well, since I heard that the color purple was going to be the new "in" color for the younger up and coming generation, best to bypass that old school boring gold color label and ask for all of your books to be re-encased with that beautiful purple color label.

Any idea if the post-hero humour cover issues have caught any of this pre-hero fire or are they still flickering away on their last embers? Just wondering since I picked up a raw low grade (possibly G/VG) of the apparently scarce final issue of More Fun 127 at a local con a few weekends ago? Couldn't pass it up since it was complete and had nice pages relative to the grade, and even more so when the dealer was willing to knock the price down from $160 CDN down to $135 CDN or roughly only about $105 USD. Have always loved these final issues of long running titles, but probably not worth slabbing for most collectors due to the lower price point since there's even fewer total copies of this issue on the CGC census as compared to the above More Fun 35 and More Fun 45 issues, with a total of only 4 graded copies to date.

Besides the pre-hero ones which I found to be right up there in terms of pricing, the other one which I found rather surprising was the More Fun 74 which sold for a solid $5,280 for a raw VG copy: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/superhero/more-fun-comics-74-dc-1941-condition-vg/a/122213-17640.s?type=bidnotice-tracked-endofauction

Hey Oz; Any idea if Heritage checked with CGC for the possibility of having this Oregon Coast Collection certified as a pedigree collection given the high grades on these books combined with the huge quantity held within the total collection? Or did the Oregon Coast Collection start too late and would not qualify since it did not have any of the key SA books in there?

Hey Peter; I wish you would stop beating around the bush and just simply come right out straight and tell us how you really feel about this AF 15 book here.

Oh I see, the "buy window" for AF 15...................yes, even though there was an extended pause in the prices for awhile there, the book has always sold for either huge premiums or multiples to condition guide. Especially since the last time I remember a copy selling for a significant discount to condition guide was back in 2016 when a VF+ 8.5 graded copy sold for some 30%+ below condition guide. Now, that was a perfectly reasonably priced copy for you to have picked up back then even though I still remembered most boardies saying at the time that the buyer was not only going to lose their shirt, but also their pants to pay that kind of bloated price for what must obviously be an overgraded copy since it was graded by the boys across the street.

I’m traumatized for missing my window Are you referring to your "buy window" for AF 15 or your "sell window" for MS 5 and the other similarly hot, but relatively available BA and CA books that seems to be easing quite a bit in terms of their pricing from last year?

Well, if you feel a bit traumatized over a WWBN 32, just imagine how all of the sellers for AF 15 from just say 5 years ago must feel right about now.

From a collector's POV, the HOS 92 is a definite keeper and a much tougher book to find in grade as compared to MS 5. From a speculator's financial POV though, I guess the MS 5 would be a better bet going forward due to Ghost Rider's much more recognizable character from his movie and TV related tie-in's.

Wowza.........................big big congrats to you on your huge record setting sale. Have you already auctioned off the other 4 copies or will you be keeping one of them for your own personal collection since you can certainly afford to?

Wow, big congrats to you on nice copy here as this must be one of the highest graded Recil Macon books out there, as most of them are generally more in the CGC 7.0 grade range or thereabouts. I would assume this Macon book here didn't have much writing in there because I have heard of some copies having up to 15 of his names written throughout the book which CGC would most likely downgrade severely for.

Because the writing sucks How can that be since it's apparently the Toddster himself who does the writing for every single issue of Spawn?

Have you ever given any serious thought to getting any of your 5 copies here graded and slabbed because they sure look right up there in terms of potential high grades?

Wow, big congrats on your copy of MS 5, and most of all, the absolutely amazing grade that you was able to get for your copy. Maybe it's time for all of us to submit our books now as there is sure a huge visual difference from how they were grading last year: