jerome34

Here is some more info on these editions. (full size) Action 441 -The cover has a circle for price but it is blank. The back cover ad lists an ad for what seems to be Philipino & English editions of Classics Illustrated Juniors. Numbers are 301 - 364 but they do not seem to be in the same order as the CI juniors. BM South East Asia #32 Feb 61 (the copy I had was coverless). Detective South East Asia 29 Jan 61 (Cover "The Raven & the Wasp") Superman South East Asia 20 Jan 1960 (also coverless) The above 4 issues are ones I am sending to a friend. - - - The following ones I still have if anyone is interested. (full size) Korak 40. Price 20c. Indicia reprints the DC indicia with reprint info below. Has the house ad shown above. Tarzan 228. Price circle has "Sale P1.75" as overprint Unexpected 174. No price on front cover; has UPC box and Comic Code authority stamp. Indicia reprints the DC indicia with reprint info below. (miniature about 7.5" high) Adventure 22. Indicia is Adventure 266 July 1961. Black & white guts. This one has a "Sworn Statement" for the "Republic of the Philippines" It says that the number of copies "sent to paid subscribers 48,721" and "Sent to others than paid subscribers 635" for a total print run of 49,356. This is for the last issue in March 1961. Based on the "Statement" given above here, I suspect these may not have been sold as returnable (as in the US) so stores would order the number of copies they thought they could sell. That way, almost all sales could be counted as "subscription copies" and the non-subscription copies would be the ones going to the chain of stores that were responsible for publishing these American reprints. There seems to be no indication as to printer/publisher for this item. There are local ads but they just give a phone number. The back cover ad is for the Manilla Chronicle. Hope you find this info useful.

Additional possible candidates for survey forms include: Claw 10 Firestorm 2 House of Secrets 151 New Gods 17 and (as noted by others) Superman 322. All of these came out the same week as Flash 260, Jonah Hex 11 and others listed above. Dratted variants

There are a lot of DC comics reprinted in the Philippines. Some are full size and some are smaller (about 4" x 7").

The above analysis pretty much makes this item an "after-market" set of copies (at least as far as DC was concerned). CI was gone before he was called upon to sign any copies. All CI signatures can be assumed to be convention signings and the SL signatures were done over a period of time or at conventions. It would be nice if someone checked with Stan to see what he remembers. I doubt he ever saw a copy with CI's signature outside of a convention. (Also worth asking.) Agree?

Comic Cavalcade reprints (as giveaways): "The Twain shall Meet" (from #8) "Carl Akeley" (from #13) Heroes in Dungarees" (from #8) "Hop Harrigan" (from #9) "!00 Years of Co-operation" (from #9) "Tomorrow the World" (from #10) There are two versions of "Tomorrow the World" one with a large logo, one with a small logo. I am looking for reasonably priced copies of: "Twain," "Carl," "Heroes," "Hap," and "Tomorrow" (small logo).

They are tough to get (especially in complete, unrestored condition). Expect to spend a lot of time finding them and a lot of money to get them. After 25 years, and with a modest budget, I am still missing 6. Most of the rest are incomplete or very low grade. Only 6 are not on my "want a good copy" list which is defined as "complete, unrestored, not slabbed, and better than good) which is a bottom feeder collector level. Currently, to get such a set you better plan on 30 - 50 K and a lot of luck. (Let me get them instead.)

Times change, scarcities change. Live with it.

Any study of scarcity gives the results for the time frame of the analysis. A well publicized "scarcity" soon alters the values as individuals owning "scarce" issues offer them for sale at well above current "market values." Perhaps the best example of this is "New Adventure" 26. It did not show up often for years. When it became the last issue Ian needed, it got a lot of publicity; he got a copy and then other copies became available all at very high prices. That situation still distorts the "value" of the book -- both in the Overstreet guide and in the perception of most collectors and dealers.

John Kiester's prices were fairly low in the 1940's. The last time I saw him (1958), he mentioned that due to the difficulty of getting old comics, he had to price them at $.50. He told me of a customer he had who bought a lot of his older books. When told that the price had gone up to $.50, the kid said (in effect) " No problem, I resell them for $2.00." In the '40's, most book stores had a table near the front with comics. Typically, they would pay 1 cent a comic and sell them for 2 cents. They would, naturally, pass on a low grade Action 1 but happily take a decent copy of Goofy. Schinder's in the 40's was primarily a place to get new comics. (I was out of comics from about 1950 - 1983 so have no information about that period.) From what I heard, Midway got a lot of old comics when Tom bought an older store. When I started back in comics, I got some from Tom. He started of as a very obnoxious individual and went downhill from that. In about 1987, I went to Kansas City and visited bookstores selling comics. At one store, when they learned I was from the Twin Cities, they went into a lengthy rant about the most obnoxious book dealer they had ever met; it was Tom.

In about 1946 I was at a used magazine store on Franklin Ave in Minneapolis. The dealer there told me about a bookstore on Lake street that had lots of old comics. This was John Kiester's shop and I shopped there for comics as long as I collected comics. (Afterwards, I shopped there for science fiction pulps.) He was one of my best friends. He died in 1960 due, at least in part, to having been gassed in WW 1.

I have been making a list of such 3 packs. Since, as far as I know, they do not include variants, I have not been trying to buy them. My list which is build primarily from e-bay ads currently has 96 3-packs (plus 2-packs, 4-packs, and 5-packs). It includes the A-10 in question but the third comic remains unknown. Good luck.

So glad you were able to fill in the run. I was sure you got the 24 and have been meaning to check. Wish I could have been more of a help but, s you know, I am also going for the same run (and a few more). Looks great. Congratulations.

48 pages + a cover (counting as 4) = 52. Comics started as 64 pages + cover (=68). During WW 2, they went down to 56 (+ cover = 60) Some companies did it by shifting to 14 sheets of paper (+ cover). DC and Classics Illustrated did it by keeping 16 sheets of paper but in the back half of the book, removing half of sheets 2, 6, 11, and 15 (open the book at the center, lie flat, and count down from the center sheet of paper). I am going from memory so this may not be completely accurate. Other companies also cut pages in the back half of the book. If I remember correctly, Fawcett removed half of the center fold which often lead to the book missing 2 or 6 pages. Very confusing but, in the case of Fawcett, it only lasted about six months before they went down to 32 pages (+ cover = 36). Then there was a period where most comics were 48 (+ cover = 52). Some Dell titles had some issues with 48 (+4 = 52)) and some issues with 32 (+4 = 36). For a brief time, DC went to 10 sheets of paper (40 + cover = 44) before dropping to the current standard of 32 (+ cover = 36).

1) For the SKU, the useful information is the two 5 digit numbers. I believe the small leading 1 digit number and the small 1 digit trailing number are for checksum purposes only. I ignore them. 2) Regarding dates, when a value is obvious, I put the year in my document. Otherwise, I use a question mark (like 198?) since I am too lazy to always check all the books. Checking the date of the ads (primarily back cover, inside front cover, and inside back cover) will give you the year if they are later than the year of the issue. If they match the date of the issue, you could get the most recent issue and subtract two months to get the date the regular book was on the stands. However using the year of the most recently published issues should be close enough. It is only important if the reprint in the package came out years after the original issues were published. Packages of Batman comics issues numbered 397 - 425 are the prime offenders here.

As part of my attempt to document the thousands of DC variants, I have been building lists of all DC packs. The packs from 1994 - 1996 are often nothing but variants. I am not including the Whitman packs since we know which DC comics had Whitman variants. Some early packs (typically "Walgreens") had "no month" variants. Other than that, most earlier packs are just the regular issues. As part of my documentation, I would like to include: the year, the SKU, the price (often "3 comics for xx cents"), and the books in the package. Could people posting DC packs please list what information they have? I t is difficult to read issue numbers and it is not always clear if two conssecutive pictures are the front and back of a pack. Thank you.

Like other obscure areas (such as DC variants), bargains exist. There is little competition. However, the dratted things do not show up often. So what you save in dollars, you pay for in time and searches. Like all collecting, to build a good collection you: a) do it fast with a lot of money and not much time; or b) do it slow with a lot of time and not much money. Hard core collectors try to find some middle ground.

Ian: I have no doubts about the "How You ..." book and I have a copy in my collection. (Thanks for pointing it out to me.) My comment referred to my suspicion that most collectors are not familiar with the item and would be unlikely to consider it a comic or a DC.

I have seen a copy or two of "How You ..." on e-bay in the past couple of years. I suspect it was fairly widely distributed during the war so I would not be surprised if extra copies showed up. The fact that it is not normally found among comics and that you and I may be the only ones who count is as a DC (Thanks again for the info), may account for it not appearing on comic sites. Issues may show up from time to time at antique sites/stores. I agree the Dirt-Minator is very hard to find and again, thanks for finding one for me. As we both know, you have been extremely helpful in filling in major holes in my collection of DC promos with a remarkable help in finding the really rare items.

I also suspect Christine has a copy. Making 7.

I got mine at least ten years ago. I already had it when Ian and I first got in contact with each other. In one of our early contacts, I warned him that it was believed to be difficult to get. At that time, Ian was missing only about 100 books. I think that when he got the Buzzy 70 he was down to about 10. Michele Nolan had, and may still have, a copy. That brings the total up to 6 and of the 6 lucky owners, only Ian is a well known, heavy hitter, collector going after full runs regardless of common/scarce. I am sure that there are other copies out there; some in the hands of Buzzy collectors, some in the hands of "Gotta have the scarce books," and some in the hands of individuals who got a comic lot where the Buzzy was mixed in with books the collector wanted. I think it is at least as common as the most common Ashcan (see Moondogs' lists).

How many copies of Buzzy 70? I have it. Ian has it. Swapto has it. Gator's customer has it. If my memory is correct, a boardie found one recently for another boardie. Note that two (or three) copies have showed up recently. Scarce, yes. Very scarce, I doubt it.

If you have been hunting for a particular book for years to complete a title/run, you are temped, and often willing, to pay well over guide just to get the dratted thing. I have done it and expect to do it again. What troubles me is books like Buzzy 70 that have a reputation that they are extremely rare when they are merely rare. Then people pay outrageous prices to get the one book when they have no interest in any other issue of the title. Part of the reason why Buzzy 70 seems so rare is that dealers who do not know it is supposed to be rare (and Overstreet give no indication that it is not common) say to themselves "I am going to convention .con and cannot bring all my stuff; should I bring this group of $10.00 Buzzy's or should I bring this group of $40.00 Silver Surfers?" We all know the answer to that. Someone had extra space in his con box and Gator got one for "guide" (more or less). A "Gotta have any dratted book that is considered to be impossible to get" collector came by and Gator did well. And, at least for a while, both are happy with the transaction as is the dealer who sold it to Gator. In the long term, I do not think such activities are good for the field.

Ian: The ones you name are (with the exception of "How You ...") are ones that will never be common. The woodwork was cleaned out of those years ago. For you and me, items that we consider "scarce" are ones the were scarce from when we started hunting until we got our copies. Then we stop looking but still consider them scarce. Some of them (due, in part, to our hunts) become less scarce; some become even harder to find. There are items we found early in our search and got that are scarce. Some are documented, some are not. For example, you got your New Adventure 13 early so, for you, there was no reason to look and no reason to think, based exclusively on your own collecting experience, that it is scarce. So anytime you, or I, or any other collector names an issue as being scarce it is implied that it was scarce while we looked. Probably such issues are at a later date "scarce," "very scarce," or just "hard to find." There are many very hard to find items you have gotten for me and believe me, I appreciate it and will continue to appreciate it. Were a warehouse find of an issue to appear, it would not cause any change in my thankfulness for your help.

Many years ago, Michele Nolan published a note on the DC teenage books and claimed Buzzy 70 was the hardest to get. I kept a special eye out for it and eventually got one for a reasonable price (according to Overstreet). Once Ian and I connected, I hunted for a copy for him but was not able to find one. Within the past month or so, on e-bay, there was a lot which had a low grade copy of Buzzy 70 in among a few other books. It sold for a relatively modest price. While the book was hare do get in the 1980's, and 1990's, I think that (partially due to Ian's search) enough copies have come out of the woodwork that it is no longer a very rare book. It is not an easy book but it should no longer be considered to be rare. As a result, there is little reason for it to be marked up to very high prices. If Overstreet corrects the price to about double or maybe triple the current price, it would be more sensible. Isn't it nice that the woodwork can produce these books as soon as a lot of dealers believe (with, alas, reason) that they can sell them for obscene prices?

The "Happy Tooth" book is an incredibly difficult book to find. I am still looking and have been for at least 8 years.