sfcityduck

So all we've got work with is two names, Robert and Junie, right? Wrong. We also have this: A cursive "Armand" written on this and other books. So now we know three names to work with, Robert, Armand, and Junie, right? Wrong. "Junie" is a nickname. Heritage made this clear when they stated in the ad "His younger brother, known as Junie ...." So now we're back to two names, right? Yep. And either or both of Robert or Armand could be first, middle or last names. And guess what? Over thirty to fourty thousand U.S. soldiers died during the Korean War (the number is still debated). So you can't just scan a list. The impression you should be getting from these comments is that we don't have a lot of info, and we have a lot of suspects. So, again, I emphasize that I'm speculating. But, there are ways to filter down our suspects to a manageable amount. [More to come.]

Matt Nelson commented the other night on the Tales From the Flipside show on Youtube: “As much as the family wants their privacy, inevitably, people are curious in this hobby and will piece things together, which is fine.” I agree with him. When a new pedigree collection emerges, the collecting community is very very interested in the back story. And sometimes folks, for example Jon Berk, take the trouble to "piece things together" and identify the original owner of the comics. So it is inevitable that is going to happen with the Promise Collection. The problem is, any such effort is just speculation unless the family steps forward or Heritage tells what they know. And that's not going to happen. Brian Wiedman said the other night on Tales From the Flipside: "What you saw on Bleeding Cool is what we are allowed to say." He then went on to say: "Unfortunately, I cannot give away location and the name, the clients want to be extremely confidential.” Thus, there is no practical way to confirm any speculation we might make. If we were going to speculate, we'd start with the ad Heritage took out in Bleeding Cool that was drafted by the Board's own Mark Seifert (no, he can't talk either, that would violate his journalistic ethics and likely Bleeding Cool's deal with Heritage): That's the info Heritage has given us to work with. That info and this challenge: Yes, they will. But, first we need to nail down who they are. So what follows will be my entirely unconfirmed, but not unevidenced, speculation as to the identities of Robert and Junie. And, as I think you'll see, if I'm right in this speculation, their story is more interesting and heroic than Heritage is allowed to say. [More to come.]

I'd like to see the bidding frenzy if a really nice U.S. 6 showed up (highest on census are two 8.0s, followed by a 7.0).

Anyone know where that quote about the run gap was in the video?

Fixed, based on my recollection of Chuck's description. Edgar stacked them 10 feet high. They covered every inch of Chuck's apartment based on the famous picture, but Chuck only stacked them a foot or two high.

They sure seem to be lobbying for Okajima quality multiples based on the story of this collection. Which are what? 10x+?

He was definitely was NOT talking about a high grade Bat 1 from this collection. Matt basically said it was too bad there were no high grade early mega keys.

He didn't say that. He said they aren't graded yet.

Corrected, I think.

Yeah, hard to compare the Twilight with its dark background and dark imaging to the Promise with its backlighting and lighter imaging. That could swing both ways, so makes a comparison difficult. Same thing with the w-ow of the Twilight and the w of the Promise. Without actually seeing interior pages, hard to know how white they really are.

Promise copy has a dust shadow left top edge, a bit rough right top edge, and is misaligned/miscut with the Superman circle top cut off and blank paper below the image bottom right: Twilight presents very nicely with better centering: Mile High? (not sure) looks pretty good: I'm not convinced the Promise Copy is tops, although I am a white pages guy. I'd love to see the interior of a Promise copy.

For comics, that is a simpler way of saying what they said on the label, which, again, is we guarantee it is not a counterfeit. Except that, they'll guarantee a counterfeit is an authentic counterfeit over and over and over and over and over:

I stand corrected: They guarantee three things: (1) The comic (except ashcans which they will no longer grade) is genuine (e.g. not a counterfeit, unless it is a genuine counterfeit), (2) the comic is viewed is inspected by "a minimum of one pre-grader and two graders", and (3) "CGC will not be financially responsible for damage that occurs to the book while not in our possession." Which amounts to essentially not guaranteeing anything important unless you are concerned about counterfeits.

CGC is only subject to regulation by its customers. And, despite its name, it does not guarantee anything, including the accuracy of its grading.

Either eBay is fixed or you guys don't know how to search. This is how I do it: * click "shop by category" next to the eBay logo * click "collectibles" * click "comics" * run your search * hit eras on the left and click golden age

Dust shadows, staining on back bottom center, misaligned, miscut, must be a:

Heritage stated in the Bleeding Cool ad that the books were submitted by them to CGC.

Anonymity makes more sense if the consignor who is winning the lottery is not a relative of the brothers. But, even so, people want to stay anonymous when they win a lottery for good and legitimate reasons.

No. I think it is pretty transparent what they have done. It's looking more representative, albeit designed to impress, than a "best books first" approach. They are heavy on superheros (which includes Phantom Lady), and lighter on the non-superhero genre. But the DC and Timely runs are just excerpts. The next biggest genre is, I think, SF. Lighter on PCH. Collection may not include romance, Dell, westerns, or strip reprints. We all know of books that are desirable and valuable in the 1943 to 1950 core time period not posted so far, and the pre-1943 time period is barely represented (although 3.5 CA 1 is one of the bigger books). So I think there will be exciting and valuable books in later auctions.

I think there were more exceptions than folks sometimes realize. Comics were a form of entertainment on par with t.v. and video games today. 5,000 comics was $500 dollars new. Spread over more than ten years, as the Promise collection is, we're talking around $50 a year on average ($4.11 a month). I'm sure the volumes purchased increased as kids got older and maybe got jobs (so less a month early on and more later). Many many kids had comic collections, that's why many GA comics are relatively common today despite that huge number of collections that were tossed out by parents, recycled, etc. For example: * Edgar Church (20,000 books 1930s to 1950s) was an artist who worked for the telephone company. * Lamont Larson (1,000 books 1936-1940) was a middle class kid in Nebraska. * The OO of the Chinatown collection (1,300 books late 40s to early 50s) worked as a cook on a Ferry boat. * Leroy Mackie and his brother (Cooktown - 5,000 comics, late 30s to early 50s) were also, I believe, middle class kids. And we know of other big collections, some dispersed and others still intact, which are not "pedigrees" (yet): * Dave Wigransky (5,000+ comics from 1941-1948) was a middle class kid in D.C. * Bangzoom's WTG (2,500 comics late 1930s to early 1940s) was a middle class kid in D.C. And, of course, we have the examples of the first generation collectors, including those who founded fandom or became prominent in SF (like Roy Thomas, Jerry Bails, Don Thompson, Harlan Ellison, etc.) who all assembled massive collections as kids, many of which were dispersed before pedigrees became a thing. Don't get me wrong, some of them may well have come from well to do families. Which just shows that kids collecting comics spanned the demographics. And, most importantly, they were passionate. Kids had a lot options for their dimes, but some clearly chose comics over most of those other options.

Early on, someone said it's mostly superhero books. So the breadth is likely narrower than the MH collection. Edgar bought 20,000 books from the 30s (when there few comics) to the early/mid 50s. This collection is 5000 books, and covers the 30s to 1950. So the MH collection is quite likely of broader reach. Back then, getting 5,000 books did not require great wealth. Dave Wigransky, several years younger than the OO of this collection, accumulated over 5,000 between 1940 or 1941 and 1948. He was middle class - mom was a teacher and his dad worked for the federal government.

Definitely exciting. Do we all win? Not at all sure about that one. Some guys are seeing their census topping books dropping behind a book that may not be as strictly graded.

I'm not convinced this collection blows away the Mile High pedigree. Right now, it's hard for me to assess how impressive this collection really is. There's no doubt its impressive, but it doesn't have high grade mega-keys like Action 1, D27, etc. And, IMHO, the grading is a bit soft - giving this collection a better impression to those who buy the label than those who buy the book.

If a seller takes out an ad to tell a story to enhance the marketability of a collection, it is not a "false sense of entitlement" that gives the buyer the right to do whatever due diligence they can. The only sense of "entitlement" would be on the part of a seller who thinks they can say whatever they want without having their tales checked out by buyers. Do you really disagree?

You also protest too much. Again, my post was in response to a poster who was asserting that no one should say anything that could hurt the sales price of a book because the FAMILY would get less money. My point was simple: We don't even know if the FAMILY will get a dime from the auction. So the poster's assertion was overblown and unfounded.