sfcityduck

Clearly, one of the top comic strips and Sunday comics ever published. Can't believe it's been 25 years! The strip is still timeless, so much so that when the present Covid-19 debacle got me down, I sought out C&H comic and magazine covers as a diversion. NYTimes has an appreciative article on the strip in today's paper. I'm sure there are others. My rarer C&H acquisitions this year:

For me also, 2020 brought into sharp focus the value of comic collecting as an activity. It provides the thrill of the hunt and making the kill, the intellectual diversion of researching new targets and learning more about comics in general, the opportunity for conversation with fellow collectors (hearing stories of the past, telling stories of the fish caught, debates over aesthetics and money, etc. ad infinitum) and all of those benefits are accessible by computer. My 2020 included all of the above. 2020 here in SF has ended with a mild earthquake, and I take that as a divine commentary on the past not the future. So I am optimistic. My goal for 2021 include (1) nailing down some details and finish unspooling a comic collecting story I've long worked on, (2) tracking down a few obscure comics that are within reach, (3) getting caught up on my CGC submitting and selling some comics that deserve a collector who will love them more, and (4) finding new and interesting prey to hunt. I am confident that 2021 will see this country finally led out of the present mess, so I hope that later this year in-person experiences again become a fixture of my comic collecting (any predictions on the first comic con that will actually occur anyone?).

I've never thought of Roy aka Vintage Comics as cranky or insulting. That might explain why you don't make the connection.

Agree 1000%.

Around 1948. Yes the ill is were for this publication.

My last post until after Christmas. For those of you with musical talent and a love of comics:

True. The fact that comic values do not correspond to rarity is a big difference. In part that is because baseball card collectors are more likely to be completists, wanting to put together all of the cards for a particular year. But, in greater part that is because for comic collectors, who increasingly are not completists, a comic book needs to be more than part of a set - it must have pop culture, comic history, artistic, or other significance to have real value. Which I think makes comics a better purchase than a baseball card. I'd be willing to bet that the average price for 1952 comics would be greater than the average value of 1952 baseball cards, mainly because comic books have a lot more to offer than baseball cards (and the highest valued 1952 cards will not be the rarest, they'll be the rookie cards).

In case I don't get back to the boards in the next few days, Merry Christmas everyone!

You left off the Church MC 1. But do we really know that about the Church Mc 1 and AT CA 1?

Far far far more people than read comics. Here is the difference between baseball cards and comics: All baseball cards were manufactured collectibles from day one. They were produced to be collected and they were. Which means baseball cards have a much longer period of a robust collecting community than comics. Baseball card collectors are a small subset of baseball fans, but there are a lot of them. Until the 80s, all comics were produced to be read, not collected. Comics were not created to be a collectible. For me, that makes comics more desirable. But, the markets are different. Comparing the two markets is a bad idea. They are two entirely different things. You cannot compare a comic to fine art, etc. because the markets all have their own attributes.

“Intrinsic value”? Well maybe $100 for a used bat or glove.

So did I! My first favorite cool acquisition was tracking down some hard to find Calvin & Hobbes covers (and, yes it was nostalgia for happier times): My second cool acquisition was one of the rarer DC publications. You can read about that here: My third cool acquisition for the year was adding to my A-Bomb / Civil Defense comic collection by picking up some hard to find issues, and, most important to me, this cool autographed Atomic Age comic and record set, which you can read about here: Got a lot of other cool comics, but those were the ones that stood out to me due to being unusual and interesting.

Those Targets of yours are cool! I'm sending these hard to find C&H covers off to CGC this week:

I think this narrative pretty much makes clear the full timeline: https://www.mouseplanet.com/9969/How_Disney_Fans_Found_Carl_Barks#:~:text=In early June 1960%2C Willits,at the University of Washington.

The Willits letter to Barks is dated May 25, 1960. Barks' responded on June 2, 1960, by inviting Willits to come visit. Willits did visit. The notation on the Bound volume presented by Barks to Willits makes clear that Willits visited Barks later in June 1960 (which makes perfect sense since Barks sent the invitation on June 2, 1960, and I would not expect Willits to have sat on the invite). So I don't see the mystery. Memories can be inaccurate, which is why I tend to trust the dates on documents more.

No idea who/when told the story first, but it has been told repeatedly. check this out: https://www.cbarks.dk/thefanletter.htm

Exactly. What is very rare are nice copies of subscription variants.

Early 50s are not stickers, Those 97s are all printed variants.

The first time fans (Wiillits, Spicer bros) ever met with Barks and started sharing his identity was in 1960.

I would have if I had been detailed enough to read the description. Instead, I saw "bound volume," thought that is sort of neat, and missed the notation about the Barks inscription. If only I had known ...! That volume deserved some hype!

Two reasons: (1) WDC&S of this period do not have subscription mailing stickers, they have a printed (dot matrix?) address in a special rectangular white space left on the back cover (and later the front for a short while) for that purpose. (2) WDC&S of this period often not only have the white space for the address on the back cover which is not present in regular copies, but also different back cover art. They are true variant printings. Here's what Heritage has to say about a subscription variant of issue 137: That copy of 137, by the way, sold for 14x the guide value for a 9.2. Here's a back cover showing the printed address on a subscription variant of WDC&S 97:

I think that volume went cheap! Back in 1960, Willits was the first person to learn Barks' name and address. That volume is an incredibly significant bit of comic history documenting, in Barks' own hand, the moment when the "good duck artist" was discovered by the nascent comic fandom then coalescing, and, most importantly, how much it meant to him! That volume, my friends, is a foundational historical document regarding the birth of comic fandom and the ground zero for the then anonymous Carl Barks' becoming one of Disney's biggest legends. Too cheap? No ... a steal. Wish it were mine.

I assume you are referring to the admissions of shill bidding and fake sales by major OA art dealer on this site? He basically admitted that he had folks bidding in his own no reserve auctions to make sure the pieces didn't sell for "less than they were worth." Astounding admissions of fraud and market manipulation. I have wondered if the auction sites did anything to him.

My dad's father managed a Woolworth's. He ripped off the titles to be mailed in, and gave my dad (or other employees' kids) the copy with the top ripped off. They must also have been sending back full covers, as my dad's collection (now mine) was a mixture of full cover (most), coverless (next most), and 2/3rd cover (least). Do I know whether the full cover comics were bought off the rack or just taken home to my dad by my grandfather? I don't. Never occurred to me to ask. I do know they weren't selling remaindered copies.

Nah. I saw this kind of hype in the 80s with b&ws. Hot book this, hot book that. Prices ultimately crashed on all but a few of those books. No idea what point you are trying to make about Hulk 181. Everyone knows Wolverine's true first appearance is Hulk 180. But, Hulk 181 gets a higher price because it the first Wolverine cover and he appears in many more panels. Which is why Overstreet, CGC, etc., don't call Hulk 181 it Wolverine's "first appearance." They use a pretty meaningless term "first full story," which means in this context "cool second appearance".