sfcityduck

For the late 70s early 80s time period, the reported sales for a title say more about the growth of the comic collecting community with the dramatic spread of comic stores at the advent of the direct market, and less about whether a particular title was considered a "hot title" before that boom occurred. If you are basing your analysis on just statistics and not your personal memories of the time period, then I think your data is not sufficient to pinpoint what collectors viewed as a hot series. I can tell you that Cockrum was a hot artist on LSH and X-Men, and Byrne was a hotter artist. X-Men 110 and 111 made it very clear that Byrne was special. And Claremont's writing was cut above. X-Men was a fan favorite book before you think. Now there was not the same type of "hot market" hype back then as there is now (no internet - wide regional variation - national selling was through adzines and dealer lists). If you really want to do an analysis of what collectors thought, you need to ask collectors of the time and look at adzines (which may be of limited help for relatively low value books). I can also tell you that Miller took a bit of time to be discovered, but he was discovered well before DD 181 (April 1982), having been cover featured on Comics Journal in September 1980 which is when it became pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that this was a special artist. DD 158 was a hot book in 1980, over a year before 181 came out. In fact, 181 was sort of the end of the line. By only a few issues later, Miller was no longer doing the pencils (just layouts) and the quality was viewed as having declined.

Kudos to whoever picked up this Silver/Bronze Gold Key rack for $129. I was the under bidder, only because it was so cheap, I wasn't willing to bid much because I have a very nice gold key wood rack and don't collect bagged comics. But, it is in great shape and was a steal at the price for the winner: Surprised there were only two bidders.

X-men heated up quickly, before Byrne joined the titled with 108. Once he did, it heated up more. Miller got attention within a year, and hit the stratosphere after RC Harvey did a very nice cover article about Miller's DD in the September 1980 Comics Journal. At the time, there was no internet and no "hot comics" hype publications (e.g. Comics Values Monthly, etc.). So they both became very desirable very quickly for the time.

Within the last year I concluded a great transaction with Theo for an item I had noticed he'd listed on eBay about four years earlier. I sent him an email asking him if he still had it, he said he did and quoted me a price. Turned out the price he quoted was a bit less than his ebay listing, but he stuck with that price. I thought he was a pleasure to deal with. Looking at these listings, I have to think his tongue is planted firmly in cheek.

Late 60s is when Art Spiegelman did his famous paper on it.

Based on this thread, seems like you found the bottle opener some time ago. LoL!

Looks like color touch to me.

The kamikaze attack sounds like misinformation from the family or dealer puffery. Not sure why it matters, though. The story of the OO rarely enhances the value of the books. Do Allentown's get a boost because they are great books or because of the identity of the OO? And in this case the OOs who were purchasing the books were not Tom Reilly, they were his parents. Whether he died from a Kamikase or as a DNB really doesn't impact the value of the books.

Bob's story is Nick and Mike got the timely's before the books made it into the convention, and then he got the rest. It really should not be hard to track down the history of Reilly with all this information. There was a Thomas Reilly from Sacremento who died as a DNB (died non-battle) during WWII. Could be him. Ancestry might be a good place to look for this Arnheim/Reilly connection.

My question: Who is Dr. Arnheim and why was he selling "Tom Reilly's" collection?

Pm’d

Gator is psychic. He answers before you ask the question.

According to Rob's site, the collection includes: * Batman 1 sold for $70K in 2001 as a "NM". * Detective 1 sold for $90K (no grade given) in 1995 (I wonder if this is the stolen Cage copy?). * Flash 1 CGC 8.5. * MC 1 CGC 9.0.

I'd only buy it if you want to start collecting bagged comics. And if that's the case, why not focus on an specific publisher with a lot of bags available for purchase and get a slightly better condition?: $275 with shipping on eBay. I thought about buying it, but I've already got the ultimate Gold Key rack and no desire to collect old bagged comics.

For those books, you really should use this rack:

Your make reasonable points. But, all we have to base an opinion upon is the scans and the CGC grades. The page quality on the SF is ow/w and the Denver is ow, so that supports your conclusion that the SF is better "preserved" than the Denver. But, I'm focused on the sharpness of the book (which of course is impacted by handling since the 1973 discovery, so the general "shape" of SF books is a guide not a guarantee), not the page quality. The scans do seem to showt that the left upper and lower corners of the SF are not nearly as sharp as the Denver (and we have the owner of the Denver confirming that). So, while I recognise that I am just voicing an opinion, I'm comfortable in that opinion based on the only evidence I have access to. I don't think anyone is going to get to do a side by side with the Denver unless the Denver owner is in the hunt. But, don't get me wrong. The SF is a beautiful book. No shame in second or third best. Won't get the same frenzy that the Allentown would generate, which is why I'm bearish on $1M. Others can reasonably disagree, such as you have done. As I said above, I lose bets.

You might want to act quick, that's listed online for $250 with $54 shipping. So you can get it for $250 locally. Here's the problem with that kind of rack: You can only use them to hang bags. And you would not want to do that because the bags will stretch out and be ruined. So you're really just buying the sign. Signs are cool, but you can buy the signs cheaper. Personally, I think, you'd be better off buying a rack you can use to display comics (fyi - cgc case is too wide) or archive/masterworks books.

If you're talking about the Dell rack on eBay with an embossed sign, this is what I'd do: Use chemicals or a very fine sand blaster to strip the sign down to the metal. Then repaint it. Because it is embossed, it would be easy to create the right stencil to get the font right. Especially since I can send you a pic of what the sign should look like (font and color scheme). Sure it would be restored, but it would look cool. I thought about buying it for a resto job, but I don't need that one.

I think you're right. It's a completely different game. But, still, if this CA 1 goes for over $1M it will be only the 8th comic book to ever do so. It would also be only the 4th issue after Action 1, D27, and AF 15, to break $1M. And that's looking at it with reference to today's market. Most importantly, while Action 1 and D27 are in their own top tier and have broken $1M with lesser graded copies, that AF 15 was the best copy (and the top SA comic). The best AS 8 (CGC 9.4 - next best was two 9.2s) came close to hitting $1M, as well. But this CA 1 (CGC 9.4) appears to be no better than the 3rd best copy of CA 1 (better CGC 9.8 and 9.4). So the question is: Will the 3rd best CA 1 become the first Timely comic to break $1M? Pushing up the auction record for Timely by almost a factor of 3x? It will take two motivated buyers. It could happen. Will some day. Definitely if the Allentown comes up for sale. I'd just bet the other way on this book right now. But, I've lost bets before.

Isn't that because there's not just one batch of such file copies, but several different batches from different sources? I can think of two separate batches of "Poughkeesie file copies" and the Random House Archives, for example. And sometimes, I think, the term "file copy" is slapped on comics which really aren't from a publishers file, but are actually part of a warehouse find. I think that's true for Harvey. There are both "file copies" and a warehouse find. P.S. I agree that the Gaines file copies are the standouts, they are also the only file copy which are also a pedigree recognized by CGC.

I don't even think it is the top Timely. Be interesting to see what happens.

So, you're in the hunt then?

Here's my take. There are four boxes: [ ] A pedigree is nothing more than a group of high grade original owner comics which the marketplace has deemed as having special qualities which garner a premium in price. But, because pedigrees are awarded to collections, not individual comics, the pedigree is not a guarantee of high grade for every comic in the collection. [ ] Provenance is nothing more than the chain of ownership of a comic. [ ] A file copy is a comic which was stored by the publisher. [ ] An "association" copy is a comic which was owned by someone famous or with import to the comic collecting community. I can think of only one batch of comics which really ticks all four boxes. A "Gaines File Copy" is a high grade original owner comic, with impeccable provenance having gone from the OO straight to the marketplace with very tight indexing and controls, and Gaines was the publisher, and Gaines is a famous name in the comic book world. For me, "provenance" is on no importance unless it is being used to support that a comic comes from a pedigree, publisher file, or has had a famous former owner (Cage, maybe Berk to us geeks). Without provenance, a claim that a comic is a pedigree or file copy or has a certain association is meaningless. A file copy is something I find cool because of its association with the publisher. But, I would not buy a file copy merely because of that association. Some file copies have undesirable page quality. However, other file copies may well be the best copies around. So in some cases a "file copy" notation is equivalent to a pedigree as to what it tells you GENERALLY about the group of books from that publish. A pedigree to me is just an indication of quality. Given that the top two prices ever paid for comic books were for non-pedigree comics, it is pretty obvious that a comic can be a great comic - the best available - and not come from a pedigree. Non-pedigree comics have gotten huge multiples that dwarf pedigree or file copies. So pedigree is just an info point for me. For others, I know, it can be a boasting point - but I don't think that's true for every pedigree. I would never pay more for a lesser quality pedigree than a higher quality non-pedigree just to boast about owning the pedigree. I think the Dentist got it right when he ditched his MH/Church Superman 1 for a better quality Superman 1. For me, the "association" is the most important NON-GRADE factor. It's the association that makes me think a comic is worth more than an equivalent copy without that association. It's about the story of the comic. I would buy a beater Duck book for over its grade value because it was owned by Barks and has his stamp on it. I'd buy a Mile High/Church comic at a premium because of Edgar's association and the import of that pedigree to comic history, even when we're talking about a genre and grade that's not worthy of such a premium. Some will do that for a "Cage copy." But, I value industry associations the most, comic history second, and famous people are a distant third. Just 2 cents.

NO.