sfcityduck

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Are you talking about the price charged by a thief to a collector/dealer (which may well be a fraction of market value due to the circumstances)? There's no way the FMV of an X-Men 1 interior page was $50 (or less) in 1980. Here's an analogy that may help, what Chuck paid Church's heirs is not the price people are looking at when they want to know what the Mile High Action 1 sold for when it "entered" the market. The price paid by Chuck was not FMV. The price Chuck got when he resold to informed collectors was FMV.

But I doubt they were from AF 15, FF 1, X-Men 1, etc. the key art we are discussing. Later art was sold into the market by Kirby and Ditko (more rarely), as I understand it, after Marvel sent art to both. Others can comment.

PM sent, because I'm not doubting your story, I'm seeking what I view as helpful information. But, feel free to tell your story the way you want. Next time, respond to the earlier posts, and I won't follow up.

The thieves sold the art into the market of dealers/collectors. Were the AF 15 pages then sold around? I don't know. But, they certainly entered the market when the thieves sold them in. You hear stories about the FF 1 original art having not only entered the market, but having been broken up into four lots. Yes, 2008 is removed from 1980, which is why I provided you the example of a page of 1979 original art selling for $75 in 1980 as refutation for the notion that the original art from the greatest Marvel comics of all time, from the 1961-64 time frame, were only worth $50 in 1980. And, no, I'm not back to the question of whether the artists owned the art they made, which I don't think is answered by the "work for hire" doctrine, as I'm noting that the art was stolen from Marvel itself.

Some people say that was really a Geppi-Anderson trade.

You owe me a footnote shout-out on you website when you finally publish this history:

On this detail, you have the duelling recollection of Bob Beerbohm and Mitch Mehdy. The way I recollect how I resolved this in 2011, is I took the version of the story told by Mitch as more credible because, after all, he had the first hand knowledge and it was a memorable event for him. Bob's version jives with Mitch's except as to the purchase price paid by Theo to Hamilton. I believe on one of the more active Mitch threads, he relayed the story of how Theo bought it, Mitch bought it from Theo (at the higher price), Mitch got the publicity, and Mitch later re-sold it back to Theo (I think) for a few hundred in profit. Mitch spent a lot of time comparing the transaction to buying a car (maybe a corvette), if that helps you search the threads. Or you could ask Mitch, who popped up on the Redbeard thread recently.

Two days later, still waiting for answer to an easy question which is central to evaluating the value of your advice.

I bought page 2 of X-Men 125 from Comics & Comix in Berkeley in the same late 70s to early 80s period in which this art was stolen (my purchase was in 1980, I think). I paid $75 for that page. Do you really think that the interior of AF 15 was selling for $50 a page in that time period? When the X-Men 1 art was sold by Heritage in 2008, which I think was the first public sale, it sold for $30K a page or thereabouts. If Marvel decided it was not "cost effective" to chase down the art, it probably made that decision because it knew it would have to hand it over to the artists or it was afraid of alienating the fan community.

I got that. I just don't think we should try to paint art thieves as some sort of Robin Hood types who "saved" the art. They didn't. They stole it and it was buried. It was a selfish act by the thieves and the buyers.

Why are you making up fantastical stories? The history of this art is pretty well known and the LoC has essentially confirmed that they viewed the AF 15 art as stolen. You are mixing up two issues. The first is whether Marvel or the artists were entitled to legal ownership of the art. The second is whether the art was stolen from Marvel. On the second question, the answer from all I've heard is "yes." However, when the artwork entered the marketplace, Marvel essentially decided not to pursue repatriation of the art. Perhaps due to the prominence of some of the collectors who possessed the art (George Lucas is rumoured to own the ASM 1 cover), perhaps because the individuals then making decisions for Marvel were overly sympathetic to the collector/fan community, perhaps because Marvel didn't want the way the art entered the market to come to light (it is rumoured that Marvel employees, including a prominent Silver Age figure (not Stan), in separate events either stole art to supplement their income or used art to "pay" others). or perhaps because Marvel didn't care because of the potential correct answer to the first question. Other explanations could exist. What is true, according to the LoC, is that the person who donated the AF 15 interior offered to give it back to Ditko instead of donating it. That person did so out of recognition of the questionable ownership of the art. The comments by the LoC in this news article about Ditko's reaction to the donation are very telling: Duke was quote elsewhere stating that LoC was hoping for further big donations from the same donor as who gave the AF 15. I don't know if that happened, but Geppi subsequently made a huge donation to the LoC and was quoted as stating he did so after viewing the AF 15 art at the LoC which opened his eyes as to its extensive comic holdings.

I have never heard that Marvel shredded, dumped or otherwise disposed of the non-stolen art. The stolen art was stolen in the last 70s or 80s, I believe.

It does have that utility. Which is why folks probably go the trouble. But, personally, I find it a lot easier to understand what people want when they say "pre-Code" horror or romance or crime; or "pre-War" superheroes; or WWII era comics; or 40s; or Barks' Ducks; or St. John Romance; etc. My own favorite time period is late 40s to mid-50s, but I would not call that the "atomic age" because 1945 is too early to start and the atomic age from a cultural perspective kept going into what we call Silver Age. Frankly I lose the thread once we reach the end of the SA (when is that again? When I started collecting there was no Bronze Age yet), and I really have no idea what the copper or modern ages are supposed to be about. Far easier for me to say I want 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s books, with qualifiers by mentioning DC, Marvel, or independents. I do think GA and SA are great historical terms for use in discussing superheros, especially DC superheros. But even that gets tricky because folks like to argue that the SA started at different times for different DC heroes (conflating SA with Earth-1).

OPG 7 is the 1976 market report. Price Guide 8 (1977 market report) has a MC 1 "selling out of Canada" for $7,500.

Interesting. That suggests it was a one-time purchase of a batch of comics early in his comic buying pre-WWII, back when there weren't that many titlles a month. I know he wanted them for source material, so it is understandable he'd have bought used comics before he built up the library of comics bought off the newsstand and had ample source material available.

What other books have that marking? Is the theory he did that, or was it the source from whom he bought the "back issue" comics? Are books with that marking from the same time period, or do they include books from later periods? And were they on Chuck's earliest sell lists, or were they offered for sale by Chuck later? Just curious.

I'm really interested in the story on that book. I've read that some people believe that Edgar Church went out to look for back issues to fill "gaps" in his collection. I saw someone point to your book to support that assertion. Yet, it seems more likely that the NYWF 15 cent copies (marked down from the 25 cent price charged at the fair) might not have been subject to a return because they were cardboard copy non-monthly publications (really more like a coloring book). Makes me wonder if Edgar just got a copy marked down by a store in Denver, not a copy that he specifically "sought out" for his collection (how would he have even known it existed and where did he get it?). Are there any other books (other than maybe the similarly mid-grade NYWF 1940) that folks point out to support the "Edgar bought back issues" argument?

Not trying to start a fight or be entirely without humor. I'm actually curious about the point made by RMA and am trying to avoid digressions. It seems a presser would want books that don't present well, to upgrade (e.g., unpressed books where they can be straightened, etc.). To want books that do present well (e.g. straight, centered, etc.) just doesn't seem like the right desire. But, I have no knowledge on this topic.

... or you could admit you missed the point of my comment. You are trying too hard to not be "wrong."

When did the OPG start doing market reports? Seems like there should be "records" between 1974 and 1979.

Sorry. No. But, news archives searches will quickly pull up those stories for you. Also, there was a late comment in the prior thread in which it was revealed a MPFW sold for $2K in 1974.

The Market. And the market has certainly said something in the historical Model we can examine known as CAC. The coin market can teach us about pressing?

Interesting. My knee jerk reaction is to think the opposite. If the book has more eye appeal than the grade, I would assume it has already been pressed. But, since we don't know the criteria, who can say?

He was way behind the curve: