sfcityduck

Rules: First "I'll take it" posted on the thread gets the book. I will consider offers. Returns accepted if I'm notified within 48 hours of delivery. Buyer pays for return shipping. Shipped USPS priority mail. Boxed, well packaged. Payments: Check, money order, Zelle, or another method that we agree on, feel free to pm me to discuss (it always works out). Payment expected within 5 days. Shipping - Included. Only ship to the US (maybe Canada so PM me). If Bombs Fall! #nn (Review and Herald, 1942) ungraded. As context, there is a single 3.0 on the census which copy of this rare item just sold on Heritage for $528 (with BP) on October 22, 2023. See here: If Bombs Fall! #nn (Review and Herald, 1942) CGC GD/VG 3.0 | Lot #17130 | Heritage Auctions (ha.com) This is Heritage's description: "The first copy we have ever offered of this scarce book. WWII Air Raid Manual with illustrations by Milton Caniff. Not listed in Overstreet. CGC census 9/23: 1 in 3.0, 1 higher." To my eyes they are comparable, but I recognize that there is a cost/value to cleaning and encapsulation so I'm selling this unencapsulated copy at a $150 discount for $375: CGC 3.0 comparison photos: Comparison Photo to CGC 3.0:

Thanks!

Jerry Buss was the right guy when it came to comics. I'd heard he owned a really great run of Planets. Thought they were the MH. In any event, looks like he sold his collection in 1997 through Sotheby's. I've got the 1991 and 1994 Sotheby's catalogs, but not the 1997. Now I'm curious if they had a Planet run. I heard he had to sell because of money troubles with the Lakers. From the LA Times: Remember Those Comics Your Mom Tossed? Well. . . BY IRENE LACHER JUNE 6, 1997 12 AM PT TIMES STAFF WRITER There is one overriding reason why prices are soaring for the nation’s most popular collectible. When your mother had the chance, she made you throw it out. The humble comic book, once damned by parents as toxic trash, is now bringing in serious cash. “One of the common adages among collectors is ‘My mother made me throw them away,’ ” says Gary M. Carter, editor of the San Diego-based monthly the Comic Book Marketplace. “It just plants the seed so that as soon as they grow up they march back to mail-order houses and bookstores and put together the comics they were forced to get rid of. It has a tendency to keep comics rare because nobody kept them.” Consider the scarcity--and estimated price--of a well-preserved Action Comics No. 1, one of the crown jewels of the massive collection of Dr. Jerry Buss valued at more than a quarter-million dollars. The L.A. Lakers owner’s 4,000-book trove, considered among the country’s top dozen comics collections, goes on the block next week at Sotheby’s in New York and is on view today in Beverly Hills. Action No. 1 is considered the most important comic book ever published because it launched Superman and the age of superheroes. Buss’ copy, which cost a thin dime when it was published in June 1938, is now worth an estimated $40,000 to $50,000.

Did Lakers owner Jerry Buss at one time own the MH Planet run?

I've heard both that he sold (1) for $25K for the A1 and $20K or $25K for the rest of the early run and (2) that it was $25K for the 1 and the rest of the run altogether. I think it was (1). But here's the thing: The price Dave Anderson paid was $25K just for the 1. And the seller was John Snyder. And that was in 1984 according to the info I've seen. So Chuck appears to have sat on the Action 1 for years. So I'm not sure why some above appear to the claim is that Chuck sold for $25K in the 70s. If he did, Snyder took a hit. I would not think that Snyder took a hit. He must have made some money, even if he was effectively just an intermediary on that transaction. As a successful store owner of many years, this quote from Chuck probably tells you more than it does those of us who aren't store owners:

I know the OO for Cosmic Aeroplane and Promise, and the Chinatown OO is known to the owner at least. Allentown? No idea. SF? Never verified. Okajima? There's a debate as to which family member(s). I agree with you on the "why" we don't know all the OOs. Probably because of puffery/marketing stories not being rock solid, or hopes for future comics from the OO, or confidentiality concerns, or to bury something, etc.

MH2 maybe. But the original MH collection? I doubt it. He sold the early Actions for what? $20K. That's a long way from a million. And those were sold later in the process several years after he got the collection. I'd like to see the quote. It sounds like puffery or confusion with the MH2 collection which is what saved his store.

Back in the mid to late 70s, dealers weren't paying OPG. They were paying no more than 50% and that was really rare. It was usually less. They had their overhead. They had to eat. And they had almost zero competition. So they paid what they could afford. Even Bangzoom, for that incredible WTG (likely Gilchrist) collection he bought in the mid-70s that was pulled from a garbage can but received shock and awe here when revealed, paid on average only a few dollars an issue. And my guess is that BZ was on the very very very generous side of the dealer math. I've heard stories about dealers paying strong prices for collections in the 60s and early 70s, but that was only when they were competing with other dealers, which Chuck wasn't. So its hard for me to view Chuck as ripping off anyone given the full facts and what I think is the proper perspective on the times. In 1977, interest rates were marching up, almost 9%, and soon would hit as high as 18%. Unemployment was 6% to 7%, and the minimum wage was only $2 an hour. As for Chuck, he was only 22 years old. He had a store, he had overhead, he no sure income, and he didn't have the purchase price the buyer wanted. He recalled: "At the time this call came in, I had been selling comics for 8 years. Starting with ads in the old Rocket's Blast Comic-Collector in 1969, and moving up to a stand at a monthly antiques show in 1970, I gradually had accumulated a large inventory of old comics. By 1972, I had over 8,000 back issues in my inventory, and rented a booth at my first national comics convention (Multi-con '72 in Oklahoma City). I grossed $1,800 during that convention, which was a huge sum in those days! I was only 17 years old at the time, but I knew from that moment onward that I wanted to be a comics dealer for the rest of my life." That's not a portrait of someone with no worries. That's a portrait of a hardworking dreamer. I have seen lots of comic stores go out of business. The guys I know who rode the comic store dream all the way from opening shop by 1970 into the 2020s amounts to just one guy reaching retirement and selling the business. Maybe you know more. And remember, Chuck bought that collection before Chuck blew up comic book prices with the concept of multiples (remember that the SF books were sold at slightly more than guide, and Chuck was selling at 3x multiples). The notion that comics would always move up wasn't established, these were still the days of laughter that they had any value at all. So, yeah, there was a lot of risk for 22 year old Chuck when he made his offer. Chuck did two very smart things when he made his offer. The first is that he didn't provide any representation as to what the comics were worth. Instead, he told OOs his purchase price was based on what he could afford to pay and made an offer based on volume. Even so, the dream could fall apart. But, he probably felt a lot better about the deal when, after the deal was done, the OOs showed him the "closet" with the best comics. The second smart thing he did was he had the genius idea of getting one of the top collectors in the country, Burl Rowe, to fund the purchase price by a "loan" (albeit at the potentially big disadvantage of giving Rowe first choice of comics up to $10K in value - which meant that Chuck was paying off the $2K loan immediately by the first $2K in comics Rowe chose). But, even so, a few years later, Chuck was nearly out of business. Small business is full of risks. What saved him was not the Mile High collection, but the MH2 books.

Love that distinction. There's also ones like Crippen, which sort of fall into both categories. The 11,000 happy ones sold by the OO, and the 2,000 weirder ones which were stolen and bought by dealers from the thieves. I'm pretty sure that once the theft was discovered, no one returned their "D copies" back to the OOs. I have no knowledge as to whether anyone fingered the thieves.

I know the stories. But back then it was not anywhere near as established as today. If I was the OO, I would have felt ripped off. But didn't they name the price? Back then there were a lot of "stories" about "bargains" people got. Economists would call it trading on information disparities. And given the infancy of the market, it is hard for me to call it criminal, but greedy absolutely! Where it begins to get legally dicey is when we hear stories of how people raided other people's garbage cans to "save" comics that otherwise were headed to the trash heap. That's theft. And when what was being raided was not a garbage can but someone's garage (as happened with one pedigree) there's no way that is a misunderstanding of the law (which is not a defense but at least has moral implications). There is no doubt that some comic book dealers back in those days were turning a blind eye and acting as fences of stolen property. At least Chuck engaged in an arms length transaction and was buying comics that other comic dealers took a pass on. Which evidences that there was some risk in his locality. After all, back then a comic store was a new thing (my guess is many states didn't have one yet) and book stores were still selling old comics below cover price.

Well … yes there is an association but it is of a false accusation and the resulting harm to the seller that led to him being forced to sell the books. It’s on the spectrum of tragedy for sellers being victimized that museums are struggling with like Jews having to sell their paintings to escape Germany. Not a good association.

Chuck was operating at a time before pedigrees were a thing, price guides were a new concept, comic conventions were still an emerging concept, and there was risk to dealers. Hard to believe these days. It was more than a bit of a Wild West back then. Chuck’s story on the acquisition is very similar to the story for most comic acquisitions back then. There are other pedigrees that were in whole or part hitting the market because the comics were stolen and the dealers likely knew it. Chuck at least was not a fence. The closer to the present we get the more suspicious and dicey these vague pedigree stories get. But way back when Chuck bought those comics he was arguably taking a bit of a risk in Denver. It was only after he blew up the pricing models, created the pedigree multiplier, and arguably jump started price inflation that the market fully matured. But I am suspicious of almost every pedigree acquisition where the dealers do not tell how or where they got the books. The pedigrees consigned to Heritage are the most “ethical” deals for OOs. Not that there is anything wrong with a dealer paying wholesale prices.

Liveauctioneers is used by a lot of auctioneers and the sign up is free and easy.

Wasn’t one of the pedigrees a father daughter collection? Lots of collectors instill a love of activity to their kids.

Not sure they had a choice. Ian was a low grade collector. But there is a Batman 1 and D27-D38 and the high grade ashcan. None of which should be pooh poohed. Plus some oddities. And little in the DC world is more popular than Batman.

My comment is largely tongue in cheek. I know that Edgar was a commercial artist with apparent aspirations to do comics and pulps illustrations. So I tend to think that he loved art, and viewed his comics as reference works as well as, at least in part, entertainment. What is not appealing about the Church story is that he apparently valued his comics over his kids from what I've heard, and the family could not wait to get rid of them as a result. It is not a story which I view as a positive association. I have the same reaction to that newly designated "collection" that the kid is using as documentary fodder. That collector and Edgar chose comics over his family and that's just not a choice I'd make. I also just find it a bit weird that we call certain collections after stores or places when we know the name of the OO, yet for a collection that came out as the Mile High collection and was famous for years under that moniker, a strong move was later made to rename it after Edgar Church. I guess Chuck alienated others or they think he's too colorful. But, to me, Church's story doesn't really add much value because he was an isolated, and perhaps an alienated, guy who never appears to have joined comic fandom despite his apparent infatuation with comics (for whatever reason). Chuck's story does resonate with me though because it was a pivotal moment in comic fandon/dealing history and that collection was the Mile High collection in my youth (and Chuck's ads for more modern comics helped me grow my own collection). So I'm good with using "Mile High" as the moniker (and Cosmic Aeroplane, etc.) despite we know the OO's name, just like I am with using Promise, Chinatown, etc.

What's the criteria? Its sort of a meaningless question. Are we talking quality, total value, backstory, import to comics history, historical value, future potential return, breadth of genres, scope of years, association with notable person, depth of copies, etc.? My list: 1. Gaines File Copies - It covers essentially every comic by a publisher, for many issues includes over 10 copies of each, the average grade is ultra-high, includes many top of census copies, page quality is high, is associated with the Gaines family, is associated both with important comic history and general history (censorship, SOTI, Senate hearings, CCA, etc.), and is just a really remarkable and unique group of comics. 2. Mile High (you can name it after a bitter obsessed old man, I'll name it after the store that created the pedigree concept) - High quality, large breadth in coverage of genres (but not all) and scope of time period, key "best" books known to exist such as Action 1, important for comic history in how comics were dealt and the explosion in values, the fire pedigree, the OG, is going to be on everyone's top 5; 3. Okajima - Incredible historical association with the internment camp history, trades at higher multiples that any other pedigree especially at lower grades, fascinating back story on both the compilation of the collection and how it was discovered (too bad that there's still a bit of uncertainty on both), includes some really great books but even the lesser books with "camp markings" are desirable. 4. Windy City - 2,000 number 1 issues, biggest collection of its type, key books, what's not to like? 5. Larson - Old, broad, interesting collecting history ties, key books, high quality. Honorable mentions: Allentown - crazy high quality on some key books, no backstory just secrecy, too small, great candidates for incredibly notable books but is that really enough to be a pedigree? The original point of the pedigree concept was to be an indication of quality for books being bought pre-internet remotely. It was an indicia of quality for really large collections as they were spooled out over years. Allentown doesn't fit that. It's a small collection that could be spooled out in a day by any dealer at a convention. SF (can't call it Reilly until we confirm he existed) - You can't argue with the books quality, but nothing of the story used to help sell the books has been verified. Promise - Broad, generally high quality, covers an era not often found in crazy high condition, but it was overhyped, in some instances over graded, and prices are declining on resell in many instances. It's not quite the Pets.com of pedigrees but its a bit close.

“Agreed status” is no longer the criteria. CGC decides even for books that no one has seen.

Piedmont is a small location with no obvious borders. Folks who claim to live in the "Piedmont neighborhood" may actually live in Oakland. Has Bob ever stated the parents names or address? I've always just assumed that while the books are undoubtedly real and very high quality, the story may have just been puffery to buyers and/or misdirection to keep sellers anonymous. The kind of thing Heritage did with Promise which was nearly the same story.

Factual histories would be great. But don't hold your breath for getting one involving Kirby (especially Kirby), Lee, or Siegel and Shuster.

So happy this exists!

The latest news from Kai (Asst. Dir. of Comics) is: "`Our next sale is the debut of the DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION, happening on November 9th! This sale will feature a selection of the best Batman comics from the collection. Keep an eye out for our online catalog going live in late October."

They use Liveauctioneers. My experience was good.

I thought he picked up the 1,300 group of OO books up in 1999, and only subbed them many years later (and maybe over time as I understand he's still not done the entire collection yet). Publicly known guys with pedigree worthy groups of OO books they haven't subbed yet are BZ and DA.

Most folks won't submit the books for grading unless they intend to sell in the short term or have no desire to read them and want to save money off the CGC fee (which keep moving up as do the high end comic prices on which some fees are based) when they do finally want to sell. So I think the key question is: Do the owners of the collections have kids who are interested in comics? Some key one's do. Absent an estate tax necessity, those kids would have no need to sell. Certainly the Verzyl family has not been rushing to sell the really big books. And DA's kid appears to be making a successful career in comics so I would guess it unlikely he'll want to sell his father's collection. Which might mean that the very biggest books don't get encapsulated for more than 20 years if ever.