jdjunker

Thanks for posting--this is really interesting. What was his pricing like? Was everything used-book priced, like half off cover, or did he ask more for the older books and/or keys at some point? My first comic shops were in Mpls/St Paul too. Started going to Schinder's Read More and Comic City (I think the shop an earlier MN poster was referring to), and occasionally Midway Book Store in the late 70's, probably around 1977. I was always under the impression that Midway had been carrying "used" comics since at least the late 60s. Do you have any idea when they started carrying back issues and pricing them as collectibles? How about Schinders?

Nice find on the Warriors DVD, but I hope you found the original version! I was thrilled to find a very fancy looking DVD copy (to replace my decades-old VHS) of "The Director's Cut," at a garage sale a few years back. Thrilled, that is, right up until I watched it. Terrible. Completely butchered. They inserted all these comic book panel effects, that completely ruined all the great transitions in the film. Worse yet, they even inserted these ridiculous still panels in some action sequences. I can't go into more detail though, I've tried to wipe the painful memory from my mind. Now, of course, every time I've seen a copy of the Warriors DVD for sale since then, it's always that same terrible cut too. Argh.

If I remember correctly, the Abner illustrations in this are ghosted by Frazetta. Several years back I attended a local estate auction with many, many vintage Life mags. The auction company had tied them up in bundles/stacks of about 30 issues each, but had used a green-tinted twine. What had been a beautiful VF copy of this issue was on top of one of the stacks. Unfortunately the green from the twine bled off onto the magazines. This cover was absolutely destroyed, with a huge green cross over the entire cover. The auction was not a total loss however as I picked up a nice little box of 1940s Catholic Comics like Heroes All, for about $5. The other "miss" at this auction was a pretty weird one too. Paid a couple bucks for a box of random old newspapers and let the nice lady next to me take the next one for just a couple bucks. As she dug through, way at the bottom were about two weeks worth of all the Ed Gein headlines. Gein was from a very small town, and this particular newspaper was the closest thing to being his "local" paper. Pretty grizzly stuff, but fascinating to see from a small-town local paper perspective.

Fantastic! Clark almost exactly quoted Einstein's Theory of Relativity! I love it when the science in old comics actually works, and this is probably one of the most off-hand mentions I've seen! BZ, you do find the best stuff!

Wow. Great thread. Opened it up expecting all super-hero toys that I never had, but what do I find, Navaronne Playset references and links! I thought I was the only kid that went hog wild over that set! I never knew anybody else who had one. I remember drooling over that exact same JC Penney's Christmas Catalog ad for the set (thanks for the link, you wouldn't believe the memories it's brought back!). I was ten years old, the perfect age for Christmas, and this is the gift I remember most. Santa brought this set, so it didn't show up until morning. I was up at the crack of dawn, and I remember thinking I was oh-so-smart by taking the big box and weighing on the bathroom scale (we weren't allowed to open until everyone was up--oh the torture!) to see if it matched the weight listed in the catalog. I was heart broken when it didn't! Aaargh! But, of course the weight in the catalog was the shipping weight and probably included whatever shipping materials Penney's used at the time. Needless to say, when I finally opened it I was probably just about as happy as a 10 year old boy could get! Wow. Good times. BTW, the Coleco pocket quartback kicked the $h!# out of the Mattel one! And I'm not too humble to mention that I was unbeatable in Jr High!

Interesting stuff here. Thanks for posting. A few years back I had posted some scans of a 1953 Confidential magazine article on the NY report as it pertained to Lil Abner. It should be here (if my link works): http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2503344&fpart=5

Congratulations on your purchase. That's one I've never owned. How scarce is that book? A local antique store here use to have a copy that looked pretty decent (considering) but was missing the spine and had a long piece of duct tape in its place! Argh. I think it was priced at about $20-30 but even I (low grade fan that I am) didn't want to touch it at that price.

argh--it also appears that there was an exhibit of items from his collection in Madison. It ended on 12/30/2009. http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/calendar/index.asp?id=2023

Hmm, after a little searching found a photo of August Derleth with his collection on the Wisconsin Historical Society website. here is a link, if it works: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/fullRecord.asp?id=68053

I've got some raw, lower grade books on the for sale page tonight. Here's the list: Shadow Comics Vol 4 #12 Wings #94 SOLD Chilling Tales #16 SOLD Jungle Comics #155 Human Torch #38 Marvel Tales #129 Suspense #1 Also relisting a Superman 14, but the sale is pending as I type this. Thanks for looking. And if anyone can provide the link for me I'd appreciate it ( I haven't figured out how to do that!)

Hey, I hope it is not out of bounds or outside board rules, but just wanted to let you war comic collectors know I have posted a raw All American Men of War #128 (#2, 1952) for sale in the marketplace. Put it up last night and dropped price once already. Thanks for your time.

Thanks for your help. Just about to get started now.

Hello all--I'll be listing another batch of lower grade Golden Age books tonight. I should be able to get started in about an hour, maybe less. I'll be listing very low grade copies of Marvel Mystery 62 and All Select #8 and a bit better Marvel Mystery 67 (all from a local estate). All American Men of War #128 (second issue, 1952) Phantom Stranger #6 --unfortunately missing pages Zip-Jet # 1 Planet Comics #71 If anyone would be so kind as to help me provide an actual link from this post once I've started I would appreciate the help. Thanks for your attention.

Yes, that sideways format is the same in all three. That was the same format that they often used in Mad reprints, particularly for the early "comic book" issues. It is really annoying to read, and probably the only reason the Mad reprints sold well was the enormous popularity of the magazine. It is also a likely cause why these books are so often pretty well worn, they are hard to open enough to even get a decent view.

Sweet copy and also on my want list! That one and the Incredible Science Fiction book are advertised in the babc of the VoH. Here is the ad from the back cover of Incredible Science Fiction. Note that it calls Crypt the "first... in a new series." Granted, they did publish two horror and a sci-fi, but i've always thought there were probably more planned, but they probably didn't sell very well. My guess is they picked this format based on the success of Mad reprints, but it just doesn't do justice to the horror/sci-fi stories and art. I always wonder if they would have picked a larger format that was more art friendly if the reprints might have sold better, and ECs might have made a mid-60s resurgence.

Very nice Vault of Horror jayman. I have a copy, but it's not as quite nice as the one you scored. Here's the best of my EC reprint pb's. A friend I do lots of swapping with came across this last summer and just tossed it my way. I couldn't have been happier! Boy, my scans look like , maybe I need a scanner thats actaully more expensive that the cords!

Thank you, JD. You sound like a collector with exquisite taste and refined sensibilities. I've got just the disc for you. A 78 rpm record of sound effects from the 1933 World's Fair Torture Show exhibition. Wow! I've never heard of anything like these before. And what a great story of the exhibit to go with them. I can't imagine that Decca actually released records like this for sale, so once again i'm just left asking the Joker's question, "Where does he get all those wonderful toys!?" Very cool stuff BZ.

the pics were from the ReSearch Incredibly Strange Music book, but I forget if they were in Vol.1 or vol.2. Geat interview with the two of them talking about obscure old records they love. I am a big fan of the Cramps too, and was saddened to hear of Lux' passing. The interview was in Incredibly Strange Music Volume 2. Here is the pic you mentioned, and another of Lux having some fun. The interveiw is great, and the highlight for me was Lux and Ivy's story of driving cross country in the late 60s or early 70s to buy original Sun 45s from the warehouse. Their junker of a car broke down on the way but they couldn't resist the chance to pick up those great records for 20 cents each! They had a top notch rockabilly collection, among other things, by the way. It is hard to make much out in this photo, but dig the framed pics of Alfred E Newman on the back wall!

Bangzoom, Congrats on your 1,000th page on this thread. In honor of such an auspicious occasion, I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank you for starting such an incredible thread. And add my own first post to it. Ok, so I've been meaning to post here for quite a while, but it's a great excuse isn't it. I started looking at these boards close to two years ago, when your thread was probably "only" about 100 pages in. Lots of things out here interested me, but it was your thread, with these incredible comics, pulps and everything else that kept me coming back. Not only is it the amazing things that are posted, but this thread just embodies the spirit of collecting to me. Someday I hope to have more to add to the conversation than a bit of gushing, but really, thanks. This is probably the best thread I've ever seen on a message board. Sincerely, JD PS--The other boardies might want to kill me, but from earlier posts I gather that you are a bit of a record collector, in addition to everything else. Any chance you'd like to post some more choice records? I'd love to see more.

Wow, what a bunch of great greytones you guys have posted here. I don't have a lot of them in my collection, but here's a nice one by Wrightson.

These books seem more than a little out of place on this thread with so many incredible high grade books, but it seems like the best place to post these. I discovered this little coincidence a couple years ago when I picked up the first book here HOM 229 from 1975. Something about the cover sure seemed familiar... Which is likely because the image on the left hand side was lifted directly from the cover of this book that I had owned for years.

I only started appreciating SA war comics about a decade or so ago. I made a trip to an estate auction that was supposed to have some nice GA books. Well they did, but all the better books went pretty expensive, including two Frazetta Buck Rogers Famous Funnies that went way over guide and way over my budget. So much for GA Bargains. However, all the other collectors there completely ignored the war books so I ended up getting several lots. I seem to remember paying something like $30 for about 30 books. Here are two of the best books from that first purchase.

I don't know if this issue has been posted before or not, but here's a nice LB Cole romance cover that I snagged at a local auction house in a big lot of comics. The rest of the stuff was ok, but mostly mid grade SA, so I was quite surprised to find this high grade 50s book.

If you're going to be comic strip traveling with Nemo, don't forget to send a postcard:

Wow--those Eisner books are great. I never new they existed before, much less had I ever seen them I'm a fan of giveaway books myself, at least inpart because they tend to show up fairly frequently in my junking quests. Here are a couple books that are among my favorites from my collection that I don't think anyone has previously posted here. Overstreet doesn't list either of these, but i don't know if they are particularly rare or anything. Neither has a copyright date, so I couldn't even tell you how old they are. The second book includes a text page with facts about space that includes the line, "When man first breaks loose from the Earth's gravity, he will try his wings on a trip to the moon." So I guess it is at least early 60s, maybe older. I've always wondered if the first pre-dates Santa Claus Canquers The Martians.