AJD

A modern - but one that has its heart in the art deco goodness of the GA. I wasn't expecting to see a new War Bonds cover in the window of the LCS! Of course I had to have it.

Love those large feature books YK - thanks for showing them off. I don't think I've ever seen the Daisy Duck first appearence before. I wonder why Gladstone/Gemstone didn't run those. I know they did reprint the first HD&L.

Just another great EC war comic. There's some gritty reading behind the Kurtzman cover..

David, your collection is amazing - I was just admiring your Marvels, only to come here and see that your ducks are just as nice. I was hoping you had a FC 238, because I could have found a home for that... But to answer your question, the best prices for ducks IMHO are on Heritage, but they also take a big cut. Sparkle City on eBay get good prices, but I'm not sure what their consignment fee is. They have a presence on the boards, so you could ask them. I'm not sure about Clink or CC - they sometimes get good prices but it seems to be a bit hit and miss. I think they have lower consignment fees though. Give Lonestar a wide berth - their duck prices in auction have been low (God bless 'em). I'm sure other more knowledgable types will chime in. That's all just my as a frequent browser and sometimes buyer.

Wow, it's a while since I've added anything to this thread. But I do like this one:

I just love Kurtzman's artwork in war comics. This is one of the strongest.

From the stratosphere of the tb MMM collection, we return to the troposphere that is the AJD WDC&S 1 - 100 collection. I've had an excellent run recently, and have added eight new copies to my collection, including four under #50. Well, nominally - six of them are somewhere in transit. Here's the first two to arrive, which take me past the 50/100 mark on hand. I'm going to try to do a 50 issue group shot next weekend. (And, no, I haven't amped up the colour on my scanner - I try to pick issues with strong eye appeal even if they are mid grade. The #90 looks better in hand - the scuffing on the spine isn't that obvious.)

That's so pretty I felt the need to quote it. What an achievement!

It's a matter of taste - I love date stamps on comics. Swap the grades over and I'd prefer an 8.0 with date stamp over an 8.5 most days.

For 3c I would have bought the Detective #4 too.

And while I'm in the box o' early Gladstones, this gorgeous cover could only look better on a GA-sized Dell.

Warning: self-indulgent reminiscing ahead. I was sorting through some boxes the other day and was looking through the early Gladstone issues. I found this: This one is a significant book to me. It is the copy I bought in the Northcote newsagency back in 1987. (The price change to Australian prices also tells you something about the exchange rate back then ) US 216 was the first comic book I'd bought since about 1975 (and which first brought the name Carl Barks to my consciousness) and it was nice to see a new Barks story - Go Slowly Sands of Time - even if it wasn't great and not drawn by him. But when #219 came out I got hooked for good. I still have all of the Gladstone series 1 books and most of series 2, as well as their hardcover Barks library. My now-grown kids and I had a good time with them and the hardcovers are a bit frayed at the edges from repeated reading. When the kids were older and time was easier, my third (and last) collection started taking shape. Which brought me here. So you can all blame that comic above.

Note to self: find a nice MMM or two for the collection. Those are just gorgeous. Just to pass on a serendipitous find, I just came across a Don Rosa duck story I hadn't seen before.

+1 Only you can decide what's right for you. If you're having a good time, know what you are buying, and the collection never becomes a distraction from real life, you're doing the right thing. I used to collect more like Scrooge when I was younger, but gradually I found that my own passion was towards very rare and high grade comics. Eventually, I stopped buying filler copies completely in order to focus exclusively on books that I found exceptionally beautiful, i.e. more like a piece of art than a comic book. I do miss reading the stories, though, and at some point I will probably take a step in Scrooge's direction myself. Thanks for your thoughts guys. I've been having one of those periods of self-doubt that we collectors seem to be prone to. I'd half convinced myself that tb's beautiful books and Scrooge's amazing runs of Dell and Atlas books were both more desirable than my own 'Midway Atoll' collection. But ultimately I think it has to be 'buy what you like'. We'll see where that takes me. (But if I had to make a choice, I think I lean more in the tb direction...)

That's really got me thinking. I've just reached the halfway mark on a lot of the runs I'm collecting and am contemplating whether to push on as I've been going about it or whether I'd get more satisfaction doing it some other way. In the last two years I have bought 66 and 60 books respectively and am on track for about the same this year. I guess I'm wondering whether to catch the train to Camp Scrooge or Camp tb...

When I was photographing the books, I was thinking what the group would have looked like if I'd had unlimited funds available in addition to the two other factors. The WDC&S 1 would have been a CGC 9.4 and the #2 a 9.0 (both books from the Leonard Brown/Crescent City collection), but otherwise it would have been exactly the same. You just can't find most of the books in this condition, no matter what you're willing to pay. I think I paid around $200 for the V5#11. I'd love to upgrade it but I've never seen a nicer copy, certified or not, after checking eBay (and all other online sources) weekly for the past decade. That's the kind of challenge that makes collecting fun for me: it wouldn't be any fun if it was just a matter of writing out the checks. Apologies tb - I wasn't trying to denigrate your collecting skills. They are obviously first class and it hasn't been a matter of 'writing the checks' at all. Nonetheless, there's a fair amount of opportunity cost in that photo. But I know enough about you to know that those books are treasures that more than compensate for that.

Now there's a goup shot I will never be able to stage. And I think one other factor is required to pull together that particular group...

Now that's a great painted cover. (The Atom Age thread over in Gold would appreciate that one - quite a few Dell and western fans there.)

the wanking? That's what I registered too! Seemed oddly appropriate...

Just another wonderful book tb! And welcome to the boards hia2. Having your first post in the duck thread is a sure sign go great taste.

I bought this at a flea market, thinking I'd got an Australian Fawcett reprint. Of course, if I'd looked at the cover carefully, I'd have seen it was English. Oh well...

One of the things I love doing is reading the Barks stories from the original editions. When reading through my new #26, I recalled something I've been meaning to ask about here. Everyone knows that the opening scene to Raiders of the Lost Ark comes from the 7 Cities of Cibola story in U$ #7, right? But has anyone else spotted this scene in the Temple of Doom? (Scan from U$ #211) It's recreated fairly faithfully in the movie. So my question is whether there is a Barks scene in the third or fourth Indiana Jones movies? It's been many years since I suffered through the third and I couldn't bring myself to see the fourth.

My wife has a drawing group with her friends. One of them asked for some comics to look at - and this is what I got in return. It's a little cropped because its too big for my scanner. It's Sara's take on one of the Spider-man Blue covers. Felt-tipped pen on art paper.

Don't be - those are wonderful period pieces. If it helps, here's one of mine in solidarity: