Yellow Kid

Over the years I have downsized quite a bit but I still have my Disney books and a few other odds and ends. I started with them, and I guess I will end with them.

I found some old Polaroid pictures of part of my Disney Ducks collection and wanted to share them. I know the images are small, but I hope that you will still enjoy seeing them in complete groups. Note especially the #4 giveaway in the upper left corner as it is honestly rare in any condition. Richard

Cover, Weird Tales, December, 1936

Great book, Jeff, especially since it is the only issue in the run with a cover by Calkins. His name appears on #1 but apparently it was actually drawn by a young Tuska, and #3-#6 were drawn by S. A. Douglas. That makes #2 the best issue in the run as far as I'm concerned. Rich

I think that the books with address squares were just for subscription copies. Richard

Does anyone happen to have a cover for Detective Comics #41 available? Or a copy missing several centerfolds? Thanks, Richard

Thanks for all the kind comments. I've had these books for years but probably didn't really appreciate them until some friends visited and told me how nice they were. Rich

I have been asked to go ahead and post the 1949 Firestone giveaway. As I think it is the more attractive of the two books I just received from CGC, I am going to do it now, and then again when I have the entire set to display. People who saw this book at the last Pons Con thought it was a 10.0 until they put it under a microscope. It really is a nice book with a red cover that blows you away! Amazingly, I even have the Lionel cattle car and platform on the back cover! Rich

Thanks for all the gracious comments about my books. I am by nature more of a lurker than a player, but it is a delight to be able to share some of my books with other duck lovers who appreciate them. And a special thanks to Ciorac and Shiverbones who visited and encouraged me to slab some books and post them. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks, Rich

With the prices that ducks are now bringing in top condition, I decided to send a couple of mine in to CGC and see how they fared. I am basically against slabbing because I like to be able to read the comic, but I am thinking it might be time to sell my nicest books and replace them with Fines that I can enjoy. The first one was Donald Duck in Old California, Four Color #328. The highest grade in the Census was 9.4. so I was pleased that mine was returned a 9.6. I am attaching it. The second was the 1949 Firestone giveaway. The highest grade was 8.5 and once again mine was returned 9.6. After checking the census for the other Firestone's, I decided to submit the entire set as the high grade for several of the years is relatively low. When they come back, I will post the entire set, including the first Firestone giveaway, the 1942 Firestone Famous Gang of Comics, featuring the Looney Tunes characters. My old friend, Leonard Brown, was the first person I ever knew of who emphasized quality back in 1959 when we met. I wish I had listened to his advice on all my books--it was when his WDCS #1 broke the bank a few months ago that I thought it might be time to get some of mine evaluated. Richard

Even though it isn't a comic book, I thought that with our economy on the verge of entering a depression, if it hasn't already, that this 12-panel magazine story would be timely. This used to belong to my old friend, Leonard Brown, and I think he told me it came from an issue of Fortune Magazine, but I never checked it out. Hope you enjoy it. Richard

Congratulations BZ--that is very cool! Richard

When I first met Steve at a ChicagoCon in the early 1970's, he loved GA books, especially the Disney's. He sold me a nice WDC+S #2 that completed my run. Over the years, it has been clear that his love affair with the Disney's, like mine I might add, has never weakened. I am just guessing, but if there is any way possible for him to do it, I would expect that he still has his A run. I hope he does, just because I feel like he has earned it for all he has done for the hobby. Plus, he still loves the old books. As recently as a couple of years ago, we were bidding against each other on an early Comics on Parade worth less than $50, and he was doing his own biddng. I checked, and he was also bidding on several other early books, and I thought that was great that he was still interested enough to do that. Richard

When I sold the books to Bill and his group, the books became the Crescent City Collection. At that time they were not slabbed, and I think Bill sold them to Geppi without getting them slabbed. Later, Steve had them slabbed and they are included in the census to the best of my understanding. My point was simply that there are some nice books still out there that haven't been slabbed owned by other collectors. Richard

Heritage has an outstanding run of WDCS in their next auction, but I think it is a good idea for people to wonder if there are other top quality books that haven't been graded. Being an older collector, I personally know some other older collectors who are not fond of CGC because they feel it is a tool for investors rather than collectors. Accordingly, they have never submitted their books for grading. For example, my old friend, Leonard Brown, was one of those people. When he finally asked me to sell his collection for him about 10-15 years ago, they contained many of the finest known copies when they were ultimately submitted to CGC, and he didn't have that many books. Attached is a picture of his collection sitting on my table to show Bill Ponseti, who only had to see them once to buy them with a few of his friends. The picture also includes his WDC+S #1-3, which were magnificent--#2 looks a little washed out but that is from the flash. I mention this today because of the discussion of the status of the books in the upcoming Heritage auction. If this were 1995, for example, you would not know that these books existed. And I can assure you that there are some other very nice Disney books in particular that some older collectors have that have not been graded by CGC--in fact, I have a few myself. So when you bid on or buy any book, or any item for that matter, remember the oldest warning in the marketplace: CAVEAT EMPTOR! Richard

When I sold Leonard Brown's comics for him several years ago, which included the WDC+S #1 that Heritage sold recently, he had a beautiful run of Uncle Scrooge #1-10. However, he said he had never found a perfect #6, and he considered that the hardest book in the run to find in top condition. One of the reasons is that it always appeared that the cover was cut slightly larger than the interior, thus making the edges easily damaged. Later I will post a picture of his WDC+S #1-3 in a small group, that would sell today for more than his entire collection sold for when I sold it to Bill and his friends. I can't tell you how badly I wanted to keep those three books. Richard

I have the art for WDC+S #11. You can see that the page encouraged the image to be too horizontal, and that some changes had to be made for the vertical format of the cover. The art and published cover are attached. Richard

BangZoom, Good detective work! My memory is shot, but a local dealer in New Orleans bought a couple of boxes of comics in the mid to late 1980's, and called me to come and take a look at what he had. There was a pretty good cross-section, and then he said let's go back to the counter. He pulled this out from under the counter and said he had been saving it for me because he was sure that I would want it, even at double guide. He was right. I know it isn't a great book, but I have always been a sucker for rarity, and I'm still glad I bought it. 50 years when I was running all over Southern California looking for books with Leonard Brown, we would try to contact every name and address on the subscription labels of every book we purchased. I can't believe that I failed to try to follow up on Grier! Thanks, Richard

I just found this site a couple of months ago by chance, but since then I have been a frequent lurker. Now I have decided to try and learn how to post a cover and will start with what might well be my rarest book, WDC+S #4 with the Mickey Mouse Magazine ad for former subscribers printed on the cover. Overstreet currently states that there are only five known copies. If I can get the hang of this, I have a couple of other things to share. Many thanks to BangZoom and Pons for teaching me how to do this! Richard

Nice book, Bill! I'm surprised that Shiv let you have it.

Hi, My name is Richard Olson and I'm an old friend of Ponseti's. Our collecting interests seem so similar that I am looking forward to meeting you at the end of the month at Bill's place. Take Care, Richard