buttock

From that point on he was known as Clay Softer... and he was never the same.

Wonderful.

That makes 6 copies I know of.

I have the Astonishing 13 Spokane, still raw. Could be a WM, Bethlehem, Northford, River City...

Welcome!

Knock Knock Knock?

Damage to the outer slab means nothing. Unless you can switch the label (seam runs across the label so extremely unlikely) or swap the book out of the inner reservoir (virtually impossible without blatant evidence) then this was just a screwed pooch by CGC.

Congrats Jeff!

Is it a 7.0 or 9.0?

Did they have a buy one point, get one free special?

LOVE that book!

That'll earn you a cigar AND scotch!

MM 11 looks particularly nice. Got to love Spokanes.

Yes. A copy truly above FN might push $1k.

No.

18 is my favorite cover out of the early run, but it's not by a long shot. Scan doesn't do this copy justice.

Send it to me and I'll fix that slab problem...

Geoffrey offered me some GA books he bought from the Menendez brothers. I passed.

Lovely books Mick!

Heath gets the first 5 slots in Atlas war.

Uncanny Tales 9...

One of my all-time favorite books!

I've got a page I can let go.

It does make you wonder. 253,766 on average is a crazy high number. Where did all those Weirds go? That number isn't right. By my count there were over 60 Foxes in 1940. I'm hoping to break down the numbers in detail tonight. There are some unusual results at first glance. Here are some placed together.....did not get beyond 1940,, http://www.comicartville.com/foxcovers.htm Your Samson 1 has an arrival date of 8-9, which would make the Fall issues published in Aug rather than Sept which may change the conclusions above. Jon, do you have any other Big 3, Samson, Rex Dexter, Flame, or Green Mask from 1940 with arrival dates? I can't read what's on your Samson 2.

Long post coming, fair warning. Fox published 14 comics in 1939 (Wonder/Wonderworld 1-8, Mystery Men 1-5, Fantastic 1). The total number of published books was 3,456,422, for an average of 246,887 per issue. Fox published 67 comics in 1940 (Fantastic 2-13, Mystery Men 6-17, Science 1-8, Wonderworld 9-20, Weird 1-9, Blue Beetle 1-3, Flame 1-3, Samson 1-2, Rex Dexter 1, Green Mask 1-3, Big 3 1-2). The total number of published books was 13,125,833, for an average of 195,908 per issue. Taken together for 1939-1940 the average is 204,719 per issue. The monthly breakdowns are as follows: Yr/mo (# of comics published) avg published per issue 1939 J 0 F 0 M 0 A 0 M 1 --? J 1 --? J (1) 227,533 A (2) 209,298 S (2) 314,264 O (2) 341,849 N (2) 328,682 D (3) 296,900 1940 J (4) 247,543 F (4) 343,057 M (4) 280,819 A (5) 227,295 M (6) 235,478 J (7) 123,268 J (6) 194,041 A (5) 193,088 S (10) 112,082 O (4) 239,998 N (4) 252,132 D (8) 125,985 These numbers are taken from those cited previously in this thread. I feel confident that the dates given correspond to the month given in the indicia because the doubling in numbers between July & Aug 1939 match the addition of Mystery Men to Wonderworld. I also assumed that a Spring, Summer, Fall, or Winter issue was published in Mar, Jun, Sept, or Dec -- which I believe is correct based off of the way they transitioned from quarterly to bimonthly. However, I can't verify this as I can't find any of those titles with arrival dates. If anyone has a house ad or arrival date for Samson, Big 3, Rex Dexter, Flame, or Green Mask to confirm this would be helpful. Surprisingly, few patterns emerge from this. Conclusions that I can speculate are: 1) Fox seemed conservative when issuing new titles. The delta between a month where a new #1 was published and the previous month is significantly less than the average per issue published in the prior month. e.g. Aug 1939 Wonderworld 3 was 227,533 copies. Sept 1939 when Mystery Men 1 was added to Wonderworld 4, Fox published a total of 418,597 books, a difference of 191,064. This pattern holds true for all first issues, to the degree I can evaluate. Conventional history says that GA first issues were often published in higher than usual numbers to get the title out there, then the 2nd & 3rd issues were published in lower numbers until the returns came back on the first issue to see how sales were. If this is true, Victor Fox went against the grain. 2) It may be the case that the total amount of issues Fox could publish in a given month was capped by the publisher, finances, or other reasons. For months where 4-6 issues were published the numbers were generally in the 1M range. In two months where 8 and 10 issues were published, the total numbers were 1.1M and 1.0M. Sept of 1940 there were 10 issues, three of which were first issues, and he only published 1M books. This could be him being conservative with first issues again, or he may not have had the ability or funds to publish more than a million books or so. 3) Over time the average numbers trended down, although they varied widely. I'd be interested to see what happened in 1941.