Here is some information on silver age pedigree gathered from multiple internet sources (Will continue to update)!!!
Bethlehem Collection
In 1990, Joe Rainone was approached by a man at a convention who said he had a huge collection of comics for sell if he could come up with $30,000. Joe talked it over with his partner Phil Weiss, who where both initially apprehensive until the man had explained he was an attorney helping liquidate the estate of one Stanley Pachon in Bethlehem, PA. An appointment was scheduled.
The first meeting yielded 4000 comics for $11,000. Knowing there were many more comics to be bought, Joe and Phil were promised first shot. After a nail-biting month, the two were led to a hoard of 14,000 comics in Pachon's house (where the police outline of his body was still on the living room floor; Stanley had suffered a brain hemorrhage). For $20,000 more, the partners were now in full possession of what they would name the Bethlehem collection.
The size of the Bethlehem collection is matched only by the Edgar Church/Mile High Collection, but the Bethlehems started late (1950) and stretched well into the Silver Age, with multiple copies of many issues. The famous E.J. Kery Kodak-Film-Magazine-Shop stamp on many of their back covers happens to be one the most recognized pedigree marks of all. Even though 700 Bethlehems have been graded by CGC, it's only a fraction of what's still out there.
Bethlehems often do not get credit for the impact they made in the early 1990s. It was the the Bethlehems and White Mountains that eventually convinced collectors that a pedigree can contain Silver Age comics as well.
Big Apple Collection
The Big Apple pedigree is unique in a few ways; Its span is huge, starting in 1939 and continuing all the way to the end of the Silver Age. It was assembled by an African-American named James Hilton, and the breakdown of books and page quality reveals some very peculiar traits.
Although Hilton died in 1968, it was not until 1993 that his nephew Ron visited the old family home in Brooklyn and discovered the first of many storage places where his uncle kept his huge comic collection. Afterwards, Ron ventured into Manhattan with a case full of his uncle's comics, and paid a visit to Christie's Auction House. At the time was Phil Weiss was assisting Joe and Nadia Mannarino as they prepared for the 1994 Christie's Comic Auction. Upon reviewing Ron's beautiful group of books, Phil quickly consigned them to the auction. A six year relationship was begun with the nephew, ending with the last Christie's auction in 2000. But only a fraction of Hilton's 5000+ comics were sold during this time.
The most unique aspect of the Big Apple Collection is the vast difference between its Goldenand Silver Age copies. The Golden Age issues contain some of the highest graded comics exhibiting white pages, which ranks them in the top ten for 1940s collections. However, the '40s books had been stored in a trunk for decades while the rest of the books were stacked on open shelves after Hilton passed away. The separate storage resulted in the largest swing of page quality, landing the Silver Age portion of the collection dead last on list.
Although there are Big Apples that go as far back as 1939, every significant Golden Age book in the collection comes from one year, 1946. Every other year during the '40s contains only a handful of issues, except for 1949. For some strange reason, not a single Big Apple has ever been located from 1949, which coincidentally is the year Ron was born in the same house his uncle resided.
Don Rosa Collection
Accumulated by world-renowned and Eisner award winning comic book artist, writer, and historian, Keno Don Rosa, this collection contained every comic book and magazine issued from every publisher from 1966 to the late 1980's. Rosa began collecting in earnest in 1962, as he purchased each comic from the newsstands, read them only once, and carefully tucked them away in optimum storage conditions, using archival boxes and a climate controlled "vault." Because they were stored in such an environment with no use of polybags, each book exhibits a brilliant sheen, deep ink reflectivity, sharp corners and a fresh newsstand appearance.
Since the 1960's, Don Rosa has been recognized as one of the first comics history scholars of fandom. He has written and illustrated Question & Answer columns for the major fanzines of the 1970's, including such notable publications as Rocket's Blast Comiccollector, CBG (TBG), Comics Journal, and Amazing Heroes. During the 1980's Rosa gained fame as one of the world's most famous and recognized cartoonists as he worked on the Duck books for Disney and Gladstone.
The Green River Collection
by Brad Hamann
Belying its serene-sounding title, the Green River Collection actually claims an indirect connection to one of the most horrific series of murders on record in American history.
William J. Stevens II began assembling this collection of mainly Silver Age Marvels and DCs in the 1960s when he was a boy. Stevens? father operated a 1,200-square-foot pharmacy on a secondary road by Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, and Stevens and his adopted brother Robert would steal comics and boxes of trading cards from the store. Stevens meticulously cataloged and stored this quickly-growing collection.
The collection first began to surface in the early 1990s when Stevens, now in his forties, began selling some of the books to Craig Barnett, a local dealer who ran a store in Spokane called The Comic Book Shop. Stevens would arrive at the store with stacks of comics packed in brown paper grocery sacks whenever he needed money. According to Barnett, Stevens was looking to raise money for a microwave receiving station to track police calls as part of his apparent fixation with law enforcement. Barnett has described Stevens as very personable, and ?a really nice guy, but an incredible con man.? These transactions went on for about a year and then stopped. Later, Barnett learned from Robert Stevens that William had died as a result of cancer. What Barnett did not know at the time of his purchases, was that William was not only a con man, but a convicted felon.
Convicted of burglarizing a uniform store in 1979, Stevens had served a two-year stint in prison. Then, in January of 1981, he had simply walked out of a King County jail work-release program and dropped completely out of sight. Stevens traveled extensively under several aliases and resided in the Portland, Oregon area until May of 1985, when he returned to Spokane and enrolled at Gonzaga.
Police discovered and arrested Stevens at his parents? home in January of 1989 after several phone tips resulting from the television program ?Manhunt Live: A Chance to End a Nightmare!? At the time, Stevens was in his last year at Gonzaga University School of Law and serving as the president of the Student Bar Association. He promptly issued a statement denying any wrongdoing. ?I am not the Green River killer. They have made me out to be a very bad person, and I am not,? he declared.
After a search of his parents? home, where Stevens was then living, police found 29 firearms, and a box full of phony driver?s licenses and credit cards acquired under assumed names. Credit-card fraud and robbery were apparently a means by which Stevens had survived through the years. Also discovered were more than one hundred police badges, and a large collection of pornogra
