marvel_runs

Have you ever been outside when a major dust storm moved through? It is surreal. Maybe that was the inspiration for this cover - your color palette gets all out of whack when the sky is filled with brown/red dust. Here, the brown/red light source is from the moon... I'm not sure that the colors are technically correct if you have a different color light source, but that's the feel I get.

That's my old copy, so it might be floating around out there somewhere. It is probably my #1 favorite comic cover of all covers, so it was a priority of mine to upgrade too. "When a Planet Dies!....." I also really really like the STU #4, same general theme, plus a dramatic sky, a flying saucer, and a window cover - all four features of cover art that I really like. The copy pictured here is a recent upgrade, I just got it back from CGC a few weeks ago.

If you're strickly talking about prehero marvel books, the changeover (when Atlas officially became Marvel), you'd be looking about Jan/Feb '61. But the theme of nothing but monster covers had been ongoing for well over a year by that time. It seems like Altas artists were trying to figure out their next (less graphic) genre after the implementation of the comics code, and they experimented with a bunch of different neat things before coalescing on mostly monsters. Here are some more examples of reinterpretation of a different theme...

Well, we know that the really graphic horror stuff ended about the time of the SOTI trials and the introduction of the comics code. If prehero books don't go all the way back to this (say mid 1954 or so), then what would you call the range between say JIM 16 and JIM 48? Would those be pre-preheros? I've heard some people describe the Atlas implosion era, but I think that's right towards the tail end of that period - not the full span. I think a lot of people argue that it is artists, but if it were style, some of the Ditko/Kirby/Lee/Heck/Ayers stuff were reinterpretations of earlier Atlas stuff:

OK, to bring it back to the prehero topic, here's what you'd get if you got the irresistable urge to pick off all the chips tonight when you're reading it:

Here are scans for the tho reference books I mentioned earlier: ST 105 and TOS 40...

I have a ST 105 CGC'd at 9.0 with prechipping. I think my TOS 40 has a few tiny marvel chips out and it graded 7.5. If there's no other wear, I can see it getting from 7.5-8.5 on a good day.

+1 Here on the head start... I have a few nice raw books at CGC myself that I'm hoping to get back in a few weeks. I may post some pics if they don't disappoint too badly.

Anyone pick up anything good? I missed my one target upgrade book by a lousy $7...

Here's my opinion... Seems like Wednesday's prices were pretty strong, but last night's not as strong. I wouldn't read too much into one night's results... I would have bid $1500+ on the WM 9.4 if I thought I had any chance at all to win it at that. That's what a credit card is for, right? Last night's books ended earlier than the previous nights and I wasn't able to make it home in time to bid. I had written off winning any of the TOS and TTA books figuring they'd go very high like usual, but ended up winning one book with my tracking bid, and almost won a second with a tracking bid. It is very possible that other collectors assumed the prices would be astronomical and didn't make the effort to bid either, and are kicking themselves this morning... And if there was a bit of a correction to scare some speculators out of the market, that wouldn't be that bad of a thing for long-time/long-term collectors, right? I think, that a night like that can be really good for the hobbie if it let's some people who don't normally win super-nice books to pick up some gems for their collections. In the long term it helps build their desire to add to their collections. When they flip through their books and see a 9.0+ prehero, they will most likely want more. I think most people here agree that there seems to have been a bit of a less-than-super-tight grading period from CGC last year. It is very possible that a lot of books that normally would have gotten 8.0s came back as 8.5s and 9.0s. It is possible that a bunch of 8.0s were cracked, possibly pressed, and came back as 8.5s (and 8.5's up to 9.0s, and 9.0s up to 9.2s). That could account for a bit of a flood of the higher grades to the market, over the normal trickle of books that have been dug out of collections. Plus when people see books going for as much as 8X guide, especially with a weak economic recovery (as mentioned above), that can also lead to an increased pace of books surfacing from long term or original owner collections. Finally, we're nearing tax time (both Q1 and FY2011)... Some of the heavy hitters may have dipped into their Tax Savings to buy some books in the January/February auctions... and could have sat last night out per the advice of their accountants. As statisticians like to say, one point does not make a trend. Just my .

There's this one - which predates yours by a few years.

Thanks, it is more of a light surface color rub than an impacted corner.

Here's another recent pick-up. Unlike the #13 I posted last week, this one I bought slabbed. It has considerably more defects, but still grades out 8.0. The deep rich uniform reds on this one more than make up for the spine wear. I've seen so many copies of this issue where the red is more like a washed out orange, that when this one came up, I couldn't pass it up. The census shows that this is the only 8.0 with no 7.5s or 8.5s.

Did you ever call for notes? It looks alot nicer than 8.0 from the scan. No, it has a tiny tear/crease at the top of the front cover, visible in the scan, very light corner wear and light dust shadowing that isn't quite dark enough to show up in the scan. I've seen books from 7.5-9.0 with similar defects lately, so it is loosely within the expected range. The last four books I called on didn't have any hidden defects, they were just super tightly graded, which is what I figured happened here. I don't know if my grading is just out of practice or what, but my last four submissions have been all over the place. I used to be right on the money for 8.0 or better grades when I was submitting a lot of 60's marvel books, or if I had a question, it would be a two grade range. Now that I'm submitting more prehero and Atlas books, I just can't figure out how to grade stuff, and I am having to live with a four grade range on my estimates. In the old label days, if I missed on the grade it was almost always due to "light stain on every page" that dropped an 8.5 to a 7.0. A good number of my 8.0+ estimates have been coming back in the 6.0-7.5 range, and none have had hidden defects from the graders. And it isn't just me, two of the 8.0s I got from a fellow boardie (whose grades I thought were fair) came back 6.5s recently. I've also picked up some really nice CGC 7.0s recently, that I'm sure someone else bought as VF or better books. It makes it hard to figure out what tier to submit at when I can't figure out what is killing the grades on some of my books. Sometimes I think it is pq, then I'll get a 9.0 with cream to off-white pages, a chip out and color rubs at the spine corners. Sometimes I think it is a small stain, then I'll get a pair of 8.5s back with stains. Then I'll think it is a tear, and I'll get a 9.0 back with a tear. Then I'll think it is edge wear and I'll have an 8.5 and a 7.0 both with similar wear and no other visible defects. It also makes it hard to sell undercopies when they look nicer than your slabbed 8.0 copy, but the label says 7.0 or 7.5, the pq is better and there aren't any "hidden" defects.

Love this cover! KILLER KOPY! I have my first-ever copy of this book in mid-grade on it's way...can't wait to read it! Thanks, I was hoping for a little higher than 8.0, but the number on the case doesn't change the fact that it is a really nice book.

Got a few more pre-heros back from CGC last week. Here's one of my favorite covers from the batch:

I've been too busy to post any new books on here for quite a while, but have enjoyed the books that othes have posted recently. I got some books back from CGC this week. Seems like they graded this batch pretty strictly. My flash went out on my camera and I've been too busy to get a new one, so sorry for the less than stellar pics. These are all keepers. Three were upgrades and two were gap fillers. At some point (if/when I get a break), I plan to post my undercopies in the FS thread.

How about these three: BTW, I'm looking for an upgrade on the ST60, PM if you have a nice one to sell or trade.

Coolness. It is hard to tell from the scan, does the #33 have a "PAID" stamped on the cover? And do you (or anyone else) know what collection it came from, or the origins of the stamp? I have one with that stamp (below) and I've seen a couple others (seems like they may have all been TTA preheros) floating around over the years...

Great book, when you posted yours I did a double take and had to go back and check to make sure I still had my copy. It has the same pq and everything...

I don't work at CGC - but I'm sure this conversation has played out again and again in their conference room... I think the problem with detecting pressing is that some books are "pressed" by gravity from being stored in a stack of comics for 20 or 40 or 50 years in the right environment (temperature & humidity) and others are pressed overnight using mechanical means (temperature, pressure, moisture) and I don't see how CGC could differentiate between these two cases. Does storing your books horizontally instead of vertically in a long box then become a way to get a purple label? Say you pick up some books from a collection in Hawaii or Coastal Southern California, stored in an unconditioned or under-conditioned house in stacks for 40-50 years. They have evidence of minor creases and folds, but have nice page quality and now lay completely flat. They look pressed. Are they pressed? As a grader at CGC, how can you differentiate between those types of flat books and ones that were mechanically pressed overnight (intentionally restored)? my . MR

Glad I could find an audience to share with who appreciates them as much as I do.

Thanks Rich, this was a long time in the making and is still a work in progress - especially on the earlier portion of the run that isn't far along enough to share yet. I was inspired by your stair shots for your TOS run. In all the time I've been working on the set, I haven't put them on display together like that before. It was a nice way to spend an evening. Hard to believe it, but I've been on ebay for almost 14 years now. Things have changed a lot in collecting and on ebay in that time.

I posted this in the Group Shot Thread, but in case some of you guys don't browse that thread, here it is again. Special Thanks to Dale Roberts for the #92 that came in the mail today. I was going to take a group shot of just the 8.0+ set, but it didn't fit in a photo well, so I added the three earlier issues to even it out.

Special Thanks to Dale Roberts for the #92 that came in the mail today. I was going to take a group shot of just the 8.0+ set, but it didn't fit in a photo well, so I added the three earlier issues to even it out.