AllTop8Me

EBay ended up de-listing my Suspense run (don't ask) and I've begun putting them back up, so do check out the Golden Age section there for all the cool covers. 3 and 12 are there already, and 9 will go up tomorrow. I'll try to get a book up every day or two, so you can see nice copies of the whole run over on EBay soon enough.

Chesler

As a Golden Age collector, not a dealer, and one with resources to generally collect only books in the 6.5 to 8.5 range, I have a basic question for those of you who routinely spend many thousands of dollars on a book: What type of a person would buy a Human Torch #1 in 9.4, whether for $135K or for half that? As someone noted earlier, Action 1, like a relatively small number of other keys (Supes 1, TEC 27, CAP 1) is the type of book that would appeal to collectors of Americana generally, not just to comic book buffs. Heck, even a well-endowed museum might make a play for such books. Similarly, the market for the most valuable of all baseball cards, the 1909 Honus Wagner, in a country in which the number of baseball afficianados exceeds comic book affficianados by a factor of about 1,000, is very broad. But who is it that drops mega-bucks on a Human Torch #1? The seller's hype about searching for it since the 60s notwithstanding, I don't think there are many people with a deep emotional connection to this particular book. Is it the case that BSDs, and only BSDs, are in this game? But since the D stands for dealer, or at least someone who values the book largely in light of its resale value, can it ever experience the explosive growth of that Action 1 or Honus Wagner, whose rise can be fueled by a strong economy that enrichens millions of Americans, enough of who are willing to compete for these treasures? Sure, there are books that have experienced phenomenal growth that only a true comic book fan would buy (e.g. Suspense 3, a copy of which I own myself) but these tend to plateau out in the low five figures, a price that is within the reasonable reach of a collector who is willing to divert money away from the stock market to something he loves. But if Steve Geppi and Jay Parrino and a few others in their situation are the only ones playing the $70K+ game - to say nothing of the $135K game - and if the game is largely about buying books and flipping them, well, does that sound like a sound investment or a ponzi scheme?

Of course, what do you expect when you chase after girls like this? Or take them to those East Village clubs....

Of course, what do you expect when you chase after girls like this?

Don't you just hate when this happens?

I guess the price of admission to this thread is a Cap cover. Here's mine.

As a pre-Code GGA collector I always enjoy a cover that defies the received wisdom that Golden Age artwork is amateurish. This one has an almost classical elegance that, IMO, makes it even more beautiful than #49's, which today requires a strong appreciation of kitsch to be enjoyable. Apologies, but I don't know how to attach the imaeg into the message.