Gambold Vintage

> there's other titles besides the Big 5. < DO tell. Just what exactly are these?

One argument *against* the silly cover theory - what about these examples from early Superman and Batman - they are hardly more serious than the early World's Finest covers.

Great replies, thanks. I think you all hit it on the nail - it's the lack of "serious" covers that are keeping the prices and interest down (although many of the stories inside are just as serious as those in other Superman/Batman books of the time.) I guess we have to remember that these comics were originally marketed to children, but now the only people buying and reading them are adults - and we want to feel "serious" about our comics!

I've always had a soft spot for the World's Finest series, and I've collected a few in decent grades from several eras. The Golden Age WF had cheerful, relaxed covers with Superman, Batman and the Boy Wonder on just about every one. I know these were quarterlies and marketed as a light-hearted book, and that the stories inside didn't have those three heroes together. BUT - these are 1940s DC superhero comics with Superman and Batman on the cover! Why are they not up there with the rest of the 1940s Superman-Batman group, value-wise? They are miles away from the Top 100 - the first Supes/Bats issue #2 guides at a mere $8000 - and they even have a Hitler cover on issue #9. Would Joker have helped? Where's the love for World's Finest? --Gambold

I could go with that explanation except for two problems. The first is that few people know about this second book, it hasn’t been well promoted, and it’s not even out yet...and Amazon has no release date for it as of this writing. Given the low incentive for people to pay for another Overstreet book a few months later, I don’t have a lot of confidence in the quality of the content. Second, the current Guide says “Special 50th Anniversary Edition” in a gold banner on the front cover. That suggests that special anniversary content is inside and that this particular Guide is thus a unique, even collectible purchase. That is not true, there is nothing special inside, it’s just another Overstreet guide as I stated before.

The 50th Anniversary Edition is distinctly underwhelming - it looks like any other Overstreet Gude of the past ten years. No effort was made to be special or provide over-arching articles that would cover the history of the hobby. It's just more of the same that we get every year. Do we really need an annual "War report?" It's bad enough we've been forced to live with platinum and victorian and pilgrim comics and whatever Diamond wants us to buy, but why feature this hoary genre *every* year? The missed opportunities here are endless. They could have gone with one distinctive and totally different cover than the usual selection of adequate choices from courant artists. They could have had a fun section comparing the prices of the current top twenty or so key comics for the past 5, 10, 15, etc years. They could have brought back excerpts from past market reports that are now amusing or prescient (and the major decrease in pages of those reports in this year's Guide is *not* a good sign). They could have provided some data on how the numbers of collectors, dealers, and transactions have changed over the years. They could have offered articles by past collecting luminaries on how comics collecting and fandom has become mainstream, and speculated on why. They could have provided frank commentary on some of the more insane price jumps we've seen in the top books over the past two decades, and evaluate the good and bad effects those huge dollar amounts have had on our hobby. In short, the 50th edition could have been a major contribution to comics collecting and history, a signal effort that summarized two generations of fandom. Instead - it's just another Overstreet Guide with less-than-stellar cover choices, weak articles of limited interest to the larger market, a lot of promotion for CGC, ever-shrinking typeface, and more mundane and obvious shilling for comic eras like Pioneer Age that no one collects. Boo! I was really looking forward to this year's Guide to be something special. I'm disappointed in every way. It could be time for a new editing team, because this was a huge opportunity that not only was totally botched, but apparently not even understood to exist. Gambold

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>eBay completed listings for raw, census for slabbed< The CGC census lists values? That's news to me. Here's the census for Action Comics 2, with its great cover. I'm not seeing any pricing in the Census. https://www.cgccomics.com/census/grades_standard.asp?title=Action+Comics&issue=2&publisher=D.C.+Comics&year=1938&issuedate=7/38 As for E-Bay, I'm not sure I would trust E-Bay to wash my car, much less give me an accurate report on the comics market. In any event, good luck trying to find specific titles and grades, especially of less-sold issues.

Great post, thanks! Still waiting for the detractors to post a link with an onsite resource they feel does a better job that OPG on reporting values. It's easier to knock something than to promote something, isn't it?

Well I didn't say BUY it, I said "acquaint yourself with it." >What does Overstreet provide that the internet doesn’t provide more accurately and free?< I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to actually list a website that they feel does a better job at reporting current market prices on collector comics than Overstreet. Let's have a link, please!

>I'll bet those other collecting categories don't/didn't have multiple reference and/or price guide websites < You'll need to list the one(s) you think are better, to support your contention that OPG is "outdated and irrelevant" and "sucks at its stated purpose." Granted, OPG is not an immediate, what-happened-yesterday price guide. But then how many of these online sites are either, for the vast majority of vintage (pre-modern) books? Auction results are useful generally if you are buying slabbed keys - and the OPG is not a reference guide for slabbed prices, I think we all know that. Slabs are a WHOLE OTHER discussion. OPG provides a good overall look at the hobby - what's available, what is worth buying, and what it went for in the past year. For 95% of the books out there, the pricing is going to be pretty accurate. It certainly will be the source your friendly neighborhood con dealer is going to use, when you start haggling with him over a reader's copy of Sensation Comics 109.

>A regular reference guide is one indicator of a healthy collectible field.< Of course it is, and anyone who proclaims "I've never read an Overstreet Comics guide in my life" or some such nonsense is either just posturing or not a serious collector/dealer. You don't have to love the OPG, use it much, or even believe in any of its pricing - but to deny that it is a foundational and ongoing part of the comics collecting hobby is just being specious. And yeah, if you fancy yourself a collector or dealer of comics, you should acquaint yourself with it, because all your competition is. Now, what does anyone think of Zap-Kapow? *They* list undergrounds

>My feeling is that CBCS' reason has more do with it being outside their wheelhouse. < Well, without any official statements from anyone, it's all guesswork on our end. But I'm not buying the "outside our wheelhouse" excuse. Undergrounds are comic books just like any other. If they aren't sure about a publisher or edition when grading a book, make a phone call. I'm pretty sure that the industry aversion, particularly Overstreet's, is because of the adult sexual content. Not all undergrounds have such content (Freak Brothers, Zippy, etc) but enough do that the whole genre has a big X RATING on it. So like respectable movie houses, they are staying away from the porno so as not to offend the hinterlands.

>Overstreet doesn't list undergrounds for the same reasons Voldy doesn't grade them. They are very small niche of the comic collecting market. < I'm sorry, this is not a believable reason. Victorian and Platinum age comics are MUCH smaller niches of the market and they get whole sections in the Guide, every year. Undergrounds get graded on CGC and sold on E-Bay, Heritage and the rest all the time, and in much larger numbers than comics from the 1800s. This is from Wikipedia, although there is no citation. It does make clear that Overstreet has never officially given a reason (if anyone can find one, please post it!): "An early decision was made by author to exclude the niche of underground comix, an adult-oriented expression of the genre that Mr. Overstreet had no interest in documenting, for reasons he has never made public,[citation needed] despite the book being promoted by its publisher as "the most complete listing of comics from the 1500s to the present." I have seen other commentary on various boards (again, not cited) that this is a personal, long-standing decision by the publisher. >It really has nothing to do with Bob being offended by them. He's not.< How do you know this? And while he may personally not be, is he concerned his readers would be? Again, without any statement from the publisher, we can only comment on the action - which is frankly censorship. Hoopefully the next person in charge will be more receptive to including this important part of American comics history.

The sixteen pages of Victorian comics cover a lot of titles and information. This is an era which far fewer people collect than undergrounds - I think 16-20 pages would be more than enough to cover all the principal titles and various reprints of the underground era. That said, it's clear that Overstreet will never include them, for the reasons other posters cited here - their titles and/or content offend certain people. This is unfortunate, because if they can fill a guide as large as Fogel's they are clearly a presence in the market and Overstreet should not act like they don't exist. It's also censorship, pure and simple. It might change when Overstreet himself steps down. I hope it does. >Why would you even care what the outdated, irrelevant OPG does? Seriously.< Me and every dealer and collector in the country. Please.

Yes, Fogel's is fine, but it's existence is not an adequate excuse for Overstreet to pretend that comics like Zap and the Freak Brothers don't exist. Fogel's also is not an annual. Frankly, Overstreet has no excuse. When asked about this in the past the responses are always fuzzy and evasive. It's time for the Guide to stop censoring an important era in American comics, to say nothing of artists like R Crumb and Rick Griffin.

...but everything else under the sun is there, including promo comics, "Victorian era" images and drawings going back to the 1500s. The refusal to include undergrounds, which would take at most about 20 more pages in a 1300 page book, continues to look like the political position that it is. We get it, the publisher doesn't like them. Time for a new publisher.