tb

It's nice to hear that other people enjoyed the scan. I've owned this book raw for over 8 years. It was always pretty, but, to be completely honest, the label doesn't hurt my appreciation of it. Fundamentally, though, the kick I get from seeing a beautiful book will always be 90% about aesthetics. In my eyes, a high technical grade will not be able to make up for faded colors or a dust shadow. One of the biggest thrills for me is to find one of these Goldilocks books where "everything is just right".

Back from CGC yesterday. Earliest comic book sized or larger format 9.6 in census; only a digest sized Mickey Mouse Magazine dairy giveaway from 1935 is earlier overall.

Those are beautiful copies, AJD.

And speaking of Jules Engel [...]

As a grad student, I attended a talk by Mr. Engel at MIT's Media Lab. He was over 90 at the time but flew out from California to give the 2 hour lecture. He was extremely sharp and had an amazing passion for abstract animations with a very narrow, intellectual audience. When someone asked him about his work on Roger McGee and the other cartoon characters, he quickly brushed it aside by stating firmly that all this work was entirely to make a living so he could pursue the more artsy and abstract work that he clearly cared passionately about. Although all of the animations that he showed went way above my head, I left the talking thinking how wonderful it was when someone managed to find a way to use their gifts and pursue their true passion in life for so many years. Just the fact that he would travel across the country to share his work with students at his age seemed pretty remarkable.

I realized that the old post was unfortunate, that's why I mentioned that I would have preferred to let that subject rest.

To be absolutely clear: I know that there are many super nice and honest collectors and dealers in Eugene, Oregon, and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to have one bad apple create so many problems.

To add a little bit of context, I once lost close to $2,000 on an eBay transaction with a seller from Eugene, Oregon. I think anyone who has tried something like that will understand that it hurts, not just financially. I made the comments that Transplant quoted in an effort to communicate a specific risk related to one specific Donald Duck comic with the intent of saving other collectors the experience I went through. My wording was unfortunate and I regret that.

Edit:

For anyone not familiar with this topic, this thread is a place to start. The "Show Us Your Ducks" thread has traditionally been a safe haven from such controversial subjects and, once again, I regret I inadvertently brought it up here.

A true nerd

I blame it on my 3 years at MIT: I was perfectly normal before that.

Btw., I also picked up the Lost Valley copy of "Donald Duck's Atom Bomb" (CGC 9.6) in a private deal yesterday. There have been some special circumstances (that I don't

want to get into again) why I never bought a high grade copy of this particular book before. The fact that this one had a known provenance was important to me.

Thanks a lot, everyone. It'll probably be a while between upgrades from now on. The average grade for my 60 issues is 8.96 right now (if you count the V1#1 as an 8.0).

AJD: How cool that you found that button! And I am really curious if there may have been other ads pasted into the Australian issues.

Duffman: Thanks for the inspiration. I actually had have a couple of new long term projects running for a while but they are not ready for prime time yet. And I applaud Mr. Lesser for his outstanding sense of home decoration.

Mr. Strange: It was really nice having you out here.

In what may qualify as the least surprising new purchase in the Heritage February auction, here is my most important win. After searching since 1999, I now have a VF-ish or better copy of every issue in the run: this was the last one I needed.

On a related note, I now need to find something new to collect...

If it's any help, Wikipedia states: "In 1936, Donald was redesigned to be a bit fuller, rounder, and cuter."

 

I'd say late 1936 then - :thumbsup: Notice the change is slow but most perceptible from November to December. Most of these examples, I pulled from the Silly Symphony strip featuring Donald Duck.

 

As a little bit of trivia, the 3rd panel from Scrooge's sequence above is from the Sunday for which the original artwork is the earliest known to have survived. It is owned by an Austrian collector that I had the pleasure of visiting a few years back. He also owns a page from Carl Barks' unpublished "Silent Night" story from 1945; I've posted my own page from that story in the past.

The other V1 covers starting with #4 were based on shorts that were playing in theaters when the the magazine appeared. There were two cartoons featuring Donald around this time: Mickey's Polo Team (January) and Orphan's Picnic (February). I took a look at these and Donald doesn't look quite the same in them. He actually appears to be drawn somewhat inconsistently in the latter. I have seen very little in terms of promotional art from this time and don't know where the cover to V1#5 came from, but it must surely have been done by Disney Studios in California. The only artist I know who could have produced an illustration of this quality is Tom Wood who was responsible for the Good Housekeeping pages at the time. That would have made sense based on the correspondence between Roy Disney, Kay Kamen, and Hal Horne (the editor) that I posted parts of earlier: MMM was clearly a high stakes investment and Horne would likely have had access to the very best artists in the promotions department for the covers.

I am glad to ge the kind words RareHighGrade. I know most posters in this thread like same types of books, which are different than what I collect. I like to find rare high grade #1's that are more obscure and odd. Glad to hear a few people like them. Thanks.

 

I'm astounded by your ability to find fabulous copies of these obscure comics. I enjoy every one you post.

 

Me too! I'm loving 'em. (thumbs u

 

Keep 'em coming, Earthshaker. There's a lot of people here enjoying your rarely seen books.

Count me among them.

Fantastic!

The "Fred" books all came from Jeff Lotman's collection which I bought from Disney Auctions around 10 years ago. Lotman used to be one of the biggest Disney collectors back in the 80s and 90s. My best guess is that he may have bought these books from the Collector's Showcase auctions back in the early 80s. I was looking for them in their catalogs when I visited YellowKid but didn't have time to go through all of them (there are many!). I'll have to check the next time I visit.

As for "bragging rights", I must have paid less than $300 for the V1#5 above but that doesn't prevent it from being one of my own favorite books. To me, the boards are all about sharing our passion/interest in whatever we collect, whether we just started or have been at it for 50+ years.

Below is another of my favorite books that arrived back today.

Just back from CGC. I've never seen another copy that would have graded FN.

Pepe Lepew protoype?

The shot is actually a pretty direct adaptation of the punchline for the 1938 short

When looking at these file copies, it is sometimes hard to fathom that they came out at the same time as the early Donald Duck cartoons. This one looks as if it had been put in a mylar in right after it was printed. The circulation of this issue was 106,800 which was about 25% less than that of Action Comics 1.

That is a great example of how the eye appeal of a book can be much better if the (in this case minute) flaws fall in areas outside the flow of the artwork. I'd always pick a copy like this over another copy with the same technical grade.

My own scanning is going slowly, but here's another Mickey Mouse Mag. The white lower right corner is actually part of the artwork; it's cool when a beautiful book also happens to be strong technically. I hope to have some more back from CGC soon.

Fantastic! Sometimes a picture is worth more than a billion registry points.

What I took away from it is an example of how collections can be absorbed by a single owner for generations if he/she has no financial motivation to sell. As pooroldman pointed out, some of these issues have likely not surfaced in high grade since the article was printed.

Edit: might as well add a pretty pic.

From "The Barks Collector" #18, July 1981, courtesy of YellowKid's amazing reference library. Worth a read if you are interested in the Dell file copies.

Theagenes,

 

 

(thumbs u

 

Terrific stuff. Before this thread I have only read a copule of the mid 60's Gold Key reprints.

 

Glad somebody's still reading. I wasn't sure.

The scans are absolutely fantastic. I forced myself to take a break after the first 10 pages or so because I wanted to see the movie first, but I am very much looking forward to reading all of them after that.

Thanks again for sharing them!

AJD: Thanks for the info on Walter and Wal Granger. Fun how you can get a little dose of history here every day.

I can't help but wonder if there are many more of the Australian editions circulating without anyone being aware of their origin. I'd love to find one of these copies from my own collection.

Sometime in the mid to latter part of the nineties, Busted Flush and I went to a San Diego Con on a Friday. This is when you could still park within walking distance of the hall for ten dollars for the day and no one was at the show on a Friday. We wandered around the quiet hall and ran into a dealer selling a complete collection of MMM that had come out of the Disney Archives. They were amazing!

Based on the timing and your description, I wonder if what you saw might have been Malcolm Willits' collection, especially if the books had no markings... Do you remember the dealer?

I would like to find out the story of the Western Editorial copies someday. I actually visited Racine about five or six years ago while on a vacation in the area. I stopped by and tried to locate the old plant but couldn't. I saw a postman and asked him where it was and he pointed me in the correct direction. While no longer the home of Western Publishing the logo was still in view on the building entrance! That building was full of beautiful copies of great books for many years.

This reminds me that I need to post the 1981 "Barks Collector" article that YellowKid gave me, describing possibly the best Disney comics collection I have ever heard of.

Today, I was scanning the book below and thought I'd share one more. If anyone were to give me 30 seconds to explain why I collect MMMs, I'd hand them this copy and let that do the talking.

that's a very sharp 7.5

The earliest issues often have spine splits that kill the technical grade. Sadly, I think it is most likely that this copy is the best existing.

Still doesn't tell me what's underneath

I forgot to check before I got it certified.

Pictures of the remaining copies in my run should soon be available in my registry set; I'm in the process of scanning them. I'll take a break from the Duck thread now to keep the spamming under control.

Duffman,

Thanks to YellowKid, I may have uncovered a bit more info that might give a clue towards explaining your mysterious copy:

"In a letter to Roy [Disney] dated October 11, 1935, Kamen reported:

"The actual net sales on the twenty-five cent issue is, at this time, 150,000.

On the second issue (October) they expect 200,000 net. The print order for

November is 300,000. The November issue will carry ten pages of advertising

(paid for, but some at special" prices [a policy neither Kamen nor the Disneys

approved of]). They have already sold five pages for the December issue, and

expect it to carry from ten to twenty pages of advertising. I had the entire

Horne staff over here the other night for a pep meeting. Granger, of Australia

[a good place for collectors to look for early issues of the magazine], wired an

order in for 25,000 copies of the first issue and with the order came a draft for

$750 (that was three cents a copy), so that was $750 like found for Hal. [...]""

The ad on the back cover has got to be the creepiest I've ever seen on a funny animal book. Things were different back in 1935...

Another MMM back from certification last week. Bought this from Jerry Weist in 2002 (for something like $200).

And, for a change, a WDC&S just bought from Transplant.