tb

I don't know and am not sure what to read into the designations. I take them with a grain of salt, but I always try mention the provenance on the submission form when possible. In some cases, I've included copies of auction catalogs or dealers' lists. For the Mickey Mouse Magazines, my own experience is that most file copies are marked one way or the other so it rarely is an issue. For the unmarked file copies that I mentioned, their condition is usually so off the charts that they never could have been circulated.

There must have been a considerable number of file copies from various sources. Some have characteristic markings, including the Western stamp, but most of my best file copies are completely unmarked. The V2#1 above is also a file copy, it was just not designated as such by CGC.

From my meetings with Yellow Kid, Malcolm Willits (I recorded several hours of our conversation on video), and collectors who were around in the 1970s, I've learned that Willits and Leonard Brown made a number of deals and trades with Disney after they founded Collector's Book Store in 1965. For example, Willits mentioned that they traded an extra copy of the "Mickey Mouse and the Mad Doctor" poster to Dave Smith, who started the Disney Archives around that time, in a lopsided deal where they received large amounts of quality material. In one or more of these deals, they received multiple file copies of Mickey Mouse Magazine. Willits picked some of the best of these for his personal collection, but many of the books I've been posting were duplicates that were for sale in CBS. All of these books were absorbed by long term collectors 30-40 years ago and did not surface again until 1. Willits' run was sold around 1995 and 2. I purchased the parallel run from CBS in 2003-04. The file copy run that sold at Sotheby's (or Christie's?) around 1994 must have been an entirely different collection, and the find you described was probably yet another. I would not be surprised if there are 10 or more runs of file copies floating around. This is of course the only reason that books like the one above exist at all.

This is currently the only comic or magazine sized book published prior to 1937 to have received a CGC 9.4. At least according to the census, the Church collection starts appearing in high grade from 1937 and becomes dominant from 1938-39. For 1937, there are now more Mickey Mouse Magazines graded 9.4+ than the combined number of Church copies from all other titles in the same grade range.

Like many of my highest graded books, this copy can be traced back to the Disney Archives.

When CGC first started grading Mickey Mouse Magazines around 2008, my impression was that the variance of the grades appeared higher than for regular comics. It was as if in some cases, especially when an individual book had been submitted, they had decided to be more forgiving. With the 30 or so books that I have received back in the last couple of months, I find the grading far more consistent. Most of these books graded 9.0-9.6, and I think CGC did a very good job distributing them between the grades. When I look at the 9.6s, they are generally superior to the 9.4s, which are slightly better than the 9.2s etc.

When I evaluate books myself, the CGC grade is only one part of my consideration and I always try to inspect them in person. But sometimes that's not possible and then the information on the CGC label certainly helps when buying from someone I don't know. Overall, the latest submissions have given me a bit more trust in CGC's grading of Mickey Mouse Magazines, but I'd still check them out in person before buying if possible.

Btw., I have no intention of selling the books. I got them certified for various reasons but plan to continue to improve my run for many years to come.

Thought some of you might be interested in seeing how CGC graded some of the raw books I've posted in the past.

Thanks, everyone. It feels great to get this confirmation from CGC as you always worry about a missing coupon or undisclosed restoration. I have somewhere between 25 and 30 copies graded 9.4 or higher at this point. Wish there was a way to post a video of them since a group shot of so many slabs is hard to read. I made one of the books corresponding to the labels above last night, but it's close to 80 Mb.

There are many other copies where I've been very happy with the result. The two issues below are examples of iconic covers that are incredibly difficult to find in nice condition. To get to this point, I've had to buy large numbers of raw copies, often from sellers who had no idea about grading comics, just hoping that statistically some of them would turn out to be nice. The V1#9 on the left, for example, was bought off eBay from a small antiques store that had no experience with comics. It was a complete fluke that it turned out to be my best copy.

C.L. Moore's first Jirel of Joiry story appeared in the October, 1934 issue of Weird Tales.

 

I think it is also Moore's first story to be featured on a cover.

 

 

 

Such a great cover. Probably one of my top two or three favorite Brundage covers.

And the colors are just incredible on this copy. What a gorgeous book!

The results made me curious about the earliest 9.4 and 9.6 copies in the census. The only examples prior to 1936 are 3 Mickey Mouse Magazine dairy giveaways (5 1/4"x7 1/4") from 1933-35. From 1936 the only 9.4 is a "Mickey Mouse in Pygmy Land" story book. That makes the CGC 9.4 V2#1 in the photo the earliest comic or magazine format 9.4 to date. Based on the same criteria, the V2#11 is the earliest CGC 9.6: it beats the Church copy of New Adventure 17 by one month (the latter is the earliest 9.6 comic book). I have seen several earlier comics owned by other board members that would likely grade 9.4 or higher if they were ever to certified.

What interesting to me is that there are so few early high grade books. Every surviving example from the dawn of comics is really a treasure as the number of existing 9.x copies decreases exponentially for each year you step back in the 1930s. It's a privilege to be the temporary caretaker of these books and I will continue to do my best to promote them and their history.

> It's hard to see in the pic but there are TWO v.2 # 12 in 9.6 in that stack? And some other dupes, no?

Yes to both. I actually have about a dozen more 9.4-9.6 MMMs but they are in safety deposit boxes. I usually don't keep anything of value at home.

I appreciate all the encouragement and nice feedback you have given my Mickey Mouse Magazines over the years. Last year, I finally reached the difficult decision to have all the books certified. It's been a long process and there is still some way to go, but the best parts of my collection are now starting to come back. The books below were in a box I received today.

Since last week, the total number of 9.4-9.8 copies from 1900-1938 in the CGC census went from 46 to 59. The number of 9.6-9.8 books jumped from 10 to 18. My best guess is that these numbers will increase a bit further in the near future.

Hope to post some fun pictures soon...

Back in May, I posted the surprising statistics below related to the census population of 1930s books in unrestored CGC 9.4 up. This elusive club finally reached 100 members last month. I found the rate of change interesting:

 

New additions:

2011: 13

2010: 11

2009: 2

2008: 4

2007: 2

2006: 1

2005: 9

 

If you ignore Mickey Mouse Magazine Series 1-3, the list looks like this:

2011: 6

2010: 0

2009: 1

2008: 4

2007: 1

2006: 1

2005: 9

 

* 2011 has seen the highest number of new additions, both with and without Mickey Mouse Magazines, since 2005.

* There are now 17 Series 3 Mickey Mouse Magazines (this number is likely to grow before the end of the year).

* The most remarkable observation to me is how big a difference the submission of even a small group of raw Church books can make. Most (if not all?) of the 6 2011 additions are King Comics. Several of these are even from 1937 where the census has very few books in 9.4 up: the majority of the 100 books are from 1938 and 1939.

 

There is one more note I wanted to make about the quality of the Mickey Mouse Magazine file copies from the Disney archives. Whether you care about Disney comics or not, I don't think collectors realize just what a treasure the top 2-3 runs of file copies are in terms of pure high grade survival rates. I've suspected this since buying an incredible run of these in 2003, but it is only now that the exceptional quality is starting to become apparent thanks to the CGC census. For comparison, here are the numbers for the total population of CGC graded comics in 9.4 or above from the 1930s as of April 2011 (courtesy of valiantman's site):

 

CGC 9.8s: 4

CGC 9.6s: 28

CGC 9.4s: 62

 

Of these, here is the current population of Mickey Mouse Magazines (3rd series up to December 1939):

 

CGC 9.8s: 0

CGC 9.6s: 2

CGC 9.4s: 12

 

In other words, although it only has been possible to certify MMMs since around 2008, they already represent 15% of the entire population of CGC graded comics in 9.4+ from the 1930s. And this percentage is very likely to climb over the next 12 months.

 

It is not because MMMs are common: the print run for every issue prior to 1940 must have been substantially lower than that of Action Comics 1 (based on available data). The census anomaly is entirely due to a select few runs of file copies that stand out among the considerable number of file copies that exist.

Some of the Barks covers from the mid 1950s are just fantastic. They don't get much nicer than the one in the upper left corner of the first picture.

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Here is my earliest CGC 9.4 so far.

I like these a lot. It's like a Classics Illustrated prototype with a touch of Flash Gordon serials.

At the risk of sounding trite, he should opt for the book that gives him the most pleasure to own.... but really 9.6/9.8... who cares?

 

I agree.

 

Thanks for the insightful feedback, everyone. I'll advise my friend to think very carefully before upgrading and do the appropriate research. If he still wants to go ahead after that I'll buy the Lost Valley from him.

Then shades of things to come. It is probably about 1977 or 1978, Phil Seuling's annual New York Convention has shifted to Philadelphia for some reason. I am still collecting Disney comics but I am starting to appreciate higher grade books and have been trying to purchase nicer books. The first file copies are starting to dribble out of the Poughkeepsie offices of Western and their untouched condition is a treat to the eye. I pick up the issue below for about $20. and it remains one of my nicest WDCS from this era to this day.

 

By the way at one of those Philadelphia shows an original owner came out of the woodwork and sold an amazing collection to Steve Geppi, who was exhibitiing. He had a Detective 27 on sale by the afternoon of that show!

 

Great books and the stories behind them. Probably my favorite part of this forum are the collector stories like this, Moondog's, etc...

-//-. And what a fantastic file copy!

I was just reading an amazing article in an early 1980s Carl Barks Collector related to the Poughkeepsie file copies. John Nichols flew to Canada to pick up a large set of high grade Duck Four Colors, WDC&S, giveaways etc, brought them back to Virginia, and then flew out to deliver them to the buyer in California. The article had photos of some of the books with both the seller (who incidentally also had a number of Barks paintings for sale) and the buyer. I used to buy a lot of books from John back in the early 1990s and always found him to be a very reliable grader. When he described the books as "mint", I can only think that they must have been very close to that.

Beautiful copy. Heritage sold my duplicate for $4,400 a few years ago and it didn't look much better than yours (it was a double cover)- I couldn't believe it when I saw the result.

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Unrelated, I have a little bit of a dilemma. Someone I know offered me the Lost Valley copy of another GA Disney book. It is a CGC 9.6 and he is looking to sell it to upgrade to a CGC 9.8. Images show no visible differences between the two. My own feeling is that a Lost Valley 9.6 is at least as attractive as a generic 9.8 and that he should keep that instead. Any general thoughts without getting into more details about the specific book?

The colors on those Reilly copies are gorgeous. It hardly seems possible that the Church counterparts could be more beautiful.

And the statistical data is very interesting, thanks for sharing it.

My favorite Christmas decoration...

 

Beautiful book (and look at the great PQ!) - just amazing, where do you find these treasures?

Probably a lot easier than you've found most of yours; just bought this book off eBay in '99. Nice to hear that you can branch out and appreciate some of these although it's not genre, btw.

The down side is that I may have hit the wall in terms of upgrading my Mickey Mouse Magazines further. Inspired by moondog's old ashcan ads, I was seriously considering a page in Overstreet next year just for this purpose. But securing the copyrights from Disney sounds like an ordeal...

AJD: Thanks for the reindeer group shot.

P5: Here's a scan of one of the signed issues that was for sale on eBay in 2006. They do pop up once in a while.

the real question we should ask ourselves from that picture is why in the heck wasn't the gator invited

Rick, I'm pretty sure I didn't know you when that shot of the MH Jumbos was taken at my house. I think that was taken in 2007 or earlier. You can tell by how young Mr. Bedrock looks.

 

Here's a clearer photo of the books:

It would be almost impossible for a photo to do those books justice. Although high grade books from 1938-39 are very rare, you do see them regularly if you follow the major auctions. But the early Jumbo's were gigantic in size. From working on my Mickey Mouse Magazine run since the late '90s, I've seen a lot of high grade books from this period. The only issue I've never seen in better than FN condition is the very large format first issue. It is actually quite common, but it just doesn't seem to exist in nice condition. The early Jumbo Comics were even larger than this. The odds that any copies of these books would survive in this condition must be astronomical.

AJD: Those reindeer covers would make for a great group shot.

40: The earlier MMMs do not feature prominent ads for subscriptions which I guess makes sense since no one was familiar with the product. Letters between Roy and Walt Disney, Kay Kamen, and Hal Horne from 1935 focus on distribution issues getting the magazines delivered to newsstands and sold in department stores. Subscription ads would become more prevalent later in the run. The photos from V1#10 are characteristic: the subscription ad takes just a corner on page 32, but the whole interior back cover is an offer to buy back issues. Since Horne was too optimistic in his orders for the first few magazines (only roughly 40% actually sold), it would understandable if he was more focused on getting rid of the overstock than getting new subscribers around this time.

In a letter from December 1935, Horne wrote to Roy Disney:"to date, it has cost me a terrific amount of heartaches and exactly $50,000, all of which seems such a crime when you consider that the magazine has been loved by those who have read it". Reading this today, knowing that the first 5 issues of Mickey Mouse Magazine had exceptionally high production quality, I think you can't help but respect the courage of people like Horne who blasted the path for later comics with their visionary ideas - at considerable financial risk.

My favorite Christmas decoration...

I recently added a back-up copy of this issue that was too pretty to miss. Just like Mickey Mouse Magazine V1#4, the cover is based on "On Ice" from 1935.

Beautiful #80. And I wish my WDC&S turtle had that kind of speed.

Agreed: overall the balance of material, production quality, and price seems very smart for the broad American market. The European version was aimed at a completely different audience.

One thing that took me back a little was Donald Ault's rather frank piece about the Barks lawsuit. It was very well written and my own impression is that his version most likely is pretty accurate, but there was sure nothing diplomatic about putting this material in volume 1. In the European edition, this topic was kind of hushed away somewhere in volume 22 with a more neutral text. But, again, I like that Fantagraphics appears to be replacing bland editorials with more passionate and personal perspectives from friends and fans of Barks.

Here's a comparison with the Fantagraphics reprint. One of the things that the Golden Age geek in me likes best about the latter is that the color scheme is kept very close to the original. Reading the stories has the familiar feel of the originals. "Race to the South Seas" is particularly striking since the production quality of the original was worse than that of the regular comics.

The European Barks reprints that were published between 2005 and 2008 or so had an entirely new digital coloring that created a lot of debate. I don't have any firm opinion about which would be better if I were to read the stories for the first time, but as a GA collector who already has the 30 European volumes, I love the different feel of the Fantagraphics book.

Another novelty about it is that the usual background material by Geoff Bloom, which is great but somewhat rehashed at this point, is replaced by "story notes" by regular Barks fans and collectors that I've come across in online Disney forums. It gives the book a bit more of a grassroots feel. I think it is cool that Fantagraphics is making an effort to reinvent the material.