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Great Catman 31! It's a close call, but I like that cover more than 32.

And now for something completely different:

Beautiful book, Mephisto. You can't go wrong collecting nice copies of Joker covers, especially since they only seem to have a 20% premium in the guide, but the demand has to be alot greater than for more run of the mill covers.

I love the 'Tec 69 - by far the coolest Joker cover of the title - beautiful copy as well.

What came first Detective 69 or Headline 8 ?, one has to be the inspiration for the other.

Definitely cool covers from my collection, not recent purchases.

Love the All-Winners 17 - Atom spies!! Now that's more like it. Subby strangling the baddie until his face turns purple is too much. I keep on thinking that All-Winners would be a great title to collect - you get Cap, Subby, Torch, S&K , Schomburg, the Red Skull, A Hitler-Hirohito cover,other classic covers, and the All-Winners Squad all in 20 issues.

Amazingly, Air Ace V.2 #2 is only listed with a scarcity rating of 5. I was lucky to find a copy at the guide price 4 or 5 years ago. The only other copy I've seen for sale was in Robert Beerbohms catalougue around the same time- I think it was a mid to low grade copy that he was asking $250 for.

The Salida copy of War 11 would be a cool book to have. Non-DC War books are really a bargain compared to other pre-code stuff. VG copies of alot of titles seem to sell routinely on ebay for under $10, and even the "classic" covers are cheap when compared to other genres from the early 50s. While they routinely sell at 2-3X guide, that still makes them cheaper than alot of pre-code horror.

Great Schomburg cover Timely!! Even though it's sad to see that with the japanazis dispatched Cap & Subby are reduced to beating up fur hijackers. I can see why after the war, kids started to feel maybe superhero comics didn't do it for them anymore, and they'd rather read comics with half-naked jungle girls or bloodthirsty killers running around in them. Ah, imagine a parallel universe where Timely kept it's hero books going strong with airbrushed Schomburg covers featuring barely dressed beauties tied up in the foreground while Subby beat up alligators in the background, or a Syd Shores cover featuring the likes of Cap decapitating a deranged killer with his shield, or Bill Everett depicting the Human Torch battling decaying corpses in a graveyard.

And now for the Korean War. Flamethrower covers are a niche collectible among War comic fans. For my money this Russ Heath cover smokes the rest.

Here is one of my favorite WW2 Japanese covers. It makes Schomburg look racially sensitive in comparison.

That Pep 30 rocks! Of course war era Peps are always cool. Another cover I had overlooked in the Gerber. I had forgotten about the Schomburg Pep 29 cover, didn't he also do the cover of 38? I still haven't unpacked my Gerbers from a move over a year ago. I once made my self a list of all Schomburg's war covers with the idea of eventually collecting them all. It was well over 200, so it's a very long term goal, but I do try and pick up a few every year.

Another classic Schomburg. Someone once described this as "the poor man's Suspense #3", that's an overstatement, but it does seem almost as hard to find. It's interesting that when "scarce" books start demanding high prices they start getting easier to find (seems like somebody is always selling a Cap 74 - you know there's more than 20 out there, hell, even I have one) - conversely alot of books with classic covers that aren't regarded by Gerber as being especially rare, hardly ever seem to be for sale.

AllNew 8

Great books Timely. I'd vote for the 10 though as having the better cover - something about those yellow cover Timelys.

Thanks for letting me know - It has been corrected.

The link below takes you to a scan of my favorite Human Torch cover, the sought after #12. This copy is evidence that slight restoration can be the bargain hunter's friend. It has a spot of glue where the cover had come loose from the staple, and an added staple to reinforce it. It also has a fingernail sized piece out on the back cover where the cover had become detached. the spine itself has no splitting. Had the cover not been reattached, I figure the book would grade a 2.5 or 3.0 (I'm not sure how CGC grades for a loose cover, but otherwise the book is a solid VG) Anybody who has looked for this book knows that it usually sells for well over guide, but I was able to pick it up for 140% of 2.0 guide. I know some out there distain restoration of any kind, but a spot of glue and an extra staple isn't any more ugly than a piece of tape, and it made this Timely classic an affordable book (now if only I could find a Cap 46 in the same shape).

Human Torch 12

My favorite Zip cover

Zip 9

And another brain boggler

Weird Mysteries 5

Great cover on the Mystery Men 4, Punyhuman.

I love seeing all these scans of books I had overlooked when browsing through the Gerber Guides. Sometimes it's hard to gage how cool a cover is until you see a larger image. I also want to thank the rest of you out there for making the Golden Age threads mostly about the comics themselves, and not just about what grades of which books sold for how much (which seems to be the general preoccupation of the Silver Age postings).

Are you sure that #9 isn't a Schomburg cover? I t looks like his style both in composition and execution.

143ksk,

Great Peps! I wish I still had my 20, and 34 is on my upgrade list, I only have a FR copy that was too cheap to pass up. I also like the 28, those iconic WW2 covers on the old Zips & Peps are too cool! Wasn't the cover to Pep 32 reused on a Shield -Wizard?

143ksk,

That Terrors of the Jungle 20 sure is a nice looking copy, and I think it's the best cover of the run. It's one of the few 50s covers Cole did that competes with his 40s work. It got me thinking of squid covers and here is an underrated one by Edd Cartier

Glad to see there is still alot of enthusiasm for L.B. Cole out there. His late 40s covers are amazing.

Here is a Gerber no-show, Capt. Aero 26. It's only a mid-grade copy, but has the deepest color strike of any I've seen.

Beautiful book, the last couple of Mystics make me want to collect Destroyer covers! Please tell us you have a Mystic #9 with the Hitler cover coming next, that one is on my want list.

Beautiful book Timely, you truely have a stunning collection. I love the old Timelys with one-shot cover appearances, especially when they are by Schomburg or Simon & Kirby. Too bad S&K never did a Vision cover for Marvel Mystery - that would be something.

The above copy has P.D.C. printed on the cover , which I believe stands for Printed in the Dominion of Canada. It also has "15 cents in Canada" printed under the 10 cent price. This is not to be confused with being a Canadian copy as all the the ads I've ever seen in a P.D.C. book are for U.S. companies - Cheslers as well as Four Stars. This isn't much different from modern comics today which are almost always printed in Canada. I don't know off-hand if there are both Canadian and domestic printings of any of these books that were both produced for the U.S. market, but it might explain differences in color.

Shiverbones - 3x guide for a Good copy of Roly Poly 14 is probably as good a deal as you are going to get unless you find a dealer who is unaware of the real value of this book. I paid $200 for the VG- copy 3 years ago, which at the time was more like 6 or 7x guide. I've had my share of great deals over the years, but this wasn't one of them - but look at it this way, this book guides for barely more than #15! How much relative demand is there for the two books? My guess is that for every person looking for a #15, there has to be at least 20 looking for a #14.

Underrated L.B. Cole cover. While not as cool as the sci-fi cover to 11, I've always liked the cover to this issue of Capt. Flight. If I recall the Gerber Photo-Journal copy has more of an orange background, but I find the red more striking. I've noticed alot of the old Four Star publications with L.B. Cole covers seem to come in varying degrees of color intensity - notably Catman 32 and Capt. Aero 26, which seem to come in pale blue and electric blue variations.

Gor-blimey! It's a a book of MLJ reprints that have nothing to do with the cover!