mwotka

So I had ordered a catalogue but they forgot to include it and then sent it out separately and it just arrived this weekend.  It is impressive!  But the coolest thing, and there were several surprises, was the reveal that they had the Detective 1-26 issues professionally photographed through while they were raw, and then they are supposedly working with DC on a 3rd party publisher to put a book together for the run.  And then secondarily, they included the Slam Bradley stories from Detectives 1 and 2 (with DC's permission).  Very cool stuff you never see.  Here's to hoping they get that volume published sometime soon.  Lastly, there was some nice work from Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, which basically summarized her DC Before Superman book, but was still a great addition to provide history of what was being sold, along with a nice introduction for Slam Bradley.  

Wrong thread, sorry

I'm surprised School Day Romances 2 doesn't get more love.  It has perhaps the best innuendo commentary of any cover he did.  The football scene is distracting a bit, but the thought bubble commentary from the girls gets me every time.

On 4/9/2024 at 8:43 PM, RareHighGrade said:

Issue #25 is a beast that is rarely seen and almost never comes up for sale.  This Lost Valley 5.0 represents the highest graded copy on the census.  No one has seen a Church copy.

 

Incredible book. I have to wonder if it might grade higher today?  Obviously things could be worse on the back.  But given the tighter standards of old, I wouldn't be surprised if that came back 6.0 or better.  I don't have an image handy, but I recall a Promise book got an 8.0 with a 1/2 inch corner missing.  This seems about the same.  And if that is deemed a production flaw, it should be given some leeway as well.  Just a thought...

And the 26....  What a gem!

What an incredible achievement!  Congrats on the run.  Curious why you chose not to include the New Comics or Adventures before 40?  I've always felt they were kind of contiguous, despite the title changes, as the first half of New Adventure seems quite stylistically similar to New and the latter half leads right into the Adventures.  Perhaps the high grade requirement knocks out the New run...  Been chasing these for years in very low grade myself, but I know that a few of these are basically unobtanium.  Still, fun to search for these rarities.  

On 3/30/2024 at 4:10 PM, sfcityduck said:

All your points have some validity except I disagree with the conclusion that the venue hurt things. I don't think Heritage would be nearly as focused on promoting low grade books as PBA has been.  The catalog for these auctions is a true delight, full of great information. The "talk up" occurred in incredible detail before the auction even started. If you aren't buying the catalogs and/or reading the descriptions on Liveauctioneers well before the auction then you are ignoring key information! I check out my target books before the auction so I don't really care about the size of the picture during the auction.  While I do agree I like having the premium amount on screen, I can ballpark it quickly. And while I also agree that the auctioneer had no idea what he was auctioning, he performed his essential function really competently and, I thought, gave more time for later bidders than other live auctioneers I've seen in the comic area. I thought the auction went smoothly, was not too rushed, and did not drag. 

 

Fair points, and I did like the auctioneer's pace, certainly better than the auto-timer on HA that has some items ending in like 3 seconds.  I have requested a catalogue, always curious to see more info on these rare books.  As for pricing, some outliers have certainly been highlighted.  But with the unique opportunity of watching two runs of pre-Batman Detectives sell in consecutive weeks (really, how did that even line up?!?!), it seems to me like the CC run did better overall (although their run missing some big ones like 1 and 18).  And when MFs that I look for come up on HA, it seems like the prices greatly outpace what was achieved on PBA, but again these are so rare and I know a couple buyers can push certain books up quite a bit auction to auction.  

I think the venue hurt some things, especially the ashcans and some rarities.  Savvy collectors were aware of it but had to be no where near the interest and bidders as an HA auction.  I found the auction experience off-putting, as they didn't allow zoom on the book for sale and didn't have the grade details so I was constantly toggling tabs between the catalogue and auction screen to stay up on what was being offered.  And then they didn't show the premium so was constantly trying to calculate actual sale price with the 25% premium, instead of just showing both totals like on HA.  I thought the auctioneer was kinda blah, he really could've talked up some of those items and the rarity, etc a bit more.  What's the point of a live auctioneer if he isn't going to generate more interest than automated?  And then to have the big ashcans and that Siegel/Schuster sci-fi proto-pulp at the end, those should've near the beginning.  Still, it was an enjoyable experience and fun to watch a once in a lifetime collection sell.  

On 3/27/2024 at 7:48 PM, whomerjay said:

any idea what the (R) CGC grade might be for most of the books? At the prices you note, I'm guessing 9.0ish(?)

Well with them being bound, they have all been glued together, likely punched and bound, and trimmed.  Couldn't grade them together.  So to pull them apart, you are looking at purple label 2.0 range, depending on the spine damage when disassembled. If this sort of thing doesn't bother you, you can actually get pretty nice color and PQ books, as they were typically kept inside on shelves and were protected from light.  A number of dealers buy these to separate and sell individually.  If it was me, I'd just keep them bound.  

Anyone have any luck with any of Jon Berk's bound Planet volumes?  They had every issue up to 60 across 5 volumes.  I tried for a few but they didn't go cheap.  Vol. 1, issues 1-12, did $16,000.  Vol. 2, issues 13-24, did $13,800.  Vol. 3, issues 25-36, did $3800.  Vol. 4, issues 37-48, did $2,300.  Vol. 5, issues 49-60, did $3,500.  They looked pretty heavily trimmed so I think that held down the later volumes.  Still, pretty cool items.

On 3/1/2024 at 1:59 PM, Pantodude said:

Hmm.  But...the block script on the ped covers is "ELdon", while on that coupon, its "ELDON," which is different with respect to the "d", "o" and the "n".   Is it true that the Eldon ped does not involve covers with a "ELDON" type of block script?  If so, the block ELDON on your coupon does not prove that Eldon M. Tuffentsamer aka "Tuffy" also signed the block-script books out there, which are of the "ELdon" variety.  To the contrary, those who predate the computer era will tell you that back in the day, one's writing generally did not change in such significant respects from month to month or even year to year.    

I think you should look at things again.  Other than a capital D, they look the same.   E and L are identical to many block signatures.  Hard to tell a large vs small "o" but looks small to me and he uses a variety of sizes, and that is a backwards "N", which occurs on some block Eldon signatures.  And then the rest of the coupon has a mix of capital, lowercase, and cursive letters, underscoring he changed up writing styles.  The last name even has two uppercase letters and then the rest lowercase.  Multiple block letter Eldon books are in similar conditions and sequential order as cursive ones (see USA Comics and Superman).   As for the last comment on handwriting, how would you have any idea this is true.  Kids do lots of unusual things, and some learned cursive much later than others, some never develop great writing skills (like some people with dyslexia, as one example), and younger kids/teens mess around with different writing styles all the time.  He used the block script as a young teen, along with the cursive.  And he even signed with larger cursive, as on the Whiz just posted.   Seems pretty clear to me they are all from the same collection.

A bigger issue is why CGC has not corrected their info on the pedigree.  It is pretty obvious it is not Eldon Hamman on anything labeled an Eldon pedigree.  

I'm happy to share a major acquisition and development on the Eldon front.  I was fortunate to come across a nice grouping of Eldon books from the estate of a long time collector.  He loved Air Boy and had about a full run.  I quickly noticed he had at some point purchased a nice run of Eldon books for a good chunk of the Air Fighters run.  The books are all quite nice.  But the most exciting thing is one particular book, Vol2#6, has writing on the front and back.  The front has the usual cursive Eldon script.  But the back is very interesting.  He filled in the coupon in the block script!  This is the definitive proof that the cursive and block signatures are the same.  This has generally been agreed on for a while now by a number of you, but I don't believe there has been a book featuring both types of script.  It also shows his home address in Morton, IL outside Peoria, but it appears the home is no longer standing.  So to start with, here is the Vol2#6.  

On 2/10/2024 at 1:50 PM, adamstrange said:

TL DR;  The cover is credited to Alex in the biography Chroma, which was written by Jon Gustafson with the participation of Alex.

This was better than your first answer, lol.  I never said it wasn't him, just wondered how it was established, and didn't see any prior comments on the subject on here.  It is obvious looking at the strip art that Gray was not the cover artist.  I didn't think to pull out my copy of Chroma but there it is.  Why not attribute the other Brick covers to Alex, it looks pretty obvious they are the same artist (at least 5 and 7).  I guess there is a little less certainty than the 6 due to it being in Chroma.   

Question for all you Schomburg experts.  I have been looking at Brick Bradford 6, and I am wondering if it is really a Schomburg cover?  It does not appear signed, GCD does not attribute it to him (they attribute regular artist Clarence Gray), and the earliest CGC slabs don't list his name.  What evidence is there he did it, besides having a Schomburg-esque look to the art, which a lot of late 40s books had by that time.  And if he did, why not the other issues, which all have a similar look and style?  I own one and it is a great cover, but still think we should accurately represent what is out there.  Seems more like a wish it is Schomburg than reality.  Welcome anyone's thoughts.  Image attached is not my copy, did not have a pic handy.

Did anyone watch/bid on the MCS Oxford Collection of GA #1s auction?  They had some incredible books including Star 1 raw vg+ for $6K, Star Ranger 1 in 4.0 for $1800, AMF 1 in 7.0 for $9K, Detective Eye 1 in 8.0 at almost $5K, Little Giant Movie Funnies 1 in 8.0 for $3300, Uncle Joe's Funnies in 3.0 for $975, and a Comics Magazine 1 in 6.5 that did around $23K(!).  The graded books were all CBCS but seemed like that didn't hurt things too much given the scarcity (although a few seemed over-graded).  Frankly it was the most impressive offering of extremely rare books in one auction that I've seen in a long time.  Sadly got shut out on my bid attempts...

Tough comparison and I certainly get the appeal of the Denver #1s.  Glad to read the true history behind the find.  But for my money, the camp copy Okajima's with the writing are where it is at.  The combination of strong intersection of tragic history and a true triumph of collecting.  Imagine your family is at home in California and one day the authorities show up and demand that you immediately pack a suitcase each and leave everything else behind.  Then get moved to a camp that is basically being housed in old stables with curtains between them for several years.  And these kids still went to the general store at the camp and bought a lot of comics, some of which were anti-Japanese propaganda, and read them faithfully (just serving to underscore they were true Americans).  And then this whole time they kept those comics in nice condition, and then carefully took them with them when the camp was vacated and carefully packed and stored them until they were found decades later.   And then you have the main collecting family member being a female collector, and sharing with her siblings, so a true female and family pedigree, which is rare.  I just think this is the most fascinating story imaginable for a pedigree, and I hope one day to own a camp copy.  I've got a post camp copy of Indians and it was graded 7.5 ow/w.  

On 2/2/2024 at 4:23 AM, Professor K said:

 

Yes of course I'm sure. Basically I mean in 15 years a 1 million dollar book has become a let's say 4 million dollar book, and that's being conservative I think. What I meant was would it be realistic to think that 4 million dollar book in 2024 will be a 16 milllon dollar book in 2040. I think, and I could be wrong, but the days of these mega books multiplying in value like that are probably gone. At some point the summit will be reached. 

You might think that.  But check out vintage Ferrari results.  The model made famous in Ferris Bueller just keeps climbing, one sold last year for $18 million, after another did $11 million in 2008.  They could be had in the early 70s for a few grand.  Less than 50 exist.  Pretty good corollary to Action 1, except you can't drive it.  

Not mine but don't forget these.