Stronguy

Last month I got a call from a family friend saying a guy in his neighborhood had some "old" comics he bought as a kid and was wondering if I could look them over. As it turned out, the guy was in his 70s and had a small stack of books he bought off the stands in the early 60s. He worked at a golf course selling sodas as a kid and would buy comics with his money. Although none of them were in high grade, he did have an FF1 and a low grade Avengers 1, which accounted for 98% of the value of the collection. We agreed on a price and the books came back last night.

Content-wise, the cover is the best part. It is 7 covers and 8 wraps - definitely on thick book.

She's wrong. It's, "... to whom to turn". If you're going grammar nazi, go full grammar nazi.

By that logic, I will call this one a 14 cover.

Just filled up the last box... ... time for another box.

Military bases, yes. On all of them, no. In fact we are finding that it's on less than half, maybe even less than 25%.

@Get Marwood & I This is the list of ASMs from the OO collection I bought back in 2000. The list seems to match up with what you have. These are my original notes about the inserts before I knew a lot about them so just use it for reference of changes, should you want to. Ones without notation (2nd column) did not have inserts. 103 12/71 104 1/72 105 2/72 106 bl4 3/72 107 bl4 4/72 108 bl 5/72 109 bl 6/72 111 bl2 8/72 112 9/72 113 10/72 114 bk 11/72 115 bk 12/72 116 bl2 1/73 117 bl2 2/73 118 bl2 3/73 119 bl2 4/73 120 5/73 121 6/73 122 7/73 123 bk2 8/73 125 bk2 10/73 126 bk2 11/73 127 bk2 12/73 130 bl6 3/74 133 bl6 6/74 134 bl6 7/74 135 8/74 136 9/74 137 10/74 138 11/74 139 12/74 140 1/75 142 3/75 144 5/75 145 bl3 6/75 146 bl3 7/75 147 bl3 8/75 148 bl3 9/75 150 bl3 11/75 151 bl3 12/75 152 g 1/76 153 g 2/76 154 g 3/76 155 4/76 156 g 5/76 157 g 6/76 158 g 7/76 159 g 8/76 160 g 9/76 161 g 10/76 162 g 11/76 163 g 12/76 164 g 1/77 165 g 2/77 166 g 3/77 167 g 4/77 168 g 5/77 169 g 6/77 170 r 7/77 171 r 8/77 172 r 9/77 173 r 10/77 174 r 11/77 175 r 12/77 176 r 1/78 177 r 2/78 178 r 3/78 179 r 4/78 180 gr 5/78 181 gr 6/78 182 gr 7/78 183 gr 8/78 184 gr 9/78 185 gr 10/78 186 gr 11/78 187 gr 12/78 189 2/79 190 3/79

FWIW, I was going back through the notes of that big OO collection I bought in 2000. I have 163 noted as having the same insert as 162 and 164.

In the nearly 25 years of MJI research I've done, I've never heard of any official, off-base point of sale. There possibly could have been someone who worked a deal with someone in the PX/BX systems but that would have been shady and likely criminal.

Yup. What I do is force the price (the reload symbol) and put in last price or the most reasonable current price I know of. Unfortunately that price is stuck there and you have to update the book manually for then on out. However, if traffic on the book does pick up you can always delete the book and re-add it. That will kick in tracking the 90 day average again.

Let's take the "1,000,000 random comics" scenario and break it down... but make it 100,000 to fit individual print runs and focus on the 1970s thru mid-1980s. Given 100k random Marvel/DC/Gold Key books from the '70s and mid-'80s, you are much more likely to hit a MJI than Whitman for 1 simple reason -- MJIs were 80% of all issues from Marvels/DCs/GKs had MJIs put in them, while only a handful of issues had Whitman versions made. IOW, of the ~180 individual issues of Batman printed over a 15 year period, 150 of them likely got MJIs (at a rate of 2%-5% by rough estimates). However, on about 25 of those 180 issues got Whitman versions. Granted, the Whitman print runs were likely more than 2%-5% (I have no idea exactly) but total Batmans with MJIs should exceed Whitmans. 2¢

Good question. They were definitely distributed overseas. Other sources say they were also distributed within US borders but I don't know where that info comes from. Maybe if someone remembers buying them while stationed in the US hopefully they can chime in. Either way I don't think whitmans were ever distributed overseas. Yes, Mark Jewelers were at some bases in the US, at least in the '70s they were. I bought an OO collection with over 800 MJIs and the guy got them at Ft. Bragg. Other folks recall buying them in the NY area. There are extensive threads in the Bronze Age and Copper Age section about MJIs and Whitmans.

I got a call from an old friend about coming to look at a small OO collection -- some decent stuff. Before we wrapped up my friend said he had a few comics from when he was a kid and asked if I could look at them. Out come the old Tupperware containers. Imagine my surprise when I opened the lid on the first one and there was a beat up copy of Blood Is The Harvest. It had a nasty spine roll and all of the pages were dogeared. After a little TLC I got it squared away and it's now on its way to Sarasota.

There are some "experts" out there who use Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to clean white area. Using this and telling others to use it is criminal. It literally rips the gloss off the book.

No, not a couple of brothers. IMO this would not qualify for a pedigree because it lacks the depth of key books and long runs that most of them have.

The books in this collection are amazing and the back story, which I cannot go into right now, is just as good.

I just connected the seller and buyer so I'm not 100% sure. The final price was in the $10,500 - $11,500 range but it involved cash and trade. I think it was $9,500 cash plus a couple of 2nd print.

Well he does (did?) it for a living so... ;-) ... printing, that is. He could also make up a bunch of stuff but I doubt it pays very well.

I'm not following what you're saying. It looks like a stamp to me but wouldn't it be a massive pain to unroll several hundred feet of paper to stamp this on it, re-roll it, then print the cover? How else can you explain the logo and other artwork covering it?

That's really interesting. I'm betting it's still a stamp but it looks like it was applied to the paper before it was run through the press (which seem like a pain in the butt). It's possible that they made a special, black plate by stamping a page and shooting it then put it in the first spot on the press ahead of the regular cover. That also seems like a pain in the butt, however, it would allow them to lay it down consistently in the same place.

It used to be. Wood did this as an experiment. It was supposed to be distributed only to the military but the deal fell thru and it was never distributed. Someone stole a couple hundred copies and it was very much in demand. Then the tens of thousands of copies turned up. I bought a case (200 copies) of these many years ago (here on the boards I believe). Most of them are sitting in a box somewhere.

Dang, that looks bad! It might have something to do with books of that era being printed on super cheap paper in combination with pressure from well. Whatever it is, it's no bueno. FWIW, back when SCS was a major problem, it was determined the best way to store slabs is spine down. That eliminates well pressure on the open edges of the book but still lets you move them without having to constantly stack and unstack.

A friend of mine was out dollar box surfing and surprised me with these. Action #485 DC Comics Presents #1 Legion of Super-Heroes #258 New Adventures of Superboy #2 Superman #325