lighthouse

On 3/28/2022 at 3:53 AM, drdonaldblake1 said:

@lighthouse where did you come up with the name Omega Frog for your store?

It's unique and interesting

Many many many hours of research looking for a name where we would “own” the Google results. Needed both domains to be available (both with and without comics on the end). Needed zero divergent results from existing companies. Google something like “comic cavern” and you get stores in five different states plus mistakes like a roadside attraction. You have to work hard to swim uphill in that scenario.

And needed to be something with comic ties. The word “omega” gets used in a ton of comic stuff from omega level mutants to Darkseid’s omega beams to a slew of comic stories using it in the title. A good “comicky” name.

And I like frogs.

On 3/25/2022 at 5:22 PM, Sal said:

Looking forward to seeing the DCs hit the market, or the boards, or really just the internet in general.  HG OO SA DC is not only a terrible acronym but also my kryptonite

Higoosadic?

Hmmm. Have to work on that one.

It’s going to be a LONG process. But it will come. (And no that 105 is definitely not Higoosadic. It’s most assuredly Ligoosadic.)

We are pleased to be able to bring the Truckee Meadows Collection to the public. Including hundreds of high grade original owner Silver Age comics, as well as hundreds of Golden Age comics acquired by that owner during the early 1960s, the collection sat untouched from 1965 until this winter. Some of the issues have already been certified by CGC as among the best examples yet found. 

We will be offering many of the books directly, but when it came to the best of the best, there was no better partner than Heritage Auctions. The experience working with Heritage to bring these books to market has exceeded all our expectations. Five books from the Truckee Meadows Collection debut in the Signature Auction closing April 7th, headlined by the CGC 9.2 Fantastic Four #1, with many more to follow in the coming months.

On 3/18/2022 at 7:51 PM, drdonaldblake1 said:

Wow, what a great story. Thanks for sharing that lighthouse.

I'll bet his family are glad he had a try with FF in 1961🙂!

Does his family have any idea why he stopped collecting in 1965??

Is there a master list of books and are you going to list them all here at once or take want lists?

The family has no idea because he never talked about them. How often does someone bring up a hobby they quit five decades earlier? I’m left playing world’s mediocre-est detective and piecing together the evidence in front of me. 

There is no master list yet. I handled all the books exactly once to get them separated by title. They’re stacked flat, in newer boxes, separated by magazine size fullbacks about every twenty books, so I can unstack them without handling the books. Now I only handle them as I triage each title, mylaring as I go. There are already more books in both Heritage’s CGC pipeline and mine. But for obvious reasons I’m leaving it to Heritage to do what they do best and I won’t discuss those books until Heritage publishes the items.

Many, many, many of the books in the collection are not particularly valuable. His low grade childhood copy of Brave and the Bold 10 is a $50 book at best, as are plenty of the other DCs from that time period. But I will never complain about Silver Age box filler.

On 3/18/2022 at 6:48 PM, Readcomix said:

@lighthouse what’s the name truckee meadows derived from? Is that a place? Collector’s name?
 

Any chance some of the ones you sell directly will be via a thread here?

And congrats on having your mind blown by that walk-in…what an experience!

Truckee Meadows is the name of the valley containing the Truckee River. The river begins as outflow from Lake Tahoe, meanders through northern Nevada, and ends at Pyramid Lake (an endorheic basin with no outflow).

At some point I may offer books here in the marketplace but that’s a ways down the line. I’m less than a quarter done with the initial triage of the collection (it takes much longer when not a single book has ever been bagged or boarded and so many of the books are potential 9.2-9.6 candidates… there is no fast way to flip through high grade raw books lol). Once I have a more complete picture of Heritage vs local slabbed vs local raw, I’ll start on that process. But this collection is around a 600-hour part-time job* and I was already working 70-80 hours a week year round. So it will take time.

* and yes, it’s the coolest part-time job I can imagine having 

On 3/18/2022 at 4:10 PM, drdonaldblake1 said:

Lighthouse!

You are the discoveree of the Truckee collection?  Please tell us more about the OO, BACK Story , etc? 

How did the pages stay so white in a desert climate??

Best I can piece the story together it goes like this.

Collector starts collecting in the mid-1950s at a young age. Doesn’t take great care of his books the first few years but as he matures he takes better and better care of his things. By 1960 or so, any of the books he chooses to read, he reads very carefully. (There are absolutely books in the collection that were never read at all.)

Around 1961 he starts buying duplicates of books he likes. As many as 8 copies of some, but most are 2 or 3. Also around this time he starts buying Golden Age where he can find it and by this point he has an eye for quality and keeps them in nice shape. This is evident because any book from 1940-1953 is in significantly better shape than the books from 1956-1958.

As a “longtime” DC collector (Marvel wasn’t much of an option when he started), his collection is heavily focused on DC, both in what he buys off the rack and what he buys second hand. There is a small amount of Golden Age non-DC but it’s a small amount.

In the summer of 1965 he stops collecting entirely. The comics go in a closet and stay there. None are ever bagged and boarded (not much of an option in 1965). Does he leave for Vietnam that summer? I don’t know. But the last books in the collection are September 1965 cover dates (FF42 and ASM28 for example).

Collection remains essentially untouched until this winter. The OO having passed on, a family member brought me samples of the books to look at, and here we are.

And I say this was pieced together because it’s apparent the OO never interacted with his comics again after 1965. He didn’t talk about them with family, didn’t add to the collection, didn’t sell any. They weren’t part of his life after 1965. I’m confident he passed away having no idea whatsoever that he had an expensive collection of comics.

End result is the collection includes a few hundred high grade original owner Silver, a few hundred low to mid grade original owner Silver, and a few hundred mid-to-high grade Golden that were accumulated between 1961-1965.

Ultimately we expect Heritage will handle around 300-400 books from the collection. And we will sell the rest directly.

As for the white pages, the conditions here are not substantially different from Denver. Altitude, low humidity, few truly hot days. The Truckee Meadows books were stored in flat stacks in boxes, in a very dry, usually cool environment with limited air exchange. It’s a pretty good recipe for paper preservation.

On 3/18/2022 at 5:05 AM, namisgr said:

Didn't you post elsewhere that you have an ownership stake in this collection, or was it some other board member?  If so, what can you tell us about its depth and breadth, and about how it came to be and how the books were stored to have retained such pristine condition?

 

There’s more to come on the storytelling front. But here’s the short form press release.

“We are pleased to be able to bring the Truckee Meadows Collection to the public. Including hundreds of high grade original owner Silver Age comics, as well as hundreds of Golden Age comics acquired by that owner during the early 1960s, the collection sat untouched from 1965 until this winter. Some of the issues have already been certified by CGC as among the best examples yet found. 

We will be offering many of the books directly, but when it came to the best of the best, there was no better partner than Heritage Auctions. The experience working with Heritage to bring these books to market has exceeded all our expectations. Five books from the Truckee Meadows Collection will debut in the Signature Auction April 7th-8th, headlined by the CGC 9.2 Fantastic Four #1, with many more to follow in the coming months.”