IngelsFan

5 graded copies for this tough pre-hero DC

This one barely squeaks in at 10 copies graded.

New Comics 2 & 3, nine total graded copies each.

Awesome idea for a thread! Here’s Speed 26, 8 copies graded.

Only 8 copies in the census. Fawcett was one of the few publishers that had superheroes fighting in the Korean War.

Man that’s a great book. Congrats!

Super amped to pick up this beauty!

Man, that’s awesome!

Take please

Very well-reasoned assertion. If we go with that theory, then what about the outliers? The low graded copies are a mystery. Looking at just the issues that have been graded, we have one 9.4, two 9.2, and one 3.0 for blue labels. The qualified 9.0 is a mystery (maybe a frankenstein cobbled together-that might possibly explain the restored 0.5). Then there are the 5.5 and 0.5 restoreds. I can understand why people WANT it to have been distributed on a newsstand and the existence of lower graded copies would certainly seem to support that assertion (i.e. the ones from the Sol Harrison estate would have been in a file the whole time and should all be roughly the same condition). Now let’s muddy the waters a little more: where did Ian’s copy originate? It isn’t on the census (unless it was slabbed after the only picture of the collection I’ve seen circulating was taken), and it doesn’t appear to be in high grade condition. So, either there were X number of these printed up, never circulated, then at some point given out as souvenirs to visitors at DC’s offices, or they were distributed on at least one newsstand. Maybe one close to MLJ’s offices, so that they would be sure to see them? The offices were 2 1/2 miles apart so that wouldn’t be too difficult….. We will likely never know for certain but it is fun to theorize. As extra fuel for pontification, how many copies would have been in that print run?

Yes and while there were more pre-hero DC’s than I had ever seen in one place at the time, I’m not sure you’d call it extensive. I was working for Phil Levine at the Atlanta Fantasy Fair the year he bought the collection. I ended up with More Fun 9, 11, 13 and 23, and New Comics 2 and 3. He had New Fun 2-6, and a few other More Funs. Oddly enough there were no New Adventures or early Adventure in the collection.

New Comics 2 is one of my favorite early DC covers. First DC Christmas cover, First Federal Men, and pretty tough to find. It’s one that catches my eye anytime it’s up for sale. I know of only 2 copies that aren’t slabbed. One was from Bridwell’s collection, I bought it in 1987 and sold it in 1991. It had about 75% of the cover and was fairly brittle. The other one sold last October on eBay and had a completely split spine.

I would LOVE to know the story of DA2. Even the title seems like an odd choice since it would be more likely to be confused with Action Comics which by then had already been around for 2 years. Supposedly the restored 5.5 was originally bought on a newsstand in NYC. The Comic Connect listing for the DAC 1 ashcan and DAC 2 says that it made it to a few magazine racks in NYC. I would love to know the source of this information. Was this a test run for the title? By this point DC was all in on superheroes, yet this one contained no superhero stories (unless you count Dr Occult), and the book was all reprints. So many questions….

The #1 was an ashcan, and the #2 was a 9.2 on December 15, 2016. That was an unbelievable opportunity.

Great cover! The look of sheer terror on their faces is done really well.

For a post-code cover, this one really packs a punch.

Since there are a handful of us going after the Double Action 2, anyone want to get the jump on a prediction of what the final hammer will be?

This is a tough book in grade- I’ve been looking for a nice one since 1997 and all I’ve found are mid-grade copies.