Get Marwood & I

A new one, hooray! As expected, a Spooky #130 has finally graced our presence as a fifteen cee vee. Whoopee! Here he be, that fifteen cee vee, with his 25c cousin, see? They live with me. That's a reely good cover, isn't it It completes the Spooky set of three and takes us up to 34 confirmed 15cvs: The 15cv and 25c both have a regular indicia by the way so May continues to have a split of regular and variant indicias. More on that another time. Into the Spooky box he goes.... When the Spooky box will return, nobody knows....

It worked on both levels, didn't it. @valiantman, sorry to summon you like a data slave, but can you check the CGC census to see how many UK Price Variants are recorded for: Archie Charlton Dell Gold Key King Is that possible? Sorry if I've asked you before - I do recall something about Hulk showing up on any UK search, or something like that, but is that something you can do for us? Charlton and Dell will likely have a handful but I'm going for 'sod all' for the other three

If there was one it would sit under the relevant King cents entry. Non-Marvel UKPV submissions to CGC are rare Yoz. You could probably fit every potential submitter on Earth into a phone box. That already had an elephant in it.

The Kid...? Idol? Jo Spears.

And Charlton's Hollywood Romances too - I don't have that but I bet you do

Did you have a glass of Smurfing Beer to celebrate, Daphne?

FLASH! AH-AAH! He's got a funny squiggly thing above his A! Just for you, Yozza, ten dee number ten. You forget these books are coming up to 60 years old now. Very hard to find high grade copies, it is.

This likely wouldn't be a 'grail' to anyone but me but I found this comic sitting in a box in Mega City Comics whilst in London one day with the wife. She was meeting a friend near Camden, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to drop her off and to spend the day browsing. MCC never have any Charltons, incidentally. Never. At least not when I go there, which is once in a blue moon. But there it was. The only one in the title that I needed and a book that I was close to mentally recording as not existing. I'm a 55 year old man and I never - never lose that buzz of excitement when finding a book that I'm after, especially if there is a story to it (which there is with this particular issue, in addition to it being the last one I was after). It's not always about high grade, keys and value, nice though those things are. Sometimes it's about crappy little comics like Atomic Mouse with 6d UK prices on them

The other year, at the London Fair, a dealer that I'm friendly with had an Alan Class book up for about £70. It reprints AF15 and was selling online for ten times that having escalated over night, as these things now seem to do. Rather than buy it, I told him the score and he gratefully put it to one side to reassess but not before having first offered to sell it at the price he'd put on it. I could have bought it, and took the money with or without bringing the increase to his attention. I like him though. He's decent and has done me many favours over the years. I'm not going to rob him of his profit. I don't need the money and it's his living. I could name another dealer however who I would have bought it from had he priced it the same. He's a mercenary type, who wants to squeeze every penny out of every sale. In an online dealing of several thousand, he got the hump when I suggested free postage. So I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle on the stick. I do routinely treat others as I'd want to be treated, but feel less inclined to do so if they're towering arseholes. Part of the fun of the hobby, as others have pointed out, is finding the rare or cherished book. Even better, if it's a steal. For me, if you apply some nuance, and only take the money and run if you feel it is justified, then you can feel a sense of fairness. Does anyone remember that episode of American Pickers where they gave the guy trying to set up the circus a few bucks for his posters and then, having found out they were worth much more, returned with some extra cash? That feeling is worth more than money. There is clearly an onus on those who make their living from selling collectibles to keep abreast of developments and price things right. But it's hard to keep track of all these moderns and such which take off for one reason or another. Things can fall through the gaps. I don't want to 'rip off' people who I like or judge to be decent by taking advantage of an unidentified pricing discrepancy. I'll happily do it to those in the hobby who lord it over people though, and to those who display the kind or arrogance and lack of empathy the absence of which might otherwise drive them a little further up the stick. All that said, I completely understand why some would call me a mug for not taking advantage of my long, hard fought for comic knowledge.

No he f***ing aint! *Also known as a shilling

Careful yourself, or I'll summon sweary Ming again

Basically Charlton, then.

I'm quite partial to a Charlton snogging cover, truth be told...

Indeed. They've got us over a barrel, Ken

Hmmm. Collecting "Flying over Niagra Falls in a barrel in advance of preparing a turkey dinner" books could be an interesting subset.... What do you think of it so far @Djedi?

The search for an unblemished copy continues.....

@Yorick

Stop wondering Yoz, there wasn't. And why should you believe me?

You’ve thought it through. Why not do what makes you happy?

If I was on my desktop, I'd do a Ming picture thing. But I'm not, so the EsotEric OtherEric thing will have to do

A single like from OtherEric, lover of the EsotEric