Badger

You may have a lot of company in your feelings about Classics Illustrated books. They are kind of like the chaff in the field of comic books. I can recall one thread on the subject in the last 3 or 4 years on these boards. I know I have perhaps 25 issues, with all but 2 being given to me by friends. I'm going to have to try and obtain a few more Four Color books, as it's been about a year since I added one to my collection. That is interesting...I owned Classics Illustrated #1 when I was trying to buy the 100 most important comics as defined by Jerry Weist in book of that title. I never quite made all 100, but I did buy that one. It never broke my heart to sell it, which I probably sold at a loss. I was a Moby Dic-k fan and still have a nice copy of the first edition of that book. But I have never had the slightest interest in even thinking about that collection. Unlike Four Color it's really a collection of reprints. If you buy just the first edition there are only 169. But then you multiply it by 5-20 reprints...Yikes- The reprints and how to identify them definitely intimidated the younger me. The fact that Overstreet had to go into so much explanation on how to identify which reprint you might be looking at boggled my mind. Combine that with the fact that there just are not that many people who wish to own the illustrated Readers Digest version of Ivanhoe, for example, and its easy to see why the market is small.

An amazing accomplishment to be sure!

Highest graded. Only 9 graded in any grade. The next closest are (2) 8.5s.

Just back from CGC. Only 9 graded in the census with the next highest being (2) 8.5s.

Those are both great books. I love that first page to the Archie #2!

Agreed. Here is my copy which is the best one I've ever seen in person. Wow, very nice!

Really cool provenance on this. Great book and congratulations!

I find Four Colors fascinating because there are just so darn many of them! I used to flip through the old Overstreets in awe of the pages of listings and dream of owning them all. I had no idea what some of the titles were or who Tilly the Toiler was but I still wanted to own a run that large. Interestingly, I never had that feeling of love for the Classic Illustrated books even though they took up as much Overstreet real estate.

I used the fainting smiley for the Cap #16 and I don't see a "fall dead from envy" smiley... ...I guess I'll just have to :applause::applause::applause:

That is a nice looking 5.0!

Nice books! Love the 16!

Interesting. Its not in Comicbase (not to surprising) but it also does not appear to be in the Grand Comic Database. How many pages is it and is it mainly pictures or text?

Interesting. What year is that from?

Jughead is such a good friend.

Thank you for updating this. Really fascinating stuff!

Great cover! I just picked up a 3.5 copy that a dealer had priced at $67 at a convention, no brainer there! Wow. My luck at conventions is usually to find a book I've been looking for but at double what I want to pay. I usually buy it anyway!

Nice book! My in-laws always buy me Archie stuff... it's sweet of them, but it's always like a sheet of Archie stamps, or the latest "Best Of" printed by Archie Comics or Craig Yoe. Totally appreciated of course, but I'd rather have gift cards to eBay or Metro, or Ha if they did them. My parents on the other hand still inquire from time to time if there's a certain book they can buy me for a birthday or holiday. Suppose even at 40 I'm still their little kid. I know what you mean. My family knows my wife and I love Disney so they are always giving us inexpensive Disney themed items like ornaments and the like. Mickey is not my favorite Disney character but in their mind he IS Disney. Still, I appreciate their trying! My mom would buy me a comic but she is terrified of being ripped off. Its easier to give me a check at birthday and Christmas and then asking what I bought. It's definitely a blessing guys! Here i am , 40+ , and i go to my folks for Christmas to find a wrapped box. I open it, and there was the recently released 'Batman' 60's TV show blu ray boxed set. I can remember the days as a kid when they'd tell me "those things are going to have you grounded in a fantasy world, you read them so much and have so many" . Wow how things have turned around. My step-father would just about cuss whenever he saw me with an "expensive" comic. "Its not art" or "Its not an investment", he'd say. One day, determined to teach me a lesson about art, he took me to a local museum. We walk in the door and we are greeted by a huge Superman banner proclaiming Supeman week at the museum. Not only did they have origional artwork they also had some Superman comics with placards describing their value over the last 20 years. Poor guy. He walked around the museum for the next two hours with a bemused smile and muttering to himself. He never did criticize comics in quite same way ever again. I miss that guy. Reminds me of my grandfather (mom's side) who lived with us when I was a teen. He had worked incredibly hard his entire life and, while he made his money and the money that pretty much raised us all in the market, he believed in real tangibles like real estate, and brick and mortar shops with products people needed to buy. He'd always ask what I spent on x or y, and the response was always the same... he'd either wave his hand and say "aww, you kids are nuts" or tell me that my problem was that I didn't understand the value of a dollar. He was right of course, I didn't. I lived like I was independently wealthy, but I didn't really understand that till after he was gone. Nevertheless, I was determined to make sure he knew that I wasn't wasting my money, and I finally got my chance. I had become friendly with Scott Fulop, Paul Castiglia and Dan Parent (he'd actually just started there), after a few trips to Mamaroneck, and one day I got a phone call from Vic Gorelick telling me that Scott had given him my name. They were putting together the Americana Series, Best of the 40s, and they were looking for certain issues to use for the reproduction. Not sure if you guys know this, but there was something that happened back in the day in an Archie warehouse that destroyed a lot of their library of early issues... fire, water, not sure. Anyway, they needed an Archie 1 and an Archie 7, and while I wasn't ready to part with the former, I had two copies of the latter. I wound up selling the 7 to them for like $300. I'd paid maybe $50 for it. Far from a windfall, but 6x what I spent, and more than enough to make my case. Pretty sure after I told my grandfather and walked away I could hear him mumble, "they must be nuts!" but he didn't give me as much grief after that. Miss you pop-pop! Also got this in the mail out of it ... That is a great story and what a bunch of nice people to send you a signed copy.

Nice book! My in-laws always buy me Archie stuff... it's sweet of them, but it's always like a sheet of Archie stamps, or the latest "Best Of" printed by Archie Comics or Craig Yoe. Totally appreciated of course, but I'd rather have gift cards to eBay or Metro, or Ha if they did them. My parents on the other hand still inquire from time to time if there's a certain book they can buy me for a birthday or holiday. Suppose even at 40 I'm still their little kid. I know what you mean. My family knows my wife and I love Disney so they are always giving us inexpensive Disney themed items like ornaments and the like. Mickey is not my favorite Disney character but in their mind he IS Disney. Still, I appreciate their trying! My mom would buy me a comic but she is terrified of being ripped off. Its easier to give me a check at birthday and Christmas and then asking what I bought. It's definitely a blessing guys! Here i am , 40+ , and i go to my folks for Christmas to find a wrapped box. I open it, and there was the recently released 'Batman' 60's TV show blu ray boxed set. I can remember the days as a kid when they'd tell me "those things are going to have you grounded in a fantasy world, you read them so much and have so many" . Wow how things have turned around. My step-father would just about cuss whenever he saw me with an "expensive" comic. "Its not art" or "Its not an investment", he'd say. One day, determined to teach me a lesson about art, he took me to a local museum. We walk in the door and we are greeted by a huge Superman banner proclaiming Supeman week at the museum. Not only did they have origional artwork they also had some Superman comics with placards describing their value over the last 20 years. Poor guy. He walked around the museum for the next two hours with a bemused smile and muttering to himself. He never did criticize comics in quite same way ever again. I miss that guy.

The female teachers I had in high school all looked like Miss Grundy. Again, congrats on making headway!

Sometimes helpful people can be annoying! Congrats on getting closer to completion!

Very nice!