jimbo_7071

It will probably go higher, but maybe when books hit that level, people start to actually look at the book instead of just the label. Some bidders do, anyway. It reminds me of the Vancouver Namora no. 1 that sold through Heritage years ago. It was a beautiful book, but there was no rational way to justify its 9.8 grade. It should not have graded higher than 9.4. Someone bought the label the first time it sold, but the he (or maybe somone he sold it to) took a beating a few years later when bidders actually bothered to look at the book.

Kaptain said:"Solid inner well looks like there is a wall surrounding the book. Soft inner well loops like the book is just suspended in a comic sleeve/bag. There is no wall for the book to bang into. The book pictured above has a solid inner well." Thanks; that does make it clear. Even most of my Gen 1 slabs appear to have a solid inner well. This book is the only one I found that doesn't (grade date 7/18/2000):

Maybe it can be colored very subtly, with watercolors or colored pencils, without obscuring the details. Or maybe he could color selected foreground elements on the page and leave the mid ground and background elements B&W. I don't know why hand coloring by the original artist would hurt the resale value; for me it would enhance it.

This book used to be a 9.2 (before I owned it). The tearing at the staple was caused by movement of the book within the inner well. It was in a Gen 1 holder. I'm not sure I know how to identify a solid inner well. Could someone clear that up? I'm wondering whether any of my other GA books are at risk due to being in the wrong kind of inner wells.

Catman Comics no. 13 is a Gerber no show.

I agree that a page should not be colored by anyone other than the original artist. (I probably wouldn't even want a page that had been pencilled and inked by different artists.) If I owned a modern B&W page, however, I'd consider hiring the original artist to hand color it. Some of the Heritage auctions have featured some Krazy Kat strips that were hand colored at some point. I don't know whether they were colored by Herriman, but they're gorgeous either way. (If anyone owns one of those strips and is thinking about throwing it away because it has been colored, I'll be happy to take it as a freebie.)

The second image is the back of New Funnies no. 72.

No. 47 is close to being a minor key because of the origin story, but I probably wouldn't refer to any of those issues as a key. All three books are easy to find. I'd be most likely to buy a no. 4 because I like the cover the best of the three, but it isn't an important issue.

It looks like the Gen 2 label was rolled out in early August, 2003. (There may have been some changes to the inner well even before the label changed, but I'm not sure.) http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/231273/site_id/1#import

Fantastic collection, Walter! It includes quite a few covers that I never even realized featured Hitler.