jimbo_7071

He would have fit right in with Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert.

Standing in water to submerged.

Those were all very strong results, but this one is especially shocking. When I looked at it, my first thought was, "They gave a 6.0 to a book with that big of a stain?" Sure enough, it used to be a 4.5. I wonder how many of these books went to people who knew Jon personally and wanted to own the books for that reason. It's hard to understand those prices otherwise.

I was not a bidder (except for maybe a $1 or $5 tracking bid). It went far beyond my initial guess. In an auction like this one, with many of Jon's personal friends bidding, etc., it was able to command a very strong price, but I think that the pool of prospective buyers would likely be small on any given day. I'm too risk averse to ever buy something like that unless it were to stay really cheap—but it's a treat just to see one that nice. (I wonder if a boardie bought it! I'd love to see it cracked out.)

Gal with a pistol to gal with a whistle.

This is one that I'm watching. It's not exactly in my wheelhouse, but I'm curious to see what it'll sell for. For people interested in the history of the hobby, it's an important proto-comic, and you don't see copies pop up every day.

Two cloaked baddies with a rifle, a sword, and two daggers to two cloaked baddies with a dagger and a pistol between them.

1944 Master to 1944 Master.

L. B. Cole Star Publications to L. B. Cole Star Publications.

Novelty Press to Novelty Press.

Baker fire cover to Baker water cover.

Patriotic superhero with one big star on his cape to patriotic superhero with myriad little stars on his cape.

Oversized Timely character to oversized Dell character.

Japanese paratrooper firing at Subby but missing to American paratrooper firing at Japanese combatant and not missing.

According to his Wikipedia page, Bolling started freelancing for Archie Comics in '54. If that's true, then he just barely squeaks in as a pre-code artist. Since it's Wikipedia, it may or may not be true.

Yes, but I don't think that he did any comic book work in the pre-code era.

I hope you washed it before you gave it back to your grandpa.

White gloves to white glove.

Star Spangled to star-bedecked.

Sacré bleu ! Quelle une femme!

I'm not sure where you're getting your data. The FH books that I've followed—mainly Planets—appear to be down from pandemic highs. (I've passed on copies that were offered for less than the in-grade highs from the HA archives.) I haven't been following Baker covers lately, but the first one I picked randomly to do a price comparison isn't showing much of a gain: A 4.0 sold for far less in 2023 than what a 4.5 sold for in 2018. (There were no exact-grade comps on HA.) It would take a lot of time to really dig into the data.

Hmmm . . . I can't say that that jives with my own anecdotal experiences, @szav. For instance, I picked this book up for $821 last year in an eBay auction with quite a few bidders. The same copy had sold for $1,680 on Heritage during the pandemic. I've been a fly on the wall for many auctions with similar results. If you focus on the hot books—like the Our Flag that sold for a nutty price recently—then it looks like GA is going up, but most books and titles aren't hot. I don't think that GA is down 50% across the board, but I suspect it's down at least 20 or 30%.

Trio with one singing to trio with one playing an instrument.

#9 in 9.0 to #9 in 8.0 and 7.0

One-track mind to one-track mind.