PDGray

Excellent information - thank you! I think with the questions surrounding this book that I will pass on it. PDG

The book is a Fawcett Gene Autry #6 - do you know anyone who has the list? I did a google search but came up short. Yeah, this is exactly why I thought to pose the question to the brain trust here. I figured they would go for well above guide, but I just don't have the depth of knowledge to make a good call on this. Thanks for the replies - hoping to find out more. PDG

Only 4 of these. Mine is the lowest graded copy apparently. Still glad to be the caretaker of the book for the next generation. PDG

After my thread the other day regarding my Pedigree pursuits I thought this was the best place to ask this question. I am in discussions with someone regarding a Larson book. It has the gold CGC label marking it as a Larson book, but it falls outside of the "usual" date range as the book is from 1943. It is relatively high grade and has white pages. Is this possible or is this a CGC mistake? Do Larsons typically sell for multiples of guide? If so, how much above guide? 2x? 3x? 1.5x? I don't have a basis to decide if it is a good deal or not since these don't come up that often. PDG

Well, to be honest, the Mile High II isn't recognized as a pedigree any longer, so 25 really. Most are ones I have found relatively inexpensively, so no really HUGE books among my pedigrees, but I am pretty happy to be the caretaker of these books for the next generation. I am in discussions for a Larsen, but am not overly optimistic at the moment. If anyone knows of a non-camp Okajima, that would be a nice one to add, or any other relatively non-expensive, non-key issue pedigrees - let me know!! PDG

I am absolutely loving this pursuit (with a budget of course). So, if I understand you correctly, COAs from the original seller (Metropolis and A-1 Comics) would be sufficient for the books to maintain their pedigree. I just need to make photocopies or scans of the originals. Thank you @CMatthews! PDG

I have submitted a question to the "Ask CGC" forum shortly ago - let's see what they have to say on the topic - then that will be the driving force behind my next moves. Also, I just added a Boston since my initial post this morning!! Whoot!!! PDG

Hello CGC Team, I am considering the purchase of some "File Copy" books through Metropolis Comics. Specifically, I want to buy Gaines File Copy issues they have available. What would be needed in order to submit these books to you in order to get them their proper "Pedigree" status? Similarly, I have some books which are from the "River City" pedigree I would like to get graded as well. I have the letter and CoA from A-1 comics to accompany those books when I send them in. I am building a collection of the pedigree books and this seems to be the most effective way to achieve that goal. If you could assist me with the best method to ensure the books maintain their provenance I would be grateful. Thank you! PDG

Love it! I just sent off an email asking about them. Did yours come with a COA?? I would like to be able to submit whatever I get for grading if I buy a raw copy so that the book preserves it provenance. PDG

No, I am not limiting myself to GA books. Fantucchio is on my list as one of the next most affordable. I would absolutely LOVE to find a Gaines copy. I work with a very limited budget, so I aim for maybe one book a month or so, occasionally two if I find them at a good price. Thanks for the tip! PDG

So, today I realized I just hit a milestone in my collecting. I decided to post this here since most of my own posting is in the GA Forum. Some of you in this forum have been extremely kind to me in my search for "Pedigree" status books and I am grateful for your help. My end goal is to own ONE book from each of the pedigrees. I know this is an extremely unlikely goal for me to hit, but it's what I am working toward. Today, I can now say that I have 26 pedigrees represented in my collection. So, I still have a long way to go, but this has been a fun journey, and yes, I am actively looking for others - budgetary considerations have to follow. For your entertainment I have books from each of the following pedigrees: Bethlehem Boston (Added since my initial post this morning - 5 DEC 2022) Bowling Green Circle 8 Crowley Curator Davis Crippen "D" Edgar Church/Mile High Eldon Green River Lost Valley Mass Copy Mile High II (ok, so not considered a Pedigree anymore - so ding me one if you like) Northland Nova Scotia Oakland Ohio Promise River City Rockford Rocky Mountain Savannah Twin Cities Western Penn White Mountain WinnipegA few of these I have managed to pick up a couple from that pedigree, but this has been some of the most fun in my collecting history. PDG

I need to do some reading and learning about Russ Cochran as well. I have purchased books which are from his collection and noted as such on the CGC label. Mine are all reprints of the EC books. I still haven't forgotten to try to go visit that gravesite. I just haven't been up that way yet. PDG

@CMatthews - thank you! I have seen a few "File Copies" which had the gold label which was the reason for my asking. I didn't know if that was a change or not. PDG

Thank you! All the books I have are in CGC cases at this point, so that should simplify this process. This gives me a great starting point. @MattM CS Do File Copies also get the gold label or do they stay with the traditional blue label? Again, I appreciate your help and answers. PDG

Ok, so I have a lot of books graded and sent in books to be graded before, but always had someone else do it for me - a local store took care of it for me. At this point, I have some pedigree books which have the older labels. I would like to to be able to send them in to get the newer gold label. Is this a simple re-holdering? Does this require re-grading? What would the turnaround time be like? All I really want is to have the new gold label, so I want to make sure of what that process looks like and how to get setup for that. I had a couple of raw books that had the pedigree label with them at purchase and they only took a few weeks to come back, but that was over a year ago. Thank you, PDG

Nope, not going to lambaste you - I realize that it may be out there and is likely to never be fully known. But I find fun in the quest to figure that out. This just seems like the perfect place to have these discussions and see who has what information to contribute. I will probably continue to ask while I formulate and figure out the best way to do it. Heck, if Gerber could come up with his estimates back in the 1990s, why couldn't we do something similar or better given the technology and reach that we have around the world - even in this forum alone?? There is a huge amount of information contained within the members of the GA forums, but we all know that some of that information will never see the light of day. Occasionally there is something that is kind of cool that we find out - for example, one member here knows of two copies of Action 1 that have never been graded and aren't accounted for. I think that is a HUGE piece of information!! There are other tidbits that are out there, but its like a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle just waiting to be solved. PDG

Fair enough - I know that if I look I can find plenty of Dell books - the higher grades are perhaps a bit harder to find in my experience - but lower grades are out there. And I think there are just too many of them to consider any of them really rare or scarce. I just used the Tarzan as an example I could readily get a photo of that I knew pretty well. From a glance at numerous books in the census (from the GA era) you may be able to find a few in the NM range with increasing numbers down to about a 7.0 or maybe a 6.5, but very few lower than that unless the book is exceptionally rare or unusual - or perhaps someone made a gross miscalculation or simply wanted to preserve the book. This is because as has been stated here - it costs more to grade the book than it is worth - but that's the part that intrigues me because that is an unknown number that I just want to solve - even as a guesstimate. Thanks on the Tip Top - I stumbled on it and wasn't going to pass up adding it to my small pedigree collection. The goal is to get one book from each pedigree - probably will never happen, but it was a fun, unexpected find. PDG

Yes, I have read everything several times. Maybe I am not as clear as I am aiming to be with my question, so please forgive me and bear with me - sometimes I am not as clear as I wish to be. I am only asking for a more educated, well-versed guess as to if there is a ratio to get ANY sort of ballpark estimates on the number of any given title existing anymore. I don't believe that CGC has all the information by any stretch, but they do provide a nice baseline with the census. But would you (or anyone else) guess that X% of any given title of GA books have been graded on average? The statistician in me wants something to plug in there just to get a rough estimate. I like the idea of the Gerber books and will hopefully find a set of them at some point, but as has been pointed out - that was pre-internet, so I kind of discount that source due to the lack of wider knowledge. Thirty-odd years ago, I was told that there were probably less than 50 GA books of any title that existed any longer. This has obviously been proven wrong many times over. So, back to that statistician - I KNOW that there is some sort of average ratio and the puzzle solver part of me wants to figure that part out. So, between those of us on the board who enjoy or collect GA books consider this example: Person 1 estimates 10% are graded - ok Person 2 estimates 20% are graded - ok Person 3 estimates 30% are graded - ok Person 4 estimates 40% are graded - ok This would average out to 25% between knowledgeable people who have followed this particular area of collecting. From that information, we could extrapolate that if there are 10 books on the census and 25% were graded that maybe 40 copies of that particular book may yet be out there. Some may never see the light of day - and that's ok. I am only asking for opinions, and I know those may or may not be accurate. This is not going to be truly scientific, but it collectively gets a starting point to establish or re-establish some sort of baseline that may be closer to what Gerber did with his books. I know there may be cases where ALL the copies of any given book may be graded, or there may not be any on the census at all. For another example: I own a Tarzan #76 from the Dell Run from 1956. I own the Bethlehem copy graded at a 9.6. Currently there are only 8 copies graded, yet there are 16 listed on ebay as of today. So, I KNOW that ratio is less than 33% graded based on this data alone. It's not a key issue, it's not hugely valuable, but it is a GA book. I can probably conjecture that there are more copies sitting in collections, closets, and boxes somewhere that are unaccounted for. So, let's double the total number of copies from the 24 we can account for to 48 total. So, I can then use that number to guess that 16.6% have been graded. Let's take it to another book I own. Tip Top Comics 62 from 1941. There are three graded copies on the census. An ebay search shows one graded and one ungraded copy. This gives me knowledge that there are a minimum of four copies that exist. 75% of the known copies are graded. So, let's extend our same logic and double the copies that are known from the 4 we can account for up to 8. We could extrapolate that of our 8 possible copies 3 are graded which would give us that 37.5% of copies have been graded. We could do this for any number of books and mostly I understand that it's a guess at best. However, statistically, if we were to use those TWO books as a small sample - then we could average the two numbers - 16.6 + 37.5 = 54.1, then divide 54.1/2 = 27.05%. Meaning that roughly 27.05% of GA books might be graded. Taking this to the next step - pick any book at random from that time frame. Jumbo Comics 89 - shows 22 copies on the census. If we estimate that 27% have been graded then you take the 22 and divide that by .27 and come up with the possibility of about 81 copies total out there - counting the graded copies. Batman 57 - shows 75 copies on the census. Using the same ratio - we would come up with an estimate of 211 copies potentially out there. Master Comics 66 - shows 9 copies on the census. With this same ratio - it would give us an estimate of 33 copies total. My percentages to start with are random - the 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% are just numbers I made up - so do NOT count on those. But hopefully, this explains what I was/am asking for and why. Maybe it's a pointless exercise in futility, but if we could roughly work this out - it might be interesting, and of course I would share anything I found or discovered with the community. Thank you! PDG

I have at least two of these in my personal collection, and maybe a third. One is the black cover, the other is the green cover - my brother thinks I have the black/gold cover signed too. Somewhere, the COAs got lost, but I would bet the farm on that book being originally signed by Todd. I also bought mine as SOON as it came out. So, I KNOW that's the real deal. I would never think it would qualify as a pedigree though - it doesn't meet the criteria in my opinion. I do think that these are pretty cool and I would never hesitate to buy another one. Generally, they sell from $50-100 each - a few a little higher and some a little lower. I had thought about sending one in for when Todd does another CGC signing. I presume that would get a Yellow/Green label as it would have at least one verified signature by Todd, but as it had another non-verified it would get the green notation as noted above. Again, GREAT book!! PDG

Ok, so let's use an example. Let's say that there is a book with 10 copies on the CGC census. Would you guess that there are less than 20 copies that exist? less than 50 copies that exist? Is there any correlation there at all? And I know - you can never be certain, but just as a starting point. What about books with 20 on the census? Less than 50 total copies still around? Or would you think less than 30 copies may exist. I know the scarcity rating (I don't have that book yet), but is that even relevant in the days of the internet? I would imagine that it has lost much of its validity these days. Thanks for all of the discussion here! PDG

I love these discussions. I find that I learn a lot from this forum and appreciate the knowledge and wisdom that you all share. Over the years I have had a number of GA books, but haven't really been a hardcore GA collector. Mostly, I have focused on silver age books, so I know a fair amount about those, but the GA world is completely different and there are so many ways to go with it. Some of you have seen me posting about my pedigree books, but those have kind of led me to learn and discover more and more about the GA world. Thank you! PDG

Completely agree, but what COULD you do to get even a rough ballpark estimate? If there are 10 copies in the CGC census, would you think less than 20 exist? 50? 100? For the discussion, I am only thinking of ways that you might be able to come up with a reasonable estimate. PDG

So, to put this into perspective. If you were to look at the CGC Census and find that there were less than 10 graded copies or less than 20 graded copies - what does that mean? Or does that have ANY meaning at all in relation to rarity or scarcity? We know that there are a lot of books that have never been graded and therefore aren't counted, but do we discount those or simply use that as a basis? Thoughts? PDG

I met him a bit over a year ago and really wanted to find one of the books from HIS pedigree and have him sign the slab. Well, I learned that was the wrong question to ask him. I still think it would have been pretty cool to do though. PDG

Those are fantastic!! Love the Daytona!! I don't have a Speedy yet, but perhaps one day... The Longines is spectacular - I have one, but it's a 1970s/80s quartz - so not as cool as yours. I am not familiar with Royce watches, but thats kind of cool! PDG