Bob, any theory as to why they skipped #25 and #26?
Well, Mark, there was a huge amount of mistakes in the Plat stuff which lived in the Overstreet PG for years,sometimes decades.
Go back to the two Katzenjammer Kids 1902 1903 I posted a couple pages back. Once upon a time until maybe 6 years ago, the Overstreet had the 1903 as merely a reprint of the 1902.
same on the happy Hooilgan 1902 and 1903
One could come to that seemingly conclusive conclusion based on the concept the first page, what we Plat collectors call the Title Page, was identical.
If one did not place them side by side, one would assume the comic strip pages were the same as well
I bought these to fix the listings, and then began a process of trying to buy one of each as well as look at copies in other collector's houses who shared the same vision of an accurate price index for these early comic books which most collectors dis so dramatically at times as not being "real" comic books
And then i discovered how wide ranging the 1800s comic book business was, and got really side tracked for a while
but to get back to your query, Bob Overstreet for the longest time did not care about anything prior to Funnies On Parade slash Famous Funnies.
The Plat data was collected rather haphazardly - and no double checking was done
These days to get a listing into his Guide, you must submit a cover, and indica page to prove what it is - a major step forward
I do not know anyone who has BUF 25 and 26
For that matter, i do not remember ever seeing a Popeye #2 David McKay 1935 either - yet it is listed in the Guide also
Maybe some of these errors were brought in back when he peppered the Guide with non-existent books when other price guides were stealing his data mix - helped a lot in court
then after a while, Bob forgot what the salted errors were