EC Star&Bar

Edit -- sorry, this reply somehow ended up in the wrong thread-- belonged in the 9.0 vs.9.8 topic. From the time I became condition-conscious in the mid-'70s (before that I thought of comics as one would a copy of Time magazine or whatever), I was always seeking the best new copy I could find -- and that pretty much included all the attributes we're all seeking, like cover-centering, lack of spine stress, sharp corners, and clean bindery cut. It wasn't long before I became aware of the term "Pristine Mint" for comics (I always thought of "Gem Mint" as better suited to other collectibles, for some reason). This upped my game to an extent, and with no LCS available to me, spinner racks were less-than-ideal sources. (Like Overstreet used to have in his guides, find out when the comics arrive and drop by as soon as possible to avoid rack-damaged issues.) So I tend to think of VF+ to NM-M as really great for pre-1975, but generally I want practically flawless copies from '75-up. My search for Pristine Mint of course oftentimes will fall short of a 9.8, but usually not by much.

It can be really difficult to determine if much of the run was affected for that issue. I can recall buying DC Comics Presents #1 off of a stand in 1978, and while there were easily a dozen copies to choose from, all of them had had their bottom staple removed & replaced. (Apparently too far from the fold.) In all the years since, I've never seen or heard of a copy produced that way.

More and more later printings are being documented all the time at the GCD site, http://comics.org/ I've made over 10,000 submissions over there, though many were just minor corrections or info.

According to Chuck Rozanski, Church bought some of his oldest comics used, and that appears to be the case here. Nice book of course.

It looks as though some of the books have been placed on the Kastner Auctions site, primarily '50s/early '60s Dell Four Color issues. These must be from that collection, as you see the oddly placed decal on each sleeve at left, with info & the OO's grade: http://www.kauctions.ca/auction/antique1/820/1086#9 Now is your chance to bid on an O.S. Porky Pig (#351, 1951) with children's graffiti on its cover. This was an auction-worthy book?

I have a copy of the Michael Resnick guide shown in this thread -- I liked that one, some nice color photos of highly collectible issues. Resnick passed away Jan. 9, 2020.

I don't actively collect that kind of stuff, but I want and expect early house ad appearances, poster artwork, etc. to be included in Omnibus books. A lot of the ephemeral, ancillary stuff is not particularly hard to find, but as part of a character's history, it can make for interesting bonus material.

You may have heard something to this effect before, but Neal Adams had some comments related to why the series was cancelled. This may not be accurate, but still interesting. He claims that for some "art" issues like his and Steranko's (X-Men, SHIELD) around that time, distributors were selling cases to speculators of sorts, in unethical transactions. Since fewer copies were reaching newsstands, sales were not registering as they should have -- so the lower sales numbers doomed the series. I have to question how that type of activity would've affected accounting -- I mean how would those transactions affect the reported "unsold," did the case copies get reported as such?

A raw copy of Tim Holt 17 on ebay that appeared to be comparable to the one in this collection, listed as a 5.5, sold for $595 (July 26). It was a roll of the dice for that seller, but since it looked like an exceptional copy I wonder how much it would've sold for slabbed. Frazetta stuff I think will continue to have good collectibility.

You're likely right that demand is pretty low, but a raw copy of #1 sold for $32.11 last month on ebay, 4 bidders. Looked to be around Fine to Fine+. I like the show too, especially Barbara Bain and Lesley Ann Warren.

Slow week for me: Walt Disney's Ludwig Von Drake #2 (Dell) Red Ryder Comics #111 (Dell) Graphic Ink: The DC Comics Art of Frank Quitely HC (DC) Simon & Kirby Boy Commandos Vol. 2 HC (DC) Flash Archives Vol. 4 HC (DC) Atlas Era Marvel Masterworks Vol. 6 HC (Marvel) Disney Beauty & the Beast Cinestory Comic HC (Joe Books) -- my 3rd and 4th copies Jet Scott ("A Lost Science Fiction Masterwork") Vol. 1 HC (Dark Horse) Classics Illustrated #14: Wuthering Heights HC (NBM/Papercutz) -- my 5th copy "More Peanuts" replica edition SC (Titan)

Yes -- the heirs had run into a problem where other dealers' policy included not traveling to homes to view collections / accumulations. The sad thing is that Rozanski believes the Church funny animal comics had been thrown away before he was contacted (empty racks, other evidence). Add to that the damaged pulp mag collection (from a small plumbing leak), and we realize that the greatest pedigree had been even greater...!

I guess we have another example of "from the ridiculous to the sublime." I think I would've been tempted to discard the "Greggy" outer cover -- or maybe slice most of the back cover off, parallel to the spine. No offense to the owner, but I have to say that CGC's putting that in the label notes verbatim strikes me as sort of stupid (or example, would they repeat a profanity if that were on there?).

I tend to agree that 232 should have a higher value than 251. I'd have to presume that it's younger collectors affection for the Joker character that drives 251 up -- of course considering there must be other factors. Anyway, I've collected Adams' DC work for years. I think the first book of his I added to my collection was Batman 200 (N. A. cover only), because I'd been collecting 'anniversary' issues.

He's now even offering pairings at $180: Action 1 /Tec 27, Cap 1 /Marvel 1. Anyway this is very brazen -- Disney will be interested to see Donald Duck FC 9 & FC 29 Mummy's Ring (with wear repro'ed on the back cover). Their attorneys could be all over this guy.

I think that was done in the same way as my Blackthorne Boner's Ark hardcover. The softcover's interior (cover removed) was bound in dark blue cloth boards, and then the cardstock front cover was trimmed and pasted on the front. Spine stamped in gold. Love that Stevens work, very appealing.

It's important to remember that a lot of media collectors, of stuff like the Ricky Nelson comics for example, are not nearly as condition conscious as hardcore comics guys. That's why material like that can bring decent money, raw on ebay. A guy who collects all Man from UNCLE merchandising is more interested in just completing a GK run, than let's say comics people who want to send only #1 in to try for a 9.8. Comics collecting has skewed in recent years heavily to high-grade key issues. But there are still crossover buyers out there who are content to build a mid-grade run, and lots of them seem to gravitate to TV material in particular. So a run of GK Bonanza (NBC) may generate more interest than an older "singing cowboys" western series (movie) from Fawcett.

Not to get off-topic but Kubert and others did some tricky moves in this era to make use of reprint material, like the following: Bomba the Jungle Boy becomes Simba (Tarzan 100-pagers) Hopalong Cassidy becomes Monty West (Tomahawk) Dobie Gillis becomes Windy & Willy (Showcase -on) My point being that the DC editors found creative ways to rework old stuff for their purposes (in those cases all formerly licensed properties). So taking an old OAAW story and chopping it for SSWS was not something I would try to read into as a particularly big deal. Likely most readers had no clue, in some cases at least, that reprinted pages were appearing.

When I bought my 1976 guide, my first one, I reasoned I would buy one every other year -- EVEN years, starting in '78. But for various reasons, my next ones were '77, '79, and '81. As it turned out those were all highly interesting, focusing on Barks, EC, and LB Cole respectively. Those books really solidified my interest in comic collecting.

It's always frustrating when the PLOD arises. I'm always reminded of when I bought a Boy Commandos #8 out of town and the seller said nothing about resto, I was so upset to spot obvious color-touch when I opened the book back at home. That was nearly 30 years ago, and one of the few older comics I've not kept (sold with disclosure and lost some $$). Now that there's a removal option, I wish I'd kept the book.

Keep in mind that some of the highest regarded pedigrees like the Edgar Church and Lamont Larson collections had writing on many copies, yet these remain so very desirable. Recently I was listening to a collector who said he would never buy a comic with a date stamp. So while you can't begrudge him his personal preference, it's been a pretty well established comics collecting consensus that markings do not necessarily exclude a book from a very-high grade.

For the #3 you own, likely the ink you mentioned on the top is distributor's ink, sprayed on the edges of stacked copies for their coding purposes. I can still recall buying my copy of #1 off of a spinner rack in 1977 (edit - actually Nov. 1976, when it went on-sale). I was pretty much a DC-only buyer, but this was a notable exception.

Rozanski stated that the father of the seller had been " 'investing' in back issue comics since the late 1950's" and "at least 400,000 of his father's comics had a cover price of 12 cents, or less." Notice the "or less," meaning 10-cent books were involved as well. Clearly from this description, this was a big haul that did include early Silver -- not just "late" & beyond.

I edited to say "in the group" as I saw I unintentionally made it seem like the ASM issue was mentioned. Look though, he bought 1.5 million comics, pre-1979. There's a very high probability ASM 33 was in the deal...!

Chuck Rozanski talks about his "Mile High II" find in his Tales of the Database at the Mile High site. Scroll down to April 2003. Lots of 12 cent Marvels in the group. IIRC, the find consisted of primarily affidavit returns, and he sought and received permission from the publishers to go ahead with the purchase -- even though this was stock that was to have been destroyed years ago (many years for some books), and reported as such. It was a massive purchase -- as you can imagine there were many multiples throughout.