Dave Henson

I was very happy with my two Strange Tales 110’s so decided to go ahead and send the Doctor Strange 169 to CGC next week. I bought this one in the early 90’s at a comic book show setup in a mall in Chattanooga. It was so much nicer than any Doctor Strange or Strange Tales that I’d ever seen. I thought it had been sprayed with something to make it shiny . I love this cover!

I was so happy with my first submission to CGC that I’m sending off a few more next week.

Black Cat Mystic 61 Another one I got back in the ‘90’s. This one was $25 from a great dealer named Bear. You’d remember if you ever dealt with Bear. He was missing both legs but that didn’t keep him from getting around. And I have to say he did look like a bear . He had a code written on all the backing boards that he used to keep track of how much $$ he had in the book. It took a while but we solved the riddle of the Bear Code. We would help Bear setup his books at shows and take them down. He wasn’t lazy, but didn’t mind talking with other dealers while we did all the lifting! But back to Black Cat. How are you getting values for your horrors? I’m using GoCollect to inventory them but they don’t have values for a lot of horrors. They list the sold prices from eBay, Heritage and Comiclink but so many books don’t have any recent sale data. I’m inventorying to finally get the books insured.

I submitted my Shock Illustrated 3 last week to CGC for a clean/press & grade. It was tough trying to put a value on it - there’s just not a lot of recent sale data that I could find so it was a complete guess. I must have guessed wrong because they ended up charging more for grading than I expected . A good friend owned a comic shop in Chattanooga back in the 90’s. He called me one day and offered this one to me for $300. Of course I bought it and later had it signed by Feldstein (hope they don’t ding the grade for that!).

Doctor Strange was my favorite character when I read comics back in the 80’s. I was fortunate to buy two copies of Strange Tales 110. I submitted both last week to CGC and got the grades online today. Wonderful books/investments!! My next submission will include a really nice copy of 169.

Thanks guys for posting the Russ Cochran ads for the Gaines File copies. I was fortunate to buy two file copies HOF 24 (#8) and HOF 26 (#8). Can’t believe it’s been that long! I still have both books and the certificates. I wish I had gotten more. Oh the deals and books I passed on!!! Reading these boards has certainly brought back many memories. I can remember when and where I purchased many of my books and there’s usually a story that goes along with each. And I remember the dealers. All great guys and friends. And the shows - mostly Chattanooga, Atlanta, Knoxville and Nashville but I did venture out to Raleigh, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. I’ll likely start posting some of the books I have and reminisce about them, so please cut me some slack if I’m long winded! LOL. I’m a true collector at heart! Dealing was just never in my blood. I remember Harry Thomas used to laugh and say “there’s nothing wrong with buying high, selling low, and making a lot of friends”! Well, I’m not sure where all my friends wandered off to but I do still have a few beautiful books!

Jayman you’re absolutely right! Thing 15 is the other “worm” cover! You need to go grab a Powerball ticket!! As I’m cataloging my books, I’m also re-bagging and re-boarding. If I bought the book already in Mylar, they’re still in the same bag/board and most of those books still have the sticker price. This one set me back $15! These two worm covers will probably be my next ones to ship off for a clean/press and grade I started buying horror comics around 1991. I fell in love with EC so most of the higher dollar books I got were those. I would occasionally get others if the covers were cool and if the book was in good shape. I’m so glad a few of the dealers steered me to the non-EC books. As I’m looking over my horror box I did end up with several great ones from other publishers. I owe a lot of dealers a lot of thanks!

I bought Shock Illustrated 3 for $300 back in the early 1990’s in Chattanooga TN. I later took it to a show and got the inside page signed by Al Feldstein. When he saw the book, he laughed and said “Shock 3, I don’t even have a copy of Shock 3”. LOL I finally decided to send it off to CGC this week. I plucked Spellbound 3 out of a Golden Age Horror box for $20. I remember buying it and another “worm” cover at the same time. Hopefully the other is hidden in one of the boxes I’m slowly going through. The Spellbound is a nice copy but could do with a clean & gentle press

I started buying horror books in the early 1990’s. For the most part, they were cheap and I sometimes felt I was the only one looking through the older horror boxes. I quit comics in the late 90’s and stashed the books away in a closet. I’m just now realizing I scored a few good pics (and passed on so many great pics!). I think I paid around $80 for Horrific 3. It wasn’t my usual EC find so I had to really think about the purchase. But I liked the cover. LOL