flashlites

I believe this one and #109 were the last of the 1950's Flash issues. On Flash's 75th birthday, me and my son threw a birthday party for Flash and invited all his friends to come in costume as their favorite superhero. In our guest bedroom I hung on the wall one issue from each decade to display a visual history for the kids. My Silver Age collection still had huge gaps in it. I remember telling the kids that there were only 8 or 9 Flash comics published in the 1950's. On the wall proudly representing the 1950's was my only comic from that decade, a coverless copy of 107. Great memories! I will try and dig up a photo from that day. We had a Flash cake and everything. Good times!

Love this issue!

I think it could be 6.5. Nice book! Thanks for sharing it!

Some say every comic is a little piece of comic book history...but that book wow! The day the Silver Age began! The day the heroes started to make their comeback! The making of a new era! Just an amazing piece of history to own. In my mind there's Action Comics #1 (and of course Detective Comics #27 and for us Flash Fans, Flash Comics #1) and then there's Showcase #4. AC#1 the beginning of an era and then SC#4 the rebirth of a new era! Two huge marks on the industry, without these books what would we be talking about here?

So amazing! You are so lucky to have a SC4! Every SC4 purchase has a great story to it I am finding out, care to share yours? Love the Star Wars action figures too BTW, thanks so much for sharing!

I love it!!! That 125 is perhaps my all time favorite Flash cover

This is great to see, thank you for sharing it! Glad to hear things are coming together for you two, happy to hear you are getting back to your normal routine and coming out to cons over here again!

I will grade it at a 6.0 - I agree with Grendelbo . Such a great book! Congratulations and thank you for sharing it with us!

I'm at a 9.2 maybe more

I think I saw this one over the summer. Still a little too pricey for my budget but maybe one day....

I found a 1.5 copy asking price, wait for it...$10,700! Wow! So would an incomplete be maybe half or more of that? Coverless would probably be even less?

That 120 and the 153 are 2 of my favorite covers! Nice pick ups there

Me too! And that brings up an interesting conversation for us Flash Fans that don't have a copy of SC #4. Could we ever get one? Are there any coverless copies out there? How about incomplete copies? What do those run? Could we even afford one of those? Lets discuss...

Hello Flash Fans! Anything new in your collections lately?

The new #2.

In the old days grading was truly the wild west! All we had back then was about a paragraph for each grade in the price guide, no photos or examples. I must have read those paragraphs a thousand times trying to teach myself to grade in the 1970's and 80's. Does anyone else remember those days? Their would be arguments at the comic shop and nothing to go by, it was all just pure opinion and those brief paragraphs.

I really like the CGC concept, especially on the older books, and like you said really weighing the attributes more equitably against the defects. Generally giving the books their best possible grades.

Same here. My SA Flash collection, I started grading 2-3 years ago and I kinda put that pause for a year or more now. Writing the grades on their archival backing boards, I'm wondering now if those grades are still even in the ballpark!

Sometimes I think I need to throw out the Overstreet guide completely! I got the latest edition earlier this year and was completely let down there were no new examples. Did anyone notice that?

I need these contests to reset my natural tendency to grade hard. I always drift low, so these help me a great deal towards getting closer to CGC standards. It can be very subjective but CGC is the gold standard and without these I would never have a chance to calibrate.

Great contest Jon! Thanks so much for putting it on. I got one bullseye this round and undergraded the other 2 but only by .5. So I still need to loosen up a little. I have fully embraced the concept and technique for giving these book the most generous grades conceivably possible and still I come up a little short. I need to calibrate to the CGC secret sauce which keeps telling me "you are being too strict, bump it a little more. What's the highest grade you could give it and then add .5 to that". So you can see my dilemma, my most generous grade and adding .5 is still short another .5 in most cases.

Grades submitted!

Judging from the latest CGC contests I would not be surprised if this came in at a 7.0. Love this cover! It's one of the rare covers from this era that weren't drawn by Carmine. But I believe this was when Carmine was transitioning to management over at DC. I would say 6.5 is realistic though. Thanks for sharing it!

I also think I need to fine tune how I grade books in this range, I am obviously grading too harshly and need to balance it out a little. So I will concede that it was me and not the scans more likely how I read the scans