Black Bat

Take👍

I"m sorry but I think October's post was the total mic drop on this thread- Boom!

When I first bought the Gerber books back in the.... 90s?... I thought this book was the absolute coolest of them all. When I returned to collecting a few years ago this 9.0 came up for auction and I bid a ridiculous sum- then ran into a meeting during which the auction would close. I was pretty sure I won (no one in their right mind would outbid the sum I entered), but boy was I nervous to log back on and see what the book went for. Luckily it was less than I feared, and I'm still loving this thing. Don't know if I could sell it for what I paid, but definitely don't care.

Wanted to get on page 900, here's a nice looking 4.0:

I just want to un-bag these and hold them as one raw stack- is that weird???

Ha ha, a close second.

Possibly the most colorful book of all time!?

Appreciate This!

Well, according to the Overstreet guide, the highest grade a book can get with a detached cover is 2.5. The cover of this book is re-attached with tape all the way up the interior of both sides of the book. This I believe would qualify as amateur restoration, but I'm not sure to what degree. I estimate the rest of the book was at 7.5 - 8, although I didn't spend much time evaluating it. If a book is higher grade, with one extreme defect, sometimes CGC gives a qualified grade- coupons clipped out, centerfold missing, etc. So my guess would be a Qualified or Restored 7.5?

Soon to be 11.

Absolutely, and took a chance. I've taken chances before and had them pay off fine. Kinda feel I'm always taking a chance with raw books from eBay, win some lose some. But this was so ridiculously egregious.

Here's a doozy. I saw this book on eBay, Witches Tales #8, one of my favorite Harvey covers, and one I've been looking to upgrade for awhile. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Witches-Tales-8-Mar-1952-Harvey-extremely-high-grade-/223467108759?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&si=RmfPku3l%2BVn4ghFvjSGsoxhFA7k%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc So this was listed as an "extremely high grade" copy, and looked very nice in the pictures. But I noticed what looked like a piece of tape sticking out from the lower spine. I asked the seller if it was tape and he replied "no tape at all". It obviously looked like tape to me, so I asked him again. He replied something like "Oh I do see tape, not sure why that's there. Its still clear so it seems like it's new." So since he didn't know why it was there, I hoped it was perhaps a small tear or something, maybe i could even remove the tape. Nope. When the book came it was obvious that the entire cover had been separated from the book and reattached with multiple pieces of tape! I immediately sent in a refund request, which the seller responded to immediately, granting my refund- like he was waiting by the computer with crossed fingers. The kicker? The original piece of tape I saw protruding from the bottom of the spine was gone when the book arrived! Busted! So sleazy. Sucks because otherwise its a super sweet book, and I could have lived with a small taped tear.

Thanks- great stuff in there- the Evans story/art is great!

yeah, I was the under bidder on that Mysterious Adventures. I saw that it was the book from the recent CL auction that I also bid on. I was only willing to bid up to the CL sales price because I didn't want to play into his quick-flip. Sorry you didn't get the Beware, such great book.

Arrived today from Heritage. I never really paid much attention to this cover until I saw it in this auction. The color scheme is unique. The weird stiff brutish way the screaming man is drawn, death sprinting after him in that fantastic red cape and the corpses laying on the mountainside. Definitely glad I shelled out the cash. Now I need to find a digitized copy so I can read it!

So well put. I will add the tangible feeling of holding and shifting through them. Also they retain their "mystery" while stacked in our boxes. You have to search the box to find the right one, and along the way you're seeing a bunch of other books too... unlike slabs which have labels on the top edge, making rifling through the box unnecessary.

Exactly my point. And perhaps Mr. Saurez just wanted a thicker book...

I think it would be helpful if we narrow the scope here, and define Horror books as those involving the supernatural. I love and collect gruesome crime books too, but no matter how graphic, as long as they tell stories that may be happening in the "real" world, I index them in my collection under Crime. There are still books that live in the grey area like Out Of The Shadows 8 (is shrinking someone's head a crime or does it involve the supernatural?). In this case, the head-shrinking takes place in a classic horror environment- a dank gothic dungeon, and head-shrinking is generally considered a sort of spell-casting, or an appeal to the supernatural, so I call it Horror. I think Crime Does Not Pay 33 (can't wait to get a copy of my own) is easier to classify. Again it is a classic horror environment- dead of night, haunted trees, hanging corpses- but it's a serial killer, an all too real occurrence in this world. This one I classify as Crime. So, since books like (and I'm just scanning through this page of the thread) Roly Poly 13, Law Breakers Suspense 11 (freaking awesome!!) or Manhunt 6, no matter how horrible the depicted acts may be, or how much horror the victims suffer, they do not involve the supernatural, and therefor classify as Crime and not Horror. I apply this measure to the horrific super hero books too, or else what would we do with all the insanely, horribly wonderful torture monster Timely books? Agreed?? Great, so now let's start this thread over. Ha ha!

Also, when this thread reaches a consensus, the OP needs to make a compilation of all 25 covers formatted so we can use it as a desktop!!!

Great thread! 25 is way too many for me, but here's 12 from my collection I'm currently digging, in no particular order, most I think are a bit overlooked. But I do think Weird Mysteries 12 deserves a top 25 spot.

No kidding! For a tattered 1.5????

Loved this video too!!

Yeah slabs are a total drag, but I love mylar! Its like putting a protective gloss coat over a fantastic paint job. And you can still "feel" the book. I see they have clear backing boards now, which sounds interesting, It would be nice to see both sides.