This question was asked on another board:
So, here's a weird one, and maybe the limited amount of folks with experience can help me.
I bought a Batman #84 and #86 yesterday at WWLA, for $25 and $15 respectively...both in Fair...maybe Fair/Good.
I pulled out the Batman #86 tonight, to do a page count....it was, after all, only $15, so I wasn't TOO worried...
And discovered the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in a 1954 DC comic:
It has 20 leaves alright, which was the standard page count of DC books since mid 1952 (which puts to lie the 1961 statement that DC "hadn't raised prices in 25+ years"...page counts STARTED at 64 pages, then went to 52, then went to 40, then went to the now familiar 32 by 1955...last time I checked, getting LESS material for the "same price" was a RAISE in price...but I digress.)
So, yeah, it has 20 leaves....but when I went to find the centerfold staples between leaves 10 and 11, I couldn't find them. It took me quite a few seconds to locate it, even going back to the beginning and counting pages again...
And then, the oddest thing happened....I counted all the way to leaf 12, and there, between leaves 12 and 13, were the centerfold staples!
On the opposite side of the centerfold, there are only EIGHT leaves.
So, I look...this is telltale for pages MISSING....
And sure enough....there were four missing leaves.
But....
They weren't your ordinary "let's take scissors and cut out the pages" type....they were between every odd/even leaf, all four....so, between leaves 13 and 14, 15 and 16, 17 and 18, and 19 and 20, there was a perfectly cut strip, about 3/4" wide. Perfectly cut, as if by machine.
Almost as if they made a mistake at the printer....
So, I went back to count pages in my other 1952-54 books....and sure enough, Batman #83, 84, 85, 76, 73, Detective #193, 205....all have 20 leaves, 10 on the left side of the centerfold staples, and 10 on the right. By Batman #90 (first Code, so probably well timed), the leaf count had gone from 20 to 16.
Curiouser and curiouser....
Can anyone tell me, if they know, if ALL Batman #86s are like this?
Indeed, all my books in that range are like this . . . historical artifact?