Hepcat

Since sellers were doing precisely that to limit Ebay's percentage take of the action, Ebay closed that loophole by applying its fee to the gross price including shipping years ago.

Okay. Since I'm more of a DC fan and collector than anything else, I'm not going to disagree. But!!! How do you explain that the vast majority of Silver and Bronze Age comic collectors today are first and foremost collectors of Marvel titles? How did that come about? I think it grew out of Stan Lee's efforts to foster Real Frantic Ones, i.e. a rabid fan base that hoarded Marvel titles.

Alright then. I won't.

But where's the evidence that the Green Lantern-Green Arrow title was among the highest demand books at the time? Certainly not in the sales numbers you provided.

Heloise Nerz from Animaniacs: In one of those motels with a Honeymoon Suite. That's where I always liked to take women.

Hah! That was going to be the next comic I posted here: Dolphin was a one-shot character when introduced but she gained a more prominent place in the DC Universe after Crisis. She had a particularly memorable place in Aquaman's storyline:

Here are scans of my five Mystery in Space comics from the Dallas Stephens collection:

My nominee:

Another intro courtesy of Steve Ditko!

Talk about gay! There's a hot redhead right there and the two "heroes" are turning their X-Ray visions on each other's chests?

Sleep easy. I won't be bidding on that one.

Here are a few more comics from my collection prominently featuring Woody Woodpecker:

Four more of my Tales of the Unexpected:

Three more of my House of Mystery comics:

Woody Woodpecker is top notch in my book!

My Jay Garrick Flash covers: Sorry. No #123.

Here's another one in the same series of ads in which I can count three comics from my present day collection:

Lois Lane though was pretty good at getting into other catfights of her own:

Of course there was affidavit fraud. That's just human nature. Wherever there's an opportunity, there will be fraudsters. But it's a huge logical leap to assume that certain titles were being hit by affidavit fraud much more than others. That's the part of your case that needs to be substantiated by very strong evidence.

Far from being among my favourites but:

That is correct. Superhero comics didn't dominate newsstands back in the day. Those sales numbers are essentially accurate. There's no reason to expect them to reflect the titles that are most highly prized by collectors today. Quite simply today's collector market largely grew out of the niche of MMMS members Stan Lee generated. Sure comic collectors existed before then, but the Marvel Universe that Stan Lee created resulted in a quantum leap in the number of collectors. Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisinger also had a hand in fostering this quantum leap but Stan was nonetheless the Man when it came to encouraging comic buyers to hoard comics. Today's comic collecting community can trace its origins to the Real Frantic Ones who bought Marvel comics from the Silver Age to the early Bronze Age. The few collectors who were drawn into comic fandom by "Duck" and other Dell comics in the 1950's are a small and ever decreasing niche. The genres from the 1940's and 1950's that have seen the most growth in demand in the last fifty years are precisely those titles that most appeal to today's rapidly aging Marvel Zombie contingent, e.g. crime and horror. Though I find this sad, it's undeniable.

I think there are probably quite a few non-publicized collections belonging to private individuals out there. Keeping things secret to avoid theft would seem to be very prudent behaviour.

Wow! Just wow. I'd love to view her seldom seen DC romance, teen, funny animal, war and western comics from the 1950's.

Yes. Covers with redheads have become red hot recently.

I've often wondered how reliable that "original owner" designation actually is. Do many of us know comic fans/buyers from way back when who were not willing to otherwise acquire back issues they'd missed to fill out or extend their runs?