Redbeard

Don't remember the year, but it was at SDCC, before they started calling it Comic-Con International.

I don't think so...

Sal has both of my booths at the show. Sal and I are very good friends and talk frequently.

Hi Leroy, good to hear from you again. I moved to Lake Tahoe in late 1986. I don't recall the trade you mention, but it sounds good. No, I never consulted with John on the provenance of a MH book. Actually, people would come to me frequently asking me to tell them whether their copy was indeed the MH copy. I stopped doing that for others when I purchased a book that had the look, feel and smell of an MH copy. The problem was that I already owned the MH copy in my collection. Yes Leroy, I was one of the 1st to employ a computer to have a fully functional point of sale DBMS. At that time there were no programs offered on Macs for that chore. You had flat file managers and a program that I used to create my DBMS called Omnis. You installed the program and you had a window with a blank screen that required its own programming code to have anything display or work. That was a gruesome chore. I foresaw the problems that stores would encounter using old methods to place their new comics orders that were required months in advance. Almost all of them had a garage or back rooms filled with floor to ceiling mistakes of over ordered and unsold books. When you calculate 50% of the cover price was their cost of these books, it was easy to see why so many stores went bottoms up. I would walk into one these garages or back rooms and realize that the store had between $15-$50K in costs into these unsold books. The obvious answer to the problem to me was y=mx+b. That is the formula for trend and growth study. Early versions of home computers offered this in Excel, but comic stores didn't understand or use computers. I quickly realized that those using this technology would survive and those that didn't would go broke. Same for the many distributors in those days before Diamond became the only one.

Thx Mitch.

Like your method, keep at it.

When I started collecting and dealing, it was the Spirit of '76 Guide. I started as mostly a Timely collector and branched out into Ducks and EC. As the trend in the market started it's move into the 50s books, I was one of the early dealers moving into that area. There were only a few before me. ACBC was the main one. I quickly began trying to sell my GA superhero books and buy GGA Fox titles, PCSF and PCH. A new trend that was starting was books used in SOTI, drug stories, etc. Major players in these new areas of collecting was of course, ACBC, Bob Selvig, Sparkle City, Book Sail, John Knight and myself at Redbeard's Book Den. I met and became great friends with Johnny. We were looking for the same things. Got an Earthman on Venus, a Mask of Fu Manchu, a Reform School Girl, a Teen-Age Dope Slaves, a PL 17, etc. Those were books we were running buy ads in the BG when Alan Light ran it. We attacked boxes looking for these books from other dealers that were not into the trend as yet at all the national shows. It was around that time that Bob Overstreet noticed that we were way ahead of the market. He asked me to become an advisor and then later a senior advisor to the Price Guide. It was not financial wealth that made people that I mentioned previously above into some of the biggest shakers and movers in the market. It was we were ahead of the market and led the new trends. We were offering $200 for an 8.0 or better of Earthman when it was only under $50 top Guide among many, many other books. Some dealers cut out my buy ads form the BG and used them at shows as their buy list without even knowing why the books appeared on the list. So, don't feel excluded from becoming a large dealer because you are not wealthy. We paid our dues. We studied the market, we were just very aware of what was going to be a hot book. Anyone can do this today if one wants to spend the time and effort. One last tip, in the GA area, I was definitely aware of the limited population numbers for most of these books. So, by offering to buy multiple copies of a book at triple guide from dealers that used the Guide as a Bible, we could make that book increase dramatically. Of course there needs a bottom line justification such as a classic cover or story, etc.

Thanks Ricky, you still working at Camelot?

One thing about the CGC census that should always be considered is what was the Guide price when slabbing started. That is oft times completely overlooked. When slabbing books began, we were slabbing the more valuable books, primarily early superhero books from the GA and SA 1st issues and keys. There was very little slabbing of BA to present books. Back to the GA, what my above comment means is that many titles that were not very valuable back then went unslabbed. We were not slabbing $50 or less books. That eliminates many of the non-superhero titles. So, when you look at the census, take this into consideration. When you see a romance book with only 3 graded, does that mean it is rare or tough to find? Probably not, it just mean that not many were slabbed. Ditto on many of the now hot area of PCH books that have skyrocketed. Bottom line, don't get fooled into thinking you have a tough-to-find or scarce book because of the low number of books in the census. Use common sense, and talk to some of the old-timers. Ask them about warehouse finds, etc.

Rich and Bob do not live in Tahoe. John Knight and myself live in Tahoe. Yes, less snow. Both of us do not ski anymore. I'm 74, brittle and recovering from a liver transplant.

Talk to Rich, he has an amazing Prince Valiant Sunday by Foster in his house.

Sorry, nope.

I know I had most of the run of Wonderworld from 3 up in the past. I got them from Chuck for a buyer of mine back in the day. His name was Rory McElroy. I can't remember if I ended up selling them to Rory or Jon. The Wonderworld 3 was not released for quite awhile until much later to Jon. I know I had a 9.2 at least for #4 that was not a MH copy in my collection as well.

You got one, Ferd got the other one. I think you go the 6 and Ferd got the 5 which was matted and framed on my wall. The 6 was missing the logo, and I needed to get a stat done since the logo has part of her hair in it before I had it matted and framed. I have not read further posts, but Rich and I are very old friends and we chatted about original art. Rich and I agree strongly on one point for sure. Please everyone, do not bleach or repair the art work. Adding a stat that does not do anything to the art of the piece is different if it allows viewing the piece the way it was published. But, do not have any form of restoration done to the piece. Enjoy any slight defects the piece may have as the patina of the original piece. Do not under any circumstances have anyone attempt to alter the art itself. Rich and I both feel that is the same as comic book restoration. Personally, I never understood grading a piece of art. Folks, you are looking at one of one. It's not like you are going to get a better example of that page or cover.

Thx Rich for the info. I was curious about the FH warehouse which was before my time.

I" getting the same error message.

The Beard is here. Yep, this looks like your house. Have you ever mentioned your wife Cindy is a collector in her own right, but not anything we are into. Stieff bears, Tiffany, etc. Can you imagine what their house looks like? Bob's collectibles in some areas and Cindy's collectibles in other areas. A VERY COOL house to say the least.

Thx. That Hit 5 cover just looks wrong based on my many, many GA covers I have owned in the past. Richie isn't home now, but when he calls back I'll have him check into it as well. BTW, the two Hit covers I owned was the Hit 6 and the Hit 11 covers.

I just looked at the image of the piece in the gallery, I am very troubled by this piece. I compared it to the Gerber image, and found some minor discrepancies. Why are there less bubbles on the original art than on the image posted in the Gerber. Remember there can be more art than in the Gerber image, but NEVER less. Where is the rest of the piece to the left of the figures where the printed info would have been added? There is no room for that shown in this image of the art. I am going to ask Richie Halegua his opinion. I consider Richie one of the best on original comic book art that I know.

Perhaps I am wrong on the Hit 5. The image in the gallery photo contains no logo making it possible. The 2nd image of him holding the piece at a show is not the piece of art. Possibly a stat.

I am troubled after looking at that image. Did he use PhotoShop to lighten the image of the cover in the image shown of him holding the piece? I have never seen a GA cover so perfectly white with the page edges in such perfect condition. Also I can detect no white out on the page, Lou used white out to correct things when he wished. The only artist that I have come across that never used white out is Robert Crumb. He never corrected what he initially drew. In addition, the logo was usually attached after onto the art, and not part of the art. Makes me very, very suspicious of provenance of this piece. This would not be the first time if true that there are forgeries. There was a guy that forged Science 1, a Planet cover, a Master cover by Raboy, a Frazetta Ghost Rider cover and he even did a forgery of a Margaret Brundage pastel painting used on an issue of Weird Tales.

Great piece I never located. That was considered a classic cover before the other Hit covers came to be called that. Thx for the info.

Thx, good info.

I guess I did, but I don't remember if that was hanging in the house. Thx for the reminder. I was lucky because there weren't too many people after GA original comic cover art when I was collecting them. I remember that I usually paid $1K or less for the Lou Fine covers. I just remembered I also had several Joe Palooka covers, and a Katy Keene cover.

Yep, but I pretty much dominated the wall space. Don't forget, I got heavily into underwater photography. Jean doesn't collect anything like Cindy does, so there are no things she really wanted to hang up or put in our rooms.