kent allard

Alas, I fear it may come down to something as prosaic and sad as that ... W.C. Fields was right. brain fart ... meant P.T. Barnum

Bingo! That's what I'm concerned with. Has the contagion spread, or is being helped along? I've got my tin-foil hat securely in place ...

Exactly! For the sake of argument, let's say they get a volume discount, or preferred pricing - whatever you want to call it - of $5 a slab. For $20 you can slab 4 pieces of dreck that no one would bid on individually and generate $29. I understand the business logic of that from the vantage point of HA. But they could just as well bundle them as a lot of unslabbed pulps and people would bid on it too. I win the lot - yay! What am I going to do with 4 slabbed pieces of dreck whose only value is as reader copies - break them out? Why slab them to begin with? Slabbing imputes to them a value they don't have and is in fact counterproductive - to the customer. Hence my suspicions that something is at play here. Of course it could be just newbies slabbing dreck and HA benevolently bundling them into a lot so they can be sold and provide *SOME* return for the clueless. @Ryan. and @OtherEric had credible hypotheses. I have no stake in it either way. Just floating the suspicions to see what others think. Doesn't seem like anyone else shares them. That's cool.

I don't understand the bundling lot logic. Is it keeping the overall number of lots down to something more reasonable? Is hit or miss depending on who is organizing the auction lots? I've gotten some really good deals when HA created a bundled lot of things that they could have easily been split into multiple lots. Other times I have been forced to bid on multiple mid-value items (< $145) in a run that each trigger the BP minimum, and I feel screwed. This has been happening in the past few auctions where I have won slabbed pulps for <$20 and am dismayed to see I am spending more on the BP then the item itself. OK, that can happen in an auction. But I feel for the consignor, especially when they have incurred the cost of slabbing. I don't think HA is concerned about their prestige in this area. They are solidly ensconced, and given the quality of the material they bring to market, rightly so. This is gravy. My concern is that HA might be the one submitting this dross for slabbing because they have a volume discount or 'understanding' with CGC. It is a lot more impressive to offer a bundle of slabbed pulps than unslabbed pulps. If it costs them $5 * 4 = $20 to slab the lot, I can see that being a considered reasonable strategic investment to shape a perception. I don't know. @Ryan. and @OtherEric have plausible hypotheses, but something about the current state of things is causing my spidey sense to tingle. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I'll go back to my bedroom in the basement now, but don't say nobody warned you all ...

No, that's actually something I could see. Before committing pulps of value, see what the results look like, then dump them on HA to recoup some of the costs. Bears consideration as I keep my eyes on how things develop.

Now that is a plausible hypothesis. In defense of the conspiracy theory, one might theorize a focus on the long game. I agree that this is chump change now. What I'm suspicious of is trying to establish a behavior pattern of slabbing everything 'otherwise you won't be able to sell it'. I'm not pushing anything here. Just a bit suspicious.

Ditto!

Thanks very much @adamstrange and @bronze johnny for your trenchant comments. This is fascinating! I'm anxious to see where it goes and would very much like to see a cover gallery of pre/post era nominations, either here or split off in a dedicated thread. Great idea for a thread @Coverdeath !

I remember when they introduced that go-go racing banner. Seemed stupid to me as a kid. Still don't understand what they were trying to accomplish with it.

Curious. What is so definitively SA about #340 vs #339. For Batman there was the costume change and the art. What changed here? Was it Superman being under attack by an individual rival who could threaten him? His expression is one of fear/vulnerability. Not a big fan of Superman, but I don't recall seeing this type of emotion expressed in earlier covers.

spot on for Batman! Who can provide similar transition covers for others?

Shades of Khan??? I'm partial to the femurs used as chair legs. Wild. It's got easter eggs - sort of a Bill Elder vibe, not just the usual Schomburg riot of action.

S&S did this cover across a whole range of their pulps in July of '42 https://pulpmags.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/street-smith-goes-to-war-patriotic-pulps-of-july-1942/ It may be patriotic, but I can't see it as being very creative. Yeah, MM #46 is a cool cover but too complicated and busy for my tastes to be considered iconic. Earlier in the thread I mentioned that what I'm looking for the visceral gut-punch that happens in the first 2 seconds, not the layered examination that needs to go on in a Schomburg cover. Raboy was a master of clean composition. His CM Jr and Green Lama covers really nail it. Schomburg is an iconic artist, but in this regard I personally find him lacking. He just *overwhelms* you And that's one collector's opinion (with an affectionate nod to the iconic George Putnam)

Fair. I just want some perspective from veterans.

I'm not sure what to make of your comment about wonkiness. I'm assuming you are dismissing the entire topic as being counterproductive to consider. You want reader copies - fine. You're willing to pay $20+ a pulp - fine. Why slab them if they are just reader copies? HA is taking $29 off the top, leaving $55 for the consignor, before consignment fees. That's probably no more than $12 - $13 return per pulp, exclusive of slabbing costs. Let's just say there were no shipping costs to slab - consignor is still way in the red. Who is making the money here? CGC and HA. I'm sure the consignor would net more putting them on MCS as unslabbed reader copies. Heck, throwing them away is better than putting them on HA, at least you don't LOSE money. Makes NO sense to me. The point of the thread is to see if anyone else smells a rat - I don't understand why these are being graded and I'm suspicious we are being played. Is it as banal as clueless newbies or is there something else going on? Sounds like you are in the former group. I leaning more and more to being in the latter.

I noticed those as well, but a .5 PLOD? It's not like this is an 08/1928 copy of Amazing Stories. These are not the only examples. Previous auctions have also had some questionable offerings, but ya gotta draw the line somewhere. This seems to be a trend, not a one-off. I'm a bit of a suspicious type. I have personally experienced multiple instances of what strongly seems to me to be AI-based shill bidding on certain items I was chasing. No accusations, just saying. CGC's reputation is a bit tarnished recently. The questionable 9.8 grades, suspicious grading, etc ... No fires, just a lot of smoke. With the tight relationship between HA and CGC, I can't help wondering if is it mindless/clueless collector newbies who have bought into the slabbing-mania and trying to jump on the next big wave, or something a bit more sinister (muahahaha!). I'm not above buying a slabbed pulp. I see the value of it for me as a buyer, but I'm concerned that sellers are being led to the slaughter and the overall effect this will have on COLLECTING. Do we really want to allow pulps to become commoditized the way comics have? Throwing it out there ... how do people feel about this?

Is CGC behind this, to prime the pump and create a market? Is HA in an incestuous relationship with CGC, slabbiing these for $5 each? What are people thinking to slab this kind of stuff? Consignors must be delusional in their expectations. Sell on MCS as a raw! At least you'll make $5 or $10. I can't see anyone benefiting from this but CGC (slabbing fees) and HA (outrageous $29 minimum BP).

Not a barn burner and not one I especially cared for at the time. I was dipping my toes back into collecting, it was fairly high-grade, and I considered it relatively cheap at the time. 54 graded copies; 5 in grade, 6 above. It's grown on me.

I want first dibs on your under-copy!

Brilliant! Of course, it makes life more difficult if one must evaluate and keep track of these different subtle factors. In the trade-off between precision and convenience, it is often convenience that carries the day. You say 'requoted' - from where? Are you quoting yourself, or someone else?

Thanks for joining the party @Cat-Man_America My original idea in starting this thread was to focus on the use of symbolism in WWII covers, that have gone on to become iconic. There are scores of neat covers, and some really nice action-type covers, but I was hoping to get exposed to the more 'artsy' ones where the emphasis was on conveying ideas (most often patriotic ones) through symbolism. @*paull*'s Master #27 is a masterpiece of simplicity. Raboy has quite a few other excellent covers in this regard. While MM #46 is a GREAT cover (though I'm a bit more partial to Thrilling #41 for humiliation), National #16 resonates much more strongly to me. Uncle Sam throttling the Nazi death skeleton hits my sweet spot: nice composition + associating Nazis with death through the use of a (putrid green?) skeleton + Lou Fine art = iconic. The thread has veered off my original vision for it as people have interpreted symbolic and iconic in their own ways. Its cool - I'm harvesting lots of nice candidates and I think lots of great stuff is being showcased. And a good time seems to being had by all Oh, that Prize cover is fun, but doesn't make *my* list. It is a subtle statement that I think carried much stronger impact in an era when ticker tape parades actually happened. What I really find funny is how Frankenstein was relegated to the back of the line. What, not pretty enough for the lead car? Didn't sell as many comics? Is he tied up back there? Is that black thing behind him a hearse? I'm hoping we can actually do a vote at some point to see which ones are the fan favorites

I'm quite familiar with that cartoon, one of my favorite Bugs (and there were a LOT of good ones!). Thanks for that backstory - didn't know about that. Will need to do some research.

Now that's a confusing symbolic cover - Airboy shooting a Jap through a swastika? If the artist meant for the orange background and white spotlight to represent the rising sun, he lost me.

I presume the reaction is to the closing price on the auction, not my owning a couple of copies of Impact #1

If he did, he doesn't have it any more ... https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/bernie-krigstein-impact-1-complete-8-page-story-master-race-original-art-ec-1955-total-8-items-/a/7192-91024.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515 The closest I got to that one was downloading the higher resolution images I do have a couple of copies of the Charlton Impact #1 however ...