bluechip

Unless my experience is unusual, and I've simply missed a lot of coverless action 1s over the last 30 years, I would say that coverless tec 27s, while rare, are a lot less rare than coverless action 1s.

Only three Action 1s in this auction? If you've got one to sell, get it in there fast!

I would respectfully differ. I think that unless the market for all comics slackens considerably that the base price for the Big 2 (action 1, tec 27) will be 100K for anything complete and at all presentable. I think the buyers for this and the comiclink copy both got pretty good deals considering the longterm, and while there may be other deals for this and tec 27 that come along, a buyer can't count on copies appearing the way they can for lesser books.

Me too. I love seeing those first previews of covers or characters. That would make a great thread here............. First time I saw a copy of Action 13 with that ad, I didn't buy it because the dealer pointed out that the book had the wrong interior (overstreet said the ad was in #14). What an honest dealer. Love that centerfold and if anyone has a spare...love to have one framed. Very honest dealer who didn't realize Overstreet was wrong. I was going to buy it anyway (for a hundred bucks) but got distracted because my kid wanted to go look at something else. Meant to come back but forgot the booth #

Me too. I love seeing those first previews of covers or characters. That would make a great thread here............. First time I saw a copy of Action 13 with that ad, I didn't buy it because the dealer pointed out that the book had the wrong interior (overstreet said the ad was in #14).

ouch Good news: The original owner found the original torn off piece at the bottom of the box he'd kept his books in. Bad news: He had a conservator friend reattach the piece with archival tape, making the book worth 90% less. Good news: .The guy's dog sniffed the book and got the tape stuck on his nose, pulled it loose and tore away the taped on piece, along with another two inches of the cover.

Wow! That Superman is so strong that when he picked that guy up he ripped him in half!

They have internet cafes all over Thailand. in Bangkok yes...not in the village we will be in...no running water or plumbing so definitely no internet cafes Stay away from Patpong road if you want to see your kids more than every other weekend.

Books could be better protected without changing the way they make their slabs. I would rather have a book encased in a slab with a hard lucite backing and a wrapped in a mylite so its tight against the lucite and then put in a slab. Then it wouldn't bend or bow, and wouldn't slide into the edges of the inner well. And it wouldn't require a whole redo of their manufacturing process. That's just one way it could be done. I am sure there are other and better ways. But anything that better prevents bending and slipping would be an improvement and well worth an additional cost for the most expensive books

I don't have a problem with any person buying a label. And it's clear that some collectors do. I've heard more than a few say "I collect 9.8s" or "I collect 9.6s and above." Sometimes it's followed with "I collect 9.8 (fill in the blank)s" but it's clear that it starts with the label. That's all fine. Though, people who do so should be aware they are collecting labels and not books. Or, at the least, labels first and books (possibly) second. I am surprised, however, that people who do focus so greatly on the label #s don't make a greater case for improving the case, or the slab. The more you feel a business should be focused on infinitessimal differences between one book and another, then it seems to me that the more you want the slab itself to present zero or near-zero danger of altering the book that's encased in it. When I see supposedly minty books floating freely in slabs or even bowing in the middle, I get a bit frustrated by it myself, and I generally regard the top several tier grades as interchangeable. I can only imagine how frustrated it would make me if I were someone who obsessed over infininitessimal differences to the point of feeling a 9.9 was worth a dozen times a 9.8, or a thousand times as much as a 9.4. .

But pressing isn't "new" starting today. It's been going on for a while. You don't think people have been looking at Hulk 181s for the past few years? The reality is, pressing a book into a 9.9 isn't like just turning the press to "11" and watching the magic happen. Books that can grade out at 9.9/10 are FREAKS of preservation, to find a book with a slight, pressable flaw that could turn into a 9.9 is probably just as rare as finding a true 9.9, just because it's got to be an uncanny combination of issues. + infinity to the part in green. What normally gets perfectly preserved books a 9.8 instead of a mint grade is almost never pressable. Tiny bindery tears, tiny flecks of white at a corner, tiny, nearly imperceptible spine tics on otherwise perfect books. I would love to hear anyone post a "press to 9.9" story, because I don't think one exists except for people that are pressing moderns. The questions about pressing gloss over what seem to me to be somewhat bigger questions. One being that if a book is really as common in all grades as it would be if it were printed today, then how much can any copy be worth? And if 9.8s and 9.9s are subjective and virtually indistinguishable from one another (at least in terms of non-microscopic presentability), then the value depends on how much value buyers place, and will continue to place, on a difference that cannot really be seen. And, perhaps more importantly (given the slabbing process itself and "shaken comic syndrome") on whether that infinitessimal difference continues to exist forever except on the label itself.

Kirby, possibly from ST Annual 2. He never could draw Spider-man's mask properly. Bluechip.. why do they need to be exact copies? Rarely does an artist make perfect copies of anything, even when trying to. These are just John Verpoorton's interpretation I didn't mean to imply they would or should be exact copies. I just wondered about the spiderman drawing because the eyes are so off it's as if the artist hadn't seen Ditko's version. But of course as pointed out Kirby and some other marvel artists sometimes drew spidey as if they hadn't seen ditko's version, especially in regards to the webs. And I remember there were some early house ads for Spidey in which the eyes were off. (in fact I think ASM 1 had an example of a strangely drawn spidey asking readers to send in letters) I understand people ragging on the art, but the sad fact is Marvel sometimes did use art as bad as those stamps and sometimes worse. I am no artist but some of those house ads for MMMS items had drawings that looked about as polished as the drawings I did of the Marvel gang for my school paper.

From sellers wanting them to appear something better/more important than they actually are . . . or would-be buyers suckered into that idea. I remember when they are on Ebay, all on a single piece of vellum. They looked really amateurish and sloppy in a group. Then they got chopped into individual "stamps" and put into ornate frames with engraved plaques as if that would distract from the overall fecal quality they all shared. it makes a lot of sense to me that John Verpoorten drew these stamps If they came from Verpoorten's estate (which I wasn't aware of until I read Chris's post), it makes sense that he may well have drew the stamps. Going back several years, when I started this topic, I had two major concerns: 1. The integrity of the dealer trying to sell them. 2. The sanity of any would-be-buyer ready and willing to accept the BS of the former. I thought Verpoorten didn't start with Marvel until the late 60s. And if the artist(s) copied images from published drawings of the characters, where did he find a spider-man picture with eyes like that? Far as I'm aware, Verpoorten joined Marvel in 1967. And if he's the artist responsible, then the stamps date later than any pencil notation would have you believe . . . if you're that gulliable? As for the Spider-man picture . . . not the easiest of costume masks to illustrate. I'm not gullible enough to believe a daredevil picture is the firist time he was ever drawn even though the picture is of a costume he didn't have until issue #7. And I find it strange that anyone would make that assertion for very long; even if they were honestly wrong, you'd think someone would point it out in a fairly short time. If Verpoorten arrived in 1967 and he was the one he drew these, then he used references that were not the most recent. Aside from all that, the biggest clue about the time period may be Stan's hat (so we know it's pre-toupe) Just curiou. I think it has more to do with references that are appropriate for the project. Good head shots. If Verpoorten was the 'artist' for this project, he would no doubt have had access to old copies of the various Marvel mags to choose from (and in 1967 the superhero output of Marvel would not have taken up too much file space, would it?). Although I've already mentioned that I don't have the time or inclination to research each and every image, I can tell you this: The Ka-Zar stamp is copied from the splash page of X-MEN # 10, March 1965 (and if you're wanting to look for a good head shot of Ka Zar in 1967, his debut appearance is as good as any place to start looking, considering he didn't feature too heavily in the various titles). The Sgt Fury characters are copied from the cover of SGT. FURY # 18, May 1965. I'm sure that I could go on to provide the original sources for most of these stamps. When I first started this thread, several years ago, I made a point of highlighting all of these discrepancies to the dealer attempting to dress up and sell these stamps (re-read my original posts). Did he change his lofty claims? No . . . with the exception of changing his original assertion that the DAREDEVIL stamp was by Bill Everrett to being the work of Wally Wood. And without re-reading all the previous posts I noticed someone was suggesting the Invisible Girl looked life a Woody female . . . I guess it's true . . . you can fool some of the people some of the time . . . I saw that years ago and wasn't fooled. But apparently, nobody else was, either, 'cause the prices they got were probably less than they would've gotten if correctly labelled as an unused marvel project from Verpoorten's collection. Not to mention less than the asking price at the time. I don't recall the exact prices at the time but if memory serves they were about close to a grand a head for lesser characters and as much as a couple grand per head for the stars.

From sellers wanting them to appear something better/more important than they actually are . . . or would-be buyers suckered into that idea. I remember when they are on Ebay, all on a single piece of vellum. They looked really amateurish and sloppy in a group. Then they got chopped into individual "stamps" and put into ornate frames with engraved plaques as if that would distract from the overall fecal quality they all shared. it makes a lot of sense to me that John Verpoorten drew these stamps If they came from Verpoorten's estate (which I wasn't aware of until I read Chris's post), it makes sense that he may well have drew the stamps. Going back several years, when I started this topic, I had two major concerns: 1. The integrity of the dealer trying to sell them. 2. The sanity of any would-be-buyer ready and willing to accept the BS of the former. I thought Verpoorten didn't start with Marvel until the late 60s. And if the artist(s) copied images from published drawings of the characters, where did he find a spider-man picture with eyes like that? Far as I'm aware, Verpoorten joined Marvel in 1967. And if he's the artist responsible, then the stamps date later than any pencil notation would have you believe . . . if you're that gulliable? As for the Spider-man picture . . . not the easiest of costume masks to illustrate. I'm not gullible enough to believe a daredevil picture is the firist time he was ever drawn even though the picture is of a costume he didn't have until issue #7. And I find it strange that anyone would make that assertion for very long; even if they were honestly wrong, you'd think someone would point it out in a fairly short time. If Verpoorten arrived in 1967 and he was the one he drew these, then he used references that were not the most recent. Aside from all that, the biggest clue about the time period may be Stan's hat (so we know it's pre-toupe) Just curiou.

From sellers wanting them to appear something better/more important than they actually are . . . or would-be buyers suckered into that idea. I remember when they are on Ebay, all on a single piece of vellum. They looked really amateurish and sloppy in a group. Then they got chopped into individual "stamps" and put into ornate frames with engraved plaques as if that would distract from the overall fecal quality they all shared. it makes a lot of sense to me that John Verpoorten drew these stamps If they came from Verpoorten's estate (which I wasn't aware of until I read Chris's post), it makes sense that he may well have drew the stamps. Going back several years, when I started this topic, I had two major concerns: 1. The integrity of the dealer trying to sell them. 2. The sanity of any would-be-buyer ready and willing to accept the BS of the former. I thought Verpoorten didn't start with Marvel until the late 60s. So these were sold via ebay from Verpoorten's estate and the next owner cut them up and made assertions or conclusions that tured out to be inaccurate (i.e. "first pen to paper" image of Daredevil, which can't be true because of the costume). Yet he never mentioned the fact they came from the estate of marvel staffer? Why make statements easily disproved about who drew what and when, while at the same time, not mentioning they came from a staffer, which would prove, at least, that they came from Marvel? And if the artist(s) copied images from published drawings of the characters, where did he find a spider-man picture with eyes like that?

If you ask, then you obviously haven't seen Al Harley's work on Thor in an early Journey Into Mystery. Al Hartley's awful artwork for JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY # 90 is on a par with these crappy stamps. Maybe these stamps would be of interest to Al Hartley THOR fans? Actually, the image of Thor in these stamps isn't too bad. It makes a case that these were Severin because the stamp image of Thor is similar to the big head shot Marie Severin drew for Thor 158.

If you ask, then you obviously haven't seen Al Harley's work on Thor in an early Journey Into Mystery.

Interesting. Never saw that original thread. It is odd that such inconsistences wouldn't be noted in the first place, let alone after so long a time (even comiclink's listing failed to correct them). Of couse it makes no sense to draw characters for the first time on stamps; Though, I think the guy who says there's no way these were drawn by bullpen artist is also taking it to the extreme. Whatever failings there are in the art on some of those stamps, many are also dead on, even if they were copied from existing images. And all it takes is a look at some Marvel comcs from 1964 to see that bullpen artists very often cranked out images of marvel star characters that were not only below the quality of these but in some cases bloody awful. (I will refrain from naming names as it really isn't necessary). The most likely scenario seems to be it was a mid-60s early MMMS project that was given to Marie Severin or someone unknown and was aborted before completion. That's interesting enough, but maybe the guy who bought them either paid too much or really wanted them to be much more interesting and talked himself into it. So I'd guess that because these were offered with major discrepancies and likely overpriced that had had a lingering effect that caused them to be somewhat undervalued this time around. I'd've probably bid a bit more for the DD, Cap or Thor headshots if the descriptions hadn't contained the dodgy date.

If you have a link I'd like to see it. cause they were on clink just a couple weeks ago.

Here is a shot of the whole stamp sheet. I think if these were published we'd know, so I'd guess it was a project that was started and never went to fruition. The info about these being dated 1-9-64 is confusing and most likely the date is either wrong or was the date for one of the images but not all of them. Most likely the guy who originally obtained them saw that date on the back and jumped to conclusions, hoping they were all dated at that point, because it would make the daredevil and captain america sketches more valuable. 11-1964 sounds more like it. But who knows. The FF pictures are all similar to the pics in the logos of the comic -- with the exception of the sue picture. When I first saw these I thought they might be printed images rather than art, then saw one up close and tehre is real art there on top of blue pencils. heavily staned from being glued somewhere at some point.

Saw these listed on a web site several years ago and credited as a combo of Kirby, Wally Wood and Marie Severin. They showed up on comiclink credited to Marie Severin. Meant to buy a handful but didn't bid aggresively enough. Some details are fuzzy. Dated 1-9-64, which predates Daredevil 1 yet the picture is of his later later costume. Spidey picture looks like it was drawn by someone who either didn't have access to a published drawing or didn't care (and in either case that doesn't fit with Marie Severin, who had been with Marvel since before Spidey was launched) Some of the pictures looked a lot more like Wally Wood -- like the one of Sue Storm below, who, in this shot, looks a lot like a typical Wood woman). If the stamps were done by Wood that'd be good for the buyer of the Daredevil (not me) because it could be a rare early shot of the new costume by its designer. Later in 1964 would seem right becase that's when Marvel first got into developing its club and merchandising. So perhaps the 1-9 date stems from the earliest image? Never heard of any aborted attempt to do Marvel stamps that early, but clearly the image of Stan Lee is consistent with early 60s. Anyone know anything about them?

Picture Parade story page from 1953. Classic of the "atomic cafe" genre. Puppy got caught in an atom bomb blast? Hey, could be a lot worse. He could'a got sprayed by a skunk or something really bad.

With the Skrulls a likely major villain in one or more upcoming films, this key could be more key fairly soon