Baker Romance 43 43

[comicnoir]

I desperately need a Going Steady 12 and 13, if anyone has an undercopy they'd like to throw my way. 

One of my first Bakers was a low grade 13, but I sold it because it was a fair. No one wanted it, eventually I sold it. What a mistake.

[BakerFanOne]

Not sure why, but I have always felt there was some Baker in this cover.  It is in the woman's eyes - although your attention may be drawn elsewhere.  There is a resemblance to some of Baker's Flamingo work and the apes in the background look like Baker too.

Edited April 19, 2017 by BakerFanOne

[BakerFanOne]

This one I have no doubt is almost all Baker.  Given the Iger shop approach, I can see some parts not being Baker, but all the key parts look like Baker to me.

Edited April 19, 2017 by BakerFanOne

[BakerFanOne]

41 minutes ago, comicnoir said:

I desperately need a Going Steady 12 and 13, if anyone has an undercopy they'd like to throw my way. 

One of my first Bakers was a low grade 13, but I sold it because it was a fair. No one wanted it, eventually I sold it. What a mistake.

I think we all have tales of selling woes given the tepid market on Baker romance for many years.  Best of luck on finding a nice replacement on your 13!

Edited April 19, 2017 by BakerFanOne

[Dr. Love]

Towards the end of his career with St. John, Baker produced some of the covers we love best - but those issues also have the weakest interiors.  The Cinderella Loves are Ziff Davis stories inside; the Going Steadys have little or no Baker, and whatever Baker there is are reprints from earlier titles.

Believe it or not, pound for pound, the Teen-Age Diary Secrets 7 digest has more original Baker art than any other title/issue, by a wide margin - 61 pages.  Next in line is the Giant TLP 4, with 41 original Baker pages.

The sublime cover for Diary Secrets 16 (outstanding book Rick!), one of the very first full no dialogue covers, is actually a nuanced rework of an earlier splash from Wartime Romances 12.

 

The only "real" original owner romance collector (archivists like Church, Crippen, and Crowley don't fit the bill), of course a gal, was Nancy Wessner.  Over the course of 25 years I've seen her books surface here and there, and it's always a rush to see her easily recognized sig again.  She liked St. John and Fox, two interesting choices for a young girl, but she also bought across the board in the 50's.  No Charlton of course - Charlton has been universally shunned like an Amish with a taste for porn.

Here are some Nancy books (not my books, just grabbed screen shots).  If you have any Nancy's in nice shape, I'm a for real buyer.

 

 

 

 

[comicjack]

Love the sigs  

[comicjack]

6 hours ago, BakerFanOne said:

This one I have no doubt is almost all Baker.  Given the Iger shop approach, I can see some parts not being Baker, but all the key parts look like Baker to me.

The hands the face give it away in my opinion  

[comicnoir]

6 hours ago, Dr. Love said:

Towards the end of his career with St. John, Baker produced some of the covers we love best - but those issues also have the weakest interiors.  The Cinderella Loves are Ziff Davis stories inside; the Going Steadys have little or no Baker, and whatever Baker there is are reprints from earlier titles.

Believe it or not, pound for pound, the Teen-Age Diary Secrets 7 digest has more original Baker art than any other title/issue, by a wide margin - 61 pages.  Next in line is the Giant TLP 4, with 41 original Baker pages.

The sublime cover for Diary Secrets 16 (outstanding book Rick!), one of the very first full no dialogue covers, is actually a nuanced rework of an earlier splash from Wartime Romances 12.

 

The only "real" original owner romance collector (archivists like Church, Crippen, and Crowley don't fit the bill), of course a gal, was Nancy Wessner.  Over the course of 25 years I've seen her books surface here and there, and it's always a rush to see her easily recognized sig again.  She liked St. John and Fox, two interesting choices for a young girl, but she also bought across the board in the 50's.  No Charlton of course - Charlton has been universally shunned like an Amish with a taste for porn.

Here are some Nancy books (not my books, just grabbed screen shots).  If you have any Nancy's in nice shape, I'm a for real buyer.

 

 

 

 

Nancy's the gal. How many of her books do you estimate are out there Andy?

[BakerFanOne]

7 hours ago, Dr. Love said:

Towards the end of his career with St. John, Baker produced some of the covers we love best - but those issues also have the weakest interiors.  The Cinderella Loves are Ziff Davis stories inside; the Going Steadys have little or no Baker, and whatever Baker there is are reprints from earlier titles.

Believe it or not, pound for pound, the Teen-Age Diary Secrets 7 digest has more original Baker art than any other title/issue, by a wide margin - 61 pages.  Next in line is the Giant TLP 4, with 41 original Baker pages.

The sublime cover for Diary Secrets 16 (outstanding book Rick!), one of the very first full no dialogue covers, is actually a nuanced rework of an earlier splash from Wartime Romances 12.

 

The only "real" original owner romance collector (archivists like Church, Crippen, and Crowley don't fit the bill), of course a gal, was Nancy Wessner.  Over the course of 25 years I've seen her books surface here and there, and it's always a rush to see her easily recognized sig again.  She liked St. John and Fox, two interesting choices for a young girl, but she also bought across the board in the 50's.  No Charlton of course - Charlton has been universally shunned like an Amish with a taste for porn.

Here are some Nancy books (not my books, just grabbed screen shots).  If you have any Nancy's in nice shape, I'm a for real buyer.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Love - tremendous information and pretty ironic that the Diary Secrets 7 is jam packed with so much new Baker.  Not surprising that St. John was repackaging content at the end to save money.  Too bad he didn't pick better content.

[BakerFanOne]

2 hours ago, comicjack said:

The hands the face give it away in my opinion  

I actually think that the guy getting whipped is the most Baker looking figure on the page.

[Sqeggs]

12 hours ago, RICK STARR said:

The Diary Secrets #9 is the Richie M. copy. I hemmed and hawed over his price, at the time, but just could not walk away without it. 

I sent him in an offer, which is what probably what gave you time to decide to grab it.  I've regretted letting it slip away, but at least it ended up in good hands.

[Sqeggs]

11 hours ago, sacentaur said:

12 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Poor distribution is always a reasonable guess with St John, especially for books in the 1954-1955 period.  

Thanks Tony - how does GS 10-14 rank as far as current FMV's (i.e., most expensive to least expensive for the five issues)?

That's an interesting question.  I've had the toughest time finding a nice copy of GS 13.  There are only two on the census.  This copy and a 4.0.  Nicer raw copies have been displayed in this thread.

Finding a nice copy of any of the GS issues cheap, sure ain't easy.  You wouldn't believe what some knucklehead paid for this copy. 

 

[Sqeggs]

Another of the early photo cover books.  Again, CGC's label fails to mention the two Baker stories lurking within.

 

Edited April 19, 2017 by Sqeggs

[Dr. Love]

33 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Finding a nice copy of any of the GS issues cheap, sure ain't easy.  You wouldn't believe what some knucklehead paid for this copy. 

 

At the time, Lee said:

"Curious if others were as surprised at the final price for the Going Steady 14 in the Heritage Auction. It was a CGC Blue 6.0 and sold for $2270.50 including BP.

I know this is a tougher Baker romance book, but I figured this issue would top out at maybe $800-900 as this is not as highly sought after as some of the Cinderella Loves and late issues of Teen-Age Romances.

Given some of the crazy prices realized in this auction, is this an outlier or a sign of things to come?"

And with great foresight I said:

"Surprised, but not shocked! shocked I say! A great book, unique actually in terms of theme for Baker, and very very very tough to come by in anything approaching grade. I've always considered it a minor grail, along with TAR 45. And after all these years, none on the census till this showed up, and that club is getting smaller and smaller.

If I'm not mistaken both Rick Starr and Sqeggs have lesser copies, shall we say, and I wouldn't put it past either of them to go for this one. Nor would I say it's a bad move. If you were committed to a world class Baker collection, this book would be a must have.

A bit out of my budget, but expenditures are very relative. These days 2K ain't no big thang."

 

[Dr. Love]

and while we're on the topic of all things Sqeggs related - Tony has single handedly brought a lot of liquidity to the Baker romance market by slabbing and re-introducing lower grade undercopies to the market.  New buyers and new money helps it all circulate around.  I think we could have stalled without a decent crop of affordable slabs in the $150 to $450 range to work with.  Almost as if the guy has a higher grasp of economics, or something. 

[Dr. Love]

2 hours ago, comicnoir said:

Nancy's the gal. How many of her books do you estimate are out there Andy?

I've got pics on 30 so far.  I'm thinking there were a lot more, but how many survived is questionable.  They drift across Ebay like tears in the rain. 

I'll hijack this thread and post a few later.

 

 

[BakerFanOne]

1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

That's an interesting question.  I've had the toughest time finding a nice copy of GS 13.  There are only two on the census.  This copy and a 4.0.  Nicer raw copies have been displayed in this thread.

Finding a nice copy of any of the GS issues cheap, sure ain't easy.  You wouldn't believe what some knucklehead paid for this copy. 

 

Sometimes being that lead dog can feel a bit crazy and wild, but looking back you realized it was a tremendously smart and prophetic decision.  Hindsight is always 20/20.  Clearly Sqeggs and many others like RickStarr, DukeDog, ComicNoir, Dr. Love were way ahead of the rest of fandom on Baker.  And the rest of folks who are quickly building awesome Baker collections like SACentaur and Rick are also going to look back and be glad they jumped in when they did because prices are not going down in my humble opinion.  I think the reason is quite simple and that's because Baker is one of the true greats.  Like an Andy Warhol or Basquiat, once the genius is recognized, the demand is insatiable and with a limited supply, there will only be more contention for the top remaining copies.  I doubt any of the Baker collectors will sell unless they upgrade, have financial emergencies, or make a big move on a mega-key.  So yes the price on the Going Steady 14 was aggressive at the time, but what are the odds that you will ever see a better copy for sale.  Steve Ballmer made the same decision in buying the LA Clippers realizing that an opportunity to buy a major NBA franchise while he is still young enough to enjoy it comes along every 15-20 years so why not pay 50% more than market value if you have the $$$.

Edited April 19, 2017 by BakerFanOne

[Sqeggs]

1 hour ago, Dr. Love said:

I've got pics on 30 so far.  I'm thinking there were a lot more, but how many survived is questionable.  They drift across Ebay like tears in the rain. 

I'll hijack this thread and post a few later.

 

 

A while back, I bought part of a collection from Harley comprised of OO romance books, including some Bakers. I don't think I ever scanned any.

I think of it as the "For ..." collection because rather than write her own name on the books, she wrote the word "For" and the names of various of her friends.  The fact, though, that she ended up with the books and that, apart from her writing on the covers, they are in very nice condition (perhaps only read once) makes me wonder if she ever actually passed these books on to her friends, or whether these other girls actually were her friends or were girls she fantasized about being friends with. 

A lot of speculation there! 

I didn't buy all Harley had.  Anyone else pick any up?  I believe I bought them from him at one of the NY cons. At any rate, they would make another substantial (non-ped) OO romance collection.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Sqeggs
Usage nitpick!

[Robot Man]

12 hours ago, Dr. Love said:

Towards the end of his career with St. John, Baker produced some of the covers we love best - but those issues also have the weakest interiors.  The Cinderella Loves are Ziff Davis stories inside; the Going Steadys have little or no Baker, and whatever Baker there is are reprints from earlier titles.

Believe it or not, pound for pound, the Teen-Age Diary Secrets 7 digest has more original Baker art than any other title/issue, by a wide margin - 61 pages.  Next in line is the Giant TLP 4, with 41 original Baker pages.

The sublime cover for Diary Secrets 16 (outstanding book Rick!), one of the very first full no dialogue covers, is actually a nuanced rework of an earlier splash from Wartime Romances 12.

 

The only "real" original owner romance collector (archivists like Church, Crippen, and Crowley don't fit the bill), of course a gal, was Nancy Wessner.  Over the course of 25 years I've seen her books surface here and there, and it's always a rush to see her easily recognized sig again.  She liked St. John and Fox, two interesting choices for a young girl, but she also bought across the board in the 50's.  No Charlton of course - Charlton has been universally shunned like an Amish with a taste for porn.

Here are some Nancy books (not my books, just grabbed screen shots).  If you have any Nancy's in nice shape, I'm a for real buyer.

 

 

 

 

Teen age Diary Secrets Digest is a great book with Lots of Baker inside. The cover is decieving. I like the Baker digest "It rhymes with Lust" a lot too. full of nice Baker art.

[comicjack]

5 hours ago, BakerFanOne said:

I actually think that the guy getting whipped is the most Baker looking figure on the page.

Very much Baker like that's what caught my eye with this book so underrated