Baker Romance 43 43

[comicjack]

1 minute ago, sacentaur said:

No kidding - glad I picked up two lower-grade copies of TAR 14 at SDCC this year. 

You are always ahead of the curve,got a crystal ball 

[sagii]

There was a copy on the ComicLink Exchange this morning P*X graded. Probably gone now 

[N e r V]

Maybe the market has just caught up to the fact that both LB Cole and Matt Baker did some really great work with more than a few classic covers. Two of the best artists working in the golden-age.

[N e r V]

I'll even go so far to suggest that you might see both meet up closely to Alex Schomburg and Lou Fine pricing for their books one day.

[Sqeggs]

14 minutes ago, sagii said:

There was a copy on the ComicLink Exchange this morning P*X graded. Probably gone now 

Still there a minute ago.  What seemed like a crazy price may now be reasonable!

I bought a P*X 4.5 copy of this book earlier this year and sent it off to CGC.  It's coming back as a 5.0. 

But I know the seller and as much as I tell him not to, he still sends books to that company because he likes their fast turnaround.  He's a decent grader of raw books, so I figured I wasn't in for any unpleasant surprises. 

[N e r V]

So what you're saying  is they are stricter graders than CGC?

Edited September 15, 2017 by N e r V

[Sqeggs]

Just now, N e r V said:

So what you're saying  they are stricter graders than CGC?

More erratic graders ... which is probably the least of the reasons not to use them. 

But the seller said that 4.5 was about the grade he had expected, so I figured 4.0 was probably the worst it would do with CGC. 

[sagii]

16 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Still there a minute ago.  What seemed like a crazy price may now be reasonable!

I bought a P*X 4.5 copy of this book earlier this year and sent it off to CGC.  It's coming back as a 5.0. 

But I know the seller and as much as I tell him not to, he still sends books to that company because he likes their fast turnaround.  He's a decent grader of raw books, so I figured I wasn't in for any unpleasant surprises. 

that's great T. Nice to hear stories like this 

[Sqeggs]

15 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Those Giant Comics Editions are quite the challenge to locate...

Heck of a group shot, Bob.  Congrats on assembling them.

As with a lot of things connected with St John, I'm not sure which books should be included in this series and which shouldn't. For instance, are these two (you've got one of them in your group shot) part of the series? 

[Sqeggs]

1 minute ago, sagii said:

19 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Still there a minute ago.  What seemed like a crazy price may now be reasonable!

I bought a P*X 4.5 copy of this book earlier this year and sent it off to CGC.  It's coming back as a 5.0. 

But I know the seller and as much as I tell him not to, he still sends books to that company because he likes their fast turnaround.  He's a decent grader of raw books, so I figured I wasn't in for any unpleasant surprises. 

that's great T. Nice to hear stories like this 

I should say that I've never known him to use the CLink exchange, so that 3.0 is probably not his book.  In other words, buyer beware!

[Robot Man]

52 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Heck of a group shot, Bob.  Congrats on assembling them.

As with a lot of things connected with St John, I'm not sure which books should be included in this series and which shouldn't. For instance, are these two (you've got one of them in your group shot) part of the series? 

Yes, they are part of the series. They just never jazzed me enough to pick up. Neither did the Mighty Mouse ones mostly. Nice copies by the way. These giants are pretty hard to find above vg generally.

[comicnoir]

Maybe that TR14 deserved the price it got. I always thought it was a classic cover, but low grade copies never went for much. It appeared in good/very good here and there. Sold mine on the boards long time ago for little. Rather than think the market is going to crash, it's time to realize if you want quality, you've got to pony up. TR14 is a great book and deserves a place in the pantheon of classic covers. Certain Baker covers are only going to keep going up.

Here's my copy.

[Yorick]

4 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Heck of a group shot, Bob.  Congrats on assembling them.

As with a lot of things connected with St John, I'm not sure which books should be included in this series and which shouldn't. For instance, are these two (you've got one of them in your group shot) part of the series? 

I like Van Buren's art so that Abbie an' Slatts circular is a big plus for me!  Do you not consider it part of the series because of the publisher?

[Yorick]

4 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

I should say that I've never known him to use the CLink exchange, so that 3.0 is probably not his book.  In other words, buyer beware!

I think I know the seller.  If so, typically overpriced, but when you need a rare book, what else can you do?!

[Sqeggs]

1 hour ago, Yorick said:

I like Van Buren's art so that Abbie an' Slatts circular is a big plus for me!  Do you not consider it part of the series because of the publisher?

Yeah, I've never been too clear on the UFS books.  Was UFS actually publishing these books or was it just licensing its syndicated strips to other publishers -- in this case, St John?  Same with the much sought after 1953 Peanuts one-shot.  Actually published by UFS or possibly published by Dell under license from UFS?

[N e r V]

2 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Yeah, I've never been too clear on the UFS books.  Was UFS actually publishing these books or was it just licensing its syndicated strips to other publishers -- in this case, St John?  Same with the much sought after 1953 Peanuts one-shot.  Actually published by UFS or possibly published by Dell under license from UFS?

My understanding of it is that from 1936 to 1954 United Features had their own line of comics. After that St. John got most of their stuff. I think some books get attributed to Dell and others when in fact they are not. 

[FoggyNelson]

On 9/14/2017 at 10:37 PM, Robot Man said:

Those Giant Comics Editions are quite the challenge to locate...

Nice sampling of cool books?

[Dr. Love]

On 9/15/2017 at 0:46 PM, comicnoir said:

Maybe that TR14 deserved the price it got. I always thought it was a classic cover, but low grade copies never went for much. It appeared in good/very good here and there. Sold mine on the boards long time ago for little. Rather than think the market is going to crash, it's time to realize if you want quality, you've got to pony up. TR14 is a great book and deserves a place in the pantheon of classic covers. Certain Baker covers are only going to keep going up.

Here's my copy.

+1

Nothing else he did was quite like this.  Less comicky, more illustration-like.  The characters are larger by a marked degree, but don't suffer for that maximum exposure.  His women are frequently gorgeous and this is no exception, but the men can be much less so, but not in this case.

White cover, which is very rare for them.  An early floating title, and a no balloon cover, most of which didn't come until years later.  And maybe the best full page splash of which, btw, there are very very few.

 

 

[Sqeggs]

13 hours ago, Dr. Love said:

+1

Nothing else he did was quite like this.  Less comicky, more illustration-like.  The characters are larger by a marked degree, but don't suffer for that maximum exposure.  His women are frequently gorgeous and this is no exception, but the men can be much less so, but not in this case.

White cover, which is very rare for them.  An early floating title, and a no balloon cover, most of which didn't come until years later.  And maybe the best full page splash of which, btw, there are very very few.

Often imitated, never duplicated, there is only one Dr. Love!! 

So when are you going to write the book that brings all these insights together? 

[sacentaur]

17 hours ago, Dr. Love said:

+1

Nothing else he did was quite like this.  Less comicky, more illustration-like.  The characters are larger by a marked degree, but don't suffer for that maximum exposure.  His women are frequently gorgeous and this is no exception, but the men can be much less so, but not in this case.

White cover, which is very rare for them.  An early floating title, and a no balloon cover, most of which didn't come until years later.  And maybe the best full page splash of which, btw, there are very very few.

 

 

One of my favorite splash pages of all-time - the taller (less restricting) size really allowed Baker to shine.