Van Buren Collection

[The Black Hand ®]

I have some of these. Anyone else.

 

VAN BUREN

The Van Buren collection contains two of the most interesting points found in all stories behind a pedigree. The first is that they were amassed by a direct descendant of the United States' eighth president, Martin Van Buren(!), and the second was how this descendant's comic collection eventually found its way out of the house.

 

One winter day in New York in 1997, a jogger noticed a house near his path that was on fire. He called 911, but unfortunately it was too late for the occupant, who succumbed to the flames. The firefighters, while trying to distinguish the blaze, had pitched piles of flammable paper out into the snow. Within the piles were stacks of high grade Golden Age comics, which sat in the snow for a few days before being rescued. A local dealer from Connecticut named John Grosse was ultimately contacted by a handler of the estate, who bought the comics and brought them to market.

 

The Van Buren Collection consisted of mostly mainstream superhero comics from the early to late 1940s. DC, Timely, Nedor, were all present. Most issues appeared structurally unread and would have likely been accepted as a pedigree if not for the number of the books that sustained water damage from either the fire hoses or the snow. A number of these books did survive unscathed, and except for some smoky odor, they grade in the VF to NM range

 

[batman_fan]

Interesting story. I don't recall ever hearing of it.

[The Black Hand ®]

All the books I've had from that collection all had deep, vivid colors. More than what my scans show.

[nearmint]

The first is that they were amassed by a direct descendant of the United States' eighth president, Martin Van Buren(!)

 

Then he and I were related. I'm a direct descendant of a cousin of Martin Van Buren. My Great-grandmother on my Dad's side was a Van Buren.

[The Black Hand ®]

Then by all that is right....the collection should have been yours.

[nearmint]

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

I pulled out my All Flash #25 this weekend which I had bought in early 1999 on EBay from a Canadian dealer. It was noted it as from the Van Buren collection but didn't think much of it at the time. Actually I was dissapointed in the book as it had the date stamp erased and had a funny smell. I had kind of forgotten about all of that but got curious this weekend after looking at it again.

 

The book appears to have been unread as noted, has a funky odor which I associate with the mold inside!! Great colors on this book too. All seems to square with the story above. Too bad this collection didn't get sold unscathed!