Infinite Marvel Picture Frame books 23 23

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 1/2/2024 at 3:40 PM, Black_Adam said:

 

I recently dipped my toe back into the Marvel Picture Frame waters and just received a handful back from CGC!

 

AA #9 is a pretty scarce book, at least for Bronze Age!

[Ghost Town]

On 1/2/2024 at 12:40 PM, Black_Adam said:

I recently dipped my toe back into the Marvel Picture Frame waters and just received a handful back from CGC!

That's not dipping your toe. That's diving in and finding all sorts of treasures.

[namisgr]

A few recent upgrades, all cracked out of slabs.  Hulk #153 is an issue that has a special place in my heart as the first Hulk comic I bought, read, and saved when starting as a brand new comic collector.  The difference in the whiteness of the covers for the latter two books shows the long-term effect of a healthy layer of white ink on the one but not the other issue: 

     

Edited January 14 by namisgr

[Dick Pontoon]

Hulk #153 is special to me as well. It was a few years later when I started buying off the rack, but it was an early book for me, a secondhand copy that I got from a friend along with #147. The Severin inks hit it out of the park. Finding a raw copy of #153 that I found suitable took a long time time.

On a more pedantic note, there's no white ink on any of those books Mr. S., only cyan, yellow, magenta and black. Any white you see is the whiteness of the paper.

Edited January 14 by Dick Pontoon

[namisgr]

There's something (extra gloss?  higher quality paper?) on Hulk 159 that makes the covers easy to find in whitey-white shape, unlike many other picture frame Marvels with white covers.  Another example comes from Marvel Team Up, where ish 5 is super common in glowing white but number 2 isn't.

    

 

Edited January 14 by namisgr

[BuscemasAvengers]

On 1/14/2024 at 12:31 PM, namisgr said:

There's something (extra gloss?  higher quality paper?) on Hulk 159 that makes the covers easy to find in whitey-white shape, unlike many other picture frame Marvels with white pages.  Another example comes from Marvel Team Up, where ish 5 is super common in glowing white but number 2 isn't.

    

 

100% agree with this.  I've had multiple copies of these issues over the years and the 5 shines much better than the 2.  I'm curious if copies of 'ish 7 you've owned also reflected a healthy sheen ...

[Spawnfreak]

On 12/9/2023 at 6:16 PM, ThothAmon said:

Thoth, you maketh me ill!

[Dick Pontoon]

On 1/14/2024 at 12:41 PM, BuscemasAvengers said:

On 1/14/2024 at 12:31 PM, namisgr said:

There's something (extra gloss?  higher quality paper?) on Hulk 159 that makes the covers easy to find in whitey-white shape, unlike many other picture frame Marvels with white pages.  Another example comes from Marvel Team Up, where ish 5 is super common in glowing white but number 2 isn't.

   

 

Expand  

100% agree with this.  I've had multiple copies of these issues over the years and the 5 shines much better than the 2.  I'm curious if copies of 'ish 7 you've owned also reflected a healthy sheen ...

This looks like a job for DiceX. But since he's not here I'll speculate the reason is the paper stock and/or sizing. My MTU #2 is also on the dull side.

Edited January 15 by Dick Pontoon

[namisgr]

Another example can be found in the FFs.  Ish 121 is a white cover often found to have toned a bit.  But the other FF issues with white pages, such as 129, are commonly glowing whitey-white.  These were all scanned and image processed by the same method, and while their cover whites are close, they're distinct both in scans (comparing slabbed with slabbed and raw with raw) and especially in person.  It's especially interesting to compare the two slabs, as despite both being from the very same collection, the front cover paper looks markedly different.  I guess it's from the very different qualities of the cover paper stock:

      

  

Edited January 15 by namisgr

[Off Panel]

I took the opportunity to upgrade my ASM 106 recently.

I've always been a sucker for this book. I don't know if it's the DC-style "how will our hero get out of this one?" cover, the John Romita Spidey contortionism, or that weird purple frame, but I have a really hard time passing on copies of this book. I mean, I'm not @ThothAmon , but I get ThothAmon.

My original copy (which I still love, because it's a Spidey 106):

 

And it's new sibling:

 

[Off Panel]

I also added the follow-up to ASM 106. (I mean, I had to know what happened next, right?)

 

 

When I first started working on this run, I intentionally steered clear of this issue. Back in those days, I seemed to see them everywhere and they were fairly cheap. My thought process was that I would focus on the more expensive, harder-to-find books first and then just pick up a 107 at my leisure.

While it's true that there are a lot more high grade copies of this book than the issues around it (there are 49 copies of 107 in 9.8, compared to 15 copies of 106), I've found that the market isn't exactly flooded with them. GPA recorded two sales last year, and two the year before. 2021 was the high-water mark, with four whole sales! Of course, that was the height of the comic boom, and books were coming out of the woodwork. And, because it was 2021, sale prices ranged from $725 to $5,040!

All of that is to say, that by the time I got around to buying my 107, I had to work for it a little bit.

Even so, this book brings me another step closer to a full run of the ASM Picture Frames. I now only need two more issues. Maybe I'll finish this year. If not, surely in 2025...

[WernerVonDoom]

[Off Panel]

Gorgeous books, @WernerVonDoom!

[Black_Adam]

I just wanted to give a heads up to those Marvel Picture Frame collectors who may be interested that I have consigned the four comics below to the Comiclink Winter Featured Auction, starting Feb. 15th. These high grade copies were making the rest of my collection (I live in a 9.4 neighborhood) feel infuriatingly inferior and need to be moved to a collection far more deserving of these pristine copies than mine!

 

[Ghost Town]

Wow, wow, wow, and, um, wow.

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 2/13/2024 at 2:23 PM, Black_Adam said:

I just wanted to give a heads up to those Marvel Picture Frame collectors who may be interested that I have consigned the four comics below to the Comiclink Winter Featured Auction, starting Feb. 15th. These high grade copies were making the rest of my collection (I live in a 9.4 neighborhood) feel infuriatingly inferior and need to be moved to a collection far more deserving of these pristine copies than mine!

 

Four incredible black beauties!

[Ghost Town]

When I was growing up and first saw Ghost Rider in a comic, it didn't strike me as unusual that his head was flaming skull. But fifty years later, I'm thinking, "Wow, his head is a flaming skull!"

[Off Panel]

On 2/19/2024 at 6:01 PM, Ghost Town said:

 

 

Sweet cracker sandwich! Congratulations, Barton!!

Only four of these demonic bad boys in 9.8 until you unearthed this one!  Superlative work, my friend.

 

 

(Now if you could just dig up a couple more...) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ghost Town]

On 2/21/2024 at 8:42 PM, Off Panel said:

Sweet cracker sandwich! Congratulations, Barton!!

Only four of these demonic bad boys in 9.8 until you unearthed this one!  Superlative work, my friend.

 

 

(Now if you could just dig up a couple more...) 

Thanks, Mahan!

Unlike Indy's pursuits, chasing comics is only dangerous to my bank account.

[Off Panel]

I have experienced that type of danger myself!