CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN Appreciation Thread

[PowderedH2O]

Question for all you Challengers experts: I've seen quite a few #1's and most of them have a blue background on the top of the book. The issue shown on page 14 of this thread is most definitely gray. And, I've seen some where there is blue and gray, and it isn't some sort of fading from being in the light or anything. It is a definite color difference. Any explanation for this?

[jimjum12]

...... for some reason, a number of copies were not exposed to the Cyan plate.... commonly referred to as Process Blue. There are issues of BB 28 with this same printing error. It was probably caught before a large number were produced... which is why not many are around. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[sacentaur]

I was semi-excited to pick up a de-slabbed (CGC 7.5, off-white pages) CHALLS #2 at WonderCon this past weekend, yet just went on ebay and there are like a bazillion of them listed.

 

Being mainly a Gold guy, I'm obviously a bit out of touch with Silver - is CHALLS really that slow of a title?

 

 

[KirbyJack]

I can't speak to the general population, but I was the only one of my circle of collecting buddies that ever wanted any.

[jimjum12]

A 7.5 copy of # 2 is still pretty cool. Everyone should have at least one of the Kirby Challs in their collection ..... they're mighty cool. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[RICK STARR]

 

I love this series. Grew up collecting and reading all the issues I could find.

Weird aliens and creatures galore. What was not to like?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hepcat]

I love this series. Grew up collecting and reading all the issues I could find. Weird aliens and creatures galore. What was not to like?!

 

Precisely! What was not to like? And those copies of yours are beauties.

 

(thumbs u

[jimjum12]

The 4 through 8 pop up from time to time in VF at the 300 dollar level..... mighty tempting for a Kirby freak like me. I remember not many years ago when you couldn't touch 'em in that grade for 3 times that. I've got my archives and all .... but it's not the same as having a VF glossy original in a mylar GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[Hepcat]

Here are scans of five more of my Challengers of the Unknown comics:

 

 

 

 

Massachusetts copy

 

 

 

[jimjum12]

skypinkblu

 

..... Sharon has always been a favorite boardie of mine.... but as time went on and I watched her shepard so many charity threads over the years I decided that I really wanted a book from her in my collection. Many of my books have sentimental elements due to who the book actually came from. This particular comic came from a hoard of books that had varying degrees of distributor ink.... some with so much that they are almost ruined. This one is actually not too bad.... and it's one of my favorites of the run. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

Not "overspray" it's exactly what I told him, it's distributor's ink.

 

Years ago when books were sold in coffee shops, candy stores , etc...the "distributor's" took returns of unsold books, they went back to the distributor's warehouse for "credit" .

 

Instead of returning the books to the publishers, they sprayed them with ink...(I've only seen this green/blue, or purple), to mark them, so they couldn't be resold. Sometimes the logos (tops) of the covers or the whole front covers were torn off.

 

I've had thousands of these books, some were drowned in blue ink and some like this one, or my Action 252, just have a tiny bit...typically, the books on the top of the pile were drowned, the ones in the middle, came out OK;) The best thing is always the color, since the books were in the dark, they were never sun faded. I just donated my last Archie Giant to the Flatrock thread, you can see it there, brilliant colors.

 

This book was purchased from someone who was liquidating a distributor's warehouse in LI NY about 10 years ago he was selling the books on eBay, but I went in person and picked through 10's of thousands of books...I taught him about Overstreet and some basic grading what books to look for...and he let me pick out books off the shelves;)...I had a lot of fun and boxes FULL of ink sprayed books and sometimes no ink sprayed books, I was hooked;) I don't have many left and this was one of them...if you google " Bakerstowne", (or "Bakertown" or even "Bakerstown" I never could remember how to spell it;) you might find some threads. There were thousands of some issues like Classics Illustrated,, especially since the publisher was in the next State and only one of a kind of books like these, and my Action 252.

 

Hope this helps...

 

 

 

 

[RICK STARR]

 

Few more of my favorite covers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bronze johnny]

Few more of my favorite covers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fantastic books Rick! Never get tired of looking at your books. Why is the pq on the Savannahs so different? Were these books stored in different places?

[RICK STARR]

 

I have no idea about the different pages qualities of the Savannahs. The collection ran the whole range from cream to white paged copies. Weird

 

 

 

[JohnT]

Don't recall if I've posted these in this thread, but here goes...

 

[JohnT]

[JohnT]

[JohnT]

[JohnT]

[RICK STARR]

 

Super books, John!!!

[JohnT]

Super books, John!!!

 

 

I know those slabs of yours are likely at or near the top of the census for those books. It's amazing to me how few Challengers books in high grade are recorded.