The Absolute Hardest to Find 90's books. 7 7

[whetteon]

I think this one is 90s by a month or so.

 

Picked this up today and about hit the floor when I saw it. How it got where it got is beyond me, but does anyone have an idea on the print run? Issue 1 wasnt much, but I know this copy was alot less. Only one copy sold/offered on ebay in last few months.

 

 

Cool book!

[fastballspecial]

I think this one is 90s by a month or so.

 

Picked this up today and about hit the floor when I saw it. How it got where it got is beyond me, but does anyone have an idea on the print run? Issue 1 wasnt much, but I know this copy was alot less. Only one copy sold/offered on ebay in last few months.

 

 

Cool book!

 

Did a little homework on my own. Census shows 75 or so of 1st issue.

 

Variant shows 7 copies slabbed with one being signature series.

 

Print run is shown for issue 1 is 19,400 or so.

 

What type of print run can I expect from the variant 3K? Any guesses?

 

[Shark]

Found this earlier today in a dollar box at a local Vintage Stock store.

 

[Shark]

And this one came in the mail today back from CGC:

 

[Reno McCoy]

Hey Pirate, school me on that issue...what makes it so special?

[Schmakt]

Hey Pirate, school me on that issue...what makes it so special?

 

+1

[Shark]

Hey Pirate, school me on that issue...what makes it so special?

 

+1

 

Reno said Pirate, whom I can't find reference to in the last 5 pages of this thread. So I assume he's talking about the book that I posted. The X-Men #303 with the gold cover is the Pressman variant (the normal cover is white). I understand it's pretty difficult to find (although I now have 3 copies myself).

[Reno McCoy]

Hey Pirate, school me on that issue...what makes it so special?

 

+1

 

Reno said Pirate, whom I can't find reference to in the last 5 pages of this thread. So I assume he's talking about the book that I posted. The X-Men #303 with the gold cover is the Pressman variant (the normal cover is white). I understand it's pretty difficult to find (although I now have 3 copies myself).

 

 

I know what happened. I had the thread scrolled up just enough to see your avatar, and my mind must've failed me. But yeah, thanks for the info. Great lookin' book.

[KolmarAvenue]

Found this earlier today in a dollar box at a local Vintage Stock store.

 

 

nice...

Edited December 14, 2011 by kolmaravenue

[Kingcom99]

Marvel put out a lot of Disney spin-offs in the mid 90s, many of which are really tough to track down as the it was right in the middle of "the Crash" and many LCS' were really cutting back on ordering that sort of stuff.

------------

 

the irony is that is the sort of thing a shop can leave up on the rack at cover price and eventually someone will coming in with, or looking for something for, their kid and it will sell, whereas the 3 month old mainstream marvel had to go to the discount box.

 

my LCS tosses so much stuff into the discount box, but not the kids stuff, not the archies, not the sonics, not the simpsons, etc.

 

You mean like this one?

 

[fastballspecial]

 

Last night I was searching the internet to see if I could find out a little more on some books that I've had in my possession for years.

 

I used to be a very active collector from the mid 80s till late 90s.

 

And Google sent me straight here...

 

Happily wading through many many posts, the memories came back of the days of old: the Valiant Era, the variant covers, the Bad Girl books, the crash, the new Vampirella, it was a nice trip down memory lane.

 

Thanks for that guys!

 

In those days we used to live in a small apartment in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and my collection was an important part of my life.

11 years ago we moved to a more rural spot and as it happens so often, life took over.

 

We certainly had the space, but the interest was gone. Somehow the old spark got lost and drowned in this tidal wave of marketing and products.

 

"It was done, it was done good, and then it was done to death" someone once remarked on the suicidal sales efforts of TSR and their line of role playing games, and the same, I found sadly, was true for the Comic Book 'Industry'.

 

Oh, my collection was still well kept and put away in proper storage.

In a similar fashion actually as my vinyl record collection... "Once a collector..." I guess

 

But I digress...

 

Fast forward to November 2011.

 

I have decided I want a change in life. A radical one at that.

Money is needed for this (ad)venture the first few things I put on eBay are a few original paintings & sketches by Luis Royo and several Witchblade and Fathom Museum Editions.

 

Museum Editions... ah yes...

Great marketing ploy: create a scarce collectible. The only ones filling their pockets are the creators, but I was young and foolish. And ok, I loved the idea to have something that others wouldn't have.

 

So I started collecting Museum Editions.

Money went faster than a corporate hotshot that hoovers half the Colombian rainforest into his nose, but I had something to show for!

Until of course that one too was done to death.

 

Same story: nicely put away, safe and dry from prying eyes, children fingers and the occasional cat that needs to mark its territory. The world of the Collector that was fraught with danger slowly became a dim memory.

 

In order to set a reasonable price I had to do some research.

I hadn't worked with eBay for a few years but still knew a good trick or two, or three or... lots...

Anyway, during my research I came to the shocking realisation that not only Keith Parkinson had passed away (I love his work and still have one of his oil paintings), in the passing years Michael Turner had also exchanged the temporary for the eternal.

As a result, I received many questions from eBay members if I had more, others, originals, first prints, variant covers...

 

The answer is "yes" to all of those questions.

Because I used to collect all those series and in particular all the variant versions and had built and maintained quite a nifty network of suppliers throughout the 90s.

 

Two of the buyers wanted to know what other Museum Editions I might have, so I dug them up and compiled a list.

Not happy with the list, or not really knowing what they were looking at, or simply disbelieving it, they both asked for scans of the actual books.

 

So, I scanned them all last night.

Which was a bit of a job, because I had a few more than I seemed to remember: 62 still. I had sold a few about 8 years ago and was conned out of a few more but the majority was still there.

 

Since this thread is about scarce books, I though some of you might enjoy taking a look.

This is not to sell them, just to show them:

 

Museum Editions Collection Nov. 2011

 

Now how did I get HERE?

Well, while scanning them I found an odd couple: dressed in black leather, sporting silver markings and showing their evil selves.

 

I knew they were from Chaos! Comics, I knew they pretty rare (it said so) and I knew they were original art covers. Oh and I knew they were called "Octagon Edition" (said so too).

What I didn't know, and what I couldn't remember for the life of me, was which books they were.

And since they were sealed with an official Chaos! seal, I wasn't going to open them... back to Google,

 

Which sent me straight back to here,

 

And the rest,

 

well,

 

as they say,

 

was history.

 

I have some question I want to ask, but leave that for another post.

 

In the meantime, here are the two Octagon Editions that somehow found their way to The Netherlands.

 

Peter

(Lasher33)

 

 

Great sales this past week on those two.

 

[Lasher33-migration]

If you look here:

 

Library annex study

 

you will see my work room.

 

I decorated the walls with fantasy art; works by my favourite artists: Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Chris Achilleos, Keith Parkinson and (mostly) Luis Royo.

 

All works are -of course- real.

 

Here are some pics of the Keith Parkinson painting.

It is titled "Ghost Tower" and is oil on canvas.

 

Enjoy.

 

Peter

(Lasher33)

 

[Lasher33-migration]

Thanks!

 

I contacted the curator of that list of Vampire comics that was posted earlier, but received no reply.

It had these two Octagons still open, but since they did not reply I posted them on eBay.

 

Took indeed only a few hours to be snatched up by a die-hard Chaos! collector.

 

He also bought the Lady Death Hardcover with original drawing by Steven Hughes (ltd. 100) and he was the happiest collector ever

 

A "Jay Company Original" - Tombraider #1 with an original sketch cover by Michael Turner (ltd. 10) was also sold within hours of me posting it.

 

Peter

(Lasher33)

 

BTW I will contact them again, since I found a whole stack of Vampirella & related books, among which several Royal Blue, Red & Gold Foil editions, as well as some ashcans that I didn't even know I had...

 

 

[Lasher33-migration]

 

And there are dastardly rare books that have never yet been mentioned...

Deathmate Preview

 

This one:

 

?

 

or this one:

 

?

 

The first one is actually known as the Deathmate Tour, but is really a preview book.

 

The second only has a few pages but is actually called "Preview"

 

Hope this helps...

 

grtz,

 

Peter

(Lasher33)

[dupont2005]

I have both of those

[dupont2005]

Nevermind

Edited December 30, 2011 by dupont2005

[yellow954]

How about the Gen 13 red box set? would that be considered hard to find?

[dupont2005]

So I was reminded of this because of the 20th anniversary of Lenore. What is the deal with these early appearances? What is Xenophobe Magazine? What other appearances were there? Not much info out there besides the first app. being in 1992 in Xenophobe and several years later the Lenore series starting. I once was contacted by a guy who wanted to sell a self published Lenore comic that was supposedly small print run rare and pre-dated the series we all know. I knew nothing about it and it was just some guy on Myspace who didn't have pictures or anything so I passed fearing I might be ripped off or something. Never found out anything about it. I'm really interested in this right now though. Anyone know anything about Lenore circa 1992-1997?

[seanfingh]

So I was reminded of this because of the 20th anniversary of Lenore. What is the deal with these early appearances? What is Xenophobe Magazine? What other appearances were there? Not much info out there besides the first app. being in 1992 in Xenophobe and several years later the Lenore series starting. I once was contacted by a guy who wanted to sell a self published Lenore comic that was supposedly small print run rare and pre-dated the series we all know. I knew nothing about it and it was just some guy on Myspace who didn't have pictures or anything so I passed fearing I might be ripped off or something. Never found out anything about it. I'm really interested in this right now though. Anyone know anything about Lenore circa 1992-1997?

 

Michael Schmidt and I were discussing Lenore last week. Roman Dirge is going to be @ C2E2. He had mentioned that the #1 had about a bazillion printings a la JTHM. I had no idea.

 

Here is some good information from Dirge himself

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=8GgqEj8p0rMC&pg=PT11&lpg=PT11&dq=xenophobe+magazine&source=bl&ots=d94W9EPVOe&sig=Rz7DDUPZy0zn6Pvy-3xQrUZmxlg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HPpxT9SSBoi6twfnyJ3KDw&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=xenophobe%20magazine&f=false

[dupont2005]

Thanks. Sounds like that mag is gonna be hard to find. I almost feel like kicking myself for passing on one