"The Dentist" transaction date

[lou_fine]

Here is a side story that is quite amazing, and had quite an impact back in the day. For some of you old-timers, you might remember the name Alex Acevedo. He decided early on that he wanted to put the MH collection back together. So he starting buying every Edgar Church/Mile High copy he saw for a number of years. Because collectors & dealers knew he was trying to buy them all, and because he was VERY well off financially, the prices he was paying for the Edgar Church/Mile High books really started to take off and the multiples of guide paid for these books jumped significantly.

 

At this point Alex had accumulated 4200 Edgar Church/Mile High books. He then contacted John Mclaughlin (whom also was verty well off) in an attempt to get the 3000 Edgar Church/Mile Highs he owned. Well, that did not go well, and due to a misunderstanding John said he would NEVER sell his books to Alex, so Alex could never put the entire collection back together. It was at this point Alex got fed up & frustrated with the whole thing & decided to sell all 4200 of his books.

 

He then went to Geppi and offered him all 4200 books for $420,000. Once again, due to things not going the way he wanted, that deal fell through and Alex walked away from the deal, later selling all 4200 books to Verzyl in a deal that took 5 years to complete. I won't go into further detail, but it was probably the largest single movement of Edgar Church/Mile High books since the initial purchase.

 

that's nutty.

 

$100 per book. Imagine what those 4200 books are worth today.

 

Yes, but if you had talked to Chuck, he would have considered this outrageous price to be highway robbery.

 

At $0.10 per pop, he would have had to pay $420.00 for these 4,200 Church books. No wonder why he had to go crawling to Burrel Rowe to borrow the $2 grand to pick up the entire Church collection.

[sacentaur]

Hepcat, sorry if my reply to you sounded snarky; I shouldn't presume shared knowledge.

 

It's just that there is a looong history involved and it's not so much what you haven't experienced and what you don't see, it's what I (and other long-term collectors) have experienced and what we do see that makes it such a sensitive issue regarding that particular subject.

[lou_fine]

WARNING: Skip to the next post if you want to avoid a long and boring one.

 

 

John was a true power broker in the big comics back at that time with lots of stories about the big collectors such as Geppi, Overstreet, Carter, Anderson, etc. It was extremely interesting and almost like being a fly on the wall to hear about some of these transactions, the personalities involved, and their reasons for buying and/or selling at the time.

 

Did Snyder ever discuss selling restored Church books to the "Dentist"?

 

I thought for all you old school GA guys, restoration was not only okay, it was desirable?

 

Steve;

 

Although Tim is only trying to tease you with his comment, what he says actually has quite a bit of truth to it. Back in the days of the 70's and the early 80's, restoration was seen in a much more favorable light as compared to the late 80's and the pariah is has become nowadays in the CGC era of the PLOD.

 

As you obviously know, Bob Overstreet was seen as the leading authority in the field back then, as he still is today (although probably to a much lesser extent nowadays). I just dug out my price guides from the late 70's and early 80's to see what they had to say and to refresh my memory. Not suprisingly, they did talk about restoration (a lot) and the value of restored comics. It's quite evident they were extolling the virtues of restoration which in no doubt was a reflection of the thinking in the marketplace during those years as evident through some of the following comments:

 

"There are two major categories of restoration. In the first category no new elements are added to a comic book. Processes in this category include dirt removal, spine roll correction, whitening, deacidification, tape removal, etc. These processes do not alter the original state of a comic book, and consequently the comic book will reach the value equivalent to books which needed no restoration to begin with. In many cases, the value gain can be enormous."

 

"The second category exists when new elements are added to a comic book where portions were destroyed or damaged. In instances such as repairing missing pieces and tears, touching up colours or replacing missing pages, the current consensus of value is approximately one-half grade less than a book which did not require the restoration."

 

Bob goes on to talk about his major recommendations for collectors to protect their comic collections and one of them is as follows:

 

"6) To enhance the value of your comic book, have it professionally restored."

 

The prices guides in those days had countless articles written by acknowledged experts such as Bill Sarill, Ernst Gerber, Richard Smith, etc. talking about restoration and the preservation of comic books. They even had bar charts and graphs on various techniques and chemical treatments to extend the life of your comic book. I remember they even had some type of mathematical equation to try to estimate the added value of a restored book. Not a single word or warning in those days as to the negative consequences of restoration and nothing at all about disclosure or the lack thereof.

 

Fast forward to the very late 80's and the price guide has their first warning about restored books:

 

1) "It has been brought to our attention that some dealers have been selling these books to unsuspecting collector/investors - not telling them of the restoration. In some cases these restored books are being priced the same as unrestored books."

 

2) "Restored books must be graded as such; i.e. a restored book grading Fine might only be worth the same as a Very Good or even a Good copy in its unrestored state. The value of an extensively restored book may improve a half-grade from its original unrestored state."

 

Based upon the above comments, it is quite evident that the marketplace's opinion towards restoration had changed significantly over the ensuing years from the 1970's to the late 1980's and issues were now just being raised about lack of disclosure. Extensively restored books had dropped in value from half a grade lower than its restored state down to half a grade higher than its original unrestored state. Lightly restored books had dropped in value from equivalent to its restored state down to a lower condition state.

 

I guess I really haven't answered Steve's question to me as the above was simply to generate some idea about the mood of the marketplace at the time.

 

No, John did not tell me directly that he had sold restored books to Dentist. But he didn't have to as he told me indirectly and I can add two and two together by myself. My first foray into GA comics was in response to a CBG ad from Snyder in 1987. Being new to GA comics, John was very patient and would always take the time to explain to me the importance of condition and to always go for the best copy (where possible) because one day the market will come to realize their true value, scarcity of certain books, pedigree books, key books, what books to avoid, how to build a collection with long-term growth potential on a very limited budget, etc.

 

And yes, John did bring up the topic of restoration (many times) during our conversations. He told me to be very careful about restored books and to stay away from them as the mood in the marketplace had changed. What was once seen as good was now starting to be seen in a different light. He talked about new collectors who had entered the marketplace in the past who didn't know any better at the time and had done minor work on some books. Not so much to increase their value, but more just to get them in the best condition that was possible, even though they were already in almost perfect condition.

 

He talked about how this was even done to some of the pedigree books and how these collectors now deeply regretted doing that work. From the sound of his voice, I could tell that this was always a very sensitve topic for him. From the stories he told me about about the pedigree books that passed through his hands, I knew this was a very personal issue and there was no need for me to ask any further.

 

 

Did Snyder ever discuss selling restored Church books to the "Dentist"?

 

Yes he did. John and I talked about this at length a year or so ago when he expressed his regret over doing that (touching them up), and freely admitted what books they were.

I made a post about this (with John's permission) with a lot of details after our conversation.

 

Now that's really interesting - I wonder how touched-up Church books suddenly became unrestored while in the Dentist's possession, he sold them as such, only years later to have them (e.g., Green Lantern 1) receive PLOD's from CGC?

 

 

 

Steve;

 

Although I completely understand and sympathize with what you are saying here, I am not sure if it is a fair comment that you are making. It seems that you are trying to apply the standards from one era to the activities from another era where standards may have been different at the time. The definition of restoration has changed over the decades and what was acceptable at one time is no longer acceptable right now. On the other hand, many of the restoration activities that were not acceptable in the past are now fully embraced in the current times.

 

The most obvious of which is "the pressing out of wrinkles on the cover" which was seen as restoration and clearly defined as such in the Overstreet guide for over 35 years. Only 5 years after the fact did it come out in the marketplace that somebody or some group in the know had decided to remove this from the definition of restoration and were now calling it "maximization of potential". Unfortunately, they forgot to inform everybody else in the marketplace as only a small group of insiders knew about this change and were able to use this to their financial advantage in what was clearly an unlevel playing field at the time. This was made worse as these newly acceptable activities were retroactively deemed to be okay in the marketplace even though there was and generally still is a total lack of disclosure.

 

I don't think we need to go back to 25 or 30 years ago to see what were some of the "bad activities" that were happening in the marketplace. As already mentioned above, times change and what was once good may now be considered as bad. We could simply look at today and who's to say that in 20 years from now, collectors won't be looking back at us and saying what in the world were we thinking of: disassembling books, cleaning them, pressing them, manipulating them whichever way we could as long as we could laundered them through CGC and foist them upon an unsuspecting marketplace.

 

It's clear and totally understandable how you feel about Snyder. But how do you feel about today's generation who are basically doing the same thing? Not really so much to improve the book to its best possible condition, but really moreso to see the book reach its maximum possible price. How do you feel about the big-time dealers and collectors of today who are doing whatever they can get away with just to squeeze a little bit more and a lot more dollars out of books that have been sitting untouched for decades?

 

Why do we feel that it's okay for today's generation to manipulate the books, but yet it was so wrong for yesterday's generation to have done it? This generation really has less of an excuse as they should have learn from history. And I most certainly don't seem to feel any sense of regret from today's generation as to what is being done to the books, only a rampant desire to do more. How would everybody feel if tomorrow's generation using more advanced restoration detection techniques changes their definition of restoration once again and deems most of our "highest graded copies" and maximized books to be the PLOD's of tomorrow.

 

And I congratulate anybody who actually took the time to make it though this long and tedious post. (thumbs u

 

 

[ciorac]

WARNING: Skip to the next post if you want to avoid a long and boring one.

 

 

John was a true power broker in the big comics back at that time with lots of stories about the big collectors such as Geppi, Overstreet, Carter, Anderson, etc. It was extremely interesting and almost like being a fly on the wall to hear about some of these transactions, the personalities involved, and their reasons for buying and/or selling at the time.

 

Did Snyder ever discuss selling restored Church books to the "Dentist"?

 

I thought for all you old school GA guys, restoration was not only okay, it was desirable?

 

Steve;

 

Although Tim is only trying to tease you with his comment, what he says actually has quite a bit of truth to it. Back in the days of the 70's and the early 80's, restoration was seen in a much more favorable light as compared to the late 80's and the pariah is has become nowadays in the CGC era of the PLOD.

 

As you obviously know, Bob Overstreet was seen as the leading authority in the field back then, as he still is today (although probably to a much lesser extent nowadays). I just dug out my price guides from the late 70's and early 80's to see what they had to say and to refresh my memory. Not suprisingly, they did talk about restoration (a lot) and the value of restored comics. It's quite evident they were extolling the virtues of restoration which in no doubt was a reflection of the thinking in the marketplace during those years as evident through some of the following comments:

 

"There are two major categories of restoration. In the first category no new elements are added to a comic book. Processes in this category include dirt removal, spine roll correction, whitening, deacidification, tape removal, etc. These processes do not alter the original state of a comic book, and consequently the comic book will reach the value equivalent to books which needed no restoration to begin with. In many cases, the value gain can be enormous."

 

"The second category exists when new elements are added to a comic book where portions were destroyed or damaged. In instances such as repairing missing pieces and tears, touching up colours or replacing missing pages, the current consensus of value is approximately one-half grade less than a book which did not require the restoration."

 

Bob goes on to talk about his major recommendations for collectors to protect their comic collections and one of them is as follows:

 

"6) To enhance the value of your comic book, have it professionally restored."

 

The prices guides in those days had countless articles written by acknowledged experts such as Bill Sarill, Ernst Gerber, Richard Smith, etc. talking about restoration and the preservation of comic books. They even had bar charts and graphs on various techniques and chemical treatments to extend the life of your comic book. I remember they even had some type of mathematical equation to try to estimate the added value of a restored book. Not a single word or warning in those days as to the negative consequences of restoration and nothing at all about disclosure or the lack thereof.

 

Fast forward to the very late 80's and the price guide has their first warning about restored books:

 

1) "It has been brought to our attention that some dealers have been selling these books to unsuspecting collector/investors - not telling them of the restoration. In some cases these restored books are being priced the same as unrestored books."

 

2) "Restored books must be graded as such; i.e. a restored book grading Fine might only be worth the same as a Very Good or even a Good copy in its unrestored state. The value of an extensively restored book may improve a half-grade from its original unrestored state."

 

Based upon the above comments, it is quite evident that the marketplace's opinion towards restoration had changed significantly over the ensuing years from the 1970's to the late 1980's and issues were now just being raised about lack of disclosure. Extensively restored books had dropped in value from half a grade lower than its restored state down to half a grade higher than its original unrestored state. Lightly restored books had dropped in value from equivalent to its restored state down to a lower condition state.

 

I guess I really haven't answered Steve's question to me as the above was simply to generate some idea about the mood of the marketplace at the time.

 

No, John did not tell me directly that he had sold restored books to Dentist. But he didn't have to as he told me indirectly and I can add two and two together by myself. My first foray into GA comics was in response to a CBG ad from Snyder in 1987. Being new to GA comics, John was very patient and would always take the time to explain to me the importance of condition and to always go for the best copy (where possible) because one day the market will come to realize their true value, scarcity of certain books, pedigree books, key books, what books to avoid, how to build a collection with long-term growth potential on a very limited budget, etc.

 

And yes, John did bring up the topic of restoration (many times) during our conversations. He told me to be very careful about restored books and to stay away from them as the mood in the marketplace had changed. What was once seen as good was now starting to be seen in a different light. He talked about new collectors who had entered the marketplace in the past who didn't know any better at the time and had done minor work on some books. Not so much to increase their value, but more just to get them in the best condition that was possible, even though they were already in almost perfect condition.

 

He talked about how this was even done to some of the pedigree books and how these collectors now deeply regretted doing that work. From the sound of his voice, I could tell that this was always a very sensitve topic for him. From the stories he told me about about the pedigree books that passed through his hands, I knew this was a very personal issue and there was no need for me to ask any further.

 

 

Did Snyder ever discuss selling restored Church books to the "Dentist"?

 

Yes he did. John and I talked about this at length a year or so ago when he expressed his regret over doing that (touching them up), and freely admitted what books they were.

I made a post about this (with John's permission) with a lot of details after our conversation.

 

Now that's really interesting - I wonder how touched-up Church books suddenly became unrestored while in the Dentist's possession, he sold them as such, only years later to have them (e.g., Green Lantern 1) receive PLOD's from CGC?

 

 

 

Steve;

 

Although I completely understand and sympathize with what you are saying here, I am not sure if it is a fair comment that you are making. It seems that you are trying to apply the standards from one era to the activities from another era where standards may have been different at the time. The definition of restoration has changed over the decades and what was acceptable at one time is no longer acceptable right now. On the other hand, many of the restoration activities that were not acceptable in the past are now fully embraced in the current times.

 

The most obvious of which is "the pressing out of wrinkles on the cover" which was seen as restoration and clearly defined as such in the Overstreet guide for over 35 years. Only 5 years after the fact did it come out in the marketplace that somebody or some group in the know had decided to remove this from the definition of restoration and were now calling it "maximization of potential". Unfortunately, they forgot to inform everybody else in the marketplace as only a small group of insiders knew about this change and were able to use this to their financial advantage in what was clearly an unlevel playing field at the time. This was made worse as these newly acceptable activities were retroactively deemed to be okay in the marketplace even though there was and generally still is a total lack of disclosure.

 

I don't think we need to go back to 25 or 30 years ago to see what were some of the "bad activities" that were happening in the marketplace. As already mentioned above, times change and what was once good may now be considered as bad. We could simply look at today and who's to say that in 20 years from now, collectors won't be looking back at us and saying what in the world were we thinking of: disassembling books, cleaning them, pressing them, manipulating them whichever way we could as long as we could laundered them through CGC and foist them upon an unsuspecting marketplace.

 

It's clear and totally understandable how you feel about Snyder. But how do you feel about today's generation who are basically doing the same thing? Not really so much to improve the book to its best possible condition, but really moreso to see the book reach its maximum possible price. How do you feel about the big-time dealers and collectors of today who are doing whatever they can get away with just to squeeze a little bit more and a lot more dollars out of books that have been sitting untouched for decades?

 

Why do we feel that it's okay for today's generation to manipulate the books, but yet it was so wrong for yesterday's generation to have done it? This generation really has less of an excuse as they should have learn from history. And I most certainly don't seem to feel any sense of regret from today's generation as to what is being done to the books, only a rampant desire to do more. How would everybody feel if tomorrow's generation using more advanced restoration detection techniques changes their definition of restoration once again and deems most of our "highest graded copies" and maximized books to be the PLOD's of tomorrow.

 

And I congratulate anybody who actually took the time to make it though this long and tedious post. (thumbs u

 

 

Appreciate your thoughts and the time it took to craft that post. Your recollections are similar to mine. I've had many conversations with Snyder about this topic and about the early days of big money comic buying. He is quite open and honest about what transpired and the role he played in it.

 

I watched, first hand, restored books rise in price and prominence, and then watched them tumble in both. These days, despite the PLOD reference, there is a much more moderate stance towards nicely restored books. And I refer to the hobby in general, not the cozy, sometimes myopic, confines and views of the boardies that opine here.

 

Certainly I wish the "pioneers" had left well enough alone when it came to "tweaking" the already high grade pedigree copies with a little wheat paste and color touch, but it is what it is. And today we tweak in different, more subtle ways.

 

Such is the timeline of the hobby we all love.

 

At the end of the day, if a book appeals to me, and all it usually has to have is nice pages and no big pieces out of the front cover, I'm happy.

 

Kismet can be attained when you subtract the negative connotations that can enter your collecting experience. At least for me, it can, and has.

[walclark]

I'll admit that when I first started collecting GA in the late 70's, early 80's, I bought many a lower grade book and had "some work" done on them. And, since I still own the vast majority of them (maybe all of them), the sole purpose was to try to have the most visually appealing copy I could afford. As a college student and then just starting my career, I would have loved to have owned higher grade copies of these beauties, but it wasn't to be.

 

And I remember when that's how the degree and type of restoration was disclosed by dealers (if it was disclosed at all). A comic was referred to as having "some work" or "a lot of work" done to it. While it might have happened before, the first time I noticed anyone giving detailed information on the type and degree of restoration was at the Sotheby's auctions.

 

Thanks for sharing that background on the changing attitudes towards restoration. Makes an old timer like me feel a little less guilty about having books restored back in the day.

[sacentaur]

Listen, I have nothing against John Snyder at all - as long as I've been around, he has been honest and up front, and is known as a man of integrity and understanding about the hobby. Sure, we wish he hadn't touched up those great books, but that's history.

 

The other individual, well it's probably best not to talk about him.

 

So lou, while I appreciate your thoughts it's not like we're applying today's modern standards to the ancient Romans.

 

One of the main reasons that there is such a stigma against restoration is that so many of us have been burned by the greed merchants who have actively failed to disclose and who manipulate the hobby for pure greed (and ego) at the expense of others.

 

 

[sacentaur]

Appreciate your thoughts and the time it took to craft that post. Your recollections are similar to mine. I've had many conversations with Snyder about this topic and about the early days of big money comic buying. He is quite open and honest about what transpired and the role he played in it.

 

I watched, first hand, restored books rise in price and prominence, and then watched them tumble in both. These days, despite the PLOD reference, there is a much more moderate stance towards nicely restored books. And I refer to the hobby in general, not the cozy, sometimes myopic, confines and views of the boardies that opine here.

 

Certainly I wish the "pioneers" had left well enough alone when it came to "tweaking" the already high grade pedigree copies with a little wheat paste and color touch, but it is what it is. And today we tweak in different, more subtle ways.

 

Such is the timeline of the hobby we all love.

 

At the end of the day, if a book appeals to me, and all it usually has to have is nice pages and no big pieces out of the front cover, I'm happy.

 

Kismet can be attained when you subtract the negative connotations that can enter your collecting experience. At least for me, it can, and has.

 

Well said, Bill.

[comicartfan]

This is just incredible reading !

[jbcomicbox]

My overall general response to the above remarks is "ditto". (Whatever that means)

 

I have often thought that at times that I am more a "survivor" than a "collector".

 

jb

[rodan57]

My overall general response to the above remarks is "ditto". (Whatever that means)

 

Ditto ... "same as before".

 

Italian (1625), "detto".

From the Latin, "dicere", to say.

First English use, 1678.

 

 

And ditto, for me.

 

[sacentaur]

I have often thought that at times that I am more a "survivor" than a "collector".

 

jb

 

Funny you should say that, Jon - I had that exact conversation today with another collector (who finally gave up on comics and got into pulps instead).

 

"Survivor" indeed...

[jbcomicbox]

...and as to John Snyder, I cannot say enough great things about him.....He was about as close to being a "mentor" to me in the early years. It was John who got me into collecting Centaurs...(I can still remember him abandoning his quest of having the Church copies of Marvel Mystery 1-92 and selling his 11-92 after giving up getting the 1-10 from Chuck, mere weeks before Chuck made those books available.......)

 

He talked to me about 'philosophy" and got me to take the "big view" of comics and how with other pictorial renderings from the Brownies on down...that it was all about "marketing" a product....comicbooks just being one facet of that marketing program of a character.

 

He and Steve were tremendous 'cheer leaders' for the hobby and promoted it (and still do)....

 

I tip my cap to Mr. S.

 

Jon

[lou_fine]

One of the main reasons that there is such a stigma against restoration is that so many of us have been burned by the greed merchants who have actively failed to disclose and who manipulate the hobby for pure greed (and ego) at the expense of others.

 

 

Steve;

 

Thanks for your comments to my earlier post! (thumbs u

 

I certainly understand the stigma against restoration and the issue regarding the lack of disclosure. And I most certainly do feel for Joe (a super nice guy by the way) with respect to his Church copy of GL #1. All I can say here is that thank god that virtually the rest of the Church GL run came back with blue labels.

 

Although you talk about the greed merchants, you have to remember a lot of that resoration occurred during a period when collectors were being encouraged to restore their books and the marketplace was extolling the virtues of restoration. Although there was indeed some money to be made through undisclosed restoration in the end, I believe a lot of the collectors at the time started on the road to restoration not so much for the money, but as Walclark had already stated, to simply get the book into the most visually appealing state possible.

 

In comparison, I find that today's marketplace is much more populated with what you have phrased as greed merchants. So many dealers and "collectors" really do not care at all about the traditional collecting merits of a particular book, they just seem to care more about whether a particular book can be manipulated into a better grade and therefore flipped for a big profit. And when it comes to the issue of disclosure, a lot of these new generation dealers seems to show absolute comtempt and/or a total lack of respect if a potential buyer wants to know if anything was done to a book. This is especially hypocritical when a lot of these dealers and collectors who decry and demonize the practices of yesterday are the exact same ones who can justify and rationalize the need for no disclosure for certain practices today.

 

As Bill and Jon have already hinted at, in order for me to stay in this wonderful hobby of ours, I've learned to accept the changes that have taken place in the marketplace.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Great thread guys!

 

I agree with Mark below, those were very effective ads and collecting was different back then. Running an ad in today's comics would be a big bust but the market was different back then. I think Chuck has gotten incredible name recognition out of those ads.

 

 

 

Did Chuck express regret at purchasing those ads or did he think they were effective advertising? It would seem to me that an ad in Marvel comics would not be the best way to target back issue collectors because too great a proportion of the circulation would be represented by kids who would not be shelling out the big bucks.

 

Well, not everything in those ads were big dollar books. And think about the completely different market dynamics of the time: You'd have been looking at 20+ years of mostly large, continuous runs. And more importantly, no collected editions. If you were reading current FF at the time, chances are you wanted to start going back and filling in your run.

[lou_fine]

...and as to John Snyder, I cannot say enough great things about him.....He was about as close to being a "mentor" to me in the early years. It was John who got me into collecting Centaurs...(I can still remember him abandoning his quest of having the Church copies of Marvel Mystery 1-92 and selling his 11-92 after giving up getting the 1-10 from Chuck, mere weeks before Chuck made those books available.......)

 

He talked to me about 'philosophy" and got me to take the "big view" of comics and how with other pictorial renderings from the Brownies on down...that it was all about "marketing" a product....comicbooks just being one facet of that marketing program of a character.

 

He and Steve were tremendous 'cheer leaders' for the hobby and promoted it (and still do)....

 

I tip my cap to Mr. S.

 

Jon

 

Jon;

 

Great story about the Church Marvel Mystery run! (thumbs u

 

I always loved to hear these stories from Snyder. For all you Supes and Bat fans out there, Marvel Comics #1 was indeed considered to be the book back in the 80's. Snyder told me that it was the grail book for him and he absolutely wanted it above any other book.

 

Like Jon stated above, Snyder was totally frustrated that Chuck would not sell him the Marvel run when he had spent so much time and a sizeable fortune acquiring all of the other Mile High books. In fact, so upset that he would sell off all of his other Mile High keys.

 

Hearing this story again reminds me of a major faux pas I made on one of Snyder's offers to me. During one of our conversations around early '87 or so, John mentioned to me that he would be picking up a run of Spidey's from a noted collector and asked me if I would be interested. I said yes even though SA had been sitting in the doldrums for quite a few years and were basically at a bottom.

 

Well, next time I called him, he told me he had just gotten the run of Spidey's in from issue #2 through to #10 and suggested that I should buy it since he could give it to me for a mere $1,000. He told me these books were brought off the newsstand and the collector had spent almost 25 years upgrading this set to the best copies available and the later ones were absolutely pristine. I asked him about the Spidey #1 and was told that it was not included in the run he had picked up. Hearing the hesitancy in my reply, Snyder tells me to think about it as he would hold the books for me for a couple of weeks.

 

A week later, I get a call from Snyder to see if I have made a decision yet since he had another collector who really wanted to pick up the Spidey run. I ask him again about the Spidey #1 and was given the same answer. Immediately, thoughts crossed my mind again of sleepless nights and a fortune to be spent chasing down a Spidey #1 in HG in order to complete this little Spidey run of mine's and I told Snyder NO.

 

Well, next time I talked to Snyder, I asked him why he didn't keep the Spidey run for himself. He tells me it's simple, it didn't have the Spidey #1 and would alwlays be incomplete in his mind. No idea who ended up with the books, but Snyder did tell me that they passed through the hands of Geppi, Anderson, and Steve Hunt after that.

 

And as we all know, SA books just took off from that bottom and went straight up from that point onwards. Definitely a major faux pas on my part and out of all the books that I have passed on, this would certainly be up at the top.

 

 

 

[Larryw7]

I don't have much to add to this thread(which is great reading), but I remember when there was very little stigma attached to restoration. I remember the LCS I purchased from as a kid routinely selling restored comics for the full OSPG price. I remember in particular a copy of Superman #4 that had a split cover that was restored by Bill Sarrill, and had a pricetag well over the GVG price that the book went for at the time-and it sold very quickly with no problem.

 

 

[ComicConnoisseur]

Real good post (thumbs u it`s good to know some of the history and motives behind restored comics.

 

[ComicConnoisseur]

I don't have much to add to this thread(which is great reading), but I remember when there was very little stigma attached to restoration. I remember the LCS I purchased from as a kid routinely selling restored comics for the full OSPG price. I remember in particular a copy of Superman #4 that had a split cover that was restored by Bill Sarrill, and had a pricetag well over the GVG price that the book went for at the time-and it sold very quickly with no problem.

 

This is starting to become a big stigma in collecting classic cars as well, a few years ago people were paying top dollar for restored cars, now not as much.

example somebody rather buy a 57 Chevy that was sitting in a garage for 30 years untouched then somebody completely rebuilding parts of that 57 like putting a new motor in and a new paint job.So I guess the other big time hobbies are starting to frown upon resto as well.

[tb]

Lou Fine,

 

Just wanted to say that it is very classy of you to stand up for people and ideas that always have been slammed here on the boards. It is so nice and refreshing to hear a balanced perspective on old stereotypes. Your posts make it easier for me, as a "new" collector who doesn't have time to go to conventions etc., to understand how people were thinking back in the 80s and how that could have led someone to do things that they'd never do today. If, 30 years from now, the bulk of collectors frown on putting books in plastic slabs, I hope I will have a friend like you to explain how I was thinking back in 2011.

[koollectablz]

Most interesting thread I've ever read on these boards. Thanks to all contributors.