Post your San Francisco/Tom Reilly books 4 4

[Timely]

This cover shows a nice blend of comics & coins.

 

[MrBedrock]

This cover shows a nice blend of comics & coins.

 

You had to blend a nice stack of coins to get that comic.

[Bronty]

And.... Several posts have been removed

[MrBedrock]

yep

[Straw-Man]

And.... Several posts have been removed

 

a bleeding heart must have hit "notify;" i see no way the object of our fun did it, inasmuch as it seemed he had a strike-worthy post in there. one wouldn't think he'd alert them to that.

[Transplant]

[Sqeggs]

And.... Several posts have been removed

 

a bleeding heart must have hit "notify;" i see no way the object of our fun did it, inasmuch as it seemed he had a strike-worthy post in there. one wouldn't think he'd alert them to that.

 

I didn't alert the mods (I don't even know how ) Lot of interesting things were said, though, that I'll have to keep in mind.

[Cat-Man_America]

And.... Several posts have been removed

 

a bleeding heart must have hit "notify;" i see no way the object of our fun did it, inasmuch as it seemed he had a strike-worthy post in there. one wouldn't think he'd alert them to that.

 

I didn't alert the mods (I don't even know how ) Lot of interesting things were said, though, that I'll have to keep in mind.

 

[font:Times New Roman]Maybe the grande margarita ticked someone off.[/font]

[jimbo_707]

 

That said, i claim zero expertise in any "pedigree" collection except one concerning the size & scope of the books which came in three separate distinct batches from three different groups of relatives once the parents had died in Dec 1972. Tom Reilly comic books.

 

First batch April 1973.

 

Second batch May 1973.

 

Third batch late June to early July 1973.

 

Each batch was equal in size count.

 

This Doctor Arnheim informed me the comic books were counted up and dealt out like cards. None of them had any inkling of "worth" so there was no rhyme nor reason as to what ended up with which batch of relatives.

 

The young man whose parents bought all these comic books did not live in San Francisco.

 

Doctor Arnheim said they lived in Piedmont which is the other side of the Bay so yes, if there was a Tom Reilly out of San Fran, he was definitely not the one attached to this fabulous once in a life time comic book find.

 

This is another reason why calling them "San Francisco" copies is simply stupid.

 

The San Francisco moniker was thunk up by Ron Pussell (Redbeards) who, as an LA guy, saw everything in northern calif as "Frisco" cuz I was bringing down books from this collection to LA and SD comicons. So were others who were acquiring them from me as the vintage comics aspect of Comics & Comix. We made a special "Golden Age" room in the back of the Berkeley store to house and protect this phenomenal collection of from potential thieves

 

In those earlier days of daZe Ron was always calling them "Frisco" copies to differentiate them from "Mile High" copies as he wanted to spend his pop's real estate bucks at the time on only the best of the best.

 

John Barrett ran the "new" comics aspect of C&C. he did not know or understand the back issue aspect of the business. He never really did.

 

Bud Plant was busy getting business degree at SanJose State, hence, was almost NEVER in any of the stores for months at a time back during my tenure as a full partner in Comics & Comix, a name I thought up once we got to four stores.

 

An alternate name is Arnheim which Scott Maple brought to my attention, then an employee of mine inside the Berkeley Comics & Comix store, brought up when he and I were reminincing (sp) nostalgic about this and other aspects of origins of Comics & Comix as the first comic book chain store operation in history. He always remembered the collection as Arnheim copies.

 

Scott remembers Arnheim being the doctor, husband of one of the actual heirs.

 

It was Arnheim who related to me the story of the young man whose these were his comic book collection upon my prompting to acquire the "back story" of the whys wherefores of this massive amount of comic books mostly all in absolute stunning unread white paper glossy bright "mint" condition like the day they were priinted.

 

When we were first opening up each book they gave off an unique popping kind of sound. We soon figured out it was the "quick dry" powder used on the cover stock as the comics came off the printing presses at the rate of some 30,000 an hour back in the day.

 

We funded expanding in to four stores spread out 100 miles in four northern Calif counties off the proceeds of this collection. We also tried expanding into publishing off the cash flow of this collection starting out with The First Kingdom by Jack Katz. But I digress.....

 

I am not going to ever again get in to "debates" over the size and scope of this collection which was performed on those CGC threads five years ago.

 

Gerber has it almost completely wrong other than the name and the concept Comics & Comix was some how involved. He messes up the concept of the first batch Manyak mentions being approx 1500 comics. Gerber mentions it walked in to the C&C Berkeley store. Yes, but there were two large batches from two dfferent sets of relatives a couple months apart which "walked" in. The 3rd batch had to come all the way back from the east coast. She was blown away the earlier two sets got so much money for just "funny books"

 

Dark Horse Between the Panels got most of its story from Mike Manyuk, he and Nick Marcus "stole" all the Timelys out of the FIRST batch of 1500 books for a buck each including the CA #1 which stolen from them back in the 70s.

 

His quote therein about size only takes in to account the FIRST batch which is ALL he ever saw. The Marvel Mystery run of #4 up thru late summer 1945 was in the 2nd or 3rd equal size batch of approx 1500 books each.

 

The Reilly Tec 27 was the FIRST comic book to sell for more than $2000 at $2200 to Burl Rowe then of Houston Texas. Set a world's record in June 1973. I sold it. Parts of me says the supposed million dollar heritage sale a while back was this Tec 27. Burl said he later had sold it to Gary & Lane Carter.

 

When I asked Gary about it in the 90s, he said he did not remember who they sold it to. No one was keeping track of "pedigree" wildly_fanciful_statement until Gerber splashed the Edgar Church collection in one of his Photo Journal Guides. Gerber placed utter falacy in his book re the Tom Reilly collection other than the name and mention of Comics & Comix. Plus IIRC he mentions the Lamont Larson collection

 

The Whiz 2 (#1) sold out of this collection for an even $2000. I sold it.

 

I know what I know, and with all due respect every one else can pontificate all they want with themselves concerning the narrow slice of life known as Reilly comic books.

 

MOST of the 4000+ did not have the CGC brand of markings this fool of a firm insists are the only criteria on which a book came out of this collection. I am tired of repeating that concept. Bored by "experts" who were not there is more like it, actually.

 

I still find the Reilly mystery intriguing. I'm transferring a post of mine of yesterday from another thread to this one:

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

 

 

What did I miss?

 

Census and military records don't support the 'Tom Reilly killed in a Kamikaze attack in World War II' story. Some of us have put a lot of time into the research and I even spoke to the family of the only Tom Reilly from California killed in the war and they said the stamp of the name wasn't his signature. I think the whole thing was made up by a comic book dealer or the people who sold him the books.

 

The name on the stamp does not look like Tom or Thomas to me. I'm actually not sure it would be his name, anyway; the stamp might be the name of the person who was picking up the books for him (his father or his wife, for instance). It's hard to tell what the first letter is, but if forced to give an answer, I'd say it most closely resembles an old-fashioned cursive A...

...but could be a stylized...anything - F, T, P, R, B etc. If I had to guess the name, I'd go with Allen.

 

The collection was supposedly sold off after the death of a parent, or both parents, and it supposedly originated in the Alameda area. There was a James A. Reilly who died in Alameda on January 19, 1973, aged 77 or 78. He would have been the right age to have had a son in the war. I might call the Alameda Public Library tomorrow & see if they'll pull his obituary for me.

 

There was a James A. Reilly who served stateside, at the naval air station in Alameda; I want to figure out whether that was the same one who died in '73, and whether the one who died in '73 had any sons who preceded him in death. There is a James A. Reilly on the list of war dead, too. His hometown is listed as Los Angeles, half a State away, but the matching first name and middle initial is a coincidence that may be worth looking into.

 

For what it's worth, the only Reilly from Alameda County killed in action in WWII, according to the government records I looked at, was named Phil Reilly. I couldn't locate any detailed information on him but didn't really try very hard as far as that goes.

 

 

In case anyone cares, these are the Reillys I was able to locate who entered the armed forces out of California and were killed in WWII (listed by county):

 

Alameda

Phil Reilly 39136562 S SG KIA

 

Los Angeles

Edward F. Reilly 19048447 PVT KIA Sept. 7, 1944, Phillipines

James A. Reilly 39246547 PVT DNB

Leslie E. Reilly 39558091 S SG FOD

 

Monterey

Donald J. Reilly 19142840 TEC5 DNB July 1, 1942, Phillipines

 

Sacramento

Thomas E. Reilly 39080025 PVT DNB July 2, 1942, Phillipines

 

Santa Clara

Donald J. Reilly 19142840 S SG KIA

 

San Diego

Francis Stephen Reilly Chief Signalman, U.S. Navy KIA

 

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While digging around today, I noticed this post from cheetah:

 

It seems pretty obvious that the collector's last name was Reilly but the first name is tough to decipher from the stamp. I even went so far as to review some of the penmanship texts from the time to see if that would help. All that did was indicate the first letter of the first name looked more like and A than a T but that it could be a T with some individual flourish.

 

So at least I'm not the only one who thinks the first letter on the stamp looks like an A, which means I might not be crazy. (I write in cursive and actually make my A's that way - something I picked up from seeing old-fashioned letters in a movie a while back.)

 

Incidentally, I have started to dig into the Arnheim name, too. Several months ago I spoke with Norman Arnheim, a Professor of Biology at the University of Southern California. He knew nothing about the Reilly collection and did not have any Dr. Arnheims in his immediate family. (He did have a cousin, Ernest Arnheim, who had been a Pediatrician back east but who had died long before the Reilly collection surfaced.)

[sacentaur]

Remember, as we've come to learn *nothing* from Robert Beerbohm's (BLBcomics) mouth can be accepted with any degree of truth at face value.

[Sqeggs]

Fascinating stuff. It would be a real contribution if you could somehow get to bottom of this. Makes you wonder why the original sellers would have made up the Tom Reilly story unless they had something to hide.

 

I agree that it's hard to see the first name in the stamp as being Tom or Thomas.

[cheetah]

Remember, as we've come to learn *nothing* from Robert Beerbohm's (BLBcomics) mouth can be accepted with any degree of truth at face value.

 

That does seem to be a pillar of distrust.

 

FWIW, I have a considerable amount of information on this including census data, family contacts, death notices, WWII death records, etc. I know another Jeff, telerites, also has a lot of data, none of which would support the Tom Reilly story.

[cheetah]

One interesting piece is there were two Tom Reillys killed by kamikaze attacks in 1945. One was from New Jersey and the other from Maryland. The NJ Tom was very hard to trace back. The one from MD was married with children.

[jimbo_707]

One interesting piece is there were two Tom Reillys killed by kamikaze attacks in 1945. One was from New Jersey and the other from Maryland. The NJ Tom was very hard to trace back. The one from MD was married with children.

I saw a Thomas F. Reilly killed May 11, 1945, who had been in the naval reserve out of New York. Is that the one you're referring to?

I found your previous posts on the subject.

 

http://www.abmc.gov/search/detailwwnew.php

 

I couldn't locate any Tom Reilly's who died in the war after entering the service out of New Jersey.

 

I also don't want to be too hung up on the first name; it seems like that would be at the top of the list of things to be mis-remembered (and people don't always go by their legal given names, which are what show up in military records).

 

Some of Bob Beerbohm's posts mention a "Gilboy" as the distributor, hence the "G" on some copies. Does anyone know the actual geographical limits of their distributorship?

[Straw-Man]

 

[Timely]

(thumbs u

[ciorac]

It's been too long since there's been a post here. Thanks to my good friend Billy for this one!

 

 

 

 

Parker?? I had no idea he had this book

[Sqeggs]

One interesting piece is there were two Tom Reillys killed by kamikaze attacks in 1945. One was from New Jersey and the other from Maryland. The NJ Tom was very hard to trace back. The one from MD was married with children.

I saw a Thomas F. Reilly killed May 11, 1945, who had been in the naval reserve out of New York. Is that the one you're referring to?

I found your previous posts on the subject.

 

http://www.abmc.gov/search/detailwwnew.php

 

I couldn't locate any Tom Reilly's who died in the war after entering the service out of New Jersey.

 

I also don't want to be too hung up on the first name; it seems like that would be at the top of the list of things to be mis-remembered (and people don't always go by their legal given names, which are what show up in military records).

 

Some of Bob Beerbohm's posts mention a "Gilboy" as the distributor, hence the "G" on some copies. Does anyone know the actual geographical limits of their distributorship?

 

Looks like the boards have run into a dead end on this. I wonder if Matt Nelson gathered any more info for his -- much delayed -- pedigree book? I'm thinking probably not, unfortunately.

 

If you were a compiling a list of "Mysteries of the Hobby," I think the true story of the "San Francisco" collection would be near the top.

[Mr. Lady Luck]

This thread is fascinating. Over the past year or so, has anyone been able to turn up any new information on who Reilly was?

[Cat-Man_America]

This thread is fascinating. Over the past year or so, has anyone been able to turn up any new information on who Reilly was?