Curator FF's!

[Crazy Canuck]

The Curator FF #48 might be the most beautiful copy I have ever seen of this issue. This book generally has a bad mis-wrap and I have seen this scenario even in the 9.8 copies which were graded higher than the curator copy. I believe I remember seeing Doug's Pac Coast copy on comicbookpedigree's site graded as a 9.8 with the awful mis-wrap defect. In short, I am very curious how much that copy will fetch!

 

CC

[tth2]

There are zillions of 9.6 and 9.8 #48s. Where is the #49?!

[Crazy Canuck]

Imagine if the 49 is a 9.8? I couldn't fathom what that would sell for

[Drummy]

I'm still waiting for the holes in the early lineup:

 

7 -- one of the toughest FF's in super high grade

8 -- ditto

37 -- ditto, to a lesser degree

49 -- as discussed above

51 -- classic cover and issue, not that easy in hg

 

Everything else until the late issues is accounted for, save the "real" #1, presumably. I wonder when and if we'll see these five books?

 

Dan

[namisgr]

I'm still waiting for the holes in the early lineup:

 

7 -- one of the toughest FF's in super high grade

8 -- ditto

37 -- ditto, to a lesser degree

49 -- as discussed above

51 -- classic cover and issue, not that easy in hg

 

Everything else until the late issues is accounted for, save the "real" #1, presumably. I wonder when and if we'll see these five books?

 

Dan

 

I presume they are either being worked on prior to being encapsulated or they have defects that will keep them out of this premium auction, and instead likely to show up in the weekly format.

[Ghost Town]

I agree -- I think Jurgens had it in his personal collection, but not from the Curator. It doesn't make too much sense unless the Curator had a few extra keys lying around. Maybe...

 

Anyway, it's a lovely 5.5.

 

Dan

Heritage isn't listing the FF #1 as a Curator book anymore. I'm glad that finally syncs up with what we've heard about the book selling before Jurgens acquired the rest of the run.

 

So again, it makes me wonder: are any of the current 9.4s out there the Curator? I don't know who owns it, but I think it could be this book:

 

[trmoore54]

I agree -- I think Jurgens had it in his personal collection, but not from the Curator. It doesn't make too much sense unless the Curator had a few extra keys lying around. Maybe...

 

Anyway, it's a lovely 5.5.

 

Dan

Heritage isn't listing the FF #1 as a Curator book anymore. I'm glad that finally syncs up with what we've heard about the book selling before Jurgens acquired the rest of the run.

 

So again, it makes me wonder: are any of the current 9.4s out there the Curator? I don't know who owns it, but I think it could be this book:

 

 

[tth2]

I agree -- I think Jurgens had it in his personal collection, but not from the Curator. It doesn't make too much sense unless the Curator had a few extra keys lying around. Maybe...

 

Anyway, it's a lovely 5.5.

 

Dan

Heritage isn't listing the FF #1 as a Curator book anymore. I'm glad that finally syncs up with what we've heard about the book selling before Jurgens acquired the rest of the run.

 

So again, it makes me wonder: are any of the current 9.4s out there the Curator? I don't know who owns it, but I think it could be this book:

 

Certainly looks Curator-esque.

 

Do we know for sure that the 9.6 copy can't be the Curator?

[Ghost Town]

I agree -- I think Jurgens had it in his personal collection, but not from the Curator. It doesn't make too much sense unless the Curator had a few extra keys lying around. Maybe...

 

Anyway, it's a lovely 5.5.

 

Dan

Heritage isn't listing the FF #1 as a Curator book anymore. I'm glad that finally syncs up with what we've heard about the book selling before Jurgens acquired the rest of the run.

 

So again, it makes me wonder: are any of the current 9.4s out there the Curator? I don't know who owns it, but I think it could be this book:

 

Certainly looks Curator-esque.

 

Do we know for sure that the 9.6 copy can't be the Curator?

It's hard to say for sure. But I know Doug bought it from Dan Greenhalgh long before CGC opened its doors.I don't know where Dan got it. But Doug and Tom probably found out at one point. And if it were the Curator, those guys probably would have traced it back to the source.

[tth2]

Do we know for sure that the 9.6 copy can't be the Curator?

It's hard to say for sure. But I know Doug bought it from Dan Greenhalgh long before CGC opened its doors.I don't know where Dan got it. But Doug and Tom probably found out at one point. And if it were the Curator, those guys probably would have traced it back to the source.

I believe Doug has said that it came from some collection out of Texas, or at least was offered to Greenhalgh by someone from Texas.

 

You're probably right, if Doug and Tom had thought it was a Curator they probably would've identified it as such by now.

 

I note that at least from the scans that Doug has shown, the cover doesn't seem to have the same degree of whiteness typically exhibited by Curators.

[Ghost Town]

Do we know for sure that the 9.6 copy can't be the Curator?

It's hard to say for sure. But I know Doug bought it from Dan Greenhalgh long before CGC opened its doors.I don't know where Dan got it. But Doug and Tom probably found out at one point. And if it were the Curator, those guys probably would have traced it back to the source.

I believe Doug has said that it came from some collection out of Texas, or at least was offered to Greenhalgh by someone from Texas.

 

You're probably right, if Doug and Tom had thought it was a Curator they probably would've identified it as such by now.

 

I note that at least from the scans that Doug has shown, the cover doesn't seem to have the same degree of whiteness typically exhibited by Curators.

That sounds right to me. And I vaguely remember there was a FF #5 that came from the same source. And as we're seeing, the Curator FF #5 in this Heritage auction. My memory could be faulty on this though. It was a long time ago.

[Aman619]

didn't Parrino have a 9.4? maybe thats it. where are the other copies?

[Ghost Town]

didn't Parrino have a 9.4? maybe thats it. where are the other copies?

I think the scan I posted is (or was) the Parrino copy. It's definitely not the copy Tom traded to Doug. And it's definitely not the other 9.4 I've seen. That book was nowhere near as nice as the book in the scan.

 

Brulato has the 9.6. I know two collectors who had 9.4s. But I'm pretty sure those books have moved on to different owners.

[jimjum12]

I agree -- I think Jurgens had it in his personal collection, but not from the Curator. It doesn't make too much sense unless the Curator had a few extra keys lying around. Maybe...

 

Anyway, it's a lovely 5.5.

 

Dan

Heritage isn't listing the FF #1 as a Curator book anymore. I'm glad that finally syncs up with what we've heard about the book selling before Jurgens acquired the rest of the run.

 

So again, it makes me wonder: are any of the current 9.4s out there the Curator? I don't know who owns it, but I think it could be this book:

 

 

....That copy sold at auction on June 22nd, 2002 for $ 110,000. It was the same auction where Marnin auctioned the bulk of what remained of the Mass. ASM's. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

P.S. It was a Parrino auction in partnership with someone else, Heritage, I believe. I still have the catalogue around somewhere.

[Ghost Town]

....That copy sold at auction on June 22nd, 2002 for $ 110,000. It was the same auction where Marnin auctioned the bulk of what remained of the Mass. ASM's. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

P.S. It was a Parrino auction in partnership with someone else, Heritage, I believe. I still have the catalogue around somewhere.

I thought you could confirm where that scan came from. I think I swiped it from one of your posts a couple years ago. Thanks!

[tth2]

....That copy sold at auction on June 22nd, 2002 for $ 110,000. It was the same auction where Marnin auctioned the bulk of what remained of the Mass. ASM's. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

P.S. It was a Parrino auction in partnership with someone else, Heritage, I believe. I still have the catalogue around somewhere.

I thought it was sold by JP on eBay, but the winner (a big spender at the time whose name escapes me, he posted a few times on these boards) pulled out of the deal when it turned out that his eyes were bigger than his wallet.

 

If JP subsequently resold this on Heritage, I definitely don't remember a 9.4 FF #1 ever being sold on Heritage.

[MasterChief]

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but the FF #1 still doesn't display Curator on the label. Pretty sure I know why--it's not from the collection. CGC may have mislabelled it in their system, hard to tell.

 

The Curator was primarily a DC collector; he told Hauser he had a near-complete Golden Age DC run. He was very knowledgeable about comics and went to the early cons, and he was buying Marvels just purely from a collecting/investing standpoint and putting them in his museum's vault. He also bought the Silver DCs, but those were already sold by the time Hauser met the Curator. He thinks Harley Yee bought a number of those but didn't catalogue them. I'm not sure whether or not he was reading the DCs and storing them in the vault.

 

A number of things don't make sense for the 5.5 to be owned by the curator. The main issue is that he told Hauser he didn't read any of his Marvels, yet the FF #1 CGC 5.5 in the auction shows definite handling/reading defects. I suppose you could argue that perhaps he read the very first Marvel that got the popularity going--but even that wouldn't explain the defects. He was a curator at a museum and used to the preservation of books. He preserved almost all of the books he bought about as well as is possible. He was also a back-issue collector and conscious even at that time that comics could have some value since he was paying above-cover prices for the Golden books he was buying. Even if he had read FF #1, wouldn't he have handled it fairly carefully? The odds are he would have.

 

But the main thing is what the curator himself told Hauser--that Jurgens never had the #1 available to him. That most likely means the #1 was another very nice copy Jurgens obtained somewhere else.

 

Just re-verified the certification of the FF#1. The Curator pedigree designation remains within the certification look up system.

 

I guess the jury's still out on this one?

 

BTW... You make a rational argument. And based on it, reason would dictate that this FF#1 is not/not the Curator copy.

 

As a side note: There were four books that fell outside of the original certification groupings identified earlier in the thread.

 

These books now bear the Curator designation (issues 54, 72, 73, and 76). They all have a new certification date of 01/09/2012, and the Heritage imagery has change accordingly.

 

[jimjum12]

....That copy sold at auction on June 22nd, 2002 for $ 110,000. It was the same auction where Marnin auctioned the bulk of what remained of the Mass. ASM's. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

P.S. It was a Parrino auction in partnership with someone else, Heritage, I believe. I still have the catalogue around somewhere.

I thought it was sold by JP on eBay, but the winner (a big spender at the time whose name escapes me, he posted a few times on these boards) pulled out of the deal when it turned out that his eyes were bigger than his wallet.

 

If JP subsequently resold this on Heritage, I definitely don't remember a 9.4 FF #1 ever being sold on Heritage.

 

I'll try to dig out the catalogue. The 110K price was associated with that auction. I don't believe this auction is part of their archive. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[MasterChief]

I'm still waiting for the holes in the early lineup:

 

7 -- one of the toughest FF's in super high grade

8 -- ditto

37 -- ditto, to a lesser degree

49 -- as discussed above

51 -- classic cover and issue, not that easy in hg

 

Everything else until the late issues is accounted for, save the "real" #1, presumably. I wonder when and if we'll see these five books?

 

Dan

 

Hey, Dan...

 

Here's an updated spreadsheet.

 

I've ran the certs on all the books in the auction and they check out as bearing the designation.

 

Seems to me someone mentioned the FF#16 as being listed, but I can't find it.

 

If I've missed anything just shout. Thx.

 

 

 

[jimjum12]

....That copy sold at auction on June 22nd, 2002 for $ 110,000. It was the same auction where Marnin auctioned the bulk of what remained of the Mass. ASM's. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

P.S. It was a Parrino auction in partnership with someone else, Heritage, I believe. I still have the catalogue around somewhere.

I thought it was sold by JP on eBay, but the winner (a big spender at the time whose name escapes me, he posted a few times on these boards) pulled out of the deal when it turned out that his eyes were bigger than his wallet.

 

If JP subsequently resold this on Heritage, I definitely don't remember a 9.4 FF #1 ever being sold on Heritage.

 

I'll try to dig out the catalogue. The 110K price was associated with that auction. I don't believe this auction is part of their archive. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

 

.....the auction was NOT in partnership with HA.....sorry for the confusion. It was strictly by "The Mint", Parrino's company at the time. I didn't notice anything about eBay in the Terms and Conditions page. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u