All Winners Comics

[Silver Surfer]

Just looking at a few of these oldies and I love the covers and how Subby, Torch and Cap are typically featured on them. These seem relatively undervalued. Are they a decent investment or are they somewhat forgotten like many of the GA stuff appears to be. I say this because them seem to be very rare in comparison to SA comics, especially in the census, yet the prices do not appear to be reflected in most mid-grade issues for sale (seem inexpensive to me?). How do they read? Too corny?

 

Haven't made a Marvel GA purchase yet but figure now would be a good time to do so why most collectors are focused on SA and BA. Appreciate any insight.

[rob_react]

Are they a decent investment or are they somewhat forgotten like many of the GA stuff appears to be.

 

[Timely]

They read about as corny as your typical Silver Age book would. To me it's the artwork that truly seperates All Winners from any Silver Age book. Since there was no censoring in the GA, this title has some incredible artwork!

 

Timely

[rob_react]

They read about as corny as your typical Silver Age book would. To me it's the artwork that truly seperates All Winners from any Silver Age book. Since there was no censoring in the GA, this title has some incredible artwork!

 

This illustrates one of my favorite misconceptions about the Golden Age. There was no CCA, so crazy stuff went on all the time. Heroes killing people, insane torture, big boobs busting out all over the place, you name it. If anything it's the Silver Age that's the "corny" age in comparison to what was going on in the 40s.

[Silver Surfer]

Timely,

 

Thank you, I was hoping you would respond.

[Silver Surfer]

Rob,

 

When I look back at some of the stories from the early, Avengers, FF and even Spiderman there is some real corny stuff there but the stories did seem to evolve away from this rather quickly. Not sure I was specifically looking for "boobs to pop out everywhere" but I can appreciate what you are saying. How about the overall pricing on these? They seem to be a little stagnant or is this just another misconception on my part? Any theories on what might revive these? SA prices sky rocketing too much?

[dgillock]

How about the overall pricing on these? They seem to be a little stagnant or is this just another misconception on my part? Any theories on what might revive these? SA prices sky rocketing too much?

 

I was looking at my copies of the "Overstreet Price Review" last night- they were pretty much shoved into my hands at the CGC table in Philly...

 

First thing that came to mind is how incredibly inflated high grade Marvel SA seems right now by comparison to mid-grade Gold. Examples: Daredevil #1 NM 9.4 $15,000 or All-Winners #1 in FN/VF 7.0 for $7,360... Or, you really want a "bargain", how about JIM #83 in VF 8.0 for $6,250 vs. Planet #1 (Toledo) in VF 8.0 $6,037.50. Sure, really nice early Marvel's are tough to come by, but they are out there. Higher grade Gold and even in some cases mid-grade are profoundly rare in most cases with many books seemingly hitting a ceiling at VG/VG+.

 

I'm hoping not to get flamed here... I'm a Marvel SA fan (I treasure my Strange Tales #110 to #146 run), but it seems to me that SA prices are going way over-board relative to scarcity and I can only blame it on hype. The GA market, even on the most popular books simply is not riding the same sort of wave right now and personally I'm very happy about that. I think in many ways the market is more realistic. Another thing I noticed at Philly was that even the mid-grade SA Marvel prices have seemed to be adjusted upward relative to HG prices (someone else pointed this out on another thread I believe). Is this just wishful thinking on the part of dealers or can the market support it? And if so for how long?

 

I would say that if you have the available cash to be picking up solid copies of books like All-Winners, go for it. If the market is soft right now for them all the better for you down the line.

[Timely]

These things run in cycles. GA books have been at bargain prices for the last 2 years now, but no collector is going to let that cat out of the bag, as no one wants the competition.

I'd expect GA to surge ahead in the coming 6-18 months.

 

Timely

[dgillock]

I'd expect GA to surge ahead in the coming 6-18 months.

 

SHHHH! Don't tell anyone...

[Silver Surfer]

Dmgcsr,

 

Thank you for your note as you basically confirmed what I thought to be the case. SA was defintely Marvel at its peak and when you look at all those characters that were developed or reborn (Subby, Cap) from 1961 to 1963 and on to 1968 we will likely not see such creative genius again in our life time. For this reason I always feel SA will have a strong following. This digs at the root of why I have a luke warm attitude towards modern comics and all the title rehasing of Spiderman, X-Men, FF, etc. I think its more a function of survivial for Marvel than any other factor. The creative well is dry so go with what the people like and want.

 

I feel that a majority of GA books (Marvel in particular) have less appeal in general (for me anyway) that SA is because they are dominated by war cover after war cover and the same old theme seems to be rehashed. A function of the era to be sure but I can see why there is a disconnect over various generations since. Having said all this I am looking at purchasing a few gems like All Select, All Winners, Marvel and Human Torch comics as I think they are neat, undervalued and one day I'd like to look back and say I own some 80+ year old comics that still have a connection to current day characters like the Sub-Mariner, etc. I guess that's my way of reliving what's missing in present day comics.

[Apotheosis]

I'd expect GA to surge ahead in the coming 6-18 months.

 

I hope it's on the 18 month side so that I have time to get my list down.

[lou_fine]

These things run in cycles. GA books have been at bargain prices for the last 2 years now, but no collector is going to let that cat out of the bag, as no one wants the competition.

I'd expect GA to surge ahead in the coming 6-18 months.

 

Timely

 

This is starting to remind me of the early 90's when Silver and Moderns were experiencing huge price increases while GA sat around doing almost nothing. Then came the Modern crash in '94 and '95 when the GA market took off like a rocket and we saw 40% price increases in the guide with major dealers offering MULTIPLES to guide for high grade GA books.

 

Don't be surprised if you don't see this cycle repeating itself within the next couple of years, with all the publishers now churning out books with variant covers and new #1 issues on a weekly basis. I guess they just never learn from their past mistakes.

[rjpb]

I fear a price jump may be inevitable for GA, especially in the lower grades, I haven't checked old price guides lately, but my feeling is that alot of GA superhero books have only gone up 50-100% in the last decade for lower grades, including many Timelys, while this is still better than the inflation rate, it paIes compared to Silver & Bronze. think Ebay has had a lot to do with keeping prices down on all but the highest demand books, but what with the ever escalating prices on SA, more and more people are going to be drawn to them.

 

Granted, most of the Silver & Bronze jump has been for high grade, but collectors have always been willing to spend more on low-mid grade GA books than they would for books in same condition from later eras.

 

As for All-Winners, I've always felt that if I were to collect a Timely run, this would be the title.

In 20 issues you get S&K Captain America, Everett Sub-Mariner, classic war/Hitler covers, great Schomburg covers, a Red Skull story and the only two All-Winners Squad stories, and of course some combination of Cap, Subby and Torch inside and on the cover of every issue. Hmmm....on second thought, maybe this is a lousy run to go for, maybe collectors should concentrate on something more practical, like Silver Age books, yeah, Silver Age.

[CentaurMan]

There are nine issues of Detective #1 in the census, restored or unrestored. There are 4 blue label Adventure #40's in the census equal to or greater than my CGC 5.0 copy. These are RARE comics. Yet I was able to purchase those two books, COMBINED, for a good bit less than a copy of X-Men #1 in CGC 9.2 sold for on ComicLink recently, a grade that has 18 issues at or above it.

 

You're telling me that you'd rather have an X-Men 1 in 9.2 than both a Detective 1 and an Adventure 40, plus a couple thousand dollars left over? (That's a hypothetical "you", not whomever I happened to Reply to).

 

And that's a very high end example. With more common Silver Age issues and less valuable Golden Age issues, the value discrepancy gets even more extreme.

 

I know the demand for Golden Age books isn't there right now, but that might change. Meanwhile, the supply is definitely not there right now either, and that WON'T change. In my mind, the relative value investment is clear.

[Shield]

You're telling me that you'd rather have an X-Men 1 in 9.2 than both a Detective 1 and an Adventure 40, plus a couple thousand dollars left over?

 

I would rather have either the Detective 1 or Adventure 40 than 100 copies of anything printed past 1955. That is, of course, under the assumption I couldn't sell the X-Men/Silver stuff.

 

It's ridiculous! Maybe it's because more people who bought the silver age stuff new (i.e. Baby Boomers) are still around and actively collecting? Who knows?

 

Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise - imagine if those gold books were as sought after as common silver stuff...

[blowout]

You're telling me that you'd rather have an X-Men 1 in 9.2 than both a Detective 1 and an Adventure 40, plus a couple thousand dollars left over?

 

Well obviously a good few people would or these sales would not be happening. I don't think anyone can doubt that there are far more collectors of SA than there are of GA and the relative scarcity of the books from each era must be factored against this demand.

GA books may be rarer, but there are far less people out threre looking for them.

[rob_react]

To answer the hypothetical without specifics, if I were looking to make money on comics as a passive "investor," beyond the obvious fool's game of buying CGC 10.0 Moderns, the last thing I would be buying right now is high grade CGC Bronze Age Marvels, followed closely by high grade CGC Silver Age Marvels.

[blowout]

the last thing I would be buying right now is high grade CGC Bronze Age Marvels, followed closely by high grade CGC Silver Age Marvels.

 

No arguments from me there.

[lou_fine]

You're telling me that you'd rather have an X-Men 1 in 9.2 than both a Detective 1 and an Adventure 40, plus a couple thousand dollars left over?

 

Well obviously a good few people would or these sales would not be happening. I don't think anyone can doubt that there are far more collectors of SA than there are of GA and the relative scarcity of the books from each era must be factored against this demand.

GA books may be rarer, but there are far less people out threre looking for them.

 

Similarly, I guess the Modern collectors would much rather take an 10.0 copy of the White cover for Ultimate Spidy #1 than both an 6.0 copy of Incredible Hulk #1 and an 7.0 copy of JIM #83, plus a few hundred dollars left over. After all, there are a lot more Modern buyers out there and why in the world would they want books from the Silver Age with the corny writing and simple art.

 

I guess if they had these three deals in a convention, the longest line would be for the Ultimate Spidey #1 and the second longest line would be for the Silver books. I most certainly know which line I would be standing in.

[mrwoogieman]

I had a sweet All Winners #8 for awhile, bought it raw and had it slabbed as a 5.0 Universal Grade. Sold it on ebay for more than guide value.

 

In fact, I sold about twenty Timelys (mostly Caps and Marvel Mystery's) in low grade last fall and virtually every one sold for more than OS value in grade.

 

I can't speak for other publishers but the Timelys are highly sought after in my experience, and I don't see that changing as long as Marvel continues to exist.