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Pre-Hero DC article...FINALLY ready

Started by namralos,

26 posts in this topic

namralos

namralos

Posted
Posted

Folks, I have finally finished the article that I began work on several years ago.

I compared copies of all comics sold through Heritage Auctions, current sales from various online dealers (mainly of raw books), and all accumulated information that I was able to glean from the census.

 

Add a bunch of pictures, and some information previously obtained by others, and we have this article...

 

Pre-Hero DC Comics

 

Frank

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jerome34

jerome34

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I have one of the collections that is not documented here since when

I get one of these books it goes into the collection and will not come

out until I get a better copy. Only a couple of my books are slabbed

and most were gotten years ago.

 

Of the top 10 scarcest, I am missing 1 (NF 2) but 6 are incomplete.

(You get what you can find and afford.) Of the total 119 issues, I am

missing 14 and 31 are incomplete.

 

As far as his scarcity calculation goes, I cannot add much. Once I

get a decent copy of a book, I stop looking for it (other than at garage

sales), so it may be common or it may be scarce.

 

I might move some in the top 10 up or down a spot but I see nothing

that is out of line. It is like seeing something rare - if you see item A

only once in 15 years and see item B only once in 16 years, is there

any real difference in the scarcity of the two items (once you take into

account that random factors can increase or decrease the expected time

by 4 years)?

 

I think it is more practical to list items by groups and state "This is my

set of groups; your experience may move an item up or down by one

level and, on rare occasions, an item could move by two levels."

 

That having been said, I still greatly appreciate the work that has gone

into developing this presentation. I have taken notes on it and it will

be useful when I get a chance to get or replace items on this list.

 

Thanks for doing it.

 

Now where did I place that list of garage sales?

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Sqeggs

Sqeggs

Posted
Posted
Folks, I have finally finished the article that I began work on several years ago.

I compared copies of all comics sold through Heritage Auctions, current sales from various online dealers (mainly of raw books), and all accumulated information that I was able to glean from the census.

 

Add a bunch of pictures, and some information previously obtained by others, and we have this article...

 

Pre-Hero DC Comics

 

Frank

 

Fascinating stuff. Thanks for compiling it.

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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I'd love to read it but have been unable to download it as the system keeps timing out. :(

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namralos

namralos

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jerome34, it's nice to know that people DO have those scarce issues!

 

adamstrange, the file is somewhat large, but I did compress it. It should take less than 20 seconds to download. Maybe everyone was downloading all at once yesterday!

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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I've tried a couple times today to download as well as have been unsuccessful. Perhaps you have hit download limits on the site hosting the file?

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G.A.tor

G.A.tor

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I've tried a couple times today to download as well as have been unsuccessful. Perhaps you have hit download limits on the site hosting the file?
I just downloaded right now...38 pages in 15 seconds ...AS, maybe you have a firewall up preventing?
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namralos

namralos

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Heritage has sold none, and none have appeared recently on ComicLink, through Metropolis, etc.. I only saw one copy on eBay over the past few years.

 

That's a RARE book!! Thanks for sharing a scan. One of the problems with the New Fun issues is their size. Since no company slabs them, there isn't (yet!) a true census for them.

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tb

tb

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That was an interesting read, thanks a lot for all the work. I've long thought that it was a shame so few people are trying to study the data in the census and auction archives to learn something new.

 

What I like most about your study is that the data is picked consistently in a neutral manner so the comparison is meaningful. Also, it was a great idea to include anecdotal data from the some of the most respected and knowledgeable collectors.

 

One limitation of counting books in the census and at auctions is that high value books distort the numbers for some reason. For example, Action 1 has 59 total copies in the census, #2 has 28, #3 has 21 etc., although the sales increased for every issue. It is only around #15 where the population of some issues start approaching that of #1 although the circulation was 4-5 times higher at that point. As the market value decreases for the later issues, the census also drops although the circulation increased manifold. Remarkably, there are only 2-3 issues between 1-100 that have a higher census population than #1. And it's not that a box of Action 1's survived by a fluke: you see the same strong correlation between value and census population across every publisher and title.

 

Action Comics sales data

#1 130,000

#2 136,000

#3 159,000

#4 190,000

#5 197,000

#6 195,000

#7 222,000

#8 227,000

#9 263,000

#10 316,000

#11 340,000

#12 375,000

#13 415,000

#14 445,000

#15 550,000

#16 625,000

 

Getting to my point, comics that have a high market value will generally appear more common from your tables than other books with the same number of surviving copies. As I see it (and I recognize I am a minority here), the circulation data is, in general, the most reliable way to estimate rarity. Unfortunately, this data is only available for a small subset of pre-hero comics. That's why your experiment is so interesting to me.

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rjpb

rjpb

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I've tried downloading on both Safari and Firefox on two separate computers. My ancient pre-intel G4 tower can't get the server to respond, and my 2011 powerbook can't get it to download on Safari, and Firefox warns me that heroinc.hostingsiteforfree.com has a poor reputation for trustworthiness and user reliability.

 

 

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RareHighGrade

RareHighGrade

Posted
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Frank,

 

I enjoyed your article. Nice job! Here is a post I made recently in another thread, in which I give my best estimates of the relative rarity of pre-hero Adventures:

 

As a long-time pre-hero Adventure completionist, here are my ball park rankings of the top 10 in order of scarcity:

 

1. New Adventure 13

2. New Adventure 26 and 27 (tied)

4. New Adventure 25

5. New Comics 2 and 3 (tied)

7. New Adventure 12

8. New Adventure 15

9. New Comics 4

10. Adventure 36

 

 

I tried to go past 10, but found it too difficult to distinguish between specific issues. The next grouping would probably be New Adventure 14, 16, 17, 22 and 23. Some of the other issues of New Comics may be more scarce than they appear to be simply because the demand for them is so low that it affects the scarcity perception.

 

 

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namralos

namralos

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I made some other comparisons, too, but the article was already SO long!

Some of my observations relate to what you wrote, tb, so I'll share them.

 

I have noticed for some time that the "popular books" get slabbed at greater frequency than the others. Action #1, which you mentioned, is a good example. While a typical (random) book from the period (pre-1940 DC) might be offered to CGC half the time, books like Action #1 are probably slabbed 75% of the time or more. That is, people want to sell them, and the advice is generally to have the books professionally graded.

 

As a result, we see a HUGE number of Action #1's on the census.

Detective #1 - #27 is a telling (collective) example.

There are more slabbed copies of #1 than of any issue from 2 through 26.

But there were also more #1's printed. We know this. So what about #27?

There are TWICE as many copies of #27 accounted for than any prior issue.

 

Now, did Batman's first appearance sell twice as many copies? Could be. But then they KEPT those copies, too...even though they didn't keep #25. Hmm...

Have twice as many people chosen to slab #27, even though it is more common than the issues around it? Could be.

The truth is likely somewhere in between.

 

I also looked at value estimates compared to Overstreet. In some cases, the dealers clearly sell copies -- REGULARLY -- at much higher prices than guide.

 

I also examined the "fine or better unrestored" books quite a bit.

There are twelve books on the list for which there are NO COPIES known (i.e., public) in unrestored FN 6.0 or higher condition.

There are also quite a few after that for which the Edgar Church copy remains the only high-grade copy of the issue.

 

When I took in the overall paucity of information, it is staggering. CGC has certified (and/or Heritage etc. have sold) fewer than 30 copies of ANY of the pre-hero books.

For ALMOST every issue, there are known 5 or fewer copies in FN or higher. Books from this period are astonishingly rare. Now note how many/few of them have ever had labels in Overstreet as "scarce," "rare," or "very rare."

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jerome34

jerome34

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Time for an update

 

While I am missing more than a few of these books (I am missing 22

DC's pre the "new 52" and have some 82 incomplete issues in the

same period), I thought I would identify ones where he gives them a

scarcity index of 9 or 10. In his order, I am missing, have incomplete,

have low grade or have slabbed the following issues:

 

New Fun . . . . . . 4

New Fun . . . . . . 2

New Adventure 13

New Fun . . . . . . 3

New Fun . . . . . . 6 <3/4 cover>

More Fun . . . . . . 7

New Adventure 15

More Fun . . . . .41

New Adventure 27

Big Book of Fun 1

New Comics . . . 4

New Adventure 28

 

The rest of the 9's and 10's on his list are all ones I have and am

comfortable with so I am not actively looking for upgrades.

 

Many of the 22 that I am missing are the most expensive books

and have always been outside my budget.

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sacentaur

sacentaur

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New Fun . . . . . . 4

New Fun . . . . . . 2

New Adventure 13

New Fun . . . . . . 3

New Fun . . . . . . 6 <3/4 cover>

More Fun . . . . . . 7

New Adventure 15

More Fun . . . . .41

New Adventure 27

Big Book of Fun 1

New Comics . . . 4

New Adventure 28

 

Off this list, I have nice copies on New Adventure 13, More Fun 7, and New Comics 4 (Lost Valley pedigree, but restored).

 

I've never owned any copy of New Fun, but would love to one day. :wishluck:

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