Quantity of surviving copies of average golden age comics

[sfcityduck]

I would interested to know is how many copies of each SA key are submitted for certification each year for, say, the past ten years.

[mrmyst]

I believe it is a general slow but steady rise of quantity as we get up to the 1950's. By the mid to late 1950's the number of surviving copies goes up significantly. Then it goes up exponentially dramatically by 1965.

 

I used to wonder if the toll taken by wartime paper drives had been exaggerated, but it does seem that in general 1944 and later books are noticeably more common than 1939-1943 books. Conversely, the infamous comic book bonfires of the early 50s don't seem to have taken a significant toll on the surviving number books in the genres most targeted, crime and horror.

 

I think the bonfires had the opposite effect. There are more of those 50's horror title books as a strong fan base quickly started and people quickly realized they should be saved.

 

 

What makes you think that?

 

From talking to people who collected in the 50's and 60's. Many of them talk about hiding the books or tucking them away thinking that they were something forbidden and to be treasured. I think thats one of the reasons there are so many EC's running around.

 

They also had a strong fan base earlier on. One of the earliest strong collectors core with fanzines and clubs for those kind of books. Not all horror books fall into this group, but certainly the EC's do.

 

Good point about the ECs.

[hoknes]

Overstreet back in the 1980's in the annual guide used to actually post "estimated" numbers for all the key books - and it usually fell between 75 and 125

of course thats not proof but thats the numbers they published

[hoknes]

Thanks everyone for posting their thoughts.

 

the CGC census I always find fascinating but I will admit its still based more on the DOLLAR VALUE of a book than anything.

 

Money and profits drive up the number of graded copies.

Therefore I think the CGC is very useful for measuring rarity of books in higher grades say 7.0 or higher

But lower grade the majority of silver age books do NOT have enough "dollar value" to make the grading process worthy.

 

What I do find interesting is how there is no true marvel key that stands out in comparison to the others when it comes to high grade for early 60's hero books.

There is no big book "missing" in the high grade list. Some have 1 copy and some have 5 but its still relatively in the same ballpark.

 

DC silver age now is another issue. A few big key issues barely have any copies above 7.0