Why Golden Age Collecting is Fun

[Griff]

I'm relatively new to the golden age scene. I only started actively picking up books a couple years ago. Even then I was collecting readers not graded books.

 

Soon I was able to pickup the Gerber Photo Journal Guide to Comics and narrow my focus down to a few very specific titles I liked. Some I will never be able to afford and some I can pick up for pennies on the dollar.

 

Next I learned about the value of CGC'ed comics vice the mass of readers I had previously been buying. Learning the true rarity of books in grade and using that info to help me focus down even further.

 

Finally I learned about Pedigrees and the story behind them. How sometimes the story of the pages is as cool as the story on the pages. I truly gained a love for these stories.

 

So taking all of that information and deciding to pick 1 title I enjoyed that was

A:) in my budget range

B:) I could find reader copies and graded copies of. even pedigree books !

C:) was semi difficult but not completely impossible to complete

 

So as a lot of folks know I chose to specialize in Don Winslow books, and man has it been fun so far.

 

When my younger self was primarily collecting X-Men books it was fun to see an X-men 94, GSX 1, or ever the occasional X-men 1. But go on e-bay right now and you can find 50 of those issues at any given time. Not so with most golden age books. With GA books if you want it you have to hunt for it, search and hope. Even if you find it, does it meat your grade? Is it good enough to even be considered for your reader copy?

 

I picked up a low grade copy of DWOTN the other day and was so excited. Not because I spent a fortune or because It's particularly valuable, but because I know how hard that book is to find. I can appreciate the history of where the book came from and what it had to survive to get into my hands.

 

Funny thing.... I look at my list of X-men and see that I am only a few issues short of completing the run, but I've lost the desire to bother trying. Golden age comics have taken over as my primary focus and collection. "I don't see that as a bad thing :)"

 

So know you have an Idea of why I like collecting Golden age books Let me here your thoughts. What about Golden Age Comics speaks to your heart.

 

~Griff

[Scrooge]

Have well appreciated those Don Winslows you've been posting. I have some issues myself and they are cool books.

 

My love of GA and GA collecting & curating is deeply seated in my unabashed insatiable longing for hidden knowledge & discovery. The heavy light shining down on everything from Silver to Bronze to more modern comics is a deterrent to my particular twist of interest. To state that I relish on the obscure is not an understatement; it pleases me, for example, to know who Bill Overgard is though it'll never win me a bar bet.

 

My introduction to the GA started from those references in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe that Journey into Mystery # 83 was (Silver Age) Thor's first appearance. Wow! # 83 ... who knew and more to the point, what went on in those previous 82 issues. Certainly information that I had no way to know back in France in the '80's. So, when I discovered CBM in the '90's, I started ... ahem ... my own journey into this mystery and since I want to know it ALL, I started on my synchronic collection of March 1952 cover-dated books so I would cast as wide a net as possible and explore all dark corners of the atomic age. In the '90's, PCH was hot (funny how it's back) but romance? ... funny animals? Forget about it. One has to get into the trenches to discover what the field has to offer. No Dr. Love around to post pages and pages of cool Romance books. No Baz to showcase obscure kiddie books.

 

I like a place where there is likely more to know than I ever will be able to discover. Tolkien's universe is large, for sure, but it's bounded. It's fun for a while but you can get to the end. For GA and AA, there is no end in sight, there are always new artists, new writers, new characters, new stories, new spotlights to discover and the ability to get lost and meander around other pop culture avenues of the time from OTR to comic strips to pulps to merchandising to serials to BLBs to premiums to circle back to comics that the boundaries are too large to explore and ... that's satisfying that there is and will remain new territory for me to explore in my journey into this mystery when I am ready to come back full time.

 

Still can't stay away too long, I have spent the past couple of weeks when I find the rare time, typing in one by one all features and artists in the AA / National line up from its first days in 1935 to surely 1940 and at least to 1942. Why? I simply do not know enough about these books and methodically going through the content of each title & issue is the best way to get intimate with the era. Nuts? Nah, insatiable thirst for knowledge

[comicjack]

I have been a collector for sometime now,starting as a child during the Silverage.I have owned all the Marvel keys and have kept a large portion of them from chidhood and most likely will be buried with them.I have since turned my love to the Goldenage classic covers and what ever appeals to my eye.My main love is Centaurs and Chesler comics,mostly because Centaur came out of what Chesler had started and sold to what would be Centaur.My passion hasn't waned in all these years and the art form will aways attract me.

I'm not a completist nowadays for it is just too hard to find what you need.I have seen many younger collectors love the older stuff as i do,and have a good feeling for the future of the hobby.I just love everyone showing off there new purchases thats what we have in common,our love of the four color treasures!Time to stop the rambling and start posting (thumbs u

[adamstrange]

Welcome to the GA, Griff

 

That was a great post and I thought more people might have responded by now.

 

I read GA comics as kid via reprints available in the 70s. I purchased the Treasury Edition reprint of Tec 27 as well as many DC/Marvel giant sized comics containing reprints of GA greats like Simon/Kirby, Eisner, Fine, Cole, Crandall etc. I also found I liked the best of that earlier material just as much as I liked the best of the new material.

 

At the same time I have always been interested in history so when I actually decided to start collecting comics I decided that I would include comics from every age. As comic prices rose I found that my ambitions outsized my pocketbook and gradually narrowed my focus to the GA. I learned more about comics from collecting GA and liked the fact that I was and still am continually surprised by all the cool art that has been published.

 

i still have a toe dipped into SA collecting as I am interested in the 10 cent era which runs into 1961.

[Badger]

Hi Griff,

 

When I was 12 or 13 I discovered the pocket sized reprints of FF and ASM. These showed me the great silver-age stories and it was a short-leap from there to paying attention to the Mile High ads, of the period, and finally I found Overstreet. Looking at the small B&W pictures made me really want the Timely comics. The fact that most of them covered WWII, as early as age 8 I was a huge WWII history nut, and had a recognizable heroes in Captain America and the Human Torch made me covet them all that much more.

 

I was growing up in Oklahoma and New Mexico and there were not many Golden Age books floating around but I could find an occasional Silver Age so that is where I started collecting. It wasn't until my first comic-con in El Paso Texas, ~1989, that I bought my first Timely: Marvel Mystery #13 in trimmed Good with a three hole punch in it.

 

And here I am now, chasing after Timely windmills knowing that I will, probably, never make enough money to complete the collection but I'm still going after them!

[BaltimoreLauren]

I've always had a fascination with WW2, and that spilled over into comics. I enjoy the history behind the books, and it gives us a glimpse into what life was like back then. Plus the thrill of the chase, ect.

[jimjum12]

..... OSPG started my intrigue, along with the DC 100 pagers published in the early 70's that were chock full of reprints of GA jewels. I naturally gravitated toward the earlier work of those who were ALREADY favorites.... Kirby, Kubert, Infantino, Kane ..... but somewhere along the way, while checking out the Kirby Pre Hero Monster reprints of the time, I started to notice these murky, atmospheric, slightly disturbing short story reprints that were full of this odd slapstick irony that were occasionally included. These turned out to be remnants and debris of the once proud kingdom of Atlas PCH. After growing a little bored with the SA (....after many, many years of rabid fascination) and a difficulty in affording the nicer copies that I really wanted, I rediscovered that cool Atlas stuff when I became active on these boards. Ironically, the books that first pulled me back into the gravitational pull of the Atlas Globe were "Bible Tales for Young Folks". I was pointed to www.atlastales.com by the venerable Scrooge and that was "all she wrote" for me. Nice copies are still pricey.... but 3 figures usually, instead of 4 and 5 figures. I like the way that weeks can go by without anything on the horizon.... and that some of them I may NEVER find in the Fine grade that I like...... GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[samfromcalifornia]

My fascination with GA came about from growing up a DC fan in the '60s. I liked the Flash, Green Lantern, etc., but was unaware of their GA roots. As, post "Flash of Two Worlds", the GA versions of the DC characters slowly became part of the then current storylines, a whole new world appeared on the horizon. I plugged myself in to the then obscure comic collecting scene and was hooked.

 

Another interesting aspect of the GA is that it was a whole new industry. Now, we can argue their historical predecessors, but in every important way, comics were breaking new ground. It's not too much of a stretch to compare comics in the late '30s and early '40s with the tech industry of the '90s. In both cases, creative people were trying to find a way to make something work without prior experience to build on. In both cases, young people were the innovators creating models that influenced their industry's direction for decades to come. Siegel, Shuster, Kirby, Simon and most of their collaborators were just kids starting out, just like Gates, Allen and Jobs(though sadly, the comic innovators didn't end up with billions).

 

Just look at a comic from the early '40s. The energy and enthusiasm of those creative youngsters is on every page. From their amazing successes(Superman, Batman, Captain America, etc.), to their hilarious failures(the Thunderer, the Eye, etc., etc.) is a freshness that is severely lacking in so many creative projects today.

[jimjum12]

My fascination with GA came about from growing up a DC fan in the '60s. I liked the Flash, Green Lantern, etc., but was unaware of their GA roots. As, post "Flash of Two Worlds", the GA versions of the DC characters slowly became part of the then current storylines, a whole new world appeared on the horizon. I plugged myself in to the then obscure comic collecting scene and was hooked.

 

Another interesting aspect of the GA is that it was a whole new industry. Now, we can argue their historical predecessors, but in every important way, comics were breaking new ground. It's not too much of a stretch to compare comics in the late '30s and early '40s with the tech industry of the '90s. In both cases, creative people were trying to find a way to make something work without prior experience to build on. In both cases, young people were the innovators creating models that influenced their industry's direction for decades to come. Siegel, Shuster, Kirby, Simon and most of their collaborators were just kids starting out, just like Gates, Allen and Jobs(though sadly, the comic innovators didn't end up with billions).

 

Just look at a comic from the early '40s. The energy and enthusiasm of those creative youngsters is on every page. From their amazing successes(Superman, Batman, Captain America, etc.), to their hilarious failures(the Thunderer, the Eye, etc., etc.) is a freshness that is severely lacking in so many creative projects today.

 

...... well put, sir. I often wonder if Gates, Jobs, Allen, and such may have been inspired to reach beyond the mundane by a comic or three in their youth. GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[goldust40]

Like Jim, my first exposure to GA was through the 100 page super-spectaculars of the early 70s - some classic stuff, not always well-drawn compared to the likes of Aparo, Wrightson and Adams, but still good. And then there were the treasuries.

 

However during my first period of collecting (age 13 - 23, late 70s to the mid 80s) I was solely interested in Silver Age and what was current. I hadn't developed the interest to discover the history and predecessors of that era, plus the British experience of U.S. books simply didn't include GA. GA books were never distributed over here, and were rarely brought up in fandom - you got the impression that year zero was 1961 and that what came before wasn't worth taking seriously.

 

When I got back into collecting U.S. comics in the early 90s (after an eight year hiatus) Silver Age initially still took precedence, until one day I bought an E.C. book at a store, and that was the gateway. Within a year or two the CBM pre-code issue came out and suddenly I got to learn about these obscure, arcane books that were totally unfamiliar but deserved greater exposure. I was hooked after that, and still am. A couple of years after that I got the Timely bug, and gradually GA took over.

 

What's great about GA is that just finding the book is often enough, never mind the condition - plus there's always something to learn, and books to be discovered - the books back in that deregulated period had no pretences to be anything other than entertainment, yet despite, or perhaps because, of that they have become imbued with historical context.

 

Plus a decade or so ago pre-code books were still reasonably cheap.

[Mr.Illmannered]

My fascination with GA is due to my love of horror, especially pre-code horror & crime books. Artwork truly is a key in GA collecting as well...you look back at work from Frazetta, Craig, Ingels, Elias, etc and are just stunned. There's almost a digression of good comic book artists after the dawn of the comics authority. Of course they had to go more cartoonish but pre-code GA ( superheroes included ) were truly epic for artwork enthusiasts.

 

There's also something very cool about collecting something there are so few of, especially in my case where I 'need' to find high grade copies.

[Badger]

I've always had a fascination with WW2, and that spilled over into comics. I enjoy the history behind the books, and it gives us a glimpse into what life was like back then. Plus the thrill of the chase, ect.

I love that glimpse into the past these books afford us. I was blown away when I realized that WWII was being fought in the comics before the U.S. entered the war. It was a revelation that Kirby considered the Captain America stories horror stories. It seems like I'm constantly discovering something new from about the Golden Age that makes me even happier to own a few rare pieces.

[Xela]

As mentioned in the OP, for me one of the things that attracts me to GA is the fact that they have been through a lot and it's amazing how they have survived!

[Vision75]

Great thread starter Griff!

 

Like many others here, I grew up in the Bronze and Copper ages believing that my copy of Punisher #1 would be worth a million dollars by now.

 

After a twenty year hiatus I began getting more serious about collecting, first with SA and then to GA. While not quite as focused as Griff I've tried to amass runs that I could attain, namely Terrific Comics and Suspense Comics. It's a challenge because some of the issues appear rarely.

 

Perhaps it's a bad analogy but I feel like GA is the Atlantis of comic book collecting. Largely forgotten, yet in its day was more important and amazing compared to anything since. Plus, the few who have uncovered some of its artifacts and secrets are, frankly, the most knowledgeable and interesting people to know

[Marvel Zombie]

I'm relatively new to the golden age scene. I only started actively picking up books a couple years ago. Even then I was collecting readers not graded books.

 

Soon I was able to pickup the Gerber Photo Journal Guide to Comics and narrow my focus down to a few very specific titles I liked. Some I will never be able to afford and some I can pick up for pennies on the dollar.

 

Next I learned about the value of CGC'ed comics vice the mass of readers I had previously been buying. Learning the true rarity of books in grade and using that info to help me focus down even further.

 

Finally I learned about Pedigrees and the story behind them. How sometimes the story of the pages is as cool as the story on the pages. I truly gained a love for these stories.

 

So taking all of that information and deciding to pick 1 title I enjoyed that was

A:) in my budget range

B:) I could find reader copies and graded copies of. even pedigree books !

C:) was semi difficult but not completely impossible to complete

 

So as a lot of folks know I chose to specialize in Don Winslow books, and man has it been fun so far.

 

When my younger self was primarily collecting X-Men books it was fun to see an X-men 94, GSX 1, or ever the occasional X-men 1. But go on e-bay right now and you can find 50 of those issues at any given time. Not so with most golden age books. With GA books if you want it you have to hunt for it, search and hope. Even if you find it does it meat your grade? Is it good enough to even be considered for your reader copy?

 

I picked up a low grade copy of DWOTN the other day and was so excited. Not because I spent a fortune or because It's particularly valuable, but because I know how hard that books is to find. I can appreciate the history of where the book came from and what it had to survive to get into my hands.

 

Funny thing.... I look at my list of X-men and see that I am only a few issues short of completing the run, but I've lost the desire to bother trying. Golden age comics have taken over as my primary focus and collection. "I don't see that as a bad thing :)"

 

So know you have an Idea of why I like collecting Golden age books Let me here your thoughts. What about Golden Age Comics speaks to your heart.

 

~Griff

 

Why Golden Age Collecting is Fun ?

I beg your pardon. My impression is that most people on here do this for a living ...

But I might be wrong

But off course youre right : work can be fun / dealing can be collecting, etc.

 

 

[adamstrange]

 

Perhaps it's a bad analogy but I feel like GA is the Atlantis of comic book collecting. Largely forgotten, yet in its day was more important and amazing compared to anything since.

This is a good point. Far more comics were published and the number of readers was far bigger even though the population was much smaller during the GA. Newspaper comics were far more important back then as well.

 

While comics are not read nearly as much today, it's possible to argue their influence is greater due to the increasing prevalence and popularity of comic and superhero-related movies, TV shows, video games etc.

[Caddotx]

You think you're new??? I just started collection GA in January!

 

I've posted my story already in a thread I keep updated when I acquire a new GA piece for my collection so I won't rehash it here. However, I will say that I too have lost most of my interest in SA and BA comics for collecting. It is SO much more exciting to snag that GA comic to me now than any SA comics I've bought recently.

 

I have a Spiderman collection that I was going to start filling out before I started this GA thing, but now it just sits and I really don't see me chasing any of those issues anymore.

 

Like several of you, I know there are certain issues I'll never own in GA, especially since I'm going after Batman's, but it doesn't stop me from getting what I can. I've also learned that I don't have to have high grade. I'm perfectly happy with ANY grade as long as it presents well. That little fact right there has liberated me and made this so much more fun.

[comicjack]

I like your way of thinking,collect the book and not the grade if it presents nice.Waiting for the right copy to come along may never be,heck we could be dust by then.Oh wait i'm dust already so that;s why i do what i do go for the book and not the grade.Goldenage book covers have so much more creative artist thinking on how to catch the eye of the buyer.I'll most likely be killed for that statement from modern buyers but that is my 2 cents.

[BB-Gun]

Guys like Roy Thomas, Biljo White, Raymond Miller and Jerry Bails made collecting comics fun. They told the stories that they had enjoyed as a child. They drew the characters that they liked. They added insight into the lives of the artist and writers of the golden age.

 

Drawings by Roy and Biljo from Alter Ego 7. I purchased a pre-colored version by an unknown artist on ebay. No lie. I didn't do it. My copy ended up in the MSU library.

 

 

[vaillant]

I think I owe my introduction to golden age to Charles Biro’s Daredevil.

When in the late 1980s-early 1990s I stared in fascination the Overstreet Guide pages, there were many awesome Timelys, but for some reason Daredevil had a mysterious fascination on me.

 

I've always had a fascination with WW2, and that spilled over into comics. I enjoy the history behind the books, and it gives us a glimpse into what life was like back then. Plus the thrill of the chase, ect.

I love that glimpse into the past these books afford us. I was blown away when I realized that WWII was being fought in the comics before the U.S. entered the war. It was a revelation that Kirby considered the Captain America stories horror stories. It seems like I'm constantly discovering something new from about the Golden Age that makes me even happier to own a few rare pieces.

 

Very true. My early fascination with Daredevil ended up merging with this aspect, but of course from an italian perspective, as an interest and research on an italian author I always loved was rekindled around 2006.

The author was Sebastiano Craveri – together with Kurt Caesar and Franco Caprioli they represented the cornerstones of the early ten years of life of "Il Vittorioso", the very first italian comics journal to publish italian material alone.

All the three of them had a pretty unique approach, and very interesting lives (Caesar was italo-germanic citizen, knew seven languages, served in the German army – in Africa as interpreter for Erwin Rommel – and as he finally settled in Italy at the end of the whe was arrested but then freed because he had actively helped italian partisans towards the end of the war).

 

This made me extend my interest to all the material from the wartime period, and I hope to dig further in other countries' printed matter…