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Eerie Publications

Started by Kell Onearth-migration,

5 posts in this topic

Kell Onearth-migration

Kell Onearth-migration

Posted
Posted

Hey everyone, GREAT BOARD!

 

Let me introduce myself...

 

I was a comic collectors for 20 years and have since moved on as the abundance of issues and staggering prices have pushed me into another venue...magazines.

 

For the past 2 years I've been collecting horror and horror related magazines, particularilly the Eerie Publication issues (Horror and Terror Tales, Witches Tales, Tales of Voodoo, Tales from the Tomb and Weird).

 

What I've been wondering is this.

 

1) Just how rare are these issues? Ebay often can skew the collector perspective

 

2) What are the most sought after issues/ series

 

3) Is the Overstreet complete in their listings?

 

Many thanks, hope to hear from you all!

 

-Kell

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bounty_coder

bounty_coder

Posted
Posted
Hey everyone, GREAT BOARD!

 

Let me introduce myself...

 

I was a comic collectors for 20 years and have since moved on as the abundance of issues and staggering prices have pushed me into another venue...magazines.

 

For the past 2 years I've been collecting horror and horror related magazines, particularilly the Eerie Publication issues (Horror and Terror Tales, Witches Tales, Tales of Voodoo, Tales from the Tomb and Weird).

 

What I've been wondering is this.

 

1) Just how rare are these issues? Ebay often can skew the collector perspective

 

2) What are the most sought after issues/ series

 

3) Is the Overstreet complete in their listings?

 

Many thanks, hope to hear from you all!

 

-Kell

 

Hello Kell, welcome aboard indeed. Well I hope that you check around enough to see this post.

 

I will answer your questions as you have above:

 

1) Just how rare are these issues...Well, it depends what you are looking at. I am a huge collector of Skywald, Eerie Publications and Stanley magazines. So I will kinda give you a rundown of what I have noticed.

 

We'll start from the top down. If your looking for NM- 9.2 to NM 9.4 copies of any of the issues above, in the 1966-1970 time period forget about it. In my humble oppinion, a NM- 9.2 copy of a Eerie Publication or Stanely book from 1966-1970 is the equivilant of a getting a 9.8 NM/MT Warren book from the 60's, and a NM 9.4 copy probably the equivalent of getting a MT 9.9 Warren Copy. Reason why I say this? Take a look at the Census for Creepy #10, it was produced in 1966 and has 7x 9.8's in census and 9x 9.6's in census! And those 9.8's will sell for $500-$1,000 a peice depending on who is tracking them at any one time. Here is the link to the Creepy #10 info HERE .

 

Go take a look at census information for Eerie Publications and Stanley books, and they will be non existent. Some of the best copies are only VF 8.5's, with a few NM- 9.2's. But point being, there is NO WHERE near the supply of these books in HG as there are Warren books.

 

As more and more collectors/investors start to realize this, many HG Eerie Publication books with the more desirable covers will be untouchable. But will give a very nice price boost to even the more "common" of the Eerie Pub. books.

 

I would say this, in my hunting at shows and online (ebay), that VF+ 8.5 copies show up about just as much as NM 9.4/9.6 Warren books show up from the same time period. Essentially, getting an Eerie Pub book from the 1966-1970 period in 8.5 is just as difficult as getting a NM 9.4/9.6 Warren book.

 

2) As for sought after issues, everyone has their own favorites. But there are some particular Cult Classics first one that pops out in my head is Weird, V3 #5 1969 "Meatgrinder" Girl Cover, it also has a very tough black cover making it one of the most difficult of the Eerie Pub books to get in HG. Besides that almost all of the 1966-1970 Issues are the most desired. That first series of Terror Tales books are TOUGH to get, and had pretty cool covers, especially that Giant Dude eating those ladies, that issue also had a very tough black cover. One of my favorites is the First Horror Tales issue V1 #7 That has Satan himself manning the Guiliotine station, cutting off a poor saps head. I just love the dynamic layout of that book, and as well that issue also had a very tough black cover. And this is what makes Price guide values of these books so difficult. People collect these off of nostalgia, and because of wicked covers. Overstreet, will have a tough time "quantifying" this value, and thus many of the more favorited issues among collectors will not be appriopriately rendered in the Overstreet Guide. With these its all about market prices, you almost have to throw your overstreet out the window when purchasing them. I believe what is happening, is that since some of the more coveted issues are so hard to find, that when Collectors finally do find them, they are willing to pay many times guide, because they dont know how long it will take them to find another copy. As I'm sure, some collectors who have been doing this even longer than I still are missing issues in any grade, yet along HG copies. Examples, I've seen VG 5.0 copies of the First 2 Terror Tales books sell for $180 as a set. Call it insane, and it is, but it just shows when you have 2 people that want a book enough (and have been looking for them long enough) that guide rational means nothing. In my humble oppinion as word spreads this will become more common with these books. Though on the flipside, and this is JUST as important, you may also see some killer copies of these books start to surface as higher prices are paid for them. That is usually how the market works. There is a lack of issues, from that higher prices are paid, this then brings out Long time collectors collections to the market for the taking. Who knows though, I've started to see $100-$150 an issue paid for NM 9.2-9.6 raw copies of skywald books on ebay about a year ago, and since then still have not seen comparable copies list.

 

3) For Skywald books the Overstreet is very complete. For Stanley mags, it is fairly complete to my knowledge since there were less to track. But you do start to get some weird things happening with the Eerie Publication books from the time period of 1976-1982 with more emphasis at the end of that time period. The books produced during this time where very sketchy and had very low print runs and poor distributions. I wouldn't doubt if some of those issues had print runs in the 1,000 copies or less.

 

Well I would love to hear others oppinions, I definitely am NOT the definitive source here. It has been quiet lately. Maybe I should start posting some more magazine pics!

 

Hope to speak with some of you soon.

 

-bounty

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