Is this a San Francisco/Tom Riley Book? 0

[Robot Man]

Bought this from Harley a few years back. He sold it to me as such. Has no Riley stamp on back. I have a few others with the stamp but the others have numbers with the "G". The "G" looks the same on all of them but no numbers or stamp on this one. Whaddya think?

 

[RareHighGrade]

West is the SF expert.

[Timely]

Bought this from Harley a few years back. He sold it to me as such. Has no Riley stamp on back. I have a few others with the stamp but the others have numbers with the "G". The "G" looks the same on all of them but no numbers or stamp on this one. Whaddya think?

 

 

 

Unfortunately it is not the San Francisco Copy.

 

 

 

West

[jimbo_707]

I think Beerbohm said the G on the San Francisco books stood for Gilboy (the distributor), right? So is it fair to say this book was purchased in the same part of the country? The G does look similar to the G on some books that have the Reilly designation on the label.

 

How much geographical area would a distributor like Gilboy have covered? Does anyone know how many different comic book distributors were active during the '40s nationwide?

[Sqeggs]

I think Beerbohm said the G on the San Francisco books stood for Gilboy (the distributor), right? So is it fair to say this book was purchased in the same part of the country? The G does look similar to the G on some books that have the Reilly designation on the label.

 

How much geographical area would a distributor like Gilboy have covered? Does anyone know how many different comic book distributors were active during the '40s nationwide?

 

Although the whole Reilly story looks a bit shaky at this point, I think he was supposed to have lived in Piedmont in the east bay -- hence BLB's objection to the collection receiving the "San Francisco" label. I assume that most of the distributors -- the ones marking or (later) spraying the books -- were local, but I'm not sure about the details of how the industry was organized in the 1940s. Probably a reasonable guess that this book was also purchased in Northern CA.

[Robot Man]

If West says it isn't that's good enough for me.

 

I didn't want to ask Beerbong I might not live long enough to find out.

 

Now, what con is Harley at this weekend? He's got some 'splaining to do!

[Sqeggs]

If West says it isn't that's good enough for me.

 

I didn't want to ask Beerbong I might not live long enough to find out.

 

Now, what con is Harley at this weekend? He's got some 'splaining to do!

 

He's supposed to be at the Big Apple con in a few weeks. Want me to ask him for you?

[Sqeggs]

Anyone know why the entry for the SF collection seems to have disappeared from the comicpedigrees.com site? 

[Timely]

7 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Anyone know why the entry for the SF collection seems to have disappeared from the comicpedigrees.com site? 

It's there, they have it under Tom Reilly/ San Francisco

[Sqeggs]

7 minutes ago, Timely said:

15 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Anyone know why the entry for the SF collection seems to have disappeared from the comicpedigrees.com site? 

It's there, they have it under Tom Reilly/ San Francisco

Ah, ok.  The link on the left side (which only has an entry for San Francisco (not for Tom Reilly)) doesn't take you to the entry as the other links do.

Glad the entry still there.

[sfcityduck]

On 2/7/2015 at 3:15 PM, Sqeggs said:

 

Although the whole Reilly story looks a bit shaky at this point, I think he was supposed to have lived in Piedmont in the east bay -- hence BLB's objection to the collection receiving the "San Francisco" label. I assume that most of the distributors -- the ones marking or (later) spraying the books -- were local, but I'm not sure about the details of how the industry was organized in the 1940s. Probably a reasonable guess that this book was also purchased in Northern CA.

Why do you say the story is "shaky"?  Multiple folks witnessed the "discovery" of the pedigree at a Con, right?  And the books undoubtably exist and were sold before pedigrees even became a thing, right?  This isn't like fake Mile High books.

[sacentaur]

1 hour ago, sfcityduck said:

Why do you say the story is "shaky"?  Multiple folks witnessed the "discovery" of the pedigree at a Con, right?  And the books undoubtably exist and were sold before pedigrees even became a thing, right? 

Because Beerbohm is the one who talks about it the most nowadays, and nothing he says can be trusted. Hence "shaky".

Quote

This isn't like fake Mile High books.

Correct, Anderson wan't involved in the San Frans.  

Edited May 1, 2017 by sacentaur

[Sqeggs]

3 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

On 2/7/2015 at 6:15 PM, Sqeggs said:

 

Although the whole Reilly story looks a bit shaky at this point, I think he was supposed to have lived in Piedmont in the east bay -- hence BLB's objection to the collection receiving the "San Francisco" label. I assume that most of the distributors -- the ones marking or (later) spraying the books -- were local, but I'm not sure about the details of how the industry was organized in the 1940s. Probably a reasonable guess that this book was also purchased in Northern CA.

Why do you say the story is "shaky"?  Multiple folks witnessed the "discovery" of the pedigree at a Con, right?  And the books undoubtably exist and were sold before pedigrees even became a thing, right?  This isn't like fake Mile High books.

Beerbohm's story has never seemed fully coherent, at least to me.  No doubt that the collection exists -- I was actually at the Berkeley Con where the first books were bought (not that I knew what was going on!). Note that what I wrote above is the "whole Reilly story looks a bit shaky" not that somehow the collection itself was fabricated.

@nearmint has done some excellent detective work and it appears as if no one named Tom Reilly (or variants thereof) from California died in WW II as he is supposed to have.  

There is another thread (or maybe two or three) where a lot of these issues were hashed out.  Not sure whether those threads still exist.  The one Beerbohm posted in extensively may have been nuked when he was banned from the boards.

My takeaway is that at this point unless someone with additional information comes forward, we may never know exactly how and why this collection was put together.

[Robot Man]

1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

Beerbohm's story has never seemed fully coherent, at least to me.  No doubt that the collection exists -- I was actually at the Berkeley Con where the first books were bought (not that I knew what was going on!). Note that what I wrote above is the "whole Reilly story looks a bit shaky" not that somehow the collection itself was fabricated.

@nearmint has done some excellent detective work and it appears as if no one named Tom Reilly (or variants thereof) from California died in WW II as he is supposed to have.  

There is another thread (or maybe two or three) where a lot of these issues were hashed out.  Not sure whether those threads still exist.  The one Beerbohm posted in extensively may have been nuked when he was banned from the boards.

My takeaway is that at this point unless someone with additional information comes forward, we may never know exactly how and why this collection was put together.

Ron Pussell (Redbeard) was the one who coined the phrase San Francisco collection. He was an early buyer who bought a lot of them. I really wish I could get him to come these boards. He has a wealth of information and stories about this and the Mile High collection. At one time he owned the Mile High Superman #1 as well as the Planet #1 original. Both of which I was lucky to see.