Early Comics For Sale Advertisements From Inside SF

[dgillock]

In addition to collecting comics, I'm also a fan of 30's/40's/50's science fiction and I have a small collection of pulps and paperbacks. Awhile back, a picked up a small pile of a fanzine called Inside and Science Fiction Advertiser. These are from the mid-1950's and they feature some great articles and stories by the likes of Lin Carter, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, and Harlan Ellison. One has a Kelly Freas cover. Dan Adkins did the cover of one and interior spot illos. in several. Cool stuff.

 

Well, poking around in the recently, I came across a couple of advertisements for back issue comic books. Here are the two most interesting:

 

(From issue #12, Nov. 1955)

 

(From issue #13 Jan. 1956)

 

Take a look at those prices! And remember, those are for sets not single issues. Personally, these are the earliest comic dealer ads I've come across. Thought you all might find these interesting.

[deathlok]

Wow, $40 for Adventure Comics 1-122.

[DarrenSmith]

Great Post!

[tth2]

Wow, $40 for Adventure Comics 1-122.

 

That's a huge mark-up! After all, retail price was only $12.20!

[buttock]

Do you think the guy is still taking bids on the ECs?

[dgillock]

 

I briefly considered writing these three addresses and asking if they still have their comics...

[shrunkenhead]

What a neat post! I think the most revealing thing here is that the ad uses terms like "collector" and "highest bid." We tend to think that nobody who read comics pre-1960's ever thought comics had any collectability/dollar value attached to them, and that they were considered 100% disposable by everyone. This ad provides a pretty nifty counterargument, showing that the comic collector was already becoming a part of the culture even in the earlier days of funnybooks.

[dgillock]

The "instant collectibilty" of EC's is especially interesting to me. Notice that most of those EC sets in the lower ad of the second image are selling for double cover price! And at the time, a book like Frontline Combat #15 was only two years old (Jan 1954). Two Fisted Tales #1 was already 4 times cover price. People taking out classified adds to buy and sell comics from the 30's and 40's in 1956 is less surprising to me than those folks who were so forward-thinking to be dealing in two year old issues.

[drbanner]

That's incredible, thanks for sharing!

 

I believe burntboy said he had some early issues of the RBCC and was going to scan in some of the "for sale" ads for us, but I can't recall if he ever did. The ads above pre-date that fanzine though, so they must be some of the earliest advertisements for used comic books.

[archiefan]

Interestingly, Malcolm Willits has been a name always associated with Carl Barks as he was the first fan to obtain Bark's address from the Disney Studio and was single-handledly responsible for introducing his talent to fandom. In addition he was the owner of one of the early successful collector stores out there - Collector's Bookshop. Click here for a pic of Willits and Barks not too long after he placed this ad.

[rjpb]

Thanks for sharing dmgscr - those ads are so cool - what amazes me less than the prices - after all this was 1955 - is that the seller had near full early runs of so many books - as we all know - putting together some of these same runs would be incredibly difficult today, even if money were no object.

[dgillock]

Interestingly, Malcolm Willits has been a name always associated with Carl Barks as he was the first fan to obtain Bark's address from the Disney Studio and was single-handledly responsible for introducing his talent to fandom. In addition he was the owner of one of the early successful collector stores out there - Collector's Bookshop. Click here for a pic of Willits and Barks not too long after he placed this ad.

 

Very cool info! I'll have to poke around in the issues again. There were several "Comics Wanted" ads that I didn't scan because they weren't quite as interesting in terms of particulars. I'll have to go back and pull a few of the names from those. These early founders of our hobby deserve props- without them, many of the GA comics we love might not still be around today.

[Rob]

Post from 1/26/2065:

 

"Check out this old thread I found from 2005. My grandpa said he remembers these prices. [insert 2005 prices here]

 

Funny, but Spawn #1 sold for more in 2005 than it does today."

[PovertyRow]

Well, poking around in the recently, I came across a couple of advertisements for back issue comic books. Here are the two most interesting:

 

This kind of thing is one of my favorites. I've posted this before but it is interestting to compare the '55 set orices to the '68 individual prices. This was inside of my Squa Tront #1.

 

[deathlok]

His grades seem kinda suspect. He lists that Mad book as Mint with a small chip out of it. I think back then dealers were very lenient on their grades. Especially since bags and boards weren't used that much.

[the blob]

i remember reading an article about 10 years ago in the old overstreet magazine interviewing one of the 30s/40s artists

 

anyway, he said how he had missed superman 1 because it had sold out on the newstand, but the newstand guy had saved a copy for himself and was willing to let it go (shortly after its release) for 50 cents

 

the first recorded example of comic profiteering? 500% mark-up!

 

later in the article he notes that at some point in the late 40s or something like that his mother burned all his comics that he had been storing in the closet at his mother's home because she wanted the closet space.

 

thanks mom!

 

with that said, i don't find the ad surprising, even if it is cool. given that this stuff was not getting reprinted in the mid-50s i could totally see why someone reading the comic then may have wanted to catch up on the 15 years of issues they had missed. while more than cover price, not a huge amount of money in 1955.

 

and some #1 issues pre-55 said things like "collectors item" on them, so the comic cos were thinking along those lines

 

all-american and adventure starting at issue #1... oh that kills me.

 

you'd think, if he was going to go through the trouble of running an ad he'd shoot for a buck a book!

[Rob]

you'd think, if he was going to go through the trouble of running an ad he'd shoot for a buck a book!

 

You're thinking in today's prices. Back then, the ad probably wasn't much to run. And $1/book was probably outrageous.

[rjpb]

To put it in perspective most of the comics listed in the ad were between 5-20 years old at the time and he is asking around 3X cover for runs. Condition was largely irrelevant at the time,and granted back issues were much more difficult to find than today, but the interest in them was much smaller as well, and none of the titles listed would have been considered really major at the time ( yes, I include Adventure and All-American - who was going to care about Sandman & Green Lantern in 1955?) . How many 50 to 100 issue runs from the last 20 years do think you could get an average of 3X cover for today?

 

There was probably a bigger demand for back issue ECs at the time than there was for super-hero titles - even in the early 60s, the only title that semmed to have a loyal enough following that it carried buy/sell/trade notices was Blackhawk.

[the blob]

"And $1/book was probably outrageous."

 

Perhaps, but if you really really wanted All-American #1, where else would you get it?

 

Of course, very few people really really wanted this stuff enough back then to pay for it.

[aardvark88]

His grades seem kinda suspect. I think back then dealers were very lenient on their grades. Especially since bags and boards weren't used that much.

 

Jerry Weist ad/letter is from 1968, 2 full years before the thin Overstreet Pr Guide arrived in 1970. I'm sure they had very loose definitions of good vs mint back then.