Tom Reilly Collection Master List

[lou_fine]

Very very impressive list of books with almost every run starting right from issue #1. Unfortunately, I guess Tom missed out on the odd ones such as the Superman #1, Marvel Comics #1, and Mystery Men #1.

 

Such an impressive list of books and yet, hardly ever see any of these books come back into the marketplace. I guess they must all be pretty tightly held due to their extreme scarcity in grade. From a pure technical point of view, I heard that the Reilly's are superior to the Church books in a lot of cases.

 

Still waiting to acquire my first Reilly book.

[Harvey Dude]

Excellent work Bob. I am truly impressed with that list as well as your background information on the Reilly collection.

[Forbush-Man]

I love this forum

 

It's always been my favorite forum, but it's really hit a nice stride in the last month or so, thanks to Jon, esquire & now Bob. Thanks for joining in, guys!

 

 

 

 

[drbanner]

The largest batch of old comic books i know of which got sold was 600,000 comic books in 1966. There were over a dozen Superman #1 issues in there. This one i will make into an article for paper print purposes. I know all the players who tried to buy it and the ones that succeeded. And have letters documentation while the deal was going down

 

Mile High was NOT the best collection to ever surface.

 

This is amazing and I can't wait to hear about it! Many questions come to mind, but the first is - was this collection compiled second hand, or was it an original owner collection? There was a post the other day about the first printed advertisement for "used comic books" and I believe it was around 1955, so by '66 I would think someone could have put together a pretty sweet collection 2nd-hand.

 

I'll happily wait for the full story, and thanks for joining us!

[BLBcomics-migration]

Very very impressive list of books with almost every run starting right from issue #1. Unfortunately, I guess Tom missed out on the odd ones such as the Superman #1, Marvel Comics #1, and Mystery Men #1.

 

Such an impressive list of books and yet, hardly ever see any of these books come back into the marketplace. I guess they must all be pretty tightly held due to their extreme scarcity in grade. From a pure technical point of view, I heard that the Reilly's are superior to the Church books in a lot of cases.

 

Still waiting to acquire my first Reilly book.

 

The mistaken assumption is many people believe that most of the books had the Reilly stamp on the back cover. A LOT of htem do, but MANY of them did not. Also, not all books had that Gilboy G - many did, but not all.

 

This was back in the days before any concept of "pedigree" was even thought of

 

The first three Marvel Mysterys were not present, nor were the first two Supermans. The collection started in the summer of 1939 and was somewhat spotty in the beginning. My guess was Tom must have been 15-16 when he began buying books, and was 17-18 when he enlisted in the US Navy in Jan 1942.

 

the Tec 27 would rate out as a VF these days. My understanding is that particular book, after we sold it to Burl Rowe, was bought by the Carter Brothers - Gary & Lane (w/dad most likely) for more than $2200. This is what Gary told me when we discussed this list i sent him for publication in CBM - he was speculating, since they had bought a hi grade Tec 27 from Burl in the early-mid 1970s - and he assumes it was this copy. It had no stamp.

 

I am sure many of these have floated around the market place, changing hands, but without the tell tale stamps & markings, plus in the days before backing boards, stress spine bends slowly encroached on them.

 

Plus remember, in the 1970s & 1980s, as dealers went from show to show, books bounce around in vans out on the boondock interstate systems, further stressing them out.

 

I have some work to get done and will get back to this forum later today.

 

I spent the past bunch of years figuring out our comic book heritage dating to 1842 with the new York City release of The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (I have two copies now of this absolute seminal rarity), and feel much of that heavy lifting is now accomplished.

 

I think i will focus on "newer" comics history concepts for a while now this year, as it all is fascinating to me. I have to refind my file folder on the 1966 letters concerning this huge 600,000 treasure trove which came out of Illinois. At least three of the players are still alive.

 

best

 

robert beerbohm

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

Was one of these copies the first book to break the $1000 sale barrier? I had the opportunity to look through a near complete run of the Rocket's Blast zine several years ago, and this sale (I think it was this one, I seem to recall Hamilton's name being mentioned) seemed to generate a huge buzz.

 

In fact, reading though those issues the impression I got is that awhile there in the late 60's that copies of Action #1 were virtually unheard of on the market, and that this sale and the resultant publicity is what started bringing copies out of the woodwork. Is that a reasonable assessment?

 

Thanks for posting stuff like this. Great stuff! I love reading about what the fan and marketplace scene was like back then.

 

The thousand dollar barrier (goinf OVER) was breached by some one unknown to me presently (my memory needs some jogging here)

 

The year before in 1971-72 there abouts, Jerry Bails had sold an Action #1 for $800

 

then the quantum leap went to this $1801.26 Action #1 which had been bought off the stands by Gene Henderson back in 1938 and sold to Bruce Hamilton for $1000.00

 

Theo Holstein of Calif offered Bruce $1500 for it at the same Berkeley Con 1973 the Reilly surfaced.

 

Lots of AP/UPI/TV coverage ensued.

 

Bruce got a 2nd copy of Action #1 thru this - he sold THAT copy to Theo for $1801.26

 

Micth Mehdy talked Theo out of it for the same price.

 

I sold those two books to Burl Rowe out of the Reilly collection thereby breaching the $2000 barrier.

 

All this collective publicity started bringing many Action #1 issues of the wood works.

 

It was John Snyder, i believe, who bought an Action #1 the following year (1974) who was the buyer in breaching the $4000 barrier.

 

And it took off from there.

 

For a short while in the late 1970s I held the "record" once again when i sold a nice Marvel Comics #1 for $8000 - i think it was an October copy.

 

best

 

robert beerbohm

[markseifert]

Thanks again, Robert. I'm going to be utterly fascinated to read about the early 600,000 book Illinois find. Please let us know when and where that article might appear when the time comes.

[dgillock]

Wow... Thanks for spending some time here blbcomics. This thread is a perfect example of why I like and respect this board. The amount of accumlated knowledge and experience here is remarkable. Having first hand accounts of the "early days" is great. This info isn't just fun- it also helps in understanding the history of the hobby and where it is today.

I can't wait to hear about the Illinois load. This is totally new info to me.

[Lantern]

Incredible information! Thanks for taking the time to share it with the forum Bob. I look forward to hearing more in the future.

 

[1962]

Excellent, Excellent, Excellent!

[Foolkiller]

one of the most interesting threads I've read in quite some time. Thanks for sharing!

[Larryw7]

For a short while in the late 1970s I held the "record" once again when i sold a nice Marvel Comics #1 for $8000 - i think it was an October copy.

 

I remember reading about that in the first Overstreet Guide I ever had(the one with the Barks Porky Pig cover, I believe). It's great to read the whole scoop about these historic happenings on these boards!

[FFB]

See what help us board members are.

 

If I hadn't mentioned that the Sensation couldn't be a Reilly copy, and then PedigreeMan ran with (yes, he did all the work), this list wouldn't be on this board.

 

 

every so often this past decade i would be asked about Reilly's collection

 

- i am glad no one has asked me if i still had any copies left out of it.

 

This was over 30 years ago and we had rent to pay. And we parlayed that collection's value into opening three more stores expanding from our Berkeley Comic Art Shop on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley into a chain operation also in San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento by October of that same year 1973 spread out over 100 miles.

 

No one knew how truly unique this collection was at the time - it was merely one hell of a nice pile of very nice shape books.

 

How did you store the books at the time, Bob? Did they even have mylar sleeves yet for comics?

[bobpfef]

Mylar came later, early to mid-80s. Not sure of the exact year off the top of my head, but I remember the ad in the Overstreet Gerber had when the first came out. I'm sure he wrote about the in the Gerber Photo Journal.

 

In the mid 70s there were the Bell comic bags, which were actually pretty crappy. They got all yellow and icky over time. And the backing boards were also pretty thin and bad, at least the ones I had. Maybe there were more high end ones available at the time but I didn't know about it.

[skybolt]

Thanks again, Robert. I'm going to be utterly fascinated to read about the early 600,000 book Illinois find. Please let us know when and where that article might appear when the time comes.

 

Fascinating information.

 

I wonder how many New Adventure Comics #26 were in that 600,000 book collection.

[rob_react]

Mylar came later, early to mid-80s. Not sure of the exact year off the top of my head, but I remember the ad in the Overstreet Gerber had when the first came out. I'm sure he wrote about the in the Gerber Photo Journal.

 

In the mid 70s there were the Bell comic bags, which were actually pretty crappy. They got all yellow and icky over time. And the backing boards were also pretty thin and bad, at least the ones I had. Maybe there were more high end ones available at the time but I didn't know about it.

 

I've gotten Bell bags in bulk lots off of ebay

[PUNYHUMAN]

Bob, welcome to the boards!! This is some awesome stuff you are posting ,want to hear more!! ESP. about the 600,000 collection in 1966 . So happens to be my fave year of collecting comics ,that's when I really started getting into comics & really loving them!! Again,Welcome!!!!

[BLBcomics-migration]

Mylar came later, early to mid-80s. Not sure of the exact year off the top of my head, but I remember the ad in the Overstreet Gerber had when the first came out. I'm sure he wrote about the in the Gerber Photo Journal.

 

In the mid 70s there were the Bell comic bags, which were actually pretty crappy. They got all yellow and icky over time. And the backing boards were also pretty thin and bad, at least the ones I had. Maybe there were more high end ones available at the time but I didn't know about it.

 

I've gotten Bell bags in bulk lots off of ebay

 

Plastic bags specially for comic books came onto the market place circa 1966-67 - Bell was one o fthe first, and the most widely known, but he was not the first. I think the comic book polastic bag originated out of southern California thru Collector's Book Store. One can trace that evolution by going thru the Marvel comics classified ads of the day. Collector's bought the rights to the first comic book price guide started by Argosy Books in Long Beach Calif - which was thevery first fan project ad in Marvels. Then came GB Love advertising SFCA & RBCC

 

The long box was invented by a store named The Bookie (Ohio?) 30 some years ago. His first model one had to staple from the sides. That soon changed into what we know today. I have a few of the very first long box type i got in a collection back in 2000 out of Detroit area. I was almost as happy for those first long boxes cuz scoring those helped along my research and jogged my memory as to how they evolved.

 

The backing board was invented pertty much by myself and long time collector Mark Edmonds in San Francisco to help protect the Reilly books circa 1974. We were cutting up acid free art boards we got at Flax art supply store on Market Street in San Fran.

 

The guys at Hi De Ho in Santa Monica calif were the first ones to begin marketing larger lots of backing boards when they saw us with a bunch of Gold all in backers. They showed up with like 10,000 backer boards at San Diego circa 1975 - i might be off on the year and the exact count they had

 

Mylar was at first a hard sell on Ernie Gerber's part - it was sooo much more expensive than plastic bags, but, slowly - surely - he convinced a bunch of us to handle the stuff. It made VG like NM was one selling pitch

 

bob beerbohm

[BLBcomics-migration]

We initially stored the Reilly books in Robert Bell bags, who then was basicly the only one wholesaling plastic comic book bags (that i remember right now off the top of my head). There were no backer boards until a friend of mine named mark Edmonds suggested we cut up some art boards to protect the spines from stress when picked up. Prior to that, one had to be very very careful.

 

We used short shipping boxes to place on one foot wide pine boards and concrete blocks to stack the shelves. We built a special room - The Golden Age Room - to house the collection using 2x4s and wood we used to build an art display room in the ASUC building 2nd floor by the Pauley Ballroom where we hosted the 1973 Berkeley con

 

bob beerbohm

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bob,

Thanks for this list. Very interesting.

 

Sure thing Tom - feel free to repost to SCOOP if the spirit moves the Timonium Powers That Be

 

bob beerbohm