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Double Action Comics #2 Revisited

Started by markseifert,

52 posts in this topic

Moondog

Moondog

Posted
Posted

When I was buying the first groups of ashcans from Sol Harrison in 1986 there were only 2 loose covers and no complete copies. Fishler bought one cover and I bought the other. His cover ultimately was married to a low grade copy. My cover was sold in 2004 and to my knowledge the buyer still has it as a loose cover so I don't believe there are two married copies out there.

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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The 2004 price guide lists 7,

 

That fits.

 

So, there were 5 copies, then 2 cover proofs emerged, and then (at some time subsequently) there were 7 copies. I'd presume we can draw the obvious conclusion there.

 

It seems one of the "hand assembled" copies has the wrong interiors? I'm not sure about the other one.

 

Arguably, that could mean zero additional copies have publicly emerged since 1979.

 

4 copies with provenance presumably known to Overstreet (1979)

1 copy of completely unknown provenance (1977)

2 copies "hand assembled" from cover proofs sometime after 1996.

 

Presumably, only the single "completely unknown" copy could have been a newsstand copy.

 

and 6 copies on the census. Perhaps Rarehighgrade or Ian has the unslabbed copy. If both have unslabbed copies, that would potentially take the count to 8 (Fishler did say 8 sometime around 2005-07)

 

Also: So, based on the idea that they checked the 2004 #1 mockup with Overstreet and John Snyder, is the implication here that this was originally Snyder's discovery?

 

You can check with RHG to be certain but I believe his copy is raw. It's a beauty!

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markseifert

markseifert

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When I was buying the first groups of ashcans from Sol Harrison in 1986 there were only 2 loose covers and no complete copies. Fishler bought one cover and I bought the other. His cover ultimately was married to a low grade copy. My cover was sold in 2004 and to my knowledge the buyer still has it as a loose cover so I don't believe there are two married copies out there.

 

Good info, thank you. (thumbs u

 

Gary, I presume if anybody ever had any inkling where the 1979 stash of 4 copies came from, you probably at least tried to find out in the day. Nothing ever emerged about where they came from?

 

RareHighGrade, that is an awesome copy.

 

A few years back, you noted

 

The copies that have been married to cover sheets, on the other hand, are noticably different. Unless the cover sheet is trimmed to fit the book, it will have a noticable overhang, just as Swapto's copy does. Even if trimmed, it likely would not fit the book as perfectly as those copies that were originally produced with covers.

 

Any thoughts about how many "hand assembled" copies vs others? Is the original stash of 4 copies hand assembled?

 

 

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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I was right on both counts!

 

You can check with RHG to be certain but I believe his copy is raw. It's a beauty!

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VintageComics

VintageComics

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I can fill in some blanks on this book. I purchased it back 1999 from EBay. It was sold by a coin collector/seller. He got it in lieu of cash from some guy that owed him money. This is what my research turned up.

 

I have no dates for this story but perhaps some folks can add more if they recognize any of this. The book does seem to be one of those that was out loose in the wild. It came from an original owner collection. Parts of this are fuzzy and may be two different tales of the same collection of books. The original collector had passed in either case. Version one is someone broke into the garage where the books were stored and took a number of them. Version two is a passerby literally pulled this book and a number of others from the curbside trash. Boston area if I recall

 

How many owners has the book had since? Sometime in its lifetime some rice paper conservation was done to the spine and staple. It was easy to get confirmation that Bill Sarill did the work. Harley bought the book from me with a buyer on the east coast. My guess is he sold it to Geppi. Coin guy had it for several years kicking around in the vault and just decided to get rid of it one day. I don't recall how long he had it.

 

So this one is a true copy found in the wild and not out of the DC offices. Somehow this book was distributed to a very small demographic to it was some kind of giveaway. There are a few other wild copies out there, and most are well loved. All of the wild ones appear to have come from the east coast

 

There is an old thread on the boards here where I provided all the detail I had. When I owned the book I scanned every page and posted those online for people to view. I gave the comic book museum the scans but I don't know that they ever posted them for fear of DC giving them trouble.

 

 

Your post on the topic from a few years ago. :headbang:

 

 

Here is some interesting history to a Double Action I used to own. I see that the book was in Heritage Auction and sold in February 2008. It is graded a minor restoration 5.5, CGC #0910096003. So who ever owns it now, this is where it came from. I bought the book on Ebay back in 1999, but before it came into my hands....

 

A gentleman by the name of Martins (Somerville, MA area) collected comics. The collection consisted of a number of books, but it was not clear if he purchased them directly from the news stand or second hand. Perhaps both. The collection was stored in the family garage for a long period of time. Mr Martins passed away, then some children broke into the garage and discovered the comics and took a number of them home. Some of the books were placed in the garbage can at their residence for pickup at the curb. This is when a passerby (knowing the value of comics) noticed some of the books in the trash and rescued them. Among these was a Marvel Mystery #1 which was brought to Bill Sarill for some restoration work. Bill did some work on the book and the women that had picked it out of the trash then sold it for about $4K and went to Russia with the proceeds (this story was relayed to me by Bill Sarill). This is when Sarill became aware of a possible collection in his vicinity.

 

The widow of Mr. Martins discovered that the garage had been broken into and decided to have it cleaned out. She contacted an antique dealer in the area named Larry Bell. He was the recipient of the remainder of the comics in about 1976. (I spoke with him on the phone about this) and sold them off to various people over a the years. He solicited help from a chap named Denis Boulier (sp?). This is probably the guy that put the Double Action into the hands of Bill Sarill for a little restoration. A single piece of rice paper was placed on the interior of the spine to prevent further tearing around the staple and to reinforce the beginning of a spine split. This copy remained in Mr. Bell's care until 1990-1991 at which time he sold it to the Colonial Trading Company (Jim Skalbe). The book remained in their vault until 1999. That is when it went up on the block on Ebay and I bought it. I subsequently sold it to another collector on the east coast via Harley Yee.

 

So, who ever owns this book now, this is how it got to you. Based on this story and the collector who originally had the book, it seems that it must have been circulated on the news stand. Maybe it was very limited distribution, a test market perhaps? Who knows. I did authenticate the interior pages with file copies from the Sol Harrison estate and they do match. I also sent this book to Jon Berk to see if he could determine if the contents were rebound material or original. He was not able to match any of the Double Action content to his D.C. collection, so it seems it is all original material. The Overstreet price guide of 1976 did not have this book listed. From 1977 to 1979 only one known copy existed, it might have been this one. In the 1980 price guide is says three NM copies were sold, an additional one in g/vg also sold. Those near perfect ones are from the Sol Harrison estate.

 

I also requested a copyright search with the Library of Congress on the title and this is what they had to tell me. "Our research in the appropriate Copyright Offices indexes and catalogs that include works cataloged from 1938 through 1970 under the names of D.C. Comics, Detective Comics, Harry Donenfeld, Fred Guardineer, National Periodicals Publications, Vincent Sullivan, and Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson and the title of Double Actions Comics disclosed no separate registration for a work identified under these names and this specific title." So in other words, this title was never copyrighted so this was not some ashcan version of the book and there was not ashcan version of this title. So why this book even exists is still a mystery. And I think I would like to see it left that way, how about you? Without further adieu, here is the scan I made of the book before she was forever encapsulated!

 

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Sqeggs

Sqeggs

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I think Metro had a restored copy for sale in the recent past -- last two years or so, I think. Not sure whether it's known which of the copies discussed in these threads it might have been. hm

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VintageComics

VintageComics

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Does anyone still have the digital scans of Et-Es-Go's DA #2 they are willing to share? :wishluck: :wishluck: :wishluck:

 

Pretty sure Et-Es-Go's DA #2 is the copy that Zaid bought.

 

One of the holy grails of my collection! :banana:

 

DA2_zpsur7dhad3.jpg

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Et-Es-Go

Et-Es-Go

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Pretty sure Et-Es-Go's DA #2 is the copy that Zaid bought.

No, I don't believe that Et-Et-Go's copy (which was around a g-vg) is the same copy as Mark Zaid's, although it's possible.

 

The copy Mark has is indeed the same one I had. A few owners in between. I am certain as I scanned the entire book. The scans are all on Google now. Let me see if I can link it here so you can have a little looky yourselves.

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Et-Es-Go

Et-Es-Go

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Pretty sure Et-Es-Go's DA #2 is the copy that Zaid bought.

No, I don't believe that Et-Et-Go's copy (which was around a g-vg) is the same copy as Mark Zaid's, although it's possible.

 

The copy Mark has is indeed the same one I had. A few owners in between. I am certain as I scanned the entire book. The scans are all on Google now. Let me see if I can link it here so you can have a little looky yourselves.

 

Lets see if this link works. Why does Google make it so friggin difficult?

 

 

Just click on the first photo/page and it will bring up the album in a slide show. I think. It works for me from my test.

 

Well %$#@, Google has completely scrambled the order so as you click through it will not be consecutive. I gotta find a new place to store these to share. At least you can see the front cover and compare the minor defect to Mark's copy to see that it is the same. I wish I had never sold that book.

 

One more edit, headed out to see Dishwall tonight. If you scroll to the end of that scrambled mess I think it gives access to my picture posts and you can see the Double Actions pages in their serial sequence. They are skewed because I would not flatten them out on the scanner bed if you are wondering. Happy Friday people!

 

 

 

 

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Et-Es-Go

Et-Es-Go

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I can't believe you got that off ebay; what a great find. Did you restore it or was it restored by another owner?

 

Restored when I got it, and you could tell from the pics on Ebay. I think very few people used Ebay back then like it is used now. And the seller really did not know truly how rare the book was other than what he read in Overstreet. So I put a maximum bid out there that I was comfortable with ($5K for those wondering) and it barely held up in the last two minutes of the auction. My wife was horrified.

 

It is a super rare book and a part of comic history. That one is very unique as it was found out there in the wild. How did it get there? How many got out there? It probably only matters to a bunch of comic geeks like us. DC books have never been met interest (I know, gasp), so it never fit in. But I have always loved the really unique and super rare stuff for the most part. So I guess I tend to collect things that not a lot of people are that interested in.

 

I love your copy Peter.

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