Accuracy of Gerber and Overstreet Scarcity Designations 8 8

[esquirecomics]

Almost bid on that Presidents promo you had a bid on today, Mark. Did you get it?

 

Still active.

[esquirecomics]

Picked up this Gerber "8". Interesting 1945 one shot of DC reprints from the 1930s including a story by Malcoln Wheeler Nicholson!

 

[Scrooge]

Picked up this Gerber "8". Interesting 1945 one shot of DC reprints from the 1930s including a story by Malcoln Wheeler Nicholson!

 

Mark, I assume you mean a text story, not a comic story by the Major. Wheeler Nicholson was a regular writer to the pulps, either fiction or non-fiction, so it's not difficult to imagine a text piece of his finding its way into a comic.

[esquirecomics]

Picked up this Gerber "8". Interesting 1945 one shot of DC reprints from the 1930s including a story by Malcoln Wheeler Nicholson!

 

Mark, I assume you mean a text story, not a comic story by the Major. Wheeler Nicholson was a regular writer to the pulps, either fiction or non-fiction, so it's not difficult to imagine a text piece of his finding its way into a comic.

 

Its a story called "The Iron Man". It may be he just wrote the text and then someone illustrated it. No indication. But it is not simple text. It is a "comic story", i.e., pictures, etc.

[Comicdey]

Picked up this Gerber "8". Interesting 1945 one shot of DC reprints from the 1930s including a story by Malcoln Wheeler Nicholson!

 

 

Gerber wasn't aware of a warehouse find on that one or some other similar find...that's one that I've seen for sale consistently on ebay.....over the last 5 years.

 

Still an interesting book.

[Timely]

It's more like a Gerber 5.

 

West

[CentaurMan]

With 12 unrestored copies in the census, a ridiculous number for a book that doesn't even sell for $25 in Good, it's obvious the Gerber number is wrong on this one. I'd guess the main reason why there are twelve graded copies is that people going strictly by Gerber send this in to be slabbed far more frequently than the underlying value would dictate.

 

A few rules on how to use Gerber in the age of the Internet:

Check the census, Heritage, and Metro to confirm scarcity

Compare that data to the value of the book (higher value books will be slabbed more frequently)

If a Gerber "8" sells for over $100 in Good and has 3 or fewer unrestored copies in the census, then it's truly scarce. If it sells for less than $100 in Good then the census data could well be skewed because the value proposition of getting it slabbed falls (although just the Gerber "8" designation can be enough to ramp up submissions as the Warrior Comics shows).

 

Creating a market value + census/Heritage/Metro matrix in a spreadsheet will also show a number of Gerber 5, 6, and 7's that are actually exceptionally scarce.

[tth2]

Great post and great advice.

[Darrell F]

It cannot be that rare if I have a copy. Ignore the crappy scan. CGC 4.5

 

[esquirecomics]

Thanks everyone for the information. Such is life about the Gerber inaccuracy but definitely still a cool book, particularly because of the Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson story.

 

We should compile a list of all known inaccurate designations. Let's start posting any we know of in this thread and I will compile a master list that can be available to everyone.

 

Also, how about someone starting a thread on which books have been the subject of "warehouse" finds?

[BLBcomics-migration]

I have said since Ernie's monumentus tomes were issued close to 20 years ago that his SRI numbers are just plain silly. He partook of some 280 collections in his photography endeavors, so sez the list of people he scoped out in the front of the book - my name being there in the first column.

 

There are many thousands of collections out there.

 

His pool was not large enough to come up with the bumbers he did, just because he did not see what he was looking for in the small pool he ended up swimming in

 

and i know a LOT about the warehouse finds since i entered comics fandom in 1966 - i bought out of many of them - what do you want to know?

[esquirecomics]

and i know a LOT about the warehouse finds since i entered comics fandom in 1966 - i bought out of many of them - what do you want to know?

 

Name em please!!!

[Comicdey]

It would be nice to have a listing of Warehouse find books...like Thing 16 etc.

[tb]

> and i know a LOT about the warehouse finds since i entered comics fandom in

> 1966 - i bought out of many of them - what do you want to know?

 

Bob, I can't remember if I asked you this before (I've asked many people but never gotten an answer), but do you know how many issues of the Dell Disney books were in the Poughkeepsie warehouse find? This is really important to a bunch of us since Barks Four Colors have been approaching 5 figures recently. The lack of knowledge about Poughkeepsie is the sole reason I don't want to compete at the current prices. Other big collectors I know are worried as well. Our interest in this goes beyond curiosity since the current market values are based on the assumption that Dell books are extremely rare in near mint. The uncertainty about Poughkeepsie has a major impact on my own collecting interests.

 

Since you have expressed reservations about people posting anonymously, I just want to add that I prefer to remain anonymous for professional reasons. I always do Google searches before hiring new employees myself and am very careful not to leave my name randomly on the web - especially where it can never be deleted. I am glad to share it with anyone that I trust will respect my privacy.

[BLBcomics-migration]

There were several Poughkeepsie warehouses, which came onto the market at different times.

 

My understanding of the 1940s Poukeepsie books were of not white paper, such as on the high grade Donald 9 and 29 - so whiter-type paper versions would truly be scarce.

 

Before i start spilling what i know in this area, what is a definition of warehouse find as in "how many copies" ?? 50 100 500 1000 more than that?

 

First time i got to understand that concept of "ware house find" was in the pages of RBCC when Bill DuBay and Marty Arbunich, prolific fanzine publishers at one time, had in one of their comic book for sales ads multiple high grade copies of Detective Comics 59 at $3 each circa 1968

 

Let me hear from some of you regarding "how many" and i will try to job my memory banks

[tb]

There were several Poughkeepsie warehouses, which came onto the market at different times.

 

My understanding of the 1940s Poukeepsie books were of not white paper, such as on the high grade Donald 9 and 29 - so whiter-type paper versions would truly be scarce.

 

Before i start spilling what i know in this area, what is a definition of warehouse find as in "how many copies" ?? 50 100 500 1000 more than that?

 

First time i got to understand that concept of "ware house find" was in the pages of RBCC when Bill DuBay and Marty Arbunich, prolific fanzine publishers at one time, had in one of their comic book for sales ads multiple high grade copies of Detective Comics 59 at $3 each circa 1968

 

Let me hear from some of you regarding "how many" and i will try to job my memory banks

 

"Dozens to hundreds" of high grade copies of every Dell comic. The total "warehouse find" would be in tens or hundreds of thousands of books. We are specifically interested in the Barks Four Colors since they are the most "valuable" (certainly the most expensive).

 

The most persistent and disturbing rumor I've heard is that Steve Geppi purchased a huge set of Poughkeepsie file copies sometime in the 1980s and that these have been hidden away ever since.

 

I know from reliable sources that one individual in New Jersey (know the name but won't mention it) came into possession of over a dozen copies of "near mint" copies of Four Color 9. Some of these are currently in the CGC census, which shows an abnormal population for this book. As far as I remember, FC 9 currently has around a dozen copies graded over CGC 9.0. In contrast, FC 29 does not have a single issue above 8.0 (as a result, the 8.0 copy brought almost $10,000 recently). Most other Barks Four colors have low census populations in high grade, except some issues like 108.

 

Our concern is that other large sets (ie. more than a dozen copies, as in the case of FC 9) are hidden away, possibly in Steve Geppi's vault? If they were to surface, the prices would obviously drop sharply. I don't like the thought that some old-timers may make a fortune by releasing these books gradually, at the expense of the younger generation of collectors who are unaware of the warehouse finds (if they indeed are more than a myth?). If there are huge quantities of any Golden Age books, I think everyone ought to know about it asap. The guy who paid almost $20,000 for a late 40s Four Color recently would probably be interested, for example.

 

Any light that you might be able to shed on this would be hugely appreciated!

[esquirecomics]

With 12 unrestored copies in the census, a ridiculous number for a book that doesn't even sell for $25 in Good, it's obvious the Gerber number is wrong on this one.

 

I only paid $31 for my copy, which I would place in the fine range. So, whether Gerber 5 or 8, I'm content. That's what its all about anyway, isn't it?

[BLBcomics-migration]

ware house finds?

 

before i get into Poughkeepsie, let me tell you a tale of what happened to myself and another friend at a Portland comicon circa 1977 thereabouts.

 

There was a 3rd guy who went out to a fellow's car trunk to look at what an off the street seller said was a thousand comic books form 1950

 

That guy came back in and told us he was not interested,

 

So Mark and myself went out to the trunk, looked inside, agreed there was a thousand comic books from 1950, sure enough.

 

There were only 8 different books, all from one basic month in 1950

 

They were Ghost Rider #1 A-1 #27

Durango Kid 7

Jungle

Jumbo

Sheena 8

Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders 4

Tim Holt 19

and the 8th one i do not remember right now

 

The Jungle and Jumbo issues i will pick out of my Gerber line up once i go get that picture bible

 

The guy wanted 'real" dollars, i laughed - as there were about 100 of each, some less, some more. Many were super high grade, some were not so great condition wise. Seems they came out of a basement of an old pharmacy in Boise Idaho

 

I told him that many of each would flood the market, so we offered him $1000 for the lot, which he took and we proceeded to trade them for other stuff - not placing them out for sale

 

Thirty years later, the market place seems to have absorbed them all, as i note the price of a NM Ghost Rider #1 is currently $1500

 

There are many tales like this from all over the country

 

Please let me think about the Poughkeepsie file copy scenario some more before i commit to print here what i know of what came out of there

[Comicdey]

I had a feeling GR 1 was pretty common.....

 

thanks for the information and future input.....

[BLBcomics-migration]

I thought it was common knowledge that Steve Geppi bought out the remnants of the Poughkeepsie warehouses back in the day - many hundreds of thousands of Dells at what i heard was 50 cents per book

 

Much of the early "key" stuff had already been "liberated" before Steve G got to it

 

My experience back in the day was many many Barks collectors did not collect much of any other comic book, so there has to be a lot of Disney collections out there amongst people wrapped up in the reading concept more than any type of investment concerns, so they would not necessarily get anything slabbed, nor would they want to, as it is pointless to have a barks book one cannot read at one's leisure

 

the Poughkeepsie warehouses began being liberated into comics fandom in the 1970s, and maybe even earlier for all i know. A lot of high grade Disney books began surfacing in the very early 70s and was the earliest pedigree type designation i remember, being "poughkeepsie copies" as the term bandied about.