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Star Wars Comic No. 1 Hoard
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Started by ridge-migration,

257 posts in this topic

kav

kav

Posted
Posted

My recollections of 1977 were there were lots of #1s but only one the LCS was interested in buying-Howard the Duck. I can't recall SW ever being some hot commodity back then. I know if it was I would have sold mine immediately to buy some ASM

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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
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When I say "bona fide keys" I am referring to books that indeed are (and have been) slab worthy in nearly every grade other than 9.6/9.8 since the advent of CGC.

 

Here's just a small sampling for comparison:

 

ASM 129, 9.8's- 93

 

IH 181, 9.8's- 26

 

GL 76, 9.8's- 2

 

X Men 94, 9.8's- 26

 

Conan, 9.8's- 37

 

WWBN 32, 9.8's- 11

 

TOD 10, 9.8's- 24

 

Marvel Spotlight 5, 9.8's - 2

 

 

Star Wars 1, 9.8's- 346

 

-J.

 

 

What, no love from any of you for the long lost and forgotten Avengers 93? (tsk)

 

I remember when this book by Adams along with the rest of the run up to issue 100 by both Smith and himself were the books to get at the time. If I remember correctly, Avengers 93 was worth more than all of these books in the OS guide at the time, including both ASM 121 and 122.

 

 

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lambfan68

lambfan68

Posted
Posted

I was nine years old in 1977 and I have fond memories of these books. I knew nothing of the "hobby" outside of just buying comics from the newsstand.

 

Despite that, I was aware that these books were a huge deal. Everyone seemed to own a copy. How could you not? They reprinted over and over again.

 

If you weren't into comics then, you have to know how unusual that was at the time. If you missed a book, you missed a book. It wasn't coming back to print, especially months later. Between the reprints of the regular issues in the three packs and the various giant versions, the movie issues were available everywhere for what seemed like years.

 

 

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

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I remember the Star Wars comic book did not catch on until issue #3 was out or around the time the movie debuted. I remember Star Wars #1 were already going for $10 or more at the time.

 

$10 by late May? That would be quite a shocking price (equivalent to a $2.95 cover price book being $100 in two months today.)

 

Ok, probably not late May then, more like June after the fans had found out how popular the movie was. :baiting:

 

What's so unbelievable about a scorching hot book being at the equivalent of $100 after a few months? Have we forgotten about some of the early Valiants along with some of the Wizard driven hot books once they got their hype machine running at full speed.

 

My question wasn't the price, but the timing. Yes, I have no problem with SW #1 being a $10 book in June, after the film had been #1 at the box office already, and was on its way to a dominating 19 consecutive weeks at #1.

 

The timing makes all the difference.

 

But there are very, very few books that had a 33-fold or more increase in value in only a few months. Spidey #121-122...Superman #75....that's pretty much it. Even the most popular and expensive regular Valiant, Harbinger #1, took a year to climb to its original heights.

 

It's a case of when you are hot, you are hot, and Star Wars was indeed hot back then after it first came out. Why, even Overstreet had the book listed at something like $5 in his price guide and we all know how slow Bob is when it comes to raising prices on books, especially on new ones.

 

Bob wasn't nearly so slow, when he and his price guide were both younger. ;)

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the blob

the blob

Posted
Posted

it could also be regional. there always badjillions of copies of SW 1 here in NY at shows as I believe some of the local guys like Koch, Dolgoff, etc. bought 10,000 each to sell for the next 30 years at shows and so on.

 

the only shop in town, or shops in canada or whatever could probably charge whatever they could get.

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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
Posted
Does anyone else feel like the OP just whacked a hornet's nest and ran away? (shrug)

 

Now, now........he did say that he would find out on Monday once they ship the books.

 

You do realize that there are still many Mondays left in this year. lol

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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
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Fascinating reading. And if the story is true congratulations! You could sell them all and buy a house!

 

Wishful thinking for only 100 copies of SW 1 at 9.8, unless you are talking about an outhouse here in the city! lol

 

It would take you quite a few hundred more 9.8's all at top of GPA to even get a teardown on the poorer east side of the city. And at least a thousand more at top of GPA for a barely liveable one on the west side of the city.

 

Sometimes, the good old days are a lot better, especially for the younger generation that's just starting out. :(

 

 

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the blob

the blob

Posted
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are you in toronto? drive south a few hours to some depressed upstate NY towns and you can buy a big house for $25K. actually, they were practically giving them away in Buffalo pretty recently, you wouldn't have to drive that far.

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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
Posted (edited)
are you in toronto? drive south a few hours to some depressed upstate NY towns and you can buy a big house for $25K. actually, they were practically giving them away in Buffalo pretty recently, you wouldn't have to drive that far.

 

No, on the "left" coast of the country where everybody's favorite topic seems to be real estate prices and you can't get by a single newscast without another story on rocketing property values.

 

The hype on price increases for movie and TV related comic books is nothing compared to what I have to hear everyday in terms of rising real estate prices. :blahblah::blahblah::blahblah:

 

It's gotten so bad (or good depending upon your point of view, I guess) that not only are some purchasers flipping their houses for 6-figure profits after a few months, some very astute buyers are now even flipping them before the closing date of their purchase agreements. No need to put any real money down anymore. :o

 

Definitely not good for the younger generation who are looking for a real place to live in, especially when a million dollars will only get you a "dump" in the city nowadays. :(

 

 

Edited by lou_fine
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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
Posted
Overstreet had Star Wars #1 at $4.50 in mint in the 1978 guide...

 

Yes, but that could be considered as a lot of money in those days when cover price was only $0.30 at the time.

 

This is probably equivalent to a $2.95 new book guiding out at $45 in next year's guide. hm

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Useless Hero

Useless Hero

Posted
Posted

 

I'm interested in listening to the interviews but I don't see them on this site...could you point me in the right direction. thanks! Joey

 

The podcast player seems to be a Flash plug-in, so maybe you need to update?

 

I have the mp3s if you need 'em drop me a PM.

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jcjames

jcjames

Posted
Posted
Overstreet had Star Wars #1 at $4.50 in mint in the 1978 guide...

 

Yes, but that could be considered as a lot of money in those days when cover price was only $0.30 at the time.

 

This is probably equivalent to a $2.95 new book guiding out at $45 in next year's guide. hm

Yep!

 

$0.30 in 1978 is equivalent to $1.09 in 2015 dollars. $4.50 in 1978 is equivalent to $16.41 in 2015 dollars.

 

Interestingly though, minimum wage was $2.65 in 1978, so one could buy nearly nine copies of a comic for one hour's of work back then.

 

Today, minimum wage (federal) is $7.25 and so one could only buy maybe two copies of a comic for one hour's work today. (shrug)

 

btw... a $3.99 comic in 2015 would cost $1.09 in 1978.

 

 

 

 

 

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Firespitter

Firespitter

Posted
Posted
Overstreet had Star Wars #1 at $4.50 in mint in the 1978 guide...

 

Yes, but that could be considered as a lot of money in those days when cover price was only $0.30 at the time.

 

This is probably equivalent to a $2.95 new book guiding out at $45 in next year's guide. hm

Yep!

 

$0.30 in 1978 is equivalent to $1.09 in 2015 dollars. $4.50 in 1978 is equivalent to $16.41 in 2015 dollars.

 

Interestingly though, minimum wage was $2.65 in 1978, so one could buy nearly nine copies of a comic for one hour's of work back then.

 

Today, minimum wage (federal) is $7.25 and so one could only buy maybe two copies of a comic for one hour's work today. (shrug)

 

btw... a $3.99 comic in 2015 would cost $1.09 in 1978.

 

 

It can be argued that the quality of the print needs to be considered as well. Today's 3.99 comics aren't printed on flimsy news print with nearly dot matrix quality of replication.

(I'm not knocking old comics. I get euphoric when I open a bag of an old silver/bronze comic and get a whiff of that smell. Or how giddy I get when I see the artwork. Just that, you can't compare the price of a Kia and its standard features of today to the price of an AMC in 1970.)

-Terry

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jcjames

jcjames

Posted
Posted
Overstreet had Star Wars #1 at $4.50 in mint in the 1978 guide...

 

Yes, but that could be considered as a lot of money in those days when cover price was only $0.30 at the time.

 

This is probably equivalent to a $2.95 new book guiding out at $45 in next year's guide. hm

Yep!

 

$0.30 in 1978 is equivalent to $1.09 in 2015 dollars. $4.50 in 1978 is equivalent to $16.41 in 2015 dollars.

 

Interestingly though, minimum wage was $2.65 in 1978, so one could buy nearly nine copies of a comic for one hour's of work back then.

 

Today, minimum wage (federal) is $7.25 and so one could only buy maybe two copies of a comic for one hour's work today. (shrug)

 

btw... a $3.99 comic in 2015 would cost $1.09 in 1978.

 

 

It can be argued that the quality of the print needs to be considered as well. Today's 3.99 comics aren't printed on flimsy news print with nearly dot matrix quality of replication.

(I'm not knocking old comics. I get euphoric when I open a bag of an old silver/bronze comic and get a whiff of that smell. Or how giddy I get when I see the artwork. Just that, you can't compare the price of a Kia and its standard features of today to the price of an AMC in 1970.)

-Terry

That is absolutely true!

 

That's the problem with comparing COL from 40 years ago to today in general for almost all products.

 

Comics today are much higher quality paper and inks than 40 years ago... (and arguably better art/content but that is a WHOLE nother topic). :grin:

 

 

 

 

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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
Posted

 

I'm interested in listening to the interviews but I don't see them on this site...could you point me in the right direction. thanks! Joey

 

Yes, the above link also didn't work for me.

 

You should probably try the one below which came from the Sparkle City thread in the GA Forum where all of the good stuff is (let's hope it works):

 

http://www.comiccollecting.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=362

 

The first 2 interviews, although longer, are better than the last 2 interviews from a collector's point of view. You must admit the man was able to research and hunt down the collections and distribution warehouses. Especially at a time, when real investigative work and pounding the pavement was needed since surfing the internet was still a couple decades away. (thumbs u

 

Enjoy!

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the blob

the blob

Posted
Posted (edited)

 

 

It can be argued that the quality of the print needs to be considered as well. Today's 3.99 comics aren't printed on flimsy news print with nearly dot matrix quality of replication.

(I'm not knocking old comics. I get euphoric when I open a bag of an old silver/bronze comic and get a whiff of that smell. Or how giddy I get when I see the artwork. Just that, you can't compare the price of a Kia and its standard features of today to the price of an AMC in 1970.)

-Terry

That is absolutely true!

 

That's the problem with comparing COL from 40 years ago to today in general for almost all products.

 

Comics today are much higher quality paper and inks than 40 years ago... (and arguably better art/content but that is a WHOLE nother topic). :grin:

 

------------------------------

 

a closer comparison might be Omena Men or Camelot 3000, which came out in 1982 or so and were printed on nice paper for $1? but there was a lot of inflation from 1977 to 1982 as regular comics had doubled in price during that period.

 

off the top of my head i can't think of any "better printed quality" comics circa 1977/78, not even indies as the crumb type stuff would be B&w

 

 

 

 

Edited by the blob
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