Show Us Your Ducks! 15 15

[AJD]

On 9/3/2023 at 2:32 AM, OtherEric said:

What did MCS have that graded as? Looks nice enough that they might have called it a 5.0...

It's so nice they called it 7.0

They called this one 5.0

[OtherEric]

On 9/2/2023 at 4:15 PM, AJD said:

It's so nice they called it 7.0

Ever since I got this "5.0" I've been joking about their grading...

[jimbo_7071]

I picked this one up on CLink last night. I only have one Christmas cover in my entire GA collection, so I've been wanting to add another for a while, and I figured this one was as good as any.

[sfcityduck]

Anyone know the closing price on clink for the wdc&s 137?

Edited September 3, 2023 by sfcityduck

[AJD]

On 9/3/2023 at 10:54 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

I picked this one up on CLink last night. I only have one Christmas cover in my entire GA collection, so I've been wanting to add another for a while, and I figured this one was as good as any.

Oh, that's a beaut. Mine is less nice, but I also have the Australian edition, so they make a nice pair.

[jimbo_7071]

On 9/2/2023 at 10:13 PM, sfcityduck said:

Anyone know the closing price on clink for the wdc&s 137?

Yes, it ended at $669.

[jimbo_7071]

Why the sad-faced reaction, @sfcityduck? The insane prices seen on HA for some of those books over the past few years won't be repeated anywhere else, I wouldn't think. I see that someone paid $2,880 for a 9.4 copy back in 2018—almost impossible to fathom considering how common those post WWII issues are.

(I won't be surprised if somebody tries to flip it on HA.)

Edited September 3, 2023 by jimbo_7071

[sfcityduck]

On 9/2/2023 at 7:50 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Yes, it ended at $669.

I should have bid.  I found that in the wild and sold it on Heritage.  Sold it to make a point about subscription variants. Pushed Heritage to make it a big deal. The description was great:

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #137 (Dell, 1952) CGC NM 9.4 White pages. A subscription copy in Near Mint is a remarkable find indeed! This has an address printed on the back and a different ad from the one that appeared on newsstand editions. Yet it has no subscription crease! Tied with one other copy (which only has off-white pages) for CGC's highest-grade for the issue, this is just the fourth certified copy that we have ever encountered, and is quite possibly the nicest copy of #137 in existence. Carl Barks provided the cover art, and a Donald Duck story and art for this impressive duck-filled issue. Huey, Dewey, and Louie appear. Overstreet 2018 NM- 9.2 value = $215. CGC census 11/18: 2 in 9.4, none higher.
 

Clink sale did not do the book justice.  It wasn’t a Covid bounce at Heritage.  It was an appreciation for a frigging rare unicorn.  Best copy, better than the file copies, and it is a subscription variant. Feel sorry for the seller if he was the buyer at Heritage. Lost multiples.  

 

 

[jimbo_7071]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:32 PM, sfcityduck said:

I should have bid.  I found that in the wild and sold it on Heritage.  Sold it to make a point about subscription variants. Pushed Heritage to make it a big deal. The description was great:

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #137 (Dell, 1952) CGC NM 9.4 White pages. A subscription copy in Near Mint is a remarkable find indeed! This has an address printed on the back and a different ad from the one that appeared on newsstand editions. Yet it has no subscription crease! Tied with one other copy (which only has off-white pages) for CGC's highest-grade for the issue, this is just the fourth certified copy that we have ever encountered, and is quite possibly the nicest copy of #137 in existence. Carl Barks provided the cover art, and a Donald Duck story and art for this impressive duck-filled issue. Huey, Dewey, and Louie appear. Overstreet 2018 NM- 9.2 value = $215. CGC census 11/18: 2 in 9.4, none higher.
 

Clink sale did not do the book justice.  It wasn’t a Covid bounce at Heritage.  It was an appreciation for a frigging rare unicorn.  Best copy, better than the file copies, and it is a subscription variant. Feel sorry for the seller if he was the buyer at Heritage. Lost multiples.  

 

 

Are you sure that Dell subscription books were creased in that era? I've owned several WDC&S subscription copies. None were 9.4s, but none had a subscription crease. I'm thinking that they may have been mailed flat if not consistently then at least reasonably often.

[andy49]

here are my ducks

[jimbo_7071]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:52 PM, andy49 said:

here are my ducks

I stopped buying comics off the stands in the late 80s. Was $6.95 a normal cover price for a comic in the 90s?? That would have been a massive price increase from the 80s. Even the independents I used to buy, like Cerebus and Flaming Carrot, were under $2, I think.

[OtherEric]

So, I was asking about this in another thread, trying to figure out how to verify it, since I have zero provenance.  Still working on that, short answer is it won't be cheap, but still in the realm of worthwhile in that the return could be 5-10x or more what the verification would cost.  Thought the group in this thread might find it interesting, as well:

Edited September 3, 2023 by OtherEric

[dikran]

On 9/2/2023 at 8:54 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

I picked this one up on CLink last night. I only have one Christmas cover in my entire GA collection, so I've been wanting to add another for a while, and I figured this one was as good as any.

Congrats, I was the underbidder

[sfcityduck]

On 9/2/2023 at 8:37 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Are you sure that Dell subscription books were creased in that era? I've owned several WDC&S subscription copies. None were 9.4s, but none had a subscription crease. I'm thinking that they may have been mailed flat if not consistently then at least reasonably often.

Books before and after 137 have creases. I believe there were time periods when they may have been mailed flat - possibly when shipped with a subscription premium such as the Donald and the Boys book.  But that book, and many others that I have seen that all came from the same OO, were really superior. I have seen his comics as early as 29 and as late as the 200s And I have seen issues that he owned with no crease when other of the same issue had a crease.  And I have seen his books with creases and otherwise immaculate.

An example: 

No crease same OO:

Creased example of same book:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/354890315672?hash=item52a11c7798:g:dt0AAOSwRZRkCpZO&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwEwFhfNtHLxNtaMo%2BUdGVbBSn1AUkSlzcsWiaHHPf5PMz7%2BICCv1rhDMSfHpQzZCZWGN%2FHMe00fEjvUaE%2BytUMw3fO%2FES%2F17WRwwM%2FFRVhvutVhpFk8kGTxEX%2FutNPwU1QCBu5WwZ0vosNaOFTpGOvYb21tULqVhs151NpLTqN1QLPaOxDqXd%2B5fyJEXR2G33SB8sLigScd5Hd7ZeIA4fzZR7WT3D04gjDHKnCmG6ljWmOdA8172NcH988JEO2FzEA%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR6KosJPLYg

My own theory is that there are soft crease copies because of better mail carriers.

[OtherEric]

On 9/2/2023 at 9:14 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

I stopped buying comics off the stands in the late 80s. Was $6.95 a normal cover price for a comic in the 90s?? That would have been a massive price increase from the 80s. Even the independents I used to buy, like Cerebus and Flaming Carrot, were under $2, I think.

Not normal, but the US issues at that point were a prestige format book, so it wasn't cheap but wasn't crazy either.  Definitely aimed at the higher end market at that point, though.

[jimbo_7071]

On 9/3/2023 at 12:15 AM, dikran said:

Congrats, I was the underbidder

Did you put in multiple bids in the last ten seconds, or was there a third person sniping, too? I'm just curious.

[jimbo_7071]

On 9/3/2023 at 12:15 AM, sfcityduck said:

Books before and after 137 have creases. I believe there were time periods when they may have been mailed flat - possibly when shipped with a subscription premium such as the Donald and the Boys book.  But that book, and many others that I have seen that all came from the same OO, were really superior. I have seen his comics as early as 29 and as late as the 200s And I have seen issues that he owned with no crease when other of the same issue had a crease.  And I have seen his books with creases and otherwise immaculate.

An example: 

No crease same OO:

Creased example of same book:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/354890315672?hash=item52a11c7798:g:dt0AAOSwRZRkCpZO&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwEwFhfNtHLxNtaMo%2BUdGVbBSn1AUkSlzcsWiaHHPf5PMz7%2BICCv1rhDMSfHpQzZCZWGN%2FHMe00fEjvUaE%2BytUMw3fO%2FES%2F17WRwwM%2FFRVhvutVhpFk8kGTxEX%2FutNPwU1QCBu5WwZ0vosNaOFTpGOvYb21tULqVhs151NpLTqN1QLPaOxDqXd%2B5fyJEXR2G33SB8sLigScd5Hd7ZeIA4fzZR7WT3D04gjDHKnCmG6ljWmOdA8172NcH988JEO2FzEA%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR6KosJPLYg

My own theory is that there are soft crease copies because of better mail carriers.

Were the carriers the ones who creased the books? I'm thinking that folding and creasing a book have have depended on whether it was going through a mail slot or into a larger box. In general, mailboxes on rural routes were probably much larger than boxes and slots found in cities. It would be interesting to look into whether subscription copies from urban areas were more likely to be creased. (In really rural areas, some people probably still had to pick up their mail at the post office back then.)

It's also possible that carriers were creasing the books at the post office while sorting the mail, in which case it might simply have been a carrier preference whether to crease a book. That could have also depended on what kind of boxes the carrier had on his route. A carrier with many mail slots on his route might have gotten into the habit of tightly creasing magazines in order to put them through slots easily.

Edited September 3, 2023 by jimbo_7071

[dikran]

On 9/3/2023 at 12:20 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

Did you put in multiple bids in the last ten seconds, or was there a third person sniping, too? I'm just curious.

Might have been a 3rd, I maxed out at 755$

[sfcityduck]

On 9/2/2023 at 9:30 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Were the carriers the ones who creased the books? I'm thinking that folding and creasing a book have have depended on whether it was going through a mail slot or into a larger box. In general, mailboxes on rural routes were probably much larger than boxes and slots found in cities. It would be interesting to look into whether subscription copies from urban areas were more likely to be creased. (In really rural areas, some people probably still had to pick up their mail at the post office back then.)

It's also possible that carriers were creasing the books at the post office while sorting the mail, in which case it might simply have been a carrier preference whether to crease a book. That could have also depended on what kind of boxes the carrier had on his route. A carrier with many mail slots on his route might have gotten into the habit of tightly creasing magazines in order to put them through slots easily.

My thoughts exactly.  Oregon, where this OO’s books came from, is largely suburbs with nice spacious mailboxes and the carriers would drive their routes. I believe the comics were doubled over with a soft bend and either the mail carriers or just being packed together would cause the creases.  With this OO there came a point when every book had a crease but they were otherwise in great shape. I blame a change in  mail carrier.

Edited September 3, 2023 by sfcityduck

[AJD]

On 9/3/2023 at 9:20 AM, OtherEric said:

Ever since I got this "5.0" I've been joking about their grading...

 

I know what you mean. I bought this 5.0 from MCS, and I was disappointed when it turned up, because it is spot on a 5.0 IMHO, unlike pretty much everything else I ever got from them. What's the world coming to when MCS sells you a 5.0 and it's actually a 5.0?