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'PLANET COMICS' (is deserving of its own thread)
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Started by Paul © ® ⚽️💙™,

6,231 posts in this topic

mwotka

mwotka

Posted
Posted

Pretty quiet on this thread lately!  There was a nice looking 4 with great color this week on HA.  I tried for it but couldn't keep up on the price, especially for raw with resto.  Anyone have any luck with it?

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/planet-comics-4-fiction-house-1940-condition-apparent-fn-/a/122301-11759.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515#

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Artboy99

Artboy99

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Posted
On 1/3/2023 at 6:58 PM, mwotka said:

Pretty quiet on this thread lately!  There was a nice looking 4 with great color this week on HA.  I tried for it but couldn't keep up on the price, especially for raw with resto.  Anyone have any luck with it?

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/planet-comics-4-fiction-house-1940-condition-apparent-fn-/a/122301-11759.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515#

Seems a very strong price. 

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LadyDeath

LadyDeath

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Is there any reason why Planet seems costlier than its Jungle/Jumbo/Fight/Wings/Rangers counterparts? I've been having a tough time tracking down slabs moderately priced. All the covers I want are always astronomical. Is it just because the vintage Sci-fi aesthetic is desirable among collectors? So far Planet remains the only holdout in my collection of Fiction House slabs.

Binding my time and hoping to find the right one eventually!

Edited by LadyDeath
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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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Posted
On 1/6/2023 at 8:54 PM, LadyDeath said:

Is there any reason why Planet seems costlier than its Jungle/Jumbo/Fight/Wings/Rangers counterparts? I've been having a tough time tracking down slabs moderately priced. All the covers I want are always astronomical. Is it just because the vintage Sci-fi aesthetic is desirable among collectors? So far Planet remains the only holdout in my collection of Fiction House slabs.

Binding my time and hoping to find the right one eventually!

Historically, Planet Comics was always the leading Fiction House title overall. In fact the gulf in prices compared to their other titles has narrowed in recent years. There have always been specific issues of the other titles that rivaled Planets of course!

The other significant change in the past decade is collector awareness of cover color variation - a Fight #36 in mid grade with strong colors went for over 3k on Heritage recently.

Relative to Centaurs, Fiction House books are quite common - but once the cover color is factored in, certain issues with deep colors are almost impossible to find. [I should know - I've spent decades searching for unicorns!]

So it's a much more varied picture than in days of yore, I think.

That's just my perspective of course. Do others here agree?

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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On 10/21/2022 at 12:46 AM, Ricksneatstuff said:

Back in the collection. I missed this copy quite a bit. 

2E93581E-32B6-4B9E-BF4A-E22D28E9C03C.jpeg

Nice catch Rick. I'm fairly certain that is the Toledo copy I used to own, before I landed the Jon Berk copy. I made the mistake of having it regraded, and when it came back,  the Toledo appellation had disappeared [because its no longer regarded by CGC as a ped]. Harshly graded if you ask me!

Edited by Flex Mentallo
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LadyDeath

LadyDeath

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Posted
On 1/7/2023 at 5:49 AM, Flex Mentallo said:

Historically, Planet Comics was always the leading Fiction House title overall. In fact the gulf in prices compared to their other titles has narrowed in recent years. There have always been specific issues of the other titles that rivaled Planets of course!

The other significant change in the past decade is collector awareness of cover color variation - a Fight #36 in mid grade with strong colors went for over 3k on Heritage recently.

Relative to Centaurs, Fiction House books are quite common - but once the cover color is factored in, certain issues with deep colors are almost impossible to find. [I should know - I've spent decades searching for unicorns!]

So it's a much more varied picture than in days of yore, I think.

That's just my perspective of course. Do others here agree?

Thank you for the insight! Very informative. I'm a relatively new GA collector so there is a lot I'm still learning. I have noticed the wild assortment of cover colors with these books - some look like normal tanning or foxing but others I'm not so sure. Some Fight logos I came across appear red, orange or yellow. Backgrounds at times too. Is it solely a Fiction House thing? I haven't seen this nearly as prevalent in other GA books.

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Artboy99

Artboy99

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On 1/7/2023 at 3:56 AM, Flex Mentallo said:

Nice catch Rick. I'm fairly certain that is the Toledo copy I used to own, before I landed the Jon Berk copy. I made the mistake of having it regraded, and when it came back,  the Toledo appellation had disappeared [because its no longer regarded by CGC as a ped]. Harshly graded if you ask me!

My Planet #22 is the Toledo copy and when I purchased it the book was cracked from it's slab but the CGC label was kept in the mylar. I sent it in to be encapsulated knowing it would lose the pedigree designation so I kept the old CGC label and then when it came back it had the pedigree. So it makes me wonder: are they recognizing Toledo or not?

20221231_094053.jpg

Edited by Artboy99
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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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Posted (edited)
On 1/7/2023 at 12:10 PM, LadyDeath said:

Thank you for the insight! Very informative. I'm a relatively new GA collector so there is a lot I'm still learning. I have noticed the wild assortment of cover colors with these books - some look like normal tanning or foxing but others I'm not so sure. Some Fight logos I came across appear red, orange or yellow. Backgrounds at times too. Is it solely a Fiction House thing? I haven't seen this nearly as prevalent in other GA books.

This topic is the place to be - lots of knowledge about Fiction House among dedicated fellow collectors here!

The variation in intensity of cover colors is very much a Fiction House thing, and there is an ongoing debate about the reasons which will probably never be satisfactorily resolved, given how little information there is to go on beyond the comics themselves.
 

In CMYK, Magenta combines with Yellow to create Red. [There are fellow boardies with experience of the Print Industry who will be quick to correct me if I get this wrong!] So one possibility is that as many print runs progressed, Magenta ran out quicker than yellow.... But that cant be the whole story, as virtually all colors vary from copy to copy of some issues. [Some collectors regard these as variants.]

But it seems likely [at least to me] that the first copies off the press had far more saturated colors than those at the end, and in addition, saturation varied from color to color within the print runs as well!

But also, this did not happen with every issue! Some invariably have strong colors across the print run. This seems to be the case with most if not all of the later issues for example. But it seems to be true of sporadic issues scattered across decades.

Another aspect of this complexity is that colors were sometimes used to create gradation - say a red/deep orange background that transitions to yellow. In other words, color used as composition.

And in certain covers, magenta was used to create folds in clothing, and when the magenta isn't present, the nuances are lost.

As an example, here are two very different copies of Rangers #25 - neither of them mine. [I did once have the opportunity to acquire one with the deepest colors I'd ever seen and stupidly passed on it because it seemed too expensive - more fool me!]

 

236397.jpg

RangersComics_25_9-0.jpg

Edited by Flex Mentallo
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FoggyNelson

FoggyNelson

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On 1/7/2023 at 11:32 AM, Flex Mentallo said:

This topic is the place to be - lots of knowledge about Fiction House among dedicated fellow collectors here!

The variation in intensity of cover colors is very much a Fiction House thing, and there is an ongoing debate about the reasons which will probably never be satisfactorily resolved, given how little information there is to go on beyond the comics themselves.
 

In CMYK, Magenta combines with Yellow to create Red. [There are fellow boardies with experience of the Print Industry who will be quick to correct me if I get this wrong!] So one possibility is that as many print runs progressed, Magenta ran out quicker than yellow.... But that cant be the whole story, as virtually all colors vary from copy to copy of some issues. [Some collectors regard these as variants.]

But it seems likely [at least to me] that the first copies off the press had far more saturated colors than those at the end, and in addition, saturation varied from color to color within the print runs as well!

But also, this did not happen with every issue! Some invariably have strong colors across the print run. This seems to be the case with most if not all of the later issues for example. But it seems to be true of sporadically issues scattered across decades.

Another aspect of this complexity is that colors were sometimes used to create gradation - say a red/deep orange background that transitions to yellow. In other words, color used as composition.

And in certain covers, magenta was used to create folds in clothing, and when the magenta isn't present, the nuances are lost.

As an example, here are two very different copies of Rangers #25 - neither of them mine. [I did once have the opportunity to acquire one with the deepest colors I'd ever seen and stupidly passed on it because it seemed too expensive - more fool me!]

 

236397.jpg

RangersComics_25_9-0.jpg

Bottom copy is amazing 👍‼️

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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Posted
On 1/7/2023 at 1:52 PM, Artboy99 said:

My Planet #22 is the Toledo copy and when I purchased it the book was cracked from it's slab but the CGC label was kept in the mylar. I sent it in to be encapsulated knowing it would lose the pedigree designation so I kept the old CGC label and then when it came back it had the pedigree. So it makes me wonder: are they recognizing Toledo or not?

20221231_094053.jpg

Sadly not - its no longer present in the current list.

Pedigree Comic Book Collections

Just for fun, here are CGC's current criteria [I have a feeling there is at least one other 'former' pedigree collection but cant recall which one.]

CGC Pedigree Status Criteria

The collection must be original owner.
This means that the books must have been bought off the newsstand as they came out. For example, a collector cannot buy a high-grade run of 1940s comics from various sources and expect it to be considered a pedigree. The original owner need not currently own the comics for the collection to be considered for pedigree status.

The collection must be of vintage material.
This means that a large collection consisting of comics from the 1970s to present cannot be considered a pedigree. In fact, until the sale of some key White Mountain books in a Sotheby’s auction in the early 1990s, Silver Age comics were not accepted as pedigree collections. Comic books from 1966 and after are relatively common in high grade compared to earlier issues. This occurred as a direct result of a tremendous explosion in the number of collectors in fandom in the mid-1960s. Collections that are primarily from 1966 and after must have average grades of at least 9.4 to be considered a pedigree.

The collection must consist of a considerable number of comics.
Most pedigree collections consist of at least 1,000 books and some number over 10,000 comics. The collections that consist of fewer books, such as the Allentown and Denver collections, must include extremely rare, important, and/or key material.

The collection must be high-grade.
Comics from the Silver Age in general would have to be 9.2 and higher, and a collection of exclusive Silver Age material must have an average grade of 9.4. Golden Age comics would have to be high-grade as well. For example, the Lost Valley collection consisted of many golden age books from before 1941 that were technically mid-grade, but were almost across the board the highest graded copy for that book. Page quality must be nice as well.

Many of the pedigree collections were recognized and accepted by the hobby before CGC came into existence in late 1999.

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