How many copies of Captain America #1 known to exist? 0

[pemart1966]

On 9/15/2022 at 12:28 PM, sfcityduck said:

Not knowing your definition, I can't disagree.  We all know about books in collections like DAs or the Verzyl family's that are locked up but quite well known. But I'm thinking about guys who were passionate and private collectors before pedigrees were even a thing. It's not like I'm connected and even I know of a raw Top 25 GA comic that would likely top the census if graded that has resided in the same collection since around 1971. It's been locked in a bank box since the 1980s. No one discusses that issue - it is not like DA's books. The owner never traveled in the high paying circles but that's not his best comic. He just collected comics back when the collecting was good and also back when collectors held their acquisitions like cards close to their chests. The comic was purchased at a time when the record price paid for a comic was around $330 (a Marvel 1 sold by Rogofsky in 1968). I don't believe he's the only guy like that. He's bit younger than BZ's age, and BZ was a relatively young collector in the 1960s. Older collectors from that time period are still around. Heck Bill Placzek recently popped up here and gave a good description of what could be done if you started collecting in the 1950s:

Paints a picture of what may be out there amongst the old guys just sitting on collections.

I think that we're exactly on the same page.  There's more than a handful of those guys.

Edited September 15, 2022 by pemart1966

[lou_fine]

On 9/15/2022 at 9:28 AM, sfcityduck said:

Paints a picture of what may be out there amongst the old guys just sitting on collections.

If you are concerned about some old guys sitting on their GA collection, just think about a much much greater number of not quite so old guys sitting out there on their high grade SA collections.  

[sfcityduck]

On 9/15/2022 at 11:20 PM, lou_fine said:

If you are concerned about some old guys sitting on their GA collection, just think about a much much greater number of not quite so old guys sitting out there on their high grade SA collections.  

Yep.  Placzek is old enough to have bought the full Marvel SA off the stands (and have double copies).  But I think we all know of younger collectors who had no problem putting together full SA Marvel collections even if they started in the mid to later 60s and early 70s. For a long time the cost was not prohibitive. And the number of IH 181 and GSX 1s is probably staggering, with my guess being that even a small run book like TMNT 1 had 90 percent of the press run survive since they were sold straight to collectors.  GA is where the real natural rarity is.

[lou_fine]

On 9/16/2022 at 6:20 AM, sfcityduck said:

But I think we all know of younger collectors who had no problem putting together full SA Marvel collections even if they started in the mid to later 60s and early 70s.

Any truth to the rumours that one of the collector/dealer (i.e. Joe Krolic) who had assembled the Winnipeg pedigree collection only let his undercopies go and actually still have his top copies for all of the early SA Marvels still residing in his personal collection?    

[MattTheDuck]

On 9/15/2022 at 11:20 PM, lou_fine said:

If you are concerned about some old guys sitting on their GA collection, just think about a much much greater number of not quite so old guys sitting out there on their high grade SA collections.  

I don't "know" anything, especially in relation to you and my fellow duck, but my personal view is that there is probably at least one - and perhaps several - MH-level SA collections out there.  They probably aren't/may not be OO collections, so different from MH in that way, but an announcement of a single collection of every Marvel SA book (for example) in very high grades wouldn't surprise me in the least.  And I may be underestimating the number.

[pemart1966]

On 9/16/2022 at 11:14 AM, MattTheDuck said:

I don't "know" anything, especially in relation to you and my fellow duck, but my personal view is that there is probably at least one - and perhaps several - MH-level SA collections out there.  They probably aren't/may not be OO collections, so different from MH in that way, but an announcement of a single collection of every Marvel SA book (for example) in very high grades wouldn't surprise me in the least.  And I may be underestimating the number.

I believe that you are.  

[sfcityduck]

 

On 9/16/2022 at 8:14 AM, MattTheDuck said:

I don't "know" anything, especially in relation to you and my fellow duck, but my personal view is that there is probably at least one - and perhaps several - MH-level SA collections out there.  They probably aren't/may not be OO collections, so different from MH in that way, but an announcement of a single collection of every Marvel SA book (for example) in very high grades wouldn't surprise me in the least.  And I may be underestimating the number.

 

I knew a collector (not a dealer) in Eugene who was very proud of his complete high grade Marvel collection back in the early 1980s.  He had moved his focus on to Atlas. He'd been collecting since at least the late 1960s. I don't know what happened to him and his collection as I moved out of Eugene by the end of the 80s and so did he.  My now retired LCS owner is, I believe, still in still in touch with him as they were good friends. He's at the age where he might be thinking of selling the collection if he hasn't already. I think there's are a number of both nice OO and non-OO SA collections out there. Far too many organized collectors with access to adzines and fanzines and untapped comic sources (OOs, bookstores, etc.) around by the early 1960s and comic shops by the beginning of the 1970s for there not to be.  Far too many stories by credible sources on this site about high grade SA collections. With prices and collectors aging out, I think the auction highlights of the future will include lots of high grade SA books.

Heck, look at the non-pedigree books out of Truckee that hit Heritage recently - no less than four FF 1s (9.2 white (sold for $1.5M), 9.0 white ($420K), 8.5 white ($228K), and 7.5 white ($168K)) plus 9.4 whites of the following also 1962 books: FF 2, FF 3, Atom 1, and Aquaman 1. No one knew about the collection because the collector stopped collecting in the 1960s. I think that's probably just a brick in the wall of SA collections out there. 

[lou_fine]

On 9/16/2022 at 8:14 AM, MattTheDuck said:

They probably aren't/may not be OO collections, so different from MH in that way, but an announcement of a single collection of every Marvel SA book (for example) in very high grades wouldn't surprise me in the least.  And I may be underestimating the number.

 

On 9/16/2022 at 9:43 AM, pemart1966 said:

I believe that you are.  

Most certainly as don't you also get those neverending email messages from Doug Schmell (i.e. Pedigree Comics) every month announcing another new uber high grade SA Marvel Collection that he's picked up and now available in his next auction.  

Edited September 16, 2022 by lou_fine

[MattTheDuck]

On 9/16/2022 at 11:29 AM, lou_fine said:

 

Most certainly as don't you also get those neverending email messages from Doug Schmell (i.e. Pedigree Comics) every month announcing another new uber high grade SA Marvel Collection that he's picked up and now available in his next auction.  

I'm pleased to say that's one "service" I'm not signed up for.  In that case, perhaps, ignorance really is bliss.

[pemart1966]

On 9/16/2022 at 2:29 PM, lou_fine said:

 

Most certainly as don't you also get those neverending email messages from Doug Schmell (i.e. Pedigree Comics) every month announcing another new uber high grade SA Marvel Collection that he's picked up and now available in his next auction.  

No I don't actually.  Hope that you didn't give him any ideas...   

[lou_fine]

On 9/16/2022 at 1:58 PM, pemart1966 said:

No I don't actually.  Hope that you didn't give him any ideas...   

One of many comic book related junk mail that I get on a regular basis and one which I really should get around to unsubscribing from as I never ever open any of the ones from Schmell.  

Besides the daily barrage of emails which CL sends out for their auctions, the other one which I laugh at is CGC's almost daily announcement of another so-called private signing when they can't even get their own turnaround times back to some semblance of control.    

[pemart1966]

On 9/17/2022 at 12:53 AM, lou_fine said:

One of many comic book related junk mail that I get on a regular basis and one which I really should get around to unsubscribing from as I never ever open any of the ones from Schmell.  

Besides the daily barrage of emails which CL sends out for their auctions, the other one which I laugh at is CGC's almost daily announcement of another so-called private signing when they can't even get their own turnaround times back to some semblance of control.    

Whenever I look at those private signing solicitations, I always say one of two things:

1.  Who the *$#^ is that?; or

2.  That multi kajillionaire is charging THAT MUCH for a single autograph?????   They should be ashamed of themselves.

Edited September 17, 2022 by pemart1966