Notes on WDC&S 4

[tb]

Ever since I bought my first Overstreet 20 years ago, the complimentary edition of WDC&S 4 has been an enigma to me. Although not quite as rare as listed in the Guide ("very rare - 5 known copies"), it is in my experience still the rarest Disney comic ever published. Overstreet: "This special pressing was probably sent out to former subscribers to Mickey Mouse Mag. whose subscriptions had expired".This week, a low grade copy was posted on eBay (see scan below). The interesting point here is the label on the back cover. I am attaching a scan of my own copy for comparison. I have seen 2-3 other copies of this book. All of these had subscription creases but none had mailing labels. I wonder if it could be a coincidence that 2 copies of this extremely rare book were mailed to dentists? It is too bad most of the label is missing - it would have been interesting to see if the books were mailed to the same area.

eBay Listing

[Bronty]

VERY interesting... perhaps the complimentary edition was a way to test-market some sort of distribution deal with dentists, who would have wanted to have comics on hand for their child patients...

[143ksk]

A lot of medical professionals get complimentary magazines for their waiting rooms. So, it's definitely possible that this was a test of that market. I can't imagine what the odds are against the two copies with mailing labels being to dentists purely being a coincidence...

[TomG]

Very interesting. I'll check with a collector who owns a copy and see what the label on his is.

[ft88]

ebay link... for us lazies

[jim1968]

As beat as it seems to be, even from the back cover, I'm certain it's nicer than my copy! Since I collect Huey, Dewey, and Louie I also have a low grade copy of the "regular" version.

Gee did we account for almost all 5 copies just in this thread?

Maybe the estimate needs to be raised to 10 copies?

Jim Pitts

Overstreet Price Guide Advisor

Heritage Auctions Consultant

[TomG]

As beat as it seems to be, even from the back cover, I'm certain it's nicer than my copy! Since I collect Huey, Dewey, and Louie I also have a low grade copy of the "regular" version.

Gee did we account for almost all 5 copies just in this thread?

Maybe the estimate needs to be raised to 10 copies?

Jim Pitts

Overstreet Price Guide Advisor

Heritage Auctions Consultant

 

Hard call on the numbers out there as it is possible a copy could be counted twice. If anyone wants to email me scans of the covers of their copies I'll keep track of what we know of.

 

Tom

[Moondog]

Hkp:

 

In the spring of 2004 I bought a huge collection of GA/SA in Owosso, Michigan.

 

Prior to getting the call from the seller, I had never heard of Owosso, Michigan.

 

The dentist on the label of your copy was from Owosso, Michigan...

 

 

I love comic coincidences like this...

 

--Gary

[jim1968]

Wow!

That is cool!

Tom I'm totally not saying that it has to be raised, but even with Gary C. accouting for the ebay copy that's still 3 of the 5.

Heck there's probably just 6 copies, with maybe 1 more out there.......somewhere.

One things for sure if a nice copy ever turns up it will go for a ton. Because all of the 5 or 6 known copies are really low grade, I think the best is G/VG!

Hope I didn't offend anyone,

Jim Pitts

ps I'm getting a new scanner after SD, I'll send you a scan of my copy of my covers after that. But Mark H and Arnie B can vouch for me. I'm a 20 year advisor.

[tb]

Thanks to everyone for the interesting comments.

 

I bought my ~G+ copy for $2,500 in 2001. It was the first copy I'd ever seen for sale and I would have gone much higher at the time. Shortly after, a CGC graded VG (beautiful book with the subscription crease as the only main defect) sold for around $4,000. I know the owner and he sent me a large scan of it a while back (I won't post it without his permission). Since then, at least two more low grade copies have sold on eBay. One around 6 months ago and the other last week. I am 95% sure a fifth copy sold on eBay sometime between 2002 and 2004 but that could be the same as one of the other two recently surfaced copies.

 

Another thing I noticed is that there seems to have been a second, smaller sticker near the "Name" field in both scans above. This seems to have been peeled off on both dentist copies.

[Arty]

Carson City pedigree copy of complimentary wdcs4 was on Ebay last autumn. (this is probably the copy hkp remembers being for sale 6 months ago.)

 

Pic was really small, but I saved it anyway...