The Lost Valley Pedigree thread 1 1

[davet75]

On 8/12/2022 at 6:12 PM, Robot Man said:

While I had it handy, thought I might post a few pages just for fun.

A few “biggies”. Interesting there was only All Star #3 and #8. Action #2 but no #1. Nice run in the number 30’s though. 

Interesting to see the original catalog.  I bought the Adventures 2 in 2018 or 2019 from another collector for very close to the catalog price. 

[RareHighGrade]

On 8/12/2022 at 4:27 PM, Robot Man said:

On 8/12/2022 at 4:24 PM, IngelsFan said:

Thanks for sharing these pages! I don’t think I’ve seen these issue of New Adventure up for sale since.

Most likely buried deep in a collection or collections. 

True Dat.

[lou_fine]

On 8/12/2022 at 3:12 PM, Robot Man said:

While I had it handy, thought I might post a few pages just for fun.

A few “biggies”. Interesting there was only All Star #3 and #8. Action #2 but no #1. Nice run in the number 30’s though. 

Well, this is either a typo here or the lucky buyer managed to scoop themselves a steal of a deal here with the Ace 11 listed at only $230.    

Especially considering that it is the first comic book appearance of the Phantom and considered to be a relatively rare book with only a meagre 12 Universal copies graded to date so far.  Probably impossible to find in HG as the highest graded copy to date after 22 years of certification is still only a single CGC 7.5 graded copy, so a Fine- copy at $230 for a Lost Valley pedigree would have definitely been a steal back then, considering that top of guide for this book is now at $9,500.    

[Robot Man]

On 8/13/2022 at 11:02 AM, lou_fine said:

Well, this is either a typo here or the lucky buyer managed to scoop themselves a steal of a deal here with the Ace 11 listed at only $230.    

Especially considering that it is the first comic book appearance of the Phantom and considered to be a relatively rare book with only a meagre 12 Universal copies graded to date so far.  Probably impossible to find in HG as the highest graded copy to date after 22 years of certification is still only a single CGC 7.5 graded copy, so a Fine- copy at $230 for a Lost Valley pedigree would have definitely been a steal back then, considering that top of guide for this book is now at $9,500.    

Nobody knew or cared about the Phantom back then. Ace is a strip reprint book. A scourge on the market. Even, then, somebody probably snapped it up fairly quickly.

I was happy to find Crown 4 in fine+ for $65. In the boxes at SDCC. Major Matt Baker key. 

[lou_fine]

On 8/13/2022 at 11:11 AM, Robot Man said:

Nobody knew or cared about the Phantom back then. Ace is a strip reprint book. A scourge on the market. Even, then, somebody probably snapped it up fairly quickly.

I was happy to find Crown 4 in fine+ for $65. In the boxes at SDCC. Major Matt Baker key. 

Ahhhh..................don't we miss the good old days when books could still be acquired for substantial discounts to condition guide.  

I guess both Al and Jeff must have had their own pricing moidel because they clearly was not following the "Overprice Guide" at the time as books were listed with prices that beared no resemblance to guide at the time, with many listed at a premium or a huge discount to guide valuations.  

Looks like he had the odd strip reprint book priced higher than guide like the CGC 5.0 graded copy of New Comics 1 listed for $7,300 when Overstreet had his Fine valuation at only $6K.  Yet if you look at his Famous Funnies 1, they had their CGC 4.0 graded copy listed for $4K when the Overstreet equivalent valuation would have been up at $6K.  The big winner though would have been the purchaser of the King Comics 1 with their VF copy listed for only a mere $750 in their catalogue while Overstreet had it valued light years higher at $9K in VF or listed at a whopping discount of 92% lower than condition guide valuation at the time.  Especially considering the fact that the less than a handful of Universal copies that have sold over the years have ALL (save for one copy at a very slight discount) been sold at a premium over condition guide prices.      

Interesting to note though that out of the 12 Universal copies of King Comics 1 graded to date, the highest graded copies so far is a pair of them at only CGC 6.5.  Makes me wonder if this Lost Valley copy of King Comics 1 has been graded yet or not?    

Edited August 13, 2022 by lou_fine

[jimbo_7071]

On 8/13/2022 at 3:10 PM, lou_fine said:

Ahhhh..................don't we miss the good old days when books could still be acquired for substantial discounts to condition guide.  

I guess both Al and Jeff must have had their own pricing moidel because they clearly was not following the "Overprice Guide" at the time as books were listed with prices that beared no resemblance to guide at the time, with many listed at a premium or a huge discount to guide valuations.  

Looks like he had the odd strip reprint book priced higher than guide like the CGC 5.0 graded copy of New Comics 1 listed for $7,300 when Overstreet had his Fine valuation at only $6K.  Yet if you look at his Famous Funnies 1, they had their CGC 4.0 graded copy listed for $4K when the Overstreet equivalent valuation would have been up at $6K.  The big winner though would have been the purchaser of the King Comics 1 with their VF copy listed for only a mere $750 in their catalogue while Overstreet had it valued light years higher at $9K in VF or listed at a whopping discount of 92% lower than condition guide valuation at the time.  Especially considering the fact that the less than a handful of Universal copies that have sold over the years have ALL (save for one copy at a very slight discount) been sold at a premium over condition guide prices.      

Interesting to note though that out of the 12 Universal copies of King Comics 1 graded to date, the highest graded copies so far is a pair of them at only CGC 6.5.  Makes me wonder if this Lost Valley copy of King Comics 1 has been graded yet or not?    

There's still so little collector interest in those strip reprint books that Overstreet's prices seem hard to justify.

[Robot Man]

On 8/13/2022 at 12:10 PM, lou_fine said:

Ahhhh..................don't we miss the good old days when books could still be acquired for substantial discounts to condition guide.  

I guess both Al and Jeff must have had their own pricing moidel because they clearly was not following the "Overprice Guide" at the time as books were listed with prices that beared no resemblance to guide at the time, with many listed at a premium or a huge discount to guide valuations.  

Looks like he had the odd strip reprint book priced higher than guide like the CGC 5.0 graded copy of New Comics 1 listed for $7,300 when Overstreet had his Fine valuation at only $6K.  Yet if you look at his Famous Funnies 1, they had their CGC 4.0 graded copy listed for $4K when the Overstreet equivalent valuation would have been up at $6K.  The big winner though would have been the purchaser of the King Comics 1 with their VF copy listed for only a mere $750 in their catalogue while Overstreet had it valued light years higher at $9K in VF or listed at a whopping discount of 92% lower than condition guide valuation at the time.  Especially considering the fact that the less than a handful of Universal copies that have sold over the years have ALL (save for one copy at a very slight discount) been sold at a premium over condition guide prices.      

Interesting to note though that out of the 12 Universal copies of King Comics 1 graded to date, the highest graded copies so far is a pair of them at only CGC 6.5.  Makes me wonder if this Lost Valley copy of King Comics 1 has been graded yet or not?    

Both were/are veteran dealers who know what the word “Guide” means. They knew a lot of books were worth more than “Guide” and a lot of books like strip reprints as a whole were worth less than “Guide”. They also understand rarity. Many of these early books rarely turned up at all especially in high grade. A number of books, however, slipped through the cracks though. I have always felt it was my job to find those hidden gems. At the SDCC I noticed that a lot of them seemed a little “aggressive” but it was a big deal when this collection was recognized by CGC and were a big deal at the con.

I suspect that King #1 is probably buried, ungraded in some collector’s collection. None of mine are CGC graded and we all know their census numbers are slightly misleading. There are still a whole of of books still ungraded in collections. 

[RareHighGrade]

The collection is a treasure trove of rare books.  Several of them, all these years later, are still the highest graded copies.

 

[adamstrange]

On 8/13/2022 at 7:29 PM, RareHighGrade said:

The collection is a treasure trove of rare books.  Several of them, all these years later, are still the highest graded copies.

 

Nice pickups, RareMidGrade 

[lou_fine]

On 8/13/2022 at 4:29 PM, RareHighGrade said:

The collection is a treasure trove of rare books.  Several of them, all these years later, are still the highest graded copies.

 

Yes sir, only 6 graded copies in total with your copy here being the highest graded by a safe comfortable margin and certainly presents nicely relative to its assigned CGC grade.    

That is, until I finally get around to having my copy graded which from just a front cover scan only, appears to be just as sharp as your copy here, but with a slightly better spine. 

Then again, since I got it from Mark Wilson way back in the day, no worries for you at all as I am quite sure that my copy will come back encased in one of those beautiful purple labelled holders.  Even though I asked him at the time if there was any restoration on the book and he swore to me up and down that it was totally unrestored.  Since I knew that everybody has a different definition for restoration, I then asked him if he had touched the book in any way and when he told me the book was completely untouched, I knew right away it was a lie as he must have touched it in order to mail it out to me in the first place.    

It's a good thing that time can be a good panacea for so many long term collector's purchasing mistakes.    

Edited August 14, 2022 by lou_fine

[RareHighGrade]

On 8/14/2022 at 1:19 PM, lou_fine said:

Yes sir, only 6 graded copies in total with your copy here being the highest graded by a safe comfortable margin and certainly presents nicely relative to its assigned CGC grade.    

That is, until I finally get around to having my copy graded which from just a front cover scan only, appears to be just as sharp as your copy here, but with a slightly better spine. 

Then again, since I got it from Mark Wilson way back in the day, no worries for you at all as I am quite sure that my copy will come back encased in one of those beautiful purple labelled holders.  Even though I asked him at the time if there was any restoration on the book and he swore to me up and down that it was totally unrestored.  Since I knew that everybody has a different definition for restoration, I then asked him if he had touched the book in any way and when he told me the book was completely untouched, I knew right away it was a lie as he must have touched it in order to mail it out to me in the first place.    

It's a good thing that time can be a good panacea for so many long term collector's purchasing mistakes.    

Is your copy from the penciled "S" collection?

[lou_fine]

On 8/14/2022 at 1:25 PM, RareHighGrade said:

Is your copy from the penciled "S" collection?

No, not from the small penciled "S" collection as it came from the Mark Wilson "Can't Keep My Grubby Hands Off It" collection.       

Seriously though, is the small penciled "S" collection infamous for restoration work or what would now be considered as Conservation work?  

[RareHighGrade]

On 8/14/2022 at 1:54 PM, lou_fine said:

Seriously though, is the small penciled "S" collection infamous for restoration work or what would now be considered as Conservation work?  

No, Mark once had the penciled "S" run of early Adventures.  He tinkered with some of them, but left the vast majority of them alone.  When you said you got it from Mark and it was in relatively high grade, I thought it might be from that collection. I don't think I've ever seen the "S" copy of NA #12.

[lou_fine]

On 8/14/2022 at 2:01 PM, RareHighGrade said:

No, Mark once had the penciled "S" run of early Adventures.  He tinkered with some of them, but left the vast majority of them alone.  When you said you got it from Mark and it was in relatively high grade, I thought it might be from that collection. I don't think I've ever seen the "S" copy of NA #12.

Certainly good to hear and just doubled checked the scan of my copy of NA 12 and no penciled "S" like what's on this cover of this New Comics 5 here:    

Any idea if this collection went all the way back to New Comics 1 since there's a copy of New Comics 5 in there?  I remember talking to Mark when he had this collection and although he did hint at doing some minor work on some of them, he said most were already so nice that it was not necessary and I should really pick up some of them because even Jon Berk was buying to fill in the missing holes in his collection.  But by then buying from Mark was such a red flag because other dealers always made the assumption that Mark couldn't let a book go without at least "cleaning" it to make it present even nicer, even though they couldn't identify the work done.  Not sure if it was just jealously on their part or just trying to keep your business by warning you away from a competing dealer.  

I remember having Bill Hughes send in a dozen or about 15 books for me in time for their big Greg Manning Auction later that Fall when CGC first opened their doors back in 2000.  Every single one of the books came back graded between CGC 9.2 to CGC 9.6 with the blue Universal label, with the sole exception being a CGC 8.5 graded (looked every bit as nice as all the other books in my submission ) PLOD labelled copy of Cap 19.  Met up with Hughes in the SD Con that summer who handed the Cap 19 back to me since they didn't want restored books in that auction.  Took the book and walked over to show it to Mark Wilson who asked me how much I had paid for it and when.  Told him that I had paid something like $450 for the book about 10 years ago, to which he replied that the work was not considered to be restoration back then, butt he would take the book back and give me $900 in return.  Agreed to the deal and when I walked by Mark's table later that day, saw the book marked with the work done and priced pretty much at what he had paid me for the book.    

Interesting to note that I just checked the CGCdata.com website and it shows a CGC 8.5 PLOD copy of Cap 19 being removed from the census in the exact same time period that a Universal CGC 8.5 Universal copy was added into the census population report:  

http://www.cgcdata.com/cgc/search/comicid/7911/6mo

Edited August 14, 2022 by lou_fine

[RareHighGrade]

On 8/14/2022 at 2:49 PM, lou_fine said:

Any idea if this collection went all the way back to New Comics 1 since there's a copy of New Comics 5 in there? 

Yes.

 

[lou_fine]

On 8/14/2022 at 3:04 PM, RareHighGrade said:

Yes.

 

Oh wowza, that's an absolute beaut and one to die for, considering it's all the way back from 1935.    

Hopefully, it's one of the "vast majority" portion of the penciled "S" collection that Mark did not have to work on.  

Since it went all the way back to New Comics 1, was the run complete and if so, was you able to nab the "S" copy of New Comics 2 which appears to the super rare hen's teeth out of the early issues of this run?  If so, I guess it would still be a raw copy since I just checked the CGCdata.com website and it looks like there's only 5 graded copies in total with the single highest graded copy still being only a CGC 2.0 after all these long years.  

Edited August 14, 2022 by lou_fine

[RareHighGrade]

On 8/14/2022 at 3:26 PM, lou_fine said:

Since it went all the way back to New Comics 1, was the run complete and if so, was you able to nab the "S" copy of New Comics 2 which appears to the super rare hen's teeth out of the early issues of this run?  

No, I picked up the 1, 4, 6, 8 and 9, but never saw the 2.  I don't know if there was one.

[aardvark88]

On 8/13/2022 at 3:57 PM, Robot Man said:

. At the SDCC I noticed that a lot of them seemed a little “aggressive” but it was a big deal when this collection was recognized by CGC and were a big deal at the con.

I suspect that King #1 is probably buried, ungraded in some collector’s collection.  There are still a whole of of books still ungraded in collections. 

I was at SDCC 2003 when this raw collection debuted. King Comics # 1 was g- per the Errata insert sheet for catalog.

[lou_fine]

Oh wow, those are certainly some beautiful and HTF early issues that you was fortunate and astute enough to nab for your personal collection. 

As for New Comics 2 and whether it even exists or not (apparently no Church or Larson and with the Lost Valley copy being only a CGC 1.8 graded copy), I guess that's why it's considered to be the true hen's teeth of the early New Comics run.  

While checking on the possible existence of a Larson copy of New Comics 2, noticed from Joe Tricarichi Larson's List that there is supposedly a VF raw copy of New Adventure Comics 12 which I never realized until now.  

Edited August 14, 2022 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

On 8/14/2022 at 1:25 PM, RareHighGrade said:

Is your copy from the penciled "S" collection?

Since you seem to be so knowledgeable about this early pre-hero DC penciled "S" collection, would you also happen to know much about the "grease penciled S" collection for some of the early Fox books like Mystery Men and Wonderworld?  

Edited August 14, 2022 by lou_fine