Heritage's Next Event Auction has started posting books ! 31 31

[tth2]

On 3/28/2022 at 11:39 AM, Gotham Kid said:

I didn't buy a copy in 2010, nor in 2015 or in 2020. And quite frankly I don't care.

From a comic collecting perspective, I’m with you.  From a financial perspective, I wish I had. 

[ThothAmon]

On 3/27/2022 at 7:16 PM, Professor K said:

mile high

Thanks for the heads up. Finally got me a Church book! 

[Sauce Dog]

Damn, tonights auction had some strong prices for the raw More Fun Comics I was looking at. I know they are not epic stuff, but the trajectory of these prices compared to even last year is fun to watch.

 

Spoiler

Very surprised this went this far above $1k.

 

This #71 is a REMAINDERED copy with a xeroxed cover top (so a 0.5 universal, or maybe 3.0 qualified). I bought my 6.5 (A-1, Slight Restored) two years ago for $800.

This is the big surprise, it's basically brittle and incomplete missing SIX pages! Yes it displays well, but was honestly surprised it for the same amount a CGC 2.0 went for earlier this month.

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Sauce Dog

[comicjack]

On 3/28/2022 at 8:18 PM, Sauce Dog said:

Damn, tonights auction had some strong prices for the raw More Fun Comics I was looking at. I know they are not epic stuff, but the trajectory of these prices compared to even last year is fun to watch.

 

  Hide contents

Very surprised this went this far above $1k.

 

This #71 is a REMAINDERED copy with a xeroxed cover top (so a 0.5 universal, or maybe 3.0 qualified). I bought my 6.5 (A-1, Slight Restored) two years ago for $800.

This is the big surprise, it's basically brittle and incomplete missing SIX pages! Yes it displays well, but was honestly surprised it for the same amount a CGC 2.0 went for earlier this month.

 

Good grief the 71 got that much 

Edited March 29, 2022 by comicjack

[RareHighGrade]

On 3/28/2022 at 5:18 PM, Sauce Dog said:

Damn, tonights auction had some strong prices for the raw More Fun Comics I was looking at. I know they are not epic stuff, but the trajectory of these prices compared to even last year is fun to watch.

Even more surprising is that these two low grade pre-hero issues each went for over 20X Guide ($4560 and $4800, respectively).  Seems like the pre-hero issues have suddenly caught fire.

[tth2]

On 3/29/2022 at 12:43 PM, RareHighGrade said:

Seems like the pre-hero issues have suddenly caught fire.

We blame you.

[lou_fine]

On 3/28/2022 at 5:18 PM, Sauce Dog said:

Damn, tonights auction had some strong prices for the raw More Fun Comics I was looking at. I know they are not epic stuff, but the trajectory of these prices compared to even last year is fun to watch.

 

On 3/28/2022 at 5:24 PM, comicjack said:

Good grief the 71 got that much 

Besides the pre-hero ones which I found to be right up there in terms of pricing, the other one which I found rather surprising was the More Fun 74 which sold for a solid $5,280 for a raw VG copy:    

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/superhero/more-fun-comics-74-dc-1941-condition-vg/a/122213-17640.s?type=bidnotice-tracked-endofauction

[lou_fine]

On 3/28/2022 at 9:43 PM, RareHighGrade said:

Even more surprising is that these two low grade pre-hero issues each went for over 20X Guide ($4560 and $4800, respectively).  Seems like the pre-hero issues have suddenly caught fire.

 

Any idea if the post-hero humour cover issues have caught any of this pre-hero fire or are they still flickering away on their last embers?    

Just wondering since I picked up a raw low grade (possibly G/VG) of the apparently scarce final issue of More Fun 127 at a local con a few weekends ago?    Couldn't pass it up since it was complete and had nice pages relative to the grade, and even more so when the dealer was willing to knock the price down from $160 CDN down to $135 CDN or roughly only about $105 USD.  Have always loved these final issues of long running titles, but probably not worth slabbing for most collectors due to the lower price point since there's even fewer total copies of this issue on the CGC census as compared to the above More Fun 35 and More Fun 45 issues, with a total of only 4 graded copies to date.    

Edited March 29, 2022 by lou_fine

[ThothAmon]

On 3/27/2022 at 7:16 PM, Professor K said:

Who would trim a Mile High?

Was doing a little more digging and found this. 
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/edgar-churchs-historic-copy-of-detective-comics-6-up-for-auction/

[Professor K]

On 3/29/2022 at 10:23 AM, ThothAmon said:

Was doing a little more digging and found this. 
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/edgar-churchs-historic-copy-of-detective-comics-6-up-for-auction/

Wow, thanks for posting that. I learned a few interesting things. So he may have got it second hand. But still I doubt someone trimmed it from 1937 to 1977. I'm thinking someone between 1977 and 2000 trimmed it and color touched it a bit probably hoping no one would notice. 

One more thing to note: I noticed there are no Church Detective's on that list between issues 25 and 38. I wonder why. I wonder if they are out there..............somewhere.

[Krydel4]

On 3/29/2022 at 1:08 PM, Professor K said:

One more thing to note: I noticed there are no Church Detective's on that list between issues 25 and 38. I wonder why. I wonder if they are out there..............somewhere.

Chuck said that some Funny Animal books were mixed in with the Superhero books and that there was a second room filled with Funny Animal/Non-Supehero books that was cleaned out and taken to the dump the week before he got there. He hypothesized that the parts of the superhero runs that had missing books were probably in that second room. ☹️

[jimbo_7071]

On 3/29/2022 at 4:32 PM, Krydel4 said:

Chuck said that some Funny Animal books were mixed in with the Superhero books and that there was a second room filled with Funny Animal/Non-Supehero books that was cleaned out and taken to the dump the week before he got there. He hypothesized that the parts of the superhero runs that had missing books were probably in that second room. ☹️

Wasn't that speculation on his part? I don't think the family ever told him that other comics had been taken to the dump.

[Krydel4]

On 3/29/2022 at 2:24 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Wasn't that speculation on his part? I don't think the family ever told him that other comics had been taken to the dump.

From Mile Highs Website:

"After I finished loading most of the file books from the main room of the basement, the heirs asked me if I had any interest in old magazines. When I assured them that I did, they led me to a room in the far end of the basement. This room was set up much like a pantry, with shelves lining the walls. What was shocking to me about this room was that it only contained one shelf unit of old pulp magazines. All the other shelves were completely bare! Given that the entire rest of the basement was packed to the ceiling with all manner of paper, this was totally abnormal.

The magazines that were in the room were primarily WEIRD TALES and SPICY DETECTIVE pulps. I had seen covers for other pulp magazines in some of the books of clippings I had salvaged, but these were the first whole magazines I had seen in the basement. I told the heirs that I wasn't really an expert in pulps, but that I had some friends in Boulder who sold them regularly. I promised I would come back the following week with my friends, and that they would offer them a substantial amount for the pulp magazines.

I then asked them why the rest of that very copious room was completely empty. The heirs hemmed and hawed, and told me they didn't know. It didn't take me long to reach the conclusion, however, that the room had once been full, and that someone had emptied it. I had already seen the empty shelves in the main basement room from where the huge batch of reference files that I saw set out for the trash men (on my first visit) had been extracted, so those couldn't have been in the contents of that second room. My best guess is that whatever was in that second room was sent off to the dump before I made my first visit.

In the many discussions I've had with people about the contents of that second room, the general conclusion that we've reached is that the room contained Church's collection of humor comics. We've extrapolated this conclusion from the fact that there are some very unusual holes in the runs of super-hero comics that were in the walk-in closet from which I obtained the Golden Age. At the same time, there were a tantalizing samplings of humor comics, such as LOONEY TUNES #1, ANIMAL COMICS #1, and all the LITTLE LULU Four Color issues, mixed in with the super-hero comics. If Church was buying all the comics being printed, where were all the humor comics? Wouldn't it make sense that if Church was roughly sorting his super-hero/adventure comics into one room, while his humor books went into the second, that a few books would get put into the wrong closet? That would explain why a few of the super-hero books were missing from otherwise complete runs, and why a few humor books were mixed in with the super-heroes. Sadly, I think the most likely scenario is that all the humor comics were sent to the dump prior to my arrival. If that was the case, then the collection of Golden Age that everyone acknowledges as the best ever discovered in the history of the hobby, was actually half destroyed prior to my arrival."

It's his recollection, but having been to several estate sales and when asking about magazines, newspapers, pulps and the like and being told that "that junk" was hauled off to the dump to clean up the place (this is before the time of google, ebay and smart phones when you couldn't asses the value of an item instantly), it rings to true me. We'll never really know though.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Krydel4
Clarity

[lou_fine]

On 3/28/2022 at 5:18 PM, Sauce Dog said:

Damn, tonights auction had some strong prices for the raw More Fun Comics I was looking at. I know they are not epic stuff, but the trajectory of these prices compared to even last year is fun to watch.

Heck, they most definitely did as it seems to be some amazingly high prices being paid for these entry level copies, like this MF 69 here:    

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/more-fun-comics-69-dc-1941-condition-pr/a/122213-17636.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

Multiples of Good condition guide valuations being paid for what was graded as a raw Poor condition and effectively an Incomplete book with a whopping 6 pages missing from the Spectre story along with "fragile" (Hmmm...........Brittle pages ) pages for the rest of the book.  Definitely a very strong price here for this copy of More Fun 69.  

[twmjr1]

The More Fun Spectre and Doctor Fate covers deserve to be among the most valued books in the hobby, IMO. Now it appears they may be headed in that direction. 52 and 73 have been there for a long time, but the whole run of 52 to 76 is just super cool. Among my very favorite books.

[lou_fine]

On 3/28/2022 at 8:21 AM, ThothAmon said:

Thanks for the heads up. Finally got me a Church book! 

 

On 3/29/2022 at 7:23 AM, ThothAmon said:

Was doing a little more digging and found this. 
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/edgar-churchs-historic-copy-of-detective-comics-6-up-for-auction/

Big congrats to you on pciking up this very early Church copy of Detective Comics 6, and a great historic background story to go along with it. 

I guess with all of the other quality books coming out at the time of the big Jon Berk Auction back in 2017, it was probably easy to miss this one back then or else you could have gotten it at about half the price.  Then again, I guess a lot of books including even some of these very early pre-hero books were a whole lot cheaper back then.  

[Krydel4]

On 3/29/2022 at 3:32 PM, twmjr1 said:

The More Fun Spectre and Doctor Fate covers deserve to be among the most valued books in the hobby, IMO. Now it appears they may be headed in that direction. 52 and 73 have been there for a long time, but the whole run of 52 to 76 is just super cool. Among my very favorite books.

The Spectre and Dr.Fate are severely under-utilized characters. Their orgins, villains and support characters are awesome. The Spectre especially would make an amazing TV series or movie with today's SFX. I have my TPB of Spectre stories but my wallet forbids me from being able to spend on a MFC Spectre cover issue. I have to satisfy myself with my Silver Age issues.

[Sauce Dog]

On 3/29/2022 at 6:32 PM, twmjr1 said:

The More Fun Spectre and Doctor Fate covers deserve to be among the most valued books in the hobby, IMO. Now it appears they may be headed in that direction. 52 and 73 have been there for a long time, but the whole run of 52 to 76 is just super cool. Among my very favorite books.

Yup, this has been my mindset for years now as I try to grab as many as I can on my budget (at least the Doctor Fate ones, I've always loved those full helmet covers), but even before the movie / speculation craziness as of late it was still very hard to even find them. Might get lucky and have maybe one of the covers surface each year, and that's it - so whatever grade it was you had to fight for it.

[lou_fine]

On 3/29/2022 at 3:32 PM, twmjr1 said:

The More Fun Spectre and Doctor Fate covers deserve to be among the most valued books in the hobby, IMO. Now it appears they may be headed in that direction. 52 and 73 have been there for a long time, but the whole run of 52 to 76 is just super cool. Among my very favorite books.

 

On 3/29/2022 at 5:15 PM, Sauce Dog said:

Yup, this has been my mindset for years now as I try to grab as many as I can on my budget (at least the Doctor Fate ones, I've always loved those full helmet covers), but even before the movie / speculation craziness as of late it was still very hard to even find them.

Totally agree with you about all of the full helmeted Doctor Fate covers, although you certainly can't help but to also love the classic Spectre covers on More Fun 54 and More Fun 65.  

If you are into the full helmet Doctor Fate look, the cover that I would go after would be the classic More Fun 56 cover which is not only the first Doctor Fate cover, but seemingly also the hardest one to find since save for the Church copy which was auctioned off through CC back in 2017, I believe it's been pretty much a full decade since the last copy of MF 56 has come into the marketplace.  

The good news for you is that the Doctor Fate that's coming out in the DCEU version later this year is the full helmet version played as played by the former James Bond (i.e. Pierce Brosnan):  

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/pierce-brosnan-doctor-fate-black-adam.html

Edited March 30, 2022 by lou_fine

[tth2]

On 3/30/2022 at 4:08 AM, Professor K said:

One more thing to note: I noticed there are no Church Detective's on that list between issues 25 and 38. I wonder why. I wonder if they are out there..............somewhere.

They do exist and they are out there, mostly somewhere in Northern Virginia.  But the Church Detective 27, which was recently slabbed, resides further north.