Someone said their Detective Comics 3 was one of the first 250 comics ever... How did they know this? 1 1

[N e r V]

19 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

It's funny, I've always wanted a copy of Funnies on Parade and I've always been surprised how little it goes for when for sale.  Still more than I can afford, but seems like it should be worth more as the first comic book.

Yep, books like that are more about the history than price.

[lou_fine]

On 1/26/2020 at 1:28 PM, waaaghboss said:

On 1/25/2020 at 6:56 PM, lou_fine said:

Now, that I finally got around to digging out my copy, I noticed that CBM #11 was another informative issue featuring "The 50 Rarest Golden Age Comic Books". 

Looks like quite a few of these early CBM's attempted to give some idea on the scarcity of certain GA titles.  This particular issue of CBM was no exception as it also had written articles on "The Scarcity of Golden Age DC - Installment 1: Adventure Comics #40-#102" by Dr. Pat Kochanek and the super rare series "Wow, What A Magazine" by our own Jon Berk.  

Looks like the 50 Rarest GA Comics Books article was authored by Duncan McAlpine, a long time comic book dealer out of England.  Excluding the usual ash can and other non-distributed comic books, it looks like the rarest GA U.S.A. distributed comic book was the Feature Book - nn Popeye (1937); followed by Wow, What a Magazine #2 (1936); Feature Book - nn Tracy (1937), and then in fourth place was a 5-way tie between Famous Funnies Series 1 (1933), the first 2 issues of the pre-Centaur Comics Magazine books from 1936, and the 2 DC pre-hero rarities (i.e. New Comics 2 and New Fun 2 from 1936 and 1935 respectively).    

So, I guess even though McAlpine lived and worked out of the England, he must have kept on top of the American comic book marketplace scene some almost 30 years ago because even the current CGC Population Census Report indicates that all 8 of these particular books noted here still have only low single digit counts in the census report after some 20 long years of grading and slabbing books.     

Could you post the list of the 50 by chance?  I went to find the magazine and the couple listed on ebay are $50+

Ok, since I was too lazy to go and dig through my closet again, I just did a simple Google search and found a prior board discussion from 2008 on this exact same topic.  Much more useful than just the article since it also includes 7 pages on board discussion complaints on the usefulness and uselessness of this survey (list is on bottom of Page 1 and top of Page 2) here:   

Looks like I was actually too lazy to flip the page when I went back to check the actual list for my post as the 5-way tie for 4th place in the U.S.A regularly distributed comic books was actually a 9-way tie with an estimated 10 copies remaining in existence.   Looks like the boardies were right when they stated that Danger Trail #3 should not have been part of this group as the CGC census indicates a total of 33 graded copies to this point in time.  Interesting to note that the CGC census also indicates 2 different versions for Famous Funnies #2, the first being the regular (I would assume) cover date of September 1934 with a total of 19 graded copies to date and then a second being the December 1934 cover dated copy with only 3 graded copies to date.  

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

On 1/26/2020 at 10:14 PM, N e r V said:

On 1/26/2020 at 9:54 PM, Randall Dowling said:

It's funny, I've always wanted a copy of Funnies on Parade and I've always been surprised how little it goes for when for sale.  Still more than I can afford, but seems like it should be worth more as the first comic book.

Yep, books like that are more about the history than price.

+1

I would definitely agree with you that these early pioneer books are so much more about the history and roots of the comic book medium which we all enjoy so much.  Unfortunately, since they don't involve masked heroes who wear their undies on the outside  , they are definitely very much underappreciated in the current comic book marketplace relative to where they should really be.  Of course, that's only my own personal point of view as I went from buying new comics off the newsstand right to this so-called Platinum Age for a short stint back in the late 80's before I moved and finally settled into GA collecting.  

I still remember my first trip down to the SD Con in the very early 90's and bumping into a private collector who was trying to offload a group of 16 GA books to some of the dealers down there.  Ended up giving him a small deposit of around $2K for the group of books and he allowed me to take back home 4 books from SD since he was planning to fly up with his girlfriend to complete the rest of the transaction a couple of weeks later.  Couldn't remember what the other 2 books were as they were most likely your typical super hero books, but I clearly remembered taking both the Funnies on Parade and the Famous Funnies, A Carnival of Comics right off the bat just in case he ended up changing his mind on the transaction in the end (which he did not).  

I would tend to agree with you that Funnies on Parade is possibly undervalued considering that it has always been recognized as the FIRST comic book right from when comic book collecting first started and also the fact that it had a relatively small print run of only 10,000 copies.  Just took a look back at the Overstreet guides for both of these books and if the Funnies on Parade has underperformed relative to the rest of the GA market, it's actually performed like a rocket ship when compared to the Carnival of Comics.  While the Funnies on Parade has gone up three-fold in mid-grade guide over the intervening almost 30 years, the Carnival of Comics have gone up by only a measly 50% or assuredly at less than the rate of inflation during this same time frame.    

I guess I really can't complain too much since this deal did allow me to snag 2 key historical books along with some key classic cover superhero books which made up the financial end of the deal, with a couple of them increasing by 40X (or definitely more than the rate of inflation) in this almost 30 years time frame.  

[N e r V]

There’s that rare pesky variant of Funnies on Parade too. Toy World Funnies Wanamaker giveaway. 

[circumstances]

I think I only have one book on that list. #50-Funny Picture Stories #1.

Not sure what Amazing Mystery Funnies they're talking about early on that list.

[lou_fine]

5 hours ago, circumstances said:

Not sure what Amazing Mystery Funnies they're talking about early on that list.

It's definitely not any of the ones that were publicly distributed through the regular distribution channels and oddly enough, cannot seem to find it in the Overstreet guide. 

I believe there were a couple of threads that had a post about this particular book as it apparently went through Mark Wilson:

Page 1 - 4th Post by PreHero:

 

And another thread started by Yours truly (refer to Page 1 - 4th Post by buttock):

I absolutely loved going through all of those Windex Scarcity Indicies for the various titles that Win @CentaurMan used to do up for us back in the day.  

It's really too bad and a loss to us that he doesn't seem to spend any more time on these boards here, with only a few posts during the past few years.  

Edited January 29, 2020 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

Well, going through some of these old threads from way back when, it seems a lot of boardies preferred  to look at rarity in terms of mainstream comic books that made it all the way through the regular distribution channels and hence, available for sale to the general public.  

If so, I found an old thread that was started from way back in 2004 with 23 pages of discussion    on rare comic books spanning a multi-year time period, as it didn't have its last post until 2010:    

 

[lou_fine]

On 1/26/2020 at 10:14 PM, N e r V said:

On 1/26/2020 at 9:54 PM, Randall Dowling said:

It's funny, I've always wanted a copy of Funnies on Parade and I've always been surprised how little it goes for when for sale.  Still more than I can afford, but seems like it should be worth more as the first comic book.

Yep, books like that are more about the history than price.

 

On 1/28/2020 at 10:58 AM, N e r V said:

There’s that rare pesky variant of Funnies on Parade too. Toy World Funnies Wanamaker giveaway. 

This actually brings up a very good point as to why prices on books like these have gone absolutely nowhere over the decades. 

I still remembered when Overstreet first came up with a brand new section in his price guide for Promotional Comics / Giveaways some 20 years ago and then added in books like this Toy World Funnies and other similar promotional comics into his guide.  Unfortunately, he also decided to take both Funnies on Parade and Famous Funnies Carnival of Comics out from the main section of the price guide and moved both of them into this new Giveaway section of the guide.  I knew right away that this would be like applying the hammer of doom and would signal the death knell for both of these books going forward.    

Needless to say, not surprisingly and actually totally expected, while the later Famous Funnies Series 1 and the rest of the 218-issue Famous Funnies run continued to moved steadily upwards for a Platinum Age book during the past 20 years, the two earlier but now banished Funnies on Parade and Carnival of Comics went absolutely nowhere from a guide valuation point of view over the same time frame.  To be more precise, they actually moved down in mid-grade guide valuation with the Funnies on Parade going down marginally, while the Carnival of Comics took a much more dramatic 40% downward hit.  

By moving them out from the main section of the price guide, this action probably left a lot of collectors with the impression that they were no longer being viewed as true comic books in the traditional sense of the word, but in the less desirable light of giveaways or premiums.  Interesting to note that although the Heritage archives does indicate relatively higher grade copies of Carnival of Comics selling for discounts to then guide back about 7 years ago, there have been 5 more recent sales of this book during the past 2 years with all 5 of them sold at a premium to their guide prices.  It would be interesting to see how a Funnies on Parade would do in today's current marketplace since the HA archives indicates the last 3 sales of this book took place back in 2014, with all 3 of them going for either large premiums or multiples to guide.  I imagine it's only a matter of time until another one comes back out into the marketplace and we get a much more accurate idea of what its current valuation really should be.    

Edited January 30, 2020 by lou_fine

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 1/28/2020 at 11:27 PM, lou_fine said:

Well, going through some of these old threads from way back when, it seems a lot of boardies preferred  to look at rarity in terms of mainstream comic books that made it all the way through the regular distribution channels and hence, available for sale to the general public.  

If so, I found an old thread that was started from way back in 2004 with 23 pages of discussion    on rare comic books spanning a multi-year time period, as it didn't have its last post until 2010:    

 

It’s funny to read what the thinking was 16 years ago. The thinking today is so different.

I love reading these old posts and wondering where those posters are today. Are they still filled with passion for the funny books, or did they just wake up one day and the thrill was gone?

Edited January 30, 2020 by GreatCaesarsGhost

[RockMyAmadeus]

10 hours ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

It’s funny to read what the thinking was 16 years ago. The thinking today is so different.

I love reading these old posts and wondering where those posters are today. Are they still filled with passion for the funny books, or did they just wake up one day and the thrill was gone?

Some of them have died.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

22 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Some of them have died.

I look at some of the older profiles, and when I see they haven’t posted in years, I wonder about that. I guess they live on thru their posts

[RockMyAmadeus]

11 minutes ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

I look at some of the older profiles, and when I see they haven’t posted in years, I wonder about that. I guess they live on thru their posts

I sometimes look at profiles of old friends who haven't posted in years. Some I know have died, like Beau (can't believe it's been so long)

I actually try not to do that very often, because it fills me with a deep, empty sadness, like standing on the shore of an endless ocean crashing on an endless non-descript beach, with nothing but a cover of grey overhead. It makes it hard to read through old threads.

Edited January 30, 2020 by RockMyAmadeus

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

41 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I sometimes look at profiles of old friends who haven't posted in years. Some I know have died, like Beau (can't believe it's been so long)

I actually try not to do that very often, because it fills me with a deep, empty sadness, like standing on the shore of an endless ocean crashing on an endless non-descript beach, with nothing but a cover of grey overhead. It makes it hard to read through old threads.

You’ve got poetry in your soul

[N e r V]

21 hours ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

I look at some of the older profiles, and when I see they haven’t posted in years, I wonder about that. I guess they live on thru their posts

 

20 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I sometimes look at profiles of old friends who haven't posted in years. Some I know have died, like Beau (can't believe it's been so long)

I actually try not to do that very often, because it fills me with a deep, empty sadness, like standing on the shore of an endless ocean crashing on an endless non-descript beach, with nothing but a cover of grey overhead. It makes it hard to read through old threads.

You both beat me here in my current form by about 6 years but since I started posting from 2011 on it never occurred to me about that many posters dying. Yes I’ve heard of a few but I mostly wrote off some to the CGC boards change a few years ago with some getting new names and others just “dropping out”. Strangely death didn’t figure into my thinking of where they have gone until this thread. I guess if a message board exists long enough it will see this kind of thing happening...

[lou_fine]

On 1/30/2020 at 2:18 AM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

It’s funny to read what the thinking was 16 years ago. The thinking today is so different.

From your point of view, what's the major difference in thinking for boardies posting here 16 years ago as compared to their thinking today?  

[lou_fine]

On 1/30/2020 at 12:36 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

On 1/30/2020 at 2:18 AM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

I love reading these old posts and wondering where those posters are today. Are they still filled with passion for the funny books, or did they just wake up one day and the thrill was gone?

Some of them have died.

Although there have certainly been a few who have sadly passed away, I feel the 2 major reasons for these board members not posting anymore are as follows:

1)  Many are no longer actively collecting anymore and probably see no reason to post on these boards any longer.  Especailly with respect to many of the CGC generation of speculators in the BA to MA collecting ages who were just here for a short period of time in an attempt to hopefully make some fast and easy money; and

2)  I still feel that we lost a significant number of boardies that used to post here prior to the major revamp with the CGC boards and so many of them just didn't bother to contact the CGC Mods to facilitate their migration over to the new boards.  Personally, I myself didn't both to do it for the first couple of months, but once they got everything sorted out, I did and actually like the new boards since it allows me to keep better check of what posts I have read or not.  I will admit that the copy and pasting of posts across various pages definitely worked a lot easier on the old boards though.  Oh well, you really can't expect to have everything though.  

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

35 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

From your point of view, what's the major difference in thinking for boardies posting here 16 years ago as compared to their thinking today?  

The books they thought were rare then we now know aren’t. Like All Winners 19, for instance 

[lou_fine]

12 minutes ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

49 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

From your point of view, what's the major difference in thinking for boardies posting here 16 years ago as compared to their thinking today?  

The books they thought were rare then we now know aren’t. Like All Winners 19, for instance 

And yet, some of them still truly are, with books such as New Adventure #26, #27, New Comics 2, KDF #10, Wow #2, etc.    

 Well, at least still up to this current point in time so far after 16 long years, although this could change going forward...........but most probably not.  

Edited February 1, 2020 by lou_fine

[RockMyAmadeus]

7 hours ago, N e r V said:

 

You both beat me here in my current form by about 6 years but since I started posting from 2011 on it never occurred to me about that many posters dying. Yes I’ve heard of a few but I mostly wrote off some to the CGC boards change a few years ago with some getting new names and others just “dropping out”. Strangely death didn’t figure into my thinking of where they have gone until this thread. I guess if a message board exists long enough it will see this kind of thing happening...

The community just turned 18. Old enough to 

[Ameri]

Such great books. Famous Funnies 1 with the very cool wraparound cover