They're Still Out There! 22 22

[Mmehdy]

33 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

There was no TOT #1. There was only one VOH #1. The books were sold in sets with as many sets as the could put together. The stray copies were then sold individually. Surprisingly, there were many we consider “keys” still left over. Priced the same as the surrounding issues. I wish I’d bought more but was a young father trying to support a family and paying for my house. 

As I recall at the SDCC comic con panel that with Gaines daughter and Al Feldstien or she was in attendance, she might be the owner of the held back set, as I rember Bill did not care about the top condition, he took the lesser of the copies. What a amazing thing to do back then.

[Robot Man]

Found a very old photo of a FH "upgrade". I had the copy on the left and found the one on the right. Grade wise, low and probably the same but one of them just pops. I have since upgraded a few grades but made sure the color came with the structural grade. 

[Robot Man]

2 minutes ago, Mmehdy said:

As I recall at the SDCC comic con panel that with Gaines daughter and Al Feldstien or she was in attendance, she might be the owner of the held back set, as I rember Bill did not care about the top condition, he took the lesser of the copies. What a amazing thing to do back then.

I believe that is true. Yeah, Bill was a publisher not a collector. MAD set him up well for life. Money wasn't his driving force in life. He wanted just why he put them away in the first place, file copies. There are also EC office bound copies. No idea where they are now. 

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

4 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Edgar Church was probably a weird fellow. Obsessive and compulsive for sure. He might not have even read them.

As I understand it, speaking from memory from something I read years ago, Church was some sort of graphic designer, an artist in his own right. He didn't read the books but started buying them as examples of other artists work. When he crossed over the line from interested peer to compulsive hoarder may never be known.

[N e r V]

3 hours ago, adamstrange said:

Edgar Church wanted to be a comic book artist. 

Just my opinion but most of his art at best I thought was so so. A lot of it I just didn’t care for. Some of it had that vintage “underground” feel to me. When I took art in college there were any number of students IMO that were far above his work but I guess he did ok and made a living out of it so can’t be hard on anyone who can make a living on art. There’s a reason they’re called starving artists after all…

 

 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by N e r V

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

3 minutes ago, N e r V said:

3 hours ago, adamstrange said:

Edgar Church wanted to be a comic book artist. 

Just my opinion but most of his art at best I thought was so so.

Yep, he wasn't great. Maybe that's why he bought comic books. Inspiration and aspiration?

[N e r V]

5 minutes ago, G G ® ™ said:

As I understand it, speaking from memory from something I read years ago, Church was some sort of graphic designer, an artist in his own right. He didn't read the books but started buying them as examples of other artists work. When he crossed over the line from interested peer to compulsive hoarder may never be known.

He died to soon. Another decade or two he would have been the biggest comic dealer on the planet. 

[N e r V]

29 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

Found a very old photo of a FH "upgrade". I had the copy on the left and found the one on the right. Grade wise, low and probably the same but one of them just pops. I have since upgraded a few grades but made sure the color came with the structural grade. 

I (stupidly) took a shot without scans before on some lower priced books from Metro and the like but quickly stopped doing that because of what you posted above with the color fade. 
I have some books like Menace #5 which at times has some fade on the covers lettering but I overlook it on that one because I love the cover so much and the rest is pretty solid. With Fiction House though the fade looks like an entirely different color from the original…

[Tri-Color Brian]

Back in the 90s (before I found this copy) I ordered one of these from Metro and had to send it back.  Structurally it was nice, but the cover was a faded, ugly yellow...

A few months later I got this copy somewhere.  The days before scans were a real crapshoot...

[tth2]

7 hours ago, jimjum12 said:

I place far too much intrinsic value on wrap, cut, gloss, color strike, for a numerical grade that focuses on structure to decide the title of "Best In The World". Let's take Fiction House, for example, I'd take one of Flex's color strike freaks in 9.4 over a 9.6 or 9.8 that structures better but fails in that area.... all day every day.  It's about more than just what best fits through the cull ring. ...And gloss, don't get me started ... full gloss, to me, is at least a grade in itself... unless gloss is common for the book...so many things to consider. With absolutes we find ourselves drifting into those "Ginger vs. Mary Ann" or "Betty vs. Wilma" debates. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) 

I prefer a book that has great structure and great color strike/gloss.

[Timely]

Here is the only Edgar Church sci-fi piece I’ve ever seen. 1910.

[VintageComics]

On 5/13/2021 at 1:26 PM, lou_fine said:

In this case, can you please provide us all with a phone pic of this CGC 8.5 graded copy of Subby 23 AD (After Destruction) because this is indeed ALL THAT MINUS THE "MOUSE CHEW" ON THE BOTOM:    

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/sub-mariner-comics-23-the-promise-collection-pedigree-timely-1947-cgc-vf-85-off-white-to-white-pages/p/7244-175249.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

 

 

With all of the increased fees that's now being charged for their services, I hope they can use some of it to pony up the cash to hire a real professional exterminator because that "rodent infestation" problem they seem to be having down at CCS appears to be getting totally out of control here.  

 

On 5/13/2021 at 1:31 PM, Bronty said:

jeez that mouse chew is pretty bad.   That's a 7.0 at that point, I don't care how fresh the rest of the book is.

 

On 5/13/2021 at 1:58 PM, october said:

Totally normal. I've seen lots of 8.5's where a rat gnawed part of the book off. Sure. Nothing to see here.

 

Sorry, but that's not even a 7.0

That would be a VG range book at best if I was grading it. Maybe a VG/F tops.

Edited May 22, 2021 by VintageComics

[VintageComics]

On 5/15/2021 at 1:34 PM, N e r V said:

I’ve never found Overstreet or anyone else to have clear cut grading standards that weren’t down to how different people interpret them. It’s art not science.

Correct. And there's a range of interpretation even within CGC.

 

[Crowzilla]

On 5/19/2021 at 2:27 PM, sfcityduck said:

  Scary thing is for that buyer is that Hariri could dump two better copies on the market if he loses interest in comics, and there are other very nice copies that might hit 8.5 out there. 

Man, he had the perfect opportunity to have a 9.0 Cavill SS Action #1.

 

[VintageComics]

On 5/16/2021 at 6:02 PM, Sarg said:

Granted, the image on the left by Feldstein is 2-3 years after the image on the right, but the face, eyebrows, lips, head, body, and folds are very similar. They are not the way that Baker drew eyes, lips, heads, breasts, bodies, and folds. Fingers? Yes, Al's fingers are different, but so are Matt's when they are properly inked (see Seven Seas #4 for example). Many Iger shop covers and panels completely butcher people's fingers. 

 

If you want to REALLY nitpick, the image on the left looks like two different artists drew the hands.

The hand on the left looks like something Simon and Kirby would have done. Very un-feminine. The hand on the right looks very Bakeresque and feminine.

Artists often corrected things among each other and it's entirely possible there is more than one (or even two) artists on any given image.

We'll probably never know the truth at this point.

[lou_fine]

7 hours ago, N e r V said:

7 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Well, if you like both Betty and Veronica, then how about this clip from Riverdale with "naughty" Betty singing Mad World:    

 

Expand  

I can’t stand that song. They played it all the time I was in Arkham…

Well, it's all about wholesome homebody Betty being not quite so wholesome and if you are locked up in Arkham, I can certainly see why YOU would be so agitated while watching and listening to this song as "performed" by our dear sweet Betty.  

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

1 hour ago, Crowzilla said:

Man, he had the perfect opportunity to have a 9.0 Cavill SS Action #1.

 

[lou_fine]

13 minutes ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Actually, shouldn't this book here be properly labeled as Superman Masterpiece Edition from 1999 and not Superman #1 from 1939?  

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

39 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Actually, shouldn't this book here be properly labeled as Superman Masterpiece Edition from 1999 and not Superman #1 from 1939?  

Yes. That was discussed a bit in a few different threads when it popped up on ebay. CGC has changed the census as originally it did show as the 1939 like the label. Do not know if whoever ended up with it had the label corrected.  

[lou_fine]

23 minutes ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

Actually, shouldn't this book here be properly labeled as Superman Masterpiece Edition from 1999 and not Superman #1 from 1939?  

Yes. That was discussed a bit in a few different threads when it popped up on ebay. CGC has changed the census as originally it did show as the 1939 like the label. Do not know if whoever ended up with it had the label corrected.  

Yeah, not sure why CGC would label the book like this because if somebody nefarious got a hold of the slab, they could very easily use it to perpetrate a scam or fraud on some unsupsecting buyer who doesn't really know any better.  Especially if CGC had also listed it in their Census Population Report incorrectly as the original Superman 1 from 1939.