Custom Bound Golden Age Comics Volume - Why Would Someone Do This? 2 2

[LudaToke]

I was looking through an online comic shop that I purchase from and I saw this piece. It does have some interesting comics in it.  My question is, why would someone do this to these comics?  Haven't they effectively ruined them by assembling them like this?  The asking price for it is $5,500 CAD.

The item description is as follows: Contains Action Comics 92, Superman 39, Action Comics 24, More Fun Comics 55 (1st Appearance Dr Fate), Feature Comics 38, All American 23, Crack Comics 9, All American Comics 62, Detective Comics 100 & 104 (in that order). All books are complete with ads BUT all are missing Front & Back Covers. Most pages are firmly intact and in good shape - the first and last page of the book have the most wear. There is a piece missing at the top of the spine (pictured).

All of the comics are missing the front and back covers.  Were they missing to begin with or were they removed for the purpose of compiling them in this volume?  I can't wrap my head around it.  The pages on the inside look like they are decent shape for Golder Age comics.

[Get Marwood & I]

Maybe they were remaindered copies to start with. Or value wasn't uppermost in the compilers mind at the time, if they removed the covers. And the books may not have held the value they do now, at the time they were bound.

Nice though, isn't it   

[adamstrange]

On 3/24/2022 at 12:21 PM, LudaToke said:

My question is, why would someone do this to these comics? 

Because comics are cheap and a leather-bound book is both classy and easier to handle.

At time this was done, comics were probably cheap and they might even have been coverless copies.

[Robot Man]

Obviously bound by a fan when they wern’t worth anything except for reading. Covers might have been removed so they would all fit in the book.

I have many of these bound volumes and I kind of like them. Easy and convient to read and used to be cheap to buy.

Yeah a shame but they are what they are…

[fifties]

The value of comic books was nil back when they were being produced en masse.  Look at the grease pencil price from a retailer of used comics.

[Robot Man]

On 3/24/2022 at 10:31 AM, fifties said:

The value of comic books was nil back when they were being produced en masse.  Look at the grease pencil price from a retailer of used comics.

Wow, and I thought I was doing good when I paid a buck for my copy…

[Bookery]

On 3/24/2022 at 12:39 PM, Robot Man said:

Obviously bound by a fan when they wern’t worth anything except for reading. Covers might have been removed so they would all fit in the book.

I have many of these bound volumes and I kind of like them. Easy and convient to read and used to be cheap to buy.

Yeah a shame but they are what they are…

It could also have been done by a library.  They bound a lot of magazines back then, and there are plenty of bound volumes of pulps out there (with and without covers).  If you were a library, and you wanted some stuff for the kids, the individual comics would only hold up for a few readings, but a bound book would last through quite awhile (as it obviously did).  Mainstream magazines were bound into volume sets by the publishers for libraries.  But with this example, it's possible a given local library had its own bindery equipment.

[Point Five]

Bound volumes are an interesting topic and I'm not sure we've had a thread devoted to them before. There are quite a number of single issues from the 40s/50s that have been liberated from bound volumes, sometimes with glue marks or small bindery holes along the spine. I used to turn up my nose at such books, but I bought a bunch recently and am super pleased with them. They exhibit a really nice freshness from being preserved flat and intact for so long. (Not always the case -- storage conditions varied widely and some bound issues have brittle pages.) And obviously, you want bound issues to have their covers... the value should plunge if that's not the case.

From a collectability standpoint, the biggest problem with bound issues (whether still bound or loose) is that issues were often trimmed flush prior to being bound, some severely so. It's something to look out for with bound or formerly bound issues, as trimming is not always caught and disclosed in auctions.

 

[sfcityduck]

There are certain bound volumes that are total grails, though.  Bound volumes that I'd rather have than the separate comics.  Most notably, this:

According to Heritage: Dell Giant Comics Bound Volume - Signed by Carl Barks (Dell, 1949-51). Gorgeous copies of Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #1 and 2, and Walt Disney's Vacation Parade #1 and 2 comprise this bound volume from the collection of none other than Malcolm Willits, the Disney fan / collector widely credited for "discovering" the "Good Duck Artist" Carl Barks. In June 1960, Barks inscribed the bound volume, "It was nice to meet a fan after all the years of drawing and writing these comics." The bound volume is in exceptionally well-preserved condition inside and out. For the bound volume the comics have been trimmed, but otherwise appear high grade and with nice page quality of cream to off-white.  

My Comments:  Willits was the first person to learn Barks' name and address in 1957 (and he then went into the Army I think). The Spicer brothers learned Barks' name and address in 1960 and were the first to write Barks on April 11, 1960.  Willits had written Barks' publisher in 1957, but got no reply.  But, Willits was the first fan to visit Carl Barks in person in June 1960.  That volume is an incredibly significant bit of comic history documenting, in Barks' own hand, the moment when the "good duck artist" first met the nascent comic fandom then coalescing, and, most importantly, how much it meant to him to meet a fan!  That volume, my friends, is a foundational historical document regarding the birth of comic fandom and the ground zero for the then anonymous Carl Barks' becoming one of Disney's biggest legends.   Barks subsequently met John Spicer a few months later.  Barks appreciated his fans.  Barks chose to acknowledge his newfound fans with the June 1961 issue of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in a story titled Stranger Than Fiction. "I had already informed him of my abiding interest in science fiction, and of how my parents refused to allow it in the house when I was young, and how much I wished he’d do more stories with this theme [of science fiction],” Willits recalled.  “In this story, Donald is enraged to find his nephews reading a science fiction book and proceeds to throw it in the trash. The book in question is Ten Seconds to Mars by Spicer Willits. Naturally, the kids have the last laugh as what Donald considers to be science fiction turns out to be fact. As with many of Carl’s stories, a moral is involved, but even if it wasn’t, John and I were delighted in being immortalized, however briefly, in one of his works,” Willits said with a smile. 

A cool bound volume that's better than the separate comics?  ABSOLUTELY!

I also would not turn my nose up at Gardner Fox's bound volumes of All-Star Comics that he sold to Jerry Bails or even to the Dell file copy Four Color bound volumes.  

[Point Five]

^  Very cool! 

 

[LudaToke]

On 3/24/2022 at 4:42 PM, Bookery said:

It could also have been done by a library.  They bound a lot of magazines back then, and there are plenty of bound volumes of pulps out there (with and without covers).  If you were a library, and you wanted some stuff for the kids, the individual comics would only hold up for a few readings, but a bound book would last through quite awhile (as it obviously did).  Mainstream magazines were bound into volume sets by the publishers for libraries.  But with this example, it's possible a given local library had its own bindery equipment.

That is interesting and something I didn't consider (being a bound collection in a library).  It certainly has the look of an old library book and reminds of the styles of books that were on the shelves when I was in University in the 90s.

[sfcityduck]

Another super cool bound volume out there are these two volumes of Detective Comics 25-48:

Sure, you'd rather have these unbound.   But, these most likely were M.C. Gaines personal copies bound immediately after printing.  Which is why the covers look so fresh and free of creasing:

 

[sfcityduck]

Gardner Fox's All Stars are maybe the coolest of all association copies:

Not only owned by the storied writer of the JSA adventures (and so much more), but sold by him to a founding father of comic fandom Jerry Bails way back in 1959:

  

[sfcityduck]

Another cool association copy, Al Feldstein's personal run of MAD from 1-260 plus all the specials:

Bound for his reference fresh off the press.

[Robot Man]

On 3/24/2022 at 5:07 PM, Point Five said:

Bound volumes are an interesting topic and I'm not sure we've had a thread devoted to them before. There are quite a number of single issues from the 40s/50s that have been liberated from bound volumes, sometimes with glue marks or small bindery holes along the spine. I used to turn up my nose at such books, but I bought a bunch recently and am super pleased with them. They exhibit a really nice freshness from being preserved flat and intact for so long. (Not always the case -- storage conditions varied widely and some bound issues have brittle pages.) And obviously, you want bound issues to have their covers... the value should plunge if that's not the case.

From a collectability standpoint, the biggest problem with bound issues (whether still bound or loose) is that issues were often trimmed flush prior to being bound, some severely so. It's something to look out for with bound or formerly bound issues, as trimming is not always caught and disclosed in auctions.

 

Being a big fan of bound volumes. I started a thread about them a few years back. Sorry, but I don’t know how to search for it.

[OtherEric]

On 3/24/2022 at 6:00 PM, sfcityduck said:

the Dell file copy Four Color bound volumes.  

No idea where my LCS found the one they had.  Quite happy with the $50 they charged me for it, though:

[LudaToke]

On 3/24/2022 at 10:01 PM, OtherEric said:

No idea where my LCS found the one they had.  Quite happy with the $50 they charged me for it, though:

The colours on those are absolutely gorgeous.

[thunsicker]

On 3/24/2022 at 8:51 PM, Robot Man said:

Being a big fan of bound volumes. I started a thread about them a few years back. Sorry, but I don’t know how to search for it.

This one?

 

 

[Robot Man]

On 3/25/2022 at 10:21 AM, thunsicker said:

This one?

 

 

Yep and thanks. Lots of fun stuff in there too.

[LudaToke]

It seems this is far more common than I imagined.

What are the prices on some of these compiled volumes?  I have next to no experience with Golden Age books and pricing them is a mystery for me.  The book at the top of this thread is selling for $5,500 CAD which seems like A LOT to me but I revert back to my original point (I'm Jon Snow - I know nothing).