Rarest Bronze Age Comic? 3 3

[David Buck]

from a DC promo comic perspective I'd suggest that "Aquateers Meet the Superfriends" is scarcer than the Warlord mini comic - seen the latter for sale several times over the years, indeed when I bought my copy sealed with the Arak figure the ebay seller was in the process of selling a handful all with old shop price stickers on; but for Aquateers, other than the copy I bought I think I may have seen 1 other on ebay. 

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by David Buck

[sfcityduck]

On 8/5/2022 at 6:33 PM, David Buck said:

from a DC promo comic perspective I'd suggest that "Aquateers Meet the Superfriends" is scarcer than the Warlord mini comic - seen the latter for sale several times over the years, indeed when I bought my copy sealed with the Arak figure the ebay seller was in the process of selling a handful all with old shop price stickers on; but for Aquateers, other than the copy I bought I think I may have seen 1 other on ebay. 

 

You might be right.  This is a new one for me.  The problem with things like this and warlord is that the copies still in with the toy don’t get cgc’d. so who can tell how many there are?

[sfcityduck]

On 8/5/2022 at 3:32 PM, buttock said:

Where does "Blackman" fit in?  There are 10 on the census, but it's a 4 figure book and pretty sought after.  

Another new one for me. Looks fanzines to me, but there are at least three on eBay right now.

[Warlord]

On 8/5/2022 at 3:03 PM, sfcityduck said:

Well, based on what I've seen on this thread, the top candidates for giveaways are the Warlord mini and Supergear - but Supergear was unauthorized (but still very cool) so I'm going with Warlord mini.

 

Warlord for the win! 

[Humpty-Dumpty]

Interesting thread. I was buying comics off the stands starting in the mid 60s and really got into collecting in the late 60s. Never heard of that Black Hole comic nor Dennis the Menace Bible comic. All these years later, still learning about an age of comics where I thought I had seen it all. This is the stuff that still makes the hobby fun for me, even though I no longer collect, and I own relatively very few comics anymore.

Related, but a little off subject, any guesses as to the rarest mainstream superhero comic from the seventies? I myself have not a clue. Probably unanswerable?

[sfcityduck]

On 8/8/2022 at 2:05 PM, Humpty-Dumpty said:

Related, but a little off subject, any guesses as to the rarest mainstream superhero comic from the seventies? I myself have not a clue. Probably unanswerable?

Any normal superhero comic from Marvel and DC in the 70s would not be "rare."

Some type of "variant" could be rare - a $.35 price variant maybe/

And maybe there is an authorized superhero giveaway that falls into the rare category from the 70s, but I can't think of what it would be now that I've learned Supergear was unauthorized. 

Maybe also an educational comic. I can think of ones I can't find on the census, but they are plentiful on eBay, so looks can be deceptive.

[Chaykin Stevens]

GCD says of the Whitman variant of DC Comics Presents #22: "This is an exceedingly rare variant, only rumored to even exist at all until 2012 when some copies started surfacing. There are less than ten known extant copies."

Edited August 9, 2022 by Chaykin Stevens

[Lazyboy]

On 8/9/2022 at 1:11 PM, Chaykin Stevens said:

GCD says of the Whitman variant of DC Comics Presents #22: "This is an exceedingly rare variant, only rumored to even exist at all until 2012 when some copies started surfacing. There are less than ten known extant copies."

 

There are 35 just on the CGC Census now. Sure, it's probably still pretty rare, but this illustrates the foolishness of overestimating rarity just because you can't see something during a particular moment in time. It all depends on who's looking for something and whether they're looking where it's located.

[sfcityduck]

On 8/9/2022 at 12:16 PM, Lazyboy said:

It all depends on who's looking for something and whether they're looking where it's located.

That is a great point for variants with only regional distribution like some of the price variants. Someone should make a variant or rare comic map!

[OtherEric]

I've been enjoying this thread immensely, even if I don't have much to contribute.

My personal theory on why the DC Comics Presents #22 seemed so rare for so long is because it doesn't have the Whitman in the DC logo like most of the DC Whitman variants.  Added to the fact that's it's one of the June 1980 Whitmans that are already hard to find, and how little people valued the Whitman variants for so long, and you had a recipe for an undiscovered book.

There's some anecdotal evidence that the June 1980 Whitman books were not actually distributed in the US, they seem to turn up from Canada far more frequently.

[Lazyboy]

On 8/10/2022 at 9:27 AM, sfcityduck said:

That is a great point for variants with only regional distribution like some of the price variants. Someone should make a variant or rare comic map!

No, it's a great point in general. Sure, you'll find more Canadian Newsstands in Canada, but that's not really what I meant. What is out there won't change that much over time (though attrition is reality), but what is available and what is highly visible can both vary wildly.

[sfcityduck]

On 8/10/2022 at 12:23 PM, Lazyboy said:

What is out there won't change that much over time (though attrition is reality), but what is available and what is highly visible can both vary wildly.

I agree, but if you are looking for a regional variant from the mid-1970s, you'll be more likely to find it if you seek out collectors in the right geography of a certain age.

[Lazyboy]

On 8/10/2022 at 5:10 PM, sfcityduck said:

I agree, but if you are looking for a regional variant from the mid-1970s, you'll be more likely to find it if you seek out collectors in the right geography of a certain age.

Of course.

[Browns81]

What makes Dennis the Menace and the Bible Kids no. 10 in particular a desirable book?  Printing scarcity?

[sfcityduck]

On 8/13/2022 at 6:37 AM, Browns81 said:

What makes Dennis the Menace and the Bible Kids no. 10 in particular a desirable book?  Printing scarcity?

There is a surprisingly passionate group of Dennis collectors:

But for DTMATBK 10 it is mostly just the extreme difficulty and being in an exclusive club. That’s true of all really rare comics.

Edited August 13, 2022 by sfcityduck

[jjonahjameson11]

I always thought Ronald McDonald Comics #4 had a very low print run, and Overstreet had questioned its existence by listing it in the Guide with a question mark.

in fact, it wasn’t until the early days of CGC, when I submitted my copy, that Overstreet removed the question mark from the listing.

By the way, CGC held onto my copy for 18 months, waiting for another copy to be submitted in order to verify that the book was legit.

For holding onto my book for so long, CGC apologized for the delay and gave me 5 free slabs the next time I submitted books

[sfcityduck]

On 8/26/2022 at 5:34 AM, jjonahjameson11 said:

I always thought Ronald McDonald Comics #4 had a very low print run, and Overstreet had questioned its existence by listing it in the Guide with a question mark.

in fact, it wasn’t until the early days of CGC, when I submitted my copy, that Overstreet removed the question mark from the listing.

By the way, CGC held onto my copy for 18 months, waiting for another copy to be submitted in order to verify that the book was legit.

For holding onto my book for so long, CGC apologized for the delay and gave me 5 free slabs the next time I submitted books

Cool story.  Never heard of that series. There were two no. 4s on eBay, but I bought one (with 1 and 3 also).  The other is up for auction.  

[jjonahjameson11]

On 9/1/2022 at 6:59 PM, sfcityduck said:

Cool story.  Never heard of that series. There were two no. 4s on eBay, but I bought one (with 1 and 3 also).  The other is up for auction.  

Does anyone have access to census data for Ronald McDonald #4?

[sfcityduck]

On 9/1/2022 at 5:36 PM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Does anyone have access to census data for Ronald McDonald #4?

3 copies - highest is an 8.0.  

[OtherEric]

As long as we're discussing Ronald McDonald comics... does anybody know if the Sheldon Mayer work for McDonalds was ever actually published somewhere?  I can find the original art online, but no reference to where it was published, if it ever was.

Also, here's some Sheldon Mayer art of French Fries (I think)... it's on the bottom of the original preliminary sketch I own that I take my avatar from, so it's definitely Mayer.  I've just never been 100% certain it's meant to be french fries.