How many books are still in existence? 1 1

[MattTheDuck]

I'm operating under the assumption that, no matter how many were printed, there is some non-zero amount of reduction in total extant copies of many Golden or Silver Age comics every year.  Fires, floods, moms - books are being destroyed all the time.

Edited August 5, 2022 by MattTheDuck

[shadroch]

I would guess more previously unknown GA books are found each year than are destroyed or damaged.

[Yale Stewart]

On 8/5/2022 at 1:00 PM, MattTheDuck said:

I'm operating under the assumption that, no matter how many were printed, there is some non-zero amount of reduction in total extant copies of many Golden or Silver Age comics every year.  Fires, floods, moms - books are being destroyed all the time.

Not to mention the book burnings of the SOTI era. Golden Age in particular was literally actively intentionally destroyed for a period.

[drmccoy74]

Years ago I was doing a run on Wonder Woman. If I went by cgc census WW 61 could possibly be the rarest issue. I still have a raw copy but if it got hot for some reason it would fly out of many personal collections and stop being "rare" just like WW 98 and WW 105 a few years back.

[drmccoy74]

A friend of mine who is a Golden Age dealer and Superman aficionado thinks the same thing on books like Action Comics 12 which is extremely rare he believes many copies exist in personal collections making it less rare. Who knows? Maybe DC's Night Force will get a movie one day and 10's of thousands of issues will surface from personal collections and bargain bins?

[KirbyTown]

Interesting and relevant article by @valiantman:

https://comics.gpanalysis.com/news/2020/what-can-the-cgc-census-tell-us-about-all-those-ungraded-comics

 

[valiantman]

On 8/10/2022 at 4:05 AM, KirbyTown said:

Interesting and relevant article by @valiantman:

https://comics.gpanalysis.com/news/2020/what-can-the-cgc-census-tell-us-about-all-those-ungraded-comics

 

I'd be interested in @Qalyar's evaluation of my 2020 article, in light of his post on page 1.

The article linked above is part of a series. The Golden Age (part 4) is evaluated here: https://comics.gpanalysis.com/news/2020/from-action-comics-1-to-early-silver-age-whats-worth-slabbing-in-poor-condition

These articles focus more on surviving grade distributions, so that you can compare what is on the CGC Census to what "should be" out there in the world. 

Whatever's missing from the CGC census is potentially a good estimate for how many more are likely to exist (and in what grades).

Edited August 10, 2022 by valiantman

[KirbyTown]

On 8/10/2022 at 10:15 AM, valiantman said:

I'd be interested in @Qalyar's evaluation of my 2020 article, in light of his post on page 1.

The article linked above is part of a series. The Golden Age (part 4) is evaluated here: https://comics.gpanalysis.com/news/2020/from-action-comics-1-to-early-silver-age-whats-worth-slabbing-in-poor-condition

These articles focus more on surviving grade distributions, so that you can compare what is on the CGC Census to what "should be" out there in the world. 

Whatever's missing from the CGC census is potentially a good estimate for how many more are likely to exist (and in what grades).

While you're here, can you explain how NG, PG, and CVR are tracked on the census if at all? Thanks!

[valiantman]

On 8/10/2022 at 10:40 AM, KirbyTown said:

While you're here, can you explain how NG, PG, and CVR are tracked on the census if at all? Thanks!

Not tracked at all.