Interesting Estimates From An Older Overstreet 1 1

[PopKulture]

As is my habit, I was recently revisiting an old Overstreet annual and noted the estimates they gave back then for both total copies in existence as well as those in near mint or mint. The annual in question, the 21st edition, also had this very compelling list of key books up to 1943 and rated them from none to six stars for the most important books. While that list would make great fodder for another topic, it’s the estimates I thought might prove interesting to compare to todays CGC census numbers and see how close they came.

If somebody would care to contrast these examples to the census data, I’d be appreciative:

Action 1 -  100 total copies, 4 in Nm/mint

All-American 16 -  50 total, 3 in Nm/m

All-Star 3 - 150 total with 6 nm/m

All-Star 8 -  150 total with 6 nm/m

Adventure 40 - 70 total and 3 nm/m

Amazing Fantasy 15 -  1400 total with 45 mint

Batman 1 -  300 total with 16 nm/m

Captain America 1 -  180 total with 8 nm/m

Detective 27 -  100 total with 3 nm/m

Famous Funnies 1 - 30 total with 2 nm/m

Fantastic Four 1 -  1400 total with 65 nm/m

Green Lantern 1 -  200 total with 8 nm/m

Human Torch 2(1) - 190 total with 10 nm/m 

Marvel Comics 1 -  100 total with 5 nm/m

More Fun 52 -  70 total with 3 nm/m

Pep 22 -  150 total with 7 nm/m

Superboy 1 -  275 total with 15 nm/m

Superman 1 -  190 total with 3 nm/m

Tales of Suspense 39 -  2100 total with 55 nm/m

Walt Disney Comics and Stories 1 -  245 total with 12 nm/m

Whiz 1 -  135 total with 4 nm/m

X-Men 1 -  1900 total with 60 nm/m 

Edited April 30, 2023 by PopKulture

[buttock]

The SA key numbers are waaaaay off.  There are around 6000 X-Men 1s certified.  

[Robot Man]

The GA examples sound reasonable. By those numbers, seems like CC has sold almost a quarter of the Action #1’s to date.

[PopKulture]

On 4/30/2023 at 10:59 AM, buttock said:

The SA key numbers are waaaaay off.  There are around 6000 X-Men 1s certified.  

I thought the silver age were very suspect as I perused them. Even if some of those 6000 are CPR candidates which were double counted when people didn’t send in the label, I’m sure there are that many still raw in people’s collections, putting the number closer to 10,000. 

For books that weren’t yet thirty years old at the time, they seem to have missed the mark with the silver age estimates.

[Aman619]

interesting guesswork at the time.  At least the relative numbers (book to book) seem pretty accurate for the GA books, better on some books listed than others.  And what was thought or known to be NM/M back then really was ANY really nice copy.  Todays grading has exposed many of them to be much lower than what we call NM/M (9.6) today, like the MH Superman 1.  To the eye then and now it's a NM/M condition, but by CGC standards the flaws told a different story.   Action 1 already has 2 graded 9.0s and the MH copy. Prob another out there. Tec 27 we have the 9.2 and the Allentown... maybe the 3rd was the MH but its 'only' an 8.5.  Surprising they thought there are 3 Superman 1s though.  There's the dentist copy, the MH (now an 8.5... which would b the third copy?   BangZoom?  Probably another in a collection -- somewhere that Bob knew of, right?   And 16 NM/M Batman #1s?  That speaks to the feeling that it was a always a 'common' book.. I doubt there are half that many copies down to say 8.5.

[Lazyboy]

People making low guesses without considering how big the world really is and without actually understanding how much they can't see? Why does this remind me of something more current?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/3/2023 at 8:04 PM, Lazyboy said:

People making low guesses without considering how big the world really is and without actually understanding how much they can't see? Why does this remind me of something more current?

 

[buttock]

On 5/1/2023 at 7:56 PM, Aman619 said:

interesting guesswork at the time.  At least the relative numbers (book to book) seem pretty accurate for the GA books, better on some books listed than others.  And what was thought or known to be NM/M back then really was ANY really nice copy.  Todays grading has exposed many of them to be much lower than what we call NM/M (9.6) today, like the MH Superman 1.  To the eye then and now it's a NM/M condition, but by CGC standards the flaws told a different story.   Action 1 already has 2 graded 9.0s and the MH copy. Prob another out there. Tec 27 we have the 9.2 and the Allentown... maybe the 3rd was the MH but its 'only' an 8.5.  Surprising they thought there are 3 Superman 1s though.  There's the dentist copy, the MH (now an 8.5... which would b the third copy?   BangZoom?  Probably another in a collection -- somewhere that Bob knew of, right?   And 16 NM/M Batman #1s?  That speaks to the feeling that it was a always a 'common' book.. I doubt there are half that many copies down to say 8.5.

The most interesting GA estimate to me is Cap 1 being so much fewer than Bat 1.  Going back to the early 90s everyone I spoke with always considered them about the same in terms of scarcity, with Cap 1 being more common if anything.