PBA galleries auctioneers new collection 40000+ Every DC 9 9

[adamstrange]

On 7/14/2023 at 12:41 PM, Dr. Love said:

PBA's last auction in March had 335 lots

Do you know about how many books that represents?

At this pace, are we looking at months or years for the auctions to complete?

Edited July 14, 2023 by adamstrange

[Point Five]

On 7/14/2023 at 2:51 PM, adamstrange said:

Do you know about how many books that represents?

At this pace, are we looking at months or years for the auctions to complete?

I did wonder that as well. Ivan of PBA seems like a great guy and an enthusiastic collector -- I'm happy for them that they made the deal. But I'm curious if they have the staff and resources (for grading/descriptions, processing, packing etc etc) for what seems like a much more massive undertaking than their normal fare.

 

[action1kid]

I had a double Action 2 in 1999.fair condition, unrestored. Pick up from D.A

 

[sfcityduck]

On 7/14/2023 at 2:32 PM, Point Five said:

I did wonder that as well. Ivan of PBA seems like a great guy and an enthusiastic collector -- I'm happy for them that they made the deal. But I'm curious if they have the staff and resources (for grading/descriptions, processing, packing etc etc) for what seems like a much more massive undertaking than their normal fare.

 

I think that's a really good question.  I follow their non-comic auctions, and they generally top out around 500 or so lots.  So my assumption is that we're going to see a LOT of multiple book lots in auctions with about 500 lots. That would keep the burden for processing, packing, etc. constant. The increased burden is going to be for the grading/descriptions.

[sfcityduck]

On 7/14/2023 at 11:51 AM, adamstrange said:

Do you know about how many books that represents?

At this pace, are we looking at months or years for the auctions to complete?

For their March auction of 334 or so lots, almost a third were multi-book lots with some lots as small as two books and some lots as large as 31 books or more. 

For 40,000 books I think its a safe bet it will be years not months.  After all, Promise was 5,000 books and took how long?

[sfcityduck]

Here's an example of a 29 book lot description from PBA (Ivan's descriptions can be quite refreshing):

Item Details

Title: ROMANCE COMICS: Lot of 29 Love Comics, Various Publishers

Place Published:
Publisher:Various Publishers
Date Published: Late 1940s-early 1950s
Description:

Big stack of low-grade romance mags to while away those lonely hours. Generally Good- (1.8) to Good+ (2.5), with outliers up to 3.5, possibly even a 4.0 or two. Most if not all with spine roll and staple rust. Not vetted for clipped coupons and such; caveat emptor (no other mags from this consignment have had clipped coupons or missing pages, so that's a good sign). Read these rags responsibly; PBA is not responsible for tear-stained pillows and broken hearts.

Complete Love vol.26, #4; Daring Confessions #5; Daring Love #15; Dear Lonely Heart Illustrated #3; First Love Illustrated #s 31 & 40; First Romance #s 3 & 4; Glamorous Romances #43; Golden West Love #1; Great Lover Romances #15; Heart Throbs #16; Hi-School Romance #15; Hollywood Confessions #1; Love and Marriage #4 (great Superior mag, too bad it's the crappiest-condition mag in the stack, 1.0 with chipped and detached cover); Love at First Sight #2; Love Lessons #3; Lovelorn #s 7, 20, 28 & 30; Lover's Lane #12; Love Stories of Mary Worth #1; Romantic Adventures #s 26 & 30; Romantic Hearts #7; Romantic Story #25; Search for Love #1; Sweet Love #3.

Edited July 14, 2023 by sfcityduck

[sfcityduck]

And here's the description by Ivan I missed, breaking my heart as I would have killed for this item. He or Grant Geisman borrowed from my Wigransky thread for the description; which I don't mind at all because the info on the RBCC ad and Cochran buying the ECs from Wigransky was a huge find.  The point being, Ivan's write-up is stellar!  The lot included not just Cochran's bound volume of EC's he bought from Wigransky, but also an AP photo of Wigransky. I'm still sad.  Contact me if you have this stuff and want to sell it.:

Description

Heading:
Author:
Title: WEIRD FANTASY Bound Volume, First Eleven Issues, 1950-1952 (RUSS COCHRAN Provenance)
Place Published:
Publisher:
Date Published:
Description:

EC. 1950-1952. Eleven consecutive issues of Weird Fantasy bound in heavy blue buckram cloth-over-boards, hand-sewn bindings, spine titled, ruled and decorated in gilt: "WEIRD FANTASY / 13 (1950) – 11," front panel personalized in gilt: "Russell V. Cochran." Contents comprise Weird Fantasy comic books #13 (1st issue, May-June, 1950) through #11 (Jan.-Feb., 1952). Comics are untrimmed and are in generally Very Fine condition, with no chips, tears or other conspicuous flaws aside from reduced cover gloss, a touch of light edgewear to some issues, and removed staples (as customary for bound periodicals). Off-white to cream pages. Very light handling marks and a light finger mark to cloth; gilt bright and unrubbed, binding solid. Sewn binding permits book to lay open flat with no loss at the gutter. Provenance: From a complete set of EC New Trend and New Direction titles bound to order by Russ Cochran in 1966.

In 1953, sixteen-year-old Russ Cochran and a few friends started a local chapter of the EC Fan-Addict Club. They were among the first of over 23,000 eventual nationwide members (Cochran's badge number was 181). As he recalled in a 1999 interview with Grant Geissman, "We were Chapter number three, which always kind of amazed me that we'd gotten in that early." (See Tales of Terror: The EC Companion, p. 277).

Cochran's devotion to EC was exclusive. Asked if he read any other comics after discovering the New Trend, he replied, "No, I stuck with ECs." When the Code and low sales kiboshed the New Trend and New Direction lines, Cochran gave up on comics altogether. "Gaines pulled the plug on the ECs at just about the same time that I was supposed to grow up and go to college, so that's basically what I did." Cochran put his ECs in a box, locked it and hid it away in his mother's attic. "That was kind of a strange thing to do with comic books, but I somehow knew that there would be a time in the future when I would want to revisit those books." Then came the encounter with Bill Gaines that reignited Cochran's passion for EC. As Cochran remembered it, "On sort of a whim I decided to write Bill Gaines. My letter said something to the effect that of the members of our chapter, EC Fan-Addict Club number three, one of us is a teacher, one is a minister, one is a doctor, one is a lawyer, and not an axe murderer in the bunch. I thought he would get a kick out of knowing that the influence of the ECs had not been detrimental to us. Anyway, he got a big kick out of the letter and wrote me back and said, 'Next time you're in New York... give me a call and we'll go to dinner.'" Gaines and Cochran became fast friends, and on one of their visits, when Cochran saw Gaines's complete bound set of original EC comic books, something clicked in his mind. He developed an overpowering desire to possess a complete hardcover EC library of his very own. This obsession would prove providential for future generations of Fan-Addicts.

The worn-out reading copies he'd saved for years wouldn't suffice for what Cochran had in mind. So he replaced them in one fell swoop with a mint condition set with outstanding provenance. Grant Geissman tells the story in a June, 2020 EC Fan-Addict Club FB post: "Russ Cochran, so the story goes, bought a complete EC collection in 1966 for $300 from an ad in the Rocket's Blast Comicollector. Then he had the set bound.... Russ had his ECs bound after seeing Bill Gaines's EC bound volumes." The ad appeared in RBCC #44, and the dealer who sold the set to Cochran was David Wigransky, who placed the ad under his nom de plume, David Jay. Wigransky was one of the first great comic book collectors, buying mint copies of thousands of books right off the stands and preserving them in outstanding condition.

In 1948, a teenaged Wigransky gained media attention for writing a letter of rebuttal to the Saturday Review of Literature in response to an article by anti-comics crusader Fredric Wertham. Much of the media attention focused on his huge collection of comics (which look impressively high-grade in surviving news photos). Wigransky has been called "the first great comic collector" due to the depth and breadth of his collection, his emphasis on high-grade condition, his comics advocacy, his involvement in proto-fandom, and his early interest in collecting original comic art. Wigransky, who became a motorbiker known as "Beer Dave" and authored several books before his death in 1969, is one of the most intriguing figures in early collectordom. The comics sold in the RBCC ad were acquired off the stands by Wigransky in the years directly following his brief brush with celebrity (the ad describes the comics as "MINT, as direct from newsstand"), lending another layer of interest to these fabled mags.

Roger Hill, Professor Emeritus of Fan-Addicts, recalls an early brush with Cochran's newly-acquired EC treasure trove (courtesy of Facebook's EC Fan-Addict Club): "I visited Russ during the summer of 1966, within a week or so after he had brought this collection of mint ECs. When I got there, Russ had just sent all the comics out to be bound. I couldn't believe my bad timing. I asked Russ if they were all really mint, as the ad had stated. And he said yes."

Russ Cochran's evangelical zeal for EC comics manifested in a desire to preserve the company's entire output in a handsome, permanent hardcover library. He went on to do just that in his Complete EC Library series, which has been described as "The very summit of modern comics publishing" (EC, MAD and Pre-Code HORROR Comics of the 1950s). Cochran's grand publishing achievement has definite roots in the bound EC volumes that he created in 1966, and there is a palpable continuity between the two projects (even the color-coding concept carries over: the blue bindings of the Weird Science and Weird Fantasy bound volumes match the blue bindings of the Complete EC Library versions). Mr. Cochran's bound ECs are a Rosetta Stone of his EC obsession, a blueprint to his future EC publishing achievements, a distillation of his legacy, and an embodiment of the positive impact that a dedicated, motivated fan can have on the world of comics.

[MrBedrock]

On 7/14/2023 at 2:37 PM, action1kid said:

I had a double Action 2 in 1999.fair condition, unrestored. Pick up from D.A

 

I sprained my ankle in 2003.

[MrBedrock]

On 7/14/2023 at 8:33 AM, sfcityduck said:

This is sort of a pointless discussion ...

 

[woowoo]

Did anyone ever think Ivan knows the seller personally  that's why he is selling them for him. 

[sfcityduck]

On 7/14/2023 at 4:30 PM, woowoo said:

Did anyone ever think Ivan knows the seller personally  that's why he is selling them for him. 

Yes.  See first post. Still, appreciate the Petaluma reality check. Did Ivan have a connection to Aardvark books? 

Edited July 15, 2023 by sfcityduck

[aardvark88]

On 7/14/2023 at 6:54 PM, sfcityduck said:

Yes. Did Ivan have a connection to Aardvark books? 

No, as I am in Canada but I did sell some of my personal GA and SA to Levine.

[woowoo]

On 7/14/2023 at 6:54 PM, sfcityduck said:

Yes.  See first post. Still, appreciate the Petaluma reality check. Did Ivan have a connection to Aardvark books? 

I have no idea.

Kind of been between Ian messaging me at 3am and Ivan messaging me guess I am the go between since Ian is keeping his word not to contact Ivan.

My understanding from Ian is he sold the books to party A with the understanding he got to keep them till he died.

Ivan had the job to give party A the value of the collection what he thought the books were worth this was before covid and off they went to Auction house at 10 million Ivan said was worth only 3 mil. 

Party A still went for the 10 million he was told they were worth.

Now party A gave Ivan the books to sell and permission to break the set up as he pleased.

Kind of confusing But I am in contact with both Ian who has been an honest guy to me and a friend with the most passion for comics I have ever seen and Ivan who has been one of the most honest social media friends I had very sad situation for Ian who still loves his books but made one mistake that cost him a 40 year collection which might be in low and restored grades but they are there.

Oh, I am in Rohnert Park 8 miles from Petaluma.

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by woowoo

[tth2]

On 7/15/2023 at 2:01 AM, sfcityduck said:

Heritage in 1976. It has made its meteoric rise by increasingly getting the best stuff in its areas of focus.

Have you looked at Heritage's weekly auctions, and their recently introduced showcase auctions?  They sell a LOT of drek, so I don't think that's a deal breaker for them at all.

Plus, as someone here already pointed out, if the terms of the deal are you get the Action 1, Tec 27, Batman 1, Superman 1, etc. only if you take everything else, Heritage (or any other rational auction house/dealer) would say "Okay".  

[tth2]

On 7/15/2023 at 2:30 AM, Bronty said:

The only consideration I've ever come up against with heritage is that the aggregate consignment must have a certain value (for consignment acceptance and/or to meet certain fee structure requirements).    They are MORE than happy to take a number of low value lots if the overall consignment is significant.   

 

Okay, so Heritage refused to take your Strikeforce Morituri run.  Time to get over it and move on! 

 

[Point Five]

On 7/14/2023 at 11:25 PM, tth2 said:

Okay, so Heritage refused to take your Strikeforce Morituri run.  Time to get over it and move on! 

 

I played hardball with my complete New Universe. The only way HA could get my Kickers Inc #1 was to take the entire lot.

 

[sfcityduck]

On 7/14/2023 at 7:22 PM, aardvark88 said:

No, as I am in Canada but I did sell some of my personal GA and SA to Levine.

Do you want to tell us how you hooked up with PBA?  Your choice obviously but I have liked your auctions.

Edited July 15, 2023 by sfcityduck

[lou_fine]

On 7/14/2023 at 2:37 PM, action1kid said:

I had a double Action 2 in 1999.fair condition, unrestored. Pick up from D.A

 

Yes, if you hang around with the big boys, you can sometimes benefit from the old saying that one person's garbage is another person's treasure.  

[action1kid]

On 7/14/2023 at 7:19 PM, MrBedrock said:

I sprained my ankle in 2003.

A worthy story for Double Action Rich.

[Ian_Levine]

On 7/14/2023 at 4:41 PM, buttock said:

So better to sell 40,000 books.  I guarantee you every auction house would want this collection.  

It was actually over 45,000