To Pedigree or not to Pedigree, That is the question? 0

[Sqeggs]

On 8/13/2023 at 9:29 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Regardless of the ped status of a book, a glaring erasure on a book looks worse than the writing that was erased.

It sounds like a good story; I'll have read more about it. I can understand the appeal to collectors who might have met Lamont or who were actively collecting when Lamont was located. I was probably on a long break from the hobby at that time.

The erasures on the Larsons were done pretty carefully and you typically have to look closely to see where the name originally was.

If you can find Jon Berk's article from the Comic Book Marketplace on his tracking down Larson, it's an excellent read. Probably in an issue from the early '90s. Berk had at least one and maybe two followup articles.  The fact that Berk got the whole story from Larson himself adds to the interest. Fairly rare to have someone interview the OO of a major ped. 

[adamstrange]

On 8/13/2023 at 9:40 PM, Sqeggs said:

The erasures on the Larsons were done pretty carefully and you typically have to look closely to see where the name originally was.

If you can find Jon Berk's article from the Comic Book Marketplace on his tracking down Larson, it's an excellent read. Probably in an issue from the early '90s. Berk had at least one and maybe two followup articles.  The fact that Berk got the whole story from Larson himself adds to the interest. Fairly rare to have someone interview the OO of a major ped. 

At least one of the articles is in Overstreet Comic Book Quarterly, as Gary had put CBM on hiatus while working for Overstreet.

[Cat-Man_America]

On 8/13/2023 at 5:49 PM, Sqeggs said:

As I mentioned in the thread on Jon Berk's passing, his two (I think or maybe it was three) articles on tracking down Lamont Larson are well worth reading. 

Thanks, I haven't had a chance to read through the in memoriam thread. I responded to Pat Calhoun's post about Jon's passing in the First Great Comic Collector thread last night ...or rather early this morning... before the Jon Berk thread was started. While I was aware Lamont Larson had been located and responded positively to fans it didn't immediately click that it was Jon Berk who'd done the research. I will read your comments and track down Jon's articles. 

I'll post my condolences in the Jon Berk thread too; several of the conversations in the FGCC thread got sidetracked or completely derailed. 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Cat-Man_America
Ale!

[Sauce Dog]

All things being equal, yes I would always want a pedigree over a regular and happily pay a premium for it. At the end of the day even the rarest of comics of every era have pretty large print runs, so having something that effectively makes my copy 'unique' is always important and trumps so many other possible features (such as newsstand, signatures etc)

This is specific though to books I'm not concerned about getting the highest grade to build a competitive set, in which case those I won't be holding out for pedigrees.

[MAR1979]

I've a bunch of Pedigrees mostly raw late Silver and early Bronze,  but I'm a buy the book not the flip (label) person.  While a Pedigree is nice to have I'll take the nicest presenting book every time.

That said the Pedigree's I have are a bunch of Oakland and Northland's an occasional Boston and a Mohawk or 2.  Can't say for sure how I'd feel if I had Golden Age Church's but I do know that will never be a situation I'm lucky enough to be in

 

[Cat-Man_America]

By my calculation about 1/3 of my collection is pedigrees, which isn't as shocking as it might at first seem when you consider my collecting interest is driven by grade. The last four purchases I've made were all pedigree books. I've sold a couple of pedigree books over the years as well, but most of my book sales and/or trades have been toward acquiring higher grades which tend to weigh more heavily in the direction of pedigree by virtue of grade. I've purchased high grade books that were as nice as any pedigree and never sought a pedigreed replacement too.  Also, I've occasionally purchased a higher grade pedigree copy without selling the under-copy. It's just the nature ...or peculiarity, if you prefer... of the hobby.  '

[Straw-Man]

On 8/12/2023 at 12:21 PM, action1kid said:

How important is the Pedigree designation to you? Would you take it over a non Pedigree that is a tick higher?

case-by-case basis, but i have done exactly that a number of times.

[Robot Man]

On 8/14/2023 at 5:37 PM, MAR1979 said:

I've a bunch of Pedigrees mostly raw late Silver and early Bronze,  but I'm a buy the book not the flip (label) person.  While a Pedigree is nice to have I'll take the nicest presenting book every time.

That said the Pedigree's I have are a bunch of Oakland and Northland's an occasional Boston and a Mohawk or 2.  Can't say for sure how I'd feel if I had Golden Age Church's but I do know that will never be a situation I'm lucky enough to be in

 

Pretty much anyone could buy a GA Church if you are not super picky. There are plenty enough to go around. There is nothing quite like one. The history, gloss, structure and white pages are not quite like anything else…

[Cat-Man_America]

On 8/15/2023 at 10:21 AM, Robot Man said:

Pretty much anyone could buy a GA Church if you are not super picky. There are plenty enough to go around. There is nothing quite like one. The history, gloss, structure and white pages are not quite like anything else…

And there's the rub (hopefully not observed by graders!). 

[Robot Man]

On 8/15/2023 at 9:38 AM, Cat-Man_America said:

And there's the rub (hopefully not observed by graders!). 

I was referring mostly to genre. If you can live with a western, humor, average romance or crime, a lot can still be had at pretty low prices. I just bought a beautiful Nyoka the Jungle Girl for $110. 

[electricprune]

On 8/13/2023 at 9:40 PM, Sqeggs said:

The erasures on the Larsons were done pretty carefully and you typically have to look closely to see where the name originally was.

If you can find Jon Berk's article from the Comic Book Marketplace on his tracking down Larson, it's an excellent read. Probably in an issue from the early '90s. Berk had at least one and maybe two followup articles.  The fact that Berk got the whole story from Larson himself adds to the interest. Fairly rare to have someone interview the OO of a major ped. 

Overstreet's Gold and Silver Quarterly #6 (Oct.-Dec. 1994). 
 

It might be here. I don’t have one to confirm though.

[path4play]

On 8/12/2023 at 1:21 PM, action1kid said:

How important is the Pedigree designation to you? Would you take it over a non Pedigree that is a tick higher?

I like to delve a bit into the history of the books I collect, and pedigree gives another avenue to do that. 

I've even been working on a Police Comics pedigree run for some time now.  I just find it another interesting dimension - the original collections from collectors that saved the books that make GA collecting possible today.

How much higher of a premium or a different book a grade tick higher?  Well, that depends on the book, needs, wants, timing, resources, pedigree etc., Many factors at play there.

[sfcityduck]

On 8/14/2023 at 5:28 PM, Sauce Dog said:

All things being equal, yes I would always want a pedigree over a regular and happily pay a premium for it. At the end of the day even the rarest of comics of every era have pretty large print runs, so having something that effectively makes my copy 'unique' is always important and trumps so many other possible features (such as newsstand, signatures etc)
 

There are categories of comics rarer than pedigrees. An example: High grade subscription variants. Normally, subscription variants are plagued by the dreaded subscription crease. But I know of some subscription variants which have actually beat out both file and pedigree copies to rank top of Census with grades in the 9.4-9.6 (white) range. Those, I think, are rarer than pedigrees both because (1) subscription variants usually have unique front or back cover art to accommodate the subscribers address and (2) are much harder to find in high grade than a normal comic that was not mailed folded. And, of course, they have the OO's name and address on the cover for those who want to delve into the personal history of OOs.

But, at the end of the day, isn't high grade itself a rarity? I think so for the GA. Pretty much every high grade collection that came to market prior to 1972 was sold without the benefit of "pedigree" marketing. And there were a ton of OO collections being bought by collectors or brought to market by dealers prior to 1972. Thus, we know of old time collectors like Bill Placzek (or is it Placek) collecting from 1956 to 1976 who had, by 1966 (at the age of around 15), amassed tens of thousands of comics, including with the benefit of his father finding a "huge" OO collection. These finds helped him amass complete DC runs up to 1952. But the pedigree for those has been lost as they were intermingled with other books. More rarely, we know of guys like BZ who started aggressively collecting as a teen in the early 1960s, including many ads in publications seeking to buy comics, and has demonstrated he has thousands of pedigree quality books. He has said he could identify which OOs the best books he owned came from - opening up the possibility that he could someday get those old groupings of books a pedigree designation (the W.T. Gilgrist" books undoubtedly deserve it). And more sadly we know of OO Dave Wigransky who was amassing thousands of high grade books off the stands starting in 1940 (and buying back issues to fill in gaps in his runs in the late 1940s and early 1950s) but sold them off in the mid-1960s such that his collection was dispersed and lost (although Russ Cochran got all of the ECs).

The point being, there are many really nice high grade groups of books which are now unrecognized pedigrees because that's a concept that no one in the 1960s recognized as a thing. And my guess is that a fair amount of high grade books are still sitting in collections and someday we'll find out that there are more high grade non-pedigree books that may top the census. 

On the downside of the pedigree thing, most pedigree OOs are unknown because the discovers have elected to keep the cards close to their chest -- which always seems a bit suspicious to me. So those pedigrees don't even have a back story. 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by sfcityduck

[Sauce Dog]

On 8/15/2023 at 6:32 PM, sfcityduck said:

There are categories of comics rarer than pedigrees. An example: High grade subscription variants. Normally, subscription variants are plagued by the dreaded subscription crease. But I know of some subscription variants which have actually beat out both file and pedigree copies to rank top of Census with grades in the 9.4-9.6 (white) range. Those, I think, are rarer than pedigrees both because (1) subscription variants usually have unique front or back cover art to accommodate the subscribers address and (2) are much harder to find in high grade than a normal comic that was not mailed folded. And, of course, they have the OO's name and address on the cover for those who want to delve into the personal history of OOs.

But, at the end of the day, isn't high grade itself a rarity? I think so for the GA. Pretty much every high grade collection that came to market prior to 1972 was sold without the benefit of "pedigree" marketing. And there were a ton of OO collections being bought by collectors or brought to market by dealers prior to 1972. Thus, we know of old time collectors like Bill Placzek (or is it Placek) collecting from 1956 to 1976 who had, by 1966 (at the age of around 15), amassed tens of thousands of comics, including with the benefit of his father finding a "huge" OO collection. These finds helped him amass complete DC runs up to 1952. But the pedigree for those has been lost as they were intermingled with other books. More rarely, we know of guys like BZ who started aggressively collecting as a teen in the early 1960s, including many ads in publications seeking to buy comics, and has demonstrated he has thousands of pedigree quality books. He has said he could identify which OOs the best books he owned came from - opening up the possibility that he could someday get those old groupings of books a pedigree designation (the W.T. Gilgrist" books undoubtedly deserve it). And more sadly we know of OO Dave Wigransky who was amassing thousands of high grade books off the stands starting in 1940 (and buying back issues to fill in gaps in his runs in the late 1940s and early 1950s) but sold them off in the mid-1960s such that his collection was dispersed and lost (although Russ Cochran got all of the ECs).

The point being, there are many really nice high grade groups of books which are now unrecognized pedigrees because that's a concept that no one in the 1960s recognized as a thing. And my guess is that a fair amount of high grade books are still sitting in collections and someday we'll find out that there are more high grade non-pedigree books that may top the census. 

On the downside of the pedigree thing, most pedigree OOs are unknown because the discovers have elected to keep the cards close to their chest -- which always seems a bit suspicious to me. So those pedigrees don't even have a back story. 

 

Yes there are things that are rarer then pedigrees, but the point is when we are talking about comics they all have decent sized print runs (even high grade subscription variants there are multiples out there that could satisfy the criteria) so a pedigree is a very easy way to make that specific book effectively a pop 1 (there are a few pedigrees that feature multiple copies of the same book, but those are exceptions not the rule). That's it; it becomes a very easy marketable selling point for your book that would make it stand out from a sea of equal grade universal books if you choose to list it for sale (and as public awareness of pedigrees grows so will the demand, I keep seeing many people weekly who see the label for the first time with much curiosity and end up excited by this elusive label) - and the pop 1 mentality is something many new collectors are well aquatinted with (especially when we saw that influx of new speculators to the comic hobby during covid as they shifted from sports cards, this was also the case with MTG cards, everyone was looking at the census and crunching numbers about population reports)

[sfcityduck]

On 8/15/2023 at 4:14 PM, Sauce Dog said:

Yes there are things that are rarer then pedigrees, but the point is when we are talking about comics they all have decent sized print runs (even high grade subscription variants there are multiples out there that could satisfy the criteria) so a pedigree is a very easy way to make that specific book effectively a pop 1 (there are a few pedigrees that feature multiple copies of the same book, but those are exceptions not the rule). That's it; it becomes a very easy marketable selling point for your book that would make it stand out from a sea of equal grade universal books if you choose to list it for sale (and as public awareness of pedigrees grows so will the demand, I keep seeing many people weekly who see the label for the first time with much curiosity and end up excited by this elusive label) - and the pop 1 mentality is something many new collectors are well aquatinted with (especially when we saw that influx of new speculators to the comic hobby during covid as they shifted from sports cards, this was also the case with MTG cards, everyone was looking at the census and crunching numbers about population reports)

I get your points. You may be right. But I don't get the mentality of the pandemic buyers or that a pedigree book is a population of 1 unless the buyer only wants a specific pedigree. I have seen subscription variants marketed as such and getting extra dollars as a result. So again, I think there are ways to create a "pop 1" selling point other than pedigree (the most obvious being grade). But I don't focus on selling points in my collecting as I rarely sell. When I do sell, I try to sell something interesting with a good story about it.  Only a small number of pedigrees have a story that would inspire me to pay more than a better non-pedigree copy. They are the pedigrees which have incredible back stories (ex. Okajima), famous associations (ex. Gaines), or seminal import to comic history (ex. Church). I don't think that my attitude is uncommon in the CGC world which has rendered the original purpose of a "pedigree" largely unnecessary. We don't need to buy a book by mail from a pedigree collection anymore to have the reassurance that it is likely accurately graded or high quality because of CGC. If we'd had CGC when the Church books came to market, I don't think the pedigree concept would have been invented (especially since most dealers don't want to reveal where they got their books). The grades would have spoken for themselves. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by sfcityduck

[Cat-Man_America]

On 8/15/2023 at 5:32 PM, sfcityduck said:

There are categories of comics rarer than pedigrees. An example: High grade subscription variants. Normally, subscription variants are plagued by the dreaded subscription crease. But I know of some subscription variants which have actually beat out both file and pedigree copies to rank top of Census with grades in the 9.4-9.6 (white) range. Those, I think, are rarer than pedigrees both because (1) subscription variants usually have unique front or back cover art to accommodate the subscribers address and (2) are much harder to find in high grade than a normal comic that was not mailed folded. And, of course, they have the OO's name and address on the cover for those who want to delve into the personal history of OOs.

But, at the end of the day, isn't high grade itself a rarity? I think so for the GA. Pretty much every high grade collection that came to market prior to 1972 was sold without the benefit of "pedigree" marketing. And there were a ton of OO collections being bought by collectors or brought to market by dealers prior to 1972. Thus, we know of old time collectors like Bill Placzek (or is it Placek) collecting from 1956 to 1976 who had, by 1966 (at the age of around 15), amassed tens of thousands of comics, including with the benefit of his father finding a "huge" OO collection. These finds helped him amass complete DC runs up to 1952. But the pedigree for those has been lost as they were intermingled with other books. More rarely, we know of guys like BZ who started aggressively collecting as a teen in the early 1960s, including many ads in publications seeking to buy comics, and has demonstrated he has thousands of pedigree quality books. He has said he could identify which OOs the best books he owned came from - opening up the possibility that he could someday get those old groupings of books a pedigree designation (the W.T. Gilgrist" books undoubtedly deserve it). And more sadly we know of OO Dave Wigransky who was amassing thousands of high grade books off the stands starting in 1940 (and buying back issues to fill in gaps in his runs in the late 1940s and early 1950s) but sold them off in the mid-1960s such that his collection was dispersed and lost (although Russ Cochran got all of the ECs).

The point being, there are many really nice high grade groups of books which are now unrecognized pedigrees because that's a concept that no one in the 1960s recognized as a thing. And my guess is that a fair amount of high grade books are still sitting in collections and someday we'll find out that there are more high grade non-pedigree books that may top the census. 

On the downside of the pedigree thing, most pedigree OOs are unknown because the discovers have elected to keep the cards close to their chest -- which always seems a bit suspicious to me. So those pedigrees don't even have a back story. 

 

The big problem with variants ...modern day or GA... is they are either not as rare as thought or so obscure as to have a self-limiting market. Pedigrees are the perfect "special" book because they're at once unique and have a story to tell while also being part of a larger whole. Also, since pedigrees by the nature of being pedigreed are going to weigh more heavily towards being high grade. 

You are indeed correct that high grade is itself rare, especially for GA. I also agree that it's possible more high grade books may at some point enter the market with or without being given the sanctification of pedigree status, but topping the census? Let's not encourage that too much, the stratosphere is already crowded! Unless we're going to invent some sorta "new" improved Spinal Tap grade measurement system (...one that goes all the way to 11, for anyone wondering what the heck I'm referring to), grading is already pushing the limit of plausible deniability.

[RareHighGrade]

Although it's been watered down by some of CGC's recent "pedigree" designations, there typically is a correlation between grade and pedigree status.  That's likely why every collector I know who cares about grade also cares about the pedigree status.

[jimbo_7071]

On 8/15/2023 at 11:21 AM, Robot Man said:

Pretty much anyone could buy a GA Church if you are not super picky. There are plenty enough to go around. There is nothing quite like one. The history, gloss, structure and white pages are not quite like anything else…

Some are nicer than others, however. They've been out of Edgar's basement longer than they were in it, and not all of them have been taken care of properly. Some of the Cheslers have been peed on by cats; some of the Fiction Houses allegedly spent a year or two baking in a shed down in Texas; many books have amateur glue and color touch; etc.

Unfortunately some of them were actually ruined when the basement at Greg Manning auctions flooded. I have not been able to find out which ones. I did send Bill Hughes an e-mail (many years after the fact) to see whether he remembered, but he didn't. (Does anyone here?)

[sfcityduck]

On 8/15/2023 at 6:20 PM, RareHighGrade said:

Although it's been watered down by some of CGC's recent "pedigree" designations, there typically is a correlation between grade and pedigree status.  That's likely why every collector I know who cares about grade also cares about the pedigree status.

I do agree that because a criteria for ped status is high grade, there probably is a correlation to ped status and higher grades. But that is not the same as a correlation to clear superiority over non-ped books.  For example, there are more non-ped high grade Action 1s and D27s than ped copies.

Of the CGC graded Action 1s above 6.0 (2 x 6.0, 2 x 6.5, 1 x 7.5, 1 x 8.0, 2 x 9.0), only the Kansas City at 8.0 is in the Top 10.  That's a 10% pedigree population with the top 3 graded copies being non-peds. Even if you throw in the ungraded Larson (said to be an 8.0) and the Mile High (said to be a 9.2-9.4), and ignore other Action 1s not graded by CGC, only 25% of the CGC graded Action 1s above 6.0 would be graded copies and 3 of the top 4 would be non-peds.  The Billy Wright is only a 3.0.

The highest graded D27 is also a non-ped. The highest graded pedigree D27 is the 6.5 Billy Wright. The Rockford is a 6.0.  Yes I know about the ungraded Allentown, Church, and SF - and another allegedly high grade non-ped copy - that are ungraded. But even factoring in those books, and we don't know how they'll grade out, that's still only five pedigrees out of 20 copies above 6.0 (or 25%). 

So if you really want high grade copies, you'd best not shop only for pedigree copies as that would eliminate 75% of the market. 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by sfcityduck

[sfcityduck]

On 8/15/2023 at 6:10 PM, Cat-Man_America said:

The big problem with variants ...modern day or GA... is they are either not as rare as thought or so obscure as to have a self-limiting market. Pedigrees are the perfect "special" book because they're at once unique and have a story to tell while also being part of a larger whole. Also, since pedigrees by the nature of being pedigreed are going to weigh more heavily towards being high grade. 

 

I'm not a big variant guy -- unless it is impossibly fantastic. Here's an example of a subscription variant that fits that bill that I sold on Heritage in the hope it would create more awareness of this type of book. This subscription variant beats out the Dell File Copy for best copy because of PQ. It's a cool book with a cool story and the OO is identifiable and traceable (unlike Reilly and the OOs of many pedigrees kept secret by the dealers who sold the collections). Heritage's listing and pics:

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #137 (Dell, 1952) CGC NM 9.4 White pages. A subscription copy in Near Mint is a remarkable find indeed! This has an address printed on the back and a different ad from the one that appeared on newsstand editions. Yet it has no subscription crease! Tied with one other copy (which only has off-white pages) for CGC's highest-grade for the issue, this is just the fourth certified copy that we have ever encountered, and is quite possibly the nicest copy of #137 in existence. Carl Barks provided the cover art, and a Donald Duck story and art for this impressive duck-filled issue. Huey, Dewey, and Louie appear. Overstreet 2018 NM- 9.2 value = $215. CGC census 11/18: 2 in 9.4, none higher.

 

Here's another non-ped subscription copy that I believe is cooler than most of the Gaines File Copies of the same book. Heritage's listing and pics:

Vault of Horror #27 Double Cover With EC Mailing Envelope (EC, 1952) CGC NM/MT 9.8 Off-white to white pages. We were stunned to see that this copy was not from William Gaines' files. It's actually from the collection of EC fan-addict and collector Gary Arlington, who stored it inside the original subscription mailing envelope. That envelope is included here, and it bears Arlington's handwritten arrival date: August 1, 1952. The Johnny Craig cover(s!) has never looked better. Craig, Jack Davis, George Evans, and Graham Ingels art. CGC notes, "1st cover 9.6, interior cover 9.8." Overstreet 2014 NM- 9.2 value = $635. CGC census 11/14: 4 in 9.8, 1 higher.