Original owner names on cover same as arrival dates? 2 2

[paqart]

Recently, I almost bought a golden age comic because of an original owner name written on the comic, was was printed around 1944. It happens to be a nickname some people call me, so I thought it would be fun to have the comic. I decided against due to overall condition, but would have gone for it if in better shape, the child's name notwithstanding.

This made me wonder how others feel about names on comics. My opinion is that sometimes they are desirable, as with well placed arrival stamps, but in other cases they are undesirable, such as when a child has decided to try writing their name a dozen times on the cover. However, some comics have well-placed names that add a touch of authenticity to the history of the comic, and I like that.

Anyone else care about these? Or are they always bad?

Edited June 26 by paqart

[grendelbo]

If it was one of the few that had "Church" written on it then it would be super desirable.

I have a few. My favorite is this one I got as a kid. It was free or a trade. The name is unobtrusive and I like it very much as it's part of the book's history, albeit unknown to me.

[OtherEric]

I generally dislike them, although I'm certainly happy to have them when it means I can afford the book.  So 'generally' is carrying an awful lot of weight there.

One of the first two Golden Age keys I ever owned, I will forever be grateful to Jimmy Hornum for having made the book affordable to me many years later.  I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that learning that I could own a key book like Mad #1 when I was in my early 20's back in the early 90's changed my life by showing me that it was possible to own classic books in the original, not just reprints.

[marvelmaniac]

A child writing their name on a book or doodling on the cover is not the same as a newsstand owner writing or stamping a book with an arrival date, that is how things were done, however, as a kid in the 60's we never gave a second thought to writing/doodling on a comic book cover, we did worse.

Writing on the cover lowers the grade (IMO) if the book is higher than a VG/FN 5.0 without the writing, however, for me collecting was about completing runs on a budget and books with writing on the cover were usually already lower grade books and less money, also, a name written on the cover of Gold/Silver/Bronze age books adds character (IMO) and shows some history of the book, which I have no issue with, it is not everyone's cup of tea.

These are my books that have names or doodling on the cover.

[Uff_Da]

I'll take all books written on by Lamont Larson.

[Tony S]

I love arrival dates on comics and do not expect to pay any less as a result.  I do not like names written on the covers and expect to pay a good deal less. 

[shadroch]

I'm not a fan of scribbled covers, and would expect such a book to be discounted.

[jdandns]

I have a nice run of Silver Age X-Men (roughly #20 through #66) that the owner took very good care of, BUT wrote her name on the top of the first page, usually in ink, with a number showing which overall number the book was in her collection. Even so, they're still beauties, I got them nearly for free (literally 75% off cover price!), and I never would have been able to have afforded the same books at that time (mid 90's) without a name written in them. She must've been an MMMS member, or FOOM certainly. I only got her X-Men, but based on the numbering jumps from issue to issue, she bought every title Marvel title it seems, and, as I said, took pretty care of them. She had to be in a very slim minority of collectors back then who were female 
 

In terms of names on the actual cover, I own a couple from the "Bill the Kid", uh, pedigree, one of which is shown below. This is an interesting case. The guy took overall good care of his books, but would do a few strange things to certain skin types and hair colors within the interior with pencil or colored pencil in every single book, in addition to writing his (nick)name, BILL THE KID, on every cover, in pencil, with fairly deep impressions. (someone attempted to erase them from this cover but you can see the erasures where they were).

My friend also picked up a few, and we left plenty behind even though they were dirt cheap. In retrospect, I should've bought them all.

Within his comics, seemingly all of them, these strange things invariably appear:

Any white hair, on a male or female character, is colored in, lightly and fairly neatly, with regular pencil.
Any blond hair, male or female, is colored in with green colored pencil.
And weirdest of all:
Any (but only) female skin of white ladies is colored in with red colored pencil, and not as neatly as were the instances of blond and white hair. It is only done to light colored female skin, and is not restricted to full figures. If so much as an arm of a woman (not otherwise drawn in panel) appears in the panel, it gets the treatment.

The upside on Hero For Hire #1, is that there aren't any white ladies or blonde hair in it, and very little white hair, so the main issue is the remnant of his calling card on the cover, BILL THE KID, usually spread one word at a time in different letters within the logo, as on this one. The last thing is that on the "Bullpen Bulletins" page of his comics, the titles of many issues are underlined in regular pencil. This doesn't have the creep-factor of the other stuff, more likely being just a checklist he kept, but it's still a little odd given how well otherwise the comics were taken care of. Some of these comics (I still have a few more besides this one) might have been in Very Fine or better, without the strangeness added to them by the owner, who definitely had issues with his issues. I would not have wanted to have met this person in person, but I'm glad to have these books. Again, I wouldn't have been able to buy better ones in the 1990's anyway, so I'm glad for what I got.

Anyone else have a "Bill The Kid" issue? He had a huge collection of Silver and Bronze Marvels, at the minimum

[Uff_Da]

On 6/30/2024 at 2:29 AM, jdandns said:

BUT wrote her name on the top of the first page, usually in ink, with a number showing which overall number the book was in her collection. Even so, they're still beauties, I got them nearly for free (literally 75% off cover price!), and I never would have been able to have afforded the same books at that time (mid 90's) without a name written in them

The good news is that a name written on the first page doesn't affect the grade. Great for you, but why would someone discount them 75% for such a little thing 

Edited Sunday at 10:11 PM by Uff_Da

[Tony S]

On 6/30/2024 at 5:09 PM, Uff_Da said:

The good news is that a name written on the first page doesn't affect the grade. Great for you, but why would someone discount them 75% for such a little thing 

If that was all that was done the 75% discount is too large. But with coloring done on interior pages the impact on grade would be much, much larger than just a name written on the first page. 

[jdandns]

On 6/30/2024 at 3:09 PM, Uff_Da said:

The good news is that a name written on the first page doesn't affect the grade. Great for you, but why would someone discount them 75% for such a little thing 

A comic store in Riverside, CA, was going out of business and the discounts (on everything) started at 25% and eventually got to 75%. At the point shortly before they closed for good, the owner brought out a couple of short-boxes he'd filled over the years with comics he considered unsellable at that point in time (this was mid 1990s) for those us last few die-hards to go through. He set the boxes down and said, "anything in those is cover price".  A lot of them weren't even bagged. I was astonished when he added them up at cover price and still took the 75% off. Apparently, those kinds of defects weren't a little thing to him.

And Tony, the "Bill The Kid" issues (including the Hero For Hire #1) had coloring inside of them, but the Silver Age X-Men issues were from a different collector, I'm glad to say, and those had only a name (and number) written in the margin at the top of the first page, with no coloring or any other oddness. The run I bought did start at #20, so if it had been a complete run when he got it, maybe the owner had been willing to bag and board the earlier issues and sell them normally, even with the name written on each first page.

[cgcsketcherz]

Each generation or era has their own traditions or ways of doing things. Especially, if you like to collect books that were directly aimed at kids. If it is on the back cover I would go for it.

Do I wish Lorie didn't practice cursive on this book? Yes

Would I have preferred the seller some 15ish years ago online have listed the fact some kid named Lorie wrote their name on the back before I bought it raw? YES!!!

Would I buy this book today raw knowing it had Lorie on it? Yes, but I would have tried to negotiate the price more due to it. :-) 

[Uff_Da]

On 7/1/2024 at 11:52 AM, cgcsketcherz said:

Would I buy this book today raw knowing it had Lorie on it? Yes, but I would have tried to negotiate the price more due to it. :-) 

For what, an extra $5 off? 

[Uff_Da]

On 7/1/2024 at 2:44 AM, jdandns said:

He set the boxes down and said, "anything in those is cover price".  A lot of them weren't even bagged. I was astonished when he added them up at cover price and still took the 75% off. Apparently, those kinds of defects weren't a little thing to him

All the better for you! Congrats on a steal.

[LowGradeBronze]

Adds to the book's history and I always wonder who Roman, or Nick DeLipski or Paul DuPrez were/are and what other comics they had, because 'inquiring minds want to know'. 

(And in the UK, if you had your comics reserved for you at the newsagent, they always had your name in pencil somewhere.)

Edited 14 hours ago by LowGradeBronze

[cgcsketcherz]

On 7/1/2024 at 11:58 AM, Uff_Da said:

For what, an extra $5 off? 

That's the cost of a box of Scooby snacks on sale so yeah!