Heritage Auction and Restored GA comics

[Timulty]

click

[tth2]

As for whether an equal or higher grade unrestored copy of that book may surface, don't hold your breath.

You're probably right, but all it would take is one obsessive compulsive individual or another Tom Reilly type set of parents to turn the comic collecting world upside down again.

 

By the way, I really want to kill Comicdonna for posting such a wide scan (most of it background and not even the comic, for god's sake) that has totally stretched out the right margin of this thread.

[FFB]

As for whether an equal or higher grade unrestored copy of that book may surface, don't hold your breath.

You're probably right, but all it would take is one obsessive compulsive individual or another Tom Reilly type set of parents to turn the comic collecting world upside down again.

 

True, but wouldn't the same be true of the highest grade unrestored copy if a higher grade copy showed up? Maybe the effect would be more severe on a highest grade copy that has a dot of color touch (i.e., many of the Edgar Church keys), but I believe (without a lot of expertise on the subject matter, mind you) that people will still want Church copies just because they're Church copies.

[tth2]

As for whether an equal or higher grade unrestored copy of that book may surface, don't hold your breath.

You're probably right, but all it would take is one obsessive compulsive individual or another Tom Reilly type set of parents to turn the comic collecting world upside down again.

 

True, but wouldn't the same be true of the highest grade unrestored copy if a higher grade copy showed up? Maybe the effect would be more severe on a highest grade copy that has a dot of color touch (i.e., many of the Edgar Church keys), but I believe (without a lot of expertise on the subject matter, mind you) that people will still want Church copies just because they're Church copies.

The Church pedigree holds a special place in our hobby for 2 reasons: (i) it is the biggest, deepest AND overall nicest collection ever to surface and (ii) it was the first pedigree to be recognized as such.

 

If another collection surfaced that was even bigger and higher grade and fresher looking across the board (for instance, it would have all the Disney books that are missing from the Church collection, and would contain an indisputable 9.8 Action 1 and 9.8 Detective 27), would the Church collection still be as hallowed?

[FFB]

As for whether an equal or higher grade unrestored copy of that book may surface, don't hold your breath.

You're probably right, but all it would take is one obsessive compulsive individual or another Tom Reilly type set of parents to turn the comic collecting world upside down again.

 

True, but wouldn't the same be true of the highest grade unrestored copy if a higher grade copy showed up? Maybe the effect would be more severe on a highest grade copy that has a dot of color touch (i.e., many of the Edgar Church keys), but I believe (without a lot of expertise on the subject matter, mind you) that people will still want Church copies just because they're Church copies.

The Church pedigree holds a special place in our hobby for 2 reasons: (i) it is the biggest, deepest AND overall nicest collection ever to surface and (ii) it was the first pedigree to be recognized as such.

 

If another collection surfaced that was even bigger and higher grade and fresher looking across the board (for instance, it would have all the Disney books that are missing from the Church collection, and would contain an indisputable 9.8 Action 1 and 9.8 Detective 27), would the Church collection still be as hallowed?

 

Probably not. Personally, the heart attack I'd suffer in such an event would likely mean that I wouldn't be around to find out the answer though.

[adamstrange]

If another collection surfaced that was even bigger and higher grade and fresher looking across the board (for instance, it would have all the Disney books that are missing from the Church collection, and would contain an indisputable 9.8 Action 1 and 9.8 Detective 27), would the Church collection still be as hallowed?

 

Can a forumite get a strike for apostasy?

 

[Forbush-Man]

If another collection surfaced that was even bigger and higher grade and fresher looking across the board (for instance, it would have all the Disney books that are missing from the Church collection, and would contain an indisputable 9.8 Action 1 and 9.8 Detective 27), would the Church collection still be as hallowed?

 

Can a forumite get a strike for apostasy?

 

 

Let me look up "apostasy" and I'll get back to ya.

[LearnedHand]

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By the way, I really want to kill Comicdonna for posting such a wide scan (most of it background and not even the comic, for god's sake) that has totally stretched out the right margin of this thread.

 

 

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I was wondering why I needed to scroll back and forth! Yes, I share your sentiment.

 

The Church pedigree holds a special place in our hobby for 2 reasons: (i) it is the biggest, deepest AND overall nicest collection ever to surface and (ii) it was the first pedigree to be recognized as such.

 

Regarding pedigrees, a small technical correction: the Church collection may not be the highest grade most complete collection to ever surface. It's the highest grade most complete collection known to ever surface.

 

Seriously, I always notice when people talk about the MH as the best collection in existence to ever surface. There are lots of GA 9.4s out there that are non-pedigree books (some being the highest graded copies) and I think it's silly for anyone to believe that the original owners of each of these books bought one book in their lifetimes and then stored that one book for 60-70 years in pristine condition. The books were obviously part of collections. Some of these collections could have easily been better than anything we know about, but because those collections were broken up and not marketed as was the MH, none will ever be recognized as collections, nor will we ever know how vast they are/overall grade.

 

What if the MH had been broken up and sold piecemeal? There would be no MH pedigree and no debate. No one would even know that it is what it is. Instead, people would be arguing over whether the Tom Reilly or Rockford are the best. And this is not a knock on the MH collection, as I own some and believe they are superior examples. Off the soapbox.

 

LH

[tth2]

The Church pedigree holds a special place in our hobby for 2 reasons: (i) it is the biggest, deepest AND overall nicest collection ever to surface and (ii) it was the first pedigree to be recognized as such.

 

Regarding pedigrees, a small technical correction: the Church collection may not be the highest grade most complete collection to ever surface. It's the highest grade most complete collection known to ever surface.

 

Seriously, I always notice when people talk about the MH as the best collection in existence to ever surface. There are lots of GA 9.4s out there that are non-pedigree books (some being the highest graded copies) and I think it's silly for anyone to believe that the original owners of each of these books bought one book in their lifetimes and then stored that one book for 60-70 years in pristine condition. The books were obviously part of collections. Some of these collections could have easily been better than anything we know about, but because those collections were broken up and not marketed as was the MH, none will ever be recognized as collections, nor will we ever know how vast they are/overall grade.

 

What if the MH had been broken up and sold piecemeal? There would be no MH pedigree and no debate. No one would even know that it is what it is. Instead, people would be arguing over whether the Tom Reilly or Rockford are the best. And this is not a knock on the MH collection, as I own some and believe they are superior examples. Off the soapbox.

 

LH

Gotta disagree with you, LH. Notwithstanding the hypothetical example I posed to FFB, I seriously seriously seriously doubt there is, or has ever been, another collection to rival the Church, for the following reasons:

 

1. [und]The breadth[/und]. Edgar appears to have purchased EVERYTHING that came out in the late 1930s and 1940s, all titles, all publishers. And all genres: superhero, western, humor, romance, it's ALL there. 20,000+ GA comics is nothing to sneeze at, in any grade. Even today it would be quite an accomplishment, when comic collecting is well accepted, but in those days it was a sign of real eccentricity. As far as I know, the only significant gap in the collection is the Four Colors (therefore no Disney books).

 

2. [und]The depth[/und]. Edgar was a real completionist, which I guess goes hand in hand with "breadth". One thing Edgar had in his favor, which was different from the Tom Reillys and Lamont Larsons of the world, was that he was an adult, which made him extremely unusual in that era, and therefore he had a lot more resources available to devote to comics than the average kid.

 

3. [und]The quality[/und]. The uniform quality of the books is incredibly high, and most are the best known copy or tied for the best known copy. Yes, there are 9.4 and higher grade copies of GA books from other pedigrees or non-pedigrees, but not many that tie or surpass the Church copy. In any event, dealers and collectors will tell you that the Church books stand out even when they are the same or lower grade. The only collections I've heard that compare on a book per book basis are the Reillys and Allentowns, but neither is even close to matching the Church collection for depth and breadth.

 

4. Put it all together, and there's nothing like it. So to answer one of the questions you posed, no, I don't think the various non-pedigree 9.4s existed in isolation, but I don't think they had 20,000 siblings either, particularly of equal calibre. Think about this, have you ever heard of even a low grade GA collection that matches the size of the Church collection? I know I haven't. Anyways, high end dealers and collectors are no dummies, when they see isolated super HG books (either GA or early SA), they start asking questions and tracking down the source. If there are identifying marks, like on the Churches, the frenzy to ascertain the origins would intensify even more. I'd be very surprised if a bunch of 9.4 early Actions and Detectives of generally uniform appearance, even if they didn't have any distinguishing marks, could start appearing in the market in drips and drabs without anyone, particularly CGC, connecting the dots.

[Timulty]

I will toe to toe the Church vs. Crowleys on Fawcetts but everything else? Nope, Churchs appear to be the best so far. But as a note if you can find a production error, of any type, it will be on a Church Book. I don't believe he was cherry picking his comics. So, consummate collector not so much. I think, he(Church) saw the value in the advertising art of comics. That was main impetus to buying these books.

 

Even now, I look at both the front and the back of book because I find the advertisements on the back of the comic, just about as desirable as a good clean front cover.

[LearnedHand]

Yeah, you're probably right.

 

As an idealistic, however, I always think - well, out of a country of 200+ million people, was Edgar Church the only person in this entire country with this degree of this type of obsession?

 

And collectors aside, there could be other means of explaining a huge collection. I think about some of the old-timers that I've talked to that used to run the comic book printing plants in NY/CT. More than one or two have told a consistent story - that each book's print run always had a surplus that ended up in a warehouse room, with surplus accumulations numbering in the thousands. Whether or not those stores of old books still exist, well...I can still dream.

[tth2]

I will toe to toe the Church vs. Crowleys on Fawcetts

Crowley page quality isn't even in the same zip code as Church.

[Timulty]

Sure, okay

[tth2]

As an idealistic, however, I always think - well, out of a country of 200+ million people, was Edgar Church the only person in this entire country with this degree of this type of obsession?

U.S. population was quite a bit smaller back then. But I take your point, and there were undoubtedly other obsessive compulsives out there. Maybe Edgar was just the most obsessive, and also happened to live in an area that was ideal for preserving comics? Maybe some other equally compulsive guy lived in Georgia and stored his books in his attic, and now they're mouldering pulp.

 

And collectors aside, there could be other means of explaining a huge collection. I think about some of the old-timers that I've talked to that used to run the comic book printing plants in NY/CT. More than one or two have told a consistent story - that each book's print run always had a surplus that ended up in a warehouse room, with surplus accumulations numbering in the thousands. Whether or not those stores of old books still exist, well...I can still dream.

Simple answer: WWII paper drives. Undoubtedly why the warehouse/file copy finds consist primarily of post-WW II stuff. It would simply have been unpatriotic for a printer to just leave all that paper sitting around.

[adamstrange]

I will toe to toe the Church vs. Crowleys on Fawcetts

Crowley page quality isn't even in the same zip code as Church.

 

Yes, but a small portion are in the zip code next door.

 

There are some very nice Crowley books, but they are hit and miss. And in the Fawcetts, there are a lot of misses. The early issues do not have nice page quality and the File Copy stamp is quite large and usually annoyingly placed. Even in the later issues where there are quite a few 9.4s and 9.6s among the Crowleys, the page quality, cover whiteness, and general freshness isn't there in comparison to Mile Highs. That's not conjecture as I have had MH Fawcetts and Crowleys and have compared them out of the slab. That said, I expect that the average CGC grade for the end of the run Crowleys is likely to be a couple notches higher than the MHs.

 

The only other collection I've heard of that is similar to the MH in terms of breadth (i.e. buy one of everything off of the newstand) is the Bethlehem Collection (why don't we call if the Pachon Collection ). It was not as early and was not stored in an ideal environment like the MHs. There could be another MH collection, but I'm not betting on it.

[Aman619]

all the unsold comics were sent trashed with their covers half cut off so the dealers could receive credit. or sent off

[LearnedHand]

U.S. population was quite a bit smaller back then. But I take your point, and there were undoubtedly other obsessive compulsives out there. Maybe Edgar was just the most obsessive, and also happened to live in an area that was ideal for preserving comics? Maybe some other equally compulsive guy lived in Georgia and stored his books in his attic, and now they're mouldering pulp.

 

US population is now over 270 million today. 200 million sounds about right to me, unless you have the census reports that indicate the population in the US has doubled in the last 50-70 years.

 

Simple answer: WWII paper drives. Undoubtedly why the warehouse/file copy finds consist primarily of post-WW II stuff. It would simply have been unpatriotic for a printer to just leave all that paper sitting around.

 

I think acting like you KNOW what's happened is a little too pragmatic. You don't know. All you know is that no other collection that has surfaced - as a collection -that rivals the MH in size (grade-wise, I think anyone who says the Tom Reillys aren't every bit as nice as the MHs (if not fresher yet) has never held the apples-to-apples Tom Reilly books in-hand). Anything else is pure speculation, albeit educated and prudent speculation, as the available data would support the pragmatic conclusion.

 

Do I believe another MH size and condition collection will be discovered? I think two things:

 

1 - it's quite possible that similar collections have already been discovered, but that none were promoted as "a collection." (Hence all the highest graded books that are not pedigree books.) And, the non-pedigree highest or 2d highest graded books run the gamut of all publishers. Is it possible that they came from one or two (or 3) collections that were broken up when discovered? Absolutely. You may laugh, but consider one small example that supports this possibility - contrary to the post where someone said that dealers are not stupid and that they would promote such a collection as a collection/pedigree, just read Beerbohm's Tom Reilly collection string. After purchasing the collection, Beerbohm simply sold those books and did NOT promote them as a pedigree. After the MH was promoted as a pedigree by Rozanski (some 5-6 years later), Beerbohm THEN decided it was a good idea to create a master list to secure the fidelity of the collection. Beerbohm also admits that many Reilly books are floating around that are not documented. Granted, there are not 18,000 Reilly books, but this illustrates a documented example of a collection, with median grade at about NM, that was not promoted as a pedigree.

 

2 - I won't hold my breath for another MH collection, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if one surfaced.

 

And by the way, your last presumption is dead wrong. I well remember going to the Phil Seuling and CreationCon NYC shows in the late 1970s and seeing stacks of GA books on dealer tables. A stack of 10-20 of one book, a stack of 10-20 of another book, etc. Many such stacks on several dealers' tables, for a few years of shows (and per the old-timers, this was standard practice all through the 1960s-1970s shows). And most books in each stack were easy VFs. In fact, some of the books I was lucky enough to purchase that way are still some of the nicest books in my collection (and, yes, I own 9.4 and 9.6 Mile High books).

 

I think it's pure folly to assume that paper drives or climate definitely consumed most/all GA warehouse remainders. To assume this, one would have to believe that those high grade GA stacks at those late 1970s shows were assembled by dealers book-by-book. More likely, they came from warehouse finds.

[Harvey Dude]

US population is now over 270 million today. 200 million sounds about right to me, unless you have the census reports that indicate the population in the US has doubled in the last 50-70 years. .

 

Actually, The U.S. population has more than doubled in the last 70 years. Per the U.S. Census:

 

1940 131,954,.000

1950 151,868,000

2004 293,655,404

[LearnedHand]

Okay, thanks for the official census report. Same point still stands.

[Timulty]

I think part of the reason that another Church collection might not exist, aside from paper drives, po'd parents and the errant dog, would be paper quality. I think, as each year ticks by paper degradation is happening to any collection sitting out in "Grandma's" attic. The sheer volume of area that the Church collection took up is not likely to be just occupied by comics. I really hope there is but even if the Church collection had stayed in the basement another 20 years, the quality of books, would probably not be even close to the same.