The scarcity of early bronze DC's......where the hell are they?!?

[COI]

As most of you know, I'm mostly a Marvel guy. However, I'm also a huge Batman and Neal Adams fan. I just picked up this for my personal collection:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2173857356

 

At first, I thought I had paid a high price, since this is many multiples of guide. But then I looked at the census, and was glad that I bid. It says, 1 9.4 and 1 9.0. Now, seeing as how it's obvious that the census is low due to lack of submissions, I've realized that finding raw HG copies of a lot of these early 70's DC's is nearly impossible! Just take a look around to different dealer's websites, and you'll find these books are nearly non-existant, slabbed or raw, in grade. I already knew this to be true of silver, but I now realize that early bronze is no different.

 

So my question is to those who are DC collectors, or those who have more experience with these bronze DC's: Where the hell are they? Are NM DC's in this era just non-existant? Do any of you long time collectors have any insights as to the reasons these don't seem to be around?

 

Unlike Silver DC's, Bronze DC's seem to have quite a healthy demand, especially with artists like Neal Adams at the helm. Most people say that people don't submit DC's because they aren't in demand, but check out the bidding on the book I won. I would definetley say that's in demand. Personally, I think people aren't submitting NM quality DC's because they simply don't have them. I've been collecting Neal Adams Batmans for a while, and this was the first high grade Detective #395 I've seen, and there are many others that I've NEVER seen a NM copy of. So what's going on? Any insights would be great.

[comicartfan]

Andrew,

the problem is two fold...first, you have a lower submission rate, and you have scarcity of these books. I am a huge Neal Adams/ Detective/Batman collector also, and collectors don't usually part with them when they get them. As far as paying too much, I am surprized it went that high, but try and find another one.....

 

Mike

[murph0]

Ok I doubt it's possible there's only 2 copies of this book in H.G. out there. I realize that many people on here very actively seek out Bronze DC's and just can't find them.. So, this is going to sound really far fetched, but you know how we always joked about someone going out and buying all copies of Hulk 181 or something...could it be possible that a group went around buying a majority of bronze age copies of major DC titles? I don't believe that idea for Marvel due to the large amount of Marvels out there but with the utter lack of material out there for DC bronze, maybe this idea is a bit more..warranted? Bronze DC's weren't particularly valuable in the 80's/early 90's and there weren't a ton of people seeking them out? So I guess the potential for a group to go around buying them up is doable since the prices probably wouldn't be real killer.

I'd be interested to hear others ideas, it can't simply be that they're ALL locked up in collections..and judging by prices attained it simply doesn't make sense for sellers to wait it out submitting their bronze DCs any longer, does it?

 

Brian

[COI]

As far as paying too much, I am surprized it went that high, but try and find another one.....

 

Yep, that's exactly why I bid the way I did. When I placed my bid, the book was at $250, or something like that. But there were 2 other guys who also figured they wouldn't be seeing another copy this nice for a loooong time, and that's what drove it up over $100 in mere seconds.

[COI]

Well, I've thought about the hoarding, and I just can't see it. If you talk to any dealer who has been doing this a long time, I'm postitive they'll all tell you that they had very little of these books in true NM or higher over the years. Personally, I just think that most simply didn't survive in solid NM shape. It may have to do with the dark covers, and the type of paper used........who knows?

[murph0]

I don't know. I simply can't believe that side, that is that the NM's just didn't survive. It's hard to really believe that position when millions of copies of Marvel are out there in NM. It just wouldn't make sense for comic readers to perserve Marvels and toss out DCs especially at that point where comics were already known to be valuable. I've actually heard DC print runs were higher than Marvel's leading up to Bronze. Anyways, I really don't know. I think the problem with really listening to dealers on this is that the ones that are really looking for DC's are the guys that are collecting them so of course they're not going to have NMs as they buy them and then keep them. And I really just don't think the other dealers are actively seeking out DCs as much as they are Marvel books. EDIT: Let me rephrase that, I think that the non-DC collecting dealers out there..aren't as actively seeking these DCs as they are silver DCs or key DCs..I'd guess they're all out there looking for Marvels mostly anyways.

 

Brian

[murph0]

Also, do the pedigree DC's ever show up on the market? I don't look but I haven't heard of many..is it possible that there's just a huge collector base for DCs and thus all the good stuff is actually in collections? Who knows...

 

Brian

[Mushroom]

Aaaaah Andrew. First let me state my quals in this area. I have complete runs of Detective, Brave and Bold and Batman in NM from this period. This is my favourite Batman age and I have been active in this market for over 10 years.

 

The DC #390 is certainly at the beginning of the Bat BA (if we assume that Bat #232 is the BA benchmark). The art and storylines for the three main Bat titles of this time were very consistent and to be honest if you saw the covers without the banners you would think they all belonged to the same run.

 

The interesting thing about this Bat age is the transition from the more superficial and humourous stories of the 60's to what would evolve eventually into the dark knight.

 

I have been told by a number of other Bat collectors that this transition did not sit well with a lot of traditionalists and that the early 70's books suffered a drop off in loyalty.

 

If we tack on to this the following:

 

Less DC collectors than Marvel Collectors

Lower quality books than Marvel titles

A huge amount of black and darker coloured covers for the period

DC collectors read their books more often than Marvel readers (very subjective)

A move away at this time from Superhero books to other genre's

 

and it all adds up to a degree of scarcity (as shown by the census).

 

To back this view up........I was very lucky to pick up almost complete runs of B&B and Det through dealer connections (at the time I thought I paid high at 90% of NM guide) and therefore thought that they must be quite plentiful. So I then set about obtaining a second run (started about 2.5 years ago) that I could one day get graded and sell on ebay. In that two and a half years I have only obtained 30 % of the books in a NM state.

 

I can't tell you how bloody frustrating it gets....often it is not the keys that cause the angst (Bat #232 has a huge amount of high grade available) but ones like you have just bought.

 

However even some keys (or semi) are scarse. Det #400 (ist manbat) has only a few in HG.

 

Having said all that....there are obviously a lot of books that are being held in collections but once again because they are collections they hardly ever see day light.

 

I certainly won't be selling mine any time soon.

 

Regardless... I think you got a good deal on the book and it is certainly a great cover.

 

[awe4one]

I think the problem is three fold specifically concerning early Bronze Batman.

 

One, the high grade DCs are in collections and aren't coming out anytime soon. We talk about Marvel zombies but die-hard DC collectors are even more rabid in my opinion and are apt to keep their comics and not turn them for profit.

 

Two, there isn't a great demand for Bronze DCs (or specifically, they don't command Marvel prices) so collectors really don't have any incentive to sell.

 

Three, concerning Bronze Adams Batman, people bought these issues to look at the art. More handling mean less higher grade copies out there.

 

With that said, Zonker or another avid DC collector may have better insights on this.

 

 

Jim

[vic6string]

I think the issue with there not being much of these books out there in great shape is the fact that these books spent most of their lives in obscurity. Marvel has outpaced DC for a LONG time when it comes to the backissue market. People who buy books to put away usually buy them when they think they are special in some way : a number 1, a new character intro, an origin, a death, etc. DC comics in the 70s (of course most of the material with any real action are the Superman and Batman titles) had very few of these features. Sure, there is the great work by Kane and Adams and others... sure, the stories are great... sure the art is wonderful.... but who was introduced? Who was killed? What happened in the Bronze age that has any real tie in to the present? The intro of Ras Al Gul? the first modern appearance of Two-Face? There is no Hulk 181, no Uncanny Xmen 94, it is even tough to find something that compares to an Iron Man 55 or Marvel Premiere 15. Nothing really happened that sticks out like that. And for so long there was so little interest in those books that they just sat in back-issue bins or 25 cent boxes. That isn't conducive to keeping pristine conditioned books. I wouldn't doubt that alot of the books also got torched or flooded for insurance purposes (people regularly kill the non-selling stuff like that to get at least face value for books that otherwise are barely worth the bag and boards you waste on them). I think eventually this will prove to be true and that might just help the high grade market on those common and minor key issues.

[comicartfan]

I think a couple of other things have added to there being such a disparity between high grade DCs and Marvel. - One, everything majore that happened in the DC Universe was in the Golden Age. Two, college kids were a huge part of the comic buying market in the 60's and 70's and they favored Spider-man and FF.

 

I also belive that even though there isn't proabably a warehouse out there with ungraded DCs in mint condition, I do believe that there are some really hidden gems out there. I picked up a GL 59 last week ungraded that came back 9.4 - Here is a key book that I would have thought would have allready been slabbed.

 

And Brian was asking about pedigree DCs- The best one for DCs seems to be the Boston Collection. Lots of High Grade stuff that has multiple copies of key issues.

 

Plus, the black covers that were so popular during that period...which was already mentioned.

[Zonker]

It is a bit of a puzzler-- I think both Vic and Jim are on to something.

 

Earlier, we had some speculation on the DC / Marvel census disparity in the Silver Age, some of that discussion may apply equally well to the Bronze Age:

 

There are 2 sides to the question about DC vs Marvel HG census numbers-

 

1) On the demand side. Marvel certainly captured the readers' imagination in the 1960s-- those readers (and their kid brothers/sisters who've been trying to catch up ever since ) now have the big wallets to chase after the Marvels, drive the prices up, and create the incentive to have the books slabbed. Certainly your observation about getting in on the ground floor of collecting Marvels in the 'teens versus DCs in the hundreds is part of it. Another big part is Stan Lee's style and showmanship (and talent, of course).

 

2) On the supply side. I've mused in the past that lots of DC readers were younger kids and the books were thrown away or degraded from multiple handlings. Also, I suspect the getting-in-on-the-ground floor aspect of Marvel's 1960s arrival led to the warehousing/hoarding mentality for Marvels to a greater degree than DCs. (Kind of a precursor to the Valiant, Image hoarding of 25-30 years later.)

 

There's another factor that may be at work here, and it is a cultural factor. I've noticed that there tend to be perhaps more DC fans in the comics as BTH (beat ta hell) contingent, and certainly more Marvel fans here on the CGC forums. Maybe because even the Silver Age DC keys are a few years older than Marvels, DC fans are used to collecting lower conditions? And since Golden Age plays a larger part in DC continuity than it does in Atlas/Marvel, again DC collectors may be used to accepting a lower condition? Or maybe it is all borne of necessity given the small number of DC warehouse finds noted above?

 

Cheers,

Z.

 

 

The only thing to add now is speaking only for myself, before I found this board, I'd never have considered upgrading my Bronze DCs, most of which are in Fine to Very Fine condition. Why? Well, part of the reason is I see all my DCs as part of the same collection, from the 1960-61 books onward. Since I'm okay with owning a GL #2 in Good+ condition, then I'm equally ok with my Bronze Batman books in Fine or so. It doesn't really answer the question except to point to that possible cultural difference noted above. I suspect there have been a lot of completists since the 1960s collecting runs of the Marvels in high grade. The hobby of actively collecting comics started to take off in the early Marvel Age of the 1960s, and fans entering the hobby at that time probably saw DCs like Flash, Batman, Superman in the 100's, Detective and Action in the 300's and thought, "What's the use in trying to complete a high grade collection?" Perhaps that mentality survives among DC collectors to this day? Dunno.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[awe4one]

Another thing I thought of at softball practice (Yeah we aren't very good). Where's all the MH2 high grade DC copies? Supposedly, Rozanski indicated that the collection had BOTH high grade DC and Marvel comics in bulk. But for the life of me, I can't think of many (or actually any) DCs coming out of the collection. At least in the abundance that Marvels seem to be. Does anyone have any insights on where these went?

 

 

Jim

[chrisco37]

DC is definately alot harder to find than Marvel. I went to a shop yesterday that has a great selection of back issues (Comics & Collectables in Reisterstown, MD for anyone in the DC/Baltimore Area). I was there for well over an hour looking for HG (VF/NM and better) DC Silver/Bronze and came up empty! He had a good selection: 5 copies of Swamp Thing #1, 5 copies of Spectre #1 (yeah, I'm trying to get around buying it from Greggy ), 2 Sinister House of Love #5, GL #85, etc..., but the Swamp Thing #1 in VF- (maybe) was the in the best condition of them all.

 

I didn't even start to look at Adams Bat books as they command premium dollar in any condition. When I bought my Batman #251 at a con (where you can usually get a good discount on anything if you know what to say), I couldn't get the dealer to budge (well, $5) on the price he wanted for it. I said, "C'mon, you can do better than that", and he said, "I can sell Adams books all day long w/ no markdown". And, dammit, he was right!

 

On the other hand, I found plenty of HG Marvels from both the Bronze and Silver ages and I was able to pick up a nice ASM #122 (yes! I finally got one!) for $25 off the asking price plus some NM/NM+ early 80's Doom appearances (FF and Xmen) to boot!

 

Haven't we also discussed that the paper used by DC at the time was of a lower quality? That could also contribute to the lack of HG DC's available.

 

If there were alot out there, I think people would be slabbing them. There's alot of money to be made (look at what AK paid for his 'Tec), but the books just aren't there (that Greggy's got 'em all! )

 

Chris

 

 

[shadroch]

When I started buying comics wholesale in 1980, I always ordered a couple extra of most Marvel titles, as they always sold as back issues. D.C. was ordered to sell out as there was little demand for any particular issue. If someone was looking for Batman or Superman, they ,more often then not, were just looking for reading material and did not care what back issues they obtained.Three months after the on sale date My Marvels were B+Bd and selling for more than cover while my DCs were in the closeout bin.There were a few exceptions but thats how it was in one store.

[drbanner]

People who buy books to put away usually buy them when they think they are special in some way : a number 1, a new character intro, an origin, a death, etc. DC comics in the 70s (of course most of the material with any real action are the Superman and Batman titles) had very few of these features.

 

I think this is a huge reason behind the lack of high grade 15/20-cent DC's compared to Marvels. For the most part, the key books (IMHO) were middle-of-the-run issue numbers, most in long running titles (All Star Western 10, HoS 92, Detective 400, Batman 232, 234, House of Mystery 174, 179, House of Secrets 81, Superman 233, Jimmy Olsen 133/134) and the best runs of the time are the best due to the quality of the artists and writers, rather than the popularity of the characters. As far as the actual "#1" issues that were published, the key books don't introduce new characters (Phantom Stranger, Weird War, Witching Hour, Ghosts, etc.,.). DC collectors love to collect the 100-pagers, but again, no new characters, and mysteriously, no "DC 100 Page Super-Spectacular #1"???

 

Another difference I believe is the collector mentality of the Bronze Age DC vs. Marvel collectors - the Marvel collectors are completionists and more title/character oriented, whereas DC collectors are more artist oriented (Adams, Kaluta, Wrightson).

 

While the reasons behind the difference in availability is likely due to many factors, the fact is that DC 15/20-cent books are tough!! Somebody sell me some!!

[Zonker]

People who buy books to put away usually buy them when they think they are special in some way : a number 1, a new character intro, an origin, a death, etc. DC comics in the 70s (of course most of the material with any real action are the Superman and Batman titles) had very few of these features.

 

I think this is a huge reason behind the lack of high grade 15/20-cent DC's compared to Marvels. For the most part, the key books (IMHO) were middle-of-the-run issue numbers, most in long running titles (All Star Western 10, HoS 92, Detective 400, Batman 232, 234, House of Mystery 174, 179, House of Secrets 81, Superman 233, Jimmy Olsen 133/134) and the best runs of the time are the best due to the quality of the artists and writers, rather than the popularity of the characters. As far as the actual "#1" issues that were published, the key books don't introduce new characters (Phantom Stranger, Weird War, Witching Hour, Ghosts, etc.,.). DC collectors love to collect the 100-pagers, but again, no new characters, and mysteriously, no "DC 100 Page Super-Spectacular #1"???

 

Another difference I believe is the collector mentality of the Bronze Age DC vs. Marvel collectors - the Marvel collectors are completionists and more title/character oriented, whereas DC collectors are more artist oriented (Adams, Kaluta, Wrightson).

 

While the reasons behind the difference in availability is likely due to many factors, the fact is that DC 15/20-cent books are tough!! Somebody sell me some!!

 

 

Really good points you both make.

 

Here's a test of the theory: Y'all who are looking for ultra high grade Bronze DC: Are you finding the availability of the #1 issues (setting aside Swamp Thing #1 for a moment) comparable to Marvels of a similar period? I'm thinking of Shadow #1, Shazam #1 (yeah, I know...), New Gods #1, Mr. Miracle #1, etc. 'Cause my casual impression is these books and Kubert's first Tarzan #207 are not hard at all to find in high grade, but the books Dr. Banner mentions above are much moreso. Maybe the Bronze DC keys were the 'stealth' books, and the Bronze DC speculators at the time just guessed horribly wrong (see Shazam #1! ).

 

Cheers,

Z.

[Zonker]

Haven't we also discussed that the paper used by DC at the time was of a lower quality? That could also contribute to the lack of HG DC's available.

 

Chris

 

 

Chris, that's actually the first I've heard of this one. When I look at 70's Marvels and DCs today, I cannot detect a difference in paper quality. Did they not use the same printing plant (Sparta?) and therefore presumably the same raw materials?

 

Note however this is not the case with Charltons: I can definitely spot a lower quality paper and lower general 'workmanship' in my 1960s Charltons. But then, I believe Charlton had a complete turnkey operation in Connecticut, including its own printing plant, if I recall correctly.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[drbanner]

You're right, those 20-cent #1's are pretty plentiful, and the Kirby 4th-world books are ubiquitous!!

 

Every book on my "other" list pre-dates the 20-cent priced covers. So maybe a better generalization is that late silver/early bronze DC's are much scarcer than Marvels from the same time, although after 1972 the difference isn't nearly as dramatic.

 

[chrisco37]

Zonk,

 

I wasn't positive. Maybe I was getting it mixed up w/ Charlton's we've discussed. I couldn't remember, that's why I asked. I stand corrected!

 

Chris