Obadiah Oldbuck vs. Superman

[Theagenes]

What is just as amazing as the comics are the political cartoons. 1872 had a very interesting presidential race between incumbent [embarrassing lack of self control] U.S. Grant and Horace Greely who broke away from the [embarrassing lack of self control] and formed a new party. I just wish my German was better. I'm getting a headache from trying to read this tiny Old German -script.

 

Some of the engravings of historical events are just incredible. This is not a comicstrip or cartoon, but I came across it while I was going through these newspapers and it was such a powerful image that I thought I would share it. It looks like your typical Golden Age evil hooded cult bondage scene ala Suspense 3 or Shock Suspenstories 6, but sadly this was not fiction.

 

The caption translates as, "Ku Klux Klan: John Campbell of Moore County, NC in the power of the Ku Klux."

 

 

Oct. 10, 1871:

 

[Theagenes]

WTF!! I can't say R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N??!!

 

Can I say Whig or Torrie or Progressive or Know-Nothing?

[BLBcomics-migration]

[quote

Still, all said & done, this is a pretty scarce puppy, i now know of about a dozen copies out there of the first printing all told - way less than say, err, um, an Action #1, (cough, cough)

 

And infinitely..(cough, cough) less deisrable than an Action #1...

 

Hi Bill, that one was for youse

 

Me, i would take in an Action 1 inna heart beat (NYC minute?), yes, get that puppy in, sell it, and go buy a huge pile of other cool old comic books, as i am quite happy with my Treasury-size comic book version to read and enjoy - plus the type is larger to read anyhoot

 

The desire is in the eyeballs of the beholder - see, i could trade off in cash on that action #1 i discovered, and go out to score a complete Jack Cole collection in about Fine shape, and ENJOY what i was to sit down to read

 

Or as many Wally Wood funny books as i could get my hands on

[BLBcomics-migration]

What is just as amazing as the comics are the political cartoons. 1872 had a very interesting presidential race between incumbent [embarrassing lack of self control] U.S. Grant and Horace Greely who broke away from the [embarrassing lack of self control] and formed a new party. I just wish my German was better. I'm getting a headache from trying to read this tiny Old German -script.

 

Some of the engravings of historical events are just incredible. This is not a comicstrip or cartoon, but I came across it while I was going through these newspapers and it was such a powerful image that I thought I would share it. It looks like your typical Golden Age evil hooded cult bondage scene ala Suspense 3 or Shock Suspenstories 6, but sadly this was not fiction.

 

The caption translates as, "Ku Klux Klan: John Campbell of Moore County, NC in the power of the Ku Klux."

Oct. 10, 1871:

 

Jeez, that John Campbell feels like me at times advocating OO as the first American comic book surrounded a group from this thread

[Theagenes]

 

Jeez, that John Campbell feels like me at times advocating OO as the first American comic book surrounded a group from this thread

 

We're not that bad are we?

[showcase4]

 

Jeez, that John Campbell feels like me at times advocating OO as the first American comic book surrounded a group from this thread

 

We're not that bad are we?

 

YOU'RE not that bad...if you go back to the 1st 20 pages or so of this post, your fellow Boards members wanted to publically lynch me for even calling Obadiah Oldbuck a "comic book", much less a comparison to Action #1. This GA forum has been one hostile environment for a Victorian/Platinum Age collector ( me ) to start a post in! ( but it's my on doing...it is a GA forum! )

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

Jeez, that John Campbell feels like me at times advocating OO as the first American comic book surrounded a group from this thread

 

We're not that bad are we?

 

i swear one of em looks just like Bill P down thereabouts in Mississippi

[ciorac]

 

Jeez, that John Campbell feels like me at times advocating OO as the first American comic book surrounded a group from this thread

 

We're not that bad are we?

 

i swear one of em looks just like Bill P down thereabouts in Mississippi

 

[showcase4]

 

Jeez, that John Campbell feels like me at times advocating OO as the first American comic book surrounded a group from this thread

 

We're not that bad are we?

 

i swear one of em looks just like Bill P down thereabouts in Mississippi

 

 

[Bronty]

[quote

Still, all said & done, this is a pretty scarce puppy, i now know of about a dozen copies out there of the first printing all told - way less than say, err, um, an Action #1, (cough, cough)

 

And infinitely..(cough, cough) less deisrable than an Action #1...

 

Not only that, but who knows if it IS scarcer at all. Sure, maybe there are only a dozen known right now, but OO has only been known as a money book for a few years. Action 1 has been known as a money book for DECADES. It's only natural that many more Action 1's would have come out of the woodwork given the constant attention on that book over the past fifty years. Nobody gave a krepe about OO until a few years ago and in fact, most people still don't

 

I'm not under any illusions that an 1842 publication is common, but nontheless, I'm frankly quite surprised that many copies are already known. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot more out there owned by collectors who don't know the (apparent) value of it.

[Shield]

So, the illustrated book from 1842 ended at $6600.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A%3AIT&rd=1

 

Thoughts? Showcase?

[Bronty]

So, the illustrated book from 1842 ended at $6600.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A%3AIT&rd=1

 

Thoughts? Showcase?

 

My thoughts are that there are about four collectors for the twelve copies

[BLBcomics-migration]

[quote

 

Not only that, but who knows if it IS scarcer at all. Sure, maybe there are only a dozen known right now, but OO has only been known as a money book for a few years. Action 1 has been known as a money book for DECADES. It's only natural that many more Action 1's would have come out of the woodwork given the constant attention on that book over the past fifty years. Nobody gave a krepe about OO until a few years ago and in fact, most people still don't

 

I'm not under any illusions that an 1842 publication is common, but nontheless, I'm frankly quite surprised that many copies are already known. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot more out there owned by collectors who don't know the (apparent) value of it.

 

Am working on a new mail order list going out in a couple days, thought i would take another small break

 

And a valid point it be, not knowing how many still exist.

 

Not directed at anybody in particular, but please do not take Gerber's Scarcity Ratio Index seriously on any level except as late night bar room joke talk - his numbers are way too low, as are most any estimate in Overstreet on certain "key" Gold books when that subject comes up there either. Comic books of the 20th century are way more common than any one might suspect. I think there are something like 20,000 copies of Spiderman #1 out there still, something Gerber called a 4 in his SRI, meaning he said there were only 1500-2000 copies in existence, a laughably low number.

 

Chances are there are still way more Action #1 copies out there, considering a quarter million of them were printed up 68 years ago; i am sure the print run on OO was somewhat less than that 96 years earlier still.

 

I was the fellow who sold the books which broke the two grand barrier back in 1973 when i sold the Reilly Whiz #2 (#1) to Burl Rowe (Houston Hunt Oil Co lawyer) for $2K even, then a couple weeks later he took the Reilly Detective 27 for $2200, garnering us at Comics & Comix wide ranging UPI/AP wire service stories all the way to germany, and within a month we had 3 more Tec 27s come thru the door at berkeley (well, mail, actually on two of them)

 

Obadiah Oldbuck has been collected for decades by people, savored, archived, just not in the world of comic book collecting - that is relatvely new, about a decade old now, since i first broke the story in my Plat history lesson, before the Victorian section was broken off into its own category in OPG.

 

Further more, Töpffer' s place as inventor of the "modern" comic strip book back in the late 1820s has been widely recognized in Europe for just about forever, from my perspective, limited as it is on any in-depth Euro-comics history knowledge that i have been able to glean since my own personal consciousness was raised.

 

I have found mention of the USA version in quite a few places, the earliest being 1867, also 1904, 1933, 1960, and other years when history books and articles were published. Not a lot, but it was out there to be gleaned by interested folk.

 

I remember when i first discovered EC comic books back in 1966. My family had gone down to San Antonio for the Hemis-Fair, and when my father stopped for gas in SA, i spied a book store across the street, went over there, asked th guy running the place if he had any old comic books for sale, flipped thru a couple boxes, found a MAD #1 for $5 and also bought Weird Scienc e18 19 for $1.50 each. My parents had given my brother and myself $10 each - i then had $2 left for the rest of the long trip as we were also going to Houston to see the Astros play the Yankees in the then-new Astro Dome.I must have read those three ECs a hundred times those two weeks, in comics heaven as it were.

 

Soon there after, i began to go after ECs around the home front as well as thru the RBCC.

 

When i had accumulated about two dozen ECs, i had gotten 3 copies of Vault of Horror 12, picking up any ECs i could, to use as traders.

 

warehouse finds were popping up here and there bakc then, like the warehouse find of Detective 59 Bill Dubay and Marty Arbunich in San Francisco were selling for $3 a pop, unlimited quantities, it seemed, i bought a dozen, i remember.

 

I became convinced Vault 12 was a common book - so my addled 15 year old brain traded off my 3 copies. It was 17 years before i managed to score another Vault 12. big lesson lerned there the hard way assuming something.

 

a dozen copies of OO is still a drop in the bucket for the potential of those who might want to score a copy for themselves over time as the consciousness of that book is raised

 

I think there are at least a few hundred copies of Action #1 out there still in existence

 

anybody who has a copy of OO and gets onto the net has told me that my name pops up the most in any Google type search - so i have talked with or emailed with most anybody who has searched for info on it.

 

I am sure there are more copies yet to be discovered - not a lot more though

[BLBcomics-migration]

So, the illustrated book from 1842 ended at $6600.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A%3AIT&rd=1

 

Thoughts? Showcase?

 

My thoughts are that there are about four collectors for the twelve copies

 

not bad for a trimmed copy bound into a book of other mags - some of the trim looks like it ate into the art on the border, according to the posted scans

[showcase4]

So, the illustrated book from 1842 ended at $6600.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A%3AIT&rd=1

 

Thoughts? Showcase?

 

I'm very happy with the price this volume brought (FYI - I was not the high bidder)...it confirms that the previous sales from last year, which were private sales, were priced appropriately. This Obadiah Oldbuck was in a bound volume, and therefore had trimmed pages and would have some level of spine damage from the binding proccess. That would make it a ".1.0 Fair" or even a ".05 Poor" as far as a technical grade using most grading standards ( due mostly to the trimming )

 

Imagine if a Pep 22 was in a spiral notebook ( as GA books sometimes are ), and it had its edges trimmed to be flush with the cover. If that spiral notebook went to auction, and someone paid $6,600 for it because of the Pep 22 it contained, then a VG Pep 22 which was never trimmed, and never bound in a spiral notebook could very easily command a $20,000 price by comparison

 

1.0 Fair---- trimmed/spine damage $6,600

4.0 VG------- light general wear $20,000

 

...I would contend that this would apply to virtually any comic book out there, and be fairly accurate

[esquirecomics]

So, the illustrated book from 1842 ended at $6600.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A%3AIT&rd=1

 

Thoughts? Showcase?

 

My thoughts are that there are about four collectors for the twelve copies

 

Actually, even if this is true, that's fine. Especially if those four collectors have lots of $$$$$. I collect promotional anti-communist books. Very few other people do. On e-bay there are at about 4 other primary competitors for these books. We each typically already have the books we seek to purchase and just want to add more to the collection given the rarity. If the others don't see the book, it goes for a much, much lower price. Get three or four of us involved in the bidding on the same book and the price jumps! Demand sells.

[showcase4]

Hey Bob,

what can you tell us about this?

Is this the 1st English language comic book? And its rarity? How can we tell if it's a 1st printing or reprint?

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/VERY-1st-Comic-Pre-B...1QQcmdZViewItem

[BLBcomics-migration]

Hey Bob,

what can you tell us about this?

Is this the 1st English language comic book? And its rarity? How can we tell if it's a 1st printing or reprint?

 

This is an auction for what is considered to be the very 1st Comic Book ever "The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck" by Rodolphe Topffer. The American Brother Jonathan version is an 1842 Re-Print Edition of this original 1st English 1841 Edition. This very 1st Edition is complete with all 84 plates and is also signed by William Makepeace Thackeray 1841. Please see the Thackeray-Goethe-Topffer connection at coconino-world.com in an article by T.Smolderen. This book was published by Tilt & Bogue in London and was printed by Bradbury & Evans. The "W. Thackeray 1841" signature is sealed in between the first 2 pages and only can be seen when held up to the light {THIS is why the signature looks fuzzy, see fotos}. The book is also signed by "V. Mellor St. John's College Cambridge 1841" and by "Jean Forbes April 28, 1961 Yorkshire". This 6x9 inch hardcover book includes the gold-stamped Cruikshank illustration on the cover. This is truly a rare and significant part of Comic Book History. Email with any questions.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/VERY-1st-Comic-Pre-B...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

This is the first English translation of Obadiah Oldbuck, spelled out in the Victorian history lesson article piece. The Cruickshank the seller refers to is George's brother, Robert

 

The printing plates for this were brought to the USA in 1842 and stayed here, same with the Bachelor Butterfly printing plates Tilt & Bogue published a couple years later

 

There were only one printing of these two Tilt & Bogue editions, same with the Beau Ogleby 3rd English Topffer comic book, which was not ever printed in America

 

So, yes, this is the first English language comic book

[Bronty]

So, the illustrated book from 1842 ended at $6600.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A%3AIT&rd=1

 

Thoughts? Showcase?

 

My thoughts are that there are about four collectors for the twelve copies

 

Actually, even if this is true, that's fine. Especially if those four collectors have lots of $$$$$. I collect promotional anti-communist books. Very few other people do. On e-bay there are at about 4 other primary competitors for these books. We each typically already have the books we seek to purchase and just want to add more to the collection given the rarity. If the others don't see the book, it goes for a much, much lower price. Get three or four of us involved in the bidding on the same book and the price jumps! Demand sells.

 

Yeah, I hear you. Just a snide remark on my part, really.. couldn't resist as I just can't get excited about OO on any level.

[showcase4]

Yeah, I hear you. Just a snide remark on my part, really.. couldn't resist as I just can't get excited about OO on any level.

 

Perfectly understandable.......Victorian and Platinum Age books are a niche....not mainstream. That's the beauty of our great hobby....so many different areas to dive in to. I used to collect high grade Silver, and the Vic/Plat market I now focus on is very, very different. I went from 9.4's to hoping the cover is still attached.