What's your favorite Silver age pedigree??

[Rip]

With many silver age pedigrees out there now, which ones are your favorite? Which do you think have the whitest pages?

[murph0]

Western Penn, followed by Pacific Coast. Curators are alright but most of the nice ones aren't available. The Massachusetts books (from the one that I've had in person) are awesome too.

 

Brian

[fantastic_four]

I dunno, hard to say what books are in each pedigree unless you know one of the people who originally owned, sold, or bought the comics in them. I wish CGC would show you somewhere what grades they've given to the pedigrees...the data is sitting there in their database, but nobody's queried it yet that I know of.

 

Coolest story-behind-the-pedigree is Curator...the reason the original owner sold out is rather interesting.

[murph0]

FF, I've just always considered that you're supposed to answer questions like this based on what you've seen..and what pedigree has a lot of books (or runs) you really like.

 

Brian

[jonnydouble]

I have a one Pacific Coast and a couple of Boston.....I like the Boston better...the Pacific Coast books look a tad overgraded in my opinion.

 

 

J.D.

[jhumd-migration]

I've always been a fan of the Curator and Mass books. Page quality seems pretty strong, on average, for a lot of the SA books. On books I've seen, I thought the cover colors were exceptional on the Curator and Mass books.

 

I agree FF, it would be interesting to see a compilation of books/cgc grades for individual pedigree books graded thus far.

[murph0]

I think I'd rather see about 10-20 copies of each pedigree in misc grades. Seeing the grades doesn't tell you how gorgeous some of these books look despite a numerical grade.

 

Brian

[fantastic_four]

FF, I've just always considered that you're supposed to answer questions like this based on what you've seen..and what pedigree has a lot of books (or runs) you really like.

 

That's the problem...I keep hearing Curator was a complete run of Silver Marvels, but I've never seen or had anybody confirm whether there was an FF run in there. Curator has produced the highest grades I've heard of, but I've barely heard what are in the pedigrees. Nor have I seen any Western Penn FFs below 100. I've heard Western Penn extends into the 1950s, but I haven't seen any of those.

 

If I knew more about them, I'd be able to pick...but all I've seen is the marginal stuff most people didn't want. I haven't seen the early Mile Highs...but I've heard they exist and what their grades were like, so it's easier to pick that as the best Golden Age collection. The best Curator and Western Penn stuff is hidden away and undocumented.

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

Nor have I seen any Western Penn FFs below 100.

 

The Blazing One had a Western Penn F.F. # 19 on his website earlier this year. It was a sharp CGC 9.2 with OW/W pages if my memory serves, with a paltry $1,100 price tag.

 

[blowout]

The Curator books I have seen are stunning. The Northland pedigree is also very nice. Of the recent ones Western Penn books are very sharp and white.

I think the White Mountain books are somewhat overrated from what I have seen.

[fantastic_four]

The Curator books I have seen are stunning. The Northland pedigree is also very nice. Of the recent ones Western Penn books are very sharp and white.

I think the White Mountain books are somewhat overrated from what I have seen.

 

My previous opinion of Northland is what leads me to say I can't decide based upon what I know. I had only seen a few Northlands like the FF 1 8.0 and Spidey 1 8.0 (which rumor has it is now an apparent 9.2/9.4 thanks to our good slight restoring buddy out there) and a few other early 9.0s and 9.2s, but after italian-treasure blew his wad of Spideys at Heritage last year, I saw all those lovely 9.4s and 9.6s like the white-paged Spidey 14 CGC 9.6 and it changed my whole opinion of that pedigree.

[murph0]

I've got 2 Northlands both 9.4's maybe I got bad ones or something, but they don't seem to be very glossy if at all.

 

Brian

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

I think the White Mountain books are somewhat overrated from what I have seen.

 

I've owned a couple of WM books, and there was nothing overated about them. One in particular, an F.F. 10, was just stunning. Those grey-blue early Marvel covers (like ASM # 1) almost never retain their gloss, but this one looked like it was printed yesterday.

 

However, I will agree that the WMs have lost a bit of their prestige as other really sharp Silver Age pedigrees have emerged (Western Penn, Curator, Pacific Coast). Back when the White Mountains were king, other comparable pedigrees (like Bethleham) were only so-so, especially in page quality.

 

There's my two cents, four bucks more will get you a latte.

[HooDeeDoo]

I keep hearing Curator was a complete run of Silver Marvels, but I've never seen or had anybody confirm whether there was an FF run in there.

 

All the FFs are owned by one "mystery man", and his identity is known by only a few. It's a big secret.

 

They've yet to be CGC'ed.

 

 

[HooDeeDoo]

I think the White Mountain books are somewhat overrated from what I have seen.

 

You haven't seen enough of them.

 

The WM's have amazing cover gloss - most of them look wet, especially the Atlas pre-code horror. Unfortunately they haven't graded as high as the more recent pedigrees so they've lost some of their cache.

 

To be able to really judge the difference in the pedigrees you've got to see them unslabbed and since most of them have been slabbed that's going to be difficult.

[fantastic_four]

The WM's have amazing cover gloss - most of them look wet, especially the Atlas pre-code horror. Unfortunately they haven't graded as high as the more recent pedigrees so they've lost some of their cache.

 

To be able to really judge the difference in the pedigrees you've got to see them unslabbed and since most of them have been slabbed that's going to be difficult.

 

The slabbing could be useful, though, since it makes the grades somewhat more quantifiable. If somebody gave me half an hour at the console of CGC's database server, I could probably have a quantitative analysis of all the pedigreed copies they've ever seen that would give us some indication as to how they compare to each other.

 

Of course, comparative gloss wouldn't be factored in...does anybody know how much CGC deducts for low gloss? I would assume it's something they don't knock down for below the 9.8 level, but I'm not sure. Like hoodeedoo says, it's tough to see gloss through a slab.

 

How do you compare pedigrees to figure out which one is the "best," anyway? Is it size of collection + number of keys + average grade + average page whiteness + average gloss? Does the story behind it count for anything, or is that just a marketing add-on?

[blowout]

You haven't seen enough of them. The WM's have amazing cover gloss - most of them look wet, especially the Atlas pre-code horror. Unfortunately they haven't graded as high as the more recent pedigrees so they've lost some of their cache.

 

I agree that WM's are gorgeous books for the most part, but they have lost a lot of their cache mainly since the advent of CGC and the appearance of many super high grade books. The White Mountain Pedigree can no longer be considered 'the best of the best'.

[CGCMINT]

I dunno, hard to say what books are in each pedigree unless you know one of the people who originally owned, sold, or bought the comics in them. I wish CGC would show you somewhere what grades they've given to the pedigrees...the data is sitting there in their database, but nobody's queried it yet that I know of.

 

Coolest story-behind-the-pedigree is Curator...the reason the original owner sold out is rather interesting.

 

What was the story?

 

John

 

[murph0]

Sold the collection in order to get a sex change. However, I think the G.R. story is equally interesting.

 

Brian

[fantastic_four]

Sold the collection in order to get a sex change. However, I think the G.R. story is equally interesting.

 

I thought so when somebody first described it on here...but since the original owner was cleared of all charges as being the Green River killer, it's somewhat of a let-down as a controversial origin. But it's definitely unique!!!