My Mother-in-law's comic collection

[Mac Man]

Hey all! Next weekend I'm sitting down with my mother-in-law to go through a rather large box of comic books that she and her sister owned when they were young girls. The time frame that I'm looking at on these will be somewhere between 1955-1965, so late Golden to early Silver Age. From what she tells me (and she doesn't really remember well) most of the comics they collected were anything to do with Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, etc, as well as her sister having a penchant for some of the Little Lulu sort of comics.

 

Now to be perfectly honest, I don't really follow any of those titles whatsover. The only Superman comics I have is the TPB of him dying (how morbid, huh?-). I'm a decent grader, and I will be going through to appraise, bag, and board all of them for her. I'm just curious if there are any specific issues that I should keep my eye out for in these lines within this time frame? I'll have my OSPG nearby and will get the quick note for ea. issue, but we all know that the OSPG doesn't reflect all of the hype around certain key issues. Any advice you can give would be appreciated.

[Dad&Son-migration]

It's only your mother-in-law...so scam the heck out of her..

 

seriously... if you have an OSPG at hand while looking at books you have no clue about important issues...it'll give you a pretty good description that any collector can pick up on right away... that era was the start of the Silver-age so there's so many good books from those titles to zone in on...

have fun!!!

[Mac Man]

Yeah, I just feel bad because if they were Marvel, almost any title, I'd be able to talk on a few of the issues or titles, etc. DC from that era, however, I really haven't gotten into yet.

 

She's already told me that she's probably just going to give them to me since I'm into comics and all- which I thought was pretty generous of her and all. I simply offered to get them properly bagged and boarded for her as the idea of them sitting in a box, piled up just unnerved me

[ninanina]

Can hardly wait to find out what's there. Keep us informed...please.

[Foolkiller]

In high grade, ten cent DCs (and even early 12 centers) of the Action, Adventure etc. line of books are valuable in high grade. In low grade, I wouldn't overly value them if you are going to buy them... but I do believe ten centers will move.

[heinlein99]

...and you should move them in our Marketplace, no?

[Mac Man]

No, like I said, I won't be buying these as she was planning to give them to me eventually. What's really cool is that they are all original owner issues. The funny thing is that both my father-in-law and myself are collectors (he's into cards), so she actually has an idea what conditions are, and thinks they might not be in mint, but still in very nice condition.

 

I'll definitely be sure to keep everyone posted- most likely next weekend will be when we do this.

[alecholland]

In high grade, ten cent DCs (and even early 12 centers) of the Action, Adventure etc. line of books are valuable in high grade. In low grade, I wouldn't overly value them if you are going to buy them... but I do believe ten centers will move.

 

Ten centers will definitely move if you are inclined to sell.

If it were me though, I would keep them. Especially since they would be a family heirloom of sorts. Pretty cool.

[Jeffro.]

Can hardly wait to find out what's there. Keep us informed...please.

 

Yeah definitely. I once got a small stack of books that belonged to my mom and my aunt. Nothing great in there unfortunately. About the only good book was a decent copy of Rudolph 1962/63. For years, I had no idea how scarce that book was.

[Mac Man]

Chances are pretty good I'll hold on to 'em just because they were hers. Sorry to disappoint anyone out there.

[Ze-man]

Post some photos of the books when you get time, would love what the girls collected back in the day.

 

Ze-

[Michael2007-migration]

In terms of Superman, look for Superman # 199 (first Superman/Flash race). That issue goes for big bucks in higher grades. Also Superman # 233 is always in demand; a # 233 in 9.6 with white pages recently sold for over $1,200 on eBay.

For Lois Lane, look for issues # 70 and # 71, which are early Silver Age Catwoman appearances.

Michael

[RaccoonRaccoon]

Post some photos of the books when you get time, would love what the girls collected back in the day.

 

Ze-

 

I agree, please post some pics. I can't imagine there were too many women collecting super hero comics, especially back in those days. GOOD STUFF!

[Mac Man]

Hey all! Didn't want you to think I forgot about this thread in all the excitement we have here. I just finished going through around 25+ issues of 150-200 comics. Overall, good time. Titles that I found in there were as follows (though not all of them): Various Archies, Superman, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Lois Lane, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, World Best, Brave & the Bold, Batman, Detective Comics, Flash, Justice League of America, Classics Illustrated, Popeye, Various Disney, and more all from the early 60s with the general grade range of 2.0 - 4.0 (some a little lower and some a little higher).

 

For nice issues, I found copies of Batman 181 in around 4.5 - 5.0, 200 in 4.5, and 201 in around 5.0. There were a handful of Detective Comics in the mid-300 range all in the greater VG range (give 1.0 point take 0.5 point). I also saw a copy of Superman 199 in 5.0 - 5.5. These were in cardboard boxes and hadn't even been opened in 35+ years since my mother-in-law got married and moved out! I'll probably be slowly working my way through the piles of books, packaging and grading them for her and her sister (who co-owns them).

 

I'll probably be selling them at some point for them towards end of the summer when I'm done with the work (though I might cherry pick a few for myself ) So I'll post updates now and then on this thread ahead of time to gauge interest, etc.

[joe_collector]

Chances are pretty good I'll hold on to 'em just because they were hers. Sorry to disappoint anyone out there.

 

 

I'll probably be selling them at some point for them towards end of the summer when I'm done with the work (though I might cherry pick a few for myself ) So I'll post updates now and then on this thread ahead of time to gauge interest, etc.

[Jeffro.]

So she wasn't a Sgt Rock fan huh?

[skypinkblu]

I don't think I saw how old the comics are, but look for Action 252 or 242...Adventure 300, and Batman 181 is very nice, lots of grls kept that one cause of the hot pink cover...

 

Are you keeping SOME for sentimental reasons? or selling them to make money for her? It's a little confusing...

[Mac Man]

Well, I'm going to keep some just because they have a neat story behind them, but half of the collection contains stuff that I probably won't ever get around to collecting (JLA, Archies, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Superman, etc). She pretty much said I can have whatever ones I'd like to keep as a way to cover any expenses/time spent in selling the rest.

 

Hopefully that clears up any confusion?-)

[kimik]

Nice find! Even though they are not in high grade it is still nice to see that some people's parents had a bit of foresight.

 

When I was 8 (1983) my mom's dad gave my brother and I all of the hockey cards my uncle had collected during from 1965 or so through 1973/4. The only one I remember vividly was the Bobby Orr rookie as I thought it was a cool looking card and my grandfather said he was the greatest player ever. These were added to the piles of cards we had bought ourselvers including multiple Gretzky, Messier, Bourque, etc. (loved the gum more than the cards back then). A couple of months after getting my uncle's cards my mom threatened to toss them all out if we did not clean up the corner of my room that they were laying around in before we went to my grandparents for the weekend. My brother and I did not think she was serious, but when we came back they were all gone and never to be seen again.

 

I like reminding her about that every time there is an article on a new record sale for a sportscard in the news.

[Mac Man]

Did more catloging and grading today, and came up with a bunch of nice mid-grade Archies (various titles), a run of World's Finest (148-195: 75% complete) in low-to-mid grade, Action Comics (317-374: 65-75% complete), and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen (86-124: 65-75% complete). I haven't finished grading the action comics or SPJOs yet, but general trend is the first half of the collection are low-grades and the last half are nice mid-grades.

 

And I know I was a little unclear before, but I WILL be selling a number of comics from the collection for her though I will be keeping some of these for my own collection though in part for sentimental purposes- the story behind them is very cool to me, and I think it would be really nice when I pass these along to my (future) kids. Not sure if anyone in this thread is interested, but I'll keep posting what I find, and will let you know when I get to listing it in the forum.