Which GA Pedigree Has the "Freshest" Books?

[batman_fan]

Matt Nelson has some data posted on his website that gives info on grade and page quality for the various pedigrees, very interesting read.

 

MUST READ

[sacentaur]

Finally, there is a relatively unknown and small group of books, dubbed the New Hampshire pedigree, split long ago by Moondog and Metropolis, which are absolutely amazing (high grade, bone white pages); they would rank right up there with the best of them, trust me. What a terrible shame that some of the books were surreptitiously restored (very minor in every case that I'm aware of) prior to their release into the marketplace.

 

STEVE

Interesting. I read in the selling section that they also jointly acquired Guy Holcombe books. Do they often have such joint acquisitions?

 

I don't know, steel - I have owned a few Holcombes here and there (solid books) but was unaware of the Metro/Moon connection until now (thanks for the link).

 

When I first saw the NH books, I was just stunned - especially when two dealers were simultaneously selling them! Some years ago I attended a comic gathering at Al Capps home and of all the books - Mile Highs, Friscos, Hawkeyes, etc., that I brought, my NH Pep 4 was the one that other attendees picked as being tops.

 

Resto or no, I wish I had bought more of them...

 

STEVE

[sacentaur]

Matt Nelson has some data posted on his website that gives info on grade and page quality for the various pedigrees, very interesting read.

 

MUST READ

 

Interesting stuff (can't wait for the Pedigree book to come out)!

 

Note the New Hampshire books I was exposed to were early GA, while the NH pedigree posted on the site is late 40's'/early 50's westerns. Two different finds, I think...

 

STEVE

[Straw-Man]

Who did the resto? Moondog or Metro?

 

I've always been happy with any/every book purchased from Moondog.

 

STEVE

 

agreed. gary's one of the best guys in the business.

[Straw-Man]

Thanks Steve. I was hoping you`d be one of the guys weighing in. So if you flipped open some random books from the MH, Vancouver, CV and Spokane collections, do you think there`d be any noticeable differences between them in the page quality and if so, which do you think would stand out the most?

 

Personally I don't think there's a definitive answer...but if I was pressed to pick, I would give Vancouvers and Spokanes the "freshest" nod by the slimmest of margins.

 

STEVE

 

 

many of my p'grees are in slabs now, but when all of them were still raw and could be thumbed up, my single chicago was the freshest book i ever had; the cover looked wet it was so glossy, the book had that new 'bounce' and the pages were great [only ow/w, but for timely pages, just beautiful].

[Arty]

Tom Reilly PQ

 

 

Church PQ

 

[Timely]

Some years ago I attended a comic gathering at Al Capps home and of all the books - Mile Highs, Friscos, Hawkeyes, etc., that I brought, my NH Pep 4 was the one that other attendees picked as being tops.

 

Resto or no, I wish I had bought more of them...

 

STEVE

 

That sure was a fun day! Capps' really had some nice stuff, too bad he left the hobby far sooner than expected.

 

West

[ciorac]

Some years ago I attended a comic gathering at Al Capps home and of all the books - Mile Highs, Friscos, Hawkeyes, etc., that I brought, my NH Pep 4 was the one that other attendees picked as being tops.

 

Resto or no, I wish I had bought more of them...

 

STEVE

 

That sure was a fun day! Capps' really had some nice stuff, too bad he left the hobby far sooner than expected.

 

West

 

Speaking of Al, here is his enjoying an Action Comics #9 that he was buying from me:

 

[G.A.tor]

Some years ago I attended a comic gathering at Al Capps home and of all the books - Mile Highs, Friscos, Hawkeyes, etc., that I brought, my NH Pep 4 was the one that other attendees picked as being tops.

 

Resto or no, I wish I had bought more of them...

 

STEVE

 

That sure was a fun day! Capps' really had some nice stuff, too bad he left the hobby far sooner than expected.

 

West

 

Speaking of Al, here is his enjoying an Action Comics #9 that he was buying from me:

 

neato

gator

[Robert Beerbohm]

i think the mode of archivialization has a lot to do with how any of the comic books present today

 

Where they were placed, how much heat in the summer, etc pl;ays a huge role once released into the market - and all those plane & van rides out to San Diego Comicon in the summer? Or into the heat of Chicago around the same time?

 

Real Life Concerns as the ideal storage scenarios gave way to wide and varied changes

 

Miles Highs were treated special from the git-go, the freshness was one of Chuck's marketing tools to justify his being double guide and sticking to that by & large - though he was known to shave percnets off when one bought a run of a title, according to many who told me what they were getting from Chuck as they got it, soon thereafter, in those years before the comics warehouse flooding back in 1986 - when the Mile High Collection was quite the industry buzz, as it redefined what High Grade truly meant -

 

So they would be stored better as Bill Sarill preached his mantra of comics preservation and Ernie Gerber did likewise hustling industry-standard MyLar in all kines of shapes & sizes to fit

 

I believe i remember the MH Superman #1 had color touch applied decades ago, back when that was considered an enhancement.

[tth2]

Tim;

 

It sounds as though you are almost doing some preliminary homework before you delve a bit more into the GA pedigree market. Especially now that you got your toes wet with the Church copies of Ibis.

Not at all. Was just surprised (and impressed) by the number of different GA pedigrees with white pages appearing in recent auctions, and it got me to thinking that there appeared to be actually 6 or 7 GA pedigrees that had a preponderance of white-paged books, which was pretty amazing. Particularly when you consider that currently there's only 1 SA pedigree (Curator) that, to my knowledge, has a preponderance of white-paged books.

 

So this got me to wondering whether some of this new abundance of white paged pedigrees was just a function of CGC being easier on PQ since the advent of the new label, or whether this many different collections of 60+ year old books genuinely were that white, and if so, were some white pages whiter than others.

[sacentaur]

I didn't mean to overlook Allentowns - absolutely wonderful books, but they lose a few points in the "freshness" category because the interiors are just not that blazing white. I was fortunate enough to pick up some GREAT Allentowns off of Metro and Payette when they first surfaced.

 

Denvers are pretty nice - Joe Dungan and I had one of the first cracks at the batch, and I still recall the packages from Payette arrivng in the mail at Joe's house in Santa Barbara. Pretty nice books, but again lacking that certain eye-popping freshness IMHO.

 

And what about those Larsons, with their fresh out-of-the-barn appeal?

 

STEVE

[tth2]

And what about those Larsons, with their fresh out-of-the-barn appeal?

Actually, I've always wondered why a bunch of books that were stored in a barn for several decades weren't all brittle and brown.

[Inaflash]

Speaking of silver age, I have bought quite a few White Mountain books with off-white to white pages. Slabodians and Western Penns also generally have nice paper.

 

Ken

[lou_fine]

Define "pedigree"

 

Adam;

 

Although I know that you are really trying to bug Tim, this is actually a very good point here.

 

Are we going to go just by the pedigrees that CGC officially recognizes or are we going to expand it to also include the ones that are going to be listed in the upcoming Pedigree book. Apparently some of the new pedigrees listed in the book that are not recognized by CGC are going to rank right up there in terms of PQ.

 

Just more food for thought.

[Straw-Man]

Finally, there is a relatively unknown and small group of books, dubbed the New Hampshire pedigree, split long ago by Moondog and Metropolis, which are absolutely amazing (high grade, bone white pages); they would rank right up there with the best of them, trust me. What a terrible shame that some of the books were surreptitiously restored (very minor in every case that I'm aware of) prior to their release into the marketplace.

 

STEVE

Interesting. I read in the selling section that they also jointly acquired Guy Holcombe books. Do they often have such joint acquisitions?

 

I don't know, steel - I have owned a few Holcombes here and there (solid books) but was unaware of the Metro/Moon connection until now (thanks for the link).

 

When I first saw the NH books, I was just stunned - especially when two dealers were simultaneously selling them! Some years ago I attended a comic gathering at Al Capps home and of all the books - Mile Highs, Friscos, Hawkeyes, etc., that I brought, my NH Pep 4 was the one that other attendees picked as being tops.

 

Resto or no, I wish I had bought more of them...

 

STEVE

 

well, you made me go out and buy a NH last nite; a True Western on the sunday nite auction block. it even kinda fits into a timely/atlas superhero run, as it is in fact men's adventures 2. i'll scan and post in a week or so. can't wait to see the pages [it's raw!]. thanks steve.

[Kent Meredith]

KingofRulers was spot on - the Big Apple books are the finest I've seen.

 

Unfortunately, a number have water damage, but overall, an incredible look and feel.