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For those of you who hang out occasionally or frequently (like myself) in the Planet Comics dedicated thread, you are probably already aware that I completed the entire Planet Comics run a couple of months ago. This was a task that took me almost 12 years to complete if you count the very first Planet Comics book I purchased that started my interest in this title. Initially I would periodically pick up an issue now and again at various auctions or through Ebay, but it was not until I had probably acquired 5 or 6 books in this title that I started to think about one day completing the entire run. I believe my first purchase of a Planet Comics issue was back around the 2006 timeframe where I picked up a mid grade Planet Comics #43. I actually picked up a number of other Planet Comic issues over the next couple of years, mostly numbering in the 50's or later issues in the run that started the basis of my run collection. At first my goal was to assemble a full run all in high grade (8.5 or higher) , but once I started actively seeking Planet Comics issues on a regular basis, I realized that with some issues, this was next to impossible to achieve unless you had unlimited funds and time. As I started to pick away at the run, mostly picking up books from the major comics auction houses like HA, ComicLink and also Ebay, the run slowly started to take shape. Later I also added in ComicConnect, MyComicShop and even Morphy Auctions for a few books at one point. I also picked up a couple of issues locally here in the Toronto area. A couple of the books were also purchased from Cheetah's run of spectacular Planets that went up for auction a number of years ago. At first I was not much of a player for picking up the very early issues of Planet Comics as the prices kept me at the sidelines to some extent. In retrospect I wish I had been more aggressive with some of those early rivet issues (#1-22) as the prices have increased significantly for many of those books over the last decade and nice high grade examples just do not present themselves in the market that often. I purchased my Planet Comics #1 from Heritage at one of their auctions around the 2010 timeframe. It was the biggest book I had every purchased $$ wise at the time and it was a personal grail of mine to acquire. When I joined the forums in June of 2011 on the recommendation of a local buyer I met through Ebay, this became another source of many great books for me, as well as a number of the Planet Comics currently within my completed run. Issues #14 and #15 are generally considered two of the tougher books to acquire and are challenging to find, particularly #15. I was able to win both of these books at two separate auctions about a week apart a few years ago, I remember how absolutely broke it made me, but did not want to miss the opportunity to fill these gaps in my run as the books became available not very often. After I picked up these two issues, I felt like I was truly closing in on the completion of the entire run. I probably had about 20 issues left to go at that point. Each time I was able to fill another slot in my run, was a great feeling. The #11 was my very last rivet issue that I picked up. I remember feeling very relieved when I wont that auction as I had been trying unsuccessfully to snag that particular issue for over 4 years of searching. My very last issue I purchased to complete the run was #41, not a rare issue by any means, but I was simply waiting for one that felt right for me. A fellow boardie was kind enough to offer it for sale from his own collection to facilitate my completion of the run I love these boards, the members really are great in so many ways. Below is my list of books in my run. I am going to post the books one by one for anyone who wishes to enjoy looking at them. Sorry the pictures are not the absolute best as the images are not scanned, but photos taken by my phone at the front of my house I will see if I can post a grouped photo on the second post of this thread in summary after I have posted all the pics. Enjoy the collection, I know I enjoyed putting it together. Warmest Regards, Jason Planet Comics Issue Number CGC Grade Page Quality 1 7.5 Cream to Off White 2 2.5 Brittle 3 7.0 Off White 4 3.0 Off White to White Pages 5 9.2 Off White to White Pages 6 7.5 Off White to White Pages 7 6.5 Off White to White Pages 8 5.5 Off White 9 7.5 Off White to White Pages 10 7.5 Cream to Off White 11 6.5 Cream to off white 12 4.5 Cream to Off White 13 6.0 Off White 14 5.0 Off White 15 3.0 Slightly Brittle Pages 16 9.0 Cream to Off White 17 5.5 Off White to White Pages 18 5.5 Cream to Off White 19 8.0 Cream to Off White 20 8.0 Off White to White Pages 21 7.5 Off White to White Pages 22 5.5 Cream to Off White 23 8.0 Cream to Off White 24 7.0 White pages 25 8.5 Cream to Off White 26 5.0 Off White 27 8.5 Off White 28 4.5 Cream to Off White 29 8.0 Off White to White Pages 30 8.5 Off White 31 9.2 Cream to Off White 32 8.0 Cream to Off White 33 7.5 Off White 34 7.0 Off White to White Pages 35 5.5 From Ricksneatstuff 36 8.5 Off White to White Pages 37 9.4 White pages 38 8.0 Off White Pages 39 7.0 Off White to White Pages 40 6.5 Off White to White Pages 41 9.0 White pages 42 8.0 Off White to White Pages 43 7.5 Cream to Off White 44 9.4 Cream to Off White 45 8.5 Off White to White Pages 46 8.5 Off White 47 6.0 Cream to Off White 48 8.5 Off White 49 9.2 Off White 50 7.5 Off White to White Pages 51 6.5 Slightly Brittle Pages 52 8.0 Off White to White Pages 53 9.0 Off White to White Pages 54 8.5 Off White to White Pages 55 8.0 Off White to White Pages 56 8.5 Off White to White Pages 57 8.5 Off White to White Pages 58 8.5 Cream to White Pages 59 9.2 Off White to White Pages 60 8.5 Off White to White Pages 61 7.0 Off White to White Pages 62 7.5 Off White to White Pages 63 9.2 Off White to White Pages 64 9.2 Off White pages 65 4.5 Cream to Off White 66 7.0 Off White to White Pages 67 8.0 Off White to White Pages 68 9.2 Cream to Off White 69 6.5 cream to off white 70 7.0 Off White to White Pages 71 6.0 Off White to White Pages 72 6.5 White Pages 73 8.5 Off White to White Pages

On April 18 Action Comics 1000 will be released. 80 years ago DC created 3 ashcan editions. To celebrate this incredible accomplishment I'm going to take my Action Comics ashcan out of the vault and display it at the Comix Revolution shop in downtown Mt. Prospect, IL.from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. This is only the third time in 33 years that I've displayed it. No purchase required to get a photo with it. No purchase required to hold it. No purchase required to stop and chat with me about it.

You should have turned to the guy and said "I'll take your offer, just let me finish paying for them first."

Here is something I wrote years back about the MH collection for the Pedigree Book that never made it to print. Much of this information came from an interview I did with John Verzyl (along with other sources). Initial Brokering of the Collection. Disbursement of the collection after Chuck bought it was slow and steady except for some raids early on by Burrell Rowe, Bruce Hamilton and Gary Carter. Burrell Rowe was one of the first to see the collection. He was one of the top collectors at that time. He was a very luck man as not only was he the first person to pick from the collection, but he bought about $17,000 worth of material at 1976 guide value. He walked away with approximately 1,000 comics, nearly 6% of the entire collection! Burrell was heavily into Fiction House and EC’s so he bought almost all of those. He also bought many of the early Fawcett titles such as Captain Marvel, Whiz Comics, Captain Marvel Jr. #1 and Special Comics #1. He also selected a few prime DC books like Detective Comics #33, 39 & 40. Bruce Hamilton also got in early and picked up many choice books for $10,000 that he quickly sold to Gary Carter. Once Gary and his brother Lane found out about where these books came from they flew out to Colorado to buy more. They were so transfixed by these comic books that Gary mortgaged his house and borrowed all they could to get more of these Mint comics form Chuck. In total the brothers amassed $44,000 and with that money they cherry-picked the main DC titles such as Action Comics, Adventure Comics, More Fun Comics and most other titles. Gary’s father Nick managed to come up with an additional $5,000 called up his sons and asked them to purchase all the off-brand DC titles like Mr. District Attorney, Dale Evans and other Western titles. He also bought funny humor titles like A Date with Judy and Leave it to Binky. Due to the incredible condition of the comic books Chuck and Nanette felt these were worth MORE than what the Overstreet guide valued them at so they started to ask a multiple of guide based on the condition of the specific book and on each company. For instance, DC and Timely had a higher multiple of 2 to 2.5 times guide across the board whereas less demand books such as Fawcett which were priced at 1.5 to 2 times guide. Slow titles that had minimal interest were priced just slightly over guide. Chuck usually offered a 10% discount if you bought a sizeable portion. This was the first time any dealer had mad a list of books he was selling with ask prices HIGHER than Overstreet thus leaving many complete runs of Edgar Church/Mile Highs unsold for years and years. Most dealers back then felt the prices were too high and they could get better deals elsewhere. If only they knew then what they know now I’m sure they would have paid the excess amount asked. Soon after those early raids were made the collection was cataloged by Chuck, his wife Nanette and his employee at the time, John Desbin. Once the collection was catalog and priced Chuck placed an enormous ad in Alan Lights “The Buyer’s Guide.” Even though the ad only initially generated $15,000 in sales Chuck had many repeat customers, and rightfully so. There were many early significant purchases in the last 1970’s to early 1980’s. Ron Pussell (owner of Redbeard’s Book Den) bought a vast majority of the esoteric titles and sold them slowly through the 1980’s into the mid 1990’s. Ron was a smart seller as he kept the key expensive books up until the very end selling off the less expensive issues first. At the beginning of each year Ron would get a call from Chuck and Ron would tell him what he wanted from the collection. Chuck would pull those books for Ron and give them to Ron at the San Diego convention later that year. By that time the new price guide would be out and Ron would have to pay “new guide” prices. Ron was buying the books graded NM and NM+ at 1.5 times guide but would get a discount of 10% making it 1.35 times guide per book. However, Ron had a deal with John Verzyl to give him first shot at those books but John had to pay “next year” guide prices at just under 2 times guide. John bought almost every Edgar Church/Mile High Ron ever offered to him with few exceptions, one of them being Superman #1. One of the last key books Ron sold was the Edgar Church/Mile High copy of Superman #1 which he sold to Bechara Maalouf in 1997 for $180,000. Each year Chuck would bring a vast assortment of less expensive Edgar Church/Mile Highs to sell in San Diego. Anyone could walk right up to the table and buy the books. There were many titles in those boxes that were cheap back then that are highly sought after and expensive today, such as the Suspense Comics run by Continental. Keep in mind that the Edgar Church/Mile High collection was a secret that Ron and several others wanted no one to know about. Well, at the San Diego comic show in the mid-1980’s a well-known dealer wanted to buy everything that Chuck had laid out at his tables. Ron got wind of this and was able to continue his #1 spot as Chuck’s #1 customer as he told Chuck he would buy every NM or NM+ Edgar Church/Mile High that Chuck had brought to the show. The deal was made and it took Chuck and his staff 2 days to sort and count up the hoard of books Ron had purchased. This deal left only Fine, VG or Good Edgar Church/Mile High’s for the other dealer to purchase, which he did. Even books graded Fine were generally high grade as it would only have 2-3 cover flaws. Another collector who got in early on the Edgar Church/Mile High disbursement was John McLaughlin. He bought most of his massive collection of Church books from either Ron Pussell or directly from Chuck. Most of the Church books he bought were esoteric titles such as Contact Comics, Feature Comics Doll Man and many other titles. It’s estimated that his collection held about 1700 Church books! That is an amazing amount of books. Unfortunately he did not keep very good records and the Church books were intermixed with the rest of his high grade collection. John passed away in late 2005 and his collection was auctioned off the Heritage Auctions. Due to the poor record keeping and the fact that most of John’s esoteric books were not coded it was sometimes difficult for Heritage to ascertain which books were authentic Edgar Church/Mile High copies. For all of you reading this, if you already have pedigree copies in your collection learn from John McLaughlin’s mistake and KEEP DETAILED RECORDS! It will not only help you out years or decades later it will help others not to loose your books pedigree provenance. John Snyder was also an early buyer of Church books who bought directly from Chuck. He kept mostly to the expensive #1 and key issues. It is common knowledge that when he bought the Church books many of them had small bindery tears and other minor imperfections that he carefully fixed. Back then repairs and restoration was insignificant in comparison to its stigma these days. Much of the mending John did is reversible and in many cases has already been removed. Probably one of the most well known Edgar Church/Mile High collectors is Dave Anderson of Virginia, A.K.A. “The Dentist.” Dave has always been a high grade collector and has always wanted the “best” copy he could find. This pretty much meant he was forced to buy Church books since they are usually the best known copies and I’m sure he does not mind having them reside in his collection. However, he has sold Church books if he found another copy that was equally as nice or better such as the Detective Comics #27 MH he sold when he upgraded to the Allentown copy. Dave was a few years to late to be involved in the initial disbursement of Mile Highs so he had to have help in obtaining them. The most famous and well-known book Dave owns is the Action Comics #1 Edgar Church/Mile High copy. Since he did not have direct access to buy from Chuck he had someone else broker the deal for him. In the 1985 Overstreet Price Guide #15 it reads, “The ‘Mile High’ copy of Action #1 sold to a dealer for $20,500 and Action #2-13 sold for $29,500. The dealer resold the set to a collector. The cash/trade value received for the #1 was set at $25,000.” Most people in the industry thought that was an insane price to pay at the time but Dave’s foresight paid off as he has rejected offers rumored to be as high as $2 million just a few years ago. Of note Dave has owned many Edgar Church/Mile High runs over the years including: Action Comics #1-24, Batman #1-17, Detective Comics #28-40, Sensation Comics #1-30 and many, many other runs and single issues. Robert Pennak was another buyer into the Church collection. Robert was a man ahead of his time and even many of the Church books did not meet up to his perfect condition requirements. He wanted MINT books! Over the years he earned the nickname “Perfect Pennak” due to his reputation as being a picky collector. Another large buyer of Edgar Church/Mile Highs is John Verzyl. John bought Church books from any legitimate source he could find and quickly became an expert on identifying Church books. Naturally he preferred to get the books directly from Chuck Rozanski but he was a few years too late to get in on the initial offerings. One book he specifically recalls buying is the Wonder Woman #10. He goes on to say that the entire run was still intact on his 1st buying trip to Denver and he cherry-picked the #10 as the best issue in the Wonder Woman run. If you think about it that’s an incredible statement to make! If one concludes that the Edgar Church/Mile Highs are the best copies in the world and the Wonder Woman #10 is the best issue of that title then the Wonder Woman #10 must be virtually unbeatable in grade against any other Golden Age Wonder Woman issue. Even though John only bought less than 100 Edgar Church/Mile Highs on his 1st trip he told me in one deal alone he bought over 1,000 Mile Highs from Chuck. John was one of the last people to buy a significant portion of Church books from Chuck. Aside from Chuck, John also bought from the Carter brothers, Ron Pussell and Steve Geppi later on. His most important source however was Alex Acevedo. Alex is an extremely wealthy man and to my knowledge is the only person who ever seriously attempted to reassemble the entire Edgar Church/Mile High collection! He figured it would be easy to do and was able to get a very large portion in a very short time. Unfortunately he ran into resistance so he simply offered higher multiples to get the books. This worked to…for a while. Unfortunately he ran into further resistance as he found many collectors would not part with their Church treasures for any price! (It should be noted that Alex’s early attempt to reassemble the books at nearly any cost is what drove the Church multiples higher than they had ever been and that was the basis on which ALL Church books had become steadily worth more than any other pedigree, even up to this date.) Due to mounting frustration that certain collectors would not part with their books for any price Alex got fed up with the whole idea and decided to sell everything off. John Verzyl was at the right place and time as Alex had amassed the majority of the Timely runs and was very accommodating to John in selling the books to him, even allowing for rather lengthy time-payments. Steve Geppi saw how incredible the Edgar Church/Mile High copies were and quickly became hooked on buying and selling these four-color beauties. He bought Church books from many sources over the years including Ernie Gerber, John Verzyl and Chuck Rozanski. Steve also placed ads in many of the industries trade magazine in the 1990’s offering to buy authentic Church books that graded NM or NM+ on the original Mile High list. One of the first dealers to get involved with Edgar Church/Mile Highs on a public level was Sparkle City Comics. They bought a large batch of Church books early on from Ron Pussell and in1985 they placed an ad in the March 29th edition of the Comic Buyer’s Guide (#593). This ad contained lots of prime DC and Timely titles that were soaked up by collectors. Most of those books have still not come up for sale since. Some of the highlights include full Timely runs of Human Torch #2-34, All Winners #2-19 & 21, USA #2-17, Mystic Comics #2-10 and Daring Mystery Comics #2-12. The DC’s were broken up and not complete but there were 13 All-America Comics from #21-64, 15 More Fun Comics from #57-95, 8 Green Lanterns from #2-29 and All Star Comics #1, 2, 9, 10, 16. Arguably the most important run to be offered was 24 Superman issues from #11-68! Ernie Gerber came onto the scene with a huge impact in the mid 1980’s. In 1990 he finished and produced the highly popular and indispensable Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books. During the 1980’s he photographed over 22,000 comics for his photo-journal, many of them originating from the Edgar Church/Mile High collection. He quickly saw the allure of the Church collection as he was photographing vast runs of Mile Highs. Ernie was amazed at the depth of the collection and started acquiring them. There were many times that he was forced to buy the church book because the owner would not allow him to photograph it. I can tell you Gerber did not mind being forced into it all. Once his photo-journal was released and he no longer needed the books he felt it was time to market church books he had amassed over the previous 5 years. In total his 1990 auction catalog featured 1253 Edgar Church/Mile Highs! With exception the initial offering by Chuck Rozanski in 1977 this is the single largest offering of Edgar Church/Mile Highs ever offered to the public in a single auction. That auction record still stands to this day and will likely never be beaten. In 1993 Steve Geppi bought the remaining Church copies from Gerber, which numbered about 1,000 copies. One other important item I would like to mention is that Ernie Gerber and John Verzyl were the first 2 people to ever make a “Certificate of Authenticity” for books from the Church collection. They quickly realized that some less than honest people may switch books or outright cheat others intentionally by passing off “fake” Church books due to the value of Church books over regular copies of unknown origin. Over the years I have heard of several instances where the “Certificate of Authenticity” saved a potential disaster from occurring where books were switched. I personally had the All American Comics #68 Church copy stolen from the mail years ago when I sent it to Ernie Gerber but luckily I still have the “Certificate of Authenticity” that includes the scan “fingerprint” of the cover. As of yet the book has not resurfaced but I am always on the lookout for it. Hopefully sooner than later the “Certificate of Authenticity” I have on the book along with the other paperwork with help me find and claim the book that was stolen. There is also a long list of collectors who bought or currently own significant yet smaller portions of Edgar Church/Mile High. Those people include: Pat Kochanek who did the 1st major study of Mile Highs back in 1990, Bob Nastasi who owned many Mile Highs in the 1980’s, Joe Smejkal who owns many prime DC superhero runs, Jon Berk who owns many of the Fox Mile Highs and other key runs, Bruce Schwartz who owns many DC issues and myself, West Stephan who acquired over 200 of the DC Superhero Edgar Church/Mile High copies. One thing I should mention is that after Chuck made his initial deals in the 70's he made a list of buyers who bought large quantities from him. Supposedly, from the advice of his tax consultant, it was in Chuck’s best interest not to sell too much in a given year so his taxes would not go berserk so he put a cap of $20,000 per year that he would sell from the collection. Each year Chuck would go to his list of buyers and call to see if they were interested in buying Church books. There was a minimum $10,000 order, meaning you had to come up with $10,000 minimum to make a purchase. If you had $20,000, you would be the only purchaser of Church books that year, due to the cap Chuck put on his own selling! Ron Pussell was the 1st person in line as Chuck called each year to see if he wanted to buy more Edgar Church/Mile High books. Are you kidding??? Of course Ron was interested. Ron secured the #1 spot on Chuck’s list of buyers and stayed there all the way to the end.

The last time these two beauties will be in the same room most likely forever. The Crowley 8.0 is my newest pick up.

Just got my TEC 33 back from CGC, it scored a 1.0 and I couldn’t be any more happier! Love any low graded key GA. My dream is a 0.5 TEC 27 or 0.5 Action 1...those are definitely in my price range. Lmk of any leads. Have a great Sunday all!

New Addition

Weird Tales Of The Future 2 cgc 7.0 asking 4000.00

This is probably my best week in collecting ever!!! I checked off a key that I have wanted for a long time. Hulk #1!!!!! I also picked up several silver age keys. All of the superhero books were part of a deal with our own @Tempus Fugit . Thank you John for working with me on this deal. The three golden age books were an unexpected surprise. I received a call from a local book store owner who knows I am a collector and scored these beauties.

Picked these up recently in a 600/700 book all-DC OO collection:

My highest graded golden age book. Also lone highest in census.

I try to use it to get NG books for free.

It’s not the most exciting group shot, but this is the entire run of Planet Comics that has taken me a little over a decade to assemble 😀. It’s feels pretty cool to have them all together. I will put together a separate thread at some point to share more details of the run and my process I undertook to complete this challenging task. Still a number of issues I would love to upgrade at some point, and some that I plan on having placed in new slabs, but overall I am very happy with the run I have put together 😀

Recently got this back from CGC. Highest graded!

Just got back from buying some supplies at local shops. Some trend I have seen or sales I have had or watched take place. ASM 798 is pretty much sold out. One shop had a few left and the owner told me he ordered very heavy. One shop limited buyers to one copy each and they still sold out. I sold the out of ASM 795 & 796 2nd prints as well and I ordered a ton for me. (30) 795 1st prints are really hot right now. Thor 705 has sold out locally - And honestly I am glad it has. Aaron has had a stellar run on Thor and the dialogue has been fantastic. FactorX and X-force 82 are moving briskly currently as well from Deadpool movie news. Look to see X-Men 114 continue to sell well again as its currently a $10 book again. New Mutants 8 is coming back down to earth as supply meets demand. Feel sorry for those guys who paid $35-50 for that book. Nice to see Astro City get some attention the past week as well from news on it. Thanos 13-17 does very well. Ride the wave just don't get caught when the wave goes flat. Moon Girl 28 - Selling well.(29 as well just not as much.) A lot of speculation on this book. I am staying away from this book unless I find it cheap. Sink is coming back down to earth so if you think its a hit long term now would be a time to buy. Power Rangers 25 is doing very well. This book doesn't shock me anymore it has a built in huge fan base. New Mutants 14 has sold well for me last few months with several nice copies selling in the $15-25 range raw. A spec bet from me is to find Deathstroke Terminator issues 6-9 from DC comics in the 1990s. City of Assassins storyline. Batman and Deathstroke will be big in a few months. Buy these cheap in $1 box and you will easily selling them $25 for the Sets in high grade. (The current series Deathstroke 30 had a healthy print run as my local shops all have a lot of copies still. I mean like 20 or 30 copies still on the shelf.) Late Tomb Raider issue by Hughes are selling well again. I cant find them anymore cheap hate when stuff like that gets out. Venom 1 Lethal protector is selling well in high grade now used to be a $10 book now its a $20 book with newsstands much higher What If Astonishing X-Men 1 seems to be trending up here lately. One really nice sales others moving up slowly. Spider-Gwen 24 seems to be doing well again or at least sales are trending higher> People still losing their selling slabs at auction. A lot of 9.6 and 9.8s selling for $20-30. Buyers have to love that. Batman 44 has a lot of copies on the rack same as Batman/Deathstroke 30. Maybe DC offered better incentives? Cowboy Ninja Viking still sells impressively well as a No1 or as a set. The Web 1 2009 DC. Cheap book Artgerm cover. If you are a fan pick it up cheap TAH 19-22 Still sell very well for me. 19-21 are $10-15 books while 22 is pulling $70 for me and higher on ebay. Web 97 and 99 still selling well with 97 selling better currently. Unsure if that will stay the same. Will be interesting to see what happens with Valiant with all the upheaval the last couple of months. Batman 655 is one hot potato. I had 3 offers in 10 minutes for my copy. Okay that's it back to packing up orders.

Two additions

Hard to match Mr. Ill's sweet books but I gotta share a couple that came my way recently!

With a bit of luck and more than a bit of madness, I’m now the happy steward of this book. Plus a neat back cover!

Good news, we've agreed on a price and will be buying this collection. Now I have to figure out where to store it as it's the 6th collection we've picked up in 2 months.

SOLD VIA PM

Double Cover.....

Pickups:

An old pic i've posted before,this is about half of my lp's and a third of my singles.

Unfortunately this one never had any loving... ...until now...

MM9 scans

Paging Gino... paging Gino. Going to need some exclamation points here, stat! Mr. Paulus, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

To be fair, we peaked at "useless pricing tool" at least 10 years ago, after which point people just refer to it as plain "useless". No need to use the superfluous word "increasingly" in front of it.

My copy to join the club....

Hey everyone, you may me know me as internet A-Hole seanfingh. I wanted to start a thread about superstring theory, the Burger Wars, dirty feet porn, balloon animals, deez nuts and antique velocipedes. Please see Wikipedia for details and discuss here.

[Didn't there use to be a What Else do you Collect? thread somewhere?] [I searched extensively (well, 90 seconds worth) but couldn't find it. Anyway, onward and upward.] Besides comics, I collect FAs. Flossing Appliances. BELIEVE ME, I know this sounds a bit wacky (or just crazy), but once these things get started, they kind of take on a life of their own. Years ago, I was a member of the Found Floss Appliance Collectors Association - FFACA. Which was started partially as a joke, in Tulsa where we all lived. I'm pretty sure alcohol was involved too. It's just what it sounds like ... when you see one of the appliances on the ground or in a parking lot, that's a "find." I've been doing it for about 20 years. OCD? No doubt at all. The FFACA used to have about 40 members. That's how many were on the email list, anyway, in 2011. But the guy who ran the list (and frankly was the main reason the FFACA existed) died in 2014. And no one has stepped up to take the reins. So the organization, what there was of it, is probably defunct. Oh well, one less excuse to get together and drink beer. Here's the bulk of my collection: Condition doesn't really matter with FAs. Just so long as it's (mostly) complete. Unbroken string is a plus, and personally I find them more pleasing. (1) Not complete, so junk essentially. (2) A McAdams 04 (distinctive tip) - string broken, so not so collectable to some. (3) A nice Gloucester 93 - complete, with string. Worth saving. They're identified by the name of the plastics manufacturer, and the number is the year of the production run. Surprisingly, some of the plastics manufacturing companies that turn these out are small - almost mom-and-pop companies. The quantities needed are often so small that the big boys aren't interested. For example, the Gloucester 93 (3). It happens sort of like this: A small group of people (8 to 10?) became an LLC ("Gloucester Plastics") and rent the equipment-in-place from the Sonolite company, and take about 6 hours one night to turn out 200K of the blanks. Then Gloucester Plastics dissolves (pun intended). Almost all the stringing is done by one company, Cope, in Memphis. Also, where they were finally sold (e.g., Walgreens, grocery stores) is irrelevant. There's no way to track this information anyway. And really, who cares? (4) to (5) In the mid 1990s, someone came up with the idea of making the handle also a toothpick-like spikey thing to get food out from between your teeth. Ok, good idea I guess. And (5) why have a straight spikey thing when you can have a stylishly curved spikey thing? (5) is a Merrimac 09, with the distinctive dog-leg profile. (6) Nobody has come up with a good explanation why you would split the handle into two stubby, blunt pieces. These are all from a long-gone New York company, Calciana, and are pretty rare - I haven't seen one in a decade. What a dumb idea. They were made from 1999-2003, and no one has copied the design so they must have sold poorly. Now to the good stuff. (7) A change in design! This "Y" shape is the well-known Arcadia 00. Only one batch (~300,000) was ever made. It must not have been popular, because no one else has tried the Y shape. I'm lucky to have found this one, they are very rare. (8) and (9) Interesting if only for the color variation. 99% of all FAs are green or white, so to see one in any other color is a shock. (8) is a Simplex 05, and (9) is unknown. (10) A Nederwald 07. Some (ok, one guy) claim it's the most graceful FA of all. That's perhaps getting a bit carried away about this whole thing, but it does have nice clean lines. Unfortunately, it's also a bit weak, and tends to bend in your hand. (11) The one stand-out of all my FAs is from France (mais oui!). How this ever got to a parking lot in Amarillo is anyone's guess. This is an ISC 07 - the "design" built into the handle is ... jaw dropping. This particular model even has a name, it's the "Persist." This run had one other model, not quite as fancy, named the "Couture." Both came in hot pink and neon green. Art nouveau FAs in hot pink! Who knew? ------------------ So ... it's a dying, weird/stupid hobby, but so what? And once you start to notice FAs lying around, you start to see they're everywhere. And then you get a little curious about them and want to do a little research ... and then all hope is lost. Au revoir, and happy collecting.

Cap America 3 6.5 ow, looks 8.0 with detached CF $65,000 $62,500 sold per PM

Set up a comic wall this week.

A good auction. Landed the two books I was targeting. Dream books.

1 for 2 missed out on a high grade marvel mystery but I got this one

This just came back from CGC! I spent over a year looking for a 9.2+ ASM 31 so this has been a long time in the making! Ironically I forgot I had bought this raw from an OO collection a couple of years ago and came across it while looking for another book. As always I have to give @joeypost and CFP comics kudos for the outstanding work.

Thought sharing my find! I picked up a collection of around 500 books, maybe more, and apparently I now own a FF 48-200 run. No real high grades in there, mostly mid-grade issues, but I will take it.

The pre-code horror frenzy that hit on the 50s was the result of a slow boil that started much earlier than many folks realize. Siegel and Shuster introduced vampires into their Dr Occult story in 1936 so horror started from nearly the beginning of original comic book material. Dr. Occult would be the first continuing character in a horror stories as well as the first horror based super hero, followed by the Spectre in 1940. As far as horror covers go, if your definition of horror includes suspenseful crime covers and stories, then there are some Detective Comic covers that might fit the bill. They don't do it for me but Detective 31 from Aug '39 gets pretty close with the moonlit castle scene of the mad monk. Certainly Wonderworld 7 (arriving only a month later) with it's zombie cover advertising a Flame vs. zombie interior story should be considered a full blown horror cover. If you want horror covers without superheros, then there are plenty of those in the early 40s including some in the Classics line. The Spook and Front Page are cool horror covers but their interior is thin gruel with respect to horror stories. Eerie 1 was the first comic that met 4 important criteria: a horror cover, all horror content, all original content (not adapted from some other source), and a horror title. There was only one issue so it evidently didn't sell enough to warrant a #2, nor was it apparent any other publisher was influenced by it. The second horror comic meeting all 4 criteria, Adventures Into the Unknown #1, didn't hit until a 18 months later. In the case of AITU, there was a #2 and it set off the flood of imitators from other publishers.

Got myself an early birthday present I just love the colors on this copy.

Picked up about six long boxes last night from a collection I mentioned in another thread. Didn't get to look through them yet, the anticipation is killing me, but I have a general idea. 1 box is all old gold key mystery/sci fi. 3 are all bronze/silver horror. The 2 shorts are golden/silver coverless. And the last is a mix of silver stuff. I'll post more when I get home tonight.

books ok

With six long boxes I agree with you. The first guy up doesn't have dibs on all six boxes. I would also stand next to him and start to browse on the other end. But in this case, there were only 40 comics. To me, that's dibs on the whole stack while negotiating. I have gone into comic shows, stores, etc. a number of times to see someone arrive at a table just before me or at the same time and proceed to cover up multiple boxes with their bags, coats, whatever they can find so they can look through them first. This, to me, is breaking the code. I would never do that. I always ask them to move their stuff (even if I wasn't planning at looking through the box). I think that if someone gets to a box first, they have the right to go through it all first, but that's it. I also hate it when I'm going through a box and someone says "do you mind if I check this quickly for X?" Yeah, I do mind. While these are comic shows, I have gone to book sales and it's even worse. There's an annual church basement sale near my home that is known to have a lot of vintage books. I lined up to get in, and hit the book tables. A few minutes later, this local dealer and his lackey comes in, and started clearing all the books from the table to a section of the floor so they could begin cherry picking. The elderly volunteer asked them to stop, and he just yelled at her. That's when I started picking up hardcover tomes and started aiming them at his fat head. Not exemplary behaviour on my part, but it felt good.