lighthouse

These, however, probably don’t resurface for a while.

Sorry. I’m all full up on kidneys after my last deal with Greggy. Did you know you could fit over a hundred kidneys in a short box? I sure didn’t. As for where they are, I believe a vault at Heritage would be a good place to start your search. But I expect their location to change in April.

Same collection as the recent group shots I’ve posted in both the silver age and golden age boards. 1200-book collection oldest are March 1940. Last books are September 1965 cover dates. Books went in a closet that summer and weren’t touch again until a couple months ago.

Not THAT pic. The pic directly above the comment. The 2 and 3 both got 9.4. Same original owner as the five number 1s.

There are two fresh 9.4 census additions in that pic.

These are kinda cool too.

I mean when you see what’s in the April Heritage Auction you might have an answer to that question.

FFs are indeed pretty cool.

Got the grade back on this copy today. It’s a 9.2...

A few more recent acquisitions.

Knowing how to “read” the bar codes is extremely helpful for sorting books from series that get restarted all the time. Looking through a stack of random Punisher issues and not knowing which are volume 5 and which are volume 6... does this issue 7 go with this issue 4 or not? Etc. You can group all your title 08021s together and know they are volume 10. Group all you 08413s together and know they’re volume 11. All without opening a bunch of books to check indicia. First 12 digits is 7 59606 07619 2? That’s a marvel title (“59606” means Marvel), in this case Punisher Volume 9 (“07619” is the title code). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought a collection with a hodgepodge of Amazing Spider-Man, Punisher, Captain Marvel, and Avengers. And my first triage isn’t even to look at issue numbers. I just stare at barcodes and shuffle them that way.

For this particular one, you can look at the MyComicShop listings and see the long bar codes for covers A-C of issue 1. Zoom in and you’ll see the code pattern I described. https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=405391

Long barcode vs short barcode. Direct edition barcodes have five digits in the secondary section. (First section is single digit, then five digits denoting the publisher, then five digits denoting the title, then a check digit). Newsstand bar codes have two digits in the secondary section denoting just the month of publication. On a direct edition barcode the five digits will 99.8% of the time be: three digits for the issue number, then a digit for the cover number, then a digit for the printing number. So a first print cover A of issue 1 will be 00111. A first print cover B of issue 1 will be 00121. A second print cover A of issue 3 will be 00312... So if you’re perusing a box of Nightwing back issues all the first prints will end in 1. Issue 58 would be 05811 for cover A and 05821 for cover B. The only time this breaks down on recent books is when they do more than 9 covers, especially for new #1s. So you might see covers A-E be 00111, 00121, 00131, 00141, 00151. But if they did 27 covers of issue 1 you’ll get squirrelly things like 00138. Where you KNOW it’s not an 8th printing of cover C. Hence “99.8% of the time”.

Hard for a miniseries that took 19 months to put out 4 issues to get any buzz. That one also looks to be direct edition rather than newsstand.

I’ve always loved that the only dial that’s actually labeled is AIR. None of the other dials are important enough to need labels.

A few group shots from a recently acquired original owner collection. None ever bagged and boarded. Stayed in a closet from 1965 until last month.

Most will get slabbed. Some are going to Heritage. Some we will sell directly. Honestly just the initial triage of the collection is probably a 100-hour project. Complicated by the fact that I don't have enough 775/750s for the pre-1961 stuff. I'm biting the bullet on paying 3x-5x normal retail because it's not like I want to leave $500 books unbagged any longer than I need to. But they are stored in flat stacks for now, the same way they were stored for 56 years. Thankfully I have a few thousand 725/700s, but those aren't as "fun" to go through. High grade 1965 Marvels are valuable, sure. But they're not as exciting as mid-grade 1941s for me. And the smell... oh the delightful, delightful, delightful smell of never-bagged Golden Age... Sigh...

One more group shot

The roughly 1955-1965 books are original owner. The earlier books were likely acquired secondhand sometime between 1961-1965. That’s purely a guess from the evidence in front of me. Conditions start low grade in 1955 and gradually get better and better (kid taking better care of his things as he grew up) until they’re consistently high grade by 1962. With the books from the 1940s in higher grade than any of the 1955-1959 books. Presumably bought after he started caring about condition.

Indeed. Collection included roughly 100 books from 1940-1945, and another 150 from 1946 to 1951. Plus around 900 books from 1952-1965. Went into a closet in 1965 and weren’t touched again until last month. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

A few books that walked in the door recently. None ever bagged and boarded.

A few recent acquisitions...

Per an email from Gerber today, they are no longer even taking orders on boards, and won't even be taking backorders on boards until February. Current turnaround time on the mylars is 10-14 weeks and harshly limited to ration them out.

This has been quite the thread. There's complaining, complaining about the complaining, complaining about the complaining about the complaining, cheeseburgers, and complete sentences from Greggy. I'd recommend it to all my friends who like Belgian films. I must admit, I'm a bit confused though. Since I can't imagine there's too many Avengers 4s and Amazing Fantasy 15s tied up for months waiting in line behind the thousands and thousands of modern drek. It's random Silver and Bronze drek worth less than $400 that's sitting in line behind Modern drek worth less than $400. My last submission of walk-throughs in September was done in 3 calendar days, the Express were done and shipped out in 8 calendar days, and my Fast Track Moderns were done well before I expected them to be. Sure, my "modern drek" submitted for cheapest possible processing is waiting in line and I don't expect to see it until next spring. But premium tier submissions seem to truck right along just fine. TATs look a little slower right now than a couple months ago. But that won't stop me from throwing another hundred books on the pile, another couple dozen that will come back "quickly" and a few dozen that can come back in June and I'll be just as happy to see them. And for the record, the worst number of cheeseburgers to order from McDonald's is 37. Because only 36 fit on a grill at once. I've never eaten more than 16 at a sitting myself, but there's some helpful advice if you're trying to plan ahead.