Kite_Fun_Books

I don't know how serious you are about the different Reddy Kilowatt varities. They could drive you crazy. I have several of the #3 to go with my Kite Fun Books. I have the following of: 3A (1956) Generic Indicia box 3B (1956) SCE indicia box 3C (1957) Same as 3B but with a completely different cover. It appears SCE used these EC giveaways in 1956 & 1957 instead of kite fun books, but switch back to kite fun books in 1958. 3D(?) (1960) Same as 3A but with a 1960 copyright date and Metropolitan Electric printed at bottom of back cover. Years ago I saw a "Reddy Kilowatt" promo product catalog from 1960. Your utility could purchase different products, including Huckleberry Hound Kite Fun Book for $14.95 per thousand, and Reddy Kilowatt: The Space Kite (and #1 & #2) for $19.95 per thousand. You could have your utility name printed on the comics for additional fee. So, you really don't know what is out there.

Only year I know off that a "case" was probably found, instead of just a classroom lot, are 1966 Secret Squiril, 1984 Smokey Bear, and 1996 Puzzle Place. (All SCE)

Thanks for the kind words. I don't think too highly of my registry set, because it is incomplete. Unlike other sets, it didn't start with a complete list of comics with spaces too fill in. It is built around the census, and what has had graded copies. I have 21 variants I have purchased, mostly on ebay, since 2010 that need to get sent in and graded, and then have slots added to registry set. There is another dozen I know of that I haven't found copies to purchase yet. "Finds" are interesting. At least a dozen different Kite Fun Books have been "found" in quantity, usually about 30 in the last 15 years on ebay. I have been fortunate to purchase most of these finds to send in the best to be graded. Some years have no finds. I think the number 30 comes from a batch for one class. Usually, I would speculate, a teacher didn't give them out to their students and they are later found among the teachers papers. In 2008 (or so), the 1955 Brer Rabbit started showing up on ebay for $50 BIN. I contacted the seller and ended up buying 22 of them. I didn't think Donald Duck would ever be found like that, but it was the following year. Just last year, I bought my first copy of 1996 Puzzle Place (SCE) Kite Safety Book for $20 on ebay. Within a few weeks, started seeing banded batches of 30 copies on ebay for 9.99. From unknown to common in less then a month. Doesn't surprise me that the Donald Duck variations aren't better known. More pieces to the puzzle weren't available until recently. Kim managing to borrow and compare side by side the FP&L to PG&E and SCE was a giant step forward. The dates on the blank and PG&E file copies weren't available ten years ago either. And, until I managed to get copies of all three utilities variants for 1953 Pinocchio and compare them side by side it wouldn't have been known that the Donald Duck variants were just a repeat of customizing done the prior year. Other fun facts: One day I noticed a 1966 Secret Squirril looked different then the others. After closer comparison, four pages of the book were different, with Reddy Kilowatt out and Moroccan Mole replacing him. And it wasn't until I was typing up the descriptions for the Registry set and noting what was on each page, did I discover that from 1961-1972 the SCE variants had six Kite Flying rules, while most of the other variants had eight. I still haven't gone back to see which rules are missing from SCE.

Love these things To answer all the Questions: Versions: The Florida Power and Light matches the fourth variant, the blank indicia box variant. You can see a picture of page 7 of that one here: To my registry set : Generic Variant The difference between the FP&L/Generic art and the SCE art is the the SCE variant has the SCE logo on the truck in panel 7.4, and panel 7.3 reads contact EDISON company instead of ELECTRIC company. Timing: All three/four variants created at the same time concurrently. This is supported by the date stamps on the generic copy and the PG&E file copy in my registry set. Also, prior year Pinocchio also has three similar variants, with difference on the back cover with customizing for SCE and PG&E, while the FP&L variant could be used for any utility by changing the indica box. Population. I believe the PG&E copy is about three times scarcer then the SCE copy. This is based on being familiar with the find of about 30 copies of SCE a couple years ago (I bought several of them at the time from the lady in Burbank,) as well as comparison of the CGC populations. CGC Populations: These are messed up. The SCE is listed under three titles: Publisher (SCE), Title Donald Duck Tells About Kites (5 copies) Publisher (SCE), Title Kite Fun Book (1954) (4 copies) Publisher (Western) Title Kite Fun Book (1954)(SCE variant) (5 copies) The generic copy was busted (by me) from a SCE labeled slab, to scan page 7 and resubmit. So subtracted one, Total 13 copies currently certified. PGE is listed in two places: Publisher (PG&E) Title Donald Duck Tells about Kites (2 copies) Publisher (Western) Title Kite Fun Book (PG&E Variant) (1 copy) Total 3 copies currently certified. There was also my PG&E file copy in the census previously listed as restored. I just got it back from CCS for restoration removal and see they have removed it from the registry. I will be sending in three copies this week to CGC. The PG&E, and two SCE (a fair-good and a fine-very fine.) Pricing: An old mistake from the 1970s has SCE being worth more. I believe this is because the first copies found were SCE when Carl Bark collecting was going on. Later, when the first PG&E copies were found, it was thought it was a redrawing (worth less) instead of a concurrent creation. That old pricing error seems to just keep getting propagated. For me, I would switch the pricing, valuing PG&E at 20% more then SCE instead of 20% less. David

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Somebody got a good buy: Donald Duck Kite Fun Book for $12.75 from "mycomicshop.com" Link I sold them a bunch of 1970s CGC kite fun books about 2 years ago. At the time, they filled in the rest in their system with low prices, like $8 each buy price I guess as space filler in their system. Maybe somebody that didn't know better sold them one for their listed buy price, and it automatically went up for sale at some multiple of same.

It isn't a kite fun book, but I came across something called 1948 "Donald Duck and the Red Feather" giveaway. I don't have a price guide anymore, but I don't recall ever seeing it before in my search for giveaways. I will not be bidding. It is on ebay. Ebay Link

The one the lady had listed on ebay went for about $825. Just a picture. It started at 0.99 and I sent her an email telling her what she had and the price guide values. Her listing said she had others, which I thought meant other Kite Fun Books. She let me know if I didn't win, she had more. After the auction I bought two from her for $1600. When they arrived, there was actually four in the stack. I returned the extra two (lower condition), but she ended up giving me one that had a piece missing. She mentioned 20 she sold, but I am unsure if the 20 were just the rest of the extras or total, so total may be as high as 25 in find. That is consistant with other years Kite Fun Books finds, such as brer rabbit, and the approximate number of students in an elementry class. My thoughts are a teacher didn't get around to giving them out to the kids in her class, and the batch is later found in her stuff. My 3 copies, I sold the faulty copy right away on ebay. Sent one copy to CGC and got a 9.2. That one I sold on ebay to pay for Kids school tuition about a year ago. Sent the other copy to CGC and got another 9.2. That copy is the one pictured. Both were Cream to Off White. Shortly after the purchase, someone in Canada listed a similar damaged one. Since then they have listed a newly certified 9.4 on ebay about a year ago, followed by another which showed up in comic connect auction but the serial number was only off by last digit. Certifed at same time. Recently another copy was certified and I believe that 3rd 9.4 was on ebay last week with starting $4400. I think the Comic Connect copy had a buy it now of $3400 a few months ago. So, from my thinking the buyer of the batch is selling them off slowly to not dilute the price, and may have 16 more copies. All of these copies have had cream to off-white pages. It may not make as big a difference to have lower page copy when you have a glossy cover, but to me with these without glossy cover it really distracts, especially when the are set next to copies with better page quality. CGC doesn't seem to lower the numerical grade for the page quality. I thought they would. Tracking the copies is easy since the early copies in Heritage Archives have SCE as the publisher on the CGC labels, while the recently certified copies have Western.

First one is not a Duck, but I think this group can appreciate it, anyway. Rarer than Donald Duck. My new TOP POP copy came from Metropolis. Heritage was selling a bunch of giveaways from the Bob Overstreet collection. I did buy one lot a couple years ago which was all Kite Fun Books. Second lot I bought was 6 kite fun books and 32 others. That lot was about $550, but managed to sell off the rest on ebay the week after receipt and pay for the lot. Pinocchio was listed in a lot along with about 99 other giveaways, including many common types. I bid high, but was blown away when the lot went over $2000. Fast forward to a couple of months ago, and this copy attributed to Bob Overstreets' collection showed up in Metroplis' inventory. It is the finer of two graded PG&E copies. Also one FP&L copy is graded. I have all three. Sent in to CGC with my award certificate so I got free grading. Second here is the Duck. The SCE edition is listed in Gerber as about 25 copies known, I understand. Oversteet list it higher than PG&E. However, I think it is the most common variety and should be cheaper. A group of 22-26 copies was found last year, most high grade. (5) copies have been graded recently in 9.2-9.4. All have poor paper quality. This one is Cream to Off-White. Might as well complete the run of Disney Kite Fun Books. Brer Rabbit from a 25-30 copy find in 2009. I bought most of this find, still have another dozen ungraded copies similar to this:

First Donald Duck is a new purchase. Just back from CGC. Second Donald Duck is a regrade. Had to bust it out to look at differences on page 7. It went up in page quality during regrading. And finally Pinocchio, the year before Donald Duck and definitely much scarcer.

NICE. Best duck book out there, but I might be biased. Good Deal based on what the last two sold for on ebay. I got almost the same amount last week for the copy with the piece missing out of the top.

Not on our copy or any of the other copies of that time frame. On most of our copies the address square is on the back cover. But our copy doesn't even have that. (thumbs u Andrew I did a search for this issue on ebay and saw another with the address there (used). I am thinking some issues they put the blank box on the back and other times on the front. Only used for subscription copies, and most of those are now low grade so perhaps that why it seems strange to us.

Here's one maybe for somebody here. $110 on mycomicshop.com I assume the blank space if for an address Dave

I can't take credit for figuring out the difference. It was done by Kim Weston for the FP&L version. I just figured the blank indicia box would probably be the same as the FP&L, as it was probably made to sell to other utilities intersted. Below is a letter from the McDrake website: Member Different versions of Barks storiesPrivate email sent to "A Guidebook"-site, about versions of 'Donald Duck Tells About Kites: - - - - - - - - From: [Kim Weston] To: [dve] Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 4:00 AM Subject: FP&L kites giveaway by Barks [...] Differences between the SCE and the FP&L: The text in the pink box on page one reads "PUBLISHED AS A PUBLIC SERVICE BY THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON COMPANY" in the SCE and "FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT CO." in the FP&L (in larger bolder print.) Otherwise pages 1-6 of the two versions are identical. The coloring of the SCE and FP&L seem to be the same, but the PG&E appears to have been a different coloring job, similar, but definitely not the same coloring job. On page 8, the outline of the lower half of Donald's butt and the right side of his left leg are missing from the black plate (but the coloring is in place properly.) This is undoubtedly just a printing error. On page 7, the FP&L is the same as the CBL. The SCE is slightly different in panel 3 and 4. In panel 3, in place of the word ELECTRIC is the word EDISON, and the spacing of the lettering suggests that EDISON is the original, and ELECTRIC was lettered into the same space after the fact. In panel 4 of the SCE, the truck door has what appears to be the word "Edison" (in -script) in a circle and a blur below it which might be "CO", possibly the company logo in 1954 when the comic was published; this is missing in the CBL and FP&L. That's it for the SCE and FP&L differences. - - - - - - - - (Moderation: Introduction removed. There, Kim Weston tells he did have all 3 versions in his possession simultaneously (and the CBL) to examine for differences. A request not to include the introduction has been overlooked by mistake. -- Daniel73.)