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Comic Book Printing Plates.Anyone have any info?/

24 posts in this topic

I am looking at purchasing a collection and in the lot is a stack of 8 or so comic book printing plates.They appear to be the metal plates that were attached to the presses when the were pumping out the books..

I have no knowledge of these and cant find ANYTHING on the net about them,,values etc..I know they are one of a kind pieces,,

There is Thor,Conan, etc all marvel titles but dont have them in hand yet.

 

If anyone has had these,dealt with them or have any idea where i can find some info on them i would appreciate it very much..

Thanks

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I do not think they have any big collector value unless the plates are the covers for some famous books, like FF1, or Spidey 1. I see dealers offering them for sale at shows and they rarely find buyers for them. If you pick them up be prepared to keep them for a while unless you find someone else with the same historical bug.

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I don't have any official information about pricing or demand, but I can tell you that there were most likely 4 plates per printed page.. one for each color pass (cyan, magenta, yellow, black).. each plate would show a different part of the image -- the black plate probably has the panel borders, talk bubbles and lettering.

 

They are one-of-a-kind and a great collectible, in my mind.

 

I have a plate from Popeye #13 in my collection:

Popeye13printingplate.jpg

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:hi: Hi; JerryZ I have three of these Metal Printing Plates myself but I don't really have much info on them, it was to my understanding that these plates were sold to scrap metal dealers to be destroyed so no one could make counterfit comics with them but some of them were saved and surfaced many years later. (shrug)

 

:cool: I have a Wonder Woman, Spectacular Spider-Man and Star Wars Black Cover Plates from the eairly 80's I posted pictures of them on here a few years back will see if I can dig up the post. (thumbs u

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:hi:Would be cool to see..neat Popeye page BTW..

All the ones in this collection are covers not interior pages,,They are all 50-60 cent covers i beleive..

 

I would think to collectors of specific title they may be a neat piece to add to their collection..If I could find a GL cover plate i would buy it just for grins.

 

Are yours flat? the ones I saw are sorta rounded and I imagine you could press it lol to make it flat .no way to display it like it is.

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Hey Thanks very much for that thread..Very cool..Once i own them Ill probably list them all on here for sale..

 

The ones in this collection look just like yours covers.No interiors at all

 

Thanks again for the great info (thumbs u

 

 

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I grew up in an old-school print shop. We never did comics, but I would definitely be interested in picking up a plate or two. (You know if it has a playing card on it, it will be an easy sell.)

 

Thanks to those who posted. I didn't expect them to be the old style printing plates. I expected the more recent books to be on thin aluminum sheets.

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:hi: Hi; JerryZ I have three of these Metal Printing Plates myself but I don't really have much info on them, it was to my understanding that these plates were sold to scrap metal dealers to be destroyed so no one could make counterfit comics with them but some of them were saved and surfaced many years later. (shrug)

 

:cool: I have a Wonder Woman, Spectacular Spider-Man and Star Wars Black Cover Plates from the eairly 80's I posted pictures of them on here a few years back will see if I can dig up the post. (thumbs u

Okay NOW I want one! :grin:
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:hi: Hi; JerryZ I have three of these Metal Printing Plates myself but I don't really have much info on them, it was to my understanding that these plates were sold to scrap metal dealers to be destroyed so no one could make counterfit comics with them but some of them were saved and surfaced many years later. (shrug)

 

:cool: I have a Wonder Woman, Spectacular Spider-Man and Star Wars Black Cover Plates from the eairly 80's I posted pictures of them on here a few years back will see if I can dig up the post. (thumbs u

Okay NOW I want one! :grin:

 

I saw the list and no Miraclemans on it..Sorry man :sorry:

 

2 Cap Americas

Superboy

Thor

Iron Man

Fantastic 4

Hawkman

Last but CERTAINLY least King Conan lol

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Somewhere in this thread are some printing plates that I posted a while back, along with more info about them.

 

As for the curvature, they are that way because they wrap around the cylinder on the press. They start out flat and are bent to put on the press. You can flatten them back out with the proper machinery.

 

 

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Back in May at the Motor City show a gent was moving out sets of plates to the covers of Classics Illustrated Special issues and World Around Us, all four color plates for $100 a set, and he did a pretty good business. I bought four sets myself, and they are drop-dead gorgeous. All solid copper, VERY fine engraving, and dead flat, every single plate. I'll be framing a couple sets one of these days...

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:) Here is a Link to the thread I mentioned Spider-Man Printing Plate if you do a search for "Printing Plate" and go back 5 years you will find several more threads alltough most of the pictures are gone from them now. :(

 

And yea mine are rounded also. :cool:

 

See If I can attach a picture for you.

 

1272484-PeterParkerPrintingPlate.jpg

 

Have you thought about getting some printing ink, brayer, and paper and trying to see if you can make a print of this? It would be interesting to see how it would turn out.

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I bought this collection so I will be listing them in the For sale forum once I get pics . I will have the following for sale so maybe guys monitoring this thread will go over there.. I know its not a sales thread but ill let you know what I have

 

Hawkman special #1

new adv of superboy #32

King Conan #7

Captain America #267

THOR # 319

F Four #239

Captain America #264

 

Not sure what il price em at yet .. They are all covers front and back on one plate..

 

Pics by tommorow night

 

 

 

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