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If anyone out there collects Classic Illustrated from the '40s
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174 posts in this topic

Yes, I collect them.  I like to read them though so i don't care too much about shape.  Books are too long and hard to read so it's much better reading them in comic book form.  Aside from Superman Family titles and classics I don't read many comics.

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Issue 53; “A Christmas Carol,” was never reprinted according to  Overstreet. This seems odd as you think of all of these books that would have been a sure Christmas seller. It must have been a copyright issue.

I picked up a copy of that issue for a dime or somat a New Jersey flea market dealer who sold remaindered or undistributed copies (with full cover) around 1970. Makes you wonder where that book had been sitting for the prior twenty years.

There were lots of shenanigans that went on with distribution back then; the Mile High II Story collection is a good example.

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5 hours ago, 40YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Issue 53; “A Christmas Carol,” was never reprinted according to  Overstreet. This seems odd as you think of all of these books that would have been a sure Christmas seller. It must have been a copyright issue.

I picked up a copy of that issue for a dime or somat a New Jersey flea market dealer who sold remaindered or undistributed copies (with full cover) around 1970. Makes you wonder where that book had been sitting for the prior twenty years.

There were lots of shenanigans that went on with distribution back then; the Mile High II Story collection is a good example.

That's always puzzled me as well.  The book itself, of course, was long out of copyright by then, but you could be right that maybe the Classics art cribbed from art in an illustrated version of the book.  Even then, though, it's odd that they wouldn't just have redrawn the art, as they did with quite a few different issues over the years.  Unless there was some sort of legal settlement under which they agreed never to publish any edition of it again.

Sheer speculation, of course, but maybe somebody knows the actual story. 

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I might have some updates over time for this thread., and I may need some insights from the Classics collectors. I bought a collection today, from a deceased collector's son. Well, dad liked classics. 16 boxes, 4 longs and a dozen legal size file boxes, and 12 or 13 are all Classics. Most every number looks like this.

Obviously, I'm not sure yet if there's every HRN for every book 1-169 but it looks like what he was shooting for. The other boxes are random GA, silver supermans, a near full Star Wars run, most every bronze movie comic, lots of religious comics including much of the EC output, and of course a wolverine mini #1 doh!

Lord knows what else I will find, but I am about to sit down with my Gerber and my overstreet and my iPad and start to get a sense of how close to complete his classics set is. I've even got the minis with cassettes still sealed. Never saw them before. I love the thrill of learning new corners of our hobby!

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Who knew LB Cole had a run of covers on Classics Illustrated Junior? Surprised me. Other fun items I've come across so far in this collection: special issues including first edition Story of Jesus, and the United Nations special issue. There's also Shadow Comics v1 #'s 11&12, and a Mr District Attorney #1. Go figure. Time for bed. I'll be discovering stuff for weeks in this collection.

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Congrats on the amazing collection of Classics.

 

Prior to switching over to Four Colors I was a Classics collector, and accumulated 600 issues including the offshoots like Jr's  WAU's  and Fast Fiction

 

Are you planning on selling these off?  If so I would love to finally knock off any of the last 10 Issues in my signature line.

 

Coincidentally over the weekend I dipped my toe in attempting to upgrade my classics collection.  To that end I created an excel spreadsheet  to track the  various AMERICAN veraions.  If you or anyone else is interested in using/improving it  let me know.

At worst it could summarize the entire list to 5 pages,  but there are over 1600 different issues as I recall

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On September 11, 2018 at 2:24 PM, jmg3637 said:

Congrats on the amazing collection of Classics.

 

Prior to switching over to Four Colors I was a Classics collector, and accumulated 600 issues including the offshoots like Jr's  WAU's  and Fast Fiction

 

Are you planning on selling these off?  If so I would love to finally knock off any of the last 10 Issues in my signature line.

 

Coincidentally over the weekend I dipped my toe in attempting to upgrade my classics collection.  To that end I created an excel spreadsheet  to track the  various AMERICAN veraions.  If you or anyone else is interested in using/improving it  let me know.

At worst it could summarize the entire list to 5 pages,  but there are over 1600 different issues as I recall

Just saw this; thank you! Yes I do plan on moving most of the higher numbers; right now I'm leaning toward keeping all the original LDC's at minimum. I'll note the missing items in your sig line and see what is here that might close those gaps. I only parsed through #39 so far; happy to see this in there.

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Here is a copy of my OLD Classics tracking.  This method is fine  if you are only looking for a single copy of each book.  by the time I had stoped actively pursuing  this method was very hard for even me to understand.

 

The little numbers under the printed number are the editions that I had.  

 

I will post the new excel sheet  after i work on it a bit more

Classics Spredsheet OLD.jpg

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In my Classics collecting, I only try to get one of each of the interiors versions so at most two copies of an issue. I don't chase all cover - interior combinations so my tracking spreadsheet will look simpler than yours, hence my interest in seeing your version. Mine is straightforward, I only need to keep track of at which second HRN, the redrawn version starts.

Issue # HRN Have Story Author Artist
1 1 1 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas, père Malcolm Kildale
1a 150 1 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas, père George Evans
2 2 1 Ivanhoe Walter Scott Edd Ashe
2a 136 1 Ivanhoe Walter Scott Norman Nodel
3 3 0 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas, père Ray Ramsey
3a 135 1 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas, père Lou Cameron
4 4 1 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper Ray Ramsey
4a 160 1 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper John Severin
5 5 1 Moby Herman Melville Louis Zansky
5a 131 1 Moby Herman Melville Norman Nodel
6 6 1 Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens Stanley Maxwell
6a 132 1 Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens Joe Orlando
7 7 1 Robin Hood --- Louis Zansky
7a 136 1 Robin Hood --- Jack Sparling
8 8 1 Arabian Nights --- Lillian Chestney
8a 164 1 Arabian Nights --- Charles Berger
9 9 1 Les Misérables Victor Hugo Rolland Livingstone
9a 161 1 Les Misérables Victor Hugo Norman Nodel
10 10 1 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe Stanley Maxwell
10a 140 1 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe Charles Sultan
11 11 1 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Louis Zansky
12 12 1 Rip Van Winkle & Headless Horseman Washington Irving Rolland Livingstone
12a 150 1 Rip Van Winkle & Headless Horseman Washington Irving Norman Nodel
13 13 1 Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson Arnold L. Hicks
13a 112 1 Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson Lou Cameron
14 14 0 Westward Ho! Charles Kingsley Allen Simon
15 15 1 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe Rolland Livingstone
16 16 1 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift Lillian Chestney
17 17 1 The Deerslayer James Fenimore Cooper Louis Zansky
18 18 1 The Hunchback of Notre Dame Victor Hugo Allen Simon
18a 158 1 The Hunchback of Notre Dame Victor Hugo Reed Crandall
19 19 1 Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Louis Zansky
19a 131 1 Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Mike Sekowsky

 

So, for example, for The Deerslayer, # 17, any HRN works for me. For Robinson Crusoe, # 10, I need one HRN below 140 and one HRN of 140 or above.

Looking forward to seeing your checklists.

 

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Interesting way of deciding which issues to collect.  I had never thought of that.  I might have opted for each cover, but not the  inside.  gives me something to think about

Anyway  here is one of my favorite Classics collectibles.  It came as an unused stand, but I had to open it up, fill it with vintage bagged double issues  and display it in my office

 

classics display.jpg

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19 hours ago, jmg3637 said:

Interesting way of deciding which issues to collect.  I had never thought of that.  I might have opted for each cover, but not the  inside.  gives me something to think about

Anyway  here is one of my favorite Classics collectibles.  It came as an unused stand, but I had to open it up, fill it with vintage bagged double issues  and display it in my office

 

classics display.jpg

I remember seeing those later edition classics for sale in discount stores through the early-seventies. After that, they seemed to disappear. Some of those books were pretty fun to read and I've picked up a few of the older editions in later years. I actually like the energy of the older editions more than the revised editions which while more professional and polished looking did not seem to be as much fun.

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On 9/13/2018 at 8:45 AM, Scrooge said:

:popcorn:

The wait is over.  This is page one The issue number runs down the side and the edition number runs across the top both in Italics.  The HRN is at the intersection so for example the 11th edition of issue 2 had an HRN of 89, while 18 printing of issue 4  has an HRN of 167 and was from 1964.  O means Original edition that does not have an HRN.  I could only cram in up to the 23rd printing while still using Portrait and onlyneed 4 pages. I actually have all printings on the sheet, but chose to display this way rather than having to print an extra page.  Only a handful have over 23 printings anyway

On the last page I was still able to find room to maintain lists of the associated offshoots like Special Editions,  Classics Juniors, World Around Us, and even Fast Fiction/Famous Authors.  Not sure if I will add the Acclaim pocket issues.

I decided to play with color coding  and used yellow to backshade an issue that I want while Green shade is for one I do have.  I am playing with restarting collecting these and focusing on  first printings only at this point. so that is all i have completed.

I was thinking of somehow modifying the HRN to give some indication of extra information like the change in cover,  story  and perhaps price.  with the change from 10 to 15  or even 25. Italics, Bold, Underscore  or further color of font or background  gives a large variety of codes.

In order to save space I shifted over the multiple HRN 167 to start at column 18 as placing them in exact order would have doubled the width of most columns.  This means that the 1965 printing of issue 16 with an HRN of 167  was actually the 13th printing

 

 

Classic Spreadsheet NEW.jpg

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