AJD Posted December 28, 2014 Author Share Posted December 28, 2014 Thanks for the kind words Brandon. And Ed - find some things to sell me again next year. OK, 2014 was a great year for my collection, and today we'll see my Fiction House pickups. If you look at the Class of 2013 at the start of this journal, you'll see I was collecting the GGA issues of Wings. I had one more of those to go, which I got in a Heritage auction at the start of the year: With that crossed off, I decided to move on to Planet Comics. My wife loves the Fiction House books - a point we'll come back to later - which makes them a domestically painless acquisition. I got this one from Mycomicshop. (Those guys are a class act for grading and customer service.) This was from a Heritage weekly auction. Hard to go past the 'girls in glass tubes' theme. It was cracked out of a PLOA slab. According to CGC, it has a trimmed RH edge on the cover. I think it's a very slight trim and the book looks great. In a Heritage auction towards the end of the year, I was hoping to get a Planet 71, which has a classic Whitman cover. To say I underestimated the likely cost is putting it mildly. I thought it might sell for $250, but it soared well over $1,000... Given that, I jumped onto some dealer sites to see what their Whitman covered Planets were selling for and bought three of them right away. I really wanted some of these, and I didn't want to miss them in a price spike. (I still don't have a Shock SuspenStories #6 and really kick myself for not buying one three years ago before it took off.) Anyway, Bedrock City had these two: I think that 72 is one of the best covers in the run. Metro had a Whitman Planet as well: And they also had this beauty: But probably the best pickup was getting this compensation from my wife for Christmas. This is looking over me as I type: Tomorrow we'll change gear with funny animals and cartoon books. (And, yes, we're getting towards the end.) 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Point Five Posted December 29, 2014 Share Posted December 29, 2014 Yep, great show here Mr AJD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted December 29, 2014 Author Share Posted December 29, 2014 Point Five said: edowens71 said: Yep, great show here Mr AJD. Thanks guys. I should take the opportunity here to thank Mr Point Five for his part in all this. Jon has very kindly acted as a mailing house for books where sellers won't ship to "internationals". Without him this would be a much poorer show. So thanks Jon, and may the comic book Karma reward you with low BINs in perpetuity. I'd also like to thank my mum and dad.... oh, wait, that's my Academy Award speech, so you'll have a wait a bit for that one. Anyhoo, today we'll do the cartoon books. As my sig says, I've been working away at the WDC&S 1 - 100 run for a few years. Earlier in this thread I mentioned that I am now complete from 49 - 100. Here are the last two I needed to fill out that run. Both came from stellar eBay seller Blissard. This one was an upgrade. My previous copy was a freebie in with some other books I wanted, and is probably about a 2.0. (Note to self: exile it to Duff manor.) This one came out of a 6.5 slab. WDC&S books shouldn't live in slabs. This was actually my first purchase in 2014, from a boardie. And the first coverless I ever bought. But the price was right, and this book has taken off $$$ wise in the past few years. I bid on an incomplete copy with a low grade cover on eBay, but even that went for more than I was willing to pay. Another helpful boardie made me a reproduction cover for it. I know I should look at this as a frankenbook that's unworthy... etc, but darned if I don't smile every time I look at it. I also finished off the Silver Age Dell run of Peanuts books this year - all three from eBay. These aren't great reading (they're mostly not Shultz stories) but as a set of colourful and striking covers, they're right up there. OK, one more push tomorrow and we're done. It's the imaginatively titled category "other". Thanks for looking again. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted December 30, 2014 Author Share Posted December 30, 2014 And now, the end is near… etc. Here’s the final lot of my bumper 2014 crop. For a variety of reasons – not least of which being the Australian dollar – I don’t expect to get anywhere near this level of buying in 2015. But, man it was fun. I had to have this one because the cover art is so striking. It doesn’t sit so badly beside my war bonds covers in any case. And it’s cheap! This one was just for fun. It’s a great book to show non-comic people, and it always gets a response. (It’s cheap too.) I picked this up from a boardie who I suspect prints these in his basement. I also decided I needed to get some of the GA greats into my collection. I started with Schomburg/Xela: and Frazetta (thanks Sha/skypinkblue for this one) and L. B. Cole Finally, not GA, but what’s not to like about Steranko? I have a small collection of his work – all the Nick Furies (first series), Captain America and this. I must get an X-Men #50 sometime… As the pig says, “that’s all folks”. I hope you liked the show. If you got 10% of the fun I had I’ll be happy. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted January 3, 2015 Author Share Posted January 3, 2015 I'd decided to start the new year slowly comics wise, take my time and make fewer but bigger purchases this year. But sometimes the comic gods care little for the plans of collectors. I was putting the original Barks run of Uncle Scrooge together back in 08/09. (Issues Four Color 386 (#1) through to Uncle Scrooge #72. The hardest to find by far was Uncle Scrooge #6. It's much less common in grade than the others. Because of a common production flaw there were only two in the census then - a 6.5 and an 8.0. Today there are still only four blue labels in total; two 8s, a 7 and a 6.5. There are also two SA 7.5s, which I'm willing to bet are trimmed to get rid of the production overhang. Anyhow, I recall joining Heritage a week after the 6.5 was auctioned and was sorry I'd just missed it when I checked the archives. Oh well, I thought, I'll just make sure I buy the next one... In the meantime I bought a VG+ that presented OK but was almost certainly trimmed copy. It filled the hole in my collection but I always wanted a better one. Fast forward almost seven years and thanks to the boards I get a second chance. Here's what will be winging its way to me soon: I feel like I just won a lottery. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC ed Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 I feel like I just won a lottery. Happy for you - awesome when this happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Shepherd Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 I feel like I just won a lottery. Happy for you - awesome when this happens. This is awesome when it happens, congratulations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted January 14, 2015 Author Share Posted January 14, 2015 I picked up some cool books at the MCS auction yesterday. Australian reprints of Planet Comics. These are about as good as it gets condition wise for Australian GA comics. They were all printed on newspaper stock, including the covers, and truly high-grade is unknown for many of them. They look even better in hand than they looked on the MCS auction listing. It's also hard to find decent documentation. Between the Ausreprints site and the GCD, you can see about half of the covers of the 24 thought to be in the run. porcupine48 and 1950's war comics 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Point Five Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 As I mentioned above, I was waiting on delivery of a book to complete a short run. It was Four Color #969 (Peanuts #2). It arrived this week, so I could finally put this photo together: Hey, good timing to have that Peanuts set all wrapped up! :-) 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griff Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 Love the Planets and the Peanuts books my friend Your collection must be sponsored by the Letter P ! keep the updates coming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 I've picked up a few books lately, but they've been very slow coming in the mail. But this one arrived yesterday: This #15 is my 69th of the first 100 WDC&S. Progress on this set is slow these days, but I also have a #37 on the way in the post. To tell the truth, I'm not sure if this set will ever be completed. I'm missing some expensive books - nine of the first ten, #31 (first Barks) and the few after that. When the Australian dollar was US$1.10 it seemed doable. At US$0.78 I'm much less enthused. Thankfully there are always Australian GA books to chase as well. I usually don't have to pay Forex on those. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted April 3, 2015 Author Share Posted April 3, 2015 Another couple of ducks for the WDC&S run. This one came out of a CGC 5.5 slab. Looking at it raw, I'm not sure I'd grade it that high, though the PQ and colours are really good and it's a nice tight book. So much for the "can only grade 4.0 with a sub crease" school of thought: The eye appeal to $ ratio was so good on this one I couldn't resist. If I'm ever going to complete WDC&S 1 - 100 I'm going to have to compromise a bit on the grades of the more expensive ones, so I'm looking for nicely presenting lower middle grades. An ex bound volume copy, but very neatly removed. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted April 3, 2015 Author Share Posted April 3, 2015 And a Planet I couldn't resist in a Heritage auction. A two-headed Barney - what's not to like? 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Shepherd Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 That's a beautiful Planet cover! Covers of yellow or green backgrounds are the best if you ask me. Good girl art ain't bad for covers either. Congrats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porcupine48 Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 Any Aussie or New Zealand Planets to share sir? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted April 4, 2015 Author Share Posted April 4, 2015 Any Aussie or New Zealand Planets to share sir? A few - see about eight posts back. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 Haven't updated this journal in a while. But I'm very pleased to be back with this one... my biggest ticket purchase ever. I have 47 of the 55 EC sci-fi comics (there are 22 each Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, 4 Incredible Science Fiction and 7 Weird-Science Fantasy). I was lucky to score a very nice eye appeal 4.0 Weird Fantasy 13(1) last year, but didn't have a Weird Science 12(1) to go with it. Until now. I usually crack my slabbed books out, but the value of this one suggests that it might have to stay entombed. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duffman_Comics Posted June 1, 2015 Share Posted June 1, 2015 There are any number of reprints (Lord knows I have a couple) therefore no need to crack. Great pick up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Point Five Posted June 1, 2015 Share Posted June 1, 2015 GOOD LORD! *choke* A helluva book and a helluva 7.0. Well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted June 2, 2015 Author Share Posted June 2, 2015 Thanks guys. I'm slowly updating this journal as I get a chance. Here's a recent pickup that I saw going for about 10% of FMV, and I bought it planning to flip it. But now I have it, it's a really cool earlyish GA book (cover date Jan 1940) and it's also pretty hard to find. Heritage has sold 6 in the past 14 years. So for now I'm hanging onto it. What's not to like - a haughty redhead with a seashell bra, a guy with a fishbowl on his head and the green guy that Kirk wrestled... porcupine48 and 1950's war comics 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
