Accuracy of Gerber and Overstreet Scarcity Designations 8 8

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

1 minute ago, Chicago Boy said:

Let’s buno this topic ....

Not sure what “Buno” means, but i’m glad you bumped this thread, because of the next sentence . . .

On 8/23/2013 at 6:54 AM, Vision75 said:

What I find funny is how we GA folks talk about books not being that rare when there might be 45 copies as opposed to 15 suggested by Gerber. When, on the other hand, SA folks make statements about how rare some issues are with fewer than 2000 copies like Tales to Astonish 27 or Journey into Mystery 83. Our rare is still a magnitude or two rarer than the SA metric :-)

This sentence here captures the essence of why I dont find the silver age hunt as fun.  I love many of the silver age books, but they are all available at any time and at any place.   You can always find a dozen AF 15s or whatever at any auction site, it seems.  All I gotta do is match the condition/price up to whatever wad of cash I happen to have in my pocket at the time, and voila!  I now own that book.

no challenge there.  Yes, I know these books are good investments and all, but still. 

[Chicago Boy]

Curious as to where AA 16 guess sits these days as compared to the GSI.  Are AC 1 & Tec 27 on par with each other if the Index would come out today ? 

Edited May 29, 2019 by Chicago Boy

[catman76]

Miracle Comics #3 is a 6 in Gerber and the other three issues are 7's, but seems to me it should be the other way around. Or #3 seems more like an 8 to me. I have seen quite a few copies of #1,2 and 4 for sale over the years but almost none of #3. But who knows, it's not a popular title at all.

[Cat-Man_America]

Gerber "No Shows" were at one time the rarest of the rare, simply because Ernie Gerber had difficulty locating certain GA books to photograph for the Photo-Journal. Most, if not all of those books were located over time and added as paste-ons to blank entries left open. IMO, if there are under 10 unrestored copies of a GA book in the census, that's pretty darn rare.

[valiantman]

6 hours ago, Cat-Man_America said:

 IMO, if there are under 10 unrestored copies of a GA book in the census, that's pretty darn rare.

Between the number of GA collectors who don't need CGC and the number of GA books that aren't worth much in mid-grade or lower, I'm thinking that books are only rare when they have significant value AND they have a low CGC census. If a comic book is essentially worthless, I'm surprised when there are 10+ copies on the census. 

[Chicago Boy]

AM

Curious as to where AA 16 guess sits these days as compared to the GSI.  Are AC 1 & Tec 27 on par with each other if the Index would come out today ? 

[Cat-Man_America]

1 hour ago, valiantman said:

Between the number of GA collectors who don't need CGC and the number of GA books that aren't worth much in mid-grade or lower, I'm thinking that books are only rare when they have significant value AND they have a low CGC census. If a comic book is essentially worthless, I'm surprised when there are 10+ copies on the census. 

Of course, this is a logical assumption.  In fact, I recall bringing the value factor up in a thread focusing on rare books last year where images of high value GA books were posted.  My thoughts along this line is that census book numbers have greater relevance when tied to minimum values that take into account the cost of grading and encapsulation.

[paqart]

I once owned a copy of Feature Book NN (First Tracy). At the time it was the only known copy. It was in horrible condition, thanks to extremely brittle pages and insects that had eaten as much as 15% of the paper. By the Gerber index, I think it would be a 10. Another comic I had at one time might have also been a 10, an anti-Communist giveaway titled "Korea my Home". At the time I sold it in New York, it wasn't listed in Overstreet. I bumped into Overstreet at a convention and showed it to him. He admitted he had never seen or heard of one but said he wouldn't publish it or a price for it until it was sold, so he would have a transaction he could use as the basis for a price. He suggested I sell it to his friend, Philip K. Levine, which I did, for a spectacularly low figure (because I didn't see how I could get more for an unlisted comic). The next edition of the guide listed it at over twenty times what Levine had paid me, and as extremely rare, less than three copies known to exist. So, I've had two tens in my life, though I wouldn't be surprised if more copies of both of those two comics have appeared since the time I sold them.

[paqart]

On 8/22/2013 at 7:33 AM, Flex Mentallo said:

 

I suppose what we also see is artificial scarcity as more and more of the nicer copies get locked up in lifetime collections like yours (and mine)....

When I was a kid in the seventies, I once met a collector who owned three copies of Marvel Comics #1. I wonder how many collectors like that are out there, who will buy every copy they find of certain issues, and whether they get them slabbed?

[Chicago Boy]

2 hours ago, paqart said:

I once owned a copy of Feature Book NN (First Tracy). At the time it was the only known copy. It was in horrible condition, thanks to extremely brittle pages and insects that had eaten as much as 15% of the paper. By the Gerber index, I think it would be a 10. Another comic I had at one time might have also been a 10, an anti-Communist giveaway titled "Korea my Home". At the time I sold it in New York, it wasn't listed in Overstreet. I bumped into Overstreet at a convention and showed it to him. He admitted he had never seen or heard of one but said he wouldn't publish it or a price for it until it was sold, so he would have a transaction he could use as the basis for a price. He suggested I sell it to his friend, Philip K. Levine, which I did, for a spectacularly low figure (because I didn't see how I could get more for an unlisted comic). The next edition of the guide listed it at over twenty times what Levine had paid me, and as extremely rare, less than three copies known to exist. So, I've had two tens in my life, though I wouldn't be surprised if more copies of both of those two comics have appeared since the time I sold them.

That story is unsettling.  Thank you for bumping this thread.  

[Chicago Boy]

1 hour ago, paqart said:

When I was a kid in the seventies, I once met a collector who owned three copies of Marvel Comics #1. I wonder how many collectors like that are out there, who will buy every copy they find of certain issues, and whether they get them slabbed?

Question is were they slabbed once and thus part of the census. I’m always curious as the the rarity of the Big 3,

[paqart]

35 minutes ago, Chicago Boy said:

Question is were they slabbed once and thus part of the census. I’m always curious as the the rarity of the Big 3,

I sold the Feature Book/ Tracy in 1980, and the Korea My Home around 1990. I think both sale dates were before the idea of slabbing comics had been invented. The CGC census shows five copies of the Popeye Feature Book (also a no number issue) but none of the Tracy issue that came first. It also shows three copies of Korea My Home.

 

[path4play]

9 hours ago, paqart said:

I once owned a copy of Feature Book NN (First Tracy). At the time it was the only known copy. It was in horrible condition, thanks to extremely brittle pages and insects that had eaten as much as 15% of the paper. By the Gerber index, I think it would be a 10. Another comic I had at one time might have also been a 10, an anti-Communist giveaway titled "Korea my Home". At the time I sold it in New York, it wasn't listed in Overstreet. I bumped into Overstreet at a convention and showed it to him. He admitted he had never seen or heard of one but said he wouldn't publish it or a price for it until it was sold, so he would have a transaction he could use as the basis for a price. He suggested I sell it to his friend, Philip K. Levine, which I did, for a spectacularly low figure (because I didn't see how I could get more for an unlisted comic). The next edition of the guide listed it at over twenty times what Levine had paid me, and as extremely rare, less than three copies known to exist. So, I've had two tens in my life, though I wouldn't be surprised if more copies of both of those two comics have appeared since the time I sold them.

Geez.  Great story.

[lou_fine]

16 hours ago, Chicago Boy said:

That story is unsettling.   

              

8 hours ago, path4play said:

Geez.  Great story.

  

[paqart]

On 2/11/2021 at 10:31 AM, Chicago Boy said:

Question is were they slabbed once and thus part of the census. I’m always curious as the the rarity of the Big 3,

Update on the Feature Book/Tracy. Heritage notes two slabbed copies and a total of five known copies, two of which are incomplete. It is considered one of the 20 rarest Golden Age comics. If you want to see what it looks like, here is a link:

If you'd like to know how I came to own the comic, here is the story:
In 1980, I was fourteen. My mother had just forced me to sell my comic book collection, which included such gems as a full run of Avengers, near complete runs of FF, Spider-man, X-Men, etc (starting with issue #2-4), and plenty of Golden Age, like Frazetta EC's. Thun'Da #1, World's Finest #2, Batman #2, etc. She forced me to sell the collection so that I could pay to move our household from San Jose to Las Vegas. Three months after moving to Vegas, my mom decided to move again. On that occasion, I had to sell the few comics I had withheld before, which amounted to a nearly complete set of Carl Barks Donald Duck comics. She said we would move to Santa Maria, California.

We got to Santa Maria late at night. For three dollars stuffed into a kiosk, we slept at a KOA campground in our car. The next morning, I had one of the coldest showers imaginable at their primitive facilities. My mom didn't like the smell of manure that washed over the campground from nearby farms, so she decided to keep driving until she found a more congenial location.

We arrived in Santa Barbara about an hour later. My mom loved it. Unfortunately, she couldn't afford an apartment, even with my money, so we slept in the car for the first few nights. Instead of showers, my sister and I had to use the ocean instead. Not as clean as the KOA facility, but warmer. It took my mom some finagling, but she arranged to sleep at a battered women's shelter with my sister. They wouldn't take me because I was a boy, so she got me permission to sleep at a local runaway shelter for thirty days. At that time, my mom had taken all my money but I still had some valuables. When I sold the comics, I did so at a shop that sold comics and coins. The reason for that was to convert some of the comics into coins that I could hide in my pocket. The coins I had were worth about $600.

Unfortunately, as I quickly discovered, I couldn't buy or sell coins in Santa Barbara due to a local ordinance against minors selling precious metals and numismatics. Despite that, I found an antiques dealer willing to trade, and I could sell the collectibles he traded me because there was no ordinance against that. Before long, I had started to sell his items on consignment for a commission. I typically made between $50-$75 on any day I sold for that dealer.

After a few weeks, the counselors at the runaway shelter diagnosed my mother as a paranoid schizophrenic. She was so offended that she found a cheap motel room in the seediest part of town that night and moved there with my sister and I. By then, I had a few hundred dollars and a few coins left but I was itching to buy some comics. Despite that, I was worried my mom would force me to sell them again and steal the proceeds. She didn't know I had the coins, nor that I'd traded most and converted them to cash, but I was very worried she was going to realize I had money and take it.

Apart from the fact that I didn't want to have my money taken, I had a secondary concern. For as long as I could remember, my mother had told my sister and I that we would be kicked out to live on our own when we reached our fifteenth birthday. My birthday was weeks away. I needed as much money as I could get if I was going to survive. I did not doubt my mother's sincerity. She fully intended to make me homeless on my birthday.

With all this going on, I attended a flea market in Santa Barbara. A man there had a box of comics for sale. There were some recent 1970's Archie comics on top, but beneath them were dozens of Platinum Age comics. Some were coverless, all were worm-eaten, but enough were in good shape to make the box interesting. I bought it for fifty dollars.

When I got home, I went through the box to sort out what to sell, what to trade, and what to keep. Toward the bottom of the box, I found the feature Book. At first I thought it was coverless but a check in the price guide told me it was printed on a different cover stock that made it look that way. I later discovered that many comics from that time period had matte, not glossy, covers. 

The Overstreet guide listed "less than three copies known to exist". I was very pleased to be able to add to that number but embarrassed that my copy was so poor. Insects had eaten through the pages in many places and the paper was so brittle that touching it was enough to create a cascade of paper fragments. I put it in a bag to preserve it. There was nothing that could be done to restore it but its deterioration, I felt, could be arrested.

I needed my money back for the box of comics, so I brought the Feature Book to a dealer in Santa Barbara who gave me $75 for it. At the time, and for in a comic in that condition, I thought it was a fair price. Shortly thereafter, the dealer bragged to me that he'd sold it to a producer for $450. The producer worked for Warren Beatty, who had tasked him with finding everything he could that was related to Tracy for the movie he was making.

So, that's how I got the comic and where it went. I have no idea where it is now.

 

[Chicago Boy]

28 minutes ago, paqart said:

Update on the Feature Book/Tracy. Heritage notes two slabbed copies and a total of five known copies, two of which are incomplete. It is considered one of the 20 rarest Golden Age comics. If you want to see what it looks like, here is a link:

If you'd like to know how I came to own the comic, here is the story:
In 1980, I was fourteen. My mother had just forced me to sell my comic book collection, which included such gems as a full run of Avengers, near complete runs of FF, Spider-man, X-Men, etc (starting with issue #2-4), and plenty of Golden Age, like Frazetta EC's. Thun'Da #1, World's Finest #2, Batman #2, etc. She forced me to sell the collection so that I could pay to move our household from San Jose to Las Vegas. Three months after moving to Vegas, my mom decided to move again. On that occasion, I had to sell the few comics I had withheld before, which amounted to a nearly complete set of Carl Barks Donald Duck comics. She said we would move to Santa Maria, California.

We got to Santa Maria late at night. For three dollars stuffed into a kiosk, we slept at a KOA campground in our car. The next morning, I had one of the coldest showers imaginable at their primitive facilities. My mom didn't like the smell of manure that washed over the campground from nearby farms, so she decided to keep driving until she found a more congenial location.

We arrived in Santa Barbara about an hour later. My mom loved it. Unfortunately, she couldn't afford an apartment, even with my money, so we slept in the car for the first few nights. Instead of showers, my sister and I had to use the ocean instead. Not as clean as the KOA facility, but warmer. It took my mom some finagling, but she arranged to sleep at a battered women's shelter with my sister. They wouldn't take me because I was a boy, so she got me permission to sleep at a local runaway shelter for thirty days. At that time, my mom had taken all my money but I still had some valuables. When I sold the comics, I did so at a shop that sold comics and coins. The reason for that was to convert some of the comics into coins that I could hide in my pocket. The coins I had were worth about $600.

Unfortunately, as I quickly discovered, I couldn't buy or sell coins in Santa Barbara due to a local ordinance against minors selling precious metals and numismatics. Despite that, I found an antiques dealer willing to trade, and I could sell the collectibles he traded me because there was no ordinance against that. Before long, I had started to sell his items on consignment for a commission. I typically made between $50-$75 on any day I sold for that dealer.

After a few weeks, the counselors at the runaway shelter diagnosed my mother as a paranoid schizophrenic. She was so offended that she found a cheap motel room in the seediest part of town that night and moved there with my sister and I. By then, I had a few hundred dollars and a few coins left but I was itching to buy some comics. Despite that, I was worried my mom would force me to sell them again and steal the proceeds. She didn't know I had the coins, nor that I'd traded most and converted them to cash, but I was very worried she was going to realize I had money and take it.

Apart from the fact that I didn't want to have my money taken, I had a secondary concern. For as long as I could remember, my mother had told my sister and I that we would be kicked out to live on our own when we reached our fifteenth birthday. My birthday was weeks away. I needed as much money as I could get if I was going to survive. I did not doubt my mother's sincerity. She fully intended to make me homeless on my birthday.

With all this going on, I attended a flea market in Santa Barbara. A man there had a box of comics for sale. There were some recent 1970's Archie comics on top, but beneath them were dozens of Platinum Age comics. Some were coverless, all were worm-eaten, but enough were in good shape to make the box interesting. I bought it for fifty dollars.

When I got home, I went through the box to sort out what to sell, what to trade, and what to keep. Toward the bottom of the box, I found the feature Book. At first I thought it was coverless but a check in the price guide told me it was printed on a different cover stock that made it look that way. I later discovered that many comics from that time period had matte, not glossy, covers. 

The Overstreet guide listed "less than three copies known to exist". I was very pleased to be able to add to that number but embarrassed that my copy was so poor. Insects had eaten through the pages in many places and the paper was so brittle that touching it was enough to create a cascade of paper fragments. I put it in a bag to preserve it. There was nothing that could be done to restore it but its deterioration, I felt, could be arrested.

I needed my money back for the box of comics, so I brought the Feature Book to a dealer in Santa Barbara who gave me $75 for it. At the time, and for in a comic in that condition, I thought it was a fair price. Shortly thereafter, the dealer bragged to me that he'd sold it to a producer for $450. The producer worked for Warren Beatty, who had tasked him with finding everything he could that was related to Tracy for the movie he was making.

So, that's how I got the comic and where it went. I have no idea where it is now.

 

I’m still trying to sort out all the emotions I had reading your story. You were truly ahead of years ( and sounds like u had to be ) I don’t think m I’ve run across u in this thread before but I could be mistaken. Regardless. Glad I found you here now.  Thank you for sharing such a personal story with us   This is the kind of stuff that you shud go into over street every year imo. 

[Pantodude]

FWIW, the scarcity designations appear to be accurate with respect to Silver Streak Comics #1.  I have one so paid some attention to it.  Overstreet says "scarce" and Gerber says "uncommon."   While CGC census is not the gospel, time is the best teacher.  And after all these years, there are only 26 total SSC1s graded by CGC, and we know some of those might be phantom labels for books that were resubmitted and reslabbed.  And CBCS only graded two.  Whatever raws, if any, remain out there, SSC1 apparently belongs in the "scarce" range (21-50 copies in existence).  Not suprisingly, there has been no SSC1 offered for sale publicly since 2019; by contrast, each of Action Comics 1, DetCom 27, and Cap1 have sold since then (some even multiple sales).   

Edited June 12, 2021 by Pantodude

[adamstrange]

[comicjack]

Gerber was good on some and not so good on others this was all before the world being connected.The man did a great job for the task at hand not an easy feat.I had the pleasure to talk with him mid 90's the last i saw him before passing from this world.The man got to see the best of the best in comics and sold many to soon but he left his mark here for all of us.