Centaur Comics 19 19

[SushiX]

42 minutes ago, adamstrange said:

Not yet

[sacentaur]

As noted elsewhere, Michael Goldman (Motor City Comics) had a nice batch of OO Centaurs at the just completed SDCC. The story is that about a decade ago an elderly gentleman passed away and his family found a grouping (of about 55 issues) of Centaurs in the attic. There's probably an interesting back story to these books (e.g., the Claire Moe collection, an artist for Centaur, of about 90 books which surfaced circa 1983 through J&S Comics), but the details are unknown. Motor City bought this entire 55 book lot.

Apparently a batch debuted at Motor City Con last year. Michael then brought some to SDCC in 2016, and I bought one (a Western Picture Stories) not knowing the OO history of the books. Another Centaur collector from Colorado then bought the rest of the batch, so I couldn't get any more.

With the strong Berk auction results, Michael pulled out another (final?) batch consisting of the earliest AMF and KDF issues, among a few others. Michael held the books aside until I could get first glance of them on Preview Night last Wednesday. I'd say the grades averaged F/VF, a few VG+ issues and some really beautiful VF's.

Michael did tell me that he's keeping 10 issues (unknown which titles) for his personal collection.

The books have definitely some aging (discoloration, from mild to heavy) effects on the interior (as one would expect from an attic find), including foxing, and yet the pages are strong and supple. The covers have heavy inks, meaning the colors are not eye-popping bright but are very strong (no fading, early Centaurs mostly were not manufactured with gloss anyway). To me, the books have a wonderful natural (plump) feel with some of the best spines I've seen in a long time. There was no restoration or pressing, and they've never been slabbed.

Quite a few of the books have a scripted 'L' distributor mark on their cover.

All the books were priced very aggressively, so I needed to filter through them and ultimately decided to go the KDF route with one exception (see below). 

Funny Picture Stories vol. 3#1 (January, 1939)

[G.A.tor]

Post em steve. Post em!!!

[G.A.tor]

And what's interesting is Michael told me he's keeping the amf2/2 as one of his keepers (he told me it was a vg+)

and I believe he sold a nice 2/2 last year at motor city so maybe there were 2 of them?

he also had a few centaurs (like kdf20) that were not from the oo find

[sacentaur]

4 minutes ago, G.A.tor said:

And what's interesting is Michael told me he's keeping the amf2/2 as one of his keepers (he told me it was a vg+)

and I believe he sold a nice 2/2 last year at motor city so maybe there were 2 of them?

he also had a few centaurs (like kdf20) that were not from the oo find

He may have gotten confused (AMF 2/5 perhaps?) - I specifically asked about and described the AMF 2/2 (since he had the rest from AMF 1/1 to AMF 2/4), and he replied that was not one of the keepers.

The KDF 24, not from the collection, did sell. He still had the KDF 20 (the Eye Sees cover, one of my favs) last I saw.

[G.A.tor]

1 minute ago, sacentaur said:

He may have gotten confused (AMF 2/5 perhaps?) - I specifically asked about and described the AMF 2/2 (since he had the rest from AMF 1/1 to AMF 2/4), and he replied that was not one of the keepers.

The KDF 24, not from the collection, did sell. He still had the KDF 20 (the Eye Sees cover, one of my favs) last I saw.

 I showed him all the pictures as well and he specifically said the 2/2 was one he was keeping and that he did not get a 2/5 or 2/6 in the collection 

 Now certainly he could've been confused or told 2 different people 2 different things , but I showed him all the pictures and we discussed them in pretty good depth 

 

[sacentaur]

Just now, G.A.tor said:

 I showed him all the pictures as well and he specifically said the 2/2 was one he was keeping and that he did not get a 2/5 or 2/6 in the collection 

 Now certainly he could've been confused or told 2 different people 2 different things , but I showed him all the pictures and we discussed them in pretty good depth 

 

Well, if you showed him pics then I think you're right - would like to see a scan (paging Johnny545) of the one he sold previously.

[G.A.tor]

6 minutes ago, sacentaur said:

Well, if you showed him pics then I think you're right - would like to see a scan (paging Johnny545) of the one he sold previously.

Because I had my entire collection pictures on my phone we were able to go through each one and compare etc. etc. because I was looking for copies That would upgrade mine,  and we agreed only the 1/3 was better significantly than  I already had 

 When I showed him the 2/5 and 2/6 he was very quick to confirm he did not get those in the collection ,  so that is how I was able to determine where the collection ended for that title 

 And when I showed him my 2/2 he confirmed that the copy he kept was about a VG plus 

 I have seen Johnny's 2/2 and it's a CGC 7.0 it looks quite nice 

maybe there were two of them in the collection

Edited July 26, 2017 by G.A.tor

[Johnny545]

Photobucket is really making me crazy, meant to post in the related SDCC discussion thread.  Here is the AMF v2/2 pre-slabbing It was purchased from Michael at Motor City last year, later sold to me by that purchaser and graded a CGC 7.0 C/ow.  I still have it, not going anywhere.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Johnny545

[sacentaur]

Just now, Johnny545 said:

Photobucket is really making me crazy, meant to post in the related SDCC discussion thread.  Here is the AMF v2/2 purchased from Michael at Motor City last year, later sold to me by that purchaser and graded a CGC 7.0 C/ow.

Lovely book, Chris - is that writing on the cover? Was this claimed to be from the OO ('L') collection at the time (if you know)?

[Johnny545]

Just now, sacentaur said:

Lovely book, Chris - is that writing on the cover? Was this claimed to be from the OO ('L') collection at the time (if you know)?

Yes, some pencil and yes understood to be from the OO collection that debuted last year at Motor City.  The person I purchased from saw at least all of the early AMF.  

[Johnny545]

Another copy, tape on spine and missing a few pages, but that cover...

[sacentaur]

1 minute ago, Johnny545 said:

Another copy, tape on spine and missing a few pages, but that cover...

Hoarder... 

[G.A.tor]

27 minutes ago, Johnny545 said:

Photobucket is really making me crazy, meant to post in the related SDCC discussion thread.  Here is the AMF v2/2 pre-slabbing It was purchased from Michael at Motor City last year, later sold to me by that purchaser and graded a CGC 7.0 C/ow.  I still have it, not going anywhere.

given that this copy has the "L" on it, I suspect it was also from the OO...so, maybe there were 2 copies or Michael is confused if there was only 1....no idea, except my after spending almost an hour with Michael at sdcc, I was under the impression he knew what he had

 

and he offered all the AMF's to me at a good discount, but I just couldn't justify buying them, with the "run" not in tact

Edited July 26, 2017 by G.A.tor

[G.A.tor]

My one upgrade on the left , current copy on the right. 

 

[sacentaur]

1 minute ago, G.A.tor said:

My one upgrade on the left , current copy on the right. 

 

[G.A.tor]

21 minutes ago, sacentaur said:

Waiting patiently for some kdfs!

[sacentaur]

Just now, G.A.tor said:

Waiting patiently for some kdfs!

Wait no longer...

Keen Detective Funnies vol. 1#8 (July, 1938)

[G.A.tor]

1 minute ago, sacentaur said:

Wait no longer...

Keen Detective Funnies vol. 1#8 (July, 1938)

Yay...a stunner

Edited July 26, 2017 by G.A.tor

[lou_fine]

4 hours ago, sacentaur said:

All the books were priced very aggressively, so I needed to filter through them and ultimately decided to go the KDF route with one exception (see below). 

Funny Picture Stories vol. 3#1 (January, 1939)

Steve;

I knew when you went out of your way to pick up the FPS 3/1 when you had already decided to focus in on the KDF's, it must have been a gorgeous copy and this picture here only confirms it. 

You've definitely got the sharp eye when it comes to picking these beautiful covers. 

Loved the back story and history on the original owner of these Centaurs and congrats again on picking up some of the really early and virtually impossible to find early KDF's.