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The Ultimate Dennis the Menace Thread
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This thread will be the Ultimate Dennis the Menace Thread. I am creating it for the purposes of...

 

1) displaying issues of Dennis the Menace, and

 

2) discussing Dennis comics among interested collectors, and

 

3) discovering other Dennis collectors.

 

I will start the thread by posting the first 20 issues of the regular Dennis the Menace series that began in August 1953. As I write this, on February 18, 2005, there are two slabbed copies of this #1: one at 7.0 and one at 5.5.

 

Below is the 7.0, best existing copy, which I own...

 

726728-dennis.jpg

 

yay.gif

 

This particular copy I bought about two years ago from a guy named Shay. He sells under the name of microbia on ebay and is a nice guy from what I know of him. He advertised this issue in Comic Buyer's Guide, and I responded promptly to his ad, met him, and bought it for $695. It is the best copy of this book I have ever seen, and I have been looking since the 1970s. Even then, it is only a fine-very fine copy. I once listed this book on ebay with a $5000 reserve just to see what its true market value was. To me, I would not sell it for less than that price, and nobody was willing to hit the reserve. The bids went to about $800, and I received an offer of $2000 after the bidding closed. So that is its worth on the market for those who are curious. Based on that experience, I felt that I was probably willing to pay more for this comic than anyone since it was worth at least $5000 to me. That doesn't mean I'd pay that much for another copy, but until a nicer copy surfaces, I would not part with this for less than that price. One of the biggest obstacles to collecting early Dennis books is the concomitant tanning that occurs around the edges of these comics. That is always a huge factor as well as the structural quality. Finding them with nice structure AND nice page & cover quality is a virtually impossible goal and one I have been working on with the collection that follows for several decades. In this thread, be prepared to see some comics you have probably never seen before. I have seen fewer than ten total copies of Dennis the Menace #1 on ebay and in person in my entire life! To compare Dennis #1 to a similar book and to give an indication of its scarcity in high grade, consider Richie Rich #1(1960), by comparison. It has 23 slabbed copies: 3 at 9.4, 2 at 9.2, and 1 at 9.0 (as of 2/18/05).

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This thread will be the Ultimate Dennis the Menace Thread. I am creating it for the purposes of...

 

1) displaying issues of Dennis the Menace, and

 

2) discussing Dennis comics among interested collectors.

 

I will start the thread by posting the first 20 issues of the regular Dennis the Menace series that began in 1953. As I write this, on February 18, 2005, there are two slabbed copies of this #1: one at 7.0 and one at 5.5.

 

Below is the 7.0, best existing copy, which I own...

 

893applaud-thumb.gif Bring 'em on, Joe!

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Here is Dennis the Menace #2, from December 1953. This particular copy was purchased as a lot of Dennis the Menace Bethlehems from Phillip Weiss, the founder of the Bethlehem collection, on ebay. At the time, he was selling under the name of auction22. The Bethlehem lot ended May 13, 2001 and included Dennis the Menace 2-3, 5-10, 12-20, with 2 copies of #18. He described it as about a very fine group with off-white to white pages. The closing price of this auction was $1201.56.

This was scanned from inside of a Bill Cole Showcase Sealer, so a fine line appears at the top of this comic just above the logo, and two other shadows of the casing are visible in the bottom corners of the comics that follow.

 

726729-2.jpg

 

The next-best condition of this comic I have seen is about a good plus. I have seen a total of five copies of this comic in person and on ebay in my life. There are currently ZERO copies of this comic in the census!!!

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Next is #3, from March 1954. I bought this back in the 1980s from Richie Muchin, who is otherwise known as Tomorrow's Treasures. I sold the Bethlehem copy of #3 to the second highest bidder, another fervent and very friendly Dennis collector, cause this copy is nicer. The Bethlehem had a sizable chunk of the front cover missing. This copy is only about a fine, but it is the best I've seen yet. I would say this is the second toughest Dennis to get as I have seen a total of four copies of this in person and on ebay. As I write this, there are ZERO slabbed copies of this comic. This was the first decent old Dennis comic I ever found, and, until I won the Bethlehems, it would be the only. To my knowledge, the ONLY pedigree collection that includes a run of Dennis the Menace is the Bethlehem collection. If anyone knows of another pedigree that includes them, please share your information so we can gather some significant data about this series here in this thread.

 

726732-3.jpg

 

An interesting point about this cover is that we start to see a Dennis the Menace that most closely resembles the Dennis we see today. The covers of #1 and #2 show a Dennis that is still in the process of being created and fully realized.

Also, this same cover to #3 was used as the cover for the Australian version of Dennis the Menace #1!

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Next comes #4, from May 1954. Man, is this comic tough to find! This issue was not included in the Bethlehems, as I said before, but I lucked into it on ebay by spotting it in a stack of other mid-grade Dennis comics. This number has proved to be far and away the toughest issue to find - for me. I see that ONE copy has appeared in the census as a 6.0, but I never even saw the cover of this until I saw one on ebay. ( I knew what it looked like, though, since it does appear in the Gerber Journal.) To my knowledge, three of these have been on ebay since 1999. Overall, the first four issues are very very very tough to find in any grade and basically impossible to find in high grade. They had low print runs, low-quality paper and printing, and kids read them to death. It goes without saying I'd love to upgrade any issues I have. If you have some high grades, let me know!!!! Or even a solid mid-grade of this issue would make me happy...

 

726733-4.jpg

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Now we're back to the Bethlehems. This #5 is a gorgeous Bethlehem, unread, with blazing cover gloss and no discoloration. The apparent brilliance of these pedigrees so far (#2 and #5) clearly outshines the other issues I have found. As I have stated, apart from the Bethlehems, I really have not seen other high grade copies of the early issues. Does anybody have any? Please post them if you do!

 

726735-5.jpg

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Tim, AdamStrange, and Mister_Comics, thanks for your posts and your interest! I was worried that I would make this thread and there would be no interest as Dennis collectors are relatively rare. If you or anybody have any issues to share, go for it! I will continue to put issues up over the next days and weeks and provide as much info as I can about what I know about the books. Later on I want to put up some of the best covers and discuss the artists, stories, and book collections. As long as there is interest, I have years worth of stuff to post and share here.

Joe

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Now we're back to the Bethlehems. This #5 is a gorgeous Bethlehem, unread, with blazing cover gloss and no discoloration. The apparent brilliance of these pedigrees so far (#2 and #5) clearly outshine the others. As I have stated, apart from the Bethlehems, I really have not seen other high grade copies of the early issues. Does anybody have any? Please post them if you do!

 

726735-5.jpg

 

893whatthe.gif Hommina, hommina, hommina... I'm speechless!

 

Awesome thread, Joe, these are all books I've NEVER seen before. hail.gifhail.gif Keep them coming, please!

 

Interesting that the covers are actually from Hank Ketcham. Is any of the interior art from him too?

 

I have nothing to contribute here, unfortunately. I only have very beat up store-bought copies from the 1970s (and a few odd back issues from the 1960s that I picked up here and there) that my sister and I read when we were kids, and they're all sitting at her house in the US. We had a lot of the digests too, which contained reprints of a lot of the great stories from the 1950s and 60s.

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Tim, AdamStrange, and Mister_Comics, thanks for your posts and your interest! I was worried that I would make this thread and there would be no interest as Dennis collectors are relatively rare. If you or anybody have any issues to share, go for it! I will continue to put issues up over the next days and weeks and provide as much info as I can about what I know about the books. Later on I want to put up some of the best covers and discuss the artists, stories, and book collections. As long as there is interest, I have years worth of stuff to post and share here.

Joe

 

No interest 893whatthe.gif

 

You are doing GREAT! I am totally geeking out!

 

Love the bathtub scence on #5, but did you know that it was originally drawn with Dennis's Mom? wink.gif

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Great books. Sorry I do not have anything to contribute. To this day, I still love the old tv show with Jay North as Dennis.

 

Harvey Dude, don't feel bad that you don't have anything to contribute! I love seeing your stuff whenever you post, and I've been appreciating your amazing TC collection on that awesome thread. I am happy to know you are visiting this thread.

I'm also a big fan of the DTM tv show. There is a website that sells the shows on vhs or dvd for very reasonable prices. The guy has copies from tv and does the copying himself, but I really enjoyed re-watching the shows and feel that show holds up VERY well over time, unlike many shows from that period. I will revisit this post later and edit it with the website info for anyone who's interested.

 

Joe

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Okay, and now...back to the comics! Here is Dennis the Menace #7 from the Bethlehem collection. The whiteness of this cover is amazing considering how impossibly bad the paper quality is on these old Standard comics. The paper quality is uneven on this pedigree, but thank God it was nice on this white cover!

 

727330-7.jpg

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And now, Dennis the Menace #8. Although Dennis #8 was included in the Bethlehems, the Bethlehem #8 had chipping along the right edge of the cover and some dust shadow to the cover. I sold it to a fellow collector after I had acquired the copy below from Richie Muchin, who miraculously uncovered this copy in his stock.

 

727332-8.jpg

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