Show Us Your Ducks! 15 15

[sagii]

5 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

Not sure I'd agree that other better copies necessarily exist.  My impression has always been that the number of Dell file copies for any given title is not as huge as you are speculating.  And many of those file copies are not of the highest grade.  I have seen many books where the top rated file copy is a 9.4 and fewer where the top graded copy is a 9.6. 

That's good to know! Very detailed info as always!

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

21 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

Not sure I'd agree that other better copies necessarily exist.  My impression has always been that the number of Dell file copies for any given title is not as huge as you are speculating.  And many of those file copies are not of the highest grade.  I have seen many books where the top rated file copy is a 9.4 and fewer where the top graded copy is a 9.6. 

There were numerous Dell finds. It would be good to know how to figure out what is what. The Poughkeepsie Dells appeared in New York in the late seventies and I think were smuggled out by an employee. There might be better information on the Random House books which were from a different source. Then the books with the Racine stamp started showing up ten years ago and those I never heard the story on how they got out. The Racine stamped books can be nice but the two supposed Poughkeepsie copies I own are also very nice.

There were also file copies of the Gold Key books. One of the regular Dealers out west bought a chunk of them but once again I’m not sure of the source. He has some great books and Gold Key published a ton of obscure material.

I’m sure there were numerous sources and it wouldn’t surprise me if more were to be found. I’ll post later about the Mickey Mouse Magazine collection supposedly from the Disney archives that hit San Diego Comic Con one year.

Edited August 15, 2018 by 40YrsCollctngCmcs

[sfcityduck]

2 hours ago, 40YrsCollctngCmcs said:

There were numerous Dell finds. It would be good to know how to figure out what is what. The Poughkeepsie Dells appeared in New York in the late seventies and I think were smuggled out by an employee. There might be better information on the Random House books which were from a different source. Then the books with the Racine stamp started showing up ten years ago and those I never heard the story on how they got out. The Racine stamped books can be nice but the two supposed Poughkeepsie copies I own are also very nice.

There were also file copies of the Gold Key books. One of the regular Dealers out west bought a chunk of them but once again I’m not sure of the source. He has some great books and Gold Key published a ton of obscure material.

I’m sure there were numerous sources and it wouldn’t surprise me if more were to be found. I’ll post later about the Mickey Mouse Magazine collection supposedly from the Disney archives that hit San Diego Comic Con one year.

The Random House Archives were sold by Heritage in 2005.  I still have an auction catalog. 

And this is what Fishler has to say about Poughkeepsie File Copies, but it appears he's talking about a batch he bought around 2003 (adding further confusion):

Quote

"Every once in awhile I receive a call about a collection for sale and I know I need to rush right out the door to buy it.  When I was contacted by the daughter of a former employee of Dell Publishing who lived in Poughkeepsie, New York, I knew it was one of those calls!" states Metropolis CEO, Stephen Fishler.  

The father of this family worked at Dell from 1946-1980 and passed away approximately 23 years ago.  "The books were kept by his wife and daughter and remain in a very well preserved state with nice pages and glossy covers," Fishler continues.  The collection of Poughkeepsie Dell File copies consists of over 1600 comics from the 1940s to the early 50s.  Titles include Donald Duck, Little Lulu, Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, Mickey Mouse, Dale Evans, Andy Panda, Uncle Scrooge, Rootie Kazootie, Zorro, Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, The Brownies, Annie Oakley and many others.  Highlights include early Lulus, early Four Color, March of Comics #41, Race to the South Seas, and a gorgeous copy of Four Color #62 (Donald Duck in Frozen Gold).  

 

Edited August 15, 2018 by sfcityduck

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

1 hour ago, sfcityduck said:

The Random House Archives were sold by Heritage in 2005.  I still have an auction catalog. 

And this is what Fishler has to say about Poughkeepsie File Copies, but it appears he's talking about a batch he bought around 2003 (adding further confusion):

 

That explains their copy of Frozen Gold but this was not the group that appeared back in the late seventies. They seemed to have been spirited out in a less than legal fashion which may explain the inability to get the real story. Western was still an ongoing concern then but the changing market conditions were probably talked about in the offices and could easily lead to a less than scrupulous transaction!

Additionally those books were very spread out among the dealers with no one person showing up at a show with a trove of books. Likely to avoid too much attention. Some old time NY dealer would know the story or Mr. Geppi who was also around at that time.

I’ll post what I believe to be my Poughkeepsie books later.

Edited August 15, 2018 by 40YrsCollctngCmcs

[sfcityduck]

1 hour ago, 40YrsCollctngCmcs said:

That explains their copy of Frozen Gold but this was not the group that appeared back in the late seventies. They seemed to have been spirited out in a less than legal fashion which may explain the inability to get the real story.

Purely a guess, but I tend to think that Fishler's source was the same employee who sold books in the 70s.  Think about it.  The Poughkeepsie file copies showed up in the late 70s, and Fishler's employee source died in 1980.  Ultimately, 23 years later, the employee's daughter sells what's left of the employee's holdings to Fishler.  Fishler, who knows the history of the Poughkeepsie file copies, calls the books he buys in 2003 Poughkeepsie file copies.  I infer, a guess, that Fishler called them that because he knew they were the last bit of the batch taken by the employee.  The books the employee had left when he died.

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

Here’s what I suspect might be Poughkeepsie copies in my collection. The Peter Pan was sold to me as a file copy. The comics and stories was not but it was always so nice I expected it was. And I never thought about my Golden Christmas Tree until tonight. It came out of New York in the same era and none have date stamps.

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

Then up in Racine they stamped their books, The first photo was taken on a vacation around Lake Michigan. When I realized I would be driving by Racine I detoured over and tracked down the Western offices thanks to a local postman who showed me the way. Their doors had long closed but their name is probably still etched on that building.

Edited August 16, 2018 by 40YrsCollctngCmcs

[First Upgrade]

...found a few hours to spend with the DELL/GOLD KEY collection that I mentioned earlier this year...this was hiding between a few Four Color issues...

[AJD]

32 minutes ago, First Upgrade said:

...found a few hours to spend with the DELL/GOLD KEY collection that I mentioned earlier this year...this was hiding between a few Four Color issues...

Wow. That's a really sweet looking copy. Amazing that books with long Barks stories haven't been read to death.

[First Upgrade]

2 hours ago, AJD said:

Wow. That's a really sweet looking copy. Amazing that books with long Barks stories haven't been read to death.

The original owner kept them well preserved, despite being stored unbagged & unboarded...

That one's brothers & sisters already graded well...

And, yes, they smell wonderful...

[Badger]

44 minutes ago, First Upgrade said:

The original owner kept them well preserved, despite being stored unbagged & unboarded...

That one's brothers & sisters already graded well...

And, yes, they smell wonderful...

Don't suppose you have a nice #6 you'd share with the class, do you?

[First Upgrade]

3 minutes ago, Badger said:

Don't suppose you have a nice #6 you'd share with the class, do you?

Unfortunately students, as I mentioned at the start of the semester, the partial run did not have a copy of issue six...until this afternoon, I assumed that the earliest issue was number eight...

Just wait until you see the issues twelve and fourteen...

[Sqeggs]

On 8/7/2018 at 10:02 AM, valiantman said:

I actually prefer Four Color #386, because there's something special about that lake of gold and Uncle Scrooge being so "scroogey" on the cover. 

I've had a solid mid-grade copy since 2008.

I agree and it has a Barks cover.

[Sqeggs]

On 8/15/2018 at 8:43 PM, 40YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Then up in Racine they stamped their books, The first photo was taken on a vacation around Lake Michigan. When I realized I would be driving by Racine I detoured over and tracked down the Western offices thanks to a local postman who showed me the way. Their doors had long closed but their name is probably still etched on that building.

People are probably tired of having me make this point (but here it is again! ), but it's too bad that early on the hobby didn't draw a distinction between true file copies, like your Fairy Tale Parade or this Our Gang, and copies that were in warehouses or were returns of unsold books or other copies that for whatever reason had never been sold, but weren't being used as actual file copies. Misleading and maybe confusing to label different types of unsold copies as file copies.

To me, genuine file copies are more interesting as a part of the hobby's history, even if they are typically in mid-grade or lower. 

[Badger]

2 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

People are probably tired of having me make this point (but here it is again! ), but it's too bad that early on the hobby didn't draw a distinction between true file copies, like your Fairy Tale Parade or this Our Gang, and copies that were in warehouses or were returns of unsold books or other copies that for whatever reason had never been sold, but weren't being used as actual file copies. Misleading and maybe confusing to label different types of unsold copies as file copies.

To me, genuine file copies are more interesting as a part of the hobby's history, even if they are typically in mid-grade or lower. 

As someone who grew up using the Overstreet definition I totally agree.  I don't know why warehouse finds were not labeled warehouse find.  Would have reduced the confusion I felt when confronted with hundred, if not thousands, of file copies once the Internet took off.  I knew they could not all be file copies but here we are.

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

22 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

People are probably tired of having me make this point (but here it is again! ), but it's too bad that early on the hobby didn't draw a distinction between true file copies, like your Fairy Tale Parade or this Our Gang, and copies that were in warehouses or were returns of unsold books or other copies that for whatever reason had never been sold, but weren't being used as actual file copies. Misleading and maybe confusing to label different types of unsold copies as file copies.

To me, genuine file copies are more interesting as a part of the hobby's history, even if they are typically in mid-grade or lower. 

Good point and totally agree. With so many hundreds of thousands of books printed and a sketchy and less than honest distribution system books leaked out all over the place and ended up who knows where. There were many dealers at local flea markets back east who somehow had access to stashes of books that had somehow been squirreled away! These were good cheap sources of good books but they certainly were not file copies as you contend.

[lotemo]

Just received this.  Still one of my favorite Duck covers.  Being a PLOD made a 7.5 more affordable.

 

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

1 minute ago, lotemo said:

Just received this.  Still one of my favorite Duck covers.  Being a PLOD made a 7.5 more affordable.

 

Nice and pretty minor work to boot; that book deserves to be unslabbed!

[BB-Gun]

I found a few Barks cartoons in my EyeOpeners.  Does anyone have a list of what he contributed?

Edited August 22, 2018 by BB-Gun

[BB-Gun]

On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 3:51 PM, 40YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Good point and totally agree. With so many hundreds of thousands of books printed and a sketchy and less than honest distribution system books leaked out all over the place and ended up who knows where. There were many dealers at local flea markets back east who somehow had access to stashes of books that had somehow been squirreled away! These were good cheap sources of good books but they certainly were not file copies as you contend.

Returns were usually turned into paper pulp.  I have walked on piles of old DC, Dell and Marvel comics but only saved a few before I was arrested and taken downtown.