All-Negro Comics #1 (All-Negro Comics, 1947) CGC VF- 7.5 Cream to off-white pages 0

[pemart1966]

5 hours ago, Tri-ColorBrian said:

It's just as well that they never did a second issue.  The stories and art in #1 are absolute garbage.  Try reading it...  The only thing this book has going for it is the cover...which is great...

Keep in mind that the book was written for the 7-10 year old age group.  

I didn't mind the first story actually - I thought that is was pretty good.  The story with the elves/fairies was unsettling - and not in a good way.  I'll have to go back and re-read the rest of the stories to refresh my memory.

I love that cover too.

[Tri-Color Brian]

2 minutes ago, pemart1966 said:

Keep in mind that the book was written for the 7-10 year old age group.  

I didn't mind the first story actually - I thought that is was pretty good.  The story with the elves/fairies was unsettling - and not in a good way.  I'll have to go back and re-read the rest of the stories to refresh my memory.

I love that cover too.

well, see...uh, not being 7-10 years old I had a little trouble appreciating the stories...

[Sqeggs]

Currently at a hair less than $12K with BP. 

[pemart1966]

1 hour ago, Tri-ColorBrian said:

well, see...uh, not being 7-10 years old I had a little trouble appreciating the stories...

I always channel my inner 7-10 year old when reading an old comic.  If he likes it then it's a good comic...

[Doc Joe]

I have one of the other 7.5; actually as I recall the best looking one of them

its a great book, hard to find, lots of history, I don’t particularly see me ever selling mine 

[telerites]

10 hours ago, Doc Joe said:

I have one of the other 7.5; actually as I recall the best looking one of them

its a great book, hard to find, lots of history, I don’t particularly see me ever selling mine 

Great looking book, Doc!

[Sqeggs]

10 hours ago, Doc Joe said:

I have one of the other 7.5; actually as I recall the best looking one of them

its a great book, hard to find, lots of history, I don’t particularly see me ever selling mine 

It's a beauty.  Looks nicer than the grade. 

[Tsp99]

On 11/11/2017 at 11:08 AM, pemart1966 said:

You make an interesting observation.  I can't recall if I've ever seen a ratty copy of this book (i.e. one that looked as if it was bought off of the news stand and well read).  I've seen them with poor page quality but not ratty.

This book was put out by All-Negro Comics Inc located at 1310 Spruce St in Philadelphia.  According to the editor's narrative inside the front cover "Every brush stroke and pen line in the drawings on these pages are by Negro artists."  So this was a very esoteric book in price, production and most likely distribution.  Also, it probably explains the 7 copies that were found in Philadelphia.

Surely this book, if it was distributed, could not have had very wide distribution.  North East coast at best?  Philadelphia only?  Thoughts anyone?

Even if it did make news stands sales were obviously very poor given the content, price and the fact that there were no subsequent issues.

I've got 3 copies, one graded and two raw.   All 3 of mine are low grade (G/Vg and lower).   Its a scarce book, but no where near as rare as Negro Romance.

[newshane]

23 hours ago, pemart1966 said:

Keep in mind that the book was written for the 7-10 year old age group.  

I didn't mind the first story actually - I thought that is was pretty good.  The story with the elves/fairies was unsettling - and not in a good way.  I'll have to go back and re-read the rest of the stories to refresh my memory.

I love that cover too.

Anywhere I can read these stories...for less than the cost of a decent automobile?

[SC22]

Here is another 15 cents book.

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/superhero/master-comics-1-denver-pedigree-fawcett-publications-1940-condition-nm-/a/7169-91044.s?ic3=ViewItem-Auction-Open-ThisAuction-120115

[rjpb]

1 hour ago, newshane said:

Anywhere I can read these stories...for less than the cost of a decent automobile?

http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=37543

[newshane]

40 minutes ago, rjpb said:

http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=37543

Oh man...the first story is kind of like a more juvenile version of an EC Crime/Suspense! Silly ending. Some of the art made me laugh. The overall flow of the storytelling was kind of jagged, but I understand we're not reading classic literature. Thanks for posting the link. It's really cool to be able to read this classic.

[lou_fine]

On 11/13/2017 at 11:27 AM, comicjack said:

On 11/13/2017 at 11:16 AM, Tri-ColorBrian said:

It's just as well that they never did a second issue.  The stories and art in #1 are absolute garbage.  Try reading it...  The only thing this book has going for it is the cover...which is great...

Like a Suspense 3 all about the cover 

Speaking about Suspense 3, this book reminds me of a conversation I had with Magik at a local con a couple of weeks ago.

Although he had virtually all of his worthwhile vintage books graded a few years ago, he said that he had a really nice copy of this book in his collection that still hadn't been graded yet.  Sounds as though he was planning to have it graded, but didn't seem that sure of which grading company to send the book to this time. 

Knowing Magik's taste for books, it's probably a really sharp copy with cover colors that pop.  I guess I should have listened more carefully as I am not sure if he was talking about this book here or if he was talking about Negro Romance #1. 

[Readcomix]

Thanks to this thread, I went and tracked this down:

[pemart1966]

Great work digging up the actual Time issue.  

The fact that this article appeared in Time probably puts the kibosh to my earlier thought that distribution was limited...the number of copies printed might have been small though...

[Readcomix]

1 hour ago, pemart1966 said:

Great work digging up the actual Time issue.  

The fact that this article appeared in Time probably puts the kibosh to my earlier thought that distribution was limited...the number of copies printed might have been small though...

Thx!

I really don't know the answer either, and we have long lived with the apocrypha that this book is extremely rare. While it may be more common than thought, I think rare is certainly still a fair adjective, though the Overstreet technical definition of scarce is also a possibility.

I go back to my speculation that if Dell's Lobo #1 (with a 1965 print run of about 200,000) could experience returns of unopened cases from distributors, (Wikipedia quotes Dell writer of book as saying they sold maybe 10,000-15,000 copies, mostly due to distributors rejecting it), then a 1947 book could well have had a similar experience, at least in terms of proportion of books printed and shipped versus rejected by distributors. 

[Sqeggs]

57 minutes ago, Readcomix said:

Thx!

I really don't know the answer either, and we have long lived with the apocrypha that this book is extremely rare. While it may be more common than thought, I think rare is certainly still a fair adjective, though the Overstreet technical definition of scarce is also a possibility.

I go back to my speculation that if Dell's Lobo #1 (with a 1965 print run of about 200,000) could experience returns of unopened cases from distributors, (Wikipedia quotes Dell writer of book as saying they sold maybe 10,000-15,000 copies, mostly due to distributors rejecting it), then a 1947 book could well have had a similar experience, at least in terms of proportion of books printed and shipped versus rejected by distributors. 

Appears as if it received some circulation given that Bedrock in Texas bought a collection containing a copy and Crippen bought a copy in New York.  In both cases, of course, the original purchases might have taken place in Philadelphia, although it seems unlikely.  I would guess the book was probably targeted to newsstands in inner city neighborhoods.  Perhaps they would have been handled by whoever was distributing the African-American newspapers that served those communities.

Evans appears to have been targeting the African-American community rather than a wider audience.  It's a fair guess that most newsstands outside of those communities wouldn't have had much interest in selling it.  Kind of a tribute to Crippen's completist impulses that he ended up with a copy.  

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Sqeggs

[Readcomix]

8 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Appears as if it received some circulation given that Bedrock in Texas bought a collection containing a copy and Crippen bought a copy in New York.  In both cases, of course, the original purchases might have taken place in Philadelphia, although it seems unlikely.  I would guess the book was probably targeted to newsstands in inner city neighborhoods.  Perhaps they would have been handled by whoever was distributing the African-American newspapers that served those communities.

Evans appears to have been targeting the African-American community rather than a wider audience.  It's a fair guess that most newsstands outside of those communities wouldn't have had much interest in selling it.  Kind of a tribute to Crippen's completist impulses that he ended up with a copy.  

 

Make sense. Either would contribute to scarcity today -- targeted distribution only, or rejection by broader distributors. Targeted does make a lot of sense.

[Sqeggs]

On 11/11/2017 at 11:45 AM, Sqeggs said:

On 11/10/2017 at 9:36 PM, thehumantorch said:

On 11/10/2017 at 9:34 PM, Sqeggs said:

From GPA, looks like the last time a 7.5 sold (in a venue that reports to GPA) was in 2009.  The price then was $10,600, so $15K seems a pretty reasonable guess.  With two determined bidders, I wouldn't be shocked to see it hammer at $20K. 

What's your guess?

Let's be expansive ... $17.5K.

On the verge of live bidding, it's at $15.5K. 

[thehumantorch]

1 minute ago, Sqeggs said:

On the verge of live bidding, it's at $15.5K. 

Probably gonna hit $20k then