Most graded pre-code Golden Age books in CGC census 1 1

[valiantman]

15 hours ago, OdinsSecrets said:

Seems like some books from the first list are missing on this one? (Including the Timelys: Cap 1 and Subby 1)

Yep, I was excluding Sports Illustrated by eliminating Time publisher and it eliminated Timely also.   I also fixed the problem with missing restored books, so the list you've quoted (126 rows) is out-of-date.  I updated my first list (147 rows in the corrected list).  

[sfcityduck]

What I take from the 147 row list is:

(1) The the most popular completest titles to collect amongst CGCers are MAD, Batman, Superman, Donald Duck, and Uncle Scrooge;

(2) Dealers/collectors are most likely to use CGC for first issues, first appearances, and covers (.e.g, frequently sold or speculated books);

(2) Timely collectors focus on mega-keys;

(3) Someone must have found a lot of Mighty Midget 11s and Thing 16s; and

(4) And science fiction and horror collectors, who generally are focused on covers, CGC a LOT less than you'd think.  Where are the Fiction House, Atlas, Ziff Davis, etc.?

 

 

[valiantman]

3 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

What I take from the 147 row list is:

... And science fiction and horror collectors, who generally are focused on covers, CGC a LOT less than you'd think.  Where are the Fiction House, Atlas, Ziff Davis, etc.?

I believe that a majority of collectors for those non-superhero books are interested in "nice copies" which are you-know-it-when-you-see-it mid-grade raw, and not looking to pay extra for the slab because they have a hobby built on not overspending in the first place.

[MrBedrock]

11 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

What I take from the 147 row list is:

(1) The the most popular completest titles to collect amongst CGCers are MAD, Batman, Superman, Donald Duck, and Uncle Scrooge;

(2) Dealers/collectors are most likely to use CGC for first issues, first appearances, and covers (.e.g, frequently sold or speculated books);

(2) Timely collectors focus on mega-keys;

(3) Someone must have found a lot of Mighty Midget 11s and Thing 16s; and

(4) And science fiction and horror collectors, who generally are focused on covers, CGC a LOT less than you'd think.  Where are the Fiction House, Atlas, Ziff Davis,  

Interesting. I take something a bit different.

1) since everyone knows that people get books slabbed to sell them the least desirable books in all of the hobby are Mad, Batman, Superman, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.

2) 33% of the Timely's on the list have a direct connection to Stan Lee so they must be desirable for Signature Series potential.

3) Someone must have found a lot of Mighty Midget 11 and Thing 16s; and

4) Science Fiction and Horror are still very scarce in general, and especially in grades that would warrant getting slabbed. Even if that market were to heat up to ridiculous levels those genres would have very sparse representation on a "most graded" list - other than Harvey of course.

***) the publisher with the biggest selling book of all, Fawcett and Captain Marvel, has essentially no representation on the list. What conclusions does this lead us to?

[sfcityduck]

11 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

Interesting. I take something a bit different.

1) since everyone knows that people get books slabbed to sell them the least desirable books in all of the hobby are Mad, Batman, Superman, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.

....

4) Science Fiction and Horror are still very scarce in general, and especially in grades that would warrant getting slabbed.

 

I detect some sarcasm, but I have enough respect for dealers like yourself that I assume you wouldn't pay to slab a book to sell if there was no market.  From the above totals, it sure seems like there is enough of a market for Mad, Superman, Barman, DD, and US to warrant a lot of slabbing of non-key issues. 

I take your point about rarity.  The lack of Fawcetts and Quality seems in contrast.

But, I guess I never viewed Fiction House comics as rare.  I saw a lot of them back in the 70s and 80s at stores and flea market dealers.  My Dad's childhood collection (later 40s to early 50s) has as many FH as DC and Dell.

[Crowzilla]

9 hours ago, MrBedrock said:

the publisher with the biggest selling book of all, Fawcett and Captain Marvel, has essentially no representation on the list. What conclusions does this lead us to?

Is WDC&S not the biggest selling book of all anymore? Or did that not happen until post-code?

[MrBedrock]

10 hours ago, Crowzilla said:

Is WDC&S not the biggest selling book of all anymore? Or did that not happen until post-code?

You are right.

[Sqeggs]

On 6/22/2018 at 5:01 PM, MrBedrock said:

the publisher with the biggest selling book of all, Fawcett and Captain Marvel, has essentially no representation on the list. What conclusions does this lead us to?

I've long been puzzled by the relative scarcity of many Fawcett books, particularly in mid-grade and above.  For instance, there are only 25 blue copies of Master Comics 21, and 5 of those are graded 2.5 or below.  (There are six purple copies.) Yet that book has been considered a GA semi-key for decades, so you might think that many more copies would have been graded by now if the print runs were as high as they are usually said to be.  Master Comics 22 does a little better with 35 copies (all blue), but Master 23 has only 15 blue (and 4 purple).  

Did only Captain Marvel Adventures (and not Cap, Jr, Master, etc.) have the really high sales totals?  Did they actually reach the advertised totals?  

[adamstrange]

Master Comics already had tried a couple different super-hero's, Bulletman and Minute Man, and then switched to a new member of the Captain Marvel family with issue 22.

That indicates to me that the magazine had not been that successful with smaller sales numbers and that didn't turn around right away.

Such a situation would have resulted in low sales numbers for the initial Cap Mvl Jr issues and corresponding number of surviving copies.

[Qua-Brot]

I have a pet theory that may explain some of the (perceived) skewing of numbers: there are some decent collections from people who amassed their collection in the 60's-70's even into the early 80's, who have since left the hobby. Maybe they forgot about it, life took them elsewhere, they have let the collection collect dust, maybe think about it as their kids inheritance - in other words the people who made up some of the demand for GA semi Keys or have nice books that would today be slabbed in a second have quietly stayed on the sidelines. Maybe in 10 years as these collections come back in the market we'll see some nice Fawcett or Fiction House collections, or groups of "rarer"  books, come out and the census will evolve?

[sfcityduck]

1 hour ago, Qua-Brot said:

I have a pet theory that may explain some of the (perceived) skewing of numbers: there are some decent collections from people who amassed their collection in the 60's-70's even into the early 80's, who have since left the hobby. Maybe they forgot about it, life took them elsewhere, they have let the collection collect dust, maybe think about it as their kids inheritance - in other words the people who made up some of the demand for GA semi Keys or have nice books that would today be slabbed in a second have quietly stayed on the sidelines. Maybe in 10 years as these collections come back in the market we'll see some nice Fawcett or Fiction House collections, or groups of "rarer"  books, come out and the census will evolve?

I think there are a number of "buy and hold" collectors who started collecting in the 1960s who have so little invested into their collections that they feel no need to sell (or slab).  

I know one such guy with a great GGA collection (FH, etc.), complete runs of most major DC titles (Batman, Superman, etc., including an Action 1 bought in 1980), Barks ducks, and all of the mega keys except MC 1 and MPFW 1  He's only selling off the fringes so far.

[path4play]

On 6/22/2018 at 5:01 PM, MrBedrock said:

Interesting. I take something a bit different.

1) since everyone knows that people get books slabbed to sell them the least desirable books in all of the hobby are Mad, Batman, Superman, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.

2) 33% of the Timely's on the list have a direct connection to Stan Lee so they must be desirable for Signature Series potential.

3) Someone must have found a lot of Mighty Midget 11 and Thing 16s; and

4) Science Fiction and Horror are still very scarce in general, and especially in grades that would warrant getting slabbed. Even if that market were to heat up to ridiculous levels those genres would have very sparse representation on a "most graded" list - other than Harvey of course.

***) the publisher with the biggest selling book of all, Fawcett and Captain Marvel, has essentially no representation on the list. What conclusions does this lead us to?

Interesting thread. 

[Robot Man]

On 6/23/2018 at 9:55 PM, sfcityduck said:

I think there are a number of "buy and hold" collectors who started collecting in the 1960s who have so little invested into their collections that they feel no need to sell (or slab).  

I know one such guy with a great GGA collection (FH, etc.), complete runs of most major DC titles (Batman, Superman, etc., including an Action 1 bought in 1980), Barks ducks, and all of the mega keys except MC 1 and MPFW 1  He's only selling off the fringes so far.

   

[Chicago Boy]

On 6/18/2018 at 11:48 PM, jpepx78 said:

Since there is a thread on fewest copies in the CGC census, I've wondered what Golden Age issues had the most graded copies in the CGC census and if any conclusions could be made from the data. How about a list?

I made the pre-code GA cutoff date as before January 1955 so only issues dated before the inception of the Comics Code make the list. I've compiled a top 50 list of pre-code GA books but the census does not account for duplicate copies that have not been removed for resubmission or graded copies from other companies. I believe those numbers to be small and would not affect the census data greatly. I've included a small list of other gold, silver and bronze age books for comparison.

From the top 50 list, Batman & Superman books dominate. I believe the census numbers are indicative of 3 main factors: availability, value and popularity. Many golden age books had print runs from hundreds of thousands to a million per issue and would have have a higher survival rate and a few books were warehouse finds resulting in higher census numbers. Books that have a high value or have the potential for a higher resale value after slabbing would get slabbed. Books with popular characters such Batman or Superman have a higher likelihood of being saved over some generic Tip Top or Popular comic.

Some observations:
I guess MAD 1 had tremendous sales and many people liked and kept the issue. Batman 1 hits the trifecta for being popular, valuable and having many copies survive. Uncle Scrooge seems to be a popular funny animal character based on 3 appearances on the list. A warehouse find of Four Color 386 could partially account for the census numbers. Only 3 books from the crime or horror genre appear on the list (Crime Suspenstories 22, Shock Suspenstories 6 and Thing 16). Shock Suspenstories 6 has a classic cover and Crime Suspenstories 22 has a classic cover and is historically significant. Thing 16 also has a classic cover but its census number may be due to it being a warehouse find. The rank of Superman 76 seems to be due to recent acceptance that it is a key book because of the first appearance of the Superman-Batman team-up. Compare the numbers of Superman 76 with Detective 225 which was established long ago in the Price Guide as a key book. Also note that 31 of 50 books on the list are from the years 1940 to 1942 which had tremendous print runs of hundreds of thousands to a million copies per issue. Only one issue of Action Comics (#23) makes the list even though many copies of the title were printed. Almost all slabbed copies will eventually be on the market someday.

Feel free to update the list since I may have missed some books. I hope you find this list interesting and maybe some of you might use this list to wager a few bar bets and win. Any other thoughts or conclusions?

 

What’s the list below the Top 50 refer to ? 

[jpepx78]

The second list is just a comparison of census numbers for other popular books that didn't make my top 50 list or from other ages.