I regret not buying from the Davis Crippen Collection 3 3

[Pickie]

In 2006, I hadn't been online yet, let alone lurking on these boards.

What a hoard. Care to share some memories of the find hitting the collector's world and of your purchases? 

[tth2]

7 hours ago, Pickie said:

In 2006, I hadn't been online yet

 Where were you living, Bhutan?

[sagii]

I have a question: is there a Crippen out there that boasts best certified copy in comparison to other Pedigree copies? Or second to only the Church or Allentown copy or other pedigree renowned for its conditions? 

[Timely]

Here is what Heritage wrote when the comics were discovered in 2006

" This past winter, Tom Crippen was cleaning out his parents' house in
Piermont, N.Y., after his father's death a few months earlier. There he came
upon thousands of rare, pristine comic books from the 1930s, '40s and '50s
-- a collection that stands to net the family several million dollars when
it's sold in a series of auctions beginning this coming week.
Yet, as he discovered later, a chunk of the collection's most coveted titles
had mysteriously been sold years earlier -- attracting, along the way,
notice among dealers and collectors. When he found out, "I was surprised and
horrified," Tom says.
Tom's father, Davis Crippen, an editor of technical manuals who died at age
75, had begun collecting comics as a child in Washington. In 1939, when he
was 9, Mr. Crippen decided that he would try to buy every single comic book
that came out. Using allowance money and earnings from his paper route, he
bought a steady stream of comics for 10 cents apiece from the local
drugstore, according to his wife, Cynthia Crippen and her sons Alex and Tom.
His growing trove spanned a wide range of genres: superhero, romance, teen
humor, Western, science fiction, war and Christian. "I kept wondering, 'What
the hell are you going to do with them?' but I never asked," says Paul Cree,
77, of Chevy Chase, Md., who knew Mr. Crippen since childhood. "He was
mysterious about it and very systematic."
When he went off to college at the University of Michigan, family members
say, Mr. Crippen continued with his collecting, sending comic books, wrapped
in brown paper, to his parents' house. He even had his mother buy new issues
for him while he went to graduate school in London. His collecting wound
down in the early 1950s, when he was drafted into the Army.
All the books were kept in his parents' spacious basement, which was both
cool and dry -- optimum storage conditions. Tom and his brother, Alex, an
executive producer at CNBC, would read some of the titles when visiting
their grandparents. When the boys' grandparents' house was sold in the
1970s, the comics were moved to their parent's home in Piermont, where they
remained in boxes in the garage and basement.
Tom, a 44-year-old free-lance copy editor in Montreal, set out to catalog
this trove of comic books, some 11,000 in all, a task that took four months.
Because most of the comics were bought to be collected, and were stored for
years under optimum conditions, they still had brightly colored
illustrations, crease-free pages and only small amounts of mold stains,
called "foxing," on the edges.
On the inside front page of many of the books there was also a puzzling
code, written in pencil in Davis Crippen's handwriting, consisting of a
series of numbers and letters, such as "7822-D-740," which appeared on
Tracy #8, published by Dell. Additionally, some of the books bore a
hand-written "D" on the front cover that apparently was put there by the
distributor.
When Lon Allen, a comic-book expert from Heritage Auction Galleries of
Dallas, came to the house to check out the collection, he instantly
recognized the handwritten code. "Hey, wait a minute -- this is the 'D'
collection," he recalls saying. "It was unmistakable."
It turns out that about 15 years earlier, about 1,000 to 2,000 comic books
bearing the same distinct penciled code in the same hand-writing had entered
the marketplace, seemingly unbeknownst to the Crippen heirs. The "D
collection" had obtained a following among collectors of "pedigree" comics
-- top-condition books amassed by a single, original collector, straight off
the newsstand.
'Pedigreed' Comic Books
The interest in pedigreed books comes as vintage comic-book collecting has
become big business. Heritage in January sold a 1940 DC Comics' "Flash #1"
book for $273,125, an auction record. The auction house began comic sales
only in late 2001, but the business now accounts for some $18 million in
average annual sales.
Now, comic-book collectors and hobby message boards are buzzing with news
that the rest of the D books have emerged. Russell Moore, a 35-year-old
Minneapolis contractor and avid comic-book collector, says that he was
"totally surprised" that such a big stash of books was found. "People have
been searching out old comics for so long, so it's amazing that such a huge
amount of them were sitting undiscovered," says Mr. Moore, who is
particularly excited about some D editions that feature Batman, pre-Robin.
But how hundreds of the books ended up on the market in the early 1990s
remained a mystery. "I felt gut-punched," says Tom Crippen, when the auction
company told him that many of his father's books had previously been sold.
Although nobody knows the precise value of the original D books when they
hit the market, they are estimated to be worth at least $1 million at
today's prices. "How would you feel if your family's property turned out to
have gone missing a few years ago and you had no idea? Or that millions of
dollars belonging to your family had gone for a walk?"
The missing comics happened to be some of the collection's very best,
including early Superman, Batman and other big-name super hero books. Since
Davis Crippen did not store his books in any discernible order, whoever
brought the books to market had to have the time and knowledge to ferret out
some of the highest-quality books.


'Suspense Comics #3,' from the Davis Crippen collection, will be sold Aug.
11.
Some collectors have speculated that Davis Crippen himself sold the comics
and pocketed the income, without telling the rest of the family. Mrs.
Crippen and her two sons say it's highly unlikely he sold or gave away the
books. For one thing, Mr. Crippen was a hoarder, amassing piles of books,
record albums, mugs and even opera programs with ticket stubs stapled to
them. "He held onto everything and anything," says Mrs. Crippen. The
Crippens also went through Davis's old tax returns and didn't see any sudden
influx of income.
Several New York comic-book dealers remember buying the books. Richard
Muchin, says that he purchased a number of high-quality D books from a young
man who brought small quantities of them over the course of several months.
"I did not suspect theft, only because he kept coming back," says Mr.
Muchin, who says he doesn't recall the seller's name. Typically, he says,
"thieves steal something and they dump it."
Stephen Fishler, owner of Metropolis Collectibles, a big New York dealer,
recalls buying many of the D books about 15 years ago. Mr. Fishler says that
a young man, probably in his early 30s, came to his office offering to sell
him stacks of high-quality comic books, many bearing the unique code. The
seller said he was related, by marriage, to the original owner of the books,
says Mr. Fishler, who added that the man came back repeatedly for about a
year, each time bringing fresh piles of comics.
"He clearly was able to go back many times and get books," says Mr. Fishler.
"I get a sense if something's questionable," he adds, but he had no reason
to doubt the man's story, so he bought the books. Mr. Fishler recently told
Alex Crippen the seller's name: Eric Kechejian.
Time With the Comics
Separately, the Crippen family had begun to suspect that one or both of a
pair of young contractors might have sold the comics when Davis and Cynthia
Crippen hired them to do extensive home renovations that lasted for many
months in 1991. Anyone working on the house would have had plenty of time
alone with the comics since the couple worked away from home. One of the
workmen was particularly curious about antiques. The other contractor's
name: Eric Kechejian.
Contacted by a reporter at his home, Mr. Kechejian, who still lives in the
area, confirmed that he had restored the house, but he denied having had
anything to do with the comics. "I don't think we touched anything as far as
comics," he said. "I've had nothing to do with this."
Yet even if the comics were taken without permission, the family's legal
options may be limited: In New York, the criminal statute of limitations for
theft of over $1,000 is generally five years from the time of a theft, while
the civil statute of limitations to sue for the recovery of stolen property
is three years, says Piermont lawyer Marjorie Smith, a former law professor
and Mrs. Crippen's attorney. However, the civil statute of limitations might
not apply if the theft was discovered years after the fact, adds Ms. Smith.
The Crippen family for now has decided not to pursue the matter of the
earlier sales.
"What's done is done," says Mrs. Crippen. Still, she adds, "It is
distressing."
Starting this Thursday the much-larger remainder of the collection will be
auctioned by Heritage in Dallas. The collection is expected to bring in some
$2.5 million, about three times the current value of the Piermont house in
which the comics were stored. One highlight of the trove, according to many
collectors, is a rare "Suspense #3," which has lurid cover art depicting
hooded Nazis attacking a bound woman. It could fetch between $35,000 and
$50,000, collectors say.
As for the code itself, nobody is quite sure what it means. The auction
house and other comic experts think that the first series of numbers
represent the total number of books that Mr. Crippen had collected thus far,
the next set of letters stands for the book's publisher, and the third set
of numbers stands for the number of books Mr. Crippen had collected from
that particular publisher. But that solution doesn't work consistently for
all the books. "It's still a cipher," says Ed Jaster, vice president of
Heritage. "

_______________________________________________________________

Being the main pre-grader of Golden Age books for CGC from 2004-2011, I saw every Davis Crippen/"D"Copy Heritage sent in for grading.  It was I who cracked the Crippen code that are on all of the earlier books. After seeing 100's then 1000's of coded books & entering them into the grader's notes, I started to see a pattern. Once I saw a few other key codes, it all fell into place.

I can tell you that the second batch that was found in 2006 (in general) have 100-500% more foxing on them than those taken in the early 90's.  They definitely have a stronger odor too! The page quality is less as well, usually Cream to Off-White or Off White. It makes sense considering these stayed in the garage about 15 years longer.

 

I enjoyed grading & seeing all those books come in.  It's not every day you get to see a collection of this magnitude.  One book that stood out to me at the time was the Superman #1 copy.  I was grading the book & when I turned the book over it had a huge black spot on the back, like it was ran over by a car or used to stop an oil leak!

 

 

Edited November 13, 2018 by Timely

[telerites]

18 minutes ago, sagii said:

I have a question: is there a Crippen out there that boasts best certified copy in comparison to other Pedigree copies? Or second to only the Church or Allentown copy or other pedigree renowned for its conditions? 

I think that is hard to say for all books, Corey.  Some peds haven't been slabbed so you can't compare across the peds.  For instance, my BT #15 is the highest graded as the Crippen and the only ped that has a sale recorded on GPA.

Most of the peds I have in my collection Crippens and a few of the D copies which I think were stolen early on and drifted into the marketplace.  The reason I have more of that ped is I believe they weren't looked upon as one of the top tier peds so I could more easily afford them and so many of them have a dust shadow (at least some of the ones I have and others I have seen).  Not to say that I am not happy to have them though.  But compared to some of the others, I may take a lower graded non-Crippen against the Crippen.  

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by telerites

[Straw-Man]

per sagil's inquiry, this'un is the highest.

Edited November 12, 2018 by Straw-Man

[Mr. Lady Luck]

It's never too late to buy a Crippen. They are constantly turning up in auctions at Heritage, CLink, CC, etc.

[sagii]

1 hour ago, telerites said:

I think that is hard to say for all books, Corey.  Some peds haven't been slabbed so you can't compare across the peds.  For instance, my BT #15 is the highest graded as the Crippen and the only ped that has a sale recorded on GPA.

Most of the peds I have in my collection Crippens and a few of the D copies which I think were stolen early on and drifted into the marketplace.  The reason I have more of that ped is I believe they weren't looked upon as one of the top tier peds so I could more easily afford them and so many of them have a dust shadow (at least some of the ones I have and others I have seen).  Not to say that I am not happy to have them though.  But compared to some of the others, I may take a lower graded non-Crippen against the Crippen.  

 

Cool book Jeff, and insightful analysis.  I too have more of that Ped in my collection than others and I feel you are spot on as to why they seem more attainable when compared to others. 

[sagii]

45 minutes ago, Straw-Man said:

per sagil's inquiry, this'un is the highest.

Absolutely gorgeous Straw Man. Thanks for posting!

[Pickie]

1 hour ago, tth2 said:

 Where were you living, Bhutan?

Yeah, sort of ...  

(No private interests in the WWW and no need to back then.)

Edited November 12, 2018 by Pickie

[Jayman]

[Pickie]

1 hour ago, Timely said:

 I enjoyed grading & seeing all those books come in.  It's not every day you get to see a collection of this magnitude.  One book that stood out to me at the time was the Superman #1 copy.  I was grading the book & when I turned the book over it had a huge black spot on the back, like it was ran over by a car or used to stop an oil leak!

Such a historic collection! Young Davis started at the age of 9 and collected each and every issue ... Must have been a great source to obtain some rare* books - not necessarily keys - from, I take it.

 

* "rare" in the sense of virtually unseen

Edited November 12, 2018 by Pickie

[woowoo]

[Pickie]

33 minutes ago, Mr. Lady Luck said:

It's never too late to buy a Crippen. They are constantly turning up in auctions at Heritage, CLink, CC, etc.

But it's 2018 now ... 

[misterrmystery]

A comic store in Nyack, New York also acquired a large number of these books, many of which I was fortunate to buy in the early 1990's. A number of Catmans, including the 28 and mostly esoteric Golden Age books. I passed on the Catman choking Hitler cover because the cover was detached. I would regret this decision later.  These books also were sold through Heritage Auctions in 2007. The Catman 28 graded at 6.0 and is still the highest graded copy, last sold in 2007.

Edited November 12, 2018 by misterrmystery

[telerites]

21 minutes ago, misterrmystery said:

A comic store in Nyack, New York also acquired a large number of these books, many of which I was fortunate to buy in the early 1990's. A number of Catmans, including the 28 and mostly esoteric Golden Age books. I passed on the Catman choking Hitler cover because the cover was detached. I would regret this decision later.  These books also were sold through Heritage Auctions in 2007. The Catman 28 graded at 6.0 and is still the highest graded copy, last sold in 2007.

This reminds of when I was in college and had just delved into GA - the LCS I frequented had a decent supply of GA.  One day I went in and he had the whole run of Catman (I think it was the run but if not, at least most of them if not all and he told me they were Mile Highs).  I had heard and read about the collection in TBG but at that time it didn't motivate me to buy because it was a ped.  But I thought they had cool covers and picked one with the little money I had - $60 I think.  Below is the I what picked which is a Gerber no show.  One of my first submissions.

 

[Pickie]

37 minutes ago, misterrmystery said:

A comic store in Nyack, New York also acquired a large number of these books, many of which I was fortunate to buy in the early 1990's. A number of Catmans, including the 28 and mostly esoteric Golden Age books. I passed on the Catman choking Hitler cover because the cover was detached. I would regret this decision later.  These books also were sold through Heritage Auctions in 2007. The Catman 28 graded at 6.0 and is still the highest graded copy, last sold in 2007.

Thanks! I just looked that copy up on HA.com, great! 

It was the Crippen copy of "My Confession" #7 that made me think of this topic this morning, btw.

[misterrmystery]

You chose wisely. I only have one Crippen copy in my collection these days. I owned the 9.2 Church copy once but owning the Crippen isn't bad.

[misterrmystery]

9 minutes ago, Pickie said:

Thanks! I just looked that copy up on HA.com, great! 

It was the Crippen copy of "My Confession" #7 that made me think of this topic this morning, btw.

Look up the Crippen  Detective 168  CGC 7.5 on Heritage. My copy sold in 2007 and again in 2011. Unaffordable now. 

[szav]

4 hours ago, sagii said:

I have a question: is there a Crippen out there that boasts best certified copy in comparison to other Pedigree copies? Or second to only the Church or Allentown copy or other pedigree renowned for its conditions? 

The Crippen collection  had more romance books than most of the other big peds right?  I’d imagine there are many Crippens that are highest graded for those sorts of books.