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White Mountain Pedigree - Comics/Games
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18 posts in this topic

I know there have been numerous threads in the past about the White Mountain collection, that Jerry Weist brought to market in the late 1980s and then in the first Sotheby's auctions in the early 1990s, but I figured I start a new thread than bumping an old one.

Here is an article I stumbled upon recently on the White Mountain collection (see link below)

It is one of the few times I've seen the name of the original collector that sold to Jerry mentioned - Kennett Neily. I remember seeing the name mentioned in some ebay paperback auctions that someone had up, from a collection they bought at auction. I haven't seen the name mentioned in comic circles often.

In the article, there is also an interesting letter that Jerry wrote to Mr. Neily back in 1991 on an update for the collection.

Also, and something I did not know, was that Mr. Neily was a collector of video games also.

Here is the article:

https://medium.com/the-history-of-collecting/the-making-of-the-white-mountain-pedigree-of-silver-age-comics-7430c7f3ef51

 

 

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22 hours ago, DanCooper said:

I know there have been numerous threads in the past about the White Mountain collection, that Jerry Weist brought to market in the late 1980s and then in the first Sotheby's auctions in the early 1990s, but I figured I start a new thread than bumping an old one.

Here is an article I stumbled upon recently on the White Mountain collection (see link below)

It is one of the few times I've seen the name of the original collector that sold to Jerry mentioned - Kennett Neily. I remember seeing the name mentioned in some ebay paperback auctions that someone had up, from a collection they bought at auction. I haven't seen the name mentioned in comic circles often.

In the article, there is also an interesting letter that Jerry wrote to Mr. Neily back in 1991 on an update for the collection.

Also, and something I did not know, was that Mr. Neily was a collector of video games also.

Here is the article:

https://medium.com/the-history-of-collecting/the-making-of-the-white-mountain-pedigree-of-silver-age-comics-7430c7f3ef51

 

 

Loved that.  Thanks for sharing!

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That was informative and enjoyable to read.

It does have a bit of inaccuracy, saying the pedigree was "built by Kennett Neily between 1948 and 1964".  Silver and bronze age collectors and fans of the White Mountains know that the collection ran well past that date range, covering all of the Silver Age and at least as far as 1973 for Bronze.  Indeed, the 25+ year commitment of the original owner to buying and preserving these comics is a feature making the pedigree that much more impressive.

 

Edited by namisgr
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5 hours ago, namisgr said:

That was informative and enjoyable to read.

It does have a bit of inaccuracy, saying the pedigree was "built by Kennett Neily between 1948 and 1964".  Silver and bronze age collectors and fans of the White Mountains know that the collection ran well past that date range, covering all of the Silver Age and at least as far as 1973 for Bronze.  Indeed, the 25+ year commitment of the original owner to buying and preserving these comics is a feature making the pedigree that much more impressive.

 

Is Mr. Neily still alive? Incredible story. The WMs are my fave pedigree.

I buy and sell old Aurora model kits to a guy in NH that loves comics. He is well familar with the story and the WM's are 2 hrs north of him.

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57 minutes ago, peewee22 said:

Is Mr. Neily still alive?

An online obituary/death notice search for Mr. Neily doesn't reveal any hits, but a legal probate notice from 2014 came up with his name and stated "late of Sanbornville, NH"

Also, though this might not be an accurate gauge, the paperback collection I mentioned previously that I saw Kennett's name first affiliated with the White Mountain collection, noted "From the estate of Kennett Neily" in their descriptions.

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On 3/6/2022 at 2:10 PM, Kaitlin bonniol said:

I'm so excited to see this article Kennett Neily was my grandfather and I have known for years about his incredible collection and it has always given me such pride. He was such an amazing man he drove race cars,loved European cars. His family owned and operated a small repair shop and gas station for years. And had the best Donald duck voice you could ever imagine I'm so happy that he's finally getting credit for the amazing collection he took care of for so many years.  

Hi Kaitlin! And welcome to the boards! It's a RARE treat to get a family member talk about a legendary collector! Thank you.

In the book "Comics Between The Panels" (by Steve Duin & Mike Richardson) your grandfather is not mentioned by name (this was in 1998) but in writing about the White Mountain comic collection, the following story was relayed that Jerry Weist told when your grandfather was interested in first selling his books - "The owner of the books, Weist soon learned, had inherited the collector's passion from his father, who hoarded antique cars. The son emulated the father: he was really meticulous. He placed his comics into these metal storage boxes back in the '50s. Even as a kid, he never cracked the spine. The comics never went into bags."

It looks like collecting ran in your family with both your grandfather and great grandfather! And we, as a hobby, have to thank them for the care they took in preserving things! True custodians!

Again, welcome to the boards!

 

Edited by DanCooper
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I just went in to try to read the article, but it seems to have been deleted! :frown:

Anyone know if it's posted anywhere else, or if you can PM me a copy it'd be greatly appreciated.

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On 3/7/2022 at 10:45 PM, Kaitlin bonniol said:

If anyone has questions about my wonderful grandfather I'd be glad to help. 

Hi Kaitlin, really cool that you've found these boards.  It's great that we periodically attract visitors with a connection to the subject of a thread.  Previously, we had the son of the owner of the David Toth collection (no mystery on the name of the owner there) after we started a thread about that collection and the son of Dennis the Menace comic book artist Al Wiseman (the good DTM artist) joined in after we started up a DTM thread.

I don't know if this is answered in the article, as I wasn't able to read it before it was taken down from Medium.com, but was there any rhyme or reason as to which comics your grandfather bought?  Because I can't seem to find any common themes, other than that he seemed to like sci-fi, but then again there are lots of sci-fi-ish books that aren't in the collection and lots of non-sci-fi books that are.  The collection seems to have a very random nature to it, which is unusual given the nature of your typical collector. 

One thing he was unparalleled at was buying the Marvel SA mega-keys and preserving them extremely well, which is the main thing that separates the WM pedigree from every other major Silver Age pedigree--FF 1, AF 15, ASM 1, JIM 83, TOS 39, TTA 35, almost all of them are there and in ultra-high grade.  But there don't appear to be complete or even semi-complete runs of any titles, and he didn't seem to have the same unerring eye with the DC SA mega-keys, even though he was clearly collecting and preserving comics by 1956. 

Any light you could shed on this mystery would be greatly appreciated.  

Edited by tth2
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On 3/8/2022 at 3:01 AM, tth2 said:

I just went in to try to read the article, but it seems to have been deleted!

Hi Tim,

Thanks for pointing out that the original article got disabled from Medium.

Hopefully, this archived one will work (and stay!). The unfortunate thing is it looks like the pictures from the original article may be missing from this archived one.

Here is that White Mountain article (below)

Thanks again,

Mike

https://web.archive.org/web/20201spam2533/https://medium.com/the-history-of-collecting/the-making-of-the-white-mountain-pedigree-of-silver-age-comics-7430c7f3ef51

Edited by DanCooper
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On 3/8/2022 at 4:13 PM, tth2 said:

Hi Kaitlin, really cool that you've found these boards.  It's great that we periodically attract visitors with a connection to the subject of a thread.  Previously, we had the son of the owner of the David Toth collection (no mystery on the name of the owner there) after we started a thread about that collection and the son of Dennis the Menace comic book artist Al Wiseman (the good DTM artist) joined in after we started up a DTM thread.

I don't know if this is answered in the article, as I wasn't able to read it before it was taken down from Medium.com, but was there any rhyme or reason as to which comics your grandfather bought?  Because I can't seem to find any common themes, other than that he seemed to like sci-fi, but then again there are lots of sci-fi-ish books that aren't in the collection and lots of non-sci-fi books that are.  The collection seems to have a very random nature to it, which is unusual given the nature of your typical collector. 

One thing he was unparalleled at was buying the Marvel SA mega-keys and preserving them extremely well, which is the main thing that separates the WM pedigree from every other major Silver Age pedigree--FF 1, AF 15, ASM 1, JIM 83, TOS 39, TTA 35, almost all of them are there and in ultra-high grade.  But there don't appear to be complete or even semi-complete runs of any titles, and he didn't seem to have the same unerring eye with the DC SA mega-keys, even though he was clearly collecting and preserving comics by 1956. 

Any light you could shed on this mystery would be greatly appreciated.  

:bump:

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