Popular Post 956Ref Posted May 26, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 26, 2020 5 hours ago, Robot Man said: If you collect them as hard as I do, there are many with just classic stories and contents. People just tend to focus way too much on the front cover. Some with mild covers contain very classic PCH stories and interior art. I find most superhero books fairly boring and predictable personally. And over the years, I have happily sold or traded a lot of GA superhero stuff for EC's and PCH. This is one thing that got me started on the Atlas JIMs. The stories, three cheesy mystery/monster stories that I could read and enjoy with a nice bourbon and chuckle to myself while I admire the art. One of the reasons I collect those raw, because when they are slabbed you cant enjoy them. @jimbo_7071 I agree with you. I feel like many of the books are interchangeable and it comes down to preference. To a lamen they can get their GA fix by picking up a couple here or there with no real consequence to which one it is. jimbo_7071, Larryw7, jimjum12 and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fifties Posted May 26, 2020 Share Posted May 26, 2020 19 hours ago, Robot Man said: The age group of PCH buyers and sellers in my area is expanding a lot. LOTS of 20-40 year olds, bored with the ease of obtaining SA/BA have "graduated" into GA. Mostly PCH. They have realized that a lot of this stuff rarely turns up and when it does it's like a chum pool. Good point, and helps explain why the pool of collectors increases as it does, with a corresponding continual rise in prices, at all grade levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fifties Posted May 26, 2020 Share Posted May 26, 2020 13 hours ago, 956Ref said: I think this is a good point, new comic readers are brought into superhero runs, origins, initial releases because of new printings, movies, games, cartoons, toys, etc. So there are ways for new collectors to be groomed. Yes, a continuation of the reasons the genre will continue to be desireable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fifties Posted May 26, 2020 Share Posted May 26, 2020 20 hours ago, jimbo_7071 said: I like and collect PCH books, but one problem with them from an investment standpoint is that they're somewhat interchangeable. There are no iconic characters like Batman or Superman—just random creeps, animated corpses, and monsters and random victims. There are some classic covers but no important books per se. I dunno about an investment standpoint, beyond the fact that certain cover artists like L.B. Cole, Bill Everett, & Frank Frazetta, to name a few, command premium prices. AFA iconic characters, no, not in the stories themselves, but there were a few that had hosts, such as EC's Crypt Keeper, Vault Keeper, and The Old Witch, Mister Mysteries Mr. Mystery, The Nameless One in Beware, The Mummy in Beware Terror Tales, & The Teller in Horrific, to name a few. The various publishers certainly differentiated in a variety of ways; AFA gore, Story Comics was prolly the most graphic, while Avon and ACG were the tamest. Story-wise, there was a very definite economy of words in the fare put out by Standard, while the opposite could be said of EC. Most books had four stories, but Atlas titles would almost always go five or six, while Fawcett could be depended on to produce three only. Regarding the complexity of story plots, I think Standard and later Atlas offered the lightest fare, while EC, Ace, & Quality were at the other end of the scale, as a few examples of each. The types of stories were quite varied; ACG would print three happy ending stories, and then usually one good horror tale to make the book worth keeping, while Superior and Ajax-Farrell stories usually had everyone dead at the end. AFA Devil ending stories, I think I read a total of ONE in an EC; Gaines reportedly wouldn't allow it, but they were plentiful in Atlas fare. Interchangeable? Really only between each publishers titles. jimjum12 and MusterMark 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tri-Color Brian Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 On 5/25/2020 at 4:31 PM, Robot Man said: The age group of PCH buyers and sellers in my area is expanding a lot. LOTS of 20-40 year olds, bored with the ease of obtaining SA/BA have "graduated" into GA. Mostly PCH. They have realized that a lot of this stuff rarely turns up and when it does it's like a chum pool. Lot of flippers calling me and jumping my boxes buying up anything they can flip at as low as 5-10% margins. Often to each other. We've started a program in my area to increase young readers. A group of us will walk around a playground dressed like wizards and tell all the kids to read comic books or we'll turn them into Newts. It seems to be working... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robot Man Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 6 minutes ago, Tri-ColorBrian said: We've started a program in my area to increase young readers. A group of us will walk around a playground dressed like wizards and tell all the kids to read comic books or we'll turn them into Newts. It seems to be working... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William-James88 Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 (edited) The prices are not down in general, I can tell you that. Edited May 27, 2020 by William-James88 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robot Man Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 1 minute ago, William-James88 said: The prices are not down in general, I can tell you that. It all depends on the publisher, the grade and the condition. I recently picked up a nice stack of earlier, pre-code ACGs in the solid and strict good to vg range for $20-$30. each. Not top of the mark as far as off the wall covers or content, but fun readers. The better the book, the more popular publishers and issues and the better grade ones, I would agree with you. jimjum12 and IngelsFan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IngelsFan Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 1 hour ago, Robot Man said: It all depends on the publisher, the grade and the condition. I recently picked up a nice stack of earlier, pre-code ACGs in the solid and strict good to vg range for $20-$30. each. Not top of the mark as far as off the wall covers or content, but fun readers. The better the book, the more popular publishers and issues and the better grade ones, I would agree with you. I for one LOVE ACGs! They are quirky, and the covers are bland but hide some really cool gems. jimjum12 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Tri-Color Brian Posted May 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 27, 2020 (edited) 35 minutes ago, IngelsFan said: I for one LOVE ACGs! They are quirky, and the covers are bland but hide some really cool gems. I like bland like this... Edited May 27, 2020 by Tri-ColorBrian Hutch88, MusterMark, Black Bat and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehumantorch Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 1 hour ago, William-James88 said: The prices are not down in general, I can tell you that. Agreed Great covers have gone crazy and that's pushed up prices for less 'interesting' books. I sure don't see any deals for precode right now. Joshua33 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbcolefan Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 Very strong prices on clink tonight! Black Cat Mystery 50 8.5 $20727 Crime Suspenstories 22 8.5 $19250 Blue Bolt 115 7.0 $9544 Joshua33 and Vince G 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post fifties Posted May 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 27, 2020 Well, speaking of ACG, this issue is by far the best reader they ever put out; NO happy endings (the way a horror comic SHOULD be). Larryw7, 956Ref, Tri-Color Brian and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tri-Color Brian Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 15 minutes ago, fifties said: Well, speaking of ACG, this issue is by far the best reader they ever put out; NO happy endings (the way a horror comic SHOULD be). Ya but, did the bad people get what they deserved? 956Ref and waaaghboss 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fifties Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 1 hour ago, Tri-ColorBrian said: Ya but, did the bad people get what they deserved? Eh eh eh, NO. waaaghboss 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua33 Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, lbcolefan said: Very strong prices on clink tonight! Black Cat Mystery 50 8.5 $20727 Crime Suspenstories 22 8.5 $19250 Blue Bolt 115 7.0 $9544 Cmon man, can't you read? PCH is way down, bro. Edited May 27, 2020 by Joshua33 Punctuation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaultkeeper Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 (edited) @956Ref If you know of a place where pre-codes are selling cheap (website/dealer/show), I'd be very interested. Only...Don't post here. Send me a PM. Edited May 27, 2020 by vaultkeeper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 I've been buying PCH for about twenty years now and I don't think I've ever seen them hotter. While some publishers are hotter than others, they don't last very long when I list them. With a classic cover (and the list of classic covers has expanded GREATLY in recent years) they are usually gone in a day... often at full price. I am also so glad to see that EC's (my favorite comics of all time) have come back. They seemed to go out of favor a bit in the mid-2000s after Heritage flooded the market with Gaines copies and I thought that was just wrong! IngelsFan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robot Man Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 30 minutes ago, EastEnd1 said: I've been buying PCH for about twenty years now and I don't think I've ever seen them hotter. While some publishers are hotter than others, they don't last very long when I list them. With a classic cover (and the list of classic covers has expanded GREATLY in recent years) they are usually gone in a day... often at full price. I am also so glad to see that EC's (my favorite comics of all time) have come back. They seemed to go out of favor a bit in the mid-2000s after Heritage flooded the market with Gaines copies and I thought that was just wrong! ECs have always been popular and treasured by many. Most were saved and not thrown away. From their inception, they had loyal fan clubs and fanzines. Prices and interest in original copies took a bit of a dip when Cochran started re-printing them. I had a literal complete collection at that time. I foolishly sold off most of my collection. I bought the reprints and spent the proceeds on books that wern’t being reprinted. I kept my favorites and the higher grade ones. There is just nothing like an original EC though. So a few years ago, I started up collecting them again. I’ve done pretty well but seeing some stuff priced for the mid grade ones I am seeking. Especially the crime and horror titles. Larryw7 and IngelsFan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief1332 Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 Anything that has a following or any size, may immediately appeal to the newbie. Anything that has little following, seems less if not totally unappealing. Nostalgia of 40's & 50's comics brought me back. PCH got me hooked. Crazy colors and artwork, wild stories, and of course, Other People Love It IngelsFan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
