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Amazing Spider-Man #33 - is this a known warehouse book?
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47 posts in this topic

I'm studying the CGC Census data (on my site, CGCdata.com) and I can't help notice that Amazing Spider-Man #33 doesn't match the "normal pattern" of the other books in the first 50 issues of ASM.

I know it's a popular issue, and it has been submitted 50% more times than #32 and #34 on either side of it, but the AVERAGE grade for #33 is HIGHER than #32 and #34, even though more copies have been graded.  That doesn't normally happen. 

The more copies graded, the lower the average grade (in general, for books that are very similar), so there's something happening specifically with #33 to have higher grade copies than should be expected. 

Does anyone know if this particular book was a "warehouse book" (more copies saved than normal, or purposefully stockpiled in high grade)?

EDIT:  I just found some references to ASM #33 in the "Mile High II Collection" (warehouse books), so I guess I answered my own question - but I wouldn't mind seeing some scans of the Mile High documents or further discussion since there are now 20+ years of CGC submissions.

Edited by valiantman
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Chuck Rozanski talks about his "Mile High II" find in his Tales of the Database at the Mile High site.  Scroll down to April 2003.  Lots of 12 cent Marvels in the group.

IIRC, the find consisted of primarily affidavit returns, and he sought and received permission from the publishers to go ahead with the purchase -- even though this was stock that was to have been destroyed years ago (many years for some books), and reported as such.  It was a massive purchase -- as you can imagine there were many multiples throughout.

Edited by EC Star&Bar
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26 minutes ago, EC Star&Bar said:

Chuck Rozanski talks about his "Mile High II" find in his Tales of the Database at the Mile High site.  Scroll down to April 2003.  Lots of 12 cent Marvels mentioned.

I scrolled through the Tales for Mile High II and only saw Avengers #32 mentioned.  Maybe I was looking in the wrong place for the 12-cent Marvels. hm

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Rozanski stated that the father of the seller had been " 'investing' in back issue comics since the late 1950's" and "at least 400,000 of his father's comics had a cover price of 12 cents, or less."  Notice the "or less," meaning 10-cent books were involved as well.  Clearly from this description, this was a big haul that did include early Silver -- not just "late" & beyond.  

 

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I'd add Ghost Rider # 1 (1950) to the above list.

This was the first Golden Age book I bought - and it came from a Showcase New England eBay sale maybe 17-18 years ago when they auctioned off 200+ copies at once.

The catch: most of them were 6.5 range or so due to dust shadows on the back. Still - it impressive to see 200+ copies for sale at once.

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2 hours ago, Gatsby77 said:

Nice: One of those old "Warehouse Find" threads linked to in @bababooey's post had this list. And yeah: ASM 33's on it:

"Here's a list compiled from all three threads, feel free to use it & update as needed:

Warehouse Copies

JIM #88

TTA #39

TOS #48

Showcase #38

JLA #21

 

ASM #19

ASM #33

ASM #105

Avengers #24

JIM #124

Thor #132

Thor #156

DD #9

FF #48

FF #59

ST #138

X-Men #10

X-Men #40

Hulk #102

Captain Marvel #1

Marvel Spotlight #2

Nick Fury #1

X-Men #43

Captain Marvel #13

Iron Man #1

Captain America #100

 

Patsy Walker 104

Patsy Walker 105

Patsy Walker 108

Millie the Model Annual 4

Millie the Model Annual 5

Iron Man 2

Avengers 24

Tippy Teen 21

Major Inapak

True Life Secrets #23

It's still not super easy to find HG copies of some of these.  FF48 may be a warehouse book, but it's certainly getting very pricey...

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22 minutes ago, piper said:

It's still not super easy to find HG copies of some of these.  FF48 may be a warehouse book, but it's certainly getting very pricey...

I disagree - expensive does not mean hard-to-find.

I remember going to local Philadelphia comic book shows in the early '90s and seeing literally dozens of copies of FF # 48 on multiple dealers' tables. Ditto Iron Man # 1 and Conan # 1. Like...multiple tables with piles of 15-60 copies each for each book.

The CGC census bares that out today:

FF # 48 - 597 copies graded 9.0 or above

FF # 49 - 184 copies graded 9.0 or above

FF # 50 - 148 copies graded 9.0 or above

Now, granted FF # 48's the biggest key of the trio, so naturally more copies get slabbed. But compare it to # 52 (which, two years ago, was a more expensive / key book):

FF # 52 - 215 copies graded 9.0 or above  -- not a known warehouse book and almost 3x harder to find in high grade.

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How many high grade ASM 33's and FF 48's (i.e. > 9.0) are available for purchase today?  It doesn't help if they are locked up in peoples' collections.

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2 hours ago, piper said:

How many high grade ASM 33's and FF 48's (i.e. > 9.0) are available for purchase today?  It doesn't help if they are locked up in peoples' collections.

Well, a quick check of eBay alone shows 4 copies of FF # 48 for sale in CGC 9.6 or better.

  • 9.6 - x 2
  • 9.8 - Stan Lee Sig. Series
  • 9.8 (Northland pedigree)

And GPA shows completed sales in July alone at 9.0, 9.2, 9.4 and 9.6.

Expensive =/= "rare" or even "hard-to-find"

Edited by Gatsby77
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On 8/12/2020 at 5:44 PM, valiantman said:

Does anyone know if this particular book was a "warehouse book" (more copies saved than normal, or purposefully stockpiled in high grade)?

Yes.

There was a seller in NJ that would regularly auction those warehouse find books on eBay. Many of you old timers know what / who I'm talking about. ;)

Then the supply on eBay dried up and the consignee had no idea what happened to the books.

When the owner of the books died, I recognized the books from another estate seller and bought out the rest of the high grade books out of that collection. There were multiple copies of ASM #33 in that collection in high grade. I think I had 4 that graded CGC 9.8 from that run and several 9.6 copies among other books.

After me, another board member then purchased what was left of the collection.

On 8/13/2020 at 8:25 AM, Gatsby77 said:

Nice: One of those old "Warehouse Find" threads linked to in @bababooey's post had this list. And yeah: ASM 33's on it:

"Here's a list compiled from all three threads, feel free to use it & update as needed:

Warehouse Copies

JIM #88

TTA #39

TOS #48

Showcase #38

JLA #21

 

ASM #19

ASM #33

ASM #105

Avengers #24

JIM #124

Thor #132

Thor #156

DD #9

FF #48

FF #59

ST #138

X-Men #10

X-Men #40

Hulk #102

Captain Marvel #1

Marvel Spotlight #2

Nick Fury #1

X-Men #43

Captain Marvel #13

Iron Man #1

Captain America #100

 

Patsy Walker 104

Patsy Walker 105

Patsy Walker 108

Millie the Model Annual 4

Millie the Model Annual 5

Iron Man 2

Avengers 24

Tippy Teen 21

Major Inapak

True Life Secrets #23

I would add X-men #24, Daredevil #24 and Avengers #18 to that list.

There are likely others but I can't remember them right now.

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