My God, It's Minty Fresh

This is just staggering. This was recently passed around a message board and I don't know where it came from, but I had to share. As you can see on the label, it's a Curator Pedigree copy.

Scotty & Neil Armstrong

The James Doohan Farewell Convention

Wow. This is bizarre and strangely ironic. For those that may not know, for many years, scores of historical space dealers and show organizers that have been trying to woo Neil Armstrong - a very reclusive man and a non-signer. He finally agrees to appear, but it's at a Star Trek show... and he's not even the headliner!

By the way, I'm surprised that James Doohan is able to appear publicly. I met him at The NYC National Comic Convention in 2000 and he appeared very frail and somewhat "out of it" then.

This show does have an incredible line-up. Creation Entertainment (who handles most of the Star Trek shows and somehow missed out on this one) must be kicking themselves. There has to be some behind the curtain politics as to why Creation didn't produce this event.

Mile High gets a bad rap sometimes due to their grading and/or high prices. But, as my story will show, Mile High can be an excellent dealer in some circumstances.

I ordered 31 NM books from Chuck in his recent blowout sale. Most where $1. I checked off 31 books from my want list and filled 31 holes. The books were all 80s and early 90s including Punisher (1987), various Valiant, The Thing, Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, etc.

The results are in... of the 31 NM books...

26 were 9.4 or better (a few possible 9.6s)
4 were 9.2, and
1 was 8.0

In all, a good experience.

Rest In Peace: Fay Wray

I've never heard it mentioned before, but she had a great movie star name. It sings.

Ms. Wray was a good mail responder up until about 10 years ago.

Now she belongs to the ages.

It seems as though every comic collector has his/her own acceptable grade guidelines. As much as I would love to only have uber-high grade gems, if that was the case, I wouldn't have very many older comics.

So what are my grading guidelines?

I go for eye appeal and strive to get clean, structurally sound, well-cut books with no major ink-breaking creases or pieces missing. Even though some of my more expensive books may be "technical 4.0s" due to hidden defects or an accumulation of small flaws, the book may actually look much better than the technical grade. The minimum grades I shoot for are:

Gold - VG 4.0
Silver Keys - VG+ 4.5
Early Silver - Fine 6.0
Later Silver - F/VF 7.0
Bronze Keys - VF- 7.5
Bronze - VF/NM 9.0
Modern - NM 9.4

I try not to obsess over condition and avoid the "must upgrade" mentality. I am not always successful.

Kirby Original Art - Fantastic Four 20 Watcher Splash

What a gorgeous page. My God, I'd love to have this, but I'd have to sell off a chunk of my collection. Sometimes I wonder if I'd be better off if I sold 90% of my collection and just had a handful of really nice gems like this.

KIRBY ORIGINAL FANTASTIC FOUR PAGE

The Quintessential Hulk Artist

To me, the quintessential Hulk artist is Herb Trimpe (preferably with Marie Severin inks).  Most Trimpe Hulk art under issue 200 is very pricey, but I picked this Trimpe page from Hulk Annual 6 for a fraction of the cost of a page from a regular issue from the same time period.  It's still the classic late silver/early bronze age Hulk "look."  Go figure...  It's inked by Frank Giacoia and/or Mike Esposito.

 

And here's the cover to the issue in which this appeared...

Detecting Color Touches

One of the most common forms of restoration on comic books is color touches.  Color touches can be professional (acrylic paint), or amateur which are usually marker or a dry powder rubbed into a crease.  Many people are not aware of the dry powder type color touch.

I bought a few silver age books on ebay that I suspect had this type of color touch.  Not a great loss because they were $20 books... but, this goes to show you any book can be restored -- not just expensive keys.

The touch is some sort of fine black powder that is rubbed into small creases.  It's hard to detect because the color rub only sticks to the creased area where the original inks are broken, so the touch is actually only as wide as the crease itself.  If you look at the cover at an angle, the affected area may be a bit duller than the gloss on the rest of the cover.  Also, if you gently rub your finger over the area, a tiny amount of black may rub off.

One way to detect color touch is to look for fine creases where the ink does NOT appear to be broken.  Then look much closer.  This is where many color touches will be found.

Regarding the ebay seller that sent me the color touched book, he replaced the first book that had a certain dry rub color touch with another one that I suspect had a smaller touch.  At that point, it wasn't worth pursuing any further.  I just avoid his auctions now.

Slab Damage

One of my concerns with the growing and aging comic book slab market is the increasing occurrence of slab damage.  Slab Damage is when a book is damaged during the encapsulation process, or more commonly, when a book is damaged by sliding around in a slab.  The damage most commonly takes the form of blunted or creased corners and is especially prevalent when there is a bit of an overhang on the cover.
 
I think I have the dubious distinction of having the worst slab damage ever. The label says 9.4 and that's the price I paid for it.
 

 
So, now I'm stuck with it.  Makes you want to think twice about dealers with no return policies on CGC books, huh?

35 Cent Variant Madness

As predicted in my 7/14 entry, the Iron Fist 14 35 cent variant closed at a mortgage level price - $1,296.58... although I expected it to go higher.

Here's another 35-center with a $300 Buy-It-Now - eBay item 2257851918 (Ends Jul-24-04 15:48:13 PDT) - Fantastic Four 186 CGC 8.5(ow-w) 35 cent variant

A pretty copy, but is it worth 4 times what I paid for this copy?

I'd grade mine at 7.5 (VF-)

A Byrne Namor Page

I picked this up a few years ago.  I'm sure it would cost me much more now.  It's not an action packed page, but I really liked it because the linework is so clean, and it captures Prince Namor at his most regal.  Namor is wearing the same type of crown he did on the classic cover of Fantastic Four Annual #1.  A very nice example of the Submariner signed by John Byrne...
 

A Fantastic Four Page

For your viewing pleasure, another page of original art... this one from Fantastic Four #225, page 12. Bill Sienkiewicz drew it and Joe Sinnott inked it.



Not the most action-packed FF page in the world, but I am finding that FF pages are very tough to come by. Part of the difficulty is that with a team comic, there are not many pages that feature all 4 team members - let alone all 4 in action!

I'd love to get a Perez or Pollard page in the issue 170 - 200 range, but I just can't find any. And, I'd hate to think how much one might be!