Comic Book Collecting

[BRICK]

Here are the others, for some reason they weren't showing up in the preview of the first response.

[Hepcat]

Here are the others, for some reason they weren't showing up in the preview of the first response.

Interesting! They were all showing up for me just after you posted them this afternoon but now some are gone from your first post. The Laugh 130 is still nowhere to be seen.



But I certainly appreciate the effort you've taken to find and post these!

[BRICK]

It's weird how sometimes they show up and sometimes they don't but the total for Laugh 130 is 13.

[Hepcat]

Here are the figures for the above mentioned comics; however, I think that these figures are more of a reflection of the demand rather than the actual supply.

Seems reflective of what I see offered at any convention of decent size though. If I were willing to pay the asking price, I could within hours if not minutes score a copy of any of those three Marvel comics in a grade similar to my Adventures of Jerry Lewis 87. If, however, I were looking for a copy Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds 30, Archie's Pal Jughead 79 or Laugh 130, it would require relentless searching lasting for months if not years. That's actually why I still don't have a copy of Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds 30 or Laugh 130.

[Hepcat]

It's weird how sometimes they show up and sometimes they don't but the total for Laugh 130 is 13.

Oh I see what's happening! Since you put the tables beside each other, you have to use the scroll bar at the bottom of your post because the images are off the side of the page. You can correct that problem by posting each table below the previous one.

[Hepcat]

Here are the figures for the above mentioned comics...

There! Victory!

So summarizing the eight tables, this is the population we have in VF- (the grade of my Jerry Lewis 87) or better:

Avengers 4 - 648
Amazing Fantasy 15 - 110
Fantastic Four 1 - 75
Creature 1 - 16
Adventures of Jerry Lewis 87 - 4
Archie's Pal Jughead 79 - 3
Laugh 130 - 2
Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds 30 - 0

[Mike Scott]

Avengers 4 - 648
Amazing Fantasy 15 - 110
Fantastic Four 1 - 75

What is the Creature (or UM) connection, if any, to these three?

[Hepcat]

None. I just wanted the slabbed population of those three comics as a measuring stick against which we could compare the population of the comics featuring the Creature.

[Mike Scott]

None. I just wanted the slabbed population of those three comics as a measuring stick against which we could compare the population of the comics featuring the Creature.

I wondered why they were top silver age issues. 

[Mike...In 3-D!]

Not really a topic worthy of discussion, but I just picked up a full run of Marvel's Champions series from the 70s. The seller advertised them as having the Marvel Value Stamps intact, and they were. It just seems so foreign to me that people were actually cutting those things out of their comics back then. I've never been a "I have to keep everything mint" type of guy, but straight up defacing your comic seems wild to me.

[Mike Scott]

Marvel Value Stamps

What did you do with them?

[Mike...In 3-D!]

What did you do with them?

These were before my time, but this is what I was able to find:
"Marvel sold a stamp book for 50 cents, to cover postage and 'manhandling,' in which collectors could put their stamps. A full book entitled the owner to discounts on admission to comic-book conventions, merchandise, and other goodies. These books were also numbered, for reasons that never become clear."

[Rex fury]

Marvel Value Stamps were indeed a fun idea at the time, but they have caused a few " problems" over the long haul. Most of us in the 60's and to some extent the 70's never imagined our Hulk 181, or Giant Size X-Men 1 etc. would ever approach the prices these comics cost today. Comics from the 30's and 40's were the ones collectors paid big money to obtain. And by big money I mean anything over a thousand dollars. By comparison, I often share the story of my grandmother's disgust at paying 9 bucks to buy me a copy of Amazing Spider-Man 1.
Hulk 181 had the unfortunate luck to have Sheena featured as its MVS. Sheena ( clad in her Leopard Skin bikini- huba huba ) seems to have been cut from many a Hulk 181. I suspect that her stamp wasn't cut so much for the stamp book, but for other reasons only teenage boys could explain.
Which brings us to the current market insanity where Hulk 181 sells for really big money, especially when the stamp is still in place. So much in fact that some less scrupulous dealers try various ways to replace the stamp and pass the comic off as complete.  It's probably the only slabbed comic I would ever buy just to make sure the item was really what the seller says . By the way, I sold My copy for 3 dollars back in the day.
Cutting pieces out of comics from that time period didn't seem like a big deal. I could buy multiple copies for less than a dollar if I wanted to, or just pick them up from the .25 cent boxes at my local comic convention.

I'm currently trying to decide whether to sell a copy of Amazing Fantasy 15. It's incomplete and thrashed, but most of the Spidey story is complete. I think I paid less than a buck for it. I see single pages listed on EBay for pretty high prices. So what do you guys think? Should I list it, or just stick it back in the long box? 

Sorry to ramble on and on here, but this post got me thinking about all things related to incomplete comics!
RF

[Hepcat]

I've never been a "I have to keep everything mint" type of guy, but straight up defacing your comic seems wild to me.

Up until fifty years ago or so, it was quite common for there to be clippable coupons in comics and magazines for subscriptions and various order forms for advertised products. Then there were these ubiquitous ads in DC comic mags for Palisades Park:



Palisades Park - Freddie Cannon

[Hepcat]

I'm currently trying to decide whether to sell a copy of Amazing Fantasy 15. It's incomplete and thrashed, but most of the Spidey story is complete. I think I paid less than a buck for it. I see single pages listed on EBay for pretty high prices. So what do you guys think? Should I list it, or just stick it back in the long box?

If you're just going to stick it back into a long box, that tells me you're not deriving any pleasure from its possession. Since it's not providing you with a measure of psychic delight, there's no point in keeping it.