Colan and Palmer on Tomb of Dracula

On a post a couple of months ago, I briefly made reference to Gene Colan's work with the inker, Tom Palmer.  These two worked together quite a bit, but their longest run together was on Tomb of Dracula.  I have to admit, that this character and book are not my favorite, I much prefer Doctor Strange (where Colan and Palmer also worked together).  But, the quality of the work is so fantastic that I will happily admit to having a big pile of these books in my collection.

Gene "The Dean" Colan was born in 1926, in the Bronx, New York.  He started working in the comic book business in 1944 for Fiction House.  In the 1960's he had long stints on Daredevil, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, and Doctor Strange.  But Tomb of Dracula was the most successful run...and his teaming with Palmer was a big part of that equation.  I have not studied this topic in depth, but, for me, each man elevated the other.  Colan was less than half without Palmer...Palmer was not as good without Colan.  Again...my humble opinion.

                          

 

That said, today I am offering the cover of Tomb f Dracula issue #50...along with a brilliant interior page.  As I have said many times before...the craft that has been laid down on this page and on pages by other artists who took their work seriously, is clear.  It's just fantastic work.

Sometime soon I will make it a point to break out some Doctor Strange with Colan and Palmer.

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #2

I have mentioned in several previous posts that Alex Toth was one of the master comic illustrators to come out of the Golden Age.  He started working in the late 1940's and was active through the 1970's...with a smattering of books in the 80's and 90's.  He passed away not that long ago in Southern California.

                 

One of his earlier, and scarcer, books is The Adventure of Rex the Wonder Dog.  This is issue #2 from 1952.  The title alone smacks of early 1950's nostalgia!  The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide lists the first three books in the run as "scarce".  And the Gerber Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books says that these issues rate a 7 out of 10 on scarcity...so probably only about 20 to 50 copies remain.  Well...whether all that is true or not doesn't really matter...these are very cool books with great Alex Toth art!

I picked up this book at a Heritage Comics auction last week, and while the dog on the cover is perhaps a little stiff, the girl is pure Toth.  Where Toth excelled was in the layout of the page to communicate a story.  While this is not so much in evidence here or in the interior art of this book...by the late 1950's he had matured into a master graphical story teller.

Oh...the Daisy air rifle ad on the back is just a bonus!

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

CGC and "The Wild West"

About ten years ago the comic collecting hobby got well and truly rocked when a group in Florida, Comics Guarantee Corporation, or CGC, started to grade and encapsulate comic books in plastic containers.  The whole idea was that, as a buyer, you would now have a trusted third party that would have graded the books and a common grading standard would be in force across the industry.

Well...you can imagine what happened.  Some dealers and collectors hated it.  Some thought it was great. Others, like myself, were fairly agnostic on the whole thing.  The ones who hated it were mostly the folks whose comic book grading was not so good, or who felt the CGC grading was not up to their personal standards, or who felt encapsulating a comic was ridiculous...comics were meant to be read (an excellent point...the cases could be opened though, but that invalidated the grade).  The ones whose grading skills weren't so good were selling books on eBay...calling them Near Mint when they were no where near that grade.  They were now in a bit of a pickle.  The ones who felt it was silly to encapsulate books, or who disagreed with CGC grading, just ignored it for a while and let it play itself out.  The folks who liked CGC were, generally, collectors who had a pile of very high grade books and stood to benefit from the whole thing.  (Very high grade books got huge premiums over lesser books in those days...and they still do today)

But the ones who REALLY benefitted were CGC themselves.  They were getting anywhere from $15 to $80 a book or more for grading services.  Not bad.

The advent of "official grading" turned the hobby into the wild west for a while.  Arbitrage opportunities abounded.  You could walk into a comic book dealer (one of the ones who was not interested in third party grading), buy a really nice copy of a sought after book, have it graded, and then sell it for way more than you originally paid.  This was happening regularly and was very easy to do.  The dollars involved were not insignificant either.  When high grade copies of books like this Incredible Hulk 181 (first full appearance of Wolverine) were selling for $300 "raw" vs. $3000 "slabbed"...the choice became rather clear if it presented itself to you.

Eventually the "Wild West" got to be more tame.  But CGC is still around and recently graded it's two-millionth comic!  Amazing.  At the end of the day I think CGC has been a good thing.  Yes...it has put some very high grade books out of reach of the everyday collector...but I think it has also helped reduce the price of lower grade comics to make them easier to buy.

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

CCG's and TCG's

I am continuing on the collector card theme today....

Back in the mid-1990's a new kind of collectible quietly came on the scene.  I remember going into a comic shop in my home town and seeing a box of Magic: The Gathering cards for sale and thinking..."What's that?"  Well, Magic: The Gathering...or Magic, as it is often referred to, is a Collectible Card Game, or CCG.  They are sometimes also called Trading Card Games, or TCG's, as well.  Magic was the first of many, many different themed CCG's to come down the pike...and they are stil coming to this day.

The first game that I bought was a Star Trek based game that came out in 1995.  I actually never played the game...I just thought the cards were cool!  But these games were and are played...and played seriously.  A colleague of mine at work was actually national champion (or runner up, I forget) for the Star Trek CCG game in 1996 or 1997...playing in the national tournament in Las Vegas after being flown there gratis by the publisher of the game, Decipher Inc.

Well...going back to that day I saw the Magic cards for sale, when the store owner told me what it was, I remember thinking, "Sounds ridiculous!"  Silly me!  I never played Magic, but from a collectible standpoint, I wish I could go back and buy that box of cards!  They would have made a great investment...a Black Lotus card, from the first set, regularly gets $4,000 on eBay!

I will break out some more CCG's I have...including the ones I played...in future posts.

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

Star Trek Master Series Picture Cards

Collectible picture cards have been around for a long time.  Starting out (I believe) in the late 19th century, baseball cards and other themed cards have their origins as special add-ins to a product package (bubble gum, cigarettes, and the like).  In the case of baseball cards, the cigarettes and gum were eventually jettisoned and the cards sold alone.

                

I have a few sets of picture cards, but one of my favorites is the Star Trek Master Series series put out by Sky Box in the 1990's.  Some of the art work in this set is genuinely of high quality, especially the portraiture.  Some of the other cards depict various famous scenes from the original series and Star Trek The Next Generation.  

These cards were well and truly over-produced, so they are not rare or hard to find...and they aren't worth much as a collectible.  There were a few "chase" cards in the set that were holographic in nature, and were harder to find.  They could be bought on eBay for a nominal fee though.  Either way, the set is nice to look at and well produced...so, worth the price of admission.  

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

United States "Star" Notes *

It's been a while since I blogged on a currency collectible, so tonight I thought I would break out this crispy little gem I pulled from circulation a few years ago.  It may not be worth that much...$10 probably...maybe a little more...but it is definitely collectible due to the star at the end of the serial number.

As a kid, I knew that a star note was a special note, but I never really knew why.  Well, a star note is actually a replacement note.  When the treasury prints up its regular run of notes and an error or damage occurs, they will pull these notes and replace them with a star note.  A complete description of this and other reasons for these notes can be found on this site.  

While star notes are much more uncommon than a regular note...there are often many of them printed.  This $10 D note from 2003 had 1.2 million numbers printed.  This is compared to total production of $10 bills for 2003 of 249,600,000 according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  So...while not super rare...the odds of finding this note are not that high.  Some star notes though, are quite rare.  For example, the 1B run of series E $10 notes from 1999 only had 3,200 star notes printed!  Not very many.  See this site, for a great list of data of this kind.

Anyway...next time you see a star note in change, pull it aside and show it to your kid, or keep it for yourself!

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

The Boeing Model 247

Another aviation postcard today from the same estate as the last post.  You may recall that at a recent estate, the owner had been a United Airlines pilot.  I found this card among various other paper items.  It is a commemorative card printed in 1973.

One of the things I like about collecting this sort of thing is that it is educational.  Prior to picking up this card, I would not have known what a Boeing Model 247 looked like, or what era it flew in.  But now...I do know.

This plane brings back visions of characters like Indiana Jones flying to far off and exotic places in the 1930's.  Of course the plane that is shown in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark carrying Indy to Asia is a Boeing 314 Clipper sea plane...but this aircraft has a similar flavor to it.  I love that forward slanted wind shield....probably not that aero-dynamic...but very stylish!  (With the Model 247D...the slant went with the wind...)

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

LAX circa 1950

I can't be totally sure when this Plastichrome postcard photo was taken, but it was probably around 1950 (perhaps even a little earlier) given that the TWA Constellation and United DC-4 are front and center.  This is a great shot of an air-hub that has done nothing but grow since it was carved out of a wheat and lima bean field in 1928.

I have flown in and out of LAX many times lately for my work and while I am more often than not caught up in the purpose of my work, I am occasionally tuned in to the fact that this place was one of the first modern air terminals...ever.  It's easy to forget the nostalgia when you are waiting in a huge security line trying to get into the terminal...but if you look carefully, you can still find clues to the past in and around the airport.

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

Strange Flying Saucers Adventures - Super DC Giant

Reprint comic books are a great way to collect older stories on a budget.  For example, you can get a copy of  The Amazing Spider-Man #1 for a) $100,000 (the original)...or...b) $2 (a reprint in Marvel Tales).  If you just want to read the story...the choice if fairly clear!

Today I am featuring a DC reprint book from 1976.  It has a bunch of sci-fi stories in it from the 1950's and 1960's with art by legends Russ Heath, Carmen Infantino and the like.  All the stories have a space theme...and yes...lots of flying saucers.

This particular book has actually become semi-valuable.  That is, you can't get this one for $2 anymore.  But a reasonable copy will probably only run about $8-$10 (more or less) on eBay.  Still a bargain for all that mid-century spaceman stuff!

Until next time...(hopefully sooner rather than later...sorry for the distance between posts lately...I am working to remedy the situation!!)

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

Buster Brown and Reed Crandall

Back to comics today with another promotional book that has some great Reed Crandall art in it.  This time it is Buster Brown shoes with a copy from a Paris, Illinois shoe store called McCoy's.

Reed Crandall is best known for his work on EC comics during the hey day of that publisher in the early 1950's.  He drifted around after that working for Atlas and a few other publishers and eventually landed at Treasure Chest where he worked as an illustrator for their books that were distributed exclusively to parochial schools.  He later contributed to Warren publishing magazines Blazing Combat, Eerie, and Creepy...all great magazines with high quality work from many of the greats of the day.  

This particular story featuring Space Siren is wonderfully illustrated...almost Frazetta like.  Just a great line and attention to detail.

                

It really is a shame that all comic books couldn't be this awesome!

Until next time....

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

"El Lobo"

Sometimes you find stuff at an estate sale that goes beyond being an interesting or collectible item.  It is clearly something that had a personal connection to the estate.  If you are lucky enough to get the backstory of the item...then you can get a flavor for what that thing may have meant to the person whose house you happen to be walking through.

Yesterday, I went to another sale on the San Francisco peninsula (the second of three this week-end) and found something unlike anything I had found before.  Inside this old Eichler home was a cabinet full of old Kodachrome slides...perhaps about a thousand in all.  I looked through about a hundred of them, maybe more, looking for any interesting views of cities or images with aircraft or automobiles from times past.  The images were all taken in and around 1950.  In a box that was full of various landscape shots I found two slides of aircraft...one of which was clearly a B-24 Mitchell.   So...along with a few Modern Library editions that I also found at the sale...I bought these and headed home.

When I got home, I dug out my slide projector and took a look.  Here is what I saw:

This is where the backstory gets interesting, intense, and frankly tragic.

In the top picture above, there is enough information visible on the aircraft to identify it...so, a few minutes of research on the internet yielded the full story.  I was able to confirm the ID of this plane on the website B24.net.  This aircraft (42-7510) was named "El Lobo" by its crew and, and if you look carefully you can see some art on the nose of the aircraft in the picture above.  In fact, they had painted a wolf in a tuxedo...El Lobo.  I was also able to discover that this aircraft did not survive the war.  For a complete account of what happened to this plane and its crew see this article written by Annette Tison, the niece of one of its crew members.  Annette's uncle, Douglas N. Frank, was killed, along with the rest of the crew, on April 29th, 1944 while returning from a bombing mission to Berlin.  Search the page for "El Lobo" and the "Wyatt crew".

This is the Wyatt crew:

The B-24 Mitchell was, from what I have heard, not the most flyable aircraft.  But, it was what it was, and the men who flew it into harms way did what they were asked in the service of their country.  These men served, and they did not come back.

Finding this little slide and its backstory has been thought provoking and moving.  You cannot look at the photo of the crew and not be moved...I think.  It isn't Memorial Day...and it's not July 4th.  It's just another day today; 68 years after these guys did their part to rid the world of a punk and his cronies who had gotten a tad overzealous in their thirst for power and control.  

Thank you gentlemen...thank you very much!

Until next time....

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

United Airlines C-54 to 747

I was out at another local estate sale today.  This man was a retired United Airlines pilot who had flown for United from 1945 to 1978.  That...is impressive.  Just imagine what this guy must have seen and been through.  To live through the golden age of aviation in America.  That really had to be something.

I have generally focused on vintage aircraft in this blog, and I won't stray too far from that today.  I am going to give you two items I found today, spanning the career of this pilot at United.

First up is a C-54 flight manual, published in 1954.  What is so remarkable about this book is that it is only about a half of an inch thick...maybe 100 pages.  Operator manuals for a modern jet aircraft are many volumes.  You can see in the scan here the full contents of the book.

From the other side of this man's career is this post card of one of the very first United 747's.  Using my handy dandy magnifier,  I was able to identify the "N" number on this aircraft as N4703U.  This airframe was built by Boeing in 1970, first flown on April 6th, 1970, and delivered to United on June 30th, 1970.  The very first 747 to go into service did so with Pan-Am on January 22, 1970...so I suspect that this was United's first 747...or at least one of their earliest.  For a complete history of this particular aircraft...check out this link.

So...another interesting outing to a local estate sale.  As I have said before...estate sales are interesting for a lot of reasons.  In this case, I got to get this cool stuff...but I am again reminded that we cannot take anything with us when we die...it all stays here.  So...just as this man seems to have done...be a good steward of your time, serve others, and live as fully as you are able.  

Until next time...

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!

Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion

Well, you may have noticed that I sort of fell off the daily blogging bandwagon recently.  Today I intend to get back on the bandwagon (but not all on this blog alone).  I recently split my blog in half and put all the Disney postcard stuff on another blog (disneypostcards.com) and am continuing here with all the other stuff.

So...for my "getting back on the blogging bandwagon" post, I have a copy of Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion for you today.  Based on the 1950's TV show of the same name, this book was given away as a promotional comic book, but also printed for purchase at the news stand.  The GCD has this version as the one that was given away by Heinz.  The book has a great cover and interior art by Don Heck (one of the greats).

On the back of this copy is a certificate that admits the bearer into the "Junior Legionnaires".  It has the Heinz logo on it and on the inside back cover is a list of the 57 Heinz varieties from the mid 1950's.  How about some India relish??

Give away comics were a common promotional tool from the earliest days of comics...and remain so today.  Each May, for the last ten years or so, Free Comic Book Day has been a national event.  You can go and get free comic books that will introduce you to characters you may not know, and also allow you to get some unique books of characters that you are very familiar with.

Until next time....

Blogging here on Sundry Collectibles and at Disney Postcards on, you guessed it, Disney Postcards!