Our lower grade copy of The Beano No1 had a soiled front cover with a 4 inch tear but it did not deter the delighted winning bidder from his £5,100 purchase.

The first 10 Champion comics from 1922 are hard to find, let alone with all their free gift Famous Champion photos, and £400 took them away.

The Beano complete year of 1947 had the debut of Wavy Davy and His Navy by Dudley Watkins and Alf-Wit the Ancient Brit by Bill Holdroyd and this bound volume was bought by a Modern Brit for £700.

We offered 3 pages on Ron Embleton’s first commercial artwork for Ray Regan Comic No 1, produced in 1945 by the great comics historian, Denis Gifford, who immediately recognised a callow youth’s artistic promise. The comic itself, which was included in the lot, is also a rarity and combined with the artwork took a relatively modest £450.

More Beano high grade action here with the bound volume of 1954 which included the first Bash Street Kids story by Leo Baxendale, originally entitled ‘When the Bell Rings’. It certainly did at £920.

This complete year of The Dandy was bound into two volumes, the comics in mixed grades. Jammy Jimmy Johnson started here and apparently, ‘His magic touch turned everything to grub’. It also turned to £720.

Frank Bellamy’s masterful artistry is once more illustrated in this original artwork of The Shepherd King. Signed by the man, himself, it made £1640

‘Secrets’ was a comic developed by D C Thomson in the 1950s. ‘Romantic’ comics in that decade had lower print runs, being mainly produced for a female audience and as such, are scarcer. This small run of 25 issues from 1957 made £18 each - £450 in old money!

There were only 3 Super Coloured Comic Albums printed by TV Boardman and here they were, their Denis McLoughlin covers as seductive as ever. However their contents weren’t so interesting at the time, mainly consisting of remaindered Boardman issues of Buffalo Bill, Roy Carson, Blackhawk and Swift Morgan. But that was in the early Fifties – and this is Now and highly collectable as the £460 winning bid proved.

In generally fresh condition the first seven issues of Topper starred Mickey the Monkey, Beryl the Peril, Foxy and Treasure Island. Treasure indeed with 780 pieces of eight. Ahrrr, Jim, lad.

Following on was the complete Topper year of 1956 which included a full-page ad for The Beezer No 1. Bound in a volume in impossibly high grades £920 took them away.

Maddock’s Marauders No 1 original cover artwork was painted and signed by Jordi Panalva for Fleetway Super Library in 1966 and sold at its opening bid of £400.

Confessions, True Life All-Picture Library and Pop Pic Library’s swinging 60s all combined in a 22 issue lot to make £105. Groovy, baby.

 

POW! No 2 (1967) was accompanied by its free gift Amazing Spider-Man Iron-On Transfer which transferred £185.

Complete years of 1960s Tiger are strongly collected. However, 13 of the 52 issues for 1962 had ‘orrible punch-holes to their spines and all had rusty, disintegrated staples. Notwithstanding that, Roy scored handsomely with £560.

This 1980 Doctor Who original artwork page by Dave Gibbons for Doctor Who Monthly No 48 went for a dalektable £760

Charley’s War original artwork from the brilliant pen of Joe Colquhoun continues to strengthen in value. Here the horror of the battle of the Somme was illustrated in graphic detail and accompanied by a painted cover proof of Battle-Action No. 273. Sold at £1220.

Our run of higher grade Golden and Silver Age comics started with [vfn] copies of Detective #127 at £380 and Batman #97 at £620

Not everything goes for high prices and Flash Gordon #1 and #2 were Gordon Bread promotional giveaways from 1951 and only kneeded £22.

Strange Fantasy #10 and #11 (Farrell comics 1954) in [vg/fn] had damsels in distress and dat dress at £540.

 

The Silver age provided two slabbed beauties with Amazing Spider-Man #15 GCG 6.5 at £1240 and A S-M #50 CBCS 9.4 at £5400

The Avengers continued the four-figure story with #3 in [vfn+] and #8 in [[vfn], each selling for £1220.

Here is Daredevil #1 with worn covers and inside front cover and back cover doodles. Its [gd] grade taking £900.

Here are 1964’s Fantastic Four #25 [vfn] and #26 CGC 9.2 securing £580 and £1120 respectively

Fantastic Four #48 has almost reached iconic status and our [fn+] copy realised £1300 whilst #52 in the same grade attracted £640

Early Hulks are harder to find in any grade so lower grade issues of #3 (with extensive Marvel chipping) and #6 (with detached centrefold) took £360 and £430 respectively.

We graded this cents copy of Silver Surfer #3 at the wonderfully high [nm-] and it returned £1420 whilst a pence [vg-] copy of Strange Tales #110 introduced the first Doctor Strange to £900.

We offered two higher grade pence copies of ‘hot’ books from the 1970s: Werewolf By Night #32 at £620 and Tomb of Dracula #10 leaving no Blade unturned at £800.

The first celebrity owner collection of US comics was auction by us in 2000 when Marvel creator, Stan Lee, sent monthly parcels of most of his Marvel issues to his nephew, John, living in England. Mr Lee gave us permission to call it ‘The Uncle Stan Collection’ and here was X-Men #12 with our original letter of authenticity. 22 years ago our winning bidder paid £145 for it, last week it returned £1420.

Two more 70s books in high grades: X-Men #94 in [vfn/nm] at £700 and #101 in [nm-] for £410.

DCs Aquaman #1 pence copy in [vfn-] floated £620 and Batman #133 in a [vfn] £330.

Our copy of Batman #171 was riddled with two owner signatures to its splash page, making £220 whilst Batman #181 with its centrefold pin-up poster posted £470.

 

Back in the late 70s Dave Gibbons used to share a studio in St Albans with Mick McMahon who illustrated the Judge Dredd 2000AD artwork shown above. So the story goes McMahon had declared that drawing a fish as a deputy-chief Judge was his ‘worst ever artwork panel’ and Gibbons took the ‘mick’ out of McMahon for years after with fish impressions and bubble noises.

 

In the late 80s I would visit Westminster Town Hall on a Sunday in each month where dealers in posters, toys, TV and film star autographs, books and post cards would flog their wares - and there were always a few blokes near the back with dirty old boxes of comics and a few bits of artwork. Our original owner of the above piece told us of one such visit he made with a pal in 1984 where, at the end of the day, some bods from Fleetway Publications decided to hold an impromptu auction of 2000AD artwork. Average pages were sold in quick succession for £40 each, then £30 and our owner paid £20 for his page at the end of Fleetway’s clear-out. Last week it sold for £3750. Oops.