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Spring
2005 Market Report
BEANO COMIC No2 MAKES £2,135.00, MAGIC No1 CONJURES £1,925.00
 
Big
Eggo hatched a big surprise when his second issue Beano made over two thousand
pounds in our sell-out March auction. As most of our collectors know, second issues
of comics are often much rarer than first issues, which were often over produced
to take advantage of pre-launch publicity and every selling opportunity. Even
in the late thirties, the canny folk at DC Thomson had produced mini-comic flyers
for the impending publication of Beano and Dandy to be inserted in their current
"Big Five" weeklies of Adventure, Hotspur, Rover, Skipper and Wizard. The flyers,
themselves can easily top £100 at auction when ever they appear.
Magic
comics are also rare, having been the third sibling in the Beano/Dandy stable
and a victim of wartime paper shortages after eighty issues in 1941. Rare though
it is, the title and its characters are less well known and issues do not fetch
as much although just short of £2000 for the Magic No 1 is the second highest
price ever achieved.
This
wonderful complete Hotspur year had all its fourteen booklet free gifts with colour
covers by Dudley Watkins and he even managed to make the chillingly titled "Get
Your Gas Mask On" seem like a schoolboy wheeze to outwit the dreaded Hun! The
successful bidder paid £440 for this very high grade set.
This
Beano propaganda war year complete in its bound volume exceeded all expectations
with a winning bid of £935.00, the highest price ever achieved for a bound volume
from the 1940s, especially when considering that due to wartime economies the
comic was printed fortnightly so 1943 only accounted for only twenty-six issues!
In the same way the scarce Beano Book of 1942, annual number three, with light
foxing and some finger-marked pages was strongly contested to £1,265 before winging
its way to Yorkshire and its enthusiastic new owner.
Oor
Wullie continues to charm and entertain all who cross his path, except perhaps
for his long sufferin' head teacher who discovers Wullie's fishing tackle by a
NO FISHING! sign and is in turn caught by the local bobby in full possession of
it. The head's embarrassment is certainly enough to get the Wee Lad's 500 lines
cancelled! £1101.00 saw this wonderful Dudley Watkins piece return to Dundee from
whence it came.
 
The
Rupert annual from 1946 made £140 and the annual for a year later made £231.00;
the difference between Fine and Very Fine grades accounting for nearly one hundred
pounds difference in the winning bids. We don't always see strong prices for rare
items, and such was the case with our Rupert annual No 1 from 1936 with some pieces
missing from its split dust-jacket. We had offered the lot with a £900-1200 estimate
and finally sold this relatively scarce piece with original Daily Express mail
folder for £800, its eventual purchaser happy to put it away for a couple of years
with a view to restoring its well worn dust-jacket in due course.
Dandys
from the mid 50s used to be readily available for a fiver each or less but collecting
habits are changing and bound volumes, once shunned, are much more popular these
days as they allow enthusiastic panelologists to move their fun-filled hobby from
the attic floor to the living room bookshelf. Also the binding restricts ongoing
colour and page fading whilst increasing longevity. The 1954 example illustrated
above saw bidding equate to £8.50 a copy.
In
the same way, Amagamated Press's Eagle clone, Lion has doubled in value over the
last few years and this fresh 1956 full year in two bound volumes made £222.
  
Highlights
from our U S section included some of legendary artist Frank Frazetta's exciting
Buck Rogers covers for Famous Funnies and these three fresh mid-grade examples
were bid to £130, £193, and £141 respectively.
 
Fast
Fiction # 3 featured the wonderfully evocative H Rider Haggard "She" cover which
was bid to £88.00, but the star of the stateside show was a well preserved, bright
faced young Spider-Man who, in pence-priced Fine Plus format reached a web-slinging
£1100. Aunt May would be so proud.
Prices
Realised for all the lots are in that section and our next catalogue is in May/June
2005. I hope we'll see you then.
Happy
reading,
Malcolm
Phillips
Director
Comic Book Postal Auctions, Ltd.
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