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SUMMER 2012 MARKET REPORT

BEANO BOOK 1: £3,630 -- BERYL THE PERIL ARTWORK: £1,222

With good boards and spine this robust original copy of the Beano’s first annual soared to a winning bid of £3,630, the new owner a keen Chelsea supporter who knows a premier league item when he sees one.

Artwork of Beryl The Peril rarely comes to the marketplace and Davy Law’s insubordinate schoolgirl terrorised the science class with an explosive £1222.

Devilish deeds also abounded at the turn of the century where a ghoulish chap known as Spring-Heeled Jack scared the life out of London gentlefolk, even conflating the real-life murders perpetrated by his namesake, Jack The Ripper. These penny dreadful stories are highly prized and the complete 12 issue run along with a further 182 stories of Dick Turpin, all clean and fresh in six bound volumes, were taken to £820. A high price, but not a king’s ransom.

60 consecutive issues in five bound volumes of 1931 Boys’ Friend Library starring the lizard-like Robot Man were taken to £550. No metal fatigue here.

Mickey Mouse Weekly has an enduring appeal and 30 Christmas and special issues mainly covering the war years took the risible rodent to £244.

We offered this Beano Comic No1 with a chunk missing from the front cover but condition was generally good overall and this iconic issue, with accompanying Beano flyer took £772. On the top front cover was a light ‘EIRE 1p EXTRA’ stamp so bidding was strong from Ireland and why it finally ended up in Australia is anybody’s guess (YARRA 1p EXTRA?)

A fresh looking Beano Book from 1947 showed Big Eggo nearly making a meal of Hairy Dan. The vendor found the winning bid of £910 quite digestible.

A complete year of The Beano for 1949 heralded the first adventures of Jack Flash, Pansy Potter’s Adventures In Wonderland, The Iron Fish and The Horse That Jack Built. These 38 issues (some published fortnightly) went for £551 in Fine grades.

A similarly graded complete year of 1949 Dandy sold for £410 confirming the 75% price differential between the two titles.

Rockfist Rogan RAF was a big star in Champion’s firmament and war years issues are well collected. 1944, complete in two bound volumes, was shot down for £198.

Strong Australian bidding was encountered for Ben Lawson’s Lone Avenger. Sold over there for a cover price of eight pence in the 1950s, these 6d reprints are hard to find and £220 was successfully tendered for the tenderfoot.

Eric Parker was a prodigious artist whose output for a great slew of titles was legendary in quality as well as quantity. This bright wartime artwork cover for Sexton Blake Library was as good as you could get and £385 was the successful winning bid.

We offered the earliest Frank Hampson artwork of Dan Dare from The Eagle volume 1, No 33. With bright colours and Hampson’s legendary attention to detail, this iconic piece failed to sell from an estimate of £2500-3000.

There were 20 numbered resin busts of Dan Dare made for this limited edition series and this was No 18. Sculptor, John Fowler made the original bronze from which these were cast, and it was then donated to the Southport College Of Art in April 2000 in honour of its most famous alumnus, Frank Hampson. No 18 sold for £550.

Original tinplate signs from the 1950s are difficult to find in new condition. By their nature they were nailed up outside retailers to advertise the goods within and consequently suffered in all weather conditions. Made by Hudson Scott of Carlisle for Amalgamated Press’s Film Fun, this bright yellow ad starred Laurel And Hardy and the comic’s threepence asking price was translated to £304. (Keep an eye out for our final piece in the August auction which advertises The Comet starring Kit Carson)

Oor Wullie’s calendar boy book from 1953 made £330. Now you know where Fry’s got the Five-Boy’s chocolate idea from.

In a classic Oor Wullie story the Wee Lad has his fortune told but this get’s him nuthin’ but bad luck. No surprise when fortune teller, ‘Madame Tantalini’, turns oot to be Fat Bob in disguise. £450 restored Oor Wullie’s fortune.

Last December we featured a copy of Tiger No 1 with three of the original six free-gift Flying Saucers intact along with the Space Gun and illustrated envelope. This resulted in a winning bid of £775 which we thought would stand for a long time. But here was a copy with all six Flying Saucers, pristine in their press-out card also with gun and envelope. This time the bar was raised to £930. Bang.

The complete 1961 year of Knockout starring Battler Britton, Billy Bunter (Fatter Briton) and Sporty by Reg Wooton was rare in the high grades of [vfn/nm] and £440 was the resultant knockout bid.

Not to be outdone, this Lion bound volume for 1964 starring Paddy Payne roared to £400 in the same high grades.

Keith Watson did the best he could to distinguish Lion’s Captain Condor clone from The Eagle’s Dan Dare but to no avail as can be seen here. Similar features, similar stories but the art is still great. £220 didn’t raise too many eyebrows.

Poppet was a title that only lasted for 41 issues and this complete run starred the Beatles story along with other popstar pics and fashion tips. £311 was jolly good value.

Don Lawrence’s Trigan Empire artwork continues to sell strongly. As the mighty Hericon fleet laid siege to the city £1250 won the day.

300-odd worn, mangled and yellowed copies of Record Mirror, Melody Maker, NME and Disc charted the key early Sixties years of pop and the worried successful bidder suggested to us that postage charges would be a fortune and would it be OK if he collected them? At £836 we said yes.

Misty is a cult title for collectors as it encompasses stories from the midnight world of vampish teenage girls (or so it says). With rare Sales Trade Folder and Lucky Black Cat ring, issues 1-23 bubbled up to £220

Our US section featured the first 100 lots of our one-owner DC collection. All in low, affordable grades.

The first Supergirl appearance in Action Comics 252 made £99..

Lois Lane #1 from 1958 with some blue colour touches found Superman’s Girl-Friend with £225.

This first try out for Lois in Showcase #9 also made £225.

The second try out for Lois in better grade at [fn-] showcased £274.

Superman early issues were well contested. £87 was tendered for #63 with £162 for the milestone #100.

It’s A Bird! It’s A Pain! It’s...going to the bloody airport. Most people think that going to the airport is a bit of a drag these days what with queuing for hours to get back into your own country, iris recognition scans that are no longer operative and, unlike the musical, a carousel that seldom delivers.

Imagine being summoned there when you have no intention of flying anywhere as that is what happened to one of our customers recently.

As an avid Eagle collector who lives in Hong Kong, he was advised to do just that when one of our parcels arrived containing his hard won toys, games and comics. Apparently his Dan Dare Space Pistol, a cap gun made in the 1950s, had shown up on the x-ray machine and customs had refused to allow it to be opened. This was on a Friday morning and eager to get his goodies for the week-end he found himself too busy at the office so he did what any other man would do and sent his wife.

On arrival at the airport she was screened through a metal detector, finger-printed and searched before being shown into a hangar that on any other day might have had a 747 parked inside it. In the centre was the parcel on a table surrounded by several armed guards. She was instructed to open the parcel and display the gun on the top. Then she was told to fire it in a downward, non-threatening position (I kid you not). Finally satisfied that all was in order, multiple paperwork was completed, the parcel was repacked, the army was stood down and the harassed lady was escorted from the building.

On our collector’s return home, supper didn’t go that well. His wife had spent three hours at the airport, been treated like a criminal and Security had regaled her with stories of what can happen if you import firearms or ammunition without a licence. Hubby replied that it was lucky that the toy didn’t have any caps in it as he might not have been able to see her until the following Thursday. When she asked why he said, ‘That’s visiting day’.

Malcolm Phillips
Director
Comic Book Auctions Ltd.