Repost of cpg board content...

[Quato]

Earl at the cpg site posted this:

Here is what Doug Sulipa had to say about the Charlton market...

We have a giant selection of about 35,000 Charlton Comics, with about 95% of Everything 1960-1986 in stock at all times & about 50% of the Pre-1960 issues too. Thus we always do well with Charlton's. This year the HORROR and Sci-Fi titles were by far the strongest selling titles. We sold 100's of copies in the G-FN ranges, with some buyers buying complete or Near complete sets.

Normally i would say that VF copies are about the Highest grades you will be able to find. But we got in over 150 copies from the MANITOBA collection in 9.0-9.6 Grades & sold 2/3 of them within a few months at 125-200%+ Guide; The 2nd Best Sellers were the TV related Titles & the Hanna Barbera Cartoons mostly in VG-FN/VF at 115-130% Guide; Charlton's of the late 1940's thru 1950's are selling in all grades & are getting harder to find. Kings Features Titles (Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, Phantom, Popeye) are steady sellers, but the Cartoon titles are Under-Valued & are getting hard to restock at the Low Price Levels. Strangely enough, Phantom is one of the most popular comics all around the World, with the exception of USA & Canada. (Australia has over 1500 issues in their Series, the Belgium French issues have several 100 issues). Phantom prices have a lot of room to move upward, especially those issues with the classic Don Newton art. The Superhero, Western & War titles are all solid steady sellers. The over $25 1950's Westerns are a bit slower, but they are scarce, so they eventually sell. I have had a few requests for High Grade copies of the Superhero issues & sold over 50% of all my VF or better copies. In addition, there have been more requests for VF or better Kongo, Gorgo & Reptisaurus, but we only had a handful in such Lofty grades. Charlton Collectors often have a taste for obscure items, so they like the Charlton; Adult Cartoon Titles, SICK magazine, Horror Monsters, Charlton Bullseye, True Western Mags, Fanzines & other Non-Comic items by Charlton.

Seems interesting and it matches what I'd predict.

Q

[gowaltrip]

Cool thread Q. Did you type all this out of the Overstreet yourself (did you buy a copy?) or did you find a link where this was posted and copied and pasted?

I love reading articles like this, but I dont need any justification for buying them. I think they will one day be noticed and I want to get as many as I can before that happens. But then again, maybe I am just dreaming because many people consider them crap and not worth collecting in the 1st place.

However, I feel they have historical value. That no matter how dogged they are, i think someone will say "remember those Charlton's?" and come looking. And the better the grade you have, the better off you'll be.

Then again, they may never get popular or valuable. Theyve been gone over 20 years now and not many seem to care. So, above all else, worst case scenario is I end up with a nice collection hardly anyone has and I just love the fact I own them.

[Quato]

gowaltrip said:

Cool thread Q. Did you type all this out of the Overstreet yourself (did you buy a copy?) or did you find a link where this was posted and copied and pasted?

I love reading articles like this, but I dont need any justification for buying them. I think they will one day be noticed and I want to get as many as I can before that happens. But then again, maybe I am just dreaming because many people consider them crap and not worth collecting in the 1st place.

However, I feel they have historical value. That no matter how dogged they are, i think someone will say "remember those Charlton's?" and come looking. And the better the grade you have, the better off you'll be.

Then again, they may never get popular or valuable. Theyve been gone over 20 years now and not many seem to care. So, above all else, worst case scenario is I end up with a nice collection hardly anyone has and I just love the fact I own them.

You missed the first line which said "Earl at the cpg site posted this:" All I did was cut and paste and add two layers of blockquote with color to distinguish the sources.

Charlton made a big impression and affected a lot of people. Comics are ephemera. They are printed materials which were expected to be thrown away. To make their value rise all you need is a demand greater than the locally available supply. Doug's market report from Overstreet is merely reporting that he is seeing a demand. You won't get a report from dealers that have little or no stock on Charltons. It has to be a dealer big enough to stock and sell them.

Now ask yourself if the internet had adequate informational resources available for collectors to collect these comics. Probably, but it was scattered which means it wasn't easiy. It is time consuming to dig all this info up. Finding scans is almost impossible and funding high quality scans is just luck. I'm airbrushing serious defects off of these covers just to get halfway decent scans.

All of this I feel is important for collectors interested in these books.

I'd like to see back issues start selling so retailers have more money to order any quality new product. I think my growing list is consolidating a lot of the information and making it easier for collectors to pinpoint what they want. They might not want everything, but they may want all the war comics or all the romance comics. The TV related stuff will always have a nostalgia value.

If this list gets out there, collectors WILL be looking for the stuff. Online or printed magazines will get ideas for stories. The potential for these to rise in value is as good as anything.

Keep in mind that when I started my Defiant site, a search for Defiant Comics would give you a web page selling Warriors of Plasm #1 for something like a dollar as it's top listing. There was no picture. It was just a text based page trying to sell an issue. From there it got worse. You couldn't get any details on what they published or who even worked on the titles. Online and print info was inaccurate. After I created my page, copies of the checklist were popping up on messageboards everywhere. Articles and blog posts started appearing everywhere and I gave the comics some respect. Well, I helped.

Fans just want an easy source for info. They don't want to search for endless hours to figure out the scope and magnitude of what is out there. I think prices will increase on exactly the things Doug Sulipa is talking about in that report. Those are pretty much the same things that interest me.

Q

[gowaltrip]

Yeah, I did miss the 1st line. Sorry. It reads like it came out of the OPG Annual Market reports. I have yet to buy the new OPG. I know it is a hated book in the industry but I am going to get one anyway. I noticed in the book I got last year, there was random mumblings on Charltons. I think it gets ever so slightly warmer as each year goes by.

[Defiant1]

gowaltrip said:

Yeah, I did miss the 1st line. Sorry. It reads like it came out of the OPG Annual Market reports. I have yet to buy the new OPG. I know it is a hated book in the industry but I am going to get one anyway. I noticed in the book I got last year, there was random mumblings on Charltons. I think it gets ever so slightly warmer as each year goes by.

You can only talk so much about Marvel & DC before people have heard it all. I'd say it was an Overstreet market report that Earl had posted. Doug and I exchanged a few emails awhile back. He is the guy I bought Captain Canuck #4 (1st print) from. I also had him looking for another obscure item for me.

Defiant1

[Brother J]

I recently bought an item from Doug Sulipa from the abebooks web site. I FINALLY got my copy of the Superman vs. Muhammad Ali treasury (and what a beautiful book it is!) and it was at a very friendly price.

[Quato]

My book arrived in the condition stated, but I'd have liked better packaging. I want no excuses for possible shipping damage. I'd pay extra for the better packaging.

Defiant1