Gobble... Gobble... Gobble... and Happy Thanksgiving from Heritage Auctions

Nov. 25, 2009

Posted by The Heritage Blog

It is Thanksgiving and the Heritage Blog, like most every other American, is taking time to relax for a couple of days, eat some turkey, mash some potatoes and pie some pumpkin - does such a phrase even exists. There may even be some football watching... No shopping, though... Crowds freak The Heritage Blog out.

The Heritage Blog is very thankful for many things in its life, but most thankful of all, dear readers, for you. Thanks for coming and checking out these ramblings.

The Heritage Blog will be back on Monday, Nov. 30, with all new postings.

Gobble, gobble to you and yours.

To leave a comment, though there is nothing to comment on, click on the title of this post.

-The Heritage Blog

When Tiger roars we are lucky just to be within earshot

March 30, 2009
Posted by Noah

Monday is reserved for coins, I know, but I felt compelled to write something after watching Tiger Woods come roaring back to dominance in yesterday’s conclusion to Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Invitational. If you are not a golf fan, and don’t watch the guy, then I really do pity you. He is, simply put, the greatest to ever pick up the sticks, and certainly the most dominant athlete on the planet at the moment. Greatness personified, no matter how you slice it, is named Tiger Woods and we are all fortunate to be living in the time of his glory.

I went through the Heritage archives to dig up some of the Woods memorabilia that has sold here in past auction, and it’s an impressive list. There are some things that rightly went for a bundle and some things that were picked up for a song that are worth more and more with every passing year and every passing victory. The top lot is a tourney worn, and signed, Nike cap from around 2004, sweat-stained and all, pictured above. It brought more than $9,000 last October, which looks like a bargain now.

While I am a hacker by any account, I do love playing the game. More than that, however, I love to watch it. I’ve watched it since I was a kid, when I was obsessed with Greg Norman and my brother worked at Preston Trails Golf Club, where the Byron Nelson was played for years, and where I got to go and watch The Shark play in person. It’s a game of sheer poetry when played at its highest level, and sheer travesty when played at its lowest – meaning mine – level. It’s exquisite tension, soaring drama and unbelievable pathos when the very best slug it out for top honors at the most difficult courses, and time and time again Mr. Woods has shown that he has no equal in any time period. Before he is done, mark my words and the words of thousands of others, the history books will be completely rewritten in his exact image.

I wanted to enlist the help of one of our resident experts to legitimize my meager standing, so I called Mark Jordan, one of our Consignment Directors in Sports, the go-to golf guy, and a man who has forgotten more about sports history than I could assemble in any five lifetimes. His thoughts on Woods and Bay Hill:

“(This Bay Hill victory) just shows how determined and focused Woods can be when playing golf,” he said. “Any mortal who is five strokes behind on a Sunday, it’s hard to come out and win. Tiger had to reach down and deep and see if he could pull it out, which he did, and the look on his face when he won shows the guy knew that it was really special that he accomplished that.”

Agreed. Tiger is a man who plays his personal feelings very close to the vest, and people respect that, I believe, because he is so giving of his fire and focus when he is on the course. He is the greatest ever, no one can doubt it, but he still manages to make us root for him like he’s the underdog. The only thing Tiger Woods is an underdog to is history, and that won’t be for too much longer.

“You know, he limps around at Oakmont and wins the U.S. Open (June 2008) on one leg,” Mark continued, “then he has surgery, comes back eight months later and wins Bay Hill, which is (Arnold) Palmer’s tournament to boot. With The Master’s coming up this really gets him in a frame of mind to do well there.”

To the rest of the PGA Tour, who might have hoped for a little respite from Tiger’s dominance as he slowly rehabbed his way back, they all just took a collective punch in the gut – along with a spike in TV ratings and the return of the big prizes as long as Woods is in the field.

I could go on ad infinitum about the man’s greatness as a golfer. Time will tell if he shapes up to be a great man off the course, but that is unimportant right now. All that matters now is that he is back in the game, as great as he ever was, and we should all be grateful to get to fan ourselves from the bright white heat the star of his greatness gives off.

Here’s that archive once again, and a hearty welcome back to Mr. Woods from the world of mortals…

No one – I repeat – No One is faster than The Flash…

March 27, 2009
Posted by Noah

… and very few are more valuable, at least if you’re talking about Showcase #4, The Flash, 1956, from DC Comics. It’s the book that started the Silver Age, and is easily the most valuable Silver Age comic that exists. Did I mention that Heritage is auctioning off a copy of Showcase #4 in our May comics auction? Did I further mention that it’s from the Motor City Run, and that it’s the single highest graded copy of the book in existence? Forgive me for not saying so sooner.

I know that this was a comic printed in 1956, and that I was but a mote of cosmic dust at that point, but this was the comic book of my dreams as a kid. I also know that the Silver Age ended in 1970, the year I was born, but I bought ratty old Silver Age Flash comics with my meager allowance all through the 1970s, the more beat up the better, as I actually enjoyed reading them. I read many of them until they literally disintegrated in my fingers. The few that survived my slavish reading and re-reading of them, as I was very politely informed by Barry Sandoval when I started working here and brought them in on a whim, are worth maybe a couple bucks each. I think he was being charitable at that, as nice a guy as he is…

Showcase #4 introduces Barry Allen as The Flash, and tells his famous origin story. Many a kid, I imagine, was tempted to douse themselves in a stew of chemicals in the hopes of gaining the same speed. At least I know I was – thanks to my brother Matt for stopping me on that hazy July afternoon.

Barry Allen was The Flash of my childhood, and is still The Fastest Man Alive, in my opinion. Wally West is Kid Flash. Period. I know that very fact has become a big part of Wally West’s character, or was until 1996’s The Return of Barry Allen, but I still didn’t buy it, even as much as I enjoyed watching Dr. Zoom take yet one more thrashing some 3,000 years before he was born.

My passion for The Flash has never really died; it’s just changed over the years. Ii now mainly consists of a plastic Flash figurine on my desk. It’s of a later vintage, so I know it must be Wally West. That doesn’t matter to me, though. One of my oldest and dearest friends in the world gave it to me years ago. It has sat on every desk I have worked at for more than a decade, which is not so interesting. The real story of this Flash, though – and I think this proves that The Flash really does have superhuman powers, in all of his forms, even plastic – is that this one survived a rather nasty flood in 2005.

I had just moved to Amherst, MA to edit a couple antique magazines when I got the call one morning that the basement office where I worked in Palmer, MA, flooded to the ceiling overnight when the Quaboag River overran its banks, travelled across a football field, and a parking lot, to flood the whole street and all the buildings on it. Everything was completely destroyed. When we made our way in two days later, knee-deep in mud, paper slush and office equipment, I went to the area of my desk. There, miraculously, sitting right where my desk once was, was The Flash, stand and all.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a miracle, but it was pretty cool, considering it was really the only thing I was hoping to find.

Here’s a link to all The Motor City run comics in the May Comics Auction. You can look, but you can’t touch…

Don’t hold your breath for relics from the Titanic anytime soon

March 25, 2009
Posted by Noah

You can’t be in this business without having wondered – at least once during the last 24 years since it was located – whether the 5,000+ relics actually salvaged from the sunken remains of The Titanic would ever actually come to the auction block and what they would be worth. The answer to the former is, as of today, probably never, and the answer to the latter is: who knows?

The AP is reporting widely today that a U.S. Maritime District Judge in Virginia, one Rebecca Beach Smith, is set to rule within weeks that the wreck is “an international treasure” and that “the salvaged items must remain together and accessible to the public… ensuring the 5,900 pieces of china, ship fittings and personal belongings won't end up in a collector's hands or in a London auction house, where some Titanic artifacts have landed.”

The disputed sale of just a few of these things brought great scrutiny and some impressive prices when they were auctioned off, and I’m sure the imminent ruling doesn’t do a whole lot for the folks at RMS Titanic, Inc., who salvaged the relics and were seeking limited ownership of the artifacts from the world’s most famous shipwreck. It is a legal to-do that began in 1985 when the first images of the ship were broadcast to surface.

I won’t lie and tell you that I’m 100% happy about this, because I would have hoped that Heritage’s crack team of Consignment Directors would have been all over this and would have brought the goods, and the glory, home to HA HQ in Dallas. On the other hand, this is indeed good news for the tens of millions of people who have already stood in line to see the artifacts in exhibitions, and for the millions more who will. It may not be a win for Heritage, necessarily, but it is a win for the world at-large. Let’s all give a hearty cheer! Hooray Humanity!

As I enjoy doing with any story like this, I went to Heritage Auction Archives and did a search for “Titanic.” The results were somewhat varied. I expected the myriad movie posters from the late-1990s James Cameron pic, and from various other movies about the sinking, but there are also a good selection of autographs from survivors. The coolest lot, though a prop from the movie, is a lifejacket, which was used during filming. Do you think that Leo might have actually touched it? Maybe Kate spilled her Diet Coke on it? Perhaps James Cameron berated the extra wearing it?

The autographs, especially for one Milvina Dean – the youngest survivor from the ship, btw – seem to have turned into a cottage industry. I suppose, though, I would have done the same thing had I survived the most famous wreck in history…

I was no great fan of the Leo and Kate movie. Despite good FX for the time, the script was horrendous and a lot of the acting wooden. My friends and I actually referred to the movie as The Craptanic. What do you want? I was very cynical, if not clever. I did, though, develop a new appreciation for the movie a year or two after its release when I traveled through India for several months with a good friend. Everywhere we went, it seemed, the movie was playing to massive sold out audiences – especially in Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai (formerly known as Madras) – and I must have seen at least 1,000 Titanic t-shirts up and down the sub-continent and into Nepal. That was added to the hundreds of greetings we received as we walked the streets of cities or rode trains where people would stop us, shake our hands and say: “Namaste! Leo DiCaprio Titanic! Best film! Best film!”

Check out the HA Titanic archive above, or right here.

'Freaks' find acceptance – an update on a very cool movie poster…

+

March 24, 2009
Posted by Noah

You may recall that, oh, exactly 14 days ago your humble blogger looked into the churning fog of his crystal ball and recognized an absolute gem just dying to be discovered in Heritage’s March movie poster auction. The humble little prize was a very rare 1932 original Freaks movie poster. I’m not saying that I personally made it a great poster – you flatter me, you flatterer you – I’m just sayin’…

That poster sold last weekend for more than $100,000, and was the second highest lot in the entire auction, right behind an exquisite 1931 Dracula one sheet that I also wrote about more than a month ago in these very pages. Let me just say that, yes, the thing still creeps me out.

The story behind the Freaks poster – which hopefully will become very familiar to everyone soon if it gets picked up off the AP wire and distributed nationally – is one of those great tales that makes the final sale of it that much better.

I had the good fortune to help with the crafting and pitching of the story and to talk to the consignor, one Anne Stafford, out of Southern California. She bought the poster in a dusty old antiques story in Corona Del Mar in the early 1970s. She and her husband were young and struggling at the time – the way so many of us struggle(d) at that age – and she agonized over the $10 the dealer wanted for it. Her love for her husband, and his love of B-movies, was greater than the immediate hardship caused by the missing sawbuck. He loved the poster, they hung it on the wall with tacks until years later when Anne decided to have it framed. Fast forward almost 40 years and the thing sells at auction for 10,000 times its original price. Pretty good investment, yes?

I love stories like this not just because they end happily with the consignor getting justly rewarded for a true treasure, but because the original purchase of the thing, and its subsequent preservation, was an act inspired by the love of a wife for her husband. I don’t have to tell anyone that the journey of a marriage is sometimes biting and sometimes bit – to paraphrase Russel Hoban in Riddley Walker – but ultimately worth it when you give yourself over to what it represents. I like to think that this poster was a witness to both the good times and the bad in their marriage, and ultimately a witness to the value of the institution itself.

Things like the story of this poster are what the story of marriage is built on, what generations relate down the line. That story, with the poster’s auction, is now part of the public domain, and the poster is now in a new home. All these years the Staffords had been sitting on a museum quality rarity, one of the greatest posters in the entire hobby, and one that is worth every cent the buyer ultimately paid for it. Had I had the cash then you can bet I would have dropped it on the thing in a second. For them, however, it was simply that great birthday present from the early 1970s that seemed to cost so much at the time.

Still married, and waiting for that healthy payment check for their consignment, they can laugh about the initial stress of that original purchase, and wish that they had bought a few more posters, spending a few more dollars they weren’t sure they had.

Of Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch and mysterious missives from the past (or future?)

March 11, 2009
Posted by Noah

I usually get up early in the morning – really early, really – so I can get myself ready for the day, check my email in peace and have a cup of coffee to the soothing early morning sounds of NPR and the quiet page click of The New York Times. It’s worth the loss of an hour’s sleep to get the time. This morning The Times featured an article in its Art & Design section about the opening of a legendary Abraham Lincoln pocket watch that, as legend had it, contained a mysterious inscription on the inside, from a watch repairer, to Abraham Lincoln, engraved at the start of the Civil War.

Heady stuff to be sure. I had actually heard this rumor before. The watch, belonging to The Smithsonian, hadn’t been opened in almost 150 years, and the message was subject of much debate. The watch was passed down through generations of the same family, before being bequeathed to The Smithsonian, and it was only on Tuesday of this week, March 9, that the thing was finally opened.

I have to admit there was a part of me that hoped it would be a message from a time traveler who got stuck in 1861 and left the inscription for his future self, to tell him to be careful not to eat the knockwurst – which, of course, gave him indigestion, which caused him to over sleep and miss the temporal window that would have allowed him to travel back to the year 3049. Alas, however, it is simply a message of support for the Union.

It reads: “Jonathan Dillon April 13- 1861 Fort Sumpter(sic) was attacked by the rebels on the above date. J Dillon,” on the underside of the watch. It continues: “April 13- 1861 Washington thank God we have a government Jonth Dillon.”

Not exactly a message to Kirk and Spock instructing them to bring whales with them from the past to the future, but still cool nonetheless, and a heartening message of national unity from a time of great and terrible distress. It doesn’t hurt that the watch is a thing of amazing beauty, with undeniable proximity to America’s favorite President.

As soon as I got to work, with the Lincoln watch on my mind – and covetousness in my heart, I admit – I checked out the upcoming May 13 Fine Watch auction here at Heritage. It wasn’t so much in the hopes of finding something of great historical import that was somehow overlooked by the team of experts we have here – it would never happen, trust me – so much as a desire to bask in the glow of timepieces – pocket watches in particular – that I most likely will never have.

The auction overall is chock full of great watches, mind you, any of which I would be glad to own – an superb and stylistically progressive circa 1809 Breitling Cosmonaute 1809 Chrono-Matic, in particular – but there’s a Soyer (a Dieppe) Single Hand Oignon with Center Winding pocket watch, circa 1695, that is such a stunner that I’ve had it open on my computer most of the morning just so I can take look every so often and drift into a daydream of owning it. You can see it by clicking the link above. I urge you to.

Could I ever really wear such a watch, were I to own it? I don’t know. I’m not really the pocket watch type. You kind of have to be a little older, much more English, wearing a very well tailored gray or brown suit, with a derby on your head, a monocle in your eye, and the name Lord Autumnbottom etched onto your calling card…

Still, a guy can dream… Pip, pip! Cheerio!

“One of us, one of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble!”

March 10, 2009
Posted by Noah

You either know exactly what I’m talking about above, or what you already suspected has truly come to pass; that I’ve lost my mind. For anyone with money on the latter, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s a clear reference to the 1932 cult classic horror movie Freaks. See it once and you’ll never forget it, and you’ll definitely find yourself chanting the title quote of this post at some point in your life. I’m not saying I like it; it’s simply a fact…

It also happens that the original 1932 movie poster for Freaks is one of the most sought after, and rarest posters in all of the hobby. It also just so happens that Heritage has one – maybe the only surviving one, who knows… – in the March 20 Vintage Movie Poster Auction. It is a rare gem of the highest order, and truly one of the greatest horror movie posters ever to surface. This particular one is an insert poster, about 14-inches across and three feet high, so not massive, but a true beauty from a movie that is almost 80 years old and still as difficult to watch today as it was back then.

“It’s one of a kind, that’s for sure,” said Grey Smith, our Movie Poster Director. “What’s there really to say? It’s just an exceedingly rare poster. MGM realized they made a mistake, pulled it, and let it sit in their vaults for 15 years, or more, before giving it to an independent distributor.”

One of the account executives that I work with here in Marketing, Eric, overheard me talking about the movie with our Marketing VP, Debbie.

“I’ve seen that movie,” he said. “That’s, uh…. That’s a disturbing movie.”

Eric keeps it pretty low-key, so I can only assume he was shaking and cowering on the inside at the memory.

Freaks was so gruesome, and so over the top, and people were so tweaked by it that MGM first tried to cut the movie from 90 minutes to 60 to minimize the outrage, and ultimately shelved it. In the hands of independent distributors, it became a true cult classic in the 1960s and 1970s, and then in the 1980s and 1990s kids like me and my brothers, and countless thousands of others like us, were able to rent it from the local video store. I pored over the movie with friends obsessively during many a late night in college – a few beers or a bottle were sometimes involved – and we invariably drew the ire of neighbors when one or two people would get the bug to take up the chant of “Gooble gobble, gooble, gobble!”

The movie, directed by Dracula director Tod Browning – it effectively ended his career – is dramatically no great shakes. In a nutshell: Blonde bombshell trapeze artist falls for strongman. They plot to seduce the sideshow midget, who stands to gain a large inheritance. Complications ensue. Couple is found out. Freaks attack couple, mangling them. The moral? It’s not the physical freaks who are the real freaks. It’s the “normal” couple with their dastardly intent. The original version of the movie had the freaks castrating the strong man and completely disfiguring the trapeze artist, to the point where she had to live in the side show as The Squawking Chicken Lady. So un-PC.

The freaks in Freaks are all real, every last one of them. And yes, it is still hard to watch. It is only necessary, however, to watch but once to have it indelibly seared in your brain in perpetuity.

Coin Monday: A cataloger’s cliffhanger concluded or The charm of an 1876-CC 20 cent piece

March 9, 2009
Posted by John

Previously: I marveled at the 1870-CC double eagle that a fellow cataloger, George, had shown me. After I enjoyed looking at that coin, he indicated that he had another. What could top an 1870-CC double eagle?

He laid it onto my desk. I looked closely.

“Yeah,” I managed after a few seconds. “That’s a better date.”

It was another 20 – not dollars, but cents: an 1876-CC twenty cent piece, graded MS64, easily the rarest issue for its short-lived denomination and one of the most famous Carson City coins of all time. It is the centerpiece for our upcoming Baltimore, MD U.S. Coin Auction at the end of this month.

Officially, 10,000 examples were struck, certainly a figure that commands respect, but there are lower mintages to be found elsewhere, and it is now known that there are a handful of coins struck at Carson City that are distinctly more rare than the 1876-CC 20 cent piece is today. Yet it is not merely a rarity; it is a venerable rarity, having been recognized as such since 1893, when collector Augustus Heaton, now known as “the father of mintmark collecting,” for his pamphlet Mint Marks, A Treatise, wrote in said pamphlet that the issue was “excessively rare.” More than a century’s worth of collectors have pursued just a handful of survivors. Identifying how many there are is a speculative exercise at best, though estimates of 15 to 18 pieces have gained wide, if not universal acceptance.

Then again, in theory, there shouldn’t be any 1876-CC 20 cent coins to speak of. Carson City Mint Superintendent James Crawford received an order from Mint Director Henry Linderman in Philadelphia, ordering the melting of all 1876-CC 20 cent pieces that were on-hand, which amounted to nearly the entire mintage. A handful of examples slipped through the cracks, however, accounting for the few specimens available. (It’s worth noting that a majority of known examples are Mint State, indicating that they never entered circulation.)

It is likely that a few of today’s survivors were to serve as assay pieces, coins sent from Carson City to Philadelphia to check for weight and fineness of the silver used, but not actually tested (and thus destroyed). It is also probable that Carson City Mint personnel saved a few coins as keepsakes. While numismatists are unlikely ever to learn exactly where, when, and how the few survivors were saved from the melting pot, speculation makes up much of the fun in collecting!

When I picked up the coin, my eyes first went to the word LIBERTY, on a ribbon draped across the shield on the obverse. On the coin, the letters are doubled, the result of a mistake in the die-making process. The doubling is dramatic enough to see without magnification, though I soon added a loupe to check the area more closely.

George gave me almost a minute with the 1876-CC twenty cent piece.

“All right, John,” he said. “I need it back.”

I handed the coin back to George with more than a hint of jealousy. “Enjoy cataloging it.”

“Oh, I will.”

George gathered up the two coins and headed to the next office. I returned to cataloging the Seated half dollar, pausing only once while typing to delete a reference to Carson City. Perhaps I still had Nevada on my mind…

How to really make money in stocks…

March 3, 2009
Posted by Noah

Like so many Americans, I listen to the financial reports on the radio on the way to work every morning and I cringe. I am punch drunk with the relentless stream of mortgage debt swap kidney punches and numb from the unremitting jack-booted kicks of bailouts with 10 zeroes attached. Like so many Americans I put some of what I’ve made over the years into this account or that account and I have watched them dwindle by half in the last two years, through no fault of my own. It’s rough out there, and nowhere is it rougher for the man or woman engaged in the everyday slog than on Wall Street. Perhaps it is just a realm that I – plebe that I am – and those like me, should not have dallied with in the first place.

This morning, though, my gloom and doom are washed away. As I drove to work this morning, the radio blissfully off, I realized that there was indeed a way for someone like me to make a wise investment regarding stocks, and that it happened to be afforded me via the very place that I work, and where you read this, Heritage. I got to my desk this morning, quickly brought up the HA Auction Archives and typed in “stock certificate.”

Lo and behold, it came up with a sizable and impressive list of stocks that our currency department has auctioned off over the years that are indeed still worth quite a bit of money. There’s quite a bit of other stuff there, valuable coins and gold certificates, and some Beach Boys memorabilia as well, so you’ll just have to pick through it for the stocks that most interest you.

Okay, so I know it’s not technically playing the market, but it is playing the market, if you know what I mean. The top stock on the list – a 50 share Disney stock certificate, signed by Walt himself in 1964 – tops out at more than $16,000 and the bottom – a certificate of stock from the Dinwiddie Steel Company – comes in at $3.45, still worth a lot more than some shares of major banks operating on taxpayer money today. A good deal, if you ask me. There are even a couple pieces of stock in some upcoming auctions that I’m weighing carefully placing a bid on. Am I joking? Only half… The truth is, these stocks will hold their value, even if it’s just a few bucks. To me, in this day and age, that’s truly priceless.

Coin Monday: A cataloger’s cliffhanger

March 2, 2009
Posted by John

“I have a couple of coins to show you.”

I turned around in my chair. George was hovering behind me, a Cheshire-cat grin on his face. I set aside the Seated half dollar I was cataloging. If George had a pass-around coin, it was bound to be spectacular.

“All right, show me.”

“Is this a better date?”

He passed me the coin. “Hello!”

It was an 1870-CC twenty dollar gold piece, or double eagle, graded XF45, from the Baltimore Signature Coin Auction at the end of this month. After the initial rush of excitement, my cataloger’s sense took over. I remembered the last 1870-CC double eagle Heritage had offered, the VF30 Baltimore Collection example in our October 2008 Dallas auction, but to find the one before it, I had to go back more than two years, to the Wyoming Collection specimen we offered in Denver in August 2006. An example landing on my desk was far from an everyday occurrence!

My thoughts turned to its rarity and history. All of the 1870-CC coins, from quarters to double eagles, are famous as being the first of their kind, and coins from Carson City have a powerful ability to evoke thoughts of the Old West. The coin in my hand brought to mind struggles and triumphs, both the slog involved in setting up a mint with the limited resources available in Nevada, which had achieved statehood just six years earlier, and the sense of achievement that must have come when the first coins, silver dollars, were struck.

Those first double eagles were not made to be held in bank vaults or otherwise sit idle; they were made for commerce, and they served that purpose, perhaps too well. The vast majority of them have been lost to time, and none of the 1870-CC double eagles known today – estimated at 40 to 50 survivors out of a production run of 3,789 coins – came through the ages without becoming worn and marked. The coin I held had its share of abrasions, but it was not so worn as most, and the fields still had much of their original shine. I grabbed my loupe and studied the coin more closely.

George gave me half a minute of uninterrupted viewing. “You like that?”

“I sure do,” I said over my shoulder, not wanting to look away.

“Well, how about this one?”

There was a click of plastic on wood as George laid another coin in a holder on my desk.

I lifted my head with a chuckle. What could top the 1870-CC double eagle I already had in-hand? Then I saw it.

“Yeah,” I managed after a few seconds. “That’s a better date.”

To be continued!

A close encounter with great children’s art

Feb. 26, 2009
Posted by Noah

Yesterday, at the invitation of David Lisot, our Director of Video, I took a lunchtime stroll up to the executive conference room where he was filming some video lot descriptions for various categories. I walked in right in the middle of filming a few choice specimens from an important California Collection of mostly children’s art from the upcoming Illustration Auction, March 12-13.

On the table were two original drawings from the Madeline series, by Austrian-born Ludwig Bemelmans. Without thinking, I immediately quoted:

“In a little house in Paris, that’s covered in vines, lived 12 little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread, brushed their teeth and went to bed. They left the house at half past nine. The smallest one was Madeline.”

Lisot looked at me like I had uttered some arcane phrase from a long dead language. Todd Hignite, Consignment Director for Illustrations and Comics Art, laughed. He knew exactly what I meant. He has a two-year-old daughter. I have a three-year-old. If you have a well-read toddler girl at home, or had one, then you’ve read the great Madeline series.

I subsequently spent the rest of the day thinking about the vast amount of children’s literature and books that populate our bookshelves (and floors and cabinets and closets and cars) at home, and about those that stand out – those that I break out sparingly at my daughter’s bedtime because I personally love them so much. I have to number Madeline as chief among my current delights, and hers. And there I was yesterday, staring at two perfectly prime examples of Bemelmans’ airy, surreal drawings of Madeline and Pepito – that bad hat!

Three years ago I knew quite little of children’s literature and art, now I get weak in the knees at seeing prime examples of my favorites. Trust me, if I were in a position to bid on these paintings – and any number of others, including original Sendak and Seuss art, very rare! – from this specific collection, I would in a heartbeat; I have my daughter to thank for this appreciation. The process of observing the change in my own perspective, as I’ve come to intimately know much of this great art via hundreds of readings, has been refreshing and, dare I say it, delightful. Let it just be one more thing that I am grateful to her for.

The true greats of Children’s literature – see Sendak (In The Night Kitchen is one of my favorite books ever, of any genre. Period.) and Seuss above – don’t go cheap because they are so rare. Greatness on the level of Bemelmans, and many of the others, is relatively affordable to an average collector. Anywhere from $500 to a few thousand dollars can get you something pretty extraordinary. You just have to know what you like.

“The drawings from the first part of the 20th century, value-wise, are not up there with the big magazine guys of the times,” Todd said. “Some, of course, are very well respected and in museums. The peak period of children’s art, like Dr. Seuss, are extremely rare and expensive because they don’t really exist in private hands. In fact, Seuss and Sendak, two of the biggest, both gave their papers and archives to universities and values are quite high for the rare originals that come up.”

Space is short, as is time, so I’ll spare you the list of my favorite kids books, though I’d be happy to hear yours – just for fun – at NoahF@HA.com.

That’s all there is, there is no more.

"If Colossus Should Fall – Who Shall Stop The Juggernaut?"

Feb. 25, 2009
Posted by Noah

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself that very same question…

The fact is that Dave Cockrum’s original cover artwork for X-Men #102 – a seminal 1976 issue smack dab in the middle of the awesome 1970s Chris Claremont-written run of the X-Men that culminated in the single most popular X-Men storyline ever, The Phoenix Saga – is among several examples of classic original X-Men artwork featured in this weekend’s – Yes, this weekend! – Signature Comics & Original Comic Art Auction.

It’s a classic tableau of Bronze Age comics: Juggernaut and Colossus slug it out, toe to toe. Storm shields herself against a wall, paralyzed by claustrophobia, while Nightcrawler springs from a chandelier into action. The issue featured Storm’s origin story, as well as a side battle with Banshee and Black Tom, as well as some classic X-Mansion soap opera with Jean Grey, Cyclops and Professor X. But it’s the fight between Juggy and Colossus, in the very close confines of an Irish castle – Nightcrawler does cheesily end up in the clutches of some leprechauns at the end, if I recollect correctly – that steals this show. As a kid, I always loved when Juggy showed up, though I wished somebody would have just made a massive bottle opener and popped that creepy helmet off his noggin. Just knowing that the original art for this famous cover is in house as we speak is enough to make me want to go on a secret mission to bask in its glory.

In his run of X-Men #101-107, Cockrum established himself as the king of the Space Opera. In this septuplet of issues, Cockrum introduced probably the biggest, most ambitious scope for the X-Men universe yet with the creation of the Shi’Ar Empire, the JLA-parody Imperial Guard, the Starjammers and the M’Krann Crystal. And that’s just the start of the cast of thousands that populated this exciting slice of X-Men pie. It should be noted that Cockrum left X-Men after #107. John Byrne came on board for #108 and quickly brought the focus of X-Men universe back to earth.

I asked our Director of Comics, Barry Sandoval, about this art work a few weeks ago and he was equally animated – as animated as Barry will get, consummate professional that he is – about its presence.

“This is one of the great X-Men covers of all time,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of great X-Men art and comics in past auctions, but this auction is particularly heavy on great X-Men stuff. You have to count this chief among the grouping.”

I was a little more like: “What?!... Did you see-…. No way! I want it! I want it!”

I’ve looked through this auction catalog a few times now, and am quite impressed by the offerings overall, but for fans of X-men comics this one is special. There’s a ton of great Jack Kirby Art, some original Peanuts artwork, a ton of great pulps and original mint Disney comics, but give me this cover any day! This thing has already met its estimate at $20,000, so I’m probably priced out of the running. It will however, be exciting to see how this lot ultimately comes out. It comes up in the Friday, 5 p.m. session.

The secret membership of the 1872 Skull and Bones revealed!

Feb. 24, 2009
Posted by Noah

I love a good conspiracy theory as much, if not just a little more, than anybody. I don’t go to bed at night thinking about any of them, though, if you know what I mean. There plenty of other things to worry about these days, so I can’t really devote too much time to whether a secret shadow government is controlling the world from the earth’s core – or better yet, outer space – or whether Rock and/or Roll is really the root of all evil and a creation of the evil counterpart to our secret shadow government, . I’ll just let their endless struggle for the soul of the world, fought by giant lizard men well-equipped with blasters, play out in the secret cities beneath the earth’s crust and on Mars.

So… Conspiracies! Speaking of good ones, I always like a good Skull and Bones story, and a good one has fallen in my lap courtesy of Heritage Historical Manuscripts cataloger David Boozer. If you don’t know about Skull & Bones, it’s a secret society at Yale from which many prominent politicians, diplomats, judges and lawyers – all the people who control all the conspiracies – have emerged seemingly en masse. It just so happens that we have an 1872 Skull and Bones Gold Stick Pin and Album with 23 Cartes de Visite up for bid in the March 6 Manuscript Auction. It’s a very cool lot, and it's tied to the ultra-secretive society that allegedly houses many significant artifacts in its off-campus HQ, known as “The Tomb.”

The shady membership of the 1872 Skull & Bones has finally been revealed and society has been shaken to its core! Or not really.

“This lot is exciting because, finally, the 1872 members of the secretive and mysterious Skull & Bones are exposed for who they really were!” David wrote (the exclamation point it mine. – NF). “Teachers, lawyers, bankers, doctors, and several ministers. So they weren't the most exciting group – no U.S. senators, presidents, or Geronimo-bone thieves – but still, through these beautiful cartes de visite, we can see a bit into the world of secrecy and privilege in the late 19th century.”

He’s right. It’s one of those cool lots that are so in abundance here but for which there is usually little time to promote or give exposure to. This is my little addition, then, and a part of my job that I sincerely love and am glad to do.

The reference to Geronimo-bone thieves is a reference to a New York Times article last week about a lawsuit filed by Geronimo’s grandson alleging that The Skull & Bones is in possession of his grandfather’s skull and some other artifacts. The grandson wants them back, and if the society is in possession, then I don’t blame him. The story is pretty juicy, as it refers to a story that Prescott Bush – father of George H.W. and George W. – with friends, in 1917, broke into Geronimo’s tomb and stole the bones. There’s actually some evidence that the bones may well be in the society’s possession. The jury is out on Prescott’s involvement, but, you know… Boys will be boys, yes?

Inside the mind of a Heritage coin cataloger

Feb. 23, 2009
Posted by John

(I never imagined a title to a post like this one would actually sound interesting to me, but as I’ve been starting the long path of coin erudition, I have found myself entranced by several interesting coins, reading coin catalogs, and meeting the people whose job it is to do the day in and day out work of creating Heritage’s award-winning coin catalogs. One of these is John Beety, a young numismatist of note, a former junior state chess champion, and a gamer of many stripes. As you’ll see here, he’s also a talented writer. It will be my pleasure to turn this blog page over to John from time to time as he explains what makes a coin cataloger tick. – Noah Fleisher)

The Noah Fleisher monopoly on the Heritage blog has ended!

John Dale Beety here, U.S. coin cataloger. One of the best on-the-job benefits of being a cataloger is looking at thousands of coins a year from hundreds of consignors. Some of the finest collections pass through the cataloging department, and after years of looking at the best of the best in American coinage, one can become a trifle spoiled. A couple of weeks back, I was cataloging an 1893-S Morgan dollar in VF25, a mid-range coin that thousands of collectors – myself included – would be proud to own. I finished the description on that coin and put it aside, picked up the next one and saw another 1893-S dollar, this one in VF30.

I thought to myself, “Oh, there’s another one,” immediately followed by, “Did I just think that?”

As rare as the 1893-S dollar is, with hundreds of collectors consigning to Heritage with every auction, inevitably a number of 1893-S dollars will pass through the cataloging department. I’ve personally cataloged dozens of them over the course of two-and-a-half years. Prized as they are, as a rule, cataloging an 1893-S dollar is no longer an event.

There are exceptions, though; in the January 2009 FUN Auction, Heritage offered two Mint State examples, an MS64 and an MS65, and when each of those 1893-S Morgan dollars came up for description, the cataloger made a point of showing it to the rest of us so we could all appreciate it.

My fellow catalogers and I call such items “pass-arounds,” coins so special that we can’t help but share them with one another. Sometimes they are exotic rarities; when Heritage offered a Class I 1804 dollar in the April 2008 Central States Auction, all of us shared in the thrill. Others are unusually attractive coins; cataloging a piece of Seated Liberty silver with rich, original “target” toning is one of my greatest joys, and I’ve been known to show off particularly beautiful examples.

Still other pieces are not fabulous rarities but intriguing curiosities, such as the heavily worn Panama-Pacific quarter eagle commemorative from Central States in 2007 that makes one wonder whose pocket-piece it was.

In future posts, I aim to highlight some of our “pass-around” coins and what makes them so special, the better to share them with a wider audience. On occasion, I’ll also take a look beyond coins, to highlight items of interest in other departments; I’m a firm believer that no collector has only one hobby!

Forget just being a Pepper, I want to own it!

Feb. 20, 2009
Posted by Noah

You would think, given all the corporate secrecy around the secret formulas for different soda pops, fried chicken batter and sandwich sauces in America that we were dealing with issues of national security when it came to wanting to know the ratio of mustard to mayonnaise on our hamburgers, or of black pepper to paprika in our extra crispy, but no. It is just food. Still, Heritage has itself a good ol’ fashioned piece of American cola history that is as complex as and KFC original recipe mix or Coca-Cola syrup formula: Our May Americana Auction will feature a lot that should be of extra special interest to Texans, and to any one that ever swigged an ice cold soda on a very hot day – the mid-1880s original notebook containing the original handwritten formula for what was to become Dr. Pepper, the first – and arguably the greatest – of America’s big three soda pops.

Granted that Dr. Pepper isn’t what it used to be in terms of soft drink influence. You would be hard pressed to make the case that it is in America’s Top 10 beverages, let alone the top three. To Texans of a certain age, however, Dr. Pepper is what it’s all about. That original formula, deep within the Heritage vault – the source of so much speculation in the 130 years since its creation, and so much corporate deflection – is getting set to be auctioned off. Can a revival of homemade Dr. Pepper be that far off?

Uh… Probably very far off… That, though, is no hindrance. It’s the meaning of the thing; it’s the role that Dr. Pepper has played in the development of Texas’s National identity, and how it spurred on the greater success of Coke and Pepsi, and helped define the very role of America to the world.

Heritage’s Director of Americana, Tom Slater, has been involved intimately with getting the crumbling notebook with the original formula in it – Page 19, to be exact – and he has also been intricately involved with the various aspects of the potential legal wrangling around it. While he couldn’t show me the notebook just now when we met in his office, he could assure me that the formula, as it’s represented in its original state in the notebook, is probably not even close to the current formula, especially in its use of denatured rum.

This is a lot that deserves pages and pages dedicated to it, so interesting is the history, and so much secrecy is there around it, but I don’t have the space here to do anything but offer a tease. There is much in Dr. Pepper that led to America’s corporate culture, but there is also much of the history of Texas in it, as well as proof that Waco – now little more than the midway point between Dallas and Austin, the home of Baylor University and former home of the Branch Davidians – was once the most important city in the state, if not the nation. It’s all there in that sweet, odd taste.

For my part, I can remember numerous field trips to the Dallas Dr. Pepper plant at Greenville Avenue and Mockingbird Lane throughout my childhood. I drive past that intersection everyday on the way to work. Much like the original formula for the drink, though, so much has changed about the site of the plant that all that remains is a clock and sign. It’s now a super market, some apartments and a rail station, just as Dr. Pepper is but a horse in the Snapple stable. That does not, however, diminish the potential power of this piece of superb Texana/Americana at auction. In a corporate culture that closely protects even its oldest secrets, the fact that this original recipe is going to be out of the bag is pretty spectacular. It may not save the world, but it’ll have a whole host of folks whistling the tune, doing the dance with Vim, Vigor and Vitality and saying they, too, indeed wished they could be a Pepper… Stay tuned for more on this as the auction approaches.

Rayograph spotting at Heritage

Feb. 19, 2009
Posted by Noah

When I was in high school here in Dallas – at the Arts Magnet just up the street from our World Headquarters here on Maple Avenue –I developed a full blown obsession with Man Ray. My friends and I were turned on to the Dadaists by a teacher, and we loved what we saw. There was something in Man Ray’s tweaking of tradition, however, that set me afire. In subsequent years, as I studied and lived in New York and Paris, I sought out all the Man Ray I could. From his old neighborhood in Williamsburg to the cafes and bars that he haunted with the likes of Duchamp and Dali in Montparnasse. I just wanted to be able to say I had walked in those footsteps – the first of many pilgrimages I have undertaken in my adult life.

Through the years, however, life has taken over and the time to read endless biographies and dig through databases and microfiche machines at libraries for obscure magazine articles is something of a vague, pleasant pre-parenthood memory. There is, though, a lot in the April Vintage Photography auction that has allowed me to briefly re-kindle my 20 year old obsession with Man Ray, and for that – today – I am thankful. It’s a 1963 silver gelatin print of Untitled, a 1926 Rayograph – Man Ray’s special name for his unique process art photographs. It’s a beauty for sure.

The artist was a great painter and photographer, but it was in his Rayographs that he truly blurred the line and forged something new, something that was neither Dada nor Surrealism, but simply great art. He was, literally, painting with photography, and redefining the rules of perception as he went.

“It’s obviously a later print” said Lorraine Anne Davis, Heritage’s Director of Vintage Photography – and a much revered appraiser of photography, “but it’s a single print from the only set of Rayographs that Man Ray signed, and it was done at the request of Helmut Newton, from whose estate it came.”

Excuse me, but that is amazingly cool. Helmut Newton, one of the best and greatest American portrait and nude photographers – he was in the vanguard of the generation that came after Man Ray – asks the greatest avant-garde photog of the previous generation to do something he never does, that is sign a portfolio, and Man Ray obliges. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.

It should be noted that there are a trio of excellent Helmut Newton photos in the upcoming photography auction, including two Polaroids, and they’re everything you either love or hate about Newton. He had a real thing for very tall women in moments of stylized extremis. Check them out here.

A Rat Pack Rarity: Sammy Davis Jr.’s 10 Commandments Money Clip

Feb. 17, 2009
Posted by Noah

We’re coming up on this weekend’s Music & Entertainment Auction, Feb. 21-22, which I’ve pointed to in other posts about Chet Atkins’ guitars and the amazing Eddie Kovacs and Edie Adams Archive in the auction. I like to spend a bit of time going through each catalog when it comes online, and this was no different. It’s no stretch the say that the M&E auction is deep, and features many a tasty treat for most any level of collector, but as I did last week with “The Reign of Superman” in the Comics auction, I wanted to point out a particularly special and intriguing lot in this weekend’s M&E festivities: Sammy Davis Jr.’s Ten Commandments money clip, lot 49053.

From the catalog description:

“An ornate 14k gold money clip featuring a Star of David over a menorah, with a total of eight settings of small diamonds, mounted over a pair of scrolls representing the Torah. The scrolls open on hinges to reveal the Ten Commandments underneath. The back side of the clip is engraved: "To -- Sammy Davis Jr. Good Luck Always/Jack Entratter/1957."

As you can see for yourself in the picture above, it’s a gorgeous piece of jewelry and a superb piece of Judaica, but wait! That’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as this thing goes. If I had somewhere between $6,000 and $12,000 I would go to town on this thing. It’s got the aforementioned gold and Jewish angle – Sammy converted to Judaism in 1954, after the car crash that left him with one eye – but more important is its connection to Davis himself, the Rat Pack in Vegas in the 1950s and 1960s and the various characters who populated the city in those crucial few decades. Most notably the man who gave the clip to Davis, Jack Entratter.

Entratter was a notorious Vegas booster and philanthropist, with decided mob ties, who ran The Sands Resort. He was and is a towering figure in the history of the town. It is also the stuff of Hollywood legend that he was able to “persuade” Columbia Studios honcho Harry Cohn to cast Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity, for which ol’ Frankie won an Oscar. Think Don Corleone, Johnny Fontaine and Producer Jack Woltz from The Godfather and you know just what I’m talking about. You factor in the Entratter connection, the Rat Pack Connection and the Mid-Century Vegas connections and you’re about one degree away from every single entertainer of the Golden Age of both Hollywood and Vegas.

It does also need to be said that the Sammy Davis, Jr. memorabilia in this auction is pretty amazing stuff, including one of his beloved cameras – the man was an accomplished photographer – though not much of it touches on the role he was most proud of: Civil Rights Crusader. Davis was almost singularly responsible for helping America integrate its club and theater policies regarding integration in the racially charged 1960s. Who would think twice of seeing Davis, were he still alive, playing an all white room these days? This money clip, for my bet, is the sleeper of the auction.

Can you really put a price on Lincoln?

Feb. 16, 2009
Posted by Noah

Given that today is President’s Day, the day that originally celebrated the birth of the one and only George Washington, and then grew somewhere in the mid-1980s to encompass that of America’s favorite president, Abraham Lincoln – and all our other presidents, too… – I thought I’d take a look at the historical material legacy of Lincoln, given that he has featured prominently in many Heritage Historical Auctions, and is probably still the most sought-after of all U.S. Presidents when it come to presidential memorabilia.

Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, and the day is still celebrated on its own in many states. Given that I’m some five days late for that specific day, and today is the aforementioned holiday, I’m going to assume that you’ve already forgiven my tardiness. There was a recent survey of influential contemporary Presidential historians about how our presidents rank historically, and the results were published here in today’s online USA Today. Number one and two are, respectively, numbers 16 and 1. No surprise there.

The truth is that, while you can’t even begin to put a price on Lincoln’s impact on American identity and philosophy, you can put a price on memorabilia directly linked to The Great Emancipator. There’s an archive of hundreds of Lincoln and Lincoln-related memorabilia right here. The top lot is not actually a Lincoln lot – it’s a Custer battle flag – but I can’t get the search to omit it. Oh well. The top true Lincoln lot from Heritage was a pair of Lincoln spectacles that sat on that lofty and terribly weighted brow during The Civil War. They are an amazing relic, literally drenched in the sweat of history – did I really just write that? – and having born witness to some of the darkest most mythic days of American history. They brought nearly $180,000 last November in Gettysburg. Amazing stuff.

“We’ve offered some tremendously important pieces, and we have developed as specialists in Lincoln material,” said our resident expert generalist and Historical Consignment Director Marsha Dixey. “We were fortunate a few years ago to have been selected to offer the Henry E. Luhrs Lincoln Library Collection. More recently we offered the historical Collection of Lincolniana of Dr. John Lattimer. Within the Luhrs collection were 121 legal briefs and a number of letters, some in Lincoln's hand and some signed by Lincoln himself. The Dr. John Lattimer Collection consisted of documents as well, but the highlights of this collection were the artifacts and pieces that actually belonged to Lincoln. Outside of these two collections, we offered a phenomenal Lincoln campaign flag in 2007. The flag brought one of the highest auction prices recorded for such a piece.”

You can see the demand is there, and with good reason. It’s an endlessly fascinating field. A happy 200th to ol’ Honest Abe.

As an aside, when I interviewed for my current position at Heritage last summer, during my rounds of the departments I came into the Historical Auctions secret undisclosed location. The department was preparing for the Gettysburg Auction and, in discussing the upcoming auction with Dixey, she casually handed me one of the upcoming lots. It was the blood-stained collar from Lincoln’s shirt, cut from the fallen President on Ruination Day, April 14, 1865. I stood there, stunned, delicately cradling history, unable to speak. Welcome to Heritage, I thought.

140 years later Red Stockings still rule!

Feb. 13, 2009
Posted by Noah

Friday the 13th… Ooooh. Scary stuff. If you see an Axe wielding, mask-wearing murderer and hear creepy music today here’s a word of advice: Don’t go into the house! I repeat: Don’t go into the house! It’s also my daughter’s third birthday today, so if you see her coming toward you then simply shield your eyes from the unbearable cuteness…

By now most of us – at least in this business – are familiar with the story of Bernice Gallego, a Fresno area antiques dealer who stumbled across an 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings baseball card in a shoe box in her shop – she’s actually mostly an eBay dealer these days, as most former brick-and-mortar dealers are. Anyway, she sold the card, via eBay, just yesterday – Feb. 12 – and it brought just more than $64,000. Not a bad payday for most of us. For Mrs. Gallegos, however, it’s a relative blip, considering she once hit a $250,000 jackpot on the slots in Vegas. Some gals have all the luck.

Anyway, she has maintained a great sense of humor throughout this whole thing, as evidenced by this story in today’s Fresno Bee. For our purposes, however, I once more turned to our Director of Sports, Chris Ivy, for his expert analysis. As always, I appreciate Chris being so sanguine about me bothering him.

I have to mention that we sold one of these things last May – 2008, that is – for $22,705, and from what I can tell it was in better shape than the one in Fresno. Read about it here.

HA Blog: Is the $64,000+ price ultimately paid for the card – minus Buyer’s Premium – fair?

CHRIS: Based on the condition of the card and what similar examples have sold for, the card sold for well above market. This proves how widespread exposure for auctions can lead to huge prices. In this particular case, the auction house for this item did not develop this exposure, but were the beneficiaries, along with the owner. Heritage works to develop exposure for our auctions every day through Heritage Magazine, blogs, press releases, online and trade advertisements, etc. (If you’re looking to consign some valuable collectibles, hint hint! - Noah)

HA Blog: Would it have sold for more if the economy were better – or if it was sold through a different auction company? Say one with 425,000+ registered bidder-members, and whose initials were – arbitrarily, HA?

CHRIS: It’s hard to say, I believe that the card was maximized due to the publicity that it received through the AP stories and the owner’s appearance on The Tonight show with Jay Leno. The winning bidder is part of a company that likely purchased the card at an above market price simply for the free exposure they got with the follow up stories in the mainstream press, similar to the gambling Web sites that have previously purchased grilled cheese sandwiches on eBay with the likeness of religious figures on them for tens of thousands of dollars. (Hey! That Velveeta Moses was totally worth it! – Noah)

HA Blog: Where do the 1869 Red Stockings lay in the pantheon of great baseball teams?

CHRIS: Honestly, the significance of the 1869 Red Stockings lay entirely in their pioneering status. While they were dominating for their era, there really aren’t any historians who would mention them in the same breath as the 1920s Yankees or the early 20th century Cubs, for example. There just wasn’t enough organized competition at that time to make an apples-to-apples comparison. But George and Harry Wright, both Hall of Famers in the “Pioneers” section of Cooperstown, who founded this first professional baseball team, were as essential to the development of the game as the other Wright Brothers were to aviation. So if “greatness” was calculated on the basis of historical importance as opposed to quality of play, then the 1869 Red Stockings would rank at the top.

Very nicely put. Thanks Chris!

Re-thinking Superman

Feb. 11, 2009
Posted by Noah

There are so many fantastic things to drool over in the upcoming comics auction – Feb. 26-27 btw – that I would be hard-pressed to choose just one or two lots were a suitcase of cash to fall out of the sky and land at my feet. I still look up every day when I leave the house, but so far nothing… Where was I? Oh, yes… Comics auction, many great lots... There is one lot in the sale, however, that I keep coming back to. It’s one of those things that has wedged its way into my brain in a way that happens only with certain rare and complex lots. I’m talking about Lot 91577, the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster Science Fiction Fanzine "Reign of the Superman" Group from 1932. That’s right, a full five years before Supes appeared in Action Comics #1.

In this very early rendition of what was to become The Man of Steel, Superman is actually a villain, actually looks a lot more like Lex Luthor than Clark Kent and “The Superman” is used more in the sense of Friederich Nietzsche, which I am basing solely on my knowledge of Western Philosophy and my gut feeling whenever I see a maniacal bald man with an evil grit-toothed smile and creepy Montgomery Burns hands menacing me in a futuristic cityscape.

Let me be very clear: I would take The Flash, Mad Magazine or Groo the Wanderer any day over Superman. In my comics reading days – I was never so much a collector as a reader – I made a point of skipping Superman and heading to the latest JLA or Fourth World. There was never much mystery to Superman, as far as I was concerned at least. And he wasn’t particularly given to angst, which I loved dearly about Spidey or Ben Grimm, The Thing. After looking at this particular lot, and after being amazed to witness the sheer fact of its continued existence across the decades – read about it and you’ll do the same – I have definitely have to re-think the man from Krypton. How would the history of American pop culture have been different if Supes had stayed malignant?

There have always been many ways to read Superman. Siegel and Shuster were both Jews, and the comic book came about at a time when the world was heading for war, America needed a hero and the Nazis were starting their march toward world domination. Superman perfectly captured the American zeitgeist of the post-depression era. This original, villainous Superman can be seen also as an early reaction to the influence of Nietzschian thinking on Western civilization in the first half of the 20th century and its slide into totalitarianism. Either that, or it was a couple of kids jazzed by the sci-fi serials they were seeing at the movies and reading in fanzines, and they wanted to make one of their own. You choose.