Followers: 25
cheetah's Bio
I've been an avid comic collector since 1972, give or take a few extended absences. My incarnation as a collector was Silver, Bronze and Modern Age Marvels. I've always been a huge fan of the Avengers and most other Bronze Age Marvel titles. I spent four years fighting tooth and nail to complete my Avengers run from 1-503, Volume II and Volume III. 573 books in all with nothing lower than a 9.4 and over 470 books graded 9.8. I also had top registry sets of X-men and Amazing Spider-man. When I sold the Avengers, X-men and ASM sets, the total shipping weight was one ton!
Somewhere along the way, I discovered the Golden Age of Comics, entirely due to the airbriush covers of Alex Schomburg. Startling Comics 49 was my gateway drug into GA. When I looked at auction listings for Golden books, my extended runs of Marvels didn’t seem anywhere near as cool. So after upgrading to an Avengers 1 CGC 9.6, I sold the entire run in one lot to a mystery seller through Metro. I soon followed up with selling my ASM and X-men runs. I took the proceeds and started buying golden age books. Fiction House and Nedor were my first loves, then came some of the less popular Fawcett titles, a number of Sunday reprint titles, EC Gaines File Copies, and many miscellaneous titles. Cool stuff! You should look into it if you haven’t already. I really like the high grade GA books. There is something special about holding a 70-year old book that looks like it was just printed. Every day I go through my collection, I am thankful for people like Edgar Church, Tom Reilly, Billy Wright Wendell Crowley and William Gaines.
I'm a completist at heart and like to collect entire runs of a title. After doing the Avengers and X-men, long titles don’t scare me. So far I have completed the following slabbed runs in the highest grades I can find:
Aurora Comics Scenes (1974) - 9.2+
Avengers V1 1-503 (1963) - 9.4+ (sold)
Avengers V2 (1996) - 9.8 (sold)
Avengers V3 (1998) - 9.8
Avengers Forever (1999) - 9.8
Avengers Next (2007) - 9.8
Avengers Two: Wonder Man and Beast (2000) - 9.8
Avengers/JLA (2003) - 9.8+
Avengers/Thunderbolts (2004) - 9.8
Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes II (2007) - 9.8
Avengers: Infinity - 9.8
Avengers: Terminatrix Objective (1993) - 9.8
Defenders (1972) - 9.6+
Dark Avengers (2009) - 9.8
Doc Savage (1972) - 9.8
Doctor Strange (1974) - 9.6+
Domination Factor: Avengers (1999) - 9.8
Double Life of Private Strong (1959) - 9.2+
F-Troop (1966) - 9.2+
Firehair Comics (1948)
Ghost Breakers (1948)
Impact (1955) - Gaines File Copies
Jumbo Comics (1940) - tough run!
Johnny Hazard (1948) - 9.2+
Jughead's Fantasy (1960) - 9.2+
Last Avengers Story (1995) - 9.8
Marvel Contest of Champions (1982) - 9.8
Marvel Super-heroes Secret Wars (1984) - 9.8
Marvel Team-up (1972) - 9.6+
Mighty Avengers (2007) - 9.8+
Ms. Marvel (1977) - 9.6+
New Avengers (2005) - 9.8+
New Avengers V2 (2010-ongoing) - 9.8+
New Avengers AAFES (2005) - 9.8
New Avengers: Illuminati (2007) - 9.8
Nova (1976) - 9.8 (sold)
Piracy (1954) - All Gaines File Copies
Red Sonja (1977) - 9.8
Secret Invasion (2008) - 9.8+
Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-man (2008) - 9.8
Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers (2008) - 9.8
Secret Invasion: X-men (2008) - 9.8
Ultimate Avengers (2009) - 9.8
Ultimate Avengers 2 (2010) - 9.8
Ultimate Avengers 3 (2010) - 9.8
West Coast Avengers Limited Series (1983) - 9.8
Wolverine/Captain America (2004) - 9.8
X-men/Alpha Flight (1985) - 9.8
X-men vs. the Avengers (1987) - 9.8
Zip-Jet (1953)
I’ve completed titles in every decade from 1940 to 2010. I’ve found that being a GA completist is a lot more work than doing Marvels! My best GA run so far is Jumbo Comics from Fiction House that I completed in a little over four years. A lot of issues didn’t even have graded copies when I first started on the title. I hope to finish up Jungle Comics, Planet Comics, Captain Midnight and Tales from the Crypt in the next year.