Set Description:
Synopsis: This is one of the better, if not best, sets in our entire collection. The set includes high-grade examples of all 48 books with 47 of our 48 books highest graded examples, including 17 books that are single highest graded. Moreover, eight of the first 11 issues are single highest graded, including the first two Showcases and our Atom #1. The sole book in this set that is second highest graded, as of this writing, is our #29 9.8 WP Rocky Mountain Pedigree copy that is bested by a freakish 9.9, which we have never seen. It is thus as of June 2023 within a hair of a perfect set.
Background: There have been no less than five Atoms in the DC universe.The original Golden Age Atom, Al Pratt, was created by writer Bill O'Connor and artist Ben Flinton and first appeared in All-American Publications' All-American Comics #19 (October 1940). That Atom was one of a group of miniature superheroes from the era, it seemed every imprint had their own version of the concept, Doll Man, Minimidget, and of course, later in the Silver Age, Marvel’s Ant-Man. The first Atom had no real superpowers besides his stature.
The second Atom, which is the one this set primarily features, was the Silver Age Atom, Ray Palmer, who was created by Gardner Fox with the art by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson. DC introduced him in Showcase #34 (Sept-Oct 1961), which remains the most iconic cover in the title. Ray Palmer, was a physicist and university professor. He was named for real-life science fiction writer Raymond A. Palmer, who was himself quite short. After stumbling onto a mass of white dwarf star matter that had fallen to Earth, he fashioned a lens which allowed him to shrink down to subatomic size. Ray Palmer was experimenting on his lens in hopes of helping increase the world’s food supply, but everything he shrank exploded after an hour. Following a cave in, Palmer used the lens on himself to help his fiancée, Jean Loring, escape the disaster, and sacrifice himself, but he did not explode, and after surviving decided to use his newfound powers to fight evil.
Originally, Palmer’s size and molecular density abilities derived from the white dwarf star material of his costume, controlled by mechanisms in his belt, and later by controls in the palms of his gloves. Much later, he gained the innate equivalent powers within his own body. After the events of Identity Crisis, Ray shrank himself to microscopic size and disappeared. Finding him became a major theme of the Countdown year-long series and crossover event.
As was the case with the GA Atom and the JSA, Palmer joined the JLA, although he was not a founding member since his introduction to the DC universe in Showcase #34 was over a year following the introduction of that super team in B&B #28. He first joined the JLA in Issue #14 of that title.
Atom has been the star of multiple solo series, and four of the five Atoms have appeared as members of various superhero teams, such as the Justice Society of America, the Justice League, the Suicide Squad, and the Justice Legion Alpha.
Atom in the Registry and the Marketplace: Like Aquaman, Atom is a relatively unloved title. Currently, the most valuable Atom issue in terms of registry points is an Atom #1 9.8, which garners only 17,600 points. By comparison, the most valuable SA Flash, Showcase #4 in 9.6, receives 600,000 registry points, while the most valuable SA Green Lantern, Showcase #22 in 9.4, receives 124,000 registry points. The registry points for Atoms overall are much closer to Aquaman, as the #1 issue of each receives 17,600 points in 9.8.
It’s frankly difficult to analyze the appropriateness of the registry points for books in this title because there is so little data, but again I would submit that at least the keys deserve a boost. There is a reported sale of the single highest graded Atom #1 in November 2009 for $25,000. That was not an auction, but a sale on Pedigree Comics from Doug Schmell, as I bought that book from the buyer who had owned it until this year (2023). The Showcase #34 is even more confusing because of the reported sale in GPA of a second highest graded 9.4 in April 2022 for $230,000. I don’t believe that sale is real, but there are no other reported sales after May 2007, when a 9.4 sold for $9,859. That book receives 8,850 registry points, which would seem pretty accurate for 2007, but how many times do you imagine the registry points for most Marvel titles have been adjusted since then? Once again, it seems that the rarer the books, the more likely they are to be undervalued by the Registry.
Our Collection: Unlike many other titles, we have not been collecting these books for decades. Rather, we just started this set in 2018 to complement our Flash and GL runs. We were fortunate at the time that the then #1 set was being broken up and sent to auction, which allowed us to ascend to the top of the registry in record time.
In addition to those 2018 acquisitions, a large number of our books come from the John Fantucchio Collection, which were auctioned off in 2019-2020. Prices for those books were relatively low and collectors few and far between, which aided us in putting together this set.
I am not sure what it says about us that we were buying these books, while everyone else was selling them. But despite our relatively late start, Atom became our fourth complete DC set, to go along with Flash, GL and JLA, in 2021.
Our crowning achievement with respect to this set occurred in 2023 when we were able to negotiate the acquisition of the Western Penn copies of the three Showcases Atom try-out issues (#34-36) in a private transaction. Each of those books tops the census with the first two issues single highest graded examples. We also finalized a deal for the Atom #1 9.8 from the same collection.
As noted above, Atom continues to be a somewhat underappreciated title and did not really benefit from the COVID rise in prices. But this collection certainly contains some interesting covers, especially before the Hawkman team-up. I am honestly not sure whether these books will ever become more valuable, as despite the fact that DC first created Atom many years before Marvel created Ant-Man (considering the GA version), and a year earlier in his SA form, Marvel has now released three Ant-Man movies and has thus made the idea of a hero who can alter his size their own.
That being said, one of the two Showcase #34 9.4s is currently listed for sale on multiple sites at the outrageous price of over $200,000. ($200k for 8,850 registry points, what’s the world coming to LOL?). I’ll discuss more on that book in my Showcase #34 write-up.
2023 Update: We lost four single highest graded 9.8s this year, as each was tied by another 9.8, bringing the number of single highest graded examples in this set down from 21 to 17. At least all of them were later issues, as the number of our single highest graded books (8) of the first 11 remained intact.
2024 Update: I am happy to report that, as of June 6, 2024, we still have 47 highest grade copies with 17 of those books single highest graded in this Census. This is a really cool set!
Current Stats:
48/48 Books
38 9.8s-37 Highest Graded
9 9.6s-All Highest Graded
1 9.4-Highest Graded
30 WP
15 OW/W
2 OW
17 Single Highest Graded
47 Highest Graded
1 Second Highest Graded
34 Pedigrees
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