COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Showcase 1 Universal
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Grade:
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8.5
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Page Quality:
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OFF-WHITE TO WHITE
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Pedigree:
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Bethlehem
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Certification #:
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3999501009
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Owner:
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Mississippi Mudcats
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Showcase #1 from early 1956 started the run of a magazine that introduced the Silver Age Flash, Challengers of the Unknown, Adam Strange, Green Lantern, Rip Hunter, Sea Devils, Aquaman, Atom, Metal Men, Spectre and several other characters who went on to success with their own titles. As such, it represents an important moment in Silver Age comic history and may be undervalued by the collecting community. The issue itself features the first appearance of Fireman Farrell. Obviously, from a content standpoint, the book is not nearly as significant as what’s to come, but it did start it all.
This book is extremely rare in high grade, as our 8.5 is one of the two highest graded copies ever certified by CGC. It also emanates from the Bethlehem Collection, a massive collection of 18,000 comic books that was assembled by Stanley Pachon in Bethlehem, PA, and stretched from 1950 into the Silver Age. It contained many popular 50's runs and a score of Marvel and DC keys. After Pachon passed away, the collection was sold to Joe Rainone and Phil Weiss in 1990. The Bethlehems were one of the first pedigreed collections to contain Silver Age books, and many are easily identifiable by a store stamp found on the back covers. In our case, the back cover has both a Bethlehem store stamp and a date stamp of Jan 5 1956.
We acquired this book from Metropolis Comics in January 2025 shortly after acquiring single highest graded copies of Issues #2 and #3. The book had been listed on their Exchange for a number of months and we got a slightly better deal because of it. It admittedly was not a book that initially interested us, but when we made the decision to try to complete a high-grade Showcase run it was the best option around-who knows when the Newsboy 9.0 will resurface again, if ever? It gives us nice examples of nine of the first ten Showcase issues, now we just need a #5.
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