Set Description:
Of all my registry sets, this is my absolute favorite.
Even though I’ve been collecting since the late ‘70s, I never knew the term “Picture Frame Marvel” until I came across a thread about the books on the CGC boards around 2009. I was familiar with the hero books in the run and already owned most of them. I also was a fan of the square bound or double-sized 25¢ books in and owned some of them too.
At the time, my collection consisted of hero Marvel titles and a few horror titles like Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf By Night.
At first, I decided to try to get all the $25¢ books in 9.4 or better. But that was just a gateway drug. Like any true addict, that wasn’t enough for me.
Before I knew it, I was chasing titles like Millie the Model, My Love, and Li’l Kids. If somebody had told me 30 years ago that I would someday collect romance or comedy titles, I would have asked them if they were under the influence of drugs, legal or otherwise. Same thing with Western and reprint titles.
As I got further into the run, I realized what a tall task it would be to find all the books in high grade. There are some tough hero books in high grade like Iron Man #44 or Captain Marvel #22. But compared to Millie the Model #198 or Li’l Pals #2, they are as easy as an easy bake cake.
I know there might be secret stashes of Harvey and Li’l Kids out there in the world. But exactly 12 people collected Millie the Model. And less collected Li’l Kids. It’s true, you can look it up.
To make things even more challenging, there wasn’t much motivation for people to submit these titles to CGC, even if they somehow obtained a collection from one of those 12 Millie collectors. So for me, that meant I had to roll the dice on a lot of eBay books with low-resolution scans and cross my fingers.
That’s a long-winded way of saying that this is an incredibly difficult set to assemble in high grade. It took me from 2009 to 2021 to get all the books in 9.0 or better.
The last two books I needed to complete the run in CGC 9.0 or better were My Love #20 and Millie the Model #197. I found a raw My Love #20 on eBay and the Millie on MCS.
After a brief stop at Joey’s, they were off to CGC. A couple months later, I had a 9.4 My Love #20 and a 9.2 Millie the Model #197. And I had all 388 Picture Frame Marvels in 9.0 or better.
Of course, now I want them all in 9.4 or better.
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