Set Description:
This is my attempt to collect The Savage Sword of Conan issues 1-100 along with Annual #1 in 9.6 or higher condition.
I began collecting comics when I was only a young kid, but unlike most kids my age had very little interest in the super hero genre. I had always loved sword and sorcery so when I picked up my first back issue of Conan the Barbarian in my LCS, I was immediately hooked. When I picked up my first issue of Savage Sword of Conan a few years later I fell in love with Conan all over again. I always felt that the gritty B&W magazine version, which didn't adhere to the comics code, was Conan as he should have been all along.
While I've continued to love Conan through the books, TPBs, and Art, I have returned to collecting all these years later to attempt to do something that nobody in the history of the Registry has been able to do and that is to fully complete the 101 issue set in 9.6 or better condition. This is going to be a daunting task which I believe will take a minimum of 10 years to complete but I'll give it my best shot.
Besides SSOC #1 the rest of this run is incredibly scarce for multiple reasons. #1, these magazines are big, heavy, easily damaged, and never considered collectable. In fact I don't recall bags and boards for magazines being available until sometime in the mid to late 80's long after most of these books went to print. #2 By virtue of their size they are difficult to safely ship and more expensive to grade and thus submissions to CGC have been far fewer on these books. If you're looking to make money on a graded SSOC its got to go at least 9.6 and that's a big risk given the cost to ship and grade them. #3 These books never had the print run nor the huge popularity of the Conan the Barbarian books and therefore never existed in the numbers that the Conan comics did.
These magazines are by far more scarce than their comic counterparts, in fact of the first 100 issues, #11, 17, 18, 25, 77, 89, 91, and 100 have zero 9.8's in the census which is amazing considering that this was a pretty popular bronze age book during the first 100 issues. Needless to say this is going to be a very difficult task to complete this set, much harder than Conan the Barbarian 1-100, but I'm going to have fun trying.
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