A couple of weeks ago I put up a post on Fantastic Four issues 47-60. There were some interesting things to talk about there, so I wanted to take some time and look at other silver age FF issues. Today, we’ll be looking at FF issues 30-46.
First of all, what happened in these issues? What immediately comes to mind is the first appearance of the Inhumans in issue 45. I have always loved this Kirby cover. Dark, mysterious (what are they looking at?)…a fantastic example of “The King” working his magic on this cover.
Otherwise, issue 30 is the intro of Diablo, issue 31 is an early Avengers cross over, issue 33 is the first appearance of Attuma, issue 35 is the intro and first appearance of Dragon-Man, issue 36 is the first appearance of Madam Medusa and the Frightful Four (Paste Pot Pete among them…never quite understood that character), 44 is the intro of Gorgon…and so it goes. Bottom line, nothing really epic is occurring in these issues, and yet the CGC data is a little surprising.
The first observation here is that there are, in general, fewer CGC graded issues of these books than those from 47-60. The average number of graded copies above CGC 6.0 for issues 30-47 is 220. For issues 47 -60 it is 356. (I excluded issue 48 since it’s a special case).
The most surprising thing though is the spike for issue 44, and the relatively few number of issue 45 that have been graded. What could be causing the spike for issue 44? Is it really attributable to the first appearance of “Big Foot” Gorgon himself? I have to doubt that. Is it because there is a reader letter in the book from Dave Cockrum? (Had to throw that out there). No, I doubt this as well.
Issue 45 on the other hand is, according to the Overstreet Guide, more prized by collectors. So, why are relatively few of that book graded compared to issue 44 and 46? I don’t know…it seems odd to me. You would think that since issue 45 is a more valuable book, more would be graded. But that’s just not the case.
So…what does all this mean? From a collectibility standpoint, I think this data helps the collector make a more informed decision if confronted by, for example, issues 35 and 37 in a similar price range in CGC 9.4. Issue 37 is clearly the better value. The other obvious take-away is that high grade copies of issue 44 should not demand a premium, but they should demand a premium for issue 45. Sure enough, GPAnalysis data supports both of these conclusions.
I hope you found this informative!
Until next time…
P.S. Looking for Silver Age Fantastic Four comics graded CGC 9.0 or higher?