This is the third in a series of posts on Fantastic Four CGC data. I wanted to continue this exercise for the sake of completeness. I am not really sure what to expect out of this run of books, so let’s take a look, shall we!
The data on issues 30-60 yielded a few observations on rarity and this lot of issues is no different. At first glance, it really doesn’t look like there is much we can take away from this data. But a closer observation yields at least one thing that is worth pointing out.
First of all, let’s briefly review what the highlights are in this set of books. Clearly, the most important and popular books are issues 25 and 26 where the Thing and the Hulk do battle. But there are multiple early crossovers in this group as well, including Sergeant Fury in issue 21, Doctor Strange in issue 27, and the X-Men in issue 28. Values in the Overstreet guide reflect these events, as can be seen on the chart.
So what can we take away here?
The first (and primary) thing I notice is that issue 26 (85 copies in CGC 9.0 or better) is significantly more common than issue 25 in high grade (64 copies in CGC 9.0 or better). Given that the two books both list at $1650 in guide 9.2, and the fact that they were published only a month apart, you would expect them to be equally rare and equally submitted to CGC for grade. Could it be that the dark blue cover of issue 25 keeps it out of high grade more often than issue 26 (a white covered book)? Just a guess on my part. At the end of the day, I would expect issue 25 to command a premium over issue 26 in the same grade.
Any other observations here are difficult. There are no 9.8 copies of issue 29. And issue 23 only has 44 copies in CGC 9.0 or higher. But this issue is not that valuable in the guide, so that would suggest a lower number of copies submitted for grade.
As always, I hope this data is interesting and/or useful!
Until next time…
P.S. Looking for Silver Age Fantastic Four comics graded CGC 9.0 or higher?