A near complete run of The Beano from 1951, (missing No 472) included the first appearance of that very naughty boy, Dennis the Menace, which elevated the winning bid to £540.

Not far behind was a complete Dandy 1950 year in a bound volume with 40 of the 52 issues in [fn/vfn] grades where Keyhole Kate soon spotted £340.

In 1957 sci-fi art supremo, Ron Turner drew all the Rick Random – Space Detective illustrations for Super Detective Library and the artwork illustrated here reached a starry £620.

We offered four bound volumes of The School Girl 1-104 and these fresh high grade copies realised £360.

The Tiger No 1 from 1954 is scarce and this [fn-] copy was accompanied by its free gift Space Gun and several later Tiger freebies. The gun lacked its six Flying Saucer bullets but still hit the target with £720.

The 1964 year of Beezer Nos 416 - 467 lacked one issue but Ginger, The Numbskulls and Leo Baxendale’s Banana Bunch peeled away with £460

Commando No 1’s famous ‘Walk or Die!’ cover and story from 1961 has sold between £450-1000 in past auctions and this [vg] copy made £560 with No 2 in similar grade at £185.

Frank Hampson’s original Dan Dare cover artwork from The Eagle Vol. 8 No. 1 told its own chilling story…
‘The Mekon, fiendish master-mind of Venus, has escaped from prison during Dan’s absence, conquering Earth with his Elektrobot army and imprisoning Dan and his crew on their return to base. Determined to break Dan’s spirit The Mekon takes his prisoners on a tour of Earth to show them what life is like under the brutal rule of The Treens.’ A mid-estimate £1020 enabled the artwork’s escape.

Fantastic No 2 was accompanied by it scarce free gift Brotherhood of Power Scar stickers and £220 took away the pain.

This early Heros The Spartan board, drawn, painted and signed by Frank Bellamy for The Eagle’s centre pages in 1962 showed Caesar promoting the young Spartan to a higher rank and to test his worthiness, he orders Heros to take 100 men and conquer the mysterious Island of Darkness.
With Bellamy’s bright Pelikan inks undimmed, the board took £4250.

50 issues of Mirabelle from 1967-68 showcased Flower Power, The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour, Traffic, Herman’s Hermits and Peter Frampton with those cheeky Monkees taking away £410

The complete year of Princess from 1962 also included free gift Cookie’s Album of Cakes and Sweets, the annual from the same year and the scarce Holiday Special No. 1. All for a royal £420

Romeo 1960 included 38 issues of Romance, Fashion and Pop Picks and these titles, like the two lots above, are now firmly contested and £460 (or £12 each) had Chubby Checker Twistin’ the Night Away.

 

Roxy’s Vivid Picture Love Stories wfg Elvis and Pat Boone photo wallet and Discs on Parade with Anthony Newley took 44 issues from 1960 to £680. ‘Do You Mind?’

The complete 1-31 issue run of Solo starred Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons, The Scarecrow, U.N.C.L.E, Mary Poppins and £520

TV Century 21 No 1 included its free gift Identicode Card – without any name or address written in. Gerry Anderson’s brilliant opus starred Stingray, Fireball XL5 and The Daleks, its [vfn/nm] grade ex-pect-ant-ly taking £470

When TV Century 21 No 2 came out you could cut out a coupon and send it away with a 1/- postal order (remember them?) for your Special Agent metal badge. Our vendor has also kept the accompanying letter from Secret Agent 21. Hens’ teeth are not rarer - £125.

WHAM! No.1 had its free gift Matchstick Gun and starred Leo Baxendale’s finest, General Nitt and The Wacks who introduced a Rolling Stones pic and story. Jumping Jack flashed a proper £230.

Monster Fun 1 from 1975 included the scarce Plate Wobbler free gift and was edited by Ken Reid’s Frankie Stein starring Leo Baxendale’s Badtime Bedtime storybook, Martha’s Monster Make-Up and Draculass – Daughter of Dracula. Fangs for the £260.

Rodin’s Vet original signed artwork signed by cartoonist Larry (Terry Parkes) went to a European collector for £350. Good funny money.

The Wall re-creation 1980s cover artwork by Ron Turner was from his original 1953 paperback cover of the same name and took £340

This Thunderbirds original artwork was drawn, painted and signed by Frank Bellamy for TV 21 No 88 in 1966.
Brains and Alan pilot Thunderbirds 3 with a neutron bomb on board to target a breakaway piece of the Sun that threatens to destroy the Earth. The vivid action of the story highlights Bellamy’s work at its finest and the piece easily doubled its upper estimate at £6,300.

Our US Golden Age section started with a1937 rarity, Picture Crimes No. 1, which staged ‘real’ crime photos and stories back in the day that pulled no punches. Nor did the winning bid of £680.

Here is Batman 84 from 1959 graded 4.0 at £500 and Detective 176 from 1951 graded at 7.5 for £230.

Mary-Jane and Green Goblin deathly issues of Amazing Spider-Man #121 and 122 did not deter lively bidding for these two [fn/fn+] cents copies at £440. (The following lot was a CGC NM 9.4 copy of #122 which took £410 on its own).

 

 

 

This copy of Daredevil #1 had a taped interior spine and tape to its interior front cover. Graded [gd] it tempted a daredevil bidder to £620.

Our run of the first five F F cents copies started with Fantastic Four #1, CGC’d at 4.5 as Johnny stormed to £9,300.

Issues #2 and 3 took £1520 and £800 respectively.

The 1st Silver Age Sub-Mariner and Doctor Doom’s origin galvanised bidding to £1780 and a doom-laden £4,400.

Two very affordable high grade CGC and CBCS issues were Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1 (9.2) at £260 and Nick Fury S.H.I.E.L.D #1 (9.4) with Steranko signature at £290.

A [vfn] copy of X-Men #8 made Unus quite Touchable at £310 and X-Men 94 [vfn+] saw Angel, Marvel Girl and Iceman resigned to £420.

The Batman #171 cents copy in [fn] grade riddled me this £270 whilst a [vfn] #234 faced up to £220.

Showcase #22 presented Gil Kane’s 1st Silver Age Green Lantern and this low grade PGX 3.0 example returned a strong £1620.

The House of Secrets #92’s slightly threatening cover art leads us to a terrifying Swamp Thing interior story with Alex Olsen’s mutilated first appearance by Bernie Wrightson and perfectly justifying the issue’s status in the later Horror Comics genre. This [fn-] cents copy hammered at £640.
Deadman’s first appearance by Carmine Infantino in Strange Adventures #205 is another key issue and its [vfn] grade realised £240

 

 

 

I felt like a dead man walking when I nervously went into a local school where I had been invited to give a classroom presentation on auctions and how they work from a career perspective involving buyers, sellers and auctioneers and specifically the specialist area of comics that we encompass. Just before going I had been informed by my wife that six to seven-year-olds ‘don’t really read comics anymore.’ Obviously this was going to be a very quick presentation.

 

So I tried for the sympathy vote straight away telling them that we had started as a small comics shop in Camden Town with a metal dog in the window (K-9) wagging his electric tail to deliver a chewed up copy of The Beano. Over the next year (around 1990-91) we tried to sell lots of comics but we couldn’t make the business pay and after 18 months we reluctantly had to close down.

 

We were left with hundreds of unsold comics and I thought to offer them to the mailing list of customers we had built up during the shop’s existence via a listing of 100 or so groups of comics estimated at £5-10 each group, or ‘lot’, with a final date for bidding of two weeks later where customers (if there were going to be any) could bid their maximum by phone and we would notify the winning bidders once our ‘auction’ had closed. Amazingly we sold everything, going on to negotiate bulk purchases from dealers and as word got round, some comics collectors asked us to sell their comics in the same way as well and slowly Comic Book Postal Auctions Ltd was born.

 

A quiet had descended on the classroom so, fearing that some of the children had actually fallen asleep, (and hopefully not yourself, dear reader) I decided to start an actual auction. Lot 1 was a Beano comic from 1978 with a free gift Dennis the Menace plastic glove puppet. I explained to the children that they could start the bidding at £1 by raising their hands, then £2 etc with a maximum bid of £10. And it would all be in pretend money. I held up the comic with the glove puppet on my other hand saying ‘Who’ll start me at £1?’ and everyone screamed “TEN POUNDS!” I had a small bell on the table behind and pointed to a small boy at the back of the class asking if he had said it first to which the whole class screamed “I SAID IT FIRST!” I walked back to the desk rung the bell and my small friend at the back won his comic. And so the mayhem went on until all 12 comics we had brought were ‘sold’.

 

When everyone calmed down I asked the children who had been successful bidders to stand up. I asked the proud owners to share their comics over the coming days with any class-mate who didn’t win anything and they readily agreed. This got the two teachers nodding and smiling.

 

Finally I explained that although our company was started from a failed comics shop, you don’t always have to (as the Americans say) ‘be the best that you can be’, and it’s OK to fail before you succeed. The teachers smiled and nodded even more and my job here was done - I’d got away with it.