Following on from the record price of £31,000 for The Beano No. 1 with free gift Whoopee Mask in our September auction we offered this [restored vg] copy with strengthened spine and page edges which took an opening bid of £4050.00 

It was closely followed by the first Beano annual from 1940, the second highest graded copy we had ever sold at [fn+] making an impressive £2800

A scarce complete 20 issue run of Scoops, ‘Britain’s First Sci-Fi UK Weekly’ was in a bound volume in high grade, scooping a strong £520.

The full year of Beano from 1944 showcased first appearances of Jimmy and His Magic Patch and Strang the Terrible, both by Dudley Watkins. These propaganda war issues are collected outside of their pure comics interest with one Save Paper ad showing Hitler in a hangman’s noose (visually referencing a hanging paper-hanger) with the strap line ‘Pile Up Waste Paper By the Ton – That’s the Way to Smash the Hun’. The 27 mid-grade issues took £640.

We offered a small selection of Batman Australian reprints from the 1950s. Illusrated above is No 44 which had a Penguin / Batmobile cover not printed in America and No 50 which had the Catwoman cover and story reprinted from US Batman #84. Both selling at £155 each.

Here is the complete year of The Beano from 1954 heralding the first Bash Street Kids story ‘When the Bell Rings’ by Leo Baxendale and first full-colour back page of Dennis. He demanded £660 with menaces.

The Woodard Archive of British Comics continues to achieve high values and 85 Boyfriend comics from 1959-60 led the field. With love stories based around pop and TV hits, free gifts, fashion and beauty pages and full-page ads targetting early teens the readership was huge back then, so, ‘Remember Kids, Clearasil Starves Spots and Pimples!’ There were no spots on our winning bidder with £520.

The complete year of Buster from 1962 starred Maxwell Hawke, The Black Axe and Buck Rogers whilst including the first ‘Buster and Film Fun’ starring Johnny Wingco. Chocks away with £470.

 Frank Dobson’s Fantasy Advertiser ‘Comicon ‘69’ issue was offered here with a selection of US DC correspondence re the Comicon, with one letter signed by Carmine Infantino the lot sold for £460, nearly ten times the auction estimate.

Never offered in a complete run before, all 21 issues of Serenade comic from the early 1960s were here with Nos 1, 2 and 3 free gifts: Cliff Richard Flexi-disc, Pop star colour Booklet and Helen Shapiro’s Hair and Eye Book. Super rare, super price : £680.

53 issues of pop and romance comic Valentine sold well and The Beatles, Hollies, Elvis, The Animals and Manfred Manned £420.

All 187 issues of WHAM! introduced US Fantastic Four reprints from #1 and the scarce free gift The Whampire Bat was also included, swooping to £880.

US buyers are currently focussing on Judge Dredd’s first appearance in the UK’s 2000AD prog 2, shown here in [fn+] with free gift Biotronic Stickers. £1020 stated ‘I am the law!’

 

‘June 1916. A few days before the battle of the Somme. Charley Bourne stopped veteran soldier, ‘Lucky’ from shooting himself but, as the German bombardment increased, Charlie’s dug-out was hit...Joe Colquhoun’s superb artwork complemented by Pat Mills script was rewarded here with £1060.

Our strong Golden Age section included America’s Best 8 [gd] at £250, Blue Beetle 9 [fn] at £640 and Catman 30 with L B Cole cover art in [gd/vg] at £330.

Illustrated here with wonderful cover art by Paul Gattuso, are Dynamic Comics 18 [vg+] and 20 [fn+] from 1948 making £370 and £430 respectively.

Two bound volumes of 1940s Planet Comics containing issues #43-53 and #54-64 were well contested at £500 and £490 each

Yankee comics #1 is a keenly collected title in the US, mainly because of its name and it was accompanied by the much scarcer #4, a small format issue only produced for US Services during WWII. They sold for £370

The DC Golden Age did not let us down with Batman’s #84 iconic Catwoman cover reaching £390 in [gd/vg] and the much scarcer Mystery In Space #1 [vg-] with its 8pg Frazetta ‘Spores’ story at £380.

Our Silver & Bronze Age Amazing Spider-Man collection was listed in 24 lots starting with a low grade 21 issue run including #8, 14, 28, 34, 100 and 101 taking a strong £450.

Here are Amazing Spider-Man issue #122 [fn/vfn] at £140 and the still ‘hot’ Punisher #129 [fn/vfn] targetting £820.

A fresh copy of Iron Man 1 with high cover gloss reached Stark reality at £420.

Whilst a hotly contested Journey Into Mystery #85 CGC’d  at 5.0 did really well as a UK price variant with £1060.

This bright Tales of Suspense #39 cents copy had professional restoration to its cover corners and spine top and bottom and with its grade of [restored fn-] it achieved a healthy £3250.

 

 

 

 

We don’t normally write our closing story about 1990s toys but we offered this near complete set of 29 Beano and Dandy Figurines by Robert Harrop in the auction. They included Biffo, Big Eggo, Korky, Dennis, Gnasher, Rasher, Lord Snooty, Beryl, Minnie, Roger, Desperate Dan, Danny and Little Plum. All 29 figurines unplayed-with in their original, as-new boxes.

 

When the winning bidder called us in delight having secured the lot with the opening bid of £135, I asked him if he collected toys? No, he said, but that’s the grandkids Christmas prezzies sorted. I replied jokingly that it must be an eternal struggle buying presents for 29 grandchildren. Laughing, he responded that he only had a few little-uns but, quick as a flash, he countered that even if he did have that many it would represent pretty good value at under 50p each.

 

With that wee story in mind we’d like to wish all Grampas, Grandmas, all of their children and all of their grand-children the happiest Christmas and New Year.