DeBeck, Billy [Barney Google] *

Anyone who doubts the ability of one or a few people to distort the market for a comic artist should consider the case of Barney Google originals. Unlike many strips that are better known by the general public, and even strip collectors, Barney Google began in the Nineteen-teens rather than the 1930s or later, as had so many humor strips. But when even one zealous, enthusiastic collector goes after most examples of a particular title, even one that has been largely forgotten and was little cared about by other collectors, ;prices can rise very quickly. Barney Google dailies were mostly selling in the $300-$500 range when I began to buy. But after I paid more than double the high amount for one 1931 daily, word got out to dealers that someone woud pay more. Over the next few years, I was offered Googles galore. The only collectors who I was aware of were one or two generations older than me, including Sy Schecter and Morris Weiss. There was another couple who were after a Google from the 1930s, since they were trying to collect one example of prominent strips per every decade of each artist's work. All of the limited number of potential rivals began losing out every time a Google original came onto the market, whether through dealers or auctions, and they understandably became frustrated. I was so successful in obtaining DeBeck originals that every example cited in every edition of Jerry Weist's comic art price guide in support of his belief that there was a strong market for Barney Google originals was a strip that I had bought. The highest priced daily was one that Sy Schecter and I went head to head on at Sotheby's. I bought it for 10 to 15 times what he had been accustomed to paying, but he undoubtedly kept bidding to prove that I couldn't always win. The couple also bid me up several times -- they finally bought one from a dealer that I had been offered bt didn't want. After I had bought about 40 dailies and Sundays in less than 5 years, I really wasn't seeing any new ones that added much to what I already had. I also realized that the dealers were gouging me on prices because they thought they could. I finally turned down a daily which I both wanted and needed at a price about 4 times what I had recently paid at an suction for a lot of two dailies from the same sequence. After I backed away from the market, prices soon returned to close to where they had been when I started buying. So much for ever increasing market prices.