Peanuts Daily Strip, January 1, 1971

Although the copyright notice is dated 1970, this is actually the Peanuts original for New Years Day of 1971.

"Peanuts originals that went away, Part 2. I finally was able to buy a Peanuts daily that was more recent than the common, early, 1952-1954 period right after I returned home to LA immediately after attending the 1985 San Diego Con. Awaiting me in the mail was a new one of Museum Graphics/Jerry Muller's sales lists, which included a 1985, 3 panel Daily original with Charlie Brown taking Snoopy's order for dinner while his dog was seated on top of his dog house. CB said that the menue included "crisp potatoe jackets." If Snoopy wasn't very hungry, he could just eat the sleaves. Snoopy responded to the rather lame joke by throwing the menu at the waiter. The strip was still available for purchase for $500, undoubtedly because everyone had been st San Diego instead of reading Muller's new list at home, so I bought the daily -- It was the same list that included the First Blondie Hunger Strike daily [January 3, 1933], which Don Phelps had sold to Muller on Phelps' trip down to San Diego. I bought it as well, for $300. The Peanuts daily was still less than ideal, since 1985 was not a great year, but at least if was a strip with Snoopy and Charlie Brown instead of what one could easily find, ones with Charlie Brown and Lucy from 1952 or 1953. Only once after that did I settle for buying one of the 1952-1954 strips , although most contempory CAF members get all excited when they acquire an "early" Peanuts original to this day

"The last 1954 daily I ever bought was the original for Christmas day of that year which showed Charlie Brown replacing the statue of Beethoven from Schroeder's piano with a Christmas tree. I bought it, as well as the Sunday page for December 26, 1954 from the same collector of Christmas comic strip originals who sold me the Blondie daily for 25 Dec 1931.

"I finally got a daily from the period I wanted, the early 1960s, whe I bought a 1961 daily with Snoopy and protesting, pre-Woodstock birds from a CAF member in the later 1980s. The gag was really lame, but the period was right. And then, by the early 1990s, prices for Peanuts originals at auction had finally risen to a level [about $2,500 instead of the $1,500 to $2,000 that they had been selling for in recent years, that I finally was able to routinely buy early to mid 1960s and early 1970s Peanuts at auctions. For a few years I could have bought less than first rate originals for a little over $2,000 each, but I held out on bidding more until much better examples were available. And available they were afte prices again rose until they exceeded $10,000 after Schulz' death and Mrs. Schulz' decision to buy for the museum in a big way.