This particular page has two distinctions in my comic art collection. First, it is one of the few pages I display (main due to the large size) in my condo. I have a downstairs bathroom which is in the middle of the condo. I display a few pages there, since it is completely block from the sun, and is climate controlled (as much as any room in my condo can be). I call it "The Loovre"....hahahahahaha.....SHUT UP!!! Anyway, this particular page hangs right over my toilet, and has been for several years. It actually took me two years of "staring" at this piece while taking care of business before I actually got how apropos it was that it hung their (maybe you'll get the joke in less time). The second distiction for this piece is it is by far the oldest page of original comic art I own, having come from the golden agae of comics in 1950 (missed the '40s by that much). For all the comic art common sewers who get an old page like this, seeing Action Comics #1 and Dectective #27 going for one million plus, seeing a literally newly slabed variant comic which has been tagged and bagged going for three figures, and watching a 1990's Todd McFarlane Amazing Spiderman #313 cover go for $71,000.00 plus on Ebay, visions of $$$$$ start dancing in their heads.A few questions also start to arise. 1) With all the Golden Age Comics (and all comics) created over the last 75 plus years, how much Golden Age art is there? Back in the day, comics use to sell in the millions. I believe the last time this happened was in 1991 with X-Men #1. So the second question that arises is, why do some comic books (that may have had millions of copies) sell for more than the original art use to create them which is one of a kind? This seems to be especially true of Golden Age comics and art. On the first question, while some golden age comic art may be rare (either due to time or the fact it was treated like trash until the 70's), it turns out Fawcett art may not be so rare at all. If you check on an article by By George Hagenauer on this subject, "Unlike Golden Age DC art , Fawcett Art including Capt. Marvel pages are more available and thus affordable thanks to a number of warehouse finds of Fawcett comic art. The first find was in London in the early 1970’s. Fawcett comics, until the comic book company ceased publishing comic books, were reprinted in England. To save money, the company shipped the original art to England where it remained until the company’s warehouse was sold to a book dealer." Doing a quick check of "Whiz Comic Art", I saw pages for sale for around $200.00, but some in the recent past have gone for as low as $50.00. Another page from this story sold at Heritage for $300.00 a few years back (less than what I paid for this page, but not much), while a near mint copy of Whiz #127 sold for $400.00+. So, even though this is a 60 year old page feature Captain Marvel, the Shazam Flash, Billy Batson, Whiz Radio, the entire plot of the story, and even Captain Marvel's greatest foe shouting "Curses", I guess I still have to keep my day job. The children of the 80's are still calling the shots, and aparently old does not mean antique.
