Schulz, Charles [Peanuts] *

I, and undoubtedly many, many others, value Charles Schulz' Peanuts above all other humor strips. At his best, Schulz was simultaneously profound and hilarious. But, like eveyone, he wasn't always at his best. While there are periods of his career that he produced strip after strip which were unbelievably brilliant, there are huge numbers of Peanuts strips which are, at best, mildly amusing. In collecting Peanuts, I have tried to limit myself to buying and keeping only those examples which are either historically important or, to my sense of humor, truly funny. [December 26. 2021. I have already written the histories of those Peanuts originals which are still in my collection, but I still remember many details about strips which I once owned. Another collector on CAF requested that I write about my collectig of comic art, and I am willing to document more of my collecting history -- but the question is where. Rather than starting over with a single, unified account, I an going to add the additional histories at the end of each section under the jpegs below, beginning with what already exists under the original for 15 Feb 1972.] At one point in the early 2000s I owned twenty-six Peanuts originals, and I had opportunities to have bought hundreds over the years. But, when I started to become interested in acquiring Peanuts originals in the early 1970s (and for many years thereafter), there just weren't that many Peanuts strips available that I really liked. In fact, my sister, who is in no way a collector of comic art, actually bought a Peanuts original before I did. When I was probably involved in buying comic books one day at Collectors Book Store in Hollywood, CA, my sister, who was killing time while patiently waiting for me, saw and bought a Peanuts from 1953 for $65. For a long, long time, the vast majority of Peanuts originals on the market were from the years 1952 to 1954. There were several reasons for that situation and for later changes which contributed to the ability of collectors to obtain strips which they actually liked instead of settling for examples that weren't very important or funny. * * * Continued in the note sections for the postings which follow below.