Identifying old coverless comics

[hulahoop]

I have a collection of about 300 pre-code coverless comics, mostly war and western, with some super-hero, horror, and funny animals books. Only a few of them have identifying title and issue numbers on the front page.

How would I best go about researching the titles and numbers of these books? I've used an old Overstreet guide to figure out the title of lots of these books. And I have the Gerber two volume photo guide books, which has sometimes allowed me to figure out the issue number. (Often the story titles are listed on covers photographed by Gerber.)

Is there any other resource (online or off) that can help with figuring this out?

[toz1960]

Try www.comics.org (http://www.comics.org)

A lot of books have been indexed and will have the story titles,artists & other info for each issue.

You can do a search by 'story title' and it should give you the book title and issue number.

IF it has beed indexed,that is.Otherwise you may have to post a scan of the issue and let some comic genusis' identify it for you.

Good luck & welcome to the corral!

[malaprop]

Or, you could start a "What's My Name and Number" contest here on the Corral, post the splash pages one by one, and someone will figure them out.

[hulahoop]

Thanks for your help.

The comics.org website has been a big help. Even when they don't have all the stories indexed, they often have the covers. And this often gives me enough info to identify the issue, if I have it narrowed down that far.

I've also been using the Atlastales website for some comics that are obviously Atlas.

I don't have a scanner, but I might take pictures of some of these comics. I've been reading through them, and some of these stories are pretty wild. (And its a lot easier to take pictures of stories when you are not too concerned about damaging the comic.)

Thanks again,

[toz1960]

You may be suprised by what you are"damaging".True,some of them may be next to worthless,but there is a demand for coverless comics,especially pre-code.especially pre-code horror.

[define999]

You may be suprised by what you are"damaging".True,some of them may be next to worthless,but there is a demand for coverless comics,especially pre-code.especially pre-code horror.

Yea, they are called "frankenstien" books. Some collectors might only have a cover or other pieces, and are looking for parts they are missing. This is especially true for more valuable books. Also I have heard that thier is a company out there that can recreate covers for coverless goldenage books. And that they can get a restored grade a CGC.... not sure how true that is?????

[hulahoop]

Is there a standard way by which coverless comics are generally valued. I had thought that a coverless comic would be graded as "poor" which I believe is one quarter of the good price. Right?

So a coverless pre-code comic is generally valued at 1/4 of the good price. Is that right or is it lower than poor?

By the way, most of the ones I have are late 1940s or early 1950s, and the values in good seem to top out around $70 in GD in my 2001 Overstreet guide. Very few are superhero or horror, which I know are the real big sellers.

[jerome34]

One big help is to look for "house ads" (ads for other comics, usually ones from the same publisher). This, plus Gerber (if the issue number is not clear) will give you the year and approximate month for the issue.

Some publishers have societies or clubs you can join. Typically, they have a coupon for you to send in. The coupon often identifies the issue number of month and sometimes includes the title.

[disneyteddies]

You can go here

www.htmlcomics.com

If you have an idea when and where they're from you can actually find the 1st page and the rest of the book on it.