Set Description:
Synopsis: Our set is currently 98% complete with the vast majority of our books 9.8s (68) and 75 books topping the census. Moreover, 33 of our books come from Pedigree Collections, including 14 from the Pacific Coast Collection. The highlight of this set are Issues #1-4, which all come from the Pacific Coast Collection and are all highest graded examples, with our Issues #1 and #3 being single highest graded and #2 being 1 of 2. As of June 2023,16 of our books are single highest graded examples. But, and in this case it’s a big BUT, we still lack three books and are struggling to find even second highest graded copies for those empty slots, even though we have hunted them hard. Who knows, it may he left my son to finish this one.
Background: This is a mixed set including books from 11 different DC titles plus the 15-issue 80-page DC Giant run from 1964-1965.
Our Collection: We have found this one to be an extremely difficult set to complete because the books come from so many different titles. We originally just acquired the Giant Flashes as past of that set. We later added the Giant JLAs and the Giant World’s Finests, but only as parts of those collections. It was not until my friend Mark in England decided to break up and sell his award winning set of Gorgeous Giants, which were auctioned off on Heritage in August 2019, that we started buying additional books. We have been fortunate enough the last couple of years to pick up a number of these books, but this set still has a ways to go with three empty slots.
The problem with collecting these books on any semblance of a budget is that many of the books are seemingly impossible to find in high grade unless they come up all at once.Twice we could have pretty much finished this set by buying every book in an auction, but finances did not permit buying so many books at once. Moreover, since all the books fit into other sets, some like the Batmans, which are more heavily collected, are far harder to find than others.
On the plus side, it seems that a large percentage of my friend Mark’s (Colmoreman’s) Gorgeous Giants set were acquired by one collector, who decided to sell them on Heritage in late 2021 giving us a second shot at many of those books. We did not get them all by any means, but we were able to grab enough to jumpstart this set with a couple of dozen high-grade books. We have also started to just fill some slots with 9.6s rather than waiting for highest-graded examples to come on the market.
While finishing this set has become more of a priority for us, most of the missing issues remain difficult to find, at least in 9.6/9.8. If we ever finish this one with 9.6/9.8s, it better win a Best Silver Age Award, it’s a bear.
2024 Update: Ah, the collector’s quagmire every time they get close to the finish line on a set. We still need just three books to finish the quest we started five years ago to complete this set and there are copies of all three books available today at reasonable prices, if we want to lower the bar to 8.5-9.0 and settle for third or fourth highest graded copies: what to do? So far, we have set a bar for this set at both a 9.4 in actual grade and at least second highest graded in the census. Now here we are five years in needing just three books and there are copies of all three books available that are not overly expensive. I guess we will follow my friend Brad Gaucher’s lead and just wait, because as he says in his write-up for his registry leading Brave and Bold set, he knows he will just end up replacing any slot-fillers he buys. But it is so tempting to just pull the trigger and finish this one, especially because the census for each book is relatively low and it could be a very long wait.
But this one does raise again the other question whether it is wise to register your sets, as there are also two of the books available that pass our bar if we are willing to give the sellers basically a 1000% profit on books they recently bought. Are they asking for so much because they know we need these books from our registry? I really cannot answer that one, but right now I am leaning very heavily to maybe in the future not registering any set until it is finished.
January 2025 Update: We broke down and bought two slot fillers in 2024 for this set leaving us one book from the finish line, although both are books we would like to upgrade. Those two acquisitions lowered the floor for the set to 9.2, but we can’t seem to find even that high a grade for the remaining missing book. Hopefully. 2025 will be the year we finally finish this one.
Current Stats:
88/89 Books
68 9.8s-All Highest Graded
16 9.6s-5 Highest Graded
3 9.4s-2 Highest Graded
1 9.2
49 WP
36 OW/W
2 OW
1 Cr/OW
16 Single Highest Graded
75 Highest Graded
11 Second Highest Graded
2 Third Highest Graded
33 Pedigrees
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