Set Description:
Synopsis: Our set contains 93 of the 100 books in this set with a minimum grade of 9.2. Sixty-seven of our books are highest graded examples, with 17 of them holding that distinction alone. No book in the set is worse than second highest graded in the census, except for one recent acquisition of a 9.2.
Background: Detective Comics is an anthology comic featuring detective characters, both superhero and civilian. The longest-lasting character in Detective Comics was Batman, as from the time of his debut (#27, May 1939), the Caped Crusader was almost always the star of the cover and lead story.
Detective Comics has remained in publication longer than any other DC Comics title, and indeed, the very name DC was taken from its initials. In March 2019, Detective became only the third American comic book in history-after Action and the Four Color series of the 1930s-60s by Dell Comics-to publish a 1,000th issue.
This set begins in March 1962 with Issue #301 and continues through Issue #400, which is dated June 1970. It thus covers about 70% of the Silver Age.
Our Collection: Detective Comics is a very long run and one we did not collect when we started actively pursuing this hobby again 20 years ago. But I have long admired many of the covers and started buying some in the range of this set when several big collections started appearing at auction. Until recently, we only acquired those covers we particularly liked and have passed on others.
Although it still tops the census, It was the sale of the Alfred Pennyworth books on Heritage, which motivated us to expand this collection, as many were Pedigreed or single highest graded or both. We did not get nearly as many as we would have liked because of financial constraints, but at least it formed a decent base for our set on which we have continued to build.
Strangely enough, of the four Batman related sets we started, this one is the farthest along, but the only one that does not currently top the census. Certainly we will pass the Alfred Pennyworth set at some stage since that set has already been sold, but our real goal is to complete the set, not to top the registry. Whether that’s a realistic goal while maintaining a 9.4 and second highest graded in the census bar remains to be seen. Certainly there are some expensive issues that we still lack, which will make achieving such goal very challenging. But of the four Batman sets we are now collecting, this one will be by far the easiest to complete.
2024 Update: Well, this set has now joined our three other Batman related sets atop the census as more Alfred Pennyworth books have been registered. We also finally decided to buy a few third highest graded books in an effort to finish this one, which will lower our bar to 9.2 for this set. It will probably end up making the set a little more expensive in the long-run, but we just wanted to make a little progress towards finishing this one. There is also the biggie (most expensive) book out there to go, Issue #359, but our other Batman sets lack far more big books, so there is little doubt that this one will be the first completed-in fact, I am still not sure we will ever spend the money to finish the other ones.
Current Stats:
93/100 Books
42 9.8s-All Highest Graded
39 9.6s-23 Highest Graded
11 9.4s-3 Highest Graded
1 9.2
39 WP
43 OW/W
8 OW
3 Cr/OW
17 Single Highest Graded
68 Highest Graded
24 Second Highest Graded
1 Third Highest Graded
20 Pedigrees
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