Have you ever seen those comic-book ads being sold on eBay featuring a celebrity or licensed character? They never seem to sell, judging from what I see, and they are posted in huge numbers (although mostly by only one eBay seller, I think, and even more for magazine ads featuring them).
Here are a couple examples:
These always baffle me, because they sell for about $10 apiece, which is often more than the price you'd pay for the entire comic in which they appear.
In both cases, I would presume they sell to fans of Bob Hope and Captain Marvel, except those fans would know about the comic books and would probably own them or be aware of ads promoting them.
I suppose the BH fan wants not only the comics he appeared in but the ads promoting those comics, and he may not know where those appeared, and that knowledge is worth the money. Still, those ads would've appeared in any DC comic that month, so they wouldn't be hard to find.
Maybe that's just the comic book collector in me talking rather than considering what a Bob Hope fan is looking for. But I think those ads would've appeared in Bob Hope's own comic that month, too.
If these were popular sellers, there'd be a big market for tearing apart comics to sell the ads, and it would give new life to partially intact (ie, BTH or beyond Poor) issues. But they don't ever seem to sell, which makes them a strange thing to keep posting.
I guess some eBay things are not for me to understand. Unless someone can explain it to me.
-- MSA
Replies
I can’t explain it, but I am aware of a certain fan base which collects only tv or movie comics with photo covers. There is also a certain contingent of collectors who specialize in vintage magazine advertisements featuring Coca-Cola, a particular make of automobile or a particular airline. These e-Bay listings seem to want to meld those two niche collectors, but no, it doesn’t make much sense to me, either.
I've heard of collectors of specialized comic book covers, like the movie comics as well as golf, chess and other specialties. Those I can understand from a collector standpoint. I can even understand the magazine ads, as those are harder to track down (I think), especially if a specific ad is wanted.
But an ad promoting Bob Hope comics that probably appeared in Bob Hope comics puzzles me. I hope they didn't tear apart a decent looking issue to get it, as they'd probably make more money posting the entire comic. Typically, Poor comics don't have the kind of condition that would transfer well to individual pages being sold, though.
OTOH, if they had a BTH comic with missing pages or something, maybe selling the individual ads is the only way to go. The prices still seem really high, considering they don't ever seem to sell so they can set a market price.
-- MSA
For both of them he does say he took it out of an "incomplete golden age book", so maybe someone had already taken the cover or something?