Most Valuable ACG – AMERICAN COMICS GROUP published each year

Compiled and edited by comic book historian Terry Hoknes www.HoknesComics.com     hoknes@hotmail.com

Most Valuable ACG – AMERICAN COMICS GROUP published each year

Key investment comics and historically important issues

These are the 3 most valuable ACG – AMERICAN COMICS GROUP comic books published in every year

(Overstreet 2013 guide NM prices)

ACGMostValuable1948

These books have proven to be consistently the most in demand key issues ever and are the best investments long term.

This list only include regular cover mass printed editions.  No variants or limited edition versions included.

This is the first time a yearly comparison has ever been made and the purpose is to show a few things. 

First of all it does truly highlight the major key books of every year.  It also shows quickly which titles seems to pop up the most often and are truly the most expensive series to collect.  Some titles are just more collected than others and bring higher $$ amounts even to non-key issues in a run. 

Note that some years have lesser keys standing at the front of the line and are for their age a better investment. This can always be seen with most books from the 1950’s which are much more affordable and scarcer than any more recent books.

American Comics Group (ACG) is an American comic book publisher from 1943 to 1967 that published the medium’s first ongoing horror-comicstitle, Adventures into the Unknown. ACG’s best-known character was the 1960s satirical-humor hero Herbie Popnecker, who starred for a time inForbidden Worlds. Herbie would later get his own title and be turned into a “superhero” called the Fat Fury.   Founded by Benjamin W. Sangor, ACG was co-owned by Fred Iger from 1948 to 1967. Iger’s father-in-law, Harry Donenfeld, head of National Periodical Publications (later known as DC Comics), was also a co-owner in the early 1960s (though Donenfeld was severely incapacitated and out of the business after an accident in 1962). ACG was distributed by Independent News Company, which also distributed (and was part of the same company as) DC.  The company evolved out of a company owned by Sangor. In the mid-1930s, Sangor and Richard E. Hughes began to produce a short-lived prepackaged comics supplement for newspapers. In 1939, the Sangor Shop (as it was informally known) began producing comics for Sangor’s son-in-law Ned L. Pines. The Sangor Shop produced the characters and stories of The Black TerrorPyroman, and Fighting Yank for Pines’ Nedor Comicsand produced most of the comics for Pines until 1945.

In 1943, ACG started to publish its own work under such names as B&I PublishingMichel Publications and Regis Publishing. It acquired the publisher Creston Publications in 1943, making Creston into an ACG imprint. By 1948, it was publishing comics under the name of American Comics Group. Its titles were typical of the times, including horrorcrime, mystery, romance, and funny-animal comics. In 1948, it began publishing the long-running horror title Adventures into the Unknown. This was the first of a trilogy of ACG horror/supernatural titles that also included Forbidden Worlds (1951–1967) and Unknown Worlds (1960–1967).  In 1949, ACG began publishing two long-running romance titles, Romantic Adventures (later changed to My Romantic Adventures), and Lovelorn(later changed to Confessions of the Lovelorn). Both titles lasted into the 1960s.  The company survived the 1954 Senate subcommittee hearings on the dangers of comic books, even retaining its somewhat diluted horror title Adventures into the Unknown. However, in 1955 ACG canceled four long-running humor titles: the funn-animal series Giggle Comics and Ha Ha Comics, and the teen-humor titles Cookie and The Kilroys.  An October 1, 1952 “Statement of the Ownership, Management, and Circulation” published in ACG’s Forbidden Worlds #15 gave its publisher’s name as Preferred Publications, Inc., 8 Lord St., Buffalo, New York” and the owners as Preferred Publications and “B. W. Sangor, 7 West 81st Street, New York, N. Y.” The editor was listed as Richard E. Hughes, 120 West 183rd St., New York, N. Y.” and the business manager as “Frederick H. Iger, 50 Beverly Road, Great Neck, Great Neck, L. I., N. Y.” An October 1, 1950 statement published in ACG’s Cookie #29 gives identical data, with the exception of the publisher and co-owner being listed as “Michel Publications, Inc. 420 DeSoto Ave., St. Louis 7, Mo..  Almost all stories after 1957 were written by editor Hughes under a variety of pseudonyms. Besides the satirical superhero the Fat Fury, other ACG superheroes of the period known as the Silver Age of Comic Books included Magicman (starting in Forbidden Worlds #125), Nemesis in Adventures into the Unknown (starting with #154), and John Force, Magic Agent, in his own title in 1962, then later in Unknown Worlds (#35, 36, 48, 50, 52, 56), with a few stories in Forbidden Worlds (#124, 145) and Adventures into the Unknown (#153, 157).  By 1967, the company had ended publication, except for its commercial comics division, Custom Comics, established in 1950, which lasted until the early 1980s doing work for a variety of clients such as Montgomery WardTupperware, and the United States Air Force

1943

HA HA COMICS #1 $485.00 / GIGGLE COMICS #1 $485.00 / HA HA COMICS #2 $235.00

1944

GIGGLE COMICS #4 $165.00 / GIGGLE COMICS #5 $165.00 / HA HA COMICS #4 $155.00

1945

HI JINX #1 $360.00 / HA HA COMICS #16 $105.00 / HA HA COMICS #17 $105.00

1946

COOKIE COMICS #1 $350.00 / COOKIE COMICS #2 $170.00 / COOKIE COMICS #3 $125.00

1947

KILROYS #1 $340.00 / HI JINX #1 $240.00 / KILROYS #2 $155.00

1948

ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #1 $3,800.00 / MOON MULLINS #1 $300.00 / BLAZING WEST #1 $250.00

1949

ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #2 $1,285.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #3 $1,285.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #4 $650.00

1950

OPERATION PERIL #1 $560.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #8 $485.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #9 $485.00

1951

FORBIDDEN WORLDS #1 $2,600.00 / FORBIDDEN WORLDS #3 $1,075.00 / FORBIDDEN WORLDS #2 $1,060.00

1952

OUT OF THE NIGHT #1 $1,050.00 / FORBIDDEN WORLDS #5 $835.00 / FORBIDDEN WORLDS #6 $735.00

1953

OUT OF THE NIGHT #6 $400.00 / OUT OF THE NIGHT #7 $400.00 / OUT OF THE NIGHT #8 $400.00

1954

COMMANDER BATTLE AND THE ATOMIC SUB #1 $750.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #51 $600.00 / CLUTCHING HAND #1 $585.00

1955

COMMANDER BATTLE AND THE ATOMIC SUB #4 $435.00 / COMMANDER BATTLE AND THE ATOMIC SUB #5 $435.00 / COMMANDER BATTLE AND THE ATOMIC SUB #6 $435.00

1956

ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #70 $125.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #71 $95.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #72 $95.00

1957

ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #91 $105.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #81 $95.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #82 $95.00

1958

FORBIDDEN WORLDS #73 $675.00 / FORBIDDEN WORLDS #65 $145.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #96 $105.00

1959

ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #107 $105.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #104 $75.00 / ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #105 $75.00 /

1960

UNKNOWN WORLDS #1 $385.00 / UNKNOWN WORLDS #2 $200.00 / UNKNOWN WORLDS #3 $165.00

1961

FORBIDDEN WORLDS #94 $220.00 / UNKNOWN WORLDS #4 $160.00 / UNKNOWN WORLDS #5 $160.00

1962

UNKNOWN WORLDS #12 $95.00 / UNKNOWN WORLDS #13 $95.00 / UNKNOWN WORLDS #14 $95.00

1963

FORBIDDEN WORLDS #114 $175.00 / FORBIDDEN WORLDS #110 $130.00 / FORBIDDEN WORLDS #116 $130.00

1964

HERBIE #1 $350.00 / HERBIE #5 $185.00 / HERBIE #2 $160.00

1965

HERBIE #8 $155.00 / HERBIE #6 $130.00 / HERBIE #7 $130.00

1966

HERBIE #14 $95.00 / HERBIE #15 $95.00 / HERBIE #16 $95.00

1967

HERBIE #22 $95.00 / HERBIE #23 $95.00 / GASP #1 $75.00

Copyright 1995-2013 by Terry Hoknes at hoknes@hotmail.com  www.HoknesComics.com  / Overstreet Price Guide Data is copyright 1970-2013 by Bob Overstreet & Gemstone Publishing, other info and data reprinted from Ebay at www.ebay.com  , Heritage Auctions at www.ha.com  , Comichron at http://www.comichron.com / , CGC census info from www.cgccomics.com  , GP Analysis from www.gpanalysis.com  , Doug Sulipa at www.dwscw.com and comic cover artwork at www.comics.org

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