An America's Best Comic book from the 1930s that represents the growing popularity of superheros.
As comic books regained their popularity in the 1960s during the boom of the Silver Age, fans organized comic book conventions, where they could meet to discuss their favorite comics with each other and eventually with the creators themselves. As of 2010[update], numerous conventions and festivals are held around the world, with Comic-Con International, held annually in San Diego, being the largest and best-known convention in the United States.
While some people collect comic books for personal interest in the medium or characters, others prefer to collect for profit. To assist both types of comic book collector, comic book price guides are available and provide estimates of comic book values as well as information on comic book creators and characters. The price guides assign values for comic books based on demand, availability, and the copy's condition. The longest running price guide is the annual Overstreet Price Guide, first published in 1970. Another current monthly price guide is Comics Buyer's Guide. The growth of the Internet in the late 1990s saw development of online databases to track creator, character appearances, and storylines, as well as websites combining comic book price guides with personalized collection tracking to provide collection values in real-time. The Grand Comics Database is a popular online resource for comic book creator and character information. Popular online price guide and collection tracking services include comicbookrealm.com, comicspriceguide.com, and GPAnalysis. The increased popularity of online auctioning services like eBay or Heritage Auctions for buying and selling comic books has greatly increased the visibility of actual comic book sale prices, leading to improved price guide accuracy, particularly for online price guides such as comicspriceguide.com and GPAnalysis. GPA only tracks sales of slabbed books, and therefore is not an accurate indicator of overall comic sales.
In response to collectors' interest in preserving their collections, products designed for the protection and storage of comic books became available, including special bags; boxes; and acid-free "backing boards", designed to keep the comic book flat.
With the folk music boom in the late 1950s to early 1960s, there was suddenly a demand for archival material. Record collectors fanned out in some countries, searching small towns, dusty barns and mountain cabins for older discs. Initially, the most-desired items were pre-World War II shellac discs containing "race records" (that is, blues, country blues and hillbilly music), the precursors to then-current rock and roll and country styles. Later generations of record collectors found their passion in digging up obscure 45s in the genre of doo-wop, or LPs from the late 1960s "garage rock" and "psychedelic" genres.
The pop music scene changed with the rise in popularity of The Beatles between 1962 and 1964. In their wake, thousands of musical bands inspired by their fresh, lively take on rock music with a sharp British sensibility, picked up guitars, and many released records. Many of these acolytes released 45–rpm records in small batches to sell at local concerts and to their friends and families. Due to their relatively small pressings, these obscure local records became highly prized and valuable.
One of the famous "collector's items" in record collecting is not a record at all, but merely an album cover. The Beatles themselves accidentally contributed what is probably one of the most well-known and valuable "collector's pieces" of the rock and roll era: "The Butcher Cover". This is an informal title for an album cover for the album Yesterday and Today. Until 1967, the Beatles' LP releases in the UK were substantially different from their LP releases in the USA. These American albums were shorter, had different songs, album titles and artwork.
Bob Dylan is another praised singer that collectors aim to have in their collections.
Another Holy Grail for some collectors is Bob Dylan's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the 1963 pressing that has four songs that were deleted from subsequent pressings, known to fetch up to $35,000 in stereo and $16,500 in mono in excellent condition.[1]
Handbag collecting has become increasingly popular in the 2000s.
In 2014, the auction house Christie's started a handbag department, which now has several staff, headed by an "international head of handbags".In June 2017, Christie's had its first sale devoted exclusively to handbags.[2]
The techniques used to collect fossils vary depending on the sediment or rock in which the fossils are to be found. For collecting in rock a geological hammer, a variety of cold chisels and a mallet are used to split and break rocks to reveal fossils. Since the rock is deposited in layers, these layers may be split apart to reveal fossils. For soft sediments and unconsolidated deposits, such as sands, silts, and clays, a spade, flat-bladed trowel, and stiff brushes are used. Sieves in a variety of mesh sizes are used to separate fossils from sands and gravels. Sieving is a rougher technique for collecting fossils and can destroy fragile ones. Sometimes, water is run through a sieve to help remove silt and sand. This technique is called wet sieving.
Fossils tend to be very fragile and are generally not extracted entirely from the surrounding rock (the matrix) in the field. Cloth, cotton, small boxes and aluminum foil are frequently used to protect fossils being transported. Occasionally, large fragile specimens may need to be protected and supported using a jacket of plaster before their removal from the rock. If a fossil is to be left in situ, a cast may be produced, using plaster of paris or latex. While not preserving every detail, such a cast is inexpensive, easier to transport, causes less damage to the environment, and leaves the fossil in place for others. Fossilized tracks are frequently documented with casts. Subtle fossils which are preserved solely as impressions in sandy layers, such as the Ediacaran fossils, are also usually documented by means of a cast, which shows detail more clearly than the rock itself.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is one of the many museums to house a vast collection of rocks and minerals. Terra Mineralia, Mineral Exhibition of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany, (3500 specimen on display) terra-mineralia.de
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