Duke Caldwell began collecting comics in the 1960s, scouring Los Angeles area bookstores and comic shops for the nicest copies he could find for his growing collection. This curated approach to collecting resulted in his collection being populated by many high grade examples of key comics from the Silver and Bronze Age. Caldwell’s collection grew to include comics signed by their respective creators in 1990. A regular attendee of the San Diego Comic-Con since 1988, many of the signatures were obtained in-person at the renowned venue as well as many other conventions over the years. Bringing several boxes of comics with him to each show with the hopes of adding signatures, each one obtained was carefully cataloged with Caldwell’s own certificate stating the name(s) of who signed as well as what venue and when. Getting to meet such comic luminaries as Stan Lee, Julius Schwartz, Will Eisner, Neal Adams, John Romita, Jim Steranko, Dave Stevens, Gil Kane, Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Herb Trimpe, Denny O’Neil, Joe Simon, Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Murphy Anderson and many more garnered not only their signatures, but often inside stories about the comics as well as humorous anecdotes. The vast majority of signatures in Caldwell’s collection – which comprises 21,000+ signatures from nearly 650 creators across 12,000+ comics - were obtained well before the thought of third party comic book grading/authentication even existed. As such, the vintage signatures in the Duke Caldwell Collection were perfectly suited for CBCS’s Verified Signature service, of which many of the books offered in this auction have been so authenticated while others are from CGC’s Signature Series service.

Stay tuned for more offerings from this extensive collection.