Here's a clip from a recent episode of Pawn Stars in which a lady comes in to sell her copy of MAD #1. I liked this show when it first went on but it increasingly came to feel scripted and phony, and it became way too obvious that we were not watching actual transactions. There were occasionally neat variations but too often, the formula went like this…
- Potential Seller brings in an item with some possible historical value.
- Pawn Shop Staffer rattles off, as if they know this stuff by heart, interesting facts about the item that sound like they're being read off a Wikipedia page, then asks, "How much were you looking to get out of it?"
- Potential Seller names a probably-too-high price for it.
- Pawn Shop Staffer confesses he doesn't know if that's a fair price but says something like, "I've got a buddy who knows all about these things. Would you mind if I got him down here to take a look?"
- Potential Seller is delighted by this; has not the slightest suspicion that the potential buyer's buddy might undervalue the item or find fault with it in order to help his buddy acquire it at a low price.
- Expert arrives promptly because Expert is always available to drop everything and race down to the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop to offer expertise, apparently without compensation.
- Expert occasionally says item is worthless, more often cites a value that's a lot less than the potential seller hoped, then leaves.
- Potential Seller asks for the amount cited by Expert.
- Pawn Shop Staffer patiently explains that "There's no money in it for us" if they buy it at that price. That's the price for which they'd try to sell it and they have to make money. Pawn Shop Staffer offers 50% of the Expert's estimate.
- Potential Seller counters at 75%.
- Pawn Shop Staffer tries to hold firm at 50% but to show what a great guy he is, he offers 60% — take it or leave it.
- Potential Seller takes or leaves it, usually takes it.
In the case of the MAD #1 in this clip, the Potential Seller leaves it, turning down an offer of $1400 for a book that the Expert said was in a "6.5 or 7" condition and so worth maybe $2000. I just took a look at recent sales at Heritage Auctions and $1400 is pretty squarely in the ballpark.
What isn't right in this segment is some history. The on-screen caption, Rick the Buyer and his Expert all say that MAD was turned from a comic book into a magazine to escape the Comics Code, which would have stifled or banned it contents. Looking at the history, that's kind of an obvious conclusion but it's not so.
MAD's publisher William M. Gaines was a beloved figure to many but not all. He had some notions about how to run his company that even he admitted were rather odd…for instance, he was very much afraid of adding new people to his "little family." He liked running a small business and was terrified of it getting much larger because then his office would be full of (choke!) strangers.
When MAD first became an unlikely success, Gaines was convinced that it was because of the genius of its founding editor, Harvey Kurtzman. That was certainly true to a vast extent. A bit more arguable was Gaines' belief that Kurtzman, who also wrote almost all of the book and sometimes drew for it, was utterly irreplaceable; that if Harvey ever left, that would be the end of MAD.
Trouble was, Kurtzman wanted to work for some bigger company, preferably one that would issue him bigger checks and not print his work on the cheapest possible paper and sell it at the lowest possible price. He also yearned to be free from the embarrassment of telling people how he made his living. In 1955, some of those who worked in comics felt that way and Harvey really felt that way. It was a time when plenty of prominent people were condemning comic books as trash…and as trash that was harmful to children. The other comics Gaines published — the ones containing severed heads and mutilation, the ones Harvey didn't work on — were especially condemned.
Harvey got an offer to go work for Pageant, which was then a successful magazine that had the prestige of being a slick magazine and not a comic book. Harvey told Gaines he was going to leave and take that offer. Gaines — who as we've noted thought MAD would die sans Harvey — offered to turn MAD into a slick magazine if only Kurtzman would stay. Kurtzman stayed, MAD became a magazine and not long after, Kurtzman left to do a better paying, potentially-classier magazine for Hugh Hefner. As it turned out, Harvey wasn't as irreplaceable as Gaines had feared.
A little later when the Comics Codes was formed, MAD's transformation from comic book to magazine did save it from undergoing the scrutiny and castration of the Comics Code Authority. But that was a fortunate side effect of the changeover. It was not why they did it.
Also: The Pawn Stars segment would leave you with the impression that the infamous Dr. Wertham got the Senate to hold its fabled hearings into whether comic books were bad for children. Dr. Wertham did testify but he did not directly cause the hearings to be convened. You might also come away believing that the Comics Code was formed by the government and imposed on the publishers. Actually, the Code was instituted by an associations of most of the major publishers. They feared if they didn't do it, the government might — and even if the government didn't, wholesalers and retailers might stop carrying their wares.
Here's the Pawn Stars segment that gets so much of this wrong…