A Look Inside of the August Issue of Kovels Antique Trader

From Sears kit houses and a monstrous collection of horror comic book art to the company that offered kids whoopee cushions, the new issue of Kovels Antique Trader is full of wonder and excitement.

A shortage of affordable homes challenges many in the U.S. today. But more than 100 years ago, a would-be homeowner could order a pre-cut house and have it delivered, all from a catalog. You’ll learn more about this amazing housing option in the August issue of Kovels Antique Trader.

From 1908 through 1940, Sears, Roebuck, and Co. sold about 75,000 kit houses through their Modern Home Program. This program allowed customers to order blueprints and building supplies for ready-to-build, customizable kit homes in various styles to accommodate different budgets and family sizes. Contributing editor Kris Manty explains how everything was shipped, primarily by rail, to customers who would hire a contractor to construct their new home or build it themselves.

While Sears made owning a home less scary, certain publishers of the era were making comic books frighteningly fun for kids. The August issue of Kovels Antique Trader provides an inside look at Roger Hill’s monstrous collection of pre-code comic art. The collection includes some of the most terrifying, tantalizing, and sought-after works from titles that pre-date 1954’s Comics Code Authority. Put simply, Hill’s collection was the finest selection of Golden Age horror comic art ever assembled. Writer Robert Wilonsky shares a spooktacular story of comic book proportions.

Thomas Taylor was only 23 when he was hired to create the book cover art for J.K. Rowling’s 1997 novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It was Taylor’s first commissioned job out of art school. Much like Rowling at the time, Taylor was a complete unknown. That original art recently sold for $1.92 million at Sotheby’s. Taylor, now a best-selling author in his own right, shares his rather unusual brush with Harry Potter fame.

Among many auction highlights found throughout the issue, the August Sales Reports look at Japanese Woodblocks prints, Nantucket baskets, and soda pop and advertising auctions. In our Collector’s Gallery feature, our resident expert, Dr. Anthony Cavo, examines a tankard found by a reader’s grandfather on the Connecticut shore after a hurricane in 1938 and then helps a reader identify a decorative piece found in his father’s garage. Then, we shed some light on a Spode pottery mark.

Finally, editor Paul Kennedy flips over the most expensive comic book in the world – a 1938 Action Comics No. 1 that introduced Superman to the world – to discover something even more thrilling: novelty nirvana as offered by Johnson Smith & Co. The quirky mail-order catalog business, through their small, cramped, impossible-to-read ads, promised kids things they “always wanted but newer knew where to get.” Those things included whoopee cushions, X-ray glasses, invisible ink, the world’s smallest camera, and a whole slew of cheap thrills.

You’ll discover those thrills and much more in the August issue of Kovels Antique Trader.