There has been a thread or two discussing the SI information. There are some glaring errors in the rankings but given this was one man's work, it's in my mind excusable.
As a matter of fact, this is exactly why you are hanging in these forums, we can collectively appraise Gerber's ranking on the SI scale.
Overall, IIRC, Gerber was particularly generous in terms of availability for books not in his general interest area so for some tough funny animals and some such, he might have estimated availability high while on some tough GA (that were in the collection he saw and therefore were over-sampled in front of him), he was too generous in how available they truly are (+ remember that as Gator will point out that being in existence and being available in the marketplace are two different balls of wax). Though, as I stated, overall it's a great starting point.
I don't use Gerber Scarcity Index at all in making decisions for my collecting. I have found it better to do my own surveying and monitoring of how often books appear. GPA and Heritage Archives are more useful to me.
Aaaahhhh, the illusion that an online resource will beat a book format.
The GCD is a fantastic tool but basically less than useful for anyone wanting learn about a topic. How would one know to run a search restricting to a particular era and particular series. Then, you'd have to *gasp* click through a zillion links to get to the galleries, one by one!! unlike the Gerber where they are all laid out on the page, very much in your face and you will quickly know which ones you gravitate towards given your interests (though I don't like Gerber in the sense, it's made us cover collectors but that's for another time and place).
In fact, consider Reno's interest in damsel in distress, the Gerber books are the perfect tool for him to quickly start his want list.
Gerbers are both a more fun and efficient way to traverse the history of comics. The one online source I would recommend as adjunct is "Mike's" site where you can scroll comics by date when you use the "Time Machine" function.
It's funny, but as great a resource as the Gerber set is I've never felt the need to own one. I like discovering books in my travels (online and otherwise), vs 'spoiling the surprise' by gulping them all down at once. Go figure! Everyone collects differently I guess.
#5633844 - 04/27/1203:53 PMRe: Where to learn about GA?
[Re: Point Five]
vaillantvaillant
I was posting here when you were in diapers.
Registered: 02/21/12
Posts: 3699
Loc: Italy
My +s were for the general discourse around the physical object. Neither I am excessively worried about not having the Gerbers (I would be mostly interested in the scarcity index, but as you say, "'spoiling the surprise' by gulping them all down at once" is no good…
There's no need to buy any Gerber books when all of the same covers are online for free: http://www.comics.org/
Right, unless you enjoy joy of looking at books, but what comics collector wants to deal with holding and turning the pages of a stinky old book?
comics.org is a fantastic resource, but not nearly as conducive to browsing as the Gerber Guides.
The biggest risk of perusing the Gerber's is uncontrolled want list expansion. Their scarcity index is largely out of date, so I wouldn't buy them for that.
I'm typically pretty guarded with my collecting goals, but I'll tell ya, my goals (for all comic eras) right now are focused (almost) entirely on books that feature a damsel in distress on the cover with the hero attempting to save her.
This would narrow it down to about a quarter of all Golden Age Superhero books
