Tintin Forums

I have 5 Tintin books (in french) bound magazines from 1950 to 1953. The first is from June 15 to the end of December. Then, two 1951 covering the year. Then, one 1952, the whole year and the same for 1953. They are beautifully bound! They have been in my family for a very long time but I have no idea where they came from or who had them bound. I also do not know what happened to the first half of 1950. I would love to know the value or who to contact to have them appraised. I appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Are they the commercial albums, which gathered together the issues, or did someone in your family collect them, then have them bound? If the latter, can you take the issues out of the binding?
I’ve no experience of them, so can’t offer indications of what ones are valuable, or scarce or whatever, but the commercial collections can often be found on eBay, or by Googling, if you search for the French “recueil Tintin”; that might start you off, giving you an indication of what the market rate is.

By the sound of it, you have most of the Moon story for Tintin, plus a bit of vintage Blake & Mortimer - Pyramid and the start of The Yellow “M” - so my gut feeling is you could find they are quite collectible!

jock123
Thank you for replying! The books were professionly done. The covers look like swirled paint with red leather spines and covered in plastic. TINTIN, the year and number 1 or 2 is stamped in gold on the spines. The comics are not removable.
Inside the 1951 1 there is the name Jean-Luc Lepoutre. I do not know who that is. I have sent out a query to my large family.

It sounds like you have a nice set of comics there - I don’t know for sure, but I think the fact that they are bound shouldn’t affect their value, and may even increase it, provided as you say it has been done to what sounds like a high standard.
The name doesn’t sound like it is overly common: a Google search turned up a story about a man of that name in Salem, Massachusetts - is any of your large family there? ;-)

jock123
Hi Jock123,
Most of my family is from France although many of us live in the US.
Today I found out that Lepoutre may have been friends with my grandparents. I think a daughter of his was one of my aunts bridesmaids. I'm waiting to hear from an uncle.
Unfortunately, my grandparents are gone as is my dad. My mother says the name sounds familiar but I don't expect her to remember. I wish my mother could remember where they came from!
I appreciate everything you've done and will let you know if and when I learn something. I love a good mystery!

Coming myself from a family that is spread around, I understand the difficulties when you start to lose the generations who have the keys to the family history. Amongst our family pictures we’ve got an ancient portrait photograph, which has been well looked after, of a bearded gentleman who looks like one of the Patriarchs, on the back of which someone at some point has confidently written “Uncle Zimmer”, a name wholly unknown to anyone today. We are none the wiser… ;-)
Good luck unraveling the mystery!