RANGER

A short-lived title but very collectible, principally for one of the greatest British comic strips of them all - The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire. If you don't know it, have a look. Gorgeous art by Don Lawrence and stories where Roman gladiators meet Star Wars with a bit of Jurassic Park thrown in. The free gift BOAC VC 10 booklet, all about the new airliner of the time, adds maybe £20-£30 to the value. It is a gift that turns up quite a lot though not in Near Mint very often. Ranger was a nice glossy magazine size so twice as much to buy at the time than other ordinary comics meant that sales were hard to come by so there are less around today.

They turn up on E Bay but often a bit dog-eared. Look for high grade ones though these are scarce as staple rust often has its wicked way too. The dark blue cover of #1 shows every spine crease so true high grades are rare. Only ever seen one Near Mint copy, sold by Vault Auctions a few years ago for £365. More recently a VG copy, lovely looking but a bad spine curl/crease sold for £46.50. The gift was Near Mint.

May 2018: it's been brought to my attention that there are probably a few copies of an in-house Ranger #1 cover variant. Clearly they thought about a free gift plastic model VC 10 but it probably turned out to be too costly so they opted fpr a cheaper VC10 booklet when the comic was published. There are no recorded sales of this cover variant.