One of my favorite things about the CGC Boards, is when people take that time to go through parts of their collections.  In the process, they are revealing tales about their acquisitions and motivations that I always find fascinating.  I figure if I get a kick out of others stories, maybe someone will get a kick out of mine.

For me, it all started back in the spring/summer of 1985 when my best friend at the time came back from a trip to somewhere in Pennsylvania.  He was gone for a couple of weeks, and when he came back he brought with him two new obsessions...a cassette tape of music from The Hooters, and a stack of Iron Man comic books.  As can be surmised by my posting here, and not on a Hooters fan-site, the comics books made a lasting impression on me as well.

I was 14 at the time, so bicycle trips to the comic book stores in the area became the norm.  In reality, they have never stopped to this day, although the mode of transportation has.

I wasn't allowed to collect Iron Man, as that was his title, so I gravitated to the Avengers and the X-Men.  That led to Secret Wars, as it had recently wrapped up.  I remember issue #12 was still on the rack, but the others I had to buy from the back-issue bins.  From there, the whole of the Marvel universe opened up.  Fast forward a few more years and all of the "hot" artists left Marvel for Image.  So now I read Image titles too, and Valiant, and Milestone, and Defiant, and Impact...I tried 'em all.

The only thing I wasn't reading was DC.  I'm a sucker for time travel stories, so I noticed that the Superman books were doing a crossover of sorts called "Time and Time Again."  Shortly thereafter the death of Superman hit, and I was now a full-fledged Superman reader.

I made it through all of the 90's, continuing my hoarding of any comic book I ever came across.  Sometime in the early 2000's, I started to get a little bored.  I still read the new stuff every week, but it just seemed like it wasn't fun anymore.  I don't know where the harebrained idea came from to start collecting every single Superman comic book came from, but come it did.  Over the next 10 years I slowly started to read less and less new stuff, and filled out my collection of Action Comics and Superman into the pre-Crisis era and beyond!

One day, it occurred to me that I was quickly overfilling my custom built shelves in my office.  What was originally built to hold 36 longboxes, was now filled to capacity with two rows of additional longboxes stacked on top of those.  Around 2006 or so, I started to eBay off the flotsam and jetsam, turning those new-found funds into additional purchasing power to go further back in the Bronze Age.

Then a little movie came out called "Iron Man", and suddenly my collection of books started to look a little more lucrative.  I'm lucky that I started selling the dregs first, as I didn't really get rid of any new-found keys when the movie speculation craze hit.  Once GOTG was announced, I went into full on flipping mode and bought every copy I could find of IH271, MP7, RR1-4, ST180, WMD6, MP4, etc...  Selling these let me turn a healthy profit indeed, as I was finding most of these issues in dollar/discount bins.  Those funds turned me into a Silver Age collector of the Superman titles at last!

That's all well and good, right?  Until I realized that my collection wouldn't really be complete without also trying to get the Lois Lane issues, the Jimmy Olsen ones, Adventure Comics, World's Finest, DC Comics Presents, etc...  Yikes, what did I get myself into.

Fast forward to current day, and where am I now?  Well I don't flip as much anymore, as hard-core flipping is a young man's game.  I've gone from my collection at its height of 55 jam-packed longboxes, to 36 longboxes that are roughly ⅔ full.  Yes, I finally have tamed my collection to fit within my shelves!

I'm still selling semi-regularly, as my paypal funds dwindle.  I've gone through the D-titles, the C-titles, and have recently started selling the B-titles with some of the good stuff that I never thought I'd part with.  You know what though?  I haven't missed anything I've parted with.  Yeah, there has been the title or two that I probably sold a couple of month's too early, but overall the new movie spec market has been good to me.

So if you are still with me, that's a lot of words about what I no longer have in my collection.  What about what I still have and actively collect?

Stay tuned...