Robot Man

Take it

An early photo of Leonard Brown with a recent “buy”. Yes, people coveted and paid up for Big Little Book back then. A photo of Malcolm Willitts pulling out unbagged, high grade Batmans out of the vault. Collectors was located in an out of business bank building. And a business card circa 1962 for Richard and Leonard before they opened the store and were combing the Long Beach area buying up old comics and selling them word of mouth. I got the card from Leonard. Notice he crossed out Richard’s info so I would deal directly with him.

There is a big difference between people “buying and keeping” comics as opposed to people “collecting” and actively seeking out certian books and runs and actually paying well for them. As a kid, I remember lots of used book stores that in addition to books bought and sold back issue magazines and comics usually at a discount to original cover prices. I remember buying GA comics (when I found them) for the same prices at comics that were a year old at the time. Collector’s Book store was one of the first speciality shops that catered to actual collectors who were willing to pay serious (at the time) money for old comics. They had an emense stock much more than anywhere else. The mail order part came later as the actual collector market progressed. The first comic I ever paid more than cover price for was a MAD #9 that I paid $3. for down the block at Cherokee Books. It was a LOT of money for a very young kid at the time. But I had never seen MAD comic book that old. That was my “gateway drug” to collecting and paying up for comics. I actively was seeking them out to try and collect the entire run. Collector Books was pretty high priced at the time and usually ran kids like me out. I bought more at Cherokee and Bond Street Books around the corner.

Yep. He, along with Leonard Brown and Malcolm Willitts, opened one of the first collector stores with a focus on comics in the LA area in the mid 1960’s. His focus was early Disney and humor comics as well as Platinium era books especially Yellow Kid and Buster Brown material. A heck of a passionate collector and great guy.

I wonder the same thing when I see low grade common average cheap GA books.

My weirdest job (and I’ve had a few) was in the late ‘60’s. I spent the summer at a friend’s parent’s house in Lake Tahoe. We both got a job from 11pm-8am (yes, graveyard shift) at the morgue. Our job was to wash up bodies. Put on a mask and rubber gloves, pull out the drawers and sponge bath dead folks. Was a bit creepy at first but we got over it pretty quick. The advantages were, we could have long hair and were pretty much unsupervised. There was often not a lot of work so we could burn a joint and play cards and listen to any music we wanted. Our hours were great because we could have most of the day and evenings off and didn’t work weekends. Also, where most kids were working in fast food or gas stations for $2-4 an hour we made $8. an hour. A lot of money for teenagers.

“Ground Advantage” seems that ever since this was instated, packages are moving slower with spotty tracking. In all fairness, I have received several before their estimated delivery date as well. Priority Mail seems pretty stable at 2-3 days though. On a local level, I have had the same carrier for a couple years. I buddied up with him and trained him to stash my packages in a spot where someone walking by couldn’t see. But I have had several new carriers in the past couple of months who just dump them on the front porch…

Just a few motorcycles

You should post this in the events thread.

Take it!

Some days I’m 10 years old and some days I have a hard time getting out of bed. I am old enough to remember this first hand. Glad to have lived in my time frame.