What is your personal story about buying or selling comics that PROVES you're insane? 4 4

[lizards2]

1 hour ago, VegasJeff said:

And you lived?!?! Suprised you didn't get impaled by one of those pieces of metal. And how much does a long box weigh anyways? Surprised you didn't get crushed either. Well, it might explain a few things now. 

Evil clowns are immortal?  

[Moondog]

On 7/13/2017 at 6:05 PM, Robot Man said:

Here's my scariest story. About 15 years ago I bought some books from a guy on ebay. Turns out he was a local guy so I contacted him. Turns out he found about 200 Atomic Age books stored in an un-plugged refrigerator in a garage. He didn't know much about them and didn't want to list them all on ebay. I got his number and we agreed to meet at his place.

We agreed at 8:00 pm on a Tuesday night since we both worked. He gave me the address and it sounded a little sketchy. I went anyway (alone). Turned out it was about 2 blocks away from where the Rodney King riot was in LA. As a rule, a place that a middle aged white guy should just stay away from. But the lure of sweet GA books pulled me there.

I pulled up to the address. The neighbor hood had lots of graphitti on the walls, funky lowrider cars on the lawns, houses with bars on the windows ect. All signs that would tell a sane person to get out of the area. But all I could imagine was that smell of vintage comics.

I got out of the car and spied a group of lets just say... "minority" kids staring at my car. Now I grew up in an area with a lot of mostly latin and black kids of low income families. It was fine to me and we were all friends. The '60's were a great time but this was 25 years later and this area was recently burned and looted. 

I left my money in the trunk, crossed the street and rang the door bell. It was answered by a large latin guy in a wife beater shirt and baggy shorts a little buzzed with a beer in his hand. We shook hands and he took me around back to the garage where there were several other similar gentlemen working on a beautiful 1964 Impala lowrider. I smiled and complemented them on their beautiful car. He talked horsepower and I realized they were probably OK. The guy asked me if I wanted a beer and I said sure not wanting to offend him. We went to back of the garage and he opened the refrigerator. Inside, packed top to bottom were piles of comics from about 1946-1957 (my favorite stuff). There were pre=code horror, superhero, crime, jungle, sci fi. Titles like Phantom Lady, Batman, Tales from the Crypt, Jungle ect. all in pretty nice condition. The best was a beautiful Capt. America #74 in beautiful shape. I was rather floored. He said they were there when he moved in and wasn't a collector. 

We worked out a very nice price and they packed them in boxes and helped me out to the car with them. We loaded them up, I paid him and I thanked him and drove off into the night with my heart pounding...

"The lure of sweet GA books..."  It is intoxicating isn't it, Bob?  There's really nothing like it.

[DavidTheDavid]

Anecdotes came come later, but I have almost 40 copies of Adventure Time #1A. Utterly irrational, but I'm cool with that.

[lizards2]

37 minutes ago, DavidTheDavid said:

Anecdotes came come later, but I have almost 40 copies of Adventure Time #1A. Utterly irrational, but I'm cool with that.

Sounds like some kind of sick perversion...,

[KryptoMayor]

Great stories and it's interesting to visualize myself in these situations to determine my retreat point. Then I'm also thinking that great risk sometimes comes with great rewards. 

I do know of a horror story to a fellow board member. I don't want to ruin his story just in case he wants to share it, but he was set up and robbed at gunpoint in a parking lot. It was a CraigsList deal involving multiple people. 

[Robot Man]

On 7/16/2017 at 9:20 PM, Moondog said:

"The lure of sweet GA books..."  It is intoxicating isn't it, Bob?  There's really nothing like it.

As you know all to well, it sure is Gary. I have to say, once I got in I wasn't too scared. Car guys are like comic guys. Show a little interest and knowledge and you're in. It was the area that was a little sketch.

I have a friend that lives in the area and he goes to garage sales all the time up there. He finds tons of good stuff because most people are afraid to go into the area.

[comicalgems]

Just yesterday....I drove several hours one way to a Craigslist meetup.  Seller was being very non descript about a lot of things and declined to send additional pictures.  Thinking that it was probably not legit, I took some caution and didn't bring a ton of cash with me.  I picked up a friend to be my backup.  He was to stay about ten feet behind me in case things went south.  There just seemed something a little off about this whole scenario.  As I approach the house, I did a full drive around the block looking for parked cars, people standing around that looked aimless, scoped out the back yard from the street.  Pulled into a driveway about a block over, called the seller and said "Hey I'm about a block away" he says "Come on over, I'm home" and then I say "The comics are out in the garage right?" (thinking I could ask him to raise the garage door so I could get a look at the collection from the street) "No, they're all in the basement"  (OH ! I'm thinking)  I say "Oh okay, sounds good see you in a minute" hang up the phone which was on the blue tooth speaker, my friend and I exchange glances like "Basement?" and he's like "I'm up for whatever" and I was like "Well if I'm going to get murdered at least you'll be there to witness it and tell everyone what happened" (again, ten feet behind me was the agreed to distance).  We go in, the seller pulls out a mag lite flashlight to which I'm thinking "Oh great, that's the blunt force instrument of my demise" and he says "Alright they're this way" and we proceed to follow him down a dark stair case to an unfinished basement.  Beams are exposed, no lights are on, but in the darkness I could make out the outline of some action figures hanging on the wall...I start to feel a little relieved.  Then we take a left turn and there is a curtain hanging over a doorway...I'm thinking this is the moment of truth...I'm either walking into the room where the comics are or I'm getting clocked as soon as I walk past this curtain.   So like Batman, I go in fearlessly and to my surprise, there were comics, lots and lots of comics.  Not only that but there were keys, lots and lots of keys.  It was fairly overwhelming.  I won't be more detailed about where or what was there, but I spent the next several hours just looking through what I could.  Made a deal on a few books, and will return to make deals on more books.  I left the house at about 9am yesterday and got home just at 11pm.  Talk about a long and interesting day.

[mrwoogieman]

Years ago, I went to a garage sale that advertised comics, brought along my son who was about 8 or 9 at the time. As I'm looking around at the sale, a shortish, powerfully built man is sort of looking over my shoulder says, what's he got? Does he have anything good, anything old? He sees what there is and says, not much there. I got old books, I like old books. He's not particularly old, maybe in his forties, but he's got thick arms like a weightlifter.

So, my son and I are ready to leave and he is sort of following us out talking about old comics, and as we get outside it turns out he lives just down the street from the sale. He says to me, you want to see some old comics come over to my place just down the road here. I'm debating it a little and he's kind of leering at me saying, if you want. I ask again, where is it? Just down the road here. Okay....thinking my son and I are now the prey, diverted from the flock, never to be seen again.

Down the street we go, around the back of a house, back door into the kitchen, and then down into the basement. I see a weight bench on one side, an exercise bike set up, like a little gym, plus a washer dryer in the other corner, and another "room" at the far wall, which isn't professionally done, but more like some sheetrock and studs put up to create a kind of walk-in closet with a hole for a doorway at one end. He says hang on I'll get some comics for you to look through. He goes into the 'closet' for a bit and comes back out carrying a couple long boxes. I look through them but there's nothing old or even very interesting and he's disappeared back into his closet. By this point, my bored son is on the guy's exercise bike pedaling like crazy to make the dials move! Anyway, I'm watching my son and wondering if this guy is going to come back out with some comics or a sledgehammer, and then he kind of sidles up to me from behind, and he's looking at me with this gleam in his eye, and in his hands I see......a Batman number 1! 

It was low grade, but it looked beautiful to me. I got to hold it and flip through it! He showed me where he did tear seals along the spine, telling about how he got it in rough shape initially. It wasn't for sale, not that I could have afforded it anyway. That was it for the tour, however. I've always wondered what else he may have had back there. To pull out an iconic book like Batman 1, what else?

 

 

 

[mackenzie999]

This one isn't a story about risking life and limb over comics, just a stupid odd little anecdote.

I have always really liked the Marvel price dots that is my avatar, even when I was very young. Back in the day I had a pretty sweet collection, including a near-complete run of FF, #2-200 or so. I did have a #1, but it was just a GRR with no price dot. This always bugged me enormously, so one day I decided I would add one myself. I was about ten, and I was a decent artist (eventually sold my collection to go to art school and have made a decent living as an animator) so I was sure that I could do a convincing job by hand with a magic marker. 

So, if any of you has the FF #1 with the magic marker price dot, know that is part of the so-rare-its-unrecognized MacKenzie999 Pedigree collection.

[Ken Aldred]

I can't see much insanity here, but we're an impressively-dedicated lot, for certain.

[ThothAmon]

On 7/23/2017 at 11:09 PM, Ken Aldred said:

I can't see much insanity here, but we're an impressively-dedicated lot, for certain.

How's this.

[Ken Aldred]

That'll do nicely. 

Edited July 28, 2017 by Ken Aldred

[batman_fan]

Most of my non-graded copies

 

[lizards2]

34 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

Most of my non-graded copies

 

and it's a reprint at that - I'll give you

[Get Marwood & I]

6 hours ago, batman_fan said:

Most of my non-graded copies

 

Nice. I like the way you say "most of my non-graded copies" which implies you have more non-graded copies and, presumably, graded copies too. So lots of copies. And not a fan of Direct Editions I see?

You've got a hundred of them too, haven't you 

[batman_fan]

7 hours ago, lizards2 said:

and it's a reprint at that - I'll give you

How about this one

[batman_fan]

Or these, I see pretty books and I have to have them, but I don't have a problem. 

[Robot Man]

I have a few hoards myself but I never reveal them...

[nocutename]

Great stories everyone!  Here's mine but nothing as fancy as everyone else's though. I responded to a craigslist ad on what looked like mainly modern comics but the was taken from the stack inside the box.  They were located in the Bronx but in a nicer section.  I got there and a woman invites me in to the apartment.  The floor plan was completely open with the living room right when you walk in flowing into the kitchen to a long hallway leading to a closed door.

I can literally see the entire layout from the entrance way and it looked neat and tidy.  She appeared to be alone so I step in and start looking through the box.  About a minute or so of looking at the books, I hear what sounds like a chainsaw coming from the closed door.  Now about two weeks prior, I found Birds of Prey 8 at the bottom of a modern stack from a craigslist ad.  So I was kind of determined to find that gem at the bottom of the pile.  The noise continued and I was getting unnerved.  

A few minutes later nowhere near the end of the stack, I got up to leave.  I just could not figure out what was happening behind that ominous door and I didn't truly want to find out either.  As I start to thank the woman for her time, the ominous door opened.  A guy in a white tank top came out.  I subconsciously examined him for blood splatters or any explanation as to what he was doing behind the door.  There were none.  He introduced himself and asked if I liked any of the comics.  I have no idea what I told him but I did high tail it out of there.  

I don't know what was going on behind that door.  I was honestly afraid to ask.  An explanation wasn't volunteered from them either.  He didn't have any signs of sawdust on him nor did the apartment look like they were doing carpentry work.  It was strange and creepy.  So, yep, that was the last time I ever went into anyone's house for comics again.

 

[ADAMANTIUM]

@nocutename

I don't blame you

But it could have been a video game hahaha