40Yrs is now 50Yrs! 1 1

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

TOP TEN FAVORITES - Part 9 – I can have nice things!

Well as you get older you get wiser; at least that’s the theory. My Dad had been advising me somewhat on my comics buying and had been talking to dealers over the years. He recommended that I try to buy higher grade books and to consider them as a potential investment. Good advice and as my Dad was an accountant when it came to money he usually knew what he was talking about. My old book itch had been pretty well scratched at this point so I was becoming more judicious about where to spend my hard earned money. Also, I now worked full time in the summer for the county and was starting to have some real money to spend.

So I found myself at shows looking at better books and talking with the dealers more often. The annual Seuling show had moved to Philadelphia from New York for some reason by the late seventies and these shows had some nice books. One memorable day at that show I saw a dealer who turned out to be Steve Geppi laying out a Detective 27 and a Batman 1 he had just bought from someone who walked into the show. He was actually quite fun to talk to and really into his acquisition.

I remember picking up this early WDCS at a Philadelphia show. I loved it because it felt like it had never been read and it must have been a file copy. This probably cost $15-20 at the time. And I still own it of course.

I also managed to acquire a very nice grail in my late high school period. I had tried to pick up a copy of Donald Duck Frozen Gold from the Buyer’s Guide for $100. but my Dad talked me out of it. A few months later I saw an ad for a Near Mint Uncle Scrooge #1 for $125. and there was no stopping me this time and I sent off a check and got this beauty back. This was the pride and joy of my collection for decades and still is one of my nicer books.

Then during my senior year of high school, I was led to another great original owner collection; but this time the owner had the guide and priced them accordingly. He was a good guy and we did a deal for about eight Duck Four Colors. Sheriff of Bullet Valley is below. At the time these were probably about $40-60 each.

That would be it for any original owner acquisitions like this for me. In my last entry, I will enter a comics wilderness for a number of years but at the end emerge a new and reinvigorated collector!

[Mmehdy]

nothing like buying from the original source...amazing feeling....there are still collections out there to be found, more sliver than gold but still stuff out there........

[Yellow Kid]

On ‎10‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 4:41 PM, Robot Man said:

Come on Rich, come clean tell us a couple of those cool "find" stories...

 I have written about the most unusual find of my life before, but if you haven't read it, you will enjoy this one and it is absolutely true.  I have found more books, but never had another experience like this one.  Leonard had contacted a middle-aged man who was supposed to have some great books and we made arrangements to visit him at 7:00 p.m. on a hot summer night.  He lived on a very steep hill in an older part of Los Angeles but we had bought comics in worse neighborhoods.  I rang the doorbell and could hear someone coming to greet us.  He pulled back the door, pushed out the screen door, stood stark naked in the doorway, held a half gallon of wine in one hand, and said, "Won't you boys come in?  I hope you don't mind I'm not wearing any clothes but it is just so hot tonight."  I was stunned.  Leonard was nine years older and just said thank you and pushed me in.  I was only 18 or 19 and was scared to death.  As soon as we sat down, he insisted that we have a glass of wine with him and that only made me more nervous.  However, as he turned to walk to his chair, we dumped our wine over the back of the couch.  When we saw that would work, we insisted that we all have another glass of wine, and kept repeating this until the bottle was empty. At last we got to his comic books and they were fantastic.  He had two boxes of early high grade Timely books as well as DC's.  The third box contained ten mint copies he bought off the stands of each of the first 23 issues of Mad Comics.  We worked out a deal on the comics and I started carrying them out to the car while Leonard paid him.  After taking the second box out, I returned and said I had them all.  Leonard looked at me and pointed at the third box and said I had forgotten it and to take it out, which I did.  As we drove back to Long Beach, he started laughing and said the guy had given us the third box.  A few weeks later, Stroud and Alexander visited the guy and they looked all over for the box of Mad Comics but I think they did get some pulps.  It was a night I will never forget.

[Robot Man]

31 minutes ago, Yellow Kid said:

 I have written about the most unusual find of my life before, but if you haven't read it, you will enjoy this one and it is absolutely true.  I have found more books, but never had another experience like this one.  Leonard had contacted a middle-aged man who was supposed to have some great books and we made arrangements to visit him at 7:00 p.m. on a hot summer night.  He lived on a very steep hill in an older part of Los Angeles but we had bought comics in worse neighborhoods.  I rang the doorbell and could hear someone coming to greet us.  He pulled back the door, pushed out the screen door, stood stark naked in the doorway, held a half gallon of wine in one hand, and said, "Won't you boys come in?  I hope you don't mind I'm not wearing any clothes but it is just so hot tonight."  I was stunned.  Leonard was nine years older and just said thank you and pushed me in.  I was only 18 or 19 and was scared to death.  As soon as we sat down, he insisted that we have a glass of wine with him and that only made me more nervous.  However, as he turned to walk to his chair, we dumped our wine over the back of the couch.  When we saw that would work, we insisted that we all have another glass of wine, and kept repeating this until the bottle was empty. At last we got to his comic books and they were fantastic.  He had two boxes of early high grade Timely books as well as DC's.  The third box contained ten mint copies he bought off the stands of each of the first 23 issues of Mad Comics.  We worked out a deal on the comics and I started carrying them out to the car while Leonard paid him.  After taking the second box out, I returned and said I had them all.  Leonard looked at me and pointed at the third box and said I had forgotten it and to take it out, which I did.  As we drove back to Long Beach, he started laughing and said the guy had given us the third box.  A few weeks later, Stroud and Alexander visited the guy and they looked all over for the box of Mad Comics but I think they did get some pulps.  It was a night I will never forget.

Yeah, that's the one. I've had a couple real sketchy buys in my life but that one is the best I've heard!

How 'bout you Mitch? I know you have a good story or two...

[Robot Man]

7 hours ago, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

TOP TEN FAVORITES - Part 9 – I can have nice things!

 

Well as you get older you get wiser; at least that’s the theory. My Dad had been advising me somewhat on my comics buying and had been talking to dealers over the years. He recommended that I try to buy higher grade books and to consider them as a potential investment. Good advice and as my Dad was an accountant when it came to money he usually knew what he was talking about. My old book itch had been pretty well scratched at this point so I was becoming more judicious about where to spend my hard earned money. Also, I now worked full time in the summer for the county and was starting to have some real money to spend.

 

So I found myself at shows looking at better books and talking with the dealers more often. The annual Seuling show had moved to Philadelphia from New York for some reason by the late seventies and these shows had some nice books. One memorable day at that show I saw a dealer who turned out to be Steve Geppi laying out a Detective 27 and a Batman 1 he had just bought from someone who walked into the show. He was actually quite fun to talk to and really into his acquisition.

 

 

I remember picking up this early WDCS at a Philadelphia show. I loved it because it felt like it had never been read and it must have been a file copy. This probably cost $15-20 at the time. And I still own it of course.

 

 

I also managed to acquire a very nice grail in my late high school period. I had tried to pick up a copy of Donald Duck Frozen Gold from the Buyer’s Guide for $100. but my Dad talked me out of it. A few months later I saw an ad for a Near Mint Uncle Scrooge #1 for $125. and there was no stopping me this time and I sent off a check and got this beauty back. This was the pride and joy of my collection for decades and still is one of my nicer books.

 

 

Then during my senior year of high school, I was led to another great original owner collection; but this time the owner had the guide and priced them accordingly. He was a good guy and we did a deal for about eight Duck Four Colors. Sheriff of Bullet Valley is below. At the time these were probably about $40-60 each.

 

 

That would be it for any original owner acquisitions like this for me. In my last entry, I will enter a comics wilderness for a number of years but at the end emerge a new and reinvigorated collector!

 

Love the Disney buy stories 50! Back when you could find beautiful books for a pittance by today's standards. What a lot of people don't realize is that it is all relative. When you are making $2.00 an hour and struggling to pay rent, paying $20. for a book was a big deal. I remember having to turn down a decent Action #1 at Cherokee Books for $250. It might as well have been a million dollars to me at the time...

[sagii]

@50YrsCollctngCmcs Nice 'Duck Tales' (Did you see what i did there  )

Wow, can hardly wait for the #10 reveal.....

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

15 hours ago, Yellow Kid said:

 I have written about the most unusual find of my life before, but if you haven't read it, you will enjoy this one and it is absolutely true.  I have found more books, but never had another experience like this one.  Leonard had contacted a middle-aged man who was supposed to have some great books and we made arrangements to visit him at 7:00 p.m. on a hot summer night.  He lived on a very steep hill in an older part of Los Angeles but we had bought comics in worse neighborhoods.  I rang the doorbell and could hear someone coming to greet us.  He pulled back the door, pushed out the screen door, stood stark naked in the doorway, held a half gallon of wine in one hand, and said, "Won't you boys come in?  I hope you don't mind I'm not wearing any clothes but it is just so hot tonight."  I was stunned.  Leonard was nine years older and just said thank you and pushed me in.  I was only 18 or 19 and was scared to death.  As soon as we sat down, he insisted that we have a glass of wine with him and that only made me more nervous.  However, as he turned to walk to his chair, we dumped our wine over the back of the couch.  When we saw that would work, we insisted that we all have another glass of wine, and kept repeating this until the bottle was empty. At last we got to his comic books and they were fantastic.  He had two boxes of early high grade Timely books as well as DC's.  The third box contained ten mint copies he bought off the stands of each of the first 23 issues of Mad Comics.  We worked out a deal on the comics and I started carrying them out to the car while Leonard paid him.  After taking the second box out, I returned and said I had them all.  Leonard looked at me and pointed at the third box and said I had forgotten it and to take it out, which I did.  As we drove back to Long Beach, he started laughing and said the guy had given us the third box.  A few weeks later, Stroud and Alexander visited the guy and they looked all over for the box of Mad Comics but I think they did get some pulps.  It was a night I will never forget.

Rich, such a great story! Thanks for sharing. I would have been scared too!

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

14 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Love the Disney buy stories 50! Back when you could find beautiful books for a pittance by today's standards. What a lot of people don't realize is that it is all relative. When you are making $2.00 an hour and struggling to pay rent, paying $20. for a book was a big deal. I remember having to turn down a decent Action #1 at Cherokee Books for $250. It might as well have been a million dollars to me at the time...

That's right, in my early days of collecting when I worked I starting making $1.50 per hour so a $15 book was a tough ten hours of work and a whole weeks pay for me!

Edited October 19, 2018 by 50YrsCollctngCmcs

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

13 hours ago, sagii said:

@50YrsCollctngCmcs Nice 'Duck Tales' (Did you see what i did there  )

Wow, can hardly wait for the #10 reveal.....

I'll wrap it up this weekend!!

[Mmehdy]

20 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Yeah, that's the one. I've had a couple real sketchy buys in my life but that one is the best I've heard!

How 'bout you Mitch? I know you have a good story or two...

Too many to even list... better over good Mexican food and a beer

[Sqeggs]

On 10/15/2018 at 2:04 PM, Tri-ColorBrian said:

On 10/15/2018 at 1:43 PM, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Bob, I'll have to hear about your Art Center days. Did you go to the Pasadena or LA campus?

I think he went to the Bottom Feeder campus in the Bowery.  With the Bowery Boys...

Slip or Satch?

[Sqeggs]

On 10/16/2018 at 1:43 PM, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

TOP TEN FAVORITES - Part 6 – The Big Score!

On Sundays we used to go visit with my Dad’s large extended family, first at Grandmom’s house then at my Aunt’s house both of whom lived on the Jersey shore blocks from the beach. This was great for any number of reasons; it was always fun to walk to the beach, there were lots of cousins with whom I could hang out, my Grandmother was a great and fascinating person full of stories and my older brother and I could roam around the train tracks, bridges, harbors and jetties on our own. One Sunday while at my Aunt’s I was reading the newspaper and discovered a classified ad that advertising a large comic collection for $5 in a town about ten miles south. I showed the ad to my Dad who told me to call. I did and the collection was available so we headed over there on the way home.

 

It didn’t take me long to plunk down the $5 for five large brown shopping bags stacked to the top with comics. What was in those bags you ask?

 

Well, how about every DC superhero comic from 1960 to 1963. And also every Archie from the same time period along with every Mad Magazine. I was in heaven and I got down to some serious reading taking in the beginnings of the Silver Age hero explosion DC style. Fond memories include the great Flash stories, the early JLA tales and the Tales of the Bizarro World. There were also some seriously great Superman tales in this time period that still hold up today. Oh and all those early annuals too!

 

The Mad magazine collection was also fantastic and contained early work by Don Martin and Antonio Prohías’ Spy vs. Spy. Mad also told the story of Prohias’ escape from Cuba and explained the lack of written narrative due to his inability to speak or write English. A great period for this magazine.

 

As far as the Archies, I mainly remember how great the Little Archie series was and also how fun the Archie Madhouse book was to read. I wish I had kept those.

 

There was one Marvel; an unread bone white copy of Fantastic Four #4 which re-introduced the SubMariner. This was a fun book but didn’t get hooked on Marvel because of it. In one of the most foolish fiscal deals I ever made, I traded this book for a copy of Vacation Parade #1 because I wanted to read the classic Barks tale in that book. Oh, the follies of youth but I sure loved that story!!

 

I still have most of the hero books, the Mads and Archies were sold or traded at some point and somewhere along the line, someone absconded with the first 12 Green Lanterns. Below are a few of the books I pulled from the comic closet from this collection.

 

 

 

For value, of course, it would now be FF 4 over VP 1, hands down.  FF 4 is one of the best early Marvels, imo, but VP 1 is one of Barks best (and his longest, iirc).  So, on content it would be pretty much a tossup for me.  But there is definitely a time when I would have made the same deal you did.

[Tri-Color Brian]

1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

Slip or Satch?

The Robot will have to answer that, because I wasn't there...

[BustedFlush]

On 10/18/2018 at 11:13 AM, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

I'll leave that to you Mike!

You mean BustedFlush!

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

1 hour ago, BustedFlush said:

You mean BustedFlush!

Yeah, him too.

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

TOP TEN FAVORITES - Part 10 – I come in from the Wilderness as a rejuvenated Collector

This last part will cover almost as much time as the first 9 parts which consisted of a ten year period of becoming a full-fledged comic fan and collector, a period of acquiring what still remains the bulk of my collection and refining my tastes and coming to a greater understanding of the intricacies of the hobby. It was a great period in my life and likely the highlight of my comic collecting journey.

Then I graduated college and things changed. I got a job in Southern California and was moved out here. That meant the moving company mainly moved my collection of comics! I wonder if that’s where my Green Lanterns disappeared. It would be the first of about ten moves of the collection over the years contributing greatly to many rounded corners of my off the stands books.

I drove out here with a good friend of mine and my cherished Barks duck collection was bagged and stored in a sturdy box behind the front seat of my car, which was a convertible. One of the great strokes of luck on the trip is when we were driving through a downpour in one of the Southern states my friend noticed that water was accumulating on the floor behind my seat right around my books! Fortune smiled on them and they escaped any water damage!

When I arrived in Southern California comics were little on my mind. I lived a block from the beach and life became all about work, going to the beach and out to parties on the weekend. Comics had hit the back burner. On occasion, I would pop into a comic store and see what was going on and I was lucky enough to pick up the first issue of the Rocketeer. But I missed out on Crisis, Dark Knight and Watchmen; all fairly seminal event in the DC universe. Disney comics weren’t even on the radar as they were nowhere to be found at this point. I even missed the appearance of Carl Barks at San Diego Comic Con; which I still regret. Every now and then I would pull out a box of books and take a quick look but the bug seemed to be gone.

Then a few things happened. I somehow found out that the Disney line was back under a new imprint called Gladstone. I had also discovered the monthly comic show at the Shrine (which still goes on although no longer monthly and not at the Shrine). There were also a couple of interesting displays of books in Hollywood which were put on to drum up interests in auctions. One of these featured all the Big Golden Age keys. I had also returned to school at the Art Center College which led to me meeting a number of other comic oriented folks and slowly the bug started to return.

So in the summer of 1990, I had a few extra bucks and I thought it might be interesting to see what San Diego Comic Con was like. I called a friend and we decided to drive down on a Saturday. The show was at the convention center and we casually drove down taking the coastal road from Oceanside so we could take in some beach sites. Now anyone who has been to San Diego in the last twenty years will find this next sentence impossible to believe. We drove up to the convention center about noon (the current one but it was smaller) and drove into the parking garage underneath the center, parked and walked upstairs to buy badges. No, I didn’t make that up and for the next five to six years it was almost that easy to park and I usually didn’t pay a nickel.

That show brought it all back home for me. As usual, funds were a bit limited but I had decided I wanted to buy a Golden Age Superman and I looked all over the hall for something interesting. In those days there were comics all over the hall as it was a comic convention and the vintage book dealers weren’t clustered into a small area. In the end, Lee’s Comics from the Bay Area had a display of a great collection of books from the Palo Alto area all going for about $200. I looked over many of them and I was torn between the Superman where he rides the missile and the Action Comics below. Somehow this Action called to me and the game was afoot!

After that things started to take off; I attended Comic-Con every year. I met Busted Flush who lived next door to where my current wife used to live and we became good friends. He started attending the show with me and we both started adding to our collection of Golden Age books. Ebay started to take off and this was another source of books. I re-subscribed to the Buyer’s Guide which was totally different than it used to be but still quite interesting. I became a regular at a comic store in Eagle Rock and discovered the Vertigo line of books and started to buy those. I was back in the game!!

Busted Flush and I started meeting at the LA show. At that time John Verzyl had an amazing booth each month. I mainly remember he always seemed to bring the Mile High run of Captain Midnight and these books literally shined they were so nice. Proving that there are always deals to be had at one of those shows I found this great Captain America for only $400. I bought it on the spot and it remains a highlight of my collection.

In the almost thirty years since I have bought a great deal of Golden Age material, mainly Dell Disney, Dell Kelly, and early DC. I’ve also been extremely enthused about the large number of books that have been published on the lives of both comic strip and comic book creators. The great number of reprint books has also been a great boon and resource. It’s probably the Golden Age of comic collecting in some ways as the hobby has matured by leaps and bounds. I think I’ll end my saga here and thank anyone who decided to share in my little story. Thanks for the comments.

[Robot Man]

Great story 50, I’ve very much enjoyed every post!   

[sagii]

Great stuff, enjoyed every post. Now onto 60 years.....

[Jayman]

@50YrsCollctngCmcs So what is next? Great top 10 but where are you headed next as a collector? Any books still on your to get list or goals to accomplish? Would love to know!

[Tri-Color Brian]

Great thread.  I think all of us old timers need to do one of these...