Just bought the grossest, most disgusting collection 6 6

[BoogieWoogie]

How did you come across this one? I buy enough as it is, venturing into buying whole collections would be dangerous territory for me I think but it can yield some gems like this cat lady apparently had...

[Bluemedgroup]

Doesn't matter the smell when it's going to be encased in a nice CGC slab.  

[F For Fake]

Wooooooooooooow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Hope you find lots of gems, and sounds like you got it cheap. But those boxes shouldn't get anywhere near the interior of your actual home. Good lord. Wear gloves. Biohazard city.

[EastEnd1]

When I've done that, I typically start going through my usual wipe and rebag process until I get so disgusted with each successive issue I pull out of the box, I literally just start tossing the really bad ones in the trash!  [And have to say it's a weird feeling to do that when you're entire DNA is about preserving comics!]

[WolverineX]

9 hours ago, gadzukes said:

I'm sure other board members have lots of war stories to tell about collections they've bought, but.... wow I just went to see (and ended up buying) such a disgusting presenting collection.  Ugh!!!

11 long boxes.  It's sitting in the back of my (covered) pick up right now.  I don't even want to bring it into my garage (my wife will divorce me if she sees it).

The woman who had them was a hoarder, a cat person, a bird person..... she wouldn't let me into her house (cuz she was embarassed).  When I arrived she had 4 of the long boxes in her front yard and she was trying to clean the cat vomit and bird poop off of them.  She later told me that her cats have eaten on top of the boxes for years.  Ugh!!!!

Yes, I know... you want to run away right now.  But what if there's a major key issue?????

From talking to her I knew it was a Copper/Modern collection which is a time period I don't know a lot about (except that there's a ton of drek in the 90s)

But..... there's always a chance of Some Batman Adventures, or New Mutants 98, or Walking Dead so I stopped breathing thru my nose and plunged in.

The first box I grabbed had early Teen Titans including #2.  My big test was to open the disgusting mylar and see if the comic inside was actually nice.  Ugh! To my delight it was actually fairly high grade.

I found many more keys from the era.  Probably the biggest comic I found was The Crow 1 in pretty nice shape.  I also found Xmen 266 in nice shape.

There's a bunch of Turtles comics which I don't know a lot about (and didn't feel like figuring out at the time because of how disgusting everything was)

I made a fairly low ball offer because of how disgusting everything was.... she took it.... and now.... my goal is to remove every comic and dispose of the awfulness of the bags boards and boxes as soon as possible.  But... with 11 long boxes, that's a lot of work!!!!

Here's a pic of the Crow 1 comic.  Front cover presents like a 9.0, but there's some small flaws on the back cover.  By itself it will probably pay for the entire collection.

2nd pic is of one some of the boxes I was dealing with.  As bad as I've ever seen! I think her cats used the boxes as a scratching post.  Luckily EVERY comic I checked out was good in the mylar, but the mylars are disgusting too.  It's really bad.

Have any of you had to deal with a disgusting "presenting" collection like this?  I will say this.... It sure makes negotiating easy.

 

 

 

Glad you picked up the collection.  You have balls of steel touching those boxes....   ditto on the more photos

[Dick Pontoon]

Were they really in Mylars Gadzukes or are you just using that as a catch-all term for comic bags?

[D2]

[gadzukes]

7 hours ago, B2D327 said:

The Crow looks nice but there are 3 printings of number 1. A 1st print is dated 2/89 on the interior. 2nd and 3rd have the notation on the inside front cover.  

It's a 1st print.

[gadzukes]

1 hour ago, BoogieWoogie said:

How did you come across this one? I buy enough as it is, venturing into buying whole collections would be dangerous territory for me I think but it can yield some gems like this cat lady apparently had...

Most of my Facebook friends know I am a big comic book guy.  This lady was a friend of a friend and contacted me.  I knew she was a hoarder & cat lady so I asked her in advance to bring the boxes out to the front yard, which was what she wanted to do anyway cuz she was embarrassed about the inside of her house (I can only imagine).  When I showed up and saw the condition of the boxes...... ugh. 

Edited April 20, 2021 by gadzukes

[gadzukes]

12 minutes ago, Pontoon said:

Were they really in Mylars Gadzukes or are you just using that as a catch-all term for comic bags?

I call all comic bags mylars (I guess that's a mistake).  These were comic bags

[the blob]

I had a JIM 84 that was in a taped up sealed mylar and you could see some mold on the back. It was a nice book otherwise but I was scared of it infecting my other books, so i kept it wrapped in like 6 bags, taped up. Eventually I got tired of being scared of it and sold it too cheap. Oh well. I probably could have gotten it removed somehow.

[the blob]

That box looks terrifying from the outside. 

[BabaLament]

I feel your pain. I bought a large collection after Hurricane Harvey, and it was from a guy who kept his collection in his *garage*. In Houston! 28 long boxes, 14 short boxes, and 17 packing boxes. It was a haul and a half. Going through everything, I pulled a full long box full of keys, which would have been great...except for the water damage. Most of the books had mold spots or straight-up water damage. It was a shame, but not the worst part. The bottom two rows of boxes obviously got wet from flood water. The long boxes were a complete write-off; the books were soaked solid with muddy water...and they were the oldest books! I tossed a full long box of Uncanny X-Men, starting at issue #1, because they were just gone; soggy, moldy pulp. Same with a bunch of early Marvel; all the great stuff that I'll probably never see again, completely ruined. I made out ok; I'm not complaining too much considering I almost got them for free, but yeah, the memory of the stink from the mold still makes me gag.

[gadzukes]

Phase 1)  Get rid of ALL the trashed out long boxes and get all of the comics into new clean fresh boxes.

I have completed Phase 1.  WooHoo

Phase 2) Remove comics from bags and throw away EVERY old bag & board.

I have made it through 3 of the 11 boxes but need to take a break (This is tiring work)

So far..... as disgusting as the boxes and comic bags are, there has not been any mold or damage to the interior comics.

Note to self:  Wash hands frequently and don't touch my face

 

Edited April 20, 2021 by gadzukes

[speedcake]

moar pics or we riot

[JollyComics]

W-O-W!!!

It was amazing that all books survived the horrid traumatic ordeal!  You should have worn a Hazmat suit!

[gadzukes]

30 minutes ago, the blob said:

That box looks terrifying from the outside. 

There were 11 total boxes.  Probably 5 looked like that box.  A couple looked worse.  And luckily 4 boxes were unaffected (the cats couldn't reach them?)

[gadzukes]

Just pulled these two out and transferred them to clean new bags.

They seem to be fine.  I don't detect cat pee smell.

Edited April 20, 2021 by gadzukes

[the blob]

40 minutes ago, BabaLament said:

I feel your pain. I bought a large collection after Hurricane Harvey, and it was from a guy who kept his collection in his *garage*. In Houston! 28 long boxes, 14 short boxes, and 17 packing boxes. It was a haul and a half. Going through everything, I pulled a full long box full of keys, which would have been great...except for the water damage. Most of the books had mold spots or straight-up water damage. It was a shame, but not the worst part. The bottom two rows of boxes obviously got wet from flood water. The long boxes were a complete write-off; the books were soaked solid with muddy water...and they were the oldest books! I tossed a full long box of Uncanny X-Men, starting at issue #1, because they were just gone; soggy, moldy pulp. Same with a bunch of early Marvel; all the great stuff that I'll probably never see again, completely ruined. I made out ok; I'm not complaining too much considering I almost got them for free, but yeah, the memory of the stink from the mold still makes me gag.

I had some long boxes of comics in my parents' garage in the back. Without telling me they decided to move them to the front. Well, there was a big storm, some water leaked under the garage door and I had 3 long boxes of ruined comics. thanks mom! luckily they were junk comics at the time, but who the heck knows? this was 15+ years ago, i have no idea if I threw out current treasures.

[Comics4All]

41 minutes ago, gadzukes said:

Phase 1)  Get rid of ALL the trashed out long boxes and get all of the comics into new clean fresh boxes.

I have completed Phase 1.  WooHoo

Phase 2) Remove comics from bags and throw away EVERY old bag & board.

I have made it through 3 of the 11 boxes but need to take a break (This is tiring work)

So far..... as disgusting as the boxes and comic bags are, there has not been any mold or damage to the interior comics.

Note to self:  Wash hands frequently and don't touch my face

 

When you stop to take a break, I would recommend not eating disco fries as your snack choice if you forgot wash your hands before eating!

This is a testament to whatever company makes those boxes! To survive that atrocity and the comics are ok? WOW!