CGC Collectorverse: Collector Origin Stories – bagofleas

For this issue of Collectorverse “Origin Stories,” we turned the spotlight on CGC Comics Registry user bagofleas to explore their remarkable collection of high-grade Harvey Comics, featuring beloved Casper the Friendly Ghost. Their dedication to preserving these classic titles is evident in every meticulously graded copy, each one a testament to the charm, whimsy and nostalgia that define Harvey’s golden era.

For bagofleas, collecting Harvey Comics is a celebration of the timeless stories and characters that have delighted generations of readers.

Q&A with bagofleas

Great to talk comics with you! Tell us all about how you started collecting.

My father and I began hardcore comic collecting together in 1984 when I was 11 years old. While I had owned and read some comics here and there as a child, this was when we decided to really go hard into putting together collections of various series.

I began collecting and submitting for graded comics in 2007, a number of years after my father passed away.

Your collection on the CGC Comics Registry has a lot of modern comics but then there are all these great Harvey sets. How did you get into Harvey comics and do you have any stories to share about some of your favorite issues?

When I was very young, my first forays into comics were things such as Archie digests and Harvey comics and digests. I liked Richie Rich and Casper the most among those Harvey series.

Once I got into collecting graded books, I initially went after more mainstream hero series, but I also decided pretty soon afterwards to look for nice, graded copies of the Harvey books here and there for nostalgia, if nothing else.

Your Harvey sets have a lot of very nice, high-grade examples. Tell us about collecting these books. What are the challenges facing a Harvey collector? 

Harvey issues are generally much tougher to acquire in higher grades, due to the fact that they were geared towards children, of course. So they were not handled well, generally speaking.

Finding high-grade copies can be a daunting task. You typically have to look for File Copy issues, or issues that were held by Harvey over the decades in order to accomplish this.

Almost all my graded Harvey issues are File Copies, with very few exceptions. Also, most of these graded issues have extremely low census numbers in the highest grades, like single-digit copies, if any copies at all.

Casper the Friendly Ghost is one of the most recognizable cartoon characters and a main star of the Harvey line-up. What do you think gives him such broad appeal and staying power? 

Casper was a very innocent, funny and morally upright character. This was the sort of thing that appealed to most children. He would have wild and zany adventures but always had a moral center to his responses to people and even other ghosts. Watching him deal with issues and people and their responses to him made for interesting reading.

It helped show children that no matter how different you may be from others, that by being a good person and simply being who you are, you can find friends anywhere.

What's been the role of the Registry when it comes to your collecting goals?

The CGC Comics Registry was actually a big part of why I started looking for these particular books. While nostalgia was obviously there for me, I was also working to increase my Registry point totals quickly. Harvey issues were perfect for this back when I started with them. I was picking up 9.6 and 9.8 copies affordably, making for a faster increase to my registry totals.

And lastly, you've got a time machine. You can go back and buy three comics off the rack. What are they?

I would probably go with Amazing Fantasy #15, Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27.

About CGC

Since revolutionizing comic book grading in 2000, CGC has grown to include certification services for a vast variety of pop culture collectibles. These divisions include CGC Cards, CGC Video Games and CGC Home Video. CGC Cards provides expert card grading for TCGs, sports cards and non-sports cards. CGC Video Games is dedicated to video game grading for the most popular consoles, including Nintendo, Sega, Atari, PlayStation and more. The newest division of CGC, CGC Home Video, provides expert VHS grading in addition to other types of home media, including Betamax tapes, DVDs and Blu-ray discs.