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Well,
a while back I mentioned that I had finally procured one of my most
sought-after comics for my collection and I promised to write a bit
more on that later. It's a good thing I waited a bit, because the
original deal fell through. I had won a copy of Flash #123 on
eBay for less than $100 (a lot less than $100, actually), which was
considerably lower than any price I had seen in recent memory. At the
2006 Buckeye Comic Con, I didn't find a single copy of this book under
$250...and the copies that are in better shape usually go for much more
than that. Now the book that I won was not in the best condition
(in fact, the cover was detached) but the book was complete with no
missing pages and it would have looked fine to display on my "Wall of
Fame." I paid quickly after the auction's end and soon after came
the big day in which the issue finally arrived in the mail. But when I
opened the package, I found Flash #137 instead of Flash #123.
Aargh! I contacted the sellers who confirmed that they had
mistakenly sent my #123 to they guy that had won the #137. I was
asked to send the #137 back and assured that as soon as they received
my #123 back from the other guy, they would send it on to me.
Weeks passed. I had returned the #137 very quickly, but over
time, it became apparent that the fellow who had gotten my #123 had no
intention of returning it. After some discussion with the seller,
I received a full refund for my purchase. Flash #123 had slipped
through my fingers.
Flash #123 September, 1962
I
knew there was at least one very big regional comic convention coming
up in Detroit, so I called an acquaintance a comic store in Dayton to
ask him to keep an eye out for an affordable copy of Flash #123 at the
upcoming event. My expectations
were high and I wasn't disappointed this time around, because just 2
weeks later, I got a call from the guy who told me he had procured not
one, but two affordable copies of Flash #123. He explained that
he had another customer who wanted the book as well, and that both
copies were in comparable condition and priced the same – and just in
my price range at that!
I
made it down to the store a few days later to check out both
copies. One was bagged and the other was a CGC-graded issue
(2.0), enclosed in a sealed case of hard plastic. The bagged copy
had a small piece missing out of the right bottom corner, but it looked
pretty good otherwise, and I decided to buy that one so that I wouldn't
have to mess with the sealed case on the CGC copy. Who in the
hell wants a comic book locked in a sealed case, anyway? I like
to be able to read my issues at least once before putting them away or
displaying them.
While
I was there, he also showed me a copy of "Is This Tomorrow? America
Under Communism" which is a 1947 comic book that fed on
America's rabid anti-communist hysteria that followed WWII. An
old Dayton, Ohio-based comic series called "Treasure Chest" ran a
similar batch of stories back in the 1960's or so. This stuff was
really xenophobic, over-the-top material. The guy from the comic shop knew of my
interest in this sort of thing and explained that he picked up the book
with me in mind. Of course, I couldn't help but take that issue
off his hands along with my Flash #123.
So Flash #123 is finally a permanent addition to my collection. Time to rearrange my Wall of Fame!
Late
Sunday afternoon, we got a call from a family friend who was just up
the street from our house at a garage sale. She told me that the guy
had a lot of comics for sale and, of course, I was interested right
away. I didn't have very high expectations, though, as Sunday
garage sales are pretty rare and given that it was almost 5:00 PM, I
figured the guy's stuff must have been pretty well picked over through
the course of Saturday and Sunday. Also, people who try to sell
comics at garage sales typically have very unreasonable
expectations. They often try to sell newer or relatively common
issues at cover price or higher. There's too much general
awareness of the collectibles market these days to allow for many "Antiques Roadshow"
finds at garage sales. This has also led to a kind of odd
situation in which people assume that they possess something of
substantial value when it is, in fact, relatively common. With
comics, people go one step farther and try to present their collectible
in a way that makes it look like it is well cared for and
valuable. With comics, they usually put single issues in big
Ziploc freezer bags or plastic binder sleeves to make it look like
their comics have been effectively preserved. But I digress...
One from the new batch:
JLI #9, January 1988
Within a few minutes, I was at the garage sale checking out the guy's
collection. He had a couple of boxes of different comics with a
sign indicating they were 25 cents each. Most of the issues were
from 1986 to 1992, which was pretty decent stint in my early
comics-reading life. DC issues far outnumbered Marvel stuff, which was
another plus for me. There was some crap in the boxes too, like as a
handful of coverless issues and a couple of Stuff and FHM
magazines (the latter of which I quickly took out of the boxes and
handed to the guy saying, "I don't want these.") After a quick look
through the boxes, I started to stack them up neatly into one box and,
without knowing how many issues there were, I told the guy I would give
him $30 for them. There was a brief silence and then the guy
said, "Yeah, I'll take $30." I finished stacking everything up
into a copy paper box (and also the lid of the box, as there was a bit
more than the box would hold) and paid the guy, asking him if he could
break one of the twenties that I handed to him. I guess it was
kind of crappy for me to ask him to make change after he gave me such a
good deal. I think he was a little annoyed with my relatively low
offer, but it was cold and late in the day and I figured he just wanted
to unload them. The guy's wife wanted him to help me to the car
with my stuff, but both times she told him to help me, he just shrugged
and said, "He's got it." At least I didn't end up having to pay
him a tip for helping with the box.
I got home and sorted out the contents of the box, finding a few bonuses like an issue of Future
magazine and a few paperbacks like Beyond Infinity and The Edgar Cayce Reader, Volume
2. I got rid of the issues without covers and a few other
mangled or stained issues, leaving me with a total of 289 "keepers"
(minus a few that are doubles of issues in my collection. There were no
real "big finds" in the box, but I have a lot of good reading material,
including a lot of post-Crisis Superman issues, some early '80's
Superboy issues, a bunch of newer Flash, Legion and Justice League
stuff (love those Justice League International/Justice League Europe
comics from the '80's) and some Marvel stuff here and there.
This is the third time I have bought a bulk lot of comics for my
collection. The first time was probably about 10 years ago when a
coworker brought in a few boxes of comics that he was having trouble
unloading at comic stores and used book shops. I looked through
his collection while he went on and on about all the good memories
about buying and reading the comics when he was in the military.
After he was done talking, I offered him $30 for his entire
collection. Man, he was annoyed – but he took the money after
all. I guess that makes me some kind of jerk. Oh well. That
batch was similar to the one I bought this weekend, but a little
smaller and there were quite a bit more Marvels in that bunch.
Good bathroom reading, for sure.
Another time, I bought the full run of Marvel's "New Universe"
titles at a toy show. I think I paid about $20 for the whole
lot. I'm still not sure how many were in that batch and I have
never gotten around reading them all. Probably not my best bulk
purchase, but I hated to see them just sitting there all unappreciated.
