WernerVonDoom

Yep. I went to the Blossom Hill store as well. Seemed like nice people. I hope you rebuild your collection.

I heard stories of his famous back room, but never saw it. Jealous you got to go in. Funny you should mention Comics and Fantasies, I used to ride my bike there starting around 1980. One day, I was digging in a long box and found a 30 cent FF 171 and a regular 25 cent copy right behind it. I thought I had found something special. Unfortunately, the thought that there might be others never crossed my mind. If I did, I'd probably have a full set of them. Great memories of that store as well.

Yep, king of the 9.4

This is a tough one in 9.8

No, he has a very impressive collection. He's just more of a DC guy.

Nope he had no idea. This was the original Comic Collector Shop - the one you are talking about is its descendent. The owner's name was Bob Sidebottom and he was a character - he basically was the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. After digging through the stacks of books, you would slowly bring your pile to the front counter to find out what the cost is. He'd look at the books, look at you, and depending on his mood would tell you the price. I once made the mistake of questioning the price on a book and he raised it $5. I always stayed silent after that. I loved that place.

We could see how nice the books were in the bag I was going through. He knew if the book was in there it would be a gem.

That's rough!! At least you have a great story. I can totally see that happening though, $185 in the 1970s is nothing to sneeze at.

It was strange seeing it. My heart rate went up real fast but I kept staring at it in disbelief. A few seconds seemed like an hour.

So in the mid-80s, me and my friend take a trip to Comic Collector Shop in downtown San Jose, CA. This is an old-school store, just jam-packed with books. The owner had very few boxes, the books were in just in piles everywhere. Near the front counter, he had two stacks of random good stuff which were usually 100-150 books high and you'd have to dig through book by book. We walk in and my friend goes, "You take that stack and I'll take this one". So I'm digging through and I come across a bag with about 15 books in it and there's an Iron Fist #1 on top. I pull them out and slide over the #1 and behind it is #2, then #3, #4 and so on. At the time, Iron Fist #14 was the hottest book around and my friend says he's going to go ballistic if IF #14 is in there. So I keep going, 10, 11, 12, 13....14!!!! Bingo! My friend lets out a groan. The book was in perfect shape. Here it is today: I pull out a couple of other nice books out of the pile and my friend is grumbling but he does find a mid grade copy of IF #14 out of his stack and a couple of other decent books. For the next 30 years, that story gets told and retold, "If only I picked the other stack!" and we laugh about it. Which brings us to today. He brought over a short box of books for me to see what would be good to slab and his copy of Iron Fist #14 from that day was in the box: He had no idea. %$#%^@?!!!

Fear #23 is a Mark Jeweler

Secret Invasion #3

Its definitely a good time to buy.

Those are all amazing copies!

Oh man. Beauties! That Conan #20 is my favorite picture frame.

Nope, unfortunately that one wasn't mine. I'm the king of 9.4/9.6 picture frames.

A 9.8 OW/W 147 sold for ~ $400 in December and I missed it. Ugh. And I think Mrs. Donut owes me a lasagna.

Thanks! Yeah, I finally decided to grade more of my raw books. Also, some of the FFs I need have been popping up.