JReinhardt-migration

I have been active with CGC submissions for a little over 2 years now. As i have stated before I have collected for over 50 years now .. certainly not as sophisticated a collector as a lot of you , but someone who read and loved comics in the early 60's and kept going back to it after small lulls every few years. The forums and discussions here are great and have been educational for someone like me who before this age of automation looked forward to the yearly Overstreet update to try to learn more. I appreciate the culture here of sharing ideas and people sharing their vast knowledge with those of us who are less savvy and i do get a kick out of the occasional sarcastic joking and find myself getting a good laugh at some thoughtful humor. I've learned about restoration, found as I was submitting my raw books the last couple years that a few key books I purchased as non-restored had color touch or in one case had married pages. I've recently started submitting a few of my moderns that I had purchased at my LCS in the 80's and early 90's - these ware books that were purchased, bagged and boarded immediately and stored. Out of the first 10-15 i had submitted I only received 1 9.8 (thankfully it was ASM 361) the rest were primarily 9.4 with a one 9.6 . After much research and reading posts here I decided to try an experiment with pressing route so now I have 37 books in the process and this is where I am learning a little patience. I started submitting early April and my first 17 just hit the grading process. I am hopeful it goes well and hopefully patience will be rewarded with some great grades. I think in this age of instant gratification the process of learning patience may actually be a good thing for some of us. Thanks again for reading and thanks to everyone here for your many contributions and sharing your knowledge with us Joe To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.

Before the introduction of the local comic shop, as a small town youth in the 60's, the comic world initially seemed so simple and it all wrapped up neatly for me. I would travel with my mom to the grocery and drugstore and check the comic rack and get 2 comics for my quarter. DC and Marvel both seemed to neatly wrap up a story line in a single issue. Then came spring of 1964....I went to the grocery store and started to look through the comic section and I see 2 of my favorites - Fantastic Four #25 with an awesome Hulk vs Thing battle cover and Spider-Man 11 with Doc Ock. I get home and start reading , great stories and I am totally hooked then it happens ......Continued next Issue - both issues...What!!! So the dreaded wait begins ... the grocery store and drugstore in town only carried a few copies of each title so if your timing was off you were totally stranded. I checked the comic rack in the stores for weeks each time my mom went to town for groceries and thankfully I found FF26 (but had to wait till the late 80's to finally get ASM 12). I think back and it reminds me of the search thrill I still get when looking for that book I need to fill a spot in my collection. It's funny how the excitement and feeling you have when you acquire a wanted book today can take you back to another time. Thanks for reading.. Joe To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.

Going through boxes of books and forgetting what I had purchased and put away.... I'm sure a lot of collectors on here do this on a regular basis . Since signing up for CGC I've been sending in many of my silver-age books I've collected over the years for grading. I now find myself spending time on weekends going through boxes of books and discovering many lost treasures that I simply had forgotten about. A few weekends ago I stumbled upon a tupperware container of action figures and discovered 2 copies of FF12, an FF6, Spider-Man 4 and Incredible Hulk 3. Sent them in immediately for grading and just got results today. All were lower grade but the excitement of finding those books was like having that kid at Christmas feeling again. To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.

Progressing from buying based on great covers to being a completest to going back to buying and reading the books and covers I enjoy It started as kid judging a book by its cover.. I had to spend my 25 cents carefully and the cover art usually sold the book to me. The great covers and hype by Stan Lee usually won me over.. FF25 Hulk vs Thing was and still is one of my favorites. Years later I was determined to have complete runs of all silver age marvels then just when I was nearly there my mood changed again and I started re-thinking and came back to collecting the great books and covers that really appealed to me. I think as collectors we all need to go through these phases and we need to allow ourselves to enjoy the journey and at some point we arrive back at the things we really love.... To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.

Sept 1963 .... Spider-Man #4 It started 50 years ago this month ..I picked up a copy of Spider-Man #4 and I was hooked. Every trip to the grocery store became a major decision on which two 12 cent books I could purchase with the quarter my Mom gave me to spend. Within the next few months I was immersed in a world created by Lee,Kirby and Ditko. Avengers, JIM, Tales of Suspense almost every title kept me reading and finding an escape dictated by Stans storytelling. As the years passed my interest waned in high school but I kept my books and after I was married with children of my own, I rediscovered my old friends and started taking my kids to the comic shop on Saturdays and building on my collection and starting theirs. Years have passed and now my grandkids come over to see Amazing Fantasy 15, Avengers 1, Tales of Suspense 39 and the many runs of books I have accumulated. It is a great hobby and has been a comfort throughout my life. Preparing to submit many old books for grading soon and look forward to continue enjoying this great hobby for as long as I can... To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.