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Dude! Where did you find that great comic?

Started by CAMERANIAC,

18 posts in this topic

CAMERANIAC

CAMERANIAC

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We've all read stories about about some of great collections that have been discovered either due to the passing of a great collector or some chance warehouse find etc. I think it would be interesting to hear where some of you have chanced upon that awesome, hard to find, issue that now resides in your collection. Was it a flea market / garage sale find, a trade with another collector or a chance discovery in Grandmas' attic? Tell us about how you stumbled upon your treasure. I know there has to be some great stories out there, whether they are fact or fiction, will be up to us to try and decide. lol Oh, and remember, your find, doesn't have to be a National Treasure. Something that is special, only to you, will qualify.

 

PS Pictures would be a plus !!! (thumbs u

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catrick339

catrick339

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...and that indeed is the key. Persistence. If you have the time to ankle around on weekends you can find minor treasures here and there at junk shops, auctions, antique stores, Goodwill and Salvation Army, garage sales, and remember to talk to EVERYBODY about your interest in buying old comics. I've gotten good deals through all these possibilities. It also helps that my wife and I greatly enjoy treasure hunting every weekend during the summer, and will stop at as many as 40 garage sales on a Saturday, looking not just for comics, but vintage hardcovers and paperbacks, antique furniture and radios, vintage glass and porcelain, decorative bronze castings, vintage tools, you name it. We clean house at least once a year at a garage sale and if we don't do $2000 in sales we're disappointed, and the house is decorated with some mighty pretty stuff.

 

Best scores? Well, here are a coule of examples:

 

I went to an estate auction in midMichigan a couple years ago and scored a complete run of Cerebus from 1 to 160 or so for 35 bucks, and a page of Cerebus original art, framed, for $20 (along with many other books at bargain prices). Five or six years ago I got a Detective 37 at a local antique store for $300. These kinds of deals don't happen every day, but the mord odd places you poke your nose into the more stuff you'll find.

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Mr.Silvestri

Mr.Silvestri

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Here's one but it's not about 1 book but many books.

 

I was looking for books on ebay a few years ago and bought a lot of books like butcher knight-ascension- :blahblah: :blahblah:

Anyways I asked the seller if I could just pick up the books I'd won because he lived close enough to me and was going to hit some comic shops in Chicago.

The seller said sure not a problem & then e-mailed me through ebay and asked that I contact him via personal email in which I did.

Seller asking if I'd be interested in buying some long boxes of books- I said sure how many were there, seller says 80 long white boxes-golden-silver bronze-copper-modern so on & on, He said thousand bucks takes the whole thing and I asked what early books did he have and seller responds:RANGER COMICS- AMS-X-MEN-AVENGERS-BATMAN-SUPERMAN-PRE CODE HORROR :blahblah:

 

I said yes " were can I come and pick it up"

 

Seller said his house which made me nerves :screwy: any ways went to pick up what I thought was 80 long boxes of books which turned out to be 236 long boxes of some great comic books-posters-T.P.B- and any thing having to do with comic books.

 

ALL FOR THE SAME PRICE OF 1K

 

Took me and 2 other people to move 2 pick-up trucks-trailer- and U-Hual truck full of books.

My wife came home thinking there was only a few boxes to her surprise the whole house was full of boxes and took us many weeks to move these things out and get most of them in to the rrom I have for my comics.

Many I sold for cheap because I didn't know what I know now and wanted to first make my money back in which I did many-many times over.

And still find comic shops closing down and offer a buy-out to the owners in which I've gotten some really good deals.

Have to love the internet.

 

Thanks everyone,

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CAMERANIAC

CAMERANIAC

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...and that indeed is the key. Persistence. If you have the time to ankle around on weekends you can find minor treasures here and there at junk shops, auctions, antique stores, Goodwill and Salvation Army, garage sales, and remember to talk to EVERYBODY about your interest in buying old comics. I've gotten good deals through all these possibilities. It also helps that my wife and I greatly enjoy treasure hunting every weekend during the summer, and will stop at as many as 40 garage sales on a Saturday, looking not just for comics, but vintage hardcovers and paperbacks, antique furniture and radios, vintage glass and porcelain, decorative bronze castings, vintage tools, you name it. We clean house at least once a year at a garage sale and if we don't do $2000 in sales we're disappointed, and the house is decorated with some mighty pretty stuff.

 

Best scores? Well, here are a coule of examples:

 

I went to an estate auction in midMichigan a couple years ago and scored a complete run of Cerebus from 1 to 160 or so for 35 bucks, and a page of Cerebus original art, framed, for $20 (along with many other books at bargain prices). Five or six years ago I got a Detective 37 at a local antique store for $300. These kinds of deals don't happen every day, but the mord odd places you poke your nose into the more stuff you'll find.

 

You and your wife sound alot like myself "Collectors of about everything" and since the arrival of eBay "sellers of about everything". I love going exploring the flea markets, garage sales and antique shops. You never know what might turn up.

Maybe a nice find, like yours? (worship)

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CAMERANIAC

CAMERANIAC

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Way back about 1979/80 when I was about sixteen years young and living in a small town in north west Indiana, I found what was then to me, a small treasure.

 

Every weekend during the warm months, I would hop into my pickup and go to a fleamarket called, Uncle Johns, just to see what goodies I could find. The town I lived in (Lowell) was pretty small and isolated, so there wasn't much else to do. Anyways, Uncle Johns' seemed to be where everyone would spend at least one day of the weekend, just hanging out and socializing. At the time, I wasn't that much of a comic collector but did have a few books stashed away that I had received from my cousin that lived in Michigan. He was really into comics. When our families visited he would always hook me up with some of his lower grade culls. lol! Ha, I can still remember how excited he was, when He got his first lower grade copy of The X-Men #1.......oops!... sorry for straying (hehe):blush:

Now getting back with my original story. Along with the few comics, I also had an Overstreet price guide that I used to thumb through all of the time, looking at all of the great covers of the comics that I did not have but of course, wanted. I had, burned into my memory, alot of the covers of the popular books, that were featured in the guide. Little did I know, that one day, my having the Overstreet guide, would pay off at Uncle Johns.

I pulled into the fleamarket as usual, and started my trek along the seemingly endless rows of usual junk, antiques and other beautiful stuff. I think at the time, I was looking for old fishing lures, you know, the old wooden ones, that are so hard to find? I wasn't having any luck in my quest for lures but about midway through my search, I chanced upon this really nice lady that greeted me with a smile and asked what I might be looking for. I told her that I was looking for old fishing lures and asked her if she might, by chance, have any. She told me that she didn't have any lures but that I was welcome to look around, to see if there was something else that I might interest me. So, being a little dissapointed at not finding a lure, I started to check for this "something else". I can't remember what all she had lying around but I do remember the BOX. Yes, THE BOX!... There in the middle of all of the uninteresting things, was this box. I looked into the box and the first thing I noticed was that the box, was full of COMICS. I couldn't believe it. I had just found my very first box of comics. Looking closer, I noticed that the book on top, had this guy with a sword, fighting some demon looking creatures. I started shaking. I knew that I had seen the book before,in the guide. Wow! I couldn't believe my luck. The more I went through the stack of books, the more excited I got. I noticed a cover showing the crazy looking guy with the flaming skull head, riding a motorcycle and another showing a group of wild looking people(The Forever People) and on and on. Not only did the box consist of mainly number ones, they were also in like new condition. I couldn't believe my luck. I remember wishing my cousin was there with me, to share the moment. Trying not to appear too excited, I asked the lady, in my most uninterested voice, "how much are the comic books?" Her reply was that she had found them in her attic and that they had belonged to her son that had been killed in the war. Now, after hearing that, I felt real bad for her and was sorry that I even asked about the books but then she said that I could have them all for $15.00. I checked to see how much money I had and found that I had only $11.00. Dang, I didn't have enough! She must have noticed my dissapointment because she asked me how much I had. I told her that I had only $11.00, not enough to buy the comics. I'm sure you all know what happened next. Yes, she told me that I could have them for the $11.00. I gave her the money, picked up the box, thanked her and was on my way home, to get THE GUIDE. Couldn't get home quick enough.When I finally got home, i started to look up some of the titles that I thought I had recognized such as Conan The Barbarian #'s 1 an 2, Ghost Rider #1, The Forever People #1, alot of horror titles and the list goes on. Conan #1 at that time booked for $55.00 in nm9.2 and I know from memory that it and most of the other books in the box were in NM condition, probably read one time then carefully put away by a young man that afterwards, gave his life to protect our freedoms, something that I couldn't quite appreciate at the time.

 

Unfortunatly for me, a couple of years later, my interests changed. I needed money to buy something that I am sure I really did not need.So I called the number of a comic dealer listed in the news paper, doh!. I told him what I had and in no time, he was at my house and offered me $75.00 for the short box of books that I had and like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person, I agreed to the sale.I think he was shaking as much as I did when I found the books. Now, I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and stop myself from making that deal but I am sure that we all, can in some way, relate.

 

So, there was one of my treasure tales. Maybe you have one of your own to tell?

 

Thanks for looking

Bill

 

 

 

 

 

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comicparadox

comicparadox

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About twenty years ago, I found a half-cover Hulk #1 in a longbox. The box was labelled comics $1 each. So I bought it.

 

Other than that, the best book I found at flea market was a beat-up Detective 69, (great Robinson Joker cover) for $50. Probably not that great a deal dollar-value wise, but it was so cool finding that book in a pile of Classics Illustrated books from the 60s.

 

Last year a dealer from whom I'd bought coverless books before sold me a coverless golden-age Captain America at a very fair price. Then next show he called me over and GAVE me the cover to the book - he'd found it in another stack.

 

Chance favors the prepared mind.

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catrick339

catrick339

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You and your wife sound alot like myself "Collectors of about everything" and since the arrival of eBay "sellers of about everything". I love going exploring the flea markets, garage sales and antique shops. You never know what might turn up.

Maybe a nice find, like yours? (worship)

 

Yeah, I'm interested in all sorts of paper, and my wife has an excellent eye for costume jewelry and decorative glass and we both like antique furniture. My parents collected Carnival glass and RS Prussia & RS Germany fine china, and we know a LITTLE bit about all sorts of other things, enough to spot a bargain at a garage sale or flea market.

 

The more you hang out at antique stores and such the better eye you have for something you remember from months or years ago that you saw for $$$.

 

Watch the Antiques Roadshow too, it's an education all by itself!

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CAMERANIAC

CAMERANIAC

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Last year a dealer from whom I'd bought coverless books before sold me a coverless golden-age Captain America at a very fair price. Then next show he called me over and GAVE me the cover to the book - he'd found it in another stack.

 

Chance favors the prepared mind.

 

Wow! you got lucky obtaining the cover. Good luck with more great finds :applause:

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