If we are supposed to collect what we owned as a youth...

[ft88]

I read the copper age stuff at age 13-14 from a LCS which had all the Silver Age stuff in glass cases etc. making them look extra special. GA seemed to be a planet far far away. Tough to come by and even tougher to sell or trade if you wanted to do that. The internet leveled the playing field in that regard so GA is the place to be IMO. Its tough to be a collector of BA or SA when you can find any book if you wait a month or two.

 

One of the reasons I like Golden Age is that not a single person hoarded them with an idea to "collect". Great covers, stories, artwork, can be found in all ages of comics. The difference between all ages is GA never has a cover that says "collectors item". Very high grade are almost always part of a Pedigree or file copy which is kind of neat for those that own an 8.0 or better.

 

 

[alecholland]

Not me. Started with what I read as a kid (BA) and worked my way backwards until I realized GA is where it's at (thumbs u

 

That's kind of what I think is currently happening to me.

 

It feels like a natural progression in my case, because I really love BA horror and War comics and have wanted something more. I feel like I've found it in pre-code books. Honestly, I think if I had access to these kind of books when I was a kid, I would have spent all my paper route money on them even back then.

[seank]

Back in the 1980s, I had the person_without_enough_empathyin' bronze/silver collection and most of it got sold. I have no desire to recreate it. Also, I enjoy history and GA comics are about history -- when I read a book from the 1940s or 50s, I get as much enjoyment out of the ads as I do from the stories.

 

When I started with comics, in the mid-1970s, I was reading lots of pulp reprints -- Phantom, Doc Savage, and ERB mostly. GA reflects that nostalga.

 

And have you gone back and reread any of those precious BA books? The stories are just as awful or worse as the GA drek is.

[adamstrange]

My 12-year old self was absolutely crushed when the books arrived and I opened them to find putrid art and putrid stories.

 

Yeah, they really aren't any better than the BA stories.

 

Which issues did you get? What did you do with them?

 

 

[MrBedrock]

The premise is faulty...

We aren't supposed to collect what we owned as a youth.

We aren't supposed to collect at all, some of us are genetically wired to do so.

We collect what we are drawn to, whether it is while we are youth or as we grow up.

The gene that causes us to collect doesn't determine what we will collect.

Golden Age works for me because of the primary colors, the cover art, and the large size of the early 64 pagers.

Basically, I am a simpleton...so simple things appeal to me!

 

(This was the first golden age comic book cover I ever laid eyes on...

How could I not be drawn to comic books like this?)

 

[pinball]

 

Everyone has their own reasons, but I collect GA as antiques, as historical artifacts, for the cool covers, for the challenge, for the visual representation of the times/history, etc.,. The only challenge in collecting SA and BA is collecting high grade, and to me the cost of meeting that challenge is way over-priced compared to buying a low-mid grade comic book from the 1940's with a crazy WWII or sci-fi cover that you might only see available a couple times a year.

 

I completely agree with you! (thumbs u

[Ze-man]

Nice comments all, and Richie I agree with you, you are a simpleton!

 

As a collector I am personally drawn to stuff that filled my youth be it toys, cereal, and yes comics because of their singular ability to transport me back to my youth and many fond memories like no other era of collectibles. While I enjoy old the Superman TV show I get much more of a kick watching the 60's Batman TV show because that was what I watched as a kid.

 

So I will always have a soft spot in my heart for those titles and issues I collected as a kid, but recently perhaps due to becoming exposed, or rather educated about GA books(boy does that sound high brow and stuffy ) I have found myself really enjoying GA and pre codes on many levels that I never experienced with SA and BA books. And yes it is probably because of their added age, historical signifigance, content, and even page count, but I think it all comes down to it being new to me as a collector, I suppose it was the same thing when I discovered BA Horror books.

 

 

 

Hi, my name is Kenny, I am a comic collector. Its not my fault, it's a disease.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Monstro]

not sure if someone already mentioned this, but i can't imagine many people NOT collecting GA if it we're more affordable.

[MrBedrock]

Hi, my name is Kenny, I am a comic collector. Its not my fault, it's a disease.

 

Audience: Hi, Kenny.

[G.A.tor]

The premise is faulty...

We aren't supposed to collect what we owned as a youth.

We aren't supposed to collect at all, some of us are genetically wired to do so.

We collect what we are drawn to, whether it is while we are youth or as we grow up.

The gene that causes us to collect doesn't determine what we will collect.

Golden Age works for me because of the primary colors, the cover art, and the large size of the early 64 pagers.

Basically, I am a simpleton...so simple things appeal to me!

 

(This was the first golden age comic book cover I ever laid eyes on...

How could I not be drawn to comic books like this?)

girls

[MrBedrock]

The premise is faulty...

We aren't supposed to collect what we owned as a youth.

We aren't supposed to collect at all, some of us are genetically wired to do so.

We collect what we are drawn to, whether it is while we are youth or as we grow up.

The gene that causes us to collect doesn't determine what we will collect.

Golden Age works for me because of the primary colors, the cover art, and the large size of the early 64 pagers.

Basically, I am a simpleton...so simple things appeal to me!

 

(This was the first golden age comic book cover I ever laid eyes on...

How could I not be drawn to comic books like this?)

girls

I collect those too!

[VintageComics]

The premise is faulty...

We aren't supposed to collect what we owned as a youth.

We aren't supposed to collect at all, some of us are genetically wired to do so.

We collect what we are drawn to, whether it is while we are youth or as we grow up.

The gene that causes us to collect doesn't determine what we will collect.

Golden Age works for me because of the primary colors, the cover art, and the large size of the early 64 pagers.

Basically, I am a simpleton...so simple things appeal to me!

 

(This was the first golden age comic book cover I ever laid eyes on...

 

How could I not be drawn to comic books like this?)

girls

I collect those too!

 

That's why GGA art was invented. So us fanboys don't have to give up either.

 

 

And comics don't talk back to you.

 

R.

 

 

[shiverbones]

I think the little pictures in my 1st overstreet in 1984 is what did it for me. They were just SO much cooler then what I could buy at my local shop. That being said, I do collect books from any age if I think they are an example of what made that era great, so I am not 100% GA buy any means.

 

"Atom-Age" books are my hands down favorite though. All the dark underbelly of America in the early 50's leaks through to the surface there, it is a wonderful time capsule of what was great about us & what was wrong with us at the time.

[Guardian Comics]

I'd have to agree that not all comic collectors collect for nostalgia reasons. My 1st book ever picked up off the newsstand was Kitty Pryde/Wolverine #2 and although I have a soft spot for Wolverine, I don't own this book or anything post 1980 as part of my collection or have any interest in adding them to my collection. I've been bred unbeknownst to either one of us at the time by my father. Being the son of a hardcore vinyl record collector, I've been dragged around to record stores, record shows, flea markets and garage sales my entire life. I remember explaining to my teacher in grade four, that the way she was handling a record she had brought in for us to listen too wasn't the proper way if she wanted to keep it in Near Mint condition.

 

Anyways I collect to collect for god knows what reason. I don't want the collectibles of my youth because in my mind if I had access to them, then they weren't collectible. I seem to have the same OCD nowadays as even though I read 5 moderns a month after I'm done reading them I want to give them away to anybody because I don't believe they belong beside my FF#1 or ASM#1 or amongst my White Mountains.

 

I believe that every comic is a piece of history, and a pedigreed version is two pieces . The Iron Man movie doesn't take place without Tales of Suspense #39. I want to own a piece of that history, nothing more and nothing less. I'm chasing history and not trying to bring my childhood back. There are many levels of collecting and nostalgia driven collecting I believeto be very limiting. I can't see many members of this board collecting only for that reason. We have chose to take our collecting and habits up another level, to become more informed of areas we know nothing about. If we only cared about items from our youth, we wouldn't need these boards and the exposure to other avenues it brings.

 

Jim

[Silver Surfer]

I buy what appeals to me (thumbs u

 

What he said and while my main focus have moved to GA books I still love the BA/CA classics I grew up with and collect high grade raw copies of my favorite stuff. For me '77-'87 is the best decade of work by Marvel.

[The Black Hand ®]

The premise is faulty...

We aren't supposed to collect what we owned as a youth.

We aren't supposed to collect at all, some of us are genetically wired to do so.

We collect what we are drawn to, whether it is while we are youth or as we grow up.

The gene that causes us to collect doesn't determine what we will collect.

Golden Age works for me because of the primary colors, the cover art, and the large size of the early 64 pagers.

Basically, I am a simpleton...so simple things appeal to me!

 

(This was the first golden age comic book cover I ever laid eyes on...

 

How could I not be drawn to comic books like this?)

girls

I collect those too!

 

That's why GGA art was invented. So us fanboys don't have to give up either.

 

 

And comics don't talk back to you.

 

R.

 

 

Girls don't talk back to you if you know how to listen.

[kimik]

The first comic I ever bought was X-Men #211 at the age of 13. I have been a longtime BA collector, dabbling in SA now and again, but what got me interested in GA are the More Fun reprints from the Detective Comics 100 Page Giants I read as a youth. Now that I have the means to chase after them, I am going to start buying the MFs and other nice GA books.

 

I also agree with everyone on the appeal of the covers - a lot of the classic ones are relatively simple poses and/or great colors that are lacking in books today. Since all you see in a slab is the cover, GA books probably have the best classic cover artwork (except for the late SA/early BA Neal Adams DC covers (thumbs u ).

[innocuous]

I never considered GA until I started reading this forum.

 

If I just stay with my first collection, I would have a bunch of Archie's from the 70's and 80's. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Comicdey]

What a bunch of hooey....we collect because we're all OCD.

 

GA books to me are the pinnacle of my collecting progression. I purchased books off the stands from 1974-1990 or so. On occasion I'd find a pre-1974 12 cent cover comic and they were the oldest....most cool...books in my collection.

 

Around 1976, I went to a small book shop and saw that they were selling some old comics, and mentioned I had a collection of nice books. The owner (a teenager) came over to check out the collection, and out of around 300-400 books, the best book I had in his opinion was a Conan 33 white cover because it was in high grade. All my comics were readers at that time. At that point, I realized condition was important. I would purchase books whenever I found them, and when I traveled.

 

Around 1978, I went into a local antique store and saw/purchased my first GA book. Superman #59 in around VG. I paid the pricey $20 for it and was extremely excited to read a GA book. (Still have that one)

 

From then on, I wanted to collect earlier books with SA being the focus. I filled collection holes, and occasionally would run across a GA book. When I went to college, I finally got bit with the GA bug as books were actually available in Colorado and I'd make trips to the MH comics in Boulder and in Denver for their monthly auctions.

 

In 1990, I rented a room in my house (pre-marriage days) to another comic collector that had over 100,000 comics. His collection was everything from GA to Modern Drek and he was doing a lot of selling with his own catalogs. I purchased some things, traded quite a bit and at times accepted SA and GA books for rent money. After a couple years of that, I met my wife in 1992 and got married in 1994, kicked him out, sold the house and moved. My collection had more than tripled during that few year period.

 

He sold his entire collection on ebay in the early days and did pretty well, then invested it all in the stock market prior to the bust.....and lost a "ton" of money. He had multiple high grade SA/BA, CA keys etc and some really nice GA books in the pre-CGC days.....now he'd have a sob story to tell. Since then, he's been buying and selling slabs only, and has amassed quite a decent group of books again, but nothing compared the volume of his past.

 

I haven't been so aggressive in selling and still have 30,000 +/-. The books I collected in my youth are still appealing to me, so I keep them around....the marvels before my buying days are still interesting to me, but the hunt of GA is where the lure is. Better covers, better stories, hard to find items......that's what makes it fun.

 

GGA is where I do my hunting....I guess it's Freudian. I try to incorporate the hunt into superhero books, but they have to have a pretty girl on the cover to really get me interested. Red blooded American I guess.

 

Cheers to collecting what you love, buying back your youth if necessary, and hunting for the rare and unusual items, be it high or low grade

 

 

[Zonker]

I have next to zero interest in reacquiring the books of collecting youth (roughly 1969-1974) - even then I was initially far more interested in Silver Age Marvel than with what was being printed at the time (though I bought it all) -

 

That's really interesting, as I also have generally less interest in reacquiring books from my collecting youth (1975-1980 were my peak years), but remain obsessed with the books that came out just a few years earlier (1969-1974 ) It must be the feeling of being born just a bit too late to get the really cool stuff first-hand (I also like the Beatles, Stones and Byrds of the late '60s... go figure). I did have a very occasional issue in the early 1970s, and remember multiple re-readings of the letters pages commenting on issues I'd never seen-- and it is those "lost" issues that still have the greatest appeal all these years later.

 

How it ties in to Golden Age is that I also got a taste for it through the Golden Age reprints in the 100 Page Super-Spectaculars and tabloid size reprint books. And like others have mentioned, I remember being disappointed in my very first Golden Age purchase (Superman #39)-- the stories were weak, and suffered from a sameness that wasn't apparant when read in small doses in the reprint anthologies. Since then I've moved on to collecting Golden Age comics primarily as artifacts. I like going for the "type set," e.g. a Green Arrow More Fun cover, a Johnny Quick More Fun cover, a Spectre More Fun cover... still looking for the Dr. Fate More Fun cover.

 

I think there is an underlying subtext to this thread, which goes something like, Will Golden Age comics collecting greatly diminish as the first generation dies off? I think not. People point to pulp magazine collecting as being a small niche, but I'm not sure pulps ever scaled anywhere near the heights of comics collecting. Also, the pulp characters like Tarzan haven't remained in the public eye to the extent comics characters have. You don't have the legacy aspect with pulp characters the way you do between the current Batman storylines and the Golden Age Batman comics, or with a Silver Age Spider-Man interacting with the Golden Age Captain America. And finally, I'm thinking a large part of the magic of the pulps survives translation into reprint form (Conan, for instance) in a way that a large part of the appeal of Golden Age comics (at least for me) is lost in translation to the Archives or Masterworks formats.