Warehouse finds like this scare me

[Guest]

I believe that there are many more large Golden Age collections to be "announced". There are those that just sit on things, until the last minute, or for their grandchild.

 

Reminds me of something that happened about 25 years ago. I was working as a cop in a two man car and the guy I was working with (Jim) had every toy he ever was given, in perfect shape and stored away. That was how he was raised. You played with things gently and kept them like new. He was about 25 then. Further, he had started collecting old toys and had the hunger to purchase a toy Police Motorcycle pedal car for his son (spoiled son). He told me that he had found a man that lived in a nearby city who had one for sale for $600.00. He asked me if I wanted to go with him after work to see it. Being that I also collected old toys I said sure. We went there and it was a very nice house in a very upscale neighborhood. We went in uniform and the man who was selling the police motorcycle pedal car apparently decided that he could trust us and asked if we would like to see his collection. We said sure of course, and he took us into his home and into his nicely finished basement. It was large, clean and full of display cases and shelfs. He had a collection of old toys that would stagger your mind. He had pedal cars (fire engines and others with all metal (no plastic) parts) NEW IN THE BOX, stacked up to the ceiling. He had Batman clocks by the dozen, mickey mouse watches, just about anything you can think of, from slinky's to antique railroad trains, ALL NEW IN THE BOXES. It was unbelieveable. I did not think to ask him at the time if he had any comic books. The place was large and I was in awe. I remember thinking that this guy was not old enough to have purchased this stuff new, so he must really have some contacts and big bucks. I should mention that he had a Rolls Royce in the garage where he had the pedal cycle we had come to purchase.

 

Anyway, all I can recall about this man was that he was Jewish and a lawyer. IF (and for some reason I suspect it is so) he also had comic books, they would be among the best I am sure. This man took his collecting seriously and obviously had the money and contacts to do so. He had literally thousands of old toys, NIB and duplicates of everything I observed. The only thing I saw that looked old (which is why it caught my eye) was a wooden train engine that a child could sit on and push his self with his feet and "ride" across the room. It was in good shape but very old looking. The man seemed to favor that thing very much and said that it was from 18-- something. I forget now.

 

So, in a nut shell, I believe that there are exceptional collections "out there", not waiting to be "discovered", but rather waiting to be "announced".

 

Of course, you that mentioned it are correct. The right way to maximize profits would be to "leak" them out one at a time. After all. Someone might pay a million for a NM Action 1 if one was "discovered" but I am sure they would not if a set of twenty NM Action 1's was discovered. Thinking about it now (I forgot all about it until reading this thread), That man was approximately 45 or 50 at that time. So he might be around 70 to 75 now. Wish I would have remembered his name. I am going to contact JIm and see if he remembers it. Probably not, but maybe. By the way, Jim's son turned out to be just like his father. He has every toy he was ever given, in perfect shape. He just finished college. Seems like a real good kid too. I always thought he was spoiled back then.

[Flash105]

I'll give you an example of what might be out there. My boss and former comic shop owner loved X-Men and knew right from issue 94 that it was going to be big. He sold about 100 copies a month of each issue. Starting with issue 99, he bought an additional long box, that's right 250 copies of each issue and put them five to a bag (golden age bags) and stored them in a rental home. He did that through issue 150. That is a bunch of high grade books that are still put away, still unsold, sitting until who knows when. If he did it, I have to think others did it.

[dekeuk]

What scares me is how many raw collections may have been done in during the Iowa flooding....

 

There are comic collectors in Iowa?

[sckao]

I'll give you an example of what might be out there. My boss and former comic shop owner loved X-Men and knew right from issue 94 that it was going to be big. He sold about 100 copies a month of each issue. Starting with issue 99, he bought an additional long box, that's right 250 copies of each issue and put them five to a bag (golden age bags) and stored them in a rental home. He did that through issue 150. That is a bunch of high grade books that are still put away, still unsold, sitting until who knows when. If he did it, I have to think others did it.

 

If he was a former comic shop owner, does that mean his store failed or he had to close? If he had financial problems, why wouldn't he tap those comics for additional revenue?

 

These kinds of stories alway interest me...

 

 

[lizards2]

How many people who got completely annihilated no longer give a "rat's chew" about their hobby items?

 

That's a good point, and I knew a doctor in Toronto who got his comic book collection stolen, received the insurance money but didn't buy a single comic after that.

 

Something like that can sour you forever on a hobby.

 

I'd probably use such an event as a good jumping off point too - they gotta go before I die, and getting rid of this horse-collar would be liberating

 

Maybe you could give them to your favorite Uncle Andy?

 

I plan on out-living you, old man!

 

Except......, I don't know how old you are....., :think:

 

Well, to cover all bases.....,

 

I plan on out-living you, young man! :sumo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

But of course, if it you offer a high percentage of guide...., :think: :think:

[joe_collector]

If he was a former comic shop owner, does that mean his store failed or he had to close? If he had financial problems, why wouldn't he tap those comics for additional revenue?

 

I know a former comic shop owner, only he concentrated on prime SA books that walked into his shop. who sold his store in the 90's and retired.

[TupennyConan]

I love this thread

[synch]

Oh someone said that if you collect just for the sake of collecting then just buy reprints... to that argument I own severeal & hard covers & omnibus I freaking LOVE omnibus! & hard covers if just because they are in better shape than most books out there & you don't have to worry about reading them!

 

How ever its still not the same as owning a original, same goes with moderns & hard covers some times theres a book with a cover I just have to buy! Even though I get that same cover reprinted in the HC

 

[the blob]

lots of other people did the same thing in the 70s and onward. you will see that guys like joe koch, gary dolghoff, etc. are still stuck with some of their blunders from the last 35 years too!

 

but you have to think with the mind numbing prices for raw copies those byrne books were getting in the 80's, that would have been a great time to sell. can't get those raw prices so easily now, need to hope for cgc 9.6ses and 9.8s.

 

anyway, yes, we know, there are a TON of pristine (particularly post-76) BA books out there. so when someone pays new car prices for an Iron Man 128.....silly stuff.

[Shawn Low]

Yeah, lots of hidden gems out there. Imagine the number of households in the US alone...scary.

 

My brother is huge into collecting BMX bicycles and he has found many 'new old stock' parts, accessories by trawling through old bicycle stores (and asking the owners to let him rummage through their storerooms).

 

Someone on a forum in his part of the world found a cache of ET Kuwahara BMX bikes from an old bike shop and was selling them one by one (without revealing the quantity and source of course)...

 

Love these stories!

[Flash105]

I'll give you an example of what might be out there. My boss and former comic shop owner loved X-Men and knew right from issue 94 that it was going to be big. He sold about 100 copies a month of each issue. Starting with issue 99, he bought an additional long box, that's right 250 copies of each issue and put them five to a bag (golden age bags) and stored them in a rental home. He did that through issue 150. That is a bunch of high grade books that are still put away, still unsold, sitting until who knows when. If he did it, I have to think others did it.

 

If he was a former comic shop owner, does that mean his store failed or he had to close? If he had financial problems, why wouldn't he tap those comics for additional revenue?

 

These kinds of stories alway interest me...

 

 

He closed on his own terms. The decision came during the the fiasco when Capital Distributing (i think that was their name) went bankrupt. He moved to Diamond but hated their way of doing business. He owned another successful business which I now run and decided it was time to devote his time to the one that would make him wealthy. He closed his doors and sold two 45' trailer loads of inventory to a store called the Paper Chase (also out of business). This was around 1988. The only things he kept were the X-men and Frank Miller Dark Knights. He passed away in 2000 and his wife has still held onto the books.

[awe4one]

Capital Distributing (i think that was their name)

 

Capital City...

 

Jim

[synch]

I'll give you an example of what might be out there. My boss and former comic shop owner loved X-Men and knew right from issue 94 that it was going to be big. He sold about 100 copies a month of each issue. Starting with issue 99, he bought an additional long box, that's right 250 copies of each issue and put them five to a bag (golden age bags) and stored them in a rental home. He did that through issue 150. That is a bunch of high grade books that are still put away, still unsold, sitting until who knows when. If he did it, I have to think others did it.

 

If he was a former comic shop owner, does that mean his store failed or he had to close? If he had financial problems, why wouldn't he tap those comics for additional revenue?

 

These kinds of stories alway interest me...

 

 

He closed on his own terms. The decision came during the the fiasco when Capital Distributing (i think that was their name) went bankrupt. He moved to Diamond but hated their way of doing business. He owned another successful business which I now run and decided it was time to devote his time to the one that would make him wealthy. He closed his doors and sold two 45' trailer loads of inventory to a store called the Paper Chase (also out of business). This was around 1988. The only things he kept were the X-men and Frank Miller Dark Knights. He passed away in 2000 and his wife has still held onto the books.

 

I'm surprised you have not ever asked her about selling them for her if they could fetch a decent price

 

[jdjunker]

This is a very interesting topic to me. I firmly believe that there are still undiscovered Golden Age collections out there. Anything the size and scope of the Mile High collection is extremely unlikely, but I have no doubt that collections that are 1,000+ books will continue to surface. As recently as the late 90s I know of a collection of about 1,500 1950s comics that a couple antique dealers fished out of a dumpster (!) at an estate sale. Really.

 

As for a huge warehouse find of Golden Age books, that seems pretty unlikely too, but here's something to chew on that no one has mentioned yet.

 

In record collecting, there are several notorious old stories of unscrupulous dealers finding large caches of records that included multiple copies of extremely rare records. Rather than destroy the value of these rarest-of-rare records, the dealers would keep a copy or two and destroy the rest.

 

Could something like this happen in comics?

 

Say someone found a box of 30 pristine copies of Action 1. Would a single 9.6 Action 1 bring $3 million? $5 million? What would be the value of a 9.6 if there were suddenly 30 copies in that grade?

 

 

[The Black Hand ®]

This is a very interesting topic to me. I firmly believe that there are still undiscovered Golden Age collections out there. Anything the size and scope of the Mile High collection is extremely unlikely, but I have no doubt that collections that are 1,000+ books will continue to surface. As recently as the late 90s I know of a collection of about 1,500 1950s comics that a couple antique dealers fished out of a dumpster (!) at an estate sale. Really.

 

As for a huge warehouse find of Golden Age books, that seems pretty unlikely too, but here's something to chew on that no one has mentioned yet.

 

In record collecting, there are several notorious old stories of unscrupulous dealers finding large caches of records that included multiple copies of extremely rare records. Rather than destroy the value of these rarest-of-rare records, the dealers would keep a copy or two and destroy the rest.

 

Could something like this happen in comics?

 

Say someone found a box of 30 pristine copies of Action 1. Would a single 9.6 Action 1 bring $3 million? $5 million? What would be the value of a 9.6 if there were suddenly 30 copies in that grade?

 

 

Except, I would find it hard to destroy the rest of the Action 1's,

[Flash105]

 

He closed on his own terms. The decision came during the the fiasco when Capital Distributing (i think that was their name) went bankrupt. He moved to Diamond but hated their way of doing business. He owned another successful business which I now run and decided it was time to devote his time to the one that would make him wealthy. He closed his doors and sold two 45' trailer loads of inventory to a store called the Paper Chase (also out of business). This was around 1988. The only things he kept were the X-men and Frank Miller Dark Knights. He passed away in 2000 and his wife has still held onto the books.

 

I'm surprised you have not ever asked her about selling them for her if they could fetch a decent price

 

I ask often. She is rich and her feeling is they neither eat nor drink, they belonged to her husband, and I am quite sure she will die before they are sold.

[jdjunker]

This is a very interesting topic to me. I firmly believe that there are still undiscovered Golden Age collections out there. Anything the size and scope of the Mile High collection is extremely unlikely, but I have no doubt that collections that are 1,000+ books will continue to surface. As recently as the late 90s I know of a collection of about 1,500 1950s comics that a couple antique dealers fished out of a dumpster (!) at an estate sale. Really.

 

As for a huge warehouse find of Golden Age books, that seems pretty unlikely too, but here's something to chew on that no one has mentioned yet.

 

In record collecting, there are several notorious old stories of unscrupulous dealers finding large caches of records that included multiple copies of extremely rare records. Rather than destroy the value of these rarest-of-rare records, the dealers would keep a copy or two and destroy the rest.

 

Could something like this happen in comics?

 

Say someone found a box of 30 pristine copies of Action 1. Would a single 9.6 Action 1 bring $3 million? $5 million? What would be the value of a 9.6 if there were suddenly 30 copies in that grade?

 

 

Except, I would find it hard to destroy the rest of the Action 1's,

 

I would too. I think most comic collectors and dealers would. But I never would have been able to destroy the records either, even if it meant what I had was worth less.

 

But the same mentality that creates the ebay scam artists, or creates guy like Dupchak, leads me to believe that there are people out there who would destroy 28 copies so the two they keep would be worth millions.