Does a boardie know someone who bought Action #1 in 1938?

[TheSurgeon]

I believe over 200,000 of these were on newstands back in 1938. Someone buying it back then would probably be 75 - 90 years old today. My LCS owner tells me he purchased FF 1 and Amazing Fantasy 15 off the stands. Board members must have stories about relatives/customers remembering buying Action Comics #1 off the rack, and if it made an impression on them. Or has this been discussed already?

[ciorac]

Well, in the Action 1 thread you can see the Action 1 - 10 I bought from the original owner back in 1996. Not sure if he is still living now though. His wife contacted me and brought the books over to the store, but her husband (a retired doctor) had purchased them all right of the newsstand back in 1938 - 39.

[Aman619]

my father remembered reading it as a kid. But it disappeared at some point.. dam.

[Jayman]

My father (born 1922) always teased me saying he had all the early Superman and Batman issues and used to roll them up and put them in his back pocket then probably traded them for baseball cards or bubblegum!

[Larryw7]

My father's oldest brother says he remembers buying it a drugstore, and my father has said that he remembers reading it. All of the comic books my father and his brothers bought over a 16 year period were given away in the early fifties.

[nwpassage]

No one in my family of that age admits to Supes. My dad does tell me that his brothers and him could never figure out if "the sub-mariner" was a good guy, or bad guy. Maybe we're just a marvel family. My dad had five brothers and three sisters, and says that comics just littered the house when he was a kid in the thirties and fourties. I can't believe that they didn't have the forsight to save them for me.

[MrBedrock]

I talked to a customer in the last week who is 79. He grew up in the St. Louis area. He bought comics off the stands until he was in his teens, then his mom gave them away. He resumed collecting in the '60s after he had moved to Southern California. We talked about the Cherokee Bookstore and all the cool books he bought and traded for at that time.

But mostly we talked about what he remembers buying off the stands. Growing up lower middle class, he said that kids treated comics as currency. He remembers specifically buying Action 1 and how it changed everything. The reprint books had a certain cache about them, but when Superman, and the subsequent wave of heroes, appeared comics began to carry much more trade weight. I hadn't thought of comics in those terms since the days of trading with my buddies when I was just starting to collect. But it sure makes sense that Action 1 has been the book that all others are measured by since the first day it hit the stands.

[Comicdey]

My father remembers having a copy without the cover or somesuch like that, as his Uncle ran a small store, and he got all the return copies....pretty sure he even had a few comics with covers when he was young. He was born in 1930, so he was a prime age for purchasing/reading GA materials....of course the Step Mother threw out everything in the 1950's when my father was away at the Korean War.

[Aman619]

its always the stepmother, isnt it?

[jimjum12]

If Hugh O'Kennon is still kicking,he bought it off the stands.GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[nearmint]

Lamont Larson is still alive and kicking. (thumbs u

[seank]

Semi-related: Back in the 1980s I met Siegel and Shuster and the wife of one of them was telling me how when Action 1 came out they had stacks and stacks of them in the living room to give out to friends and family.

[The Black Hand ®]

My dad said he had all the early keys as a kid but isn't sure if they were bought right off the newsstand or traded for with the other kids he hung out with. I , myself , remember buying all the Marvel keys right of the stands in the early sixties, so I assume his memory was as good as mine.

[ciorac]

Semi-related: Back in the 1980s I met Siegel and Shuster and the wife of one of them was telling me how when Action 1 came out they had stacks and stacks of them in the living room to give out to friends and family.

 

I actually could have done without reading this story Sean. It makes me nauseated just to think of it.....

[Comicdey]

Semi-related: Back in the 1980s I met Siegel and Shuster and the wife of one of them was telling me how when Action 1 came out they had stacks and stacks of them in the living room to give out to friends and family.

 

I actually could have done without reading this story Sean. It makes me nauseated just to think of it.....

 

you might want to start tracking down the family members....

[EastCoastExchange-migratio]

Semi-related: Back in the 1980s I met Siegel and Shuster and the wife of one of them was telling me how when Action 1 came out they had stacks and stacks of them in the living room to give out to friends and family.

 

Suppose someone in the near future found a box of them in a closet.

 

CC

[swapto]

Semi-related: Back in the 1980s I met Siegel and Shuster and the wife of one of them was telling me how when Action 1 came out they had stacks and stacks of them in the living room to give out to friends and family.

 

I actually could have done without reading this story Sean. It makes me nauseated just to think of it.....

 

wow. stacks and stacks mmmmmmmmm

[Timely]

My fathers friend bought superman #1 off the stand...along with #2-30 and lots of other stuff. Then he went to college...you know the rest....

 

West

[nwpassage]

I also stuck Sandy Koufax rookie cards in the spokes of my bike. I might as well have lit firecrackers with thousand dollar bills.

[Comicdey]

I also stuck Sandy Koufax rookie cards in the spokes of my bike. I might as well have lit firecrackers with thousand dollar bills.

 

I threw baseball cards against the wall with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, but they were 1973-1975 cards, so I only lit $10-$100 bills in my youth. ::