Report on Comicseekers Long Box

[skypinkblu]

I keep seeing the word, "warehouse", does anyone know if these were from the Bakerstown Warehouse on Long Island? They look like the books he found and was selling, after he sold most of the GA and SA books.

Lots of books were tied with the original string from the distributor, and there was warping on many of the books. I do know that several "dealers" made deals to buy masses of books from there, and there were tons of duplicates.

 

Just curious. I had lots of the coverless ones at one time, but the price was reasonable. Some of the books found were in very good shape, but I think it depended on how close they were to the floor.

 

Anyway, if they were, that blue stuff is not mold, it's distributor's ink..and the dirt, was pretty much, just dirt...

 

Not that this makes anyone feel better, I'm sure.

 

Yup, that sure sounds like these. At first I thought these had been stored in comic boxes that got flooded, but I noticed that most of the books that are warped are the ones with creases from the distributer string. This didn't make sense to me at first, how could that many books, other than the first couple have those intentions AND be warped, but the moisture must have either come down on top of the bundles or seeped up thru the bottom of the bundles. The water or moisture caused a lot more than the books on top or bottom to warp, perhaps even the string itself shrank, damaging the books. The random books that are in old plastic bags smell of mildew, the non bagged ones smell a bit moldy. The Heroes Inc are the only exceptions.

 

That's because the Heroes did not come from there, he never had those.

There were different rooms, different batches. I think he told me there had been more than a million books, but my guess is, even more. Some were in boxes, some in wrappers. Most of the bronze age were tied with string and you are right, the string did shrink. I used to go out in person and buy books from him, some were in the original paper bags, some were from different areas of the warehouse. Some of the books were really nice (I had this in the VCC, it was from there

 

..others were on the floor soaked in ink, it was sprayed over them, but the backs, kind of confirmed it. By the time he got to the bronze books, Bakerstowne knew what to look for, they were very picked over, and people were buying them in batches, looking for the decent copies (not me, I only bought the old junk) to have them CGC'd, and I know that Neatstuff and I think Koch bought huge lots (very cheap).

I bought thousands of coverless books, so I could go through them and find some fun ones, but by that time (I had been buying from him for more than a year) Bakerstown already knew enough to pull out the Timelys, etc, he'd sprinkle a few decent ones in each batch. You got them in huge boxes, I could only fit maybe 4 in my car. No comic boxes, so these books were gone over by him, then , but they were maybe 10 or 15-cents each, so it was fine, I still have some Superman ones I found..

Bakerstowne sold lots of books on Ebay, and I know after I went out there, other people were calling and going too. So these books were gone over by him and then other people a few times.

But the bronze books were at the end, but there were batches of the same books, ones that hadn't sold originally, so they were returned. There were piles and piles of books, tied with the original distributer string,higher than your head, he had pictures on Ebay, they called it the "Tomb". All undisturbed for years. It was a lot of fun, actually. He did find an AF15, Hulk 1, and a few others. I know I got an Action 252 from him.

[nocutename]

Sharon, what were the condition of the other books in terms of dirt and smell?

[skypinkblu]

It depended, Jean, some of the books had been damp, some were like new. The ones in the paper bags were pretty nice, like the Spidey I just showed you, I think the brown paper protected them. It was never dirty, never damp. I bought a sealed pack of them, and took off the brown paper, just as a curiousity, I never really collected bronze stuff.

 

Some of the books were beautiful, some had just had a tiny bit of ink and nothing else, some were in shreds or drowned in ink spray. I have a friend who collects anything, lots of the ones I bought went to him.

Different rooms, different amounts of humidity. A few years ago, they opened up another room (a bathroom) my guess is they would have been more humid...even the bathroom was piled with books. The warehouse had been accumulating books since the the very early 50's, maybe before.

 

The tomb had piles of books probably 6 feet tall, maybe more, I can't find the pictures on the web, but there were massive piles. If you got a pack of books from the middle, and took a middle book, it was fine, I went though quite a few boxes.

 

Of course the books I have here, that I kept, have been in a dry house for about 7 or 8 years, they are fine, the books that were in the comic seeker's boxes, have probably always been in damp warehouses.

 

One thing that you will notice about them, is the color is perfect, they were in the dark the entire time:)

[nocutename]

Wow, that must have been amazing to see.

[The Less Blob]

is that blue/green stuff mold or distributor's ink? it looks like ink to me.

[The Less Blob]

some of the bakertown books were pristine

 

some had that bundling bump

 

i conned myself into buying a bunch of that stuff

 

it was fun sorting through them, but my wife went ape sh*t when like 10 lots came to the apartment at once in a giant 3 X 3 box or something along those lines. she was not cool about it. she is a lot cooler about this stuff given that i now have a whole room for my comics and she basically has a whole room as her extra closet.

 

i really do not think that blue/green staining is mold.

[The Less Blob]

 

click on the thumbnails above to see pics of books form this last box.

 

 

look ma! with this last box I got 25 more Heroes Inc, now I have 105!

 

 

Here's a stack of books from different angles to show the warping from water damage.

 

 

check those filthy hands after handling this box of books!

 

honestly, the first 5 thumbnails don't look that bad. sure, if they look ok on the top and are moldy on the back, that's not cool, but had i bought that lot i wouldn't be livid over 5 copies of conan annual 3 or #55 or #56 in decent shape and even the other stuff. i guess the condition is more the issue than the mix as there is not a whole lot you can do with moldy books. i'm looking beyond the puffery in the initial sales pitch, those thumbnails are kindah what i expected out of the boxes, sans the mold.

[ChasingKingKirby]

 

click on the thumbnails above to see pics of books form this last box.

 

 

look ma! with this last box I got 25 more Heroes Inc, now I have 105!

 

 

Here's a stack of books from different angles to show the warping from water damage.

 

 

check those filthy hands after handling this box of books!

 

honestly, the first 5 thumbnails don't look that bad. sure, if they look ok on the top and are moldy on the back, that's not cool, but had i bought that lot i wouldn't be livid over 5 copies of conan annual 3 or #55 or #56 in decent shape and even the other stuff. i guess the condition is more the issue than the mix as there is not a whole lot you can do with moldy books. i'm looking beyond the puffery in the initial sales pitch, those thumbnails are kindah what i expected out of the boxes, sans the mold.

 

The condition was pretty bad. But for me, it was the lies in the original post.

 

1. Boxes are unsearched. Adam (Filter) completely debunked that one.

2. Selling or what I paid for them. Adam also debunked that one.

3. Guarantee of not more than 5 of any single book. Not true.

4. No water damaged books. Not true.

5. Mix of Marvel and DC. Not true. Marvel books over DC 9 to 1.

 

After awhile it all just gets to a breaking point. But the biggest point is this, regardless of what the case may be, when a buyer offers to ship back at there expense for a refund, you don't thumb your nose at them.

[MyNameIsLegion]

Ditto!

 

I gave Sergio several options: I ship them all back at my expense for a full refund. I accept $75 back per box because I consider that FMV for the contents ( I still wouldn't have bought them for that, but I was still willing to eat it at 25 cents each.) Keep in mind, Sergio stated that at worst you could double your money and sell these for $1 each. That's not the case. I even was willing to go so far as to accept 50% minus his shipping cost, so it would have been about $225. No dice. I went further still to suggest if he simply had no cash to refund, make it up in other product- Raw, slabbed, whatever. Shipping these all over creation just reduces the value of these books further every time they change hands. these are the dregs of the dregs of the dregs that weren't outright thrown away.

 

I've also been mulling over the fact that it was not disclosed that some of these were not warehouse books. all the ones that are old store backtsock in nasty old bags typically aren't duplicated. Adam mentioned this to Sergio when he bought them, but not when sergio sold them. Their inclusion is the only thing that adds any technical variety to the mix per box, So you might get 75 issues of a different comic in a box, but 25 of them were warehouse copies x5, and the "variety" were these random bagged books. Nevertheless even IF you let Sergio off on the technicality that there was some variety, they still don't represent most titles of that era. It's a very narrow range of titles. The whole affair just makes me ill. (or maybe its the mold, mildew and dirt)

[Ogami]

these boxes were terribly misrepresented, plain and simple.

[batman_fan]

Oh my god, what an honor, Sergio has won, it is true, he won!

 

[comicseekers-migration]

Please present the award to me in person, I would love to see you personally hand it over to me. Big man over the web, probably the only extent of being big that you have ever been recognized at.

 

Oh my god, what an honor, Sergio has won, it is true, he won!

 

[Beau]

Please present the award to me in person, I would love to see you personally hand it over to me. Big man over the web, probably the only extent of being big that you have ever been recognized at.

 

Oh my god, what an honor, Sergio has won, it is true, he won!

 

 

Aaaaand...they're off! Strap yourselves in boys, we're in for an ITG thread.

 

[comicseekers-migration]

Nope I am done, MODS have been notified.

 

Please present the award to me in person, I would love to see you personally hand it over to me. Big man over the web, probably the only extent of being big that you have ever been recognized at.

 

Oh my god, what an honor, Sergio has won, it is true, he won!

 

 

Aaaaand...they're off! Strap yourselves in boys, we're in for an ITG thread.

 

[lookwhoitis]

how is it this guy is still here?

 

Like the Jacko news, this just keeps going... and going... and going...

 

I tuned out on both after a few days of "coverage" because i just couldnt rationalize wasting anymore time following it

 

(Id rather be reading...)

 

[Beau]

Nope I am done, MODS have been notified.

 

Please present the award to me in person, I would love to see you personally hand it over to me. Big man over the web, probably the only extent of being big that you have ever been recognized at.

 

Oh my god, what an honor, Sergio has won, it is true, he won!

 

 

Aaaaand...they're off! Strap yourselves in boys, we're in for an ITG thread.

 

 

I think the 'MODS' will most likely take a dim view of your most recent actions. Enjoy your new status as an outsider looking in.

 

You know, if I were gonna rip off the people on this forum, and destroy my name for all time , I'd go for at LEAST six figures.You managed to do it with one sentence, for well uder $100.

 

Billy Mays is rolling in his grave.

[Shootydog]

Please present the award to me in person, I would love to see you personally hand it over to me. Big man over the web, probably the only extent of being big that you have ever been recognized at.

 

Oh my god, what an honor, Sergio has won, it is true, he won!

 

 

Are you serious? Why are you wasting time responding to childish taunts and not fixing the problem? Man up....shut up about it...and correct the issue. You do yourself absolutely no good and just make it worse by coming on here and "puffing up".

 

Honestly, people need to grow up around here and quit posting BS.

[MyNameIsLegion]

well, CS did send me a PM initiating a new dialog about this

[ChasingKingKirby]

well, CS did send me a PM initiating a new dialog about this

 

Me too.

[Bosco685]

well, CS did send me a PM initiating a new dialog about this

 

Me too.

Hope it works out folks.