How did you hunt for back issues pre-internet days?

[Mio]

I stopped buying them when I was 16... only got back into collecting after the internet made it easy to find the cooler stuff.

[cloudofwit]

About once a month, my friend and I would do a back issue circuit hitting three different Titan's locations around Atlanta and this big store in Decatur who's name slips my mind. Outside of that, it was save up for the Atlanta Fantasy Faire =)

 

Big store in Decatur? The Book Nook? :shrug:

[slym2none]

Comic shops, used book stores, flea markets large & small, yard sales, and just plain keeping my eyes and ears open. I even had a boss when I was 22-23 that was into comics and when I'd get a bonus from the company, I'd get a bonus comic from him as well. Lousy X-Force #1 or Wolverine #50, but it was the thought that counted.....

 

 

 

-slym

[Mr 9.8]

Before the interweb, I would call comic shops & if they had what I was looking for either order over the phone (if they were far away) or I would go to comic shops. I can assure you between 1998 - 2002 I went to almost every comicshop in TEXAS! Now? thank god for the internet!

[JmC]

Local comic book shop in Whittier California (thumbs u

[TheDanimal]

LCS for me. I used to go to this place called Papa Lou's in Massachusetts. It was great because I could literally walk to the comic shop in my home town.

 

 

[thehumantorch]

From the seventies to the nineties, my 4 main sources of back issues were Comic Conventions, Comic Shops, Dealer catalogs, and The Buyer's Guide For Comic Fandom (TBG). Picked up some really nice material from each source, and each was alot of fun.

 

TBG/CBG and catalogs were especially important during the nineties, as newly unearthed highgrade collections first came to market through these avenues, including the Green River, Massachusetts, Northland, Winnipeg, Slobodian, and Golden State collections. I've still got a few issues of TBG and catalogs from Motor City, Harley, World's Finest (Mark Wilson), Marnin, Teddy, Hauser, Showcase NE, Four Color, and Goblin's Den that today are amazing for the inexpensiveness of their high grade Silver and Bronze. I was fortunate enough to pick up small handfuls of examples from each of these pedigree collections, but too naive/stupid and too poor to buy the quantity that I now wish I had!

 

Never had the pleasure of attending a Sotheby's or Christie's auction, but love hearing stories about them.

 

TBG was a wonderful source for back issues. Sellers would take out ads and list books for sale.

 

I was on a number of dealer's mailing lists and they regularily sent me catologues. I would pick out what I wanted, and alternates, and mail off a money order. Took a long time but some of my favorite books were purchased this way and it was always exciting when the package arrived.

 

[Currin Comics]

LCS and then call the shops/dealers listed in the OSPG.

[awe4one]

Gary Dolgoff.

 

And Mile High Comics... Say what you want about his current grading but back in the late-80s his grading was pretty spot-on. Makes me wonder when he jumped the shark. Well actually I know...it was somewhere around 1997...

 

Jim

[mystrymachine]

The Overstreet guide was a good resource for back issue catalogs and store directories.But I never had good experiences with the catalogs grading systems. I bought most silver and golden age books from the shops within a 100 mile radius from my house.

[porcupine48]

I would save up for cons,and often drive around rural

Ontario looking for small town shops.Made some cool finds.

..Mostly Big Little Books.

[hesdeadjim]

No serious LCS in Germany, so:

 

Set aside some money all year long, bought a plane ticket to NYC, bought insane amounts of books at the Great Eastern shows at the Javits Center for two days and flew back home.

 

...until one day the security guard in front of the Javits told me the show was cancelled due to fire hazard issues

 

Anybody remember the "replacement" show in some church basement?

 

From then, it was Mile High Comics

 

Stopped collecting for a while until I moved to Phoenix, AZ and then later discovered this place here.

[binarysunrise]

In the mid nineties, there was a mail-order auction catalogue, put out by James Reeves (?) out of PA. Picked up some nice (at least I thought so at the time) books from him...

[porcupine48]

Oh,garage sales too!

[goldust40]

 

...until one day the security guard in front of the Javits told me the show was cancelled due to fire hazard issues

 

Anybody remember the "replacement" show in some church basement?

 

It was March 1996, and I think the venue at that point was the Columbus Center, on Columbus Circle. I did what you did, and walked up to the doorman and asked him why there was a flower show listed on the hoardings instead of a comic show, wherein he broke the news that Greenberg had messed up for what was to be the closer on his Con career. I was, needless to say, gutted.

 

I went to the hastily arranged church basement show that took place the following day. Spent less than $800. The show continued there bimonthly for the long term (it did improve considerably after the first one).

[binarysunrise]

Before the interweb, I would call comic shops & if they had what I was looking for either order over the phone (if they were far away) or I would go to comic shops. I can assure you between 1998 - 2002 I went to almost every comicshop in TEXAS! Now? thank god for the internet!

 

Um, they did have the internet between 1998 and 2002, you know...

[nocutename]

In the mid nineties, there was a mail-order auction catalogue, put out by James Reeves (?) out of PA. Picked up some nice (at least I thought so at the time) books from him...

 

An auction catalog is interesting. How did it work? Did you mail in your bids with a % down or did they handle phone bids as well?

[Artboy99]

pre-internet days I relied on LCS, friends and people my friends knew. I also was an industrious young boy and even went so far as to place an advertisement for comic books in the local paper that did generate results.

[short_box-migration]

I bought my first back issues from Richie Muchin.

 

Is that what got you into the restoration business, buying from Richie?

[innocuous]

I begged and pleaded with my LCS, until, one day, in 1982, he told me about SDCC. I couldn't believe that there were more than a couple of hundred comics for sale all in one place.