Gold/Silver/Bronze collector ages?

[sckao]

Hey Currin, that is one COLD sig! Check spelling of enemies. Where is that quote from?

 

There's a version of that quote from Conan, the Barbarian. It's a little different though. Here's a link to the actual sound file from the movie.

 

http://www.deepuppycomics.com/mission.htm

[joe_collector]

Hey Currin, that is one COLD sig!

 

Yeah, at first I thought it was from Conan, but....??

[currincomics]

Ghangis Kahn(sp) Arnold used it in the first Conan movie.

[currincomics]

I'm just really amped about the re-release of Conan to comics, I've always been a huge Conan fan, so I'm using it as my sig for awhile-no offense anyone.

[drbanner]

Hmmmm...and all this time I thought that line was from the leader of the Viking Kittens, meow!!

[currincomics]

Ah, Led Zep, I beleive that was John Paul Jones who came up with that one?

[garthgantu]

Banner: what form does your copy of "The Lemonade King" story take? Where did it appear originally? I'm trying to track down any 'reader copy' as well as the original...

 

I started reading comics in 1969-70 at the age of five or six. Began collecting in 1973 at age 9. Focused on BA and SA initially, then added GA to the list pretty quickly - after a couple of years. Now I focus almost exclusively on SA and GA, with the occasional BA Marvel or DC...

[Mr. Zipper]

I started reading comics when I was 5 or 6.... 1973 or 1974. I saved them and tried to keep them nice as possible, so I guess I was a "collector" at that tender age. Fantastic Four has always been my favorite.

 

I remember my first "old comic" purchase - an FF 32 I bought from a dealer at the Sunday Dutch Mill Flea Market in Rotterdam NY probably in the late 70s. I think I paid $2 or $3 for it.... a big purchase at the time. It's a totally tattered GOOD.... I've since upgraded but I still have the old beater. Then I remember they started having comic conventions at the Turf Inn in Albany, NY a few times a year. If I was lucky, my parents or a friend's parents would drive us over for one.... I can still smell the comic smell in that room. What I would give to hop into a time machine and go back to that room... I can still remember the walls of Golden and Silver-Age comics with mind-bogglingly expensive price tags like $10 and $15.

 

Do we collect to get the actual books or are we trying (in vain) to capture a bygone time?

[Murph]

The KSU fans use that as their signature now.

 

Brian

[Peter_Parker59]

My first contact with comics and super-heroes must have been in 1976. Actually, they were reprints in French of Silver age X-Men, ASM, FF...

 

I was 8 at that time, and those books belonged to my elder brother.

 

It wasn't until 1982 that I started to care about vintage US comics.

I subscribed to a couple of titles from Marvel for some years, then started to buy back issues (mainly bronze age).

 

When I started earning money, I got hooked up on buying Silver age comics

 

What next ? Golden age comics

 

Who knows ?...

[nearmint]

Interesting that so many that have responded were born in the mid-late 60's, and starting collecting in the early 70s.

[stynxno]

I started collecting in 2001

 

I mainly buy Bronze and Silver Age Marvel books and about 10 new books a month (Marvel & DC)

 

I started in late 2000, mostly picking up modern books. I have a completist attitude so I'm really only working on a complete Iron Man run (all appearences, etc). However, due to financial problems at the moment, I'm going to have to cut my comic book collection from 1600 to less than 300.

 

Oh, and I'm only 21 so I guess I'm one of the younger guys here.

[drbanner]

Banner: what form does your copy of "The Lemonade King" story take? Where did it appear originally? I'm trying to track down any 'reader copy' as well as the original...

 

The book is "Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge In Color by Carl Barks", published by Gladstone in '87. It reprints FC 178, WDC&S 134, "Donald Duck and the Christmas Carol" (Little Golden Book), and "The Lemonade King" (printed as part of Whitman's Top Top Tales series). I believe the books were the only hardbound books he did, both published in 1960. I'm not sure where else the Lemonade King was reprinted, but this book is pretty cool...has some background info on Barks, the history of Scrooge, etc.,. Highly recommended!

[Ron_Nasty]

I think I got my first comic when I was around 3 or 4 years old, probably "World's Finest", the one featuring The Duplicate Man. Probably around 1957. Bought most all DC and Marvel thru the 60's, stopped by the end of 1969. Price went up, artists were leaving the titles and the guy that drew the romance comics (the girly stuff) was doing covers! What's up with that?

 

Picked up a giant Superman in 1974, and eventually got back into collecting a few DC and Marvel by 1976. Still buying but they are quite forgettable.

 

Oh, and I DO know Mr. Silver Age!

[Red Hook]

whaaaaaa?

[rjpb]

Started collecting back issues in 1971 at the age of 12 when comic conventions started coming to Columbus Ohio. Back then you could collect silver age Marvels with paper route money.

Dabbled in ECs & Golden Age shortly thereafter, but by the time I was 16 was only interested in Undergrounds. Sold everything except Undergrounds, Swamp Thing, & Steranko S.H.I.E.L.D while in college. Started buying more mainstream stuff again in the mid 80s, and still do. Back issue dollars go to Golden Age, Atom Age, and the occaisonal Silver Age Book. While the beginning of my collecting days was during the Bronze era, and I religously bought everything Marvel & DC put out for a couple of years, I find most Bronze to be, like many cultural artifacts from the 70s, garish, cheap looking & unappealing. I do pick up Jonah Hex books though.

[Zonker]

I've mentioned some of my history a couple of times before. But gramps is in a story-telling mood today, so gather 'round young-uns:

 

My first exposure to comics characters was the Batman TV show when I was 5 or so. I also remember watching with my Dad Star Trek season 3 at about the same time in its original broadcasts--e.g. "Spock's Brain." I got imprinted early on by a couple of major fandom/nerd influences!

 

So chalk me up as one person introduced to comics via other media-- in this case TV. The Filmation DC Superman/Aquaman Cartoon Hour was also on Saturday mornings about this same time. As part of that show, there was a rotating spot for Justice League, Teen Titans, Flash, Hawkman, etc. All pre-Super Friends.

 

The first non-Disney comic purchased for me was Batman 234: It's been downhill ever since. I was old enough to buy most of the later 60 cent 100 Page Super Spectaculars off the stands myself. From the Super-Specs, I developed my interest in the Silver Age and Golden Age history of the DC characters.

 

I remember actually looking forward to tagging along on all my Mom's shopping trips to hit up the drugstores, newstands, etc. The big problem was getting regular access to the Spectre appearances in Adventure Comics. The only store in our city of 150,000 that stocked it was a now-defunct department store (GC Murphy's). The drug stores and newstands must have censored it as too violent for us kiddees?

 

About the same time our annual church carnival offered recent 20 cent back issues as prizes for certain fund-raising contests. As I recall, one of the moms at the church 'donated' her son's books to that good cause! I never knew who that poor kid was, and I never wanted him to find out I wound up with his Justice League and Worlds Finest Comics collection! I can probably stop looking over my shoulder after 30 years, eh? What can I say? Once a Gypsy/Tramp/Thief, Always a G/T/T...

 

But I first caught the back issue bug in a big way when-- while walking home from school one day-- I came across a tattered copy of Justice League #57 (the United Nations brotherhood cover) that had been thrown out with the trash by someone in the neighborhood! ( Lil' G/T/T strikes again!) That book would have been 10 years old at that point.

 

By the time I was really geared up for regular purchases of each new issue off the stands, it was 1976 or so, and DC's best Bronze Age period was well in the past. I've often wondered if that timing contributed to my life-long interest in tracking down those early 1970s books-- the impression that I was born just a little bit too late to catch those books brand new. We always think what the slightly-older kids had was so much cooler than our own stuff, right? Kinda like missing the first 2 seasons of the original Star Trek...

 

I wish I could remember the first time I came across the back-issue comics store in town, but that memory is lost to me. I do remember being 13 or 14 and first going to the local comics con with a bud from middle school. Absolute. Heaven. On. Earth! I snagged Kirby's New Gods #7 on that trip-- so much cooler than the Gerry Conway remake then being published by DC. I also picked up Mr. Miracle #15 based on its cover blurb as an origin issue-- only to find out it was the origin of someone called Shilo Norman. I had to wait until the next year to get the Scott Free origin in #9. (And yes, I actually paid for those latter purchases, wise guys! )

 

Got in to mail order in the late 1970s-- Robert Bell, Howard Rogofsky, BEA, Sparkle City. Acquired most of the Adams Batman and GL issues that way, as well as filling out my Silver Age GL and JLA. Bought my first Golden Age book via mail order sight unseen once out of college in the mid-1980s: Superman #39. Really disappointed in that cover once I actually saw it. Then bought a couple of other books at the Charlotte Heroes Cons of the late 1980s, but it was the one-two punch of first the Gerbers Photo-Journals, then the arrival of eBay that turned me into a Golden Age collector. (Low to mid grade, though)

 

So in summary:

- started young

- introduced through TV shows

- bought new books off the stands

- became interested in vintage comics via reprints that DC bundled into their books in the early 70s

- and I never ever got any better!

[drbanner]

As a follow-up to my earlier poll regarding the year we started reading comics, I'd be curious to know what the ages are of the gold, silver, bronze, and modern collectors on the board? There have been a lot of threads recently about people here starting to collect "older" comic book ages than they had before, which mirrors the path I personally went down (Bronze to Silver to Gold). So...please check out the Collecting Polls forum and vote (if you collect 'em all, then answer 'em all)!!

 

Thanks for the input to date fellow collectors. An analysis of the data so far shows:

 

42 Modern Age collectors/readers, most in their 30's, but skewed towards a younger audience (12 under 30)

45 Bronze Age collectors, most between 30-43 (6 under 30, 6 over 43)

47 Silver Age collectors, most in their 30's, but a wider collector base (9 under 30, 12 over 40)

28 Golden Age collectors, with only about half of the respondents in their 30's, 5 under 30 and 8 over 40 for another diverse group age-wise

 

If you haven't voted, please visit the Polls forum and stand up and be counted!!

[musicmeta]

I'm just really amped about the re-release of Conan to comics, I've always been a huge Conan fan, so I'm using it as my sig for awhile-no offense anyone.

 

Conan is GREAT!. Yes, those Barry Smith Conan's are simply the BEST!

[zooklandrox-migration]

I starting collecting in 1981 as a sophmore in high school. Mostly Marvel and DC's.

I was spending $250 to $400 a week after hs, and buying everything that came out until about '96 and then I got married and ........you guessed it, the wife thought it was more important to have a house and kids than comics. I haven't bought new comics since. I have though, purchased the occasional silver age book, a couple a month and have 42 long boxes now. I thought that I would never sell any comics, but was forced to sell some to finance a move to Seattle last year.

 

The question of the day is: Do I sell them all and start over, or keep on keeping on?

If I sell them all, (there are just too many) I would like to start over and buy just the 1st 100 issues of ASM, FF, Avengers...etc at 9.4's or above. Never having more than 500 or so comics at any given time. What do you fine people think?

 

I havent bought any new books for about 8-9 years now, but just silver age, anything I'm missing?

 

Thanks for your time in advance.