Post your San Francisco/Tom Reilly books 4 4

[BLBcomics-migration]

here is an expando ebay PM I sent to West Stephens this morning as a reply to him asking me to submit books to CGC I know to be out of the Tom Reilly collection. Am also adding a bit to it here and there to flesh out further thought patterns presented here as I ran out of words being only able to post 1500 characters there:

 

Hi West,

Katy is improving daily, long struggle she is going thru on a few levels, six times for hospital stays since Xmas, thanks for the kind words re her. Most of my cash flow these past months ends up going towards her healing from something insidious doctors call Stevens Johnson syndrome.

 

Now, re CGC. was that you who posted the Military 22 on that CGC thread, right? I do not keep track of connecting the dots of stage names to real names. Evidently I had clicked on years ago for response on this thread to come my way. Saw a prompter in my g-mail, hence my reply there. The earlier ones in Dec were right in the middle of Katy's first horrific attack which was a ten day stay beginning a few days before Xmas.

 

I will not ever take another single book to that corporation. Not ever since some one at CGC damaged jerry Bails' All Star 8 popping that staple irregardless it evidently had a tiny spot of color touch at the bottom of the bottom staple.

 

And the psycho attacks which came at me in 2007 on those CGC boards when I brought up the damage when i was not getting any behind the scenes satisfaction still rankles in this noggin. Any one else is free to submit all they want to. Bottom line is because of this i think that corporation to be a fraud perped on this hobby.

 

That said, i claim zero expertise in any "pedigree" collection except one concerning the size & scope of the books which came in three separate distinct batches from three different groups of relatives once the parents had died in Dec 1972. Tom Reilly comic books.

 

First batch April 1973.

 

Second batch May 1973.

 

Third batch late June to early July 1973.

 

Each batch was equal in size count.

 

This Doctor Arnheim informed me the comic books were counted up and dealt out like cards. None of them had any inkling of "worth" so there was no rhyme nor reason as to what ended up with which batch of relatives.

 

The young man whose parents bought all these comic books did not live in San Francisco.

 

Doctor Arnheim said they lived in Piedmont which is the other side of the Bay so yes, if there was a Tom Reilly out of San Fran, he was definitely not the one attached to this fabulous once in a life time comic book find.

 

This is another reason why calling them "San Francisco" copies is simply stupid.

 

The San Francisco moniker was thunk up by Ron Pussell (Redbeards) who, as an LA guy, saw everything in northern calif as "Frisco" cuz I was bringing down books from this collection to LA and SD comicons. So were others who were acquiring them from me as the vintage comics aspect of Comics & Comix. We made a special "Golden Age" room in the back of the Berkeley store to house and protect this phenomenal collection of from potential thieves

 

In those earlier days of daZe Ron was always calling them "Frisco" copies to differentiate them from "Mile High" copies as he wanted to spend his pop's real estate bucks at the time on only the best of the best.

 

John Barrett ran the "new" comics aspect of C&C. he did not know or understand the back issue aspect of the business. He never really did.

 

Bud Plant was busy getting business degree at SanJose State, hence, was almost NEVER in any of the stores for months at a time back during my tenure as a full partner in Comics & Comix, a name I thought up once we got to four stores.

 

An alternate name is Arnheim which Scott Maple brought to my attention, then an employee of mine inside the Berkeley Comics & Comix store, brought up when he and I were reminincing (sp) nostalgic about this and other aspects of origins of Comics & Comix as the first comic book chain store operation in history. He always remembered the collection as Arnheim copies.

 

Scott remembers Arnheim being the doctor, husband of one of the actual heirs.

 

It was Arnheim who related to me the story of the young man whose these were his comic book collection upon my prompting to acquire the "back story" of the whys wherefores of this massive amount of comic books mostly all in absolute stunning unread white paper glossy bright "mint" condition like the day they were priinted.

 

When we were first opening up each book they gave off an unique popping kind of sound. We soon figured out it was the "quick dry" powder used on the cover stock as the comics came off the printing presses at the rate of some 30,000 an hour back in the day.

 

We funded expanding in to four stores spread out 100 miles in four northern Calif counties off the proceeds of this collection. We also tried expanding into publishing off the cash flow of this collection starting out with The First Kingdom by Jack Katz. But I digress.....

 

I am not going to ever again get in to "debates" over the size and scope of this collection which was performed on those CGC threads five years ago.

 

Gerber has it almost completely wrong other than the name and the concept Comics & Comix was some how involved. He messes up the concept of the first batch Manyak mentions being approx 1500 comics. Gerber mentions it walked in to the C&C Berkeley store. Yes, but there were two large batches from two dfferent sets of relatives a couple months apart which "walked" in. The 3rd batch had to come all the way back from the east coast. She was blown away the earlier two sets got so much money for just "funny books"

 

Dark Horse Between the Panels got most of its story from Mike Manyuk, he and Nick Marcus "stole" all the Timelys out of the FIRST batch of 1500 books for a buck each including the CA #1 which stolen from them back in the 70s.

 

His quote therein about size only takes in to account the FIRST batch which is ALL he ever saw. The Marvel Mystery run of #4 up thru late summer 1945 was in the 2nd or 3rd equal size batch of approx 1500 books each.

 

The Reilly Tec 27 was the FIRST comic book to sell for more than $2000 at $2200 to Burl Rowe then of Houston Texas. Set a world's record in June 1973. I sold it. Parts of me says the supposed million dollar heritage sale a while back was this Tec 27. Burl said he later had sold it to Gary & Lane Carter.

 

When I asked Gary about it in the 90s, he said he did not remember who they sold it to. No one was keeping track of "pedigree" wildly_fanciful_statement until Gerber splashed the Edgar Church collection in one of his Photo Journal Guides. Gerber placed utter falacy in his book re the Tom Reilly collection other than the name and mention of Comics & Comix. Plus IIRC he mentions the Lamont Larson collection

 

The Whiz 2 (#1) sold out of this collection for an even $2000. I sold it.

 

I know what I know, and with all due respect every one else can pontificate all they want with themselves concerning the narrow slice of life known as Reilly comic books.

 

MOST of the 4000+ did not have the CGC brand of markings this fool of a firm insists are the only criteria on which a book came out of this collection. I am tired of repeating that concept. Bored by "experts" who were not there is more like it, actually.

 

My integrity was impugned by insufficiently_thoughtful_persons when I discussed Reilly comics in the CGC threads half a decade ago now. I do not have the time much less the inclination to get in to such verbal abuse ever again. Not about Reilly comics. Not here. Not any where.

 

i hope this helps out with those inclined to sort out a story in their heads I remain intimately aware of simply by being the guy who co-negotiated purcahse of the first batch along with the late Jon Campbell, whom we later made the 4th partner in Comics & Comix.

 

as well as being the guy who added up the numbers and negotiated the purchase of the 2nd and 3rd segments which "walked in to" the Berkeley Comics & Comix store at 2512 Telegraph Ave just a couple blocks down from the UC-Berkeley campus.

 

Forty years ago next month - whew.......

 

BLB

 

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

Bob,

 

Thanks for sharing your memories. In academia I think you would be referred to as a primary source! It is always interesting to hear your stories. I hope all is going well with your family issues and take good care.

[cheetah]

Bob, I have a few questions maybe you could give some information on. I occasionally do genealogy studies for cemetery relocations and am pretty good at tracking down ancestors and descendents. I've not been able to get the pedigree story to fit with the name. Regardless, here are the questions:

 

How sure are you of the Arnheim surname? That's an unusual surname and I can't find an instance of an Arnheim ever marrying a Reilly.

 

Similarly, how sure are you of Tom being the first name? It seems pretty obvious that the collector's last name was Reilly but the first name is tough to decipher from the stamp. I even went so far as to review some of the penmanship texts from the time to see if that would help. All that did was indicate the first letter of the first name looked more like and A than a T but that it could be a T with some individual flourish.

 

Where did the story about the death at sea in WWII originate? There was, of course, a famous Tom Reilly who died at the Battle of the Coral Sea but he seems an unlikely person to collect comics or to still be living with his parents.

 

Thanks for considering. Please don't take this as anything more than questions from someone who enjoys genealogical sleuthing.

[Straw-Man]

i hope your questions aren't seen as a psycho attack.

[Straw-Man]

any of y'all know anybody named west stephens that should have any interest in getting 'frisco books slabbed?

[Timely]

any of y'all know anybody named west stephens that should have any interest in getting 'frisco books slabbed?

 

He might be my half brother.

 

I do know a guy named West Stephan that is glad he got this book!

 

[ciorac]

any of y'all know anybody named west stephens that should have any interest in getting 'frisco books slabbed?

 

He might be my half brother.

 

I do know a guy named West Stephan that is glad he got this book!

 

 

He should be very glad to have that beauty

[cheetah]

i hope your questions aren't seen as a psycho attack.

 

I was hoping the same.

 

The nice thing is, we will eventually be able to see all the WWII draft registration cards on ancestry.com. Hopefully we will be able to match his signature with the one on the books. So far, only one of six sets has been published.

[Sqeggs]

i hope your questions aren't seen as a psycho attack.

 

I was hoping the same.

 

The nice thing is, we will eventually be able to see all the WWII draft registration cards on ancestry.com. Hopefully we will be able to match his signature with the one on the books. So far, only one of six sets has been published.

 

It's a shame he's being so mysterious. Apparently not willing to simply state what, if anything, the family told him about the origins of the collection. Is the only reason that the name "Tom Reilly" is associated with the books due to the name stamp?

[Straw-Man]

any of y'all know anybody named west stephens that should have any interest in getting 'frisco books slabbed?

 

He might be my half brother.

 

I do know a guy named West Stephan that is glad he got this book!

 

 

what a gorgeous funny-book. so, so pretty.

[Straw-Man]

Guilty as charged!

 

 

send this back in; i'd bet a few bucks it ain't c/ow anymore.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bob,

 

Thanks for sharing your memories. In academia I think you would be referred to as a primary source! It is always interesting to hear your stories. I hope all is going well with your family issues and take good care.

 

Thanks for the kind words. Most of my time is taken up with figuring out how to help get Katy healed up from this insidious thing which has reared up over and over these past months. About the only thing I can help with is trying to lift the depression levels. This thing she is dealing with has also proven expensive as the weeks roll by, and if I am not dealing directly with her, am scanning & posting new vintage comics & stuff in to my e Bay store which i ask people who care about Katy on some level to simply buy a book out of there to help me help her.

 

That said, when one gets older, bout all one has are the memories of fun days of youth growing in knowledge in one's chosen field which hopefully leads to a bit of wisdom to share. I have no dog per se in this particular collection I sold most of its initial parameters back in the day. Now 40 years ago beginning next month in April

[Sqeggs]

Bob,

 

Thanks for sharing your memories. In academia I think you would be referred to as a primary source! It is always interesting to hear your stories. I hope all is going well with your family issues and take good care.

 

Thanks for the kind words. Most of my time is taken up with figuring out how to help get Katy healed up from this insidious thing which has reared up over and over these past months. About the only thing I can help with is trying to lift the depression levels. This thing she is dealing with has also proven expensive as the weeks roll by, and if I am not dealing directly with her, am scanning & posting new vintage comics & stuff in to my e Bay store which i ask people who care about Katy on some level to simply buy a book out of there to help me help her.

 

That said, when one gets older, bout all one has are the memories of fun days of youth growing in knowledge in one's chosen field which hopefully leads to a bit of wisdom to share. I have no dog per se in this particular collection I sold most of its initial parameters back in the day. Now 40 years ago beginning next month in April

 

I was a student at Cal beginning Fall 1972. I remember well buying comics at Comics & Comix on Telegraph. Perhaps we met.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bob, I have a few questions maybe you could give some information on. I occasionally do genealogy studies for cemetery relocations and am pretty good at tracking down ancestors and descendents. I've not been able to get the pedigree story to fit with the name. Regardless, here are the questions:

 

How sure are you of the Arnheim surname? That's an unusual surname and I can't find an instance of an Arnheim ever marrying a Reilly.

 

Similarly, how sure are you of Tom being the first name? It seems pretty obvious that the collector's last name was Reilly but the first name is tough to decipher from the stamp. I even went so far as to review some of the penmanship texts from the time to see if that would help. All that did was indicate the first letter of the first name looked more like and A than a T but that it could be a T with some individual flourish.

 

Where did the story about the death at sea in WWII originate? There was, of course, a famous Tom Reilly who died at the Battle of the Coral Sea but he seems an unlikely person to collect comics or to still be living with his parents.

 

Thanks for considering. Please don't take this as anything more than questions from someone who enjoys genealogical sleuthing.

 

Yeterday was taken up scanning and posting some 40 new vintage comic books in to my e Bay store. In addition got some 30 orders packaged and mailed in the morning before USPS closed for Saturday.

 

That said, there are (at least) two main levels in play here regarding my postings about this fabulous collection which was stumbled upon literally 40 years ago in April 1973:

 

1) who was the "owner" gleaned from talking with the three distinct sets of heir relatives who split up an estate in to even thirds some time between death of the young man's parents in Dec 1972 and the first third surfacing in April 73 at Berkeleycon 73 we co-hosted in the ASUC Building on the UC-Berkeley campus which was the first comicon ever held in the San Fran Bay Area.

 

this is the portion of the story where I learned what i could at the time from heirs who passed on what they thought they knew during the time frame of purchase of their comic books.

 

I welcome any and all to conduct the geneology research in to the who and where of the original "owners" of this collection.

 

The names (Tom) Reilly and Arnheim are the ones one has to play with. I am unsure of (Tom) being the first name.

 

I was told, and I have written this many times before for many years, here in CGC thread talking "boards" and else where on the net as well as at comic book shows all over the country the story I got the young man for whom these comic books were being bought enlisted in the Navy in Dec 1941 post Pearl Harbor.

 

His parents lived in Piedmont california

 

He was killed in a kamikazee attack in late summer 1945 out in the Pacfiic

 

His parents began buying one of each comic book being printed which came thru some (unknown) magazine retail location in the Piedmont East Bay area (hence, Gilboy Agency being the distributor) from the point in time he left until they learned of his death

 

They kept his room sealed untouched until their death (for unknown reasons) in Dec 1972

 

Three distinct sets of relatives inherited and split every thing down the "thirds" in what ever fashion they did which I was not interested (at the time) in learning.

 

I asked each of them questions reagrding this collection as we went thru the books, adding them up, negotiating the many thousands of dollars (even then!!!) it took to acquire. If memory serves correctly we ended up paying out something like $27,000 all total for all three batches.

 

40% of 72 OPG for batch #1

 

60% of 72 OPG for Batch #2

 

60% of 73 OPG for Batch #3

 

John, Bud, myself were literally 21 at the time in 1973.

 

The wisdom of learning more, of asking the right questions to elicite much needed data for use by historians decades later was not yet part of a 21's consciousness. If I knew then what i know now......

 

This last thought leads in to where I am bored and lose patience with self-proclaimed "experts" who think they know more than me about this collection:

 

2) its size and scope of the sheer number of titles and their numbers is the only aspect where I take umbrage concerning self-proclaimed "experts" who were not there,

 

there were well over 4000 comic books all told in three distinct batches. Maybe as many as 4500 altogether.,

 

who think they know more than the main guy who was blessed by good fortune to being able to handle dispersing them to collectors who swarmed over them at the time to the point we never even got a list made up as they were turning over too quickly.

 

That first third Doctor Arnheim and his wife brought in on a pallet loader the last hours of the last day on Sunday of Berkeleycon was all we knew about for a few weeks.

 

Then we were asked if we were interested in buying more from another relative. This 2nd relative was "local" to the Bay Area.

 

I think the Reilly Whiz 2 and Tec 27 were in that second batch as I know for sure they were not in the first batch otherwise i do nto see Nick Marcus and Mike Manyuk passing up those two keys irregardless if they were not "Timely" comics.

 

The timing of when Burl Rowe bought both of these becomes key in sorting out that because of the media coverage I went after,

 

after watching all the hub-bub swirling around Bruce Hamilton, Theo Holstein and Mitch Mehdy regarding the energy released when Bruce brought to Berkeleycon Gene Henderson's childhood copy of Action Comics #1 he had just paid Gene $1000 for. Theo's $1500 offer was written up in a post berkeleycon article in the SF Examiner Monday after the show. Because of this article, Bruce scored another Action #1 which is the actual Action #1 Theo bought, then flipped to Mitch for the $1801.26 he paid Bruce for it when he got cold feet post sale

 

the ensuing publicity I garnered our then single solitary comic book store at 2512 Telegraph Ave, especially when UPI or AP ran nationwide newspaper articles on my selling the Reilly Detective Comics #27 for $2200 was "news" which mentions both seller and buyer (Burl Rowe) in the articles.

 

We got three more Tec #27 issues in that month as a result of the newspaper articles nationwide. It also got all the way to mention in newspaper in Germany.

 

At that first Comics & Comix store we got wind of the germany newspaper article pick-up when German collectors got ahold of us wanting to buy this or that comic book. One of them mailed in a clipping of that article in German

 

There were evidently hundreds of newspaper pick-ups of the AP or UPI article on the $2200 Detective #27 all over the country.

 

Comic books worth more than two grand? Outrageously stupid is what some "civilians" thought back then. Comic books as a legit hobby was a whole different ball of wax back then coming out of the 60s as we entered the 70s.

 

We had literally thousands of collections coming in as a result of the publicity.

 

But based on the first batch Dr Arnheim sold us, then the second batch, filling in the mental blanks of what we had gotten and what was NOT there, I knew, ie heavily speculated, there had to be MORE to this collection.

 

Some where in all this swirling madness circa the third batch walked in from the 3rd relative. I remember her being a younger woman who lived on the east coast. She had heard about the big bucks we paid her relatives for their portions and came in to get as nuch as possible out of them.

 

She had a guide, the 73 OPG had just come out, wanted 60% of NM Guide for it all, or she was going to walk it around to see who might pay more. I mean "walk it around" in the sense of writing all the ads in the Overstreet to see highest bidder potentials. She was comfortable askign us first because I had been so up front putting an Overstreet in to the vision of both earlier sets of relatives. We did not try to take advantage like the buck each purchase of the Timelys out of the first batch.

 

Most ALL of my original files on this collection purchase and a host of other aspects of media coverage of comic book dealing I had been carefully culling and collecting since the mid 60s were destroyed in the Best of Two Worlds warehouse flooding scenario Feb 1986.

 

The first clipping I had collected was one from Feb 1966 out of the Omaha World Herald with a picture of Leonard brown holding Superman #1 and Batman #1 and saying vintage comic books were worth big bucks. A few months later I sent $1 off for RBCC from GB Love from his first Marvel classified ad , got my first issue #45 and began placing first humble little ad in RBCC #47 Oct 1966 age 14, but I digress as I am wont to do when jogging these memories of dealing comic books and related stuff now for literally 45 years

 

The Best of Two Worlds warehouse flood was almost 13 years post ipso facto the Reilly comic book collection score and literally thousand of bought collections later. It is not an idle boast when I state BTW's warehouse contained literally a million comic books by Feb 1986.

 

One score alone was $18K for 80,000 comic books when I bought out Joe Collabella of his comic book holdings when he and Sal Dicheara began Fanstand sports stuff chain of mall stores. They topped out at 20 or so locations before Target, JC Penny's, WallMart, etc stomped them out........

 

but I digress again, and for that I apologize.

 

I have been recollecting said media articles ever since. Many hundreds have I re-accumulated and am still on that quest.

 

There was literally a million comic books in BTW's warehouse space at 64th & Hollis in Emeryville, just down the street from the original Print Mint publishing warehouse which took Zap Comics national summer 1968 thereby truly creating the Direct Market for comic books in America.

 

Now, back on "topic" re your questions, and and all aspects of WHO was the owner(s) over the years before I got the books to handle I welcome any and all research to figure it out

 

What is not in question is the size and scope of this collection. I know what I know, MOST of this collection had no markings what so ever.

 

One aspect to hunt these down all these years later is check out the (cold) trail of Rick Durell who bought a major chunk from us at the 73 San Diego Comicon held out at the air port while upgrading his collections. When Rick died, his widow sold his collection out thru auctions Ernie Gerber was conducting back in the day pre-Photo Journal Guide publication. It is said Rck's collection enabled those ground breaking books to get printed, but that is a tale for another day.

 

Rick was a famous "high grade" collector at the time back in the day. Every one in to collecting comic books knew Rick or knew of him back then.

 

I had been collecting Rick Durell letters back in the mid to late 90s I will be scanning and posting on to my Blog I am going to be cranking up the volume on as I sort out my archives in this 4000 sqaure foot warehouse everything is currently housed in following the half decade long medical debacle some of you may be aware of I am finally healed from. The pain is gone and I can see clearly again.

 

There is going to be a wealth of comics lore spanning the 1840s thru the 1980s there as I get the "spare" time to focus on said activities like learning how to present it well. That is dependent upon my getting cash flow ahead of the game of life. Katy's ongoing current thing has placed me thousands of dollars behind an eight ball of sorts to bring her back to "normal"

 

Back to work i go scanning more comics in to my e Bay store as well as filling in-coming orders. This is what I "do" seven days a week, now having shipped comic books and related material in to some 36 countries world wide now.

 

Hope some of this helps some of you place some of this in to proper perspective as we get ready to celebrate its discovery 40 years ago next month in April -

 

 

 

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

I was a student at Cal beginning Fall 1972. I remember well buying comics at Comics & Comix on Telegraph. Perhaps we met.

 

well, if you bought vintage comic books inside 2512 Telegraph Ave then it is a 99% certainty you bought em from me -

 

I am some times bad at names, but always remember faces. Too many tens of thousands of people have I talked with about comc books over the past 45 years.

 

we opened up late August 1972 just a couple weeks following the first El Cortez hotel San Diego comicon. Bud Plant, myself and a few other comics crazies had spent the summer doing the first comicon "circuit" of some 8 shows around the country beginning in June at Oklahoma City where Will Eisner was G of H at his 2nd show, following his being at his first one, a 1971 NYC show Phil Seuling hosted (which i was also set up at)

 

Early on by Nov 72 my partner John Barrett and I decompartmentized our activity so he ran the "new" stuff aspects and I ran the "old" out of print aspects of our growing business.

 

This is why I was the head old comics buyer for what grew to be Comics & Comix until I sold out in 1975 and went back to college for a little while before getting back into comic book stores full time in November 1976.

 

This is why I know this collection so intimately - one of many thousands purchased over the years.

 

Edited March 24, 2013 by BLBcomics

[Sqeggs]

Fascinating stuff. Thanks very much for sharing it.

 

One minuscule point: If I'm remembering correctly, the con at the ASUC in 1973 was not the first con held in the Bay Area. I'm pretty sure that I attended one and maybe two cons held at the old Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco (the hotel that later became the Cathedral Hill and is now, I think, closed). Those cons were probably around 1968 or 1969, possibly slightly later. I'm sure they were before I started at Cal in 1972. My memories are very hazy and I may have the hotel wrong, but the cons were definitely pre-1972.

 

Although I did drop into Comics and Comix semi-regularly, by 1973 I would have been both broke and busy grinding my way through the Cal chemistry curriculum. I never realized that a big comic collection had been found in the area. Or maybe I did realize it but was too broke to think about buying high-grade back issues even at early 1970s prices.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bay Area Comic Con Chronology

 

Berkeleycon 73 AUSC UC-Berkeley campus John B, Bud P, Robert B, hosts

Berkeleycon 74 ASUC UC-Berkeley campus Nick Marcus, other hosta

BayCon 75 Berkeley Clairmont Hotel Tom Orzechowski & John Watson

BayCon 76 Sheridan Palace, San Fran, Orz & Watson,

Parrish mural in news. Was just exchanging FB thoughts

with Tom Orz re their BayCons just yesterday.

He says they picked classy joints on purpose

as we fought to gain respect for comics as a medium

to read & enjoy much less collect

 

Then they stopped and new guys took over the energy

 

BayCon 77 Sheridan Palace, San Fran, Sal Diechera,

Parrish mural in news hotel,

Jeanette Kahn first comicon,

Neal Adams, Alex Nino, more

BayCon 78 Jack Tar Hotel on Van Ness, Sal Diechera, Amazing Adventures

and so forth he did BayCon until he stopped

when he went off to do fan Stand with Joe Collabella

 

as that main show energy evolved to the consortium who named it Wondercon who ran the main Bay Area event until they in turn sold out to San Diego concerns who deemed it better (i guess) to move it to Anaheim,

 

no matter what they say, there is life in the Bay Area after Moscone center, but what do i know.......but i digress..

 

Add to this short list off top of my head toss in

 

1) a tiny three dealer "show" in Cotati north of SF on way in & around Santa Rosa

 

2) some abortive attempts in San Jose late 70s, then regular shows after that

 

There was a World Science Fiction Convention 1968 at the Leamington Hotel in San Fran which you may be confusing with as a comicon. many comics fans went to it like late friend Barry Bauman, cat yronwode, many others....

 

Comics were a pimple on the "read end" of SF fandom back in those days of daZe. Kinda like Star Trek fans were looked down on at later comicons around the country once you get in to the late 70s in to early 80s. Same sort of snooty by some, for what ever reason evades me cuz I liked it all - if it was good.

 

After that first Berkeley con in 73 Bud Plant and I, then "college era" room mates living in San Jose growing some sort of comics business as partners for a few years there, looked at each other and basicly said to each other that after all the bucks were expended to make it happen,

 

many thousands of dollars we fronted along with John Barrett in the mix as well, with Mike Manyak, Nick Marcus, Clay Geerdes, Jon Campbell, Scott Maple, others, and then the receipts came back in from dealer tables, program book ad revenue, and fan attendance tickets sold, we managed to break even and a bit on top. Whew!

 

We figured out we netted 50 cents an hour and vowed never to host another thing like this ever again, semi-joking. This was said when were tearing down the "adults only" art show area Bud and I constructed with help from his engineer dad IIRC at the top of the stairs on the second floor off to the left.

 

All that ply wood and two by fours became the wood for the special Golden Age room we constructed to house the vintage stuff from theft. Some days 10,000 people might flow thru, other days not so many.

 

The Golden Age room housed all the higher end more valuable stuff once we got this Reilly collection in and went H o l y S h i t this is some great stuff as even more stuff began to flow in. then with the publicity off selling Tec 27 for $2200, the collections literally flooded in.

 

All sorts of original owner collections were coming out of the wood works as it were. Within a month of selling that Tec 27 for $2200 to Burl Rowe in Houston, we had three more Tec 27 issues (all lesser shape) come thru. Hundreds of 60s Marvel & DC collections. Hundreds of older people selling us their 30s 40s 50s comics, pulps, Sunday pages. Being west coast. there were a lot of retired folk who had saved some of their animation work for the LA studios from the 30s onwards. Major Disney artist finds were made in the 70s. We got our share. There was a constant influx of stuff.

 

But back to the original thought pattern as we tore the art show plywood and 2x4 pieces apart:

 

to my knowledge neither of us ever has again.

 

Though I did a few one day free admission dealers shows in that same room in ASUC bldging to combat Creationcons then incoming every three months which would wipe out that sort of cash flow, but that is a tale from the early 80s a decade later of recovery

 

See, we decided we paved a way to raise the consciousness of comics in teh Bay Area. Friends inside the SF Chron & Examiner helped make pre publicity happen which resulted in a few thousand coming thru, many were UC-Berkeley college students whom we funneled towards our comic book store down Telegraph Ave a few blocks a away just one block past Moe's Books.

 

We wanted to concentrate instead on increasing buying power by increasing the number of stores which we proceeded to do over the course of the next six months opening three more: SF at 720 Columbus near Wash Square, SJ near the campus, Sacto first on J St, then moved to K St Mall.

 

Plus we began to publish comic books as well distribute the new UG comix. no time to host shows

 

Larry Lowrey bought his very first Big Little Books from me that first Xmas of 1972. Some time later he came out with his Big Little Book and related material index price guide.

 

hope some of these thoughts fills in some gaps on the energy acquiring the Reilly collection in all its three large segments allowed the firm of Comics & Comix to expand expotenially in all directions pretty much at the same time for some time.

 

fun days. that was then, this is now

 

right about now my actual real life concerns are more wrapped up in getting Katy healed.

 

Any body feel moved and or want to read more, simply buy a comic book by clicking on the web site below. Are you not entertained? -

 

Edited March 24, 2013 by BLBcomics

[Sqeggs]

There was a World Science Fiction Convention 1968 at the Leamington Hotel in San Fran which you may be confusing with as a comicon. many comics fans went to it like late friend Barry Bauman, cat yronwode, many others....

 

That may well be it. I seem to remember a number of comic dealers setting up, but I could be wrong. I'm pretty sure I bought at least some books from Barry Bauman. Lived in Oakland, If I remember correctly.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Barry set up at a lot of the earlier shows before "life" pulled him in other directions. He set up at that World SF show in Oakland.

 

He was also one of the three dealers set up at "Cotati Con" in one bar there, the "talking room" was another bar down the block. Low key it was. John Barrett and I drove up to it. Memory now sez that one was just after Berkeleycon by a few weeks

 

World SF shows in the late 60s in the early mid 70s saw verbal clashses some times from SF purists who resented upstart comics collectors "invading" their turf. This led to more and more comics shows starting up across the country.

 

Kind of like comics people pick on the 21st century version of San Diego etc as the presence of actual comics shrinks each year. Well, at least the vintage section there.

 

 

[GermanFan]

I find it remarkable that in the early 70s they were German GA collectors who were willing to pay serious money. Did they buy anything from that collection?