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Tales from the Comic shop

Started by HotJuicyBurgers,

205 posts in this topic

comicwiz

comicwiz

Posted
Posted

 

But what about the Comics?!?!?!

No major damage. Long since sold.

 

And what happened to the ? Presumably he didn't get any jail time.

 

Comic theft is not considered a crime in the eyes of the law.

 

Steal the wrong baseball card however, and you end up in prison with Wentworth Miller.

 

When I was scammed back in February, I invited the police officer into my home office while I filed the report and explained what happened. He kept asking about items in my office, cabinet, hanging on my walls. I got the impression that I should have had him standing outside because the vibe I got was that he must have been thinking what is a guy your age with family and kids doing getting scammed for things only kids should care about. It's not only a terrible stereotype, but it can really work against you when all you're hoping for is justice and to be treated like an average Joe.

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MrBedrock

MrBedrock

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Posted
"HE"S RUNNING!"

"I don't care what you do with him. Lock him up. I don't care. I'm going home."

Do all these stories happen at the Westheimer store?

All of the ones I've posted. There are some great drunk guy stories from the Washington Ave. store because of all the clubs and bars around there.

Yeah, that strikes me as more of a location where strange characters would wander in, if only you didn't close before midnight. :)

I have a hard time imagining what a Friday late night would be like at that store. Parking would be ridiculous. And who would want to deal with the traffic? so we'd be left with a bunch of drunk frat guys trying to impress their dates by goofing around at the comic book store. And a bunch of drunk bums hitting up folks for cash while peeing and pooing on themselves. Not the best situation for sales. But great fodder for this thread.

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MrBedrock

MrBedrock

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Posted
it can really work against you when all you're hoping for is justice and to be treated like an average Joe.

Just explain that you are an above average Joe.

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Mad Titan

Mad Titan

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Posted
it can really work against you when all you're hoping for is justice and to be treated like an average Joe.

Just explain that you are an above average Joe.

 

Well I have the Joe part down pat :shy:

 

Are you alluding to Mary Joe Wanna?

 

I saw what you did there! :shy:

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HotJuicyBurgers

HotJuicyBurgers

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During my Junior year of high school, I lived in Arlington TX. This was 1990-1991. The best known comic shop around was Lone Star Comics on Abram St. Many of you know Lone Star Comics as mycomicshop.com nowadays. Back then they only had the one shop and it was a little bitty compared to what they moved to across the street some years later.

 

I practically lived in that shop. I was working at either McDonald's or Six Flags that year depending on what part of the year it was. I remember this also being the first year of school that I actually skipped classes. We had open campus, which meant you could leave the school at lunch time but had to return for 5th, 6th and 7th periods. Well I always got paid on Fridays. So I would leave school, go pick up my whopping $120 paycheck (minimum wage was $3.85hr then), cash my check and head to the comic shop, skipping the last 3 classes of the day EVERY Friday that year.

 

I can't tell you how many times I would literally spend $100 out of those checks in the store after just cashing them. Of course gas was much cheaper then too. It only cost $8 to fill up my little 1971 Toyota Corolla which would last me a week. I remember the days when Robocop #1 came out, when X-Men #1 (Jim Lee) and Spider-Man #1 (McFarlane) came out. The shop would be packed like sardines back then and the comics didn't get put on the shelf until 3:00pm on Fridays. The Marvel trading cards were really hot that year. Especially the hologram cards.

 

There was this kid in my school that desperately wanted the Wolverine hologram. So I told him I had a few and what did he have to trade. I was into baseball cards at the time as well. This kid went home, broke the wrapper on his 1989 Factory Seals Upper Desk set and traded me card #1, Ken Griffey Jr's rookie card, for a $5 Wolverine hologram. Sure I kind of feel bad about it now, but back then I knew I was robbing this kid and didn't even care. Karma caught up to me about 2 months later. But that's another baseball card story.

 

But the folks that ran the old LSC shop were great. They knew everyone by name. They knew what books we each liked. They would show some of us the new buys they would do from collections they had bought. It was a great time. It was kewl to remember when there would be a line out the door and down the sidewalk of this shopping strip of people waiting to buy their weekly comics. It's only like that nowadays for FCBD generally.

 

How much is that rookie card worth today?

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Sarfa

Sarfa

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How much is that rookie card worth today?

 

Sadly about the same if not less then it was back then, unless you have it graded and it comes out a 9.0-10.0 which seem to go for $150-$300.

 

2 other baseball card / comic stories

 

1991 - Junior year in high school. Upper Deck was the premier baseball card company. And in that years set of cards they did a subset called Hall of Heroes. The 1991 Hall of Heroes was for Nolan Ryan, which was great since I was living in Arlington TX at the time and Nolan was still pitching for the Texas Rangers. In this set of Hall of Heroes cards there was a chance of getting a signed and numbered card. I had no luck that year getting one from a pack. But the local card shop had someone bring one in to sell and they bought it. They in turn were selling it for $750 because it was a low numbered card out of 2500 signed cards. A week after I saw this, I went to visit family in Abilene and went to a baseball card shop out there. They use to get a weekly Card Shop News newspapers just like we have Comic Shop News newspapers nowadays. And on the back cover of that weeks Card Shop News was an article a guy in California that was a huge Nolan Ryan fan and had a blown up version of the card that was signed. This was about a month or so after Nolan got his 7th No Hitter. Anyways the guy was putting out a bounty of $7,000 for the real card #7 that was signed by Nolan. Well guess where that was? :) So being 17 at the time, I didn't have that kind of cash to buy the card, so I showed the article to my grandmother and explained that I knew where this card was. And that if she would loan me the money to buy it, I would double her money. She agreed but suggested that I call the shop to see if they still had it before she gave me the cash.

 

I called out to Arlington to the shop where the card was and asked if they still had the card for sale. "Nope, we sold it 2 hours ago actually." DAMNIT! So then I asked her if they had any of that weeks issues of Card Shop News still and she replied that they did. I told her to go look at the back cover. She she sets the phone down on the counter. Not 30 seconds later I hear, "RICHARD!!!!!!!!!! Do you know how to get ahold of the guy we sold that Nolan Ryan card to?, CLICK

 

So I consider that my bad karma for trading that kid for his Ken Griffey Jr rookie card. But in return about 3 or 4 years later, I was at my LCS that just happened to be closing out all of their sports cards stuff since that market seemed to be drying up. They were clearancing out tons of sports card related items. One of these items was a sealed box of 1991 Upper Deck baseball cards with 36 packs inside for $20. This was a steal! So I bought it along with my weekly books and went home. After checking out my books for that week, I decided to go through the box and see what cards I could get out of the pack. I figured I might be able to get a few Michael Jordan baseball cards (actually got 3) and some other key cards from that series. And of course I got several of the regular Hall Of Heroes cards. I actually managed to put together a full set except for card #10 which was the plaque card. As luck would have it in the last pack of the box there was a plaque card... signed and numbered 1974/2500 by Nolan Ryan. I nearly passed out. I remember the number because it was the year after my birth year. I showed the card to my roommate who also collected baseball cards and he was uber jealous. I sold the card at a Sport Card convention 2 weeks later for $450.

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comicwiz

comicwiz

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This story eventually has to do with a comic shop, but it's centered around a pretty bitter experience so if you're looking for a MOAR Friday free-for-all rants, this post is for you.

 

The story takes place at a point in time where I had just graduated from University. I was close to completing a stint as a civilian working for the Department of National Defense, and moving into a position that was more in line with my degree.

 

I had a student loan to pay off, a car loan and the new job seemed to offer me the ability to manage what I owed, plus the opportunity to stash away some earnings for things like collecting.

 

I managed to save enough to purchase a high-grade Hulk 181 from the Silver Snail. I remember paying over guide, but it was at minimum a NM copy. The mistake I made was keeping the sticker price on the mylar because that sticker is what a thief would later use to determine which books from my collection were worth stealing.

 

I may have been in ownership of it for no longer than a year. The worst part is that I didn't notice the book missing until well after the book was stolen. It was brought to my attention perhaps a month or two after it was stolen where the book was sold.

 

Even with that amount of time passing, I thought I'd give it a try. The comic shop was familiar to me (Yesterday's Heroes) as I had spent many an afternoon, either skipping class or going with some buddies to buy comics. Unfortunately, the kind friendly old man who used to run the shop back when I was much younger was no longer running the show.

 

I walked into the store and after doing some browsing the shop owner volunteered to help me. I asked if he had a copy of Hulk 181. After a brief pause, his response was yes, but that it wasn't kept at the shop. I asked if I could have a look at it, and arrange a later date to come and look at it. He agreed.

 

After making arrangements to come and look at the book, I made repeated attempts to establish contact with him. When I finally got a hold of him, he gave me a day to come by. I went to see him (I remember I had to leave for a trip to Chicago later in the day and was pressed for time). When I walked into the store, he wasn't there.

 

I spoke to the girl behind the counter and she mentioned he would be up in a few minutes. When he arrived, he told me he no longer wanted to sell the book. While I kept the incident of theft out of our discussion and was thinking of just outright rebuying it, I could tell he got cold feet just based on his reactions.

 

He seem troubled, shifty and nervous and I couldn't understand why he was acting so weird other than the reason that he might have known the person he bought it from has stolen the comic.

 

Before walking out of his shop, I laid it down to him that I knew the book stolen from me was sold to his shop, and explained how I had already filed a police report several months earlier and that the police would be in contact with him.

 

Last I followed-up with the matter, his story was that he had sold it the shortly after it was purchased in his shop and had no way of contacting the person who bought it. meh

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Artboy99

Artboy99

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Posted
This story eventually has to do with a comic shop, but it's centered around a pretty bitter experience so if you're looking for a MOAR Friday free-for-all rants, this post is for you.

 

The story takes place at a point in time where I had just graduated from University. I was close to completing a stint as a civilian working for the Department of National Defense, and moving into a position that was more in line with my degree.

 

I had a student loan to pay off, a car loan and the new job seemed to offer me the ability to manage what I owed, plus the opportunity to stash away some earnings for things like collecting.

 

I managed to save enough to purchase a high-grade Hulk 181 from the Silver Snail. I remember paying over guide, but it was at minimum a NM copy. The mistake I made was keeping the sticker price on the mylar because that sticker is what a thief would later use to determine which books from my collection were worth stealing.

 

I may have been in ownership of it for no longer than a year. The worst part is that I didn't notice the book missing until well after the book was stolen. It was brought to my attention perhaps a month or two after it was stolen where the book was sold.

 

Even with that amount of time passing, I thought I'd give it a try. The comic shop was familiar to me (Yesterday's Heroes) as I had spent many an afternoon, either skipping class or going with some buddies to buy comics. Unfortunately, the kind friendly old man who used to run the shop back when I was much younger was no longer running the show.

 

I walked into the store and after doing some browsing the shop owner volunteered to help me. I asked if he had a copy of Hulk 181. After a brief pause, his response was yes, but that it wasn't kept at the shop. I asked if I could have a look at it, and arrange a later date to come and look at it. He agreed.

 

After making arrangements to come and look at the book, I made repeated attempts to establish contact with him. When I finally got a hold of him, he gave me a day to come by. I went to see him (I remember I had to leave for a trip to Chicago later in the day and was pressed for time). When I walked into the store, he wasn't there.

 

I spoke to the girl behind the counter and she mentioned he would be up in a few minutes. When he arrived, he told me he no longer wanted to sell the book. While I kept the incident of theft out of our discussion and was thinking of just outright rebuying it, I could tell he got cold feet just based on his reactions.

 

He seem troubled, shifty and nervous and I couldn't understand why he was acting so weird other than the reason that he might have known the person he bought it from has stolen the comic.

 

Before walking out of his shop, I laid it down to him that I knew the book stolen from me was sold to his shop, and explained how I had already filed a police report several months earlier and that the police would be in contact with him.

 

Last I followed-up with the matter, his story was that he had sold it the shortly after it was purchased in his shop and had no way of contacting the person who bought it. meh

 

Clearly he still had the book, he admitted that much to you.

To bad you had no way of proving he had said that to you, otherwise he could have been charged.

 

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miraclemet

miraclemet

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Wait, am I missing something?

 

How did you know that Hulk was the same as the one that was stolen from you?

 

Yeah Im with you... there are some gaps in your story...

(not saying its anything but truth, just saying as a reader I want to understand more!)

 

1. How'd the comics get stolen in the first place? You allude to the fact that someone cherrypicked the best comics out of your collection? Or maybe just snagged that one? Not sure exactly. My comics are at my house, and the only one who could steal them from me (besides an intruder) would be my wife, my 3yr old, the nanny, or my cat... Was your house broken into?

 

2. Howd you know it was your book? I thought for sure your story was going to end with the dealer showing you the book and it still having the tale-tell sticker on the bag so you KNEW it was yours. But you never even saw the book? I agree the dealer sounds like he was acting cagey/sketchy, but did he have a history of buying stolen goods? Maybe it was his personal IH181 and he got cold feet about selling it and decided to back out of showing it to you (and then made up an excuse that he sold it so you'd stop asking about it?) Would he have known it was your book that he bought? You kind of allude to what sounds like maybe someone that works at the shop saw the guy come in, and the shop owner bought the book, and the counter guy recognized it as yours (again how? Toronto isnt exactly a small town where there's only one copy of IH181 floating around Im guessing) and let you know it had been sold there? Am I reading between the lines correctly?

 

Again, not doubting your parts of the story, but Im trying to put the pieces together for the whole big picture of an interesting story...

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comicwiz

comicwiz

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I knew going into the shop it was sold there. I just never lead him on that I knew - I was just interested in getting it back.

 

I mention this because when I first talked to him, I had asked if it was a book from his personal collection, and he explained how the book walked into the store at around the same time mine was stolen.

 

You have to also understand that this was in the mid to late-90's, in a shop that had green/silver/gold Spidey's as wall books, and those were the high-priced books.

 

The fact he had a high-grade key (not in a showcase or on the wall) in a store with nothing more than 90's drek for inventory, and that matched the same time-frame mine was stolen, left no question in my mind whether it was my book or not. The key was getting him to get the book in front of me, in a situation where I could get it back.

 

The only thing I can think of is that from the time he agreed to show/sell me the book, and the time he changed his mind, roughly a week had passed. It is possible that he received a call from the police who were still following-up on my report. Yesterday's Heroes was just one of the store's I originally listed as a nearby shop where the book might have ended-up. Keep in mind that when I gave the report, I didn't yet know where the book ended-up and with how slowly police investigate matters, it is a remote but real possibility that could explain why he changed his mind.

 

Anyhow, the main reason why I mention this is because I often hear people suggesting to go and check out nearby shops when their comics go missing. I guess in my experience, honesty and integrity of the store owner matters because it was pretty clear to me that this shop owner didn't have any.

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eccomic

eccomic

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I remember Yesterday's Heroes and the owner. He was not a nice chap in the least. Is the store still in existence or did it close down? I think the owner's name was Carl (shrug)

 

I used to frequent that store in the late 90's and did manage to purchase a high grade copy of Blood is The Harvest on one of my first sojourns into that store in the late 80's. Unfortunately, I no longer have that book... :cry:

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comicwiz

comicwiz

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I remember Yesterday's Heroes and the owner. He was not a nice chap in the least. Is the store still in existence or did it close down? I think the owner's name was Carl (shrug)

 

I used to frequent that store in the late 90's and did manage to purchase a high grade copy of Blood is The Harvest on one of my first sojourns into that store in the late 80's. Unfortunately, I no longer have that book... :cry:

 

The store property and business was on the market some years ago. The best thing to happen to a place where I have such negative memories is that Peter of the Beguiling eventually took it over and opened up Little Island Comics.

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