What was your best/most interesting/coolest purchase pre-Internet?

[RCheli]

Let's set the way-back machine to any time before 1996, when the Buyers' Guide was king, comic book stores were holes in the wall, and conventions were a crapshoot...

 

I was talking to a friend the other day about how I got my Daredevil #1.

 

It was in 1986 and I was 14 years old. I was a recent subscriber to CBG and it was late summer, just after my birthday. (So I was flush.) There was a four-page ad for an upcoming mail/phone auction, and one of the books offered was a Daredevil #1 in Good condition. The estimate was $30-$50.

 

The phone part took place on a Sunday evening, and I snuck away from mother to make a long-distance call and place a bid for $38 dollars. With postage and the auction fee, that was the most I could afford.

 

I waited.

 

A week later, I got a letter in the mail saying that I had won, and I needed to mail a money order for $49. So I rode my bike to the post office with every last cent of my birthday cash and mailed it off. About two weeks later (or what seemed like 8 years), the package came.

 

It was the most exciting day of my young life. I could barely even read it, my hands were shaking so much. It's still my most prized piece in my collection (although many other comics are more valuable and were more difficult to find).

 

It took me another 5 years to finish my Daredevil collection -- #2 was the last one -- and I have to say that since the Internet and eBay and countless store websites, finishing up a run has never been as exciting.

[CBT]

wolverine limited series #1 from a store that doesnt even exist anymore.

[Dr. Balls]

wolverine limited series #1 from a store that doesnt even exist anymore.

 

 

Same here. I won Wolverine #1 in a silent auction at the comic shop in Cinderella City in Denver, CO back in 1984. It's what turned me from a reader into a collector. Spent a whopping $5 on it, which was an insane price for an 11 year old.

[jools&jim]

 

Mine happened in 1979: I bought 15-20 issues of Uncanny X-Men from #110 or so to the upper #120s, at cover price, from an old Drug Fair store which almost never cleaned out their spinner racks. New issues were just jammed in front of the old ones.

 

Even then, those books were going for a lot more than 35-40 cents each. None of them were high grade, but I was only 13, and thought I had died and gone to heaven...

 

[Larryw7]

A beautiful Four Color 29 I got from Phil Levine in the early nineties.

[Rekani]

When I was 12 in 1987, I went into my local shop (chain still exists, location does not) and saw an Xmen 19 on the wall. I had been poring through those old Marvel Universe issues in the prior weeks, and I thought Mimic looked really cool and wanted to read that book.

As I recall, I think it was $44 and was probably in F condition. I saved my money for a month, skipped buying new issues of anything, and then one day I went in and there was a half off sale on back issues and most wall books.

I took it home that day.

 

Sadly, during a dumb relationship, I sold that along with my IH 181 that was missing the coupon.

 

Fast forward to this year, I dug out my collection and decided I needed to get my old favorites back. Picked up an issue of Xmen 19 as the first purchase of the day at SDCC this year. Still need that 181

[Erndog]

I'm 29 years old and been on ebay since I was like 18 or something. Pre that I had no money.

 

I can't participate in this discussion unless you're talking about Ultimate Spiderman #1 or something

[AlexanderM]

Let's set the way-back machine to any time before 1996, when the Buyers' Guide was king, comic book stores were holes in the wall, and conventions were a crapshoot...

 

I was talking to a friend the other day about how I got my Daredevil #1.

 

It was in 1986 and I was 14 years old. I was a recent subscriber to CBG and it was late summer, just after my birthday. (So I was flush.) There was a four-page ad for an upcoming mail/phone auction, and one of the books offered was a Daredevil #1 in Good condition. The estimate was $30-$50.

 

The phone part took place on a Sunday evening, and I snuck away from mother to make a long-distance call and place a bid for $38 dollars. With postage and the auction fee, that was the most I could afford.

 

I waited.

 

A week later, I got a letter in the mail saying that I had won, and I needed to mail a money order for $49. So I rode my bike to the post office with every last cent of my birthday cash and mailed it off. About two weeks later (or what seemed like 8 years), the package came.

 

It was the most exciting day of my young life. I could barely even read it, my hands were shaking so much. It's still my most prized piece in my collection (although many other comics are more valuable and were more difficult to find).

 

It took me another 5 years to finish my Daredevil collection -- #2 was the last one -- and I have to say that since the Internet and eBay and countless store websites, finishing up a run has never been as exciting.

 

Nice story.

[Artboy99]

Let's set the way-back machine to any time before 1996, when the Buyers' Guide was king, comic book stores were holes in the wall, and conventions were a crapshoot...

 

I was talking to a friend the other day about how I got my Daredevil #1.

 

It was in 1986 and I was 14 years old. I was a recent subscriber to CBG and it was late summer, just after my birthday. (So I was flush.) There was a four-page ad for an upcoming mail/phone auction, and one of the books offered was a Daredevil #1 in Good condition. The estimate was $30-$50.

 

The phone part took place on a Sunday evening, and I snuck away from mother to make a long-distance call and place a bid for $38 dollars. With postage and the auction fee, that was the most I could afford.

 

I waited.

 

A week later, I got a letter in the mail saying that I had won, and I needed to mail a money order for $49. So I rode my bike to the post office with every last cent of my birthday cash and mailed it off. About two weeks later (or what seemed like 8 years), the package came.

 

It was the most exciting day of my young life. I could barely even read it, my hands were shaking so much. It's still my most prized piece in my collection (although many other comics are more valuable and were more difficult to find).

 

It took me another 5 years to finish my Daredevil collection -- #2 was the last one -- and I have to say that since the Internet and eBay and countless store websites, finishing up a run has never been as exciting.

 

Great story! Thanks for posting

[eccomic]

I purchased a near mint copy of the classic Cold War comic BLOOD IS THE HARVEST, by Catechetical Guild (1950), for only $10.00 from an antiquarian book dealer in downtown Toronto when I was 15 years of age. The book was listed as very rare in the 1978 Overstreet Price Guide at $15.00 in GOOD, $30.00 in FINE, and $45.00 in Mint condition. I flipped it one week later for the princely sum of $100.00. To my chagrin, the 1979 Overstreet Price Guide listed the same book at $400.00 in GOOD, $800.00 in FINE, and $1200.00 in MINT. I was sick for a week and it took almost three decades to obtain a nice CGC 6.0 copy, which ironically set me back $1200.00

 

 

 

Stephen

[Artboy99]

Mine would be when I was 10 years old, I had already started collecting The Incredible Hulk, the first comic I ever bought when I was 6 years old was an FF 112 because the cover looked very cool to me.

I saw a good conditioned Hulk #1 hanging on the wall at a local comic store called Hobbits Fantasy Shoppe. They were located downtown in the city I live in and I lived on a farm at the outskirts of town so it was a long bike ride to get to the store. The asking price was $50.00, alot for a 10 year old kid. I saved up money from my paper route over a period of 2 months, and went down to buy it when I had enough. That was the summer of 1975.

I owned it until i was 19, when I sold most of my comic collection and bought a TV and a 1968 Chevelle big block car.

[vaillant]

Definitely this book, in 1991, when I visited Los Angeles

Details are here: http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=321577&Number=7212230#Post7212230

 

 

For the Golden Age it might be my very first Daredevil Comics (Lev Gleason), I think it was a #45. I never saw a GA book in person before, and it was cool, but I expected it to be a bit different. Then, after Internet, I got earlier issues and understood where the awesomeness was…

 

Then, if we have to consider post-Internet, it would be definitely this one, which I will show "ad nauseam" as it is one of the coolest item in my collection – and I had to correspond in japanese (which I don’t know) to get it…

 

[namisgr]

I bought this book from Marnin when he first brought the Massachusetts pedigree to market back in '93. Paid something like $275 for it. It was in one of his many adverts in The Buyer's Guide, and was among two dozen Mass pedigree comics I was fortunate to snag.

 

[divad]

Love these stories

 

Here's mine. It was summer 1967, South Windsor, CT. I was 11 years old. I still had my paper route (and if I recall correctly, I hadn't started working tobacco yet). I had a small collection of early Marvels that I had rag-tagged together from Sunnyside Market and various newsstands. I was looking through the Rockville Reminder (a local garage sale newspaper) and saw an ad for comics for sale. I can't remember who I got to drive me over to Rockville (two towns over) but I know it WASN'T my Dad. I took $150 from my paper route savings and bought about 600 Marvel SA books (4 boxes) from a teenager who was selling all of his books except his Spider-Mans. This was a lot of money, and I was paying over cover price (except for the Giant-Size issues). I brought these home and immediately transferred them to some tomato boxes I had picked up at Sullivan's Market - this became the crux of the "Tomato Box" collection.

My dad went ape-s*** when I got home. "You spent $150 on old comic books!!!"

 

He did get a kick out of the story many years later though, when the very first comic book I ever re-sold (one of my two Incredible Hulk #181s (obviously not from that original purchase)) went for $2,200 on eBay. Never underestimate your childrens' imagination.

[vaillant]

My dad went ape-s*** when I got home. "You spent $150 on old comic books!!!"

 

I can’t even imagine how it must have been to be eleven years old in the States in 1967, but I can relate to that.

When I attended the first convention which was held in my city, in 1985, I was sixteen years old and I just started collecting italian Disney comics of the 1930s.

This time I did not need my father to drive me to a convention, but unfortunately he decided to attend himself on the second day, and I had to become an acrobat to make purchases under his nose without letting him know how much I spent.

 

One of the books I bought that day it was a 1957 Disney book of a title which here is sought after like SA Marvels, for 60.000 italian Lire – it is now a $2500 book or so, and I could sell it to purchase a FF#1, but I won’t as it is one of my most cherished books as well.

[october]

 

First Astro Boy?

 

Very cool. I am curious about this one. How rare is it? What's the ballpark value for a copy if you don't mind me asking?

 

Thanks for sharing.

[RCheli]

Great stories.

 

I think that there's something to say for younger teenagers saving up for something big.

 

The craziest thing, to me, is that looking back, that Daredevil #1 was 22 years old when I bought it. A 22-year-old comic now would've come out in 1991... And I don't think there is much that came out then that would make a 15-year-old that excited now.

[RCheli]

I purchased a near mint copy of the classic Cold War comic BLOOD IS THE HARVEST, by Catechetical Guild (1950), for only $10.00 from an antiquarian book dealer in downtown Toronto when I was 15 years of age. The book was listed as very rare in the 1978 Overstreet Price Guide at $15.00 in GOOD, $30.00 in FINE, and $45.00 in Mint condition. I flipped it one week later for the princely sum of $100.00. To my chagrin, the 1979 Overstreet Price Guide listed the same book at $400.00 in GOOD, $800.00 in FINE, and $1200.00 in MINT. I was sick for a week and it took almost three decades to obtain a nice CGC 6.0 copy, which ironically set me back $1200.00

 

What a great book, and one I looked for for years.

 

I had a really nice copy of the 10-cent version of "Is This Tomorrow" that I sold a few years ago. After reading the Charles Schulz biography that came out recently, I found out that he did some art on that one.

[sborock]

I guess my "pre-internet" favorite was getting the Church Copy of More Fun #52 in, I think, 1993.

 

It was my favorite book at the time and could not find a decent copy any place. I also had a decent, high grade, More Fun collection at the time, so I really needed the 52 to make the run look great.

 

Got a call that the Church Copy was for sale, but it was $115K

 

Thought about it for a few days and then my buddy and I flew with Steve Fishler to view the book. Did the deal and, while I was flying home, I was thinking to myself "This book or a house? I must be crazy!"

 

I am pretty sure that it was the most cash (not trade/cash) ever paid for a single comic at the time.

[RCheli]

 

I am pretty sure that it was the most cash (not trade/cash) ever paid for a single comic at the time.

 

Ahem. Maybe you missed my post where I wrote that I spent $49 on a Daredevil #1. (That's a four-nine with two zeros... after the decimal.)

 

Sheesh. Some people. Always making it about them.