Tom Reilly Collection Master List

[BLBcomics-migration]

Thanks Rich

 

It has been more thab a few moons since i have seen these particular copies. to be sure

 

they sure are purty, just like i remember

 

Anybody else reading this and having a Tom Reilly or two they can put up?

 

 

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

[MrBedrock]

Thanks Rich

 

It has been more thab a few moons since i have seen these particular copies. to be sure

 

they sure are purty, just like i remember

 

Anybody else reading this and having a Tom Reilly or two they can put up?

 

 

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

Thanks Bob. Happy to share.

I know they were Tom Reilly's books, but "San Fransisco Copy" just sounds right to me. I know I might be alone on this one, but that is what they have been to me for 25 or so years, and that is what they will always be to me.

[ciorac]

Thanks Rich

 

It has been more thab a few moons since i have seen these particular copies. to be sure

 

they sure are purty, just like i remember

 

Anybody else reading this and having a Tom Reilly or two they can put up?

 

 

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

Do you remember the 29 I posted?

 

Check out the stamp on the back.

[Arty]

I know they were Tom Reilly's books, but "San Fransisco Copy" just sounds right to me. I know I might be alone on this one, but that is what they have been to me for 25 or so years, and that is what they will always be to me.

 

HERETIC !

BURN HIM !!

[MrBedrock]

Thanks Rich

 

It has been more thab a few moons since i have seen these particular copies. to be sure

 

they sure are purty, just like i remember

 

Anybody else reading this and having a Tom Reilly or two they can put up?

 

 

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

Do you remember the 29 I posted?

 

Check out the stamp on the back.

 

If you remember, I saw that stamp before you did

It is the "Tom Reilly" stamp that designates a San Francisco copy!

[BLBcomics-migration]

Thanks Rich

 

It has been more than a few moons since i have seen these particular copies. to be sure

 

they sure are purty, just like i remember

 

Anybody else reading this and having a Tom Reilly or two they can put up?

 

 

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

Thanks Bob. Happy to share.

I know they were Tom Reilly's books, but "San Francisco Copy" just sounds right to me. I know I might be alone on this one, but that is what they have been to me for 25 or so years, and that is what they will always be to me.

 

Ron Pussell of Redbeard's Book Den is the former LA southern Calif resident who saw me showing up at southern Calif shows and the concept of all southern Calif people below Santa Cruz/Monterary/Carmel are LA people.

 

And all north of that Calif "equator" are Frisco, or San Francisco as you will

 

He was trying to differentiate in his own mind at first, then other high graders joined in, A Certain Collection of High Grade Copies from Mile High Edgar Church High Grade copies.

 

Reilly, his parents house, the house of the doctor we bought the first batch from, Mr Arnheim, if i remember correctly, all were in the Moraga/Piedmont east Bay section.

 

No way am i gonna let some LA guy long term name the best single collection ever to surface in the Bay Area of northern California, just because my company's comics warehouse flooded out, knocking from my once former higher dealing level back in 1986 when a million comic books were either destroyed or, their staples all rusted out, rendering them useless long term investments.

 

What if you found a similar batch and some one from Dallas named it instead some thing you knew had nothing to do with the character of the collection?

 

I guess if i had been tuned into CGC from the Git Go Day One i could have influenced it then - this i am sure, but i doubt if it is possible now.

 

I just remember there were a few people on this thread earlier (or it might have been the earlier Reilly Thread I was asked to join into) who thought SF and Reilly copies were two different collections.

 

I have encountered this many times since "Frisco" copies was first coined. Actually, San Francisco designation came later, once "pedigree" became a basis for some in-which to collect.

 

The only thing Gerber got correct in his two paragraph throw-off thing in his Photo Journal Guide following his several page attempt to document the Edgar Church collection was the name Tom Reilly.

 

Anyways, thems just funny books, and what should be important these days is the CGC number, as aspects of these "pedigree" collections will slowly blur over time, it is inevitable.

 

Not so much in these days of scans and J-Pegs onto the internet, but for collections discovered before the advent of high speed, it is akin like trying to figure out who is buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

 

If one wants to find out where the Reilly copies of Whiz #2 (#1) and Detective Comics #27, the trail begins with Burl Rowe is why i brought him up.

 

Sal Dichiera of Amazing Adventures has also trafficked in Reilly Copies, being a high end Bay Area dealer/colllector for some 30 years now. He might know where a few skeletons are buried.

 

There were others who bought into these, but i do not recollect their names right now. Oh, yeah, Theo Holstein, Mitch Mehdy, - hopefully more later. They were going crazy over these books as were a lot of other collector dealers at the time in the Bay Area.

 

We never placed a single ad in any of the advert zines of the day. Wish we had in retrospect, so to further document the uniqueness of what Reilly, then his parents, amassed. It was awesome

 

We didn't need to place any ads

 

- word of mouth amongst organized comics fandom had people from all over the continent coming thru our doors as for one, Telegraph Ave in Berkeley then was a destination "tourist" venue - something like 150,000 people a day walking up & down a four block stretch of street.

 

Plus by hosting the first comicon in the Bay Area on the UC-Berkeley campus back in 1973 which plugged us into local TV news coverage as well as the week end before front page of the SF Chron Pink Section plus a four page interior story concerning this "cultural event" upcoming as well as on-going that week end the 2nd week. We vacuum cleaned collection after collection for months following all that publicity.

 

then when i sold the Tec 27 to Burl Rowe for $2200, it made waves in hundreds of newspapers all over UPI/AP coverage - with our store name Comics & Comix mentioned.

 

Which brought us an even bigger wave of offers to sell their collections.

 

We soon had 3 more Tec 27 copies in quick succession, amongst piles of other Gold and obscene amounts of Silver (topping out once at 200 AF #15 issues in all kinds of grades, for instance), even some awsume character/SF pulp collections like complete runs of all the Spicys, Weird Tales, Horror, Terror. Shadow etc from in many cases the original owners as they were still alive in the 1960s, 1970s, not so much by the 1980s as i noticed many many original owner collections beginning to surface from say 1946 onwards. The earlier generation had mostly sold off and/or died by then.

 

There was a while when George Lucas was collecting one of every comic book once Star Wars money started rolling in. I know i sold books to Charles Lippincott (sp?), then his comic book & art buying agent.

 

- maybe Lucas has a stash of Reilly copies, as well as Church copies, which will never be on the market for a long time, if ever.

 

One day i hope to return to the days of collecting what i want and selling off the chaffe like i used to do - and they surely look like Reilly copies to me, quality wise. I take it they all have the Anchor, one can see G for Gilboy on most of what you shared. Thanks again!

 

Now, who has some more Tom Reilly copies they can show, purty please.

[ciorac]

Thanks Rich

 

It has been more thab a few moons since i have seen these particular copies. to be sure

 

they sure are purty, just like i remember

 

Anybody else reading this and having a Tom Reilly or two they can put up?

 

 

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

Do you remember the 29 I posted?

 

Check out the stamp on the back.

 

If you remember, I saw that stamp before you did

It is the "Tom Reilly" stamp that designates a San Francisco copy!

 

Not surprising. You see everything before I do. You are 6'6" tall, I am only 5'8".

[Straw-Man]

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead.

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

this is a terrific post. i know Jon Berk famously found Lamont Larson several years ago--that proves that diligence can make anything happen.

 

SO: who volunteers to find out who the original owners were of the Vancouver, Nova Scotia, Windy City, Kansas City, Mohawk Valley, Lost Valley, Central Valley, Spokane, Salida, Denver, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Toledo, Aurora, Bethlehem, Big Apple, Carson City, Chicago, Green River, Hawkeye...........

 

i'm tired of typing. anyway, find this out so we can get those 'infernal' pedigree names off our labels and have 'em fixed up! Steve, what will y'all charge to reholder my chicago book to the former owner's name?

 

and if we can't find the name of the bethlehem owner, we can call them "kodaks" since that is what the stamp says.

 

cheese and rice; a problem calling friscos friscos. i tell you, way better than seinfeld reruns.

[Straw-Man]

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

that campaign is going to be tougher to run than redhook's campaign for board secret-keeper of the year.

[Straw-Man]

I am only 5'8".

 

i had no idea they could stack poop so high.

[G.A.tor]

I am only 5'8".

 

i had no idea they could stack poop so high.

zesty!

[adamstrange]

and if we can't find the name of the bethlehem owner

 

Stanley Pachon

[BLBcomics-migration]

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead.

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

this is a terrific post. i know Jon Berk famously found Lamont Larson several years ago--that proves that diligence can make anything happen.

 

SO: who volunteers to find out who the original owners were of the Vancouver, Nova Scotia, Windy City, Kansas City, Mohawk Valley, Lost Valley, Central Valley, Spokane, Salida, Denver, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Toledo, Aurora, Bethlehem, Big Apple, Carson City, Chicago, Green River, Hawkeye...........

 

i'm tired of typing. anyway, find this out so we can get those 'infernal' pedigree names off our labels and have 'em fixed up! Steve, what will y'all charge to reholder my chicago book to the former owner's name?

 

and if we can't find the name of the bethlehem owner, we can call them "kodaks" since that is what the stamp says.

 

cheese and rice; a problem calling friscos friscos. i tell you, way better than seinfeld reruns.

 

Well, Mr Parker-dude, i actually think the entire concept of "pedigree" to be a foolish one at best

 

Always have

 

Just another manipulative marketing tool and i have seen them all unfold in this-here funny book biz over the last 40 years.

 

The names you mention above had something to do with the locale & circumstances under which they were found and liberated into the marketplace

 

Tis not true with "SF" designations

 

- the collection was never in San Fran except for the copies we brought over to our SF store on Columbus Ave in the North Beach section of San Fran or to some of the 1970s Baycons Sal Dichiera hosted at the Jack Tar (now Cathedral Hill) Hotel over on Divisidero

 

Steve B told me some time ago they were going to at least add Tom Reilly to reside with the SF desig, am not sure i remember if they ever cranked up the concept

[ciorac]

I am only 5'8".

 

i had no idea they could stack poop so high.

 

Yep, and I hear it gets as high as 6 foot in Broussard Louisiana!

[ciorac]

Now the campaign begins to get CGC to delete that infernal "San Francisco" from their labels and put the correct designation "Tom Reilly" instead.

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

this is a terrific post. i know Jon Berk famously found Lamont Larson several years ago--that proves that diligence can make anything happen.

 

SO: who volunteers to find out who the original owners were of the Vancouver, Nova Scotia, Windy City, Kansas City, Mohawk Valley, Lost Valley, Central Valley, Spokane, Salida, Denver, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Toledo, Aurora, Bethlehem, Big Apple, Carson City, Chicago, Green River, Hawkeye...........

 

i'm tired of typing. anyway, find this out so we can get those 'infernal' pedigree names off our labels and have 'em fixed up! Steve, what will y'all charge to reholder my chicago book to the former owner's name?

 

and if we can't find the name of the bethlehem owner, we can call them "kodaks" since that is what the stamp says.

 

cheese and rice; a problem calling friscos friscos. i tell you, way better than seinfeld reruns.

 

Salida = Frank Blankis

[BLBcomics-migration]

A lot of names are out there

 

I personally think the original owner of any given "pedigree collection" should house the name of the dude which brought them to the party

 

namely

 

the guy who bought them off the racks so carefully, and generally, to also earn the pedigree moniker, they should be consistently in high pedigreed grade

 

Which is the only reason i bring up, and have been bringing up since CGC's inception, that this particular collection should be called

 

The Tom Reilly Collection

 

To honor HIM, and his family who carried out his wishes of please buy me one of each while i am gone on duty for our country

 

The guy gave his life for our country

 

No diff than those getting blown up in Iraq these days - or where ever else our current fearless leaders wish to push the American empire.

 

Calling them San Francisco copies, to me at least, dishonors the memory of such devote duty both for making the ultimate sacrifice as well as his parents continuing his comci book collection, then sealing up his room in the East Bay of the Bay Area, what i was told by Mr Arnheim as we were buying the first third was his parents lived in/near Piedmont, which, as any Bay Area person knows its like at least Brentwood in LA-Land terms.

 

It is a rich area, as his parents obviously had bucks to be able to purchase virtually every comic book until somewhere in the summer of 1945 when the collections abruptly came to a halt

 

What is what puzzled me after we went thru the books in the first batch. I called Mr Arnheim to find out more about this collection. That was when i learned about the Kamikaze Attack on his ship out in the Pacific in the waning days of World War Two.

 

I think Mark Haspell told me once maybe 5 years ago (?) he found a WINGS COMICS with a Sept 1945 date, which he said was the latest month given on any books CGC has been deeming Reilly copies.

 

he and i got into it, me, of course, standing my ground when I know myself to be accurate beyond doubt - and that was concerning the Reilly Superman 3 and 4, which were in the earlier copies which could have had some reading wear, thus not in the niner category which most of the Reilly copies continue to inhabit, mostly.

 

Looks like some have picked up color touch along the way

 

I have been patiently waiting for the guys doing this Pedigree book to send me the Reilly chapter for proof reading. They were the ones to ask me if i would look thru it before publication.

 

Sifting and recovering 30-35 year old memories works in a "jogging the noggin" type of format.

 

To understand where i am coming from, one only has to check out the comics history articles fronting the Victorian, Platinum and "Origin of the Modern Comic Book" article fronting their respective price indexes.

 

Or my Siegel and Shuster piece in Comic Book Marketplace #50 1997 called "The Big Bang of Comic Book History"

 

Or earlier, "The First Superman Cover" in the Detective Dan CBM (#36?) about Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Julie Schwartz and Mort Weisinger as teen age fan boys circa 1929-1935.

 

Some 12,000 words on the subject concerning Humor Publishing, and the origin of the very first The Superman - and what happened - how the original art for this cover fell into my hands from Russ Cochran, who had been given it by Bill Gaines, from Max Gaines desk which had sat untouched since his death in August 1947, following his election as VP of the first Comics Code Authority the month before in July.

 

- and Gary Carter cut out some 4000 words of research which has never seen the light of day.

 

(I forget which number this CBM is right now, all my copies are still unsorted from my semi-recent ware house move to new digs). Stuff for sale i know where it is, research stuff is being re-sorted more slowly otherwise you would be getting some visual aid

 

Or in Comic Book Artist #6 and #7, i lay out how the comic book store trip grew into the direct sales market - Over both issues, some 25,000 words which brings it up to right after Phil Seuling cut his deal and Direct Market Distributor #2, The Donahoe Brudders out of Michigan, Jim Kennedy & Gang

 

- i still have to have Part 3 printed some where, and what has been holding that up is me looking for some original documents in all my stuff which i have evidently misfiled a long time ago.

 

Then i got side tracked for a decade researching A Brave New World in 1800s comic books and magazines & other periodicals containing some pages of comic strips. Thousands of them in hundreds of publications have been unearthed

 

I would have to say that 1973 was one of my happiest years in the comic book business. We hosted that first comicon in the Bay Area, very successful, got most of the Tom Reilly collection, got immense media publicity for our new firm Comics & Comix, still did Houston, Dallas, NYC and San Diego comicons

 

Had the most famous comic book dealer traffic accident in a van outside Houston, leaving to go to New Orleans we were to visit Roger Nelson and Jack Diamond's store of stuff that they had moved down from Chicago the year before.

 

Roger had opened one of the very first comic book stores (had other cool old stuff as well, i am told) in 1966. I think Dale Manesis told me once he got his idea for a store from seeing Roger's when he brought in stuff to sell Roger.

 

I first met Roger i think at the 1968 Dallas Southwesterncon they were called by then and he was using an original Yellow Kid cigar box for his change fund as he made sales off his tables of cool old comics, pulps, BLBs, Sunday pages, comics toys, etc. I bugged him for years to sell it to me, he always said he was going to keep it for life. Many years later, i met up with Roger at one of Don Maris Big D shows in the mid 1990s, almost the first thing i asked him was if he still had that beautiful cigar box, but he had sold it, partner Jack had gotten sick, and a lot of things went.

 

All you Louisiana & environs collectors and comic book store owners might look to Roger as your area origin first store concept - anybody here work for Roger Nelson in New Orleans?

 

Likewise, i still need data on Burl Rowe and the comci book & original art emporium Camelot in Houston. I need to double check to make sure my information is correct as well as anecdotes every one picks up they ever work for or with.

 

Which brings me back around to The Tom Reilly Collection

 

- and wondering if that chapter has been written yet?

 

I am anxious to see it as well as the finished volume (two volumes some one told me ?) of all these other collections which have been designated Pedigree Status By The Powers That Be

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

[ciorac]

A lot of names are out there

 

I personally think the original owner of any given "pedigree collection" should house the name of the dude which brought them to the party

 

namely

 

the guy who bought them off the racks so carefully, and generally, to also earn the pedigree moniker, they should be consistently in high pedigreed grade

 

Which is the only reason i bring up, and have been bringing up since CGC's inception, that this particular collection should be called

 

The Tom Reilly Collection

 

To honor HIM, and his family who carried out his wishes of please buy me one of each while i am gone on duty for our country

 

The guy gave his life for our country

 

No diff than those getting blown up in Iraq these days - or where ever else our current fearless leaders wish to push the American empire.

 

Calling them San Francisco copies, to me at least, dishonors the memory of such devote duty both for making the ultimate sacrifice as well as his parents continuing his comci book collection, then sealing up his room in the East Bay of the Bay Area, what i was told by Mr Arnheim as we were buying the first third was his parents lived in/near Piedmont, which, as any Bay Area person knows its like at least Brentwood in LA-Land terms.

 

It is a rich area, as his parents obviously had bucks to be able to purchase virtually every comic book until somewhere in the summer of 1945 when the collections abruptly came to a halt

 

What is what puzzled me after we went thru the books in the first batch. I called Mr Arnheim to find out more about this collection. That was when i learned about the Kamikaze Attack on his ship out in the Pacific in the waning days of World War Two.

 

I think Mark Haspell told me once maybe 5 years ago (?) he found a WINGS COMICS with a Sept 1945 date, which he said was the latest month given on any books CGC has been deeming Reilly copies.

 

he and i got into it, me, of course, standing my ground when I know myself to be accurate beyond doubt - and that was concerning the Reilly Superman 3 and 4, which were in the earlier copies which could have had some reading wear, thus not in the niner category which most of the Reilly copies continue to inhabit, mostly.

 

Looks like some have picked up color touch along the way

 

I have been patiently waiting for the guys doing this Pedigree book to send me the Reilly chapter for proof reading. They were the ones to ask me if i would look thru it before publication.

 

Sifting and recovering 30-35 year old memories works in a "jogging the noggin" type of format.

 

To understand where i am coming from, one only has to check out the comics history articles fronting the Victorian, Platinum and "Origin of the Modern Comic Book" article fronting their respective price indexes.

 

Or my Siegel and Shuster piece in Comic Book Marketplace #50 1997 called "The Big Bang of Comic Book History"

 

Or earlier, "The First Superman Cover" in the Detective Dan CBM (#36?) about Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Julie Schwartz and Mort Weisinger as teen age fan boys circa 1929-1935.

 

Some 12,000 words on the subject concerning Humor Publishing, and the origin of the very first The Superman - and what happened - how the original art for this cover fell into my hands from Russ Cochran, who had been given it by Bill Gaines, from Max Gaines desk which had sat untouched since his death in August 1947, following his election as VP of the first Comics Code Authority the month before in July.

 

- and Gary Carter cut out some 4000 words of research which has never seen the light of day.

 

(I forget which number this CBM is right now, all my copies are still unsorted from my semi-recent ware house move to new digs). Stuff for sale i know where it is, research stuff is being re-sorted more slowly otherwise you would be getting some visual aid

 

Or in Comic Book Artist #6 and #7, i lay out how the comic book store trip grew into the direct sales market - Over both issues, some 25,000 words which brings it up to right after Phil Seuling cut his deal and Direct Market Distributor #2, The Donahoe Brudders out of Michigan, Jim Kennedy & Gang

 

- i still have to have Part 3 printed some where, and what has been holding that up is me looking for some original documents in all my stuff which i have evidently misfiled a long time ago.

 

Then i got side tracked for a decade researching A Brave New World in 1800s comic books and magazines & other periodicals containing some pages of comic strips. Thousands of them in hundreds of publications have been unearthed

 

I would have to say that 1973 was one of my happiest years in the comic book business. We hosted that first comicon in the Bay Area, very successful, got most of the Tom Reilly collection, got immense media publicity for our new firm Comics & Comix, still did Houston, Dallas, NYC and San Diego comicons

 

Had the most famous comic book dealer traffic accident in a van outside Houston, leaving to go to New Orleans we were to visit Roger Nelson and Jack Diamond's store of stuff that they had moved down from Chicago the year before.

 

Roger had opened one of the very first comic book stores (had other cool old stuff as well, i am told) in 1966. I think Dale Manesis told me once he got his idea for a store from seeing Roger's when he brought in stuff to sell Roger.

 

I first met Roger i think at the 1968 Dallas Southwesterncon they were called by then and he was using an original Yellow Kid cigar box for his change fund as he made sales off his tables of cool old comics, pulps, BLBs, Sunday pages, comics toys, etc. I bugged him for years to sell it to me, he always said he was going to keep it for life. Many years later, i met up with Roger at one of Don Maris Big D shows in the mid 1990s, almost the first thing i asked him was if he still had that beautiful cigar box, but he had sold it, partner Jack had gotten sick, and a lot of things went.

 

All you Louisiana & environs collectors and comic book store owners might look to Roger as your area origin first store concept - anybody here work for Roger Nelson in New Orleans?

 

Likewise, i still need data on Burl Rowe and the comci book & original art emporium Camelot in Houston. I need to double check to make sure my information is correct as well as anecdotes every one picks up they ever work for or with.

 

Which brings me back around to The Tom Reilly Collection

 

- and wondering if that chapter has been written yet?

 

I am anxious to see it as well as the finished volume (two volumes some one told me ?) of all these other collections which have been designated Pedigree Status By The Powers That Be

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

I knew Roger Nelson quite well when I still lived in New Orleans. I shopped at his store "The Remember When Nostalgia Shop" starting in the 70's. He has long since retired from the hobby. Gary Dolgoff and I bought out his inventory in the mid 90's. Lots of cool comics, toys, games, movie stuff, you name it, Roger had it all. Hope he is well.

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

I knew Roger Nelson quite well when I still lived in New Orleans. I shopped at his store "The Remember When Nostalgia Shop" starting in the 70's. He has long since retired from the hobby. Gary Dolgoff and I bought out his inventory in the mid 90's. Lots of cool comics, toys, games, movie stuff, you name it, Roger had it all. Hope he is well.

 

The last time i talked with Roger was mid 1990s, Jack Diamond was very sick then.

 

Do you have any photos of his store?

[ciorac]

 

I knew Roger Nelson quite well when I still lived in New Orleans. I shopped at his store "The Remember When Nostalgia Shop" starting in the 70's. He has long since retired from the hobby. Gary Dolgoff and I bought out his inventory in the mid 90's. Lots of cool comics, toys, games, movie stuff, you name it, Roger had it all. Hope he is well.

 

The last time i talked with Roger was mid 1990s, Jack Diamond was very sick then.

 

Do you have any photos of his store?

 

I wish I did. Matt Nelson used to have a photo on his website. I will ask him for it.

[FlyingDonut]

It was at the Berkeley Con 1973 show where the Reilly collection first surfaced that Bruce Hamilton brought the Action #1 he had just bought from Gene Henderson (board member San Diego Comicon) for a grand. Theo Holstein offered $1500 for it, Bruce turned him down. The SF Examiner wrote up this exchange as well as interviewed me about the show in the Monday newspaper - and Bruce was offered a 2nd Action 31, which is the copy he sold Theo for $1801.26 ($1.26 to mail it).

 

Mitch Mehdy bought from Theo for what he paid for it. That whole story went AP/UPI all over the country. This was early May 1973 by this point.

 

Around that same time, the second Reilly relative came into our Berkeley Telegraph Ave comic book store with more comic books. Contained in this batch were Whiz #2 (#1) and the Detective #27.

 

I called up Burl Rowe, a Houston lawyer for the Hunt Oil company, and offered him the Whiz #2 (#1) for $2000 and the following week, once he had seen the Whiz, i offered him the Tec 27 for $2200

 

we had been seeing all the publicity Bruce, Theo and Mitch had been getting on the Action #1 for $1801.26, so we contacted the AP/UPI ourselves with the "new" concept of a comi cbook being worth OVER two grand. They ran with it, we got coverage all over the place

 

within a month or so we had three more Detective 27 copies

 

those were fun days - and there is way more to this story as well

 

best

 

robert beerbohm