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The worst

Started by FlyingDonut,

71 posts in this topic

FlyingDonut

FlyingDonut

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Posted

I have been to hundreds of comic stores over the past four decades on three continents. I have been to great comic stores, good comic stores, and bad comic stores. But until today, I had not been to the WORST comic store. Cross that off my list.

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youmechooz

youmechooz

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I have been to hundreds of comic stores over the past four decades on three continents. I have been to great comic stores, good comic stores, and bad comic stores. But until today, I had not been to the WORST comic store. Cross that off my list.

was he selling 150 longboxes?

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FlyingDonut

FlyingDonut

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Exotic Planterium and Card Collectorama

 

Yes.

 

Plant store and comic store

 

1. Walked in

2. Boxes are - literally - crumbling. Owner says he cannot afford to buy new boxes.

3. Everything is dusty. Not dusty like your house. Dusty like years and years of dust

4. Piles and piles of stuff.

5. Great swaths of things "NOT FOR SALE" - after I start to look at them. (BTW, see #2).

6. Appears to have been frozen in time in about 1994. Does not appear to have any comics after that time period.

7. Every conceivable key is gone.

8. Was told that I was the first person in 42 years to move a box. Was a distributor box with the first issues of "Heroes Reborn" in them - those are from 1998. (BTW, see #2).

9. 90% of the books were unbagged. And wrinkled. And slumping. Picture a guy set up at a flea market. Now add dust.

10. Those books didn't have prices on them....or so I thought!

11. Finally pulled a pile of books, after giving up on half of the store.

12. Brought the pile of books to the guy. Nothing major. Couple 30 cent variants, a Legend of Zelda 1. Couple Crisis on Infinite Earths. A Peter Parker 90. A Superman Family 164. Nothing else.

13. See a loose pile of Megos, including a 1970s Thor, which was nice. "How much for the Thor?" I say.

14. We then spend 15 minutes trying to locate a sales price for the Thor, using a 1999 Action Figure Price Guide magazine. 1999.

15. I pull completed prices for the Thor on eBay on my phone so I have a clue. Figure about $60, but would have gone a little higher.

16. The books are still in the pile.

17. We give up on the Thor.

18. He starts to price the books. We aren't using a 1999 Overstreet.

19. $28 for Crisis 6. $20 for Peter Parker 90.

20. At this point - I'm 90 minutes in - I say, lets just go with the priced books, which was a Super Villain Team Up 7 30 center, Superman Family 164, and a couple others.

21. Total is $48.

22. I hand him an Amex card.

23. He looks at it and says "I don't take cards.:"

24. OK. This is common - lots of comic stores don't take Amex. Why, I don't know. So I hand him a Visa.

25. He says. "No, I don't take credit cards. There's an ATM in the 7-11 down the street."

26. At this point I say. "No thanks."

27. I move the ferns out of the way and walk down to my car.

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wombat

wombat

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Check out this awesome Yelp review.

 

I collect comic books and thought I'd hunt down places in my area. Since this store was listed in a comic book store locator, I thought I'd check it out.

 

The store is a bizarre mix of plant nursery (mostly cactus and succulents) and pop culture collectibles (e.g. comic books, trading cards). Personally, I wouldn't have thought sun lamps and air misters would really help maintain the integrity of paper-based collectibles but what do I know. Let's not even start talking about the fire hazards.

 

The store has no organization what-so-ever. Essentially, stuff is just stacked on every available surface and, in some cases, slipping off that surface. I assume that this is what the inside of a hoarders house would look like. Plus, the store was at least 85 degrees inside with still dusty air.

 

The elderly man behind the counter and the condition of the store, made me wonder whether his mother's desiccated corpse was propped up in a back room like in "Psycho." I'm six-foot-six but the place even gave me the willies.

 

The comic book stuff is mostly . Banged up yellowed comic books from the 80's and 90's stuffed in cardboard boxes at the back of the store. Nothing is marked for price. The few prices the owner quoted indicated that he might be insane. I knew that the tattered comic books could be bought for fifty cents or a dollar at any other comic store, but he was quoting prices like they were real collectibles. Maybe it was only those few items but that sealed the deal for me.

 

If you are in the neighborhood, it is worth sticking your head inside, if only for the WTF factor, but I wouldn't make a trip there to shop.

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