What's the biggest opportunity (buy) missed you’ve ever had offered to you.

[Aman619]

Back in the late '70s I got a call from a guy who wanted to move some of his dad's old comics. He was some sort of artist and the place was junked with them. He said there was a closet and a basement full and I could have them for practically nothing.

 

I was living several hundred miles away at the time but I decided give it a look-see. Well, as luck would have it I was about half way across Texas and my car broke down. To get it repaired I had to work at the garage doing odd jobs until I could pay for the parts -- I also had to do my own repairs. That took the better part of 2 weeks.

 

So, I got back on the road and continued my trip. 20 hours later I was there. Just as I pulled up in front of the seller's house I saw an old beater van pulling away with some hippie-looking guy at the wheel. The van looked really loaded down and the smell of pot was really strong. As I approched the house I noticed a bunch of broken pottery almost like the guy in the van had thrown it out in a big hurry.

 

Anyway, the old man's son was there but there were no books to be found. The son told me that the hippie guy showed up and paid him 5¢ a book. Then he loaded them into a bunch of chicken boxes and dug around in the trash for awhile. He said that 5¢ a book was a lot less than what he wanted but the hippie guy offered to blow him and give him some pot. Since he hadn't heard from me in 2 weeks he went ahead and took him up on his offer.

 

Dunno what ever happened to that family or the hippie guy. I hear that he started a comic shop and sell stuff online. Guess I'll have to look him up the nixt time I'm in Colorado.

 

that made my day! After reading the first sentence, the idea of writing a similar story sparked in my head - - - but yours is priceless!! bravo!

[Snooty Possum-migration]

What's the biggest opportunity (buy) missed you’ve ever had offered to you.

By "opportunity", do you mean in referrence to comics, or could it be an opportunity to buy something else?

 

And by "missed", do you mean missed the whole opportunity? What if you were offered several items and purchased some of those, but "missed" some of them.

 

And by "offered", do you mean that someone had to approach you and offer you the items without you soliciting them? Or could it be something that you sought out and then made an offer on?

 

Thanks,

rob_react

[Aces]

[skybolt]

Back in the late '70s I got a call from a guy who wanted to move some of his dad's old comics. He was some sort of artist and the place was junked with them. He said there was a closet and a basement full and I could have them for practically nothing.

 

I was living several hundred miles away at the time but I decided give it a look-see. Well, as luck would have it I was about half way across Texas and my car broke down. To get it repaired I had to work at the garage doing odd jobs until I could pay for the parts -- I also had to do my own repairs. That took the better part of 2 weeks.

 

So, I got back on the road and continued my trip. 20 hours later I was there. Just as I pulled up in front of the seller's house I saw an old beater van pulling away with some hippie-looking guy at the wheel. The van looked really loaded down and the smell of pot was really strong. As I approched the house I noticed a bunch of broken pottery almost like the guy in the van had thrown it out in a big hurry.

 

Anyway, the old man's son was there but there were no books to be found. The son told me that the hippie guy showed up and paid him 5¢ a book. Then he loaded them into a bunch of chicken boxes and dug around in the trash for awhile. He said that 5¢ a book was a lot less than what he wanted but the hippie guy offered to blow him and give him some pot. Since he hadn't heard from me in 2 weeks he went ahead and took him up on his offer.

 

Dunno what ever happened to that family or the hippie guy. I hear that he started a comic shop and sell stuff online. Guess I'll have to look him up the nixt time I'm in Colorado.

 

Sounds like scene from Deliverance.

[davidpg]

[Snooty Possum-migration]

[Nefaria]

Hi Norinn

I was sure there was prior threads concerning missed opertunities, and I searched. I just didn't think of the noun regret. Anyway my intent was to shoot down the boring, boring, boring thread.

I like the way it turned out anyway. One of the responses from nerfherder-3 brought back another memory, not comic related but definetely a regret. Back in either '69 or '70 I was car deficient and in the market for a good used one. My father and I went to a car I had found in the newspaper it was a '68 Shelby GT500 with a 428 DQ. They couldn't get it started, so Dad told me I didn't want it. Funny thing is I did want it and I still do want it. But Dad got his way, and it's probably a good thing. I might mot be here if I had that at 18 YO. Anyway not to many regrets I ended up with a 1967 GTO 389 tri po.

[towards2112]

Circa 1988.

Wife calls me at the day job from our comic shop, very high pitched voice and

tells me to skip out an hour early, get right there, guy has some nice books

to sell, be at the shop at 3pm sharp.

I skip out early, expecting to find the ususal goober with a pickup bed

full of banana boxes of shredded Archies and whatnot looking to score

a million $.

3 o'clock in walks an over the hill hippie leftover with a box under his

arm and my wife introduces "Wayne". Wayne has more train track

marks on his arm than the Chicago Union Pacific railroad station, and

more roach clips hooked to his poo-ka shells than half of San Francisco.

After the usual jibber jabber, Wayne pulls out Flash 104, Amazing

Fantasy 15, Amazing Spiderman 1, TOS 39, and about 30 other

semi-key books from the mid '50's to mid 60's. Most of what I

scoped out as slowly as I could would probably be 3.0 to 5.0's.

water damage, loose covers, tears, the usual mid grade "good"

books.

Wayne wants $500, cash, no checks, cash......

I go to the register, $140 some odd dollars....

Nothin' in the safe, wife went to the bank before opening as was habit.

I tell Wayne to have a cup of coffee, cool his heals and I'll be

back in 20 minutes.

While I'm gone, one of the speculators of the era, you know the kind

that run back and forth between shops trying to buy from one, sell

to the other, or score the latest hot book to flip an hour later, stabs

me in the back by sneaking Wayne outside and making him a side

offer and drives them to the bank, buys the books and hoses me.

Wife took the blame for helping other customers, still to this day

feels guilty, but she was doing the right thing.

I'm ready to wring this guys neck, but she says she wants to deal

with our "little boy".

Thursday afternoon arrives, I back the truck up to the door and

start unloading the Diamond order. About 20-25 people were there,

mostly the regular crowd of good clientele, and in walks, "our boy".

My tiny little Christian wife Bobbie, tears into this young man with

language that would make a sailor blanche. This little punk was

swallowing a knot in his throat and backpeddling like nothing I had

ever or have ever since seen. Four foot nothin' was climbing all over

this 6 foot hot shot like stink on sh it. I was SO proud of her.

Needless to say, I know who finally ended up buying the lot, and

don't begrudge this BIGTIME Houston dealer the buy, he is a friend

of mine, even though I remember walking into the small shop he

was working at and finding him amidst a pile of Corona bottles.

[Larryw7]

At Comic Investments in Philly in the late eighties, Ron Oser had some really nice pre-Robin Detective's for a very low price(about 150 bucks each). I had the money in my pocket, but somebody talked me out of it. Those books would be worth thousands now, but even more importantly, I would just love to have them!

[PovertyRow]

In the pre-www days we had a magazine called The WANT-ADvertiser. Hey - it may still be around. So this was mid-80's.

 

A guy had advertised several boxes of comics to sell. Forget exactly how much he wanted but I think around $1500 or so. Contents included a Hulk 1 in really beautiful condition - at least F/VF. A run of early Fantastic Four from 2 - 20 or so with the deepest, most spectacular cover inks and gloss and white pages. But after that a lot of just plain silver, in quite nice shape, Marvel and DC. I remember some Superman kryptonite issues, one being the first appearance of some color of kryptonite. Most of the DCs were 10 centers.

 

Lastly he had about two boxes of Archie and man I would like to be able to remember what they were. In those days I was SA Hero fan and archie just didnlt interest me.

 

The Hulk would have paid for it a few times over but who knew? This was a year or two before Hulk 1 made the big price increase.

[casey1870]

Thanks for all the horror stories guys.As I might of had somthin to add but you all depressed me...thanks

[towards2112]

Thanks for all the horror stories guys.As I might of had somthin to add but you all depressed me...thanks

 

Yeah, wanna go out and kick a dog...