Ask Redbeard Tales of a veteran comic book dealer 5 5

[Mmehdy]

On August 17, 2018 at 6:28 PM, batman_fan said:

Truly wishing for a fast recovery for you and really appreciate you coming to the boards and sharing stories from days in the past.

You have got a long, long  time to be here on this forum, and thanks for sharing the dealer prospective you have done for so wel for so long. In your opinion, based on your vast experience where does the current  comic book market go from here in the next 5 years or so...has it peaked, still gas left in the tank, or is it gonna be like this forever with continuted growth?. Second question, going to back to the late 70's and the type of collectors who were buying/collecting  , do you feel that the CGC  comic book grading has broken up that group, into more distinct pure collectors and pure investors...what differences do you see good and bad that the CGC has overall effected the comic book collectors market short and long term since creation? Thank you.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Mmehdy

[Robot Man]

Hey Redbeard, got a good John McLaughlin story or two? 

[aardvark88]

2 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

got a good John McLaughlin story or two? 

Was McLaughlin the SDCC dealer that if you dared make a counter-offer to, he would pull the vintage comic back  so 'No comic for you?'

[Cobbledclam]

Here's a semi-recent Johnny Knight pic taken at a small Reno show. Old school nice guy.

[sfcityduck]

I went to Oregon and I'm proud to say that as crazy as Oregon uni's get, at least we're not Maryland.

[marmat]

I'd like to ask Redbeard his opinion about a topic that is going on in Comics General. 

There, somebody claims that in the mid 60's there was just around 1000 comic collectors nation wide. 

Based simply on logic and statistics, I personally would say that there was much much more comic collectors back then, but I'd like to know Redbeard much more experienced opinion. 

Edited August 21, 2018 by marmat

[Redbeard]

On 8/15/2018 at 2:52 PM, MrBedrock said:

It is especially exciting because Ron is so freaking old!

Thanks Ricky, you still working at Camelot?

[valiantman]

On 8/21/2018 at 2:24 AM, marmat said:

I'd like to ask Redbeard his opinion about a topic that is going on in Comics General. 

There, somebody claims that in the mid 60's there was just around 1000 comic collectors nation wide. 

Based simply on logic and statistics, I personally would say that there was much much more comic collectors back then, but I'd like to know Redbeard much more experienced opinion. 

I think they said that in the mid 60s, fewer than 1,000 collectors attended conventions annually.  That's not collectors, that's collectors-going-to-conventions.

[Redbeard]

On 8/15/2018 at 4:22 PM, sfcityduck said:

What surprises me is that RedBeard first became a serious collector/dealer at the time of OSPG 4.  I didn't really start collecting until the time of OSPG 9 and I remember his ads.  I would have guessed he'd been part of the first generation of collectors. I double checked OSPG 10 (the first I bought when it came out), and he's got a double page spread ad, which was unusual,in there. 

So he really must a great net-worker who went from 0 to 60 in a very short amount of time to end up having the connections and opportunities he obtained.   I'm reading behind the lines to think that it didn't hurt that he probably had the resources to buy great stuff, but the relationships back then were probably everything.  Says a lot of good things about him that he was able to accomplish that.

I view Redbeard as a different "generation" of collector/dealer than guys like Bangzoom and others who were active in the 60s.  It's interesting to hear his take on the mid-70s and later scene.  The way I see it is the guys in the early 60s created the hobby and some small businesses.  The guys in the mid-70s made it a big business.

When I started collecting and dealing, it was the Spirit of '76 Guide. I started as mostly a Timely collector and branched out into Ducks and EC. As the trend in the market started it's move into the 50s books, I was one of the early dealers moving into that area. There were only a few before me. ACBC was the main one. I quickly began trying to sell my GA superhero books and buy GGA Fox titles, PCSF and PCH. A new trend that was starting was books used in SOTI, drug stories, etc. Major players in these new areas of collecting was of course, ACBC, Bob Selvig, Sparkle City, Book Sail, John Knight and myself at Redbeard's Book Den. I met and became great friends with Johnny. We were looking for the same things. Got an Earthman on Venus, a Mask of Fu Manchu, a Reform School Girl, a Teen-Age Dope Slaves, a PL 17, etc. Those were books we were running buy ads in the BG when Alan Light ran it. We attacked boxes looking for these books from other dealers that were not into the trend as yet at all the national shows. It was around that time that Bob Overstreet noticed that we were way ahead of the market. He asked me to become an advisor and then later a senior advisor to the Price Guide. It was not financial wealth that made people that I mentioned previously above into some of the biggest shakers and movers in the market. It was we were ahead of the market and led the new trends. We were offering $200 for an 8.0 or better of Earthman when it was only under $50 top Guide among many, many other books. Some dealers cut out my buy ads form the BG and used them at shows as their buy list without even knowing why the books appeared on the list. So, don't feel excluded from becoming a large dealer because you are not wealthy. We paid our dues. We studied the market, we were just  very aware of what was going to be a hot book. Anyone can do this today if one wants to spend the time and effort. One last tip, in the GA area, I was definitely aware of the limited population numbers for most of these books. So, by offering to buy multiple copies of a book at triple guide from dealers that used the Guide as a Bible, we could make that book increase dramatically. Of course there needs a bottom line justification such as a classic cover or story, etc.

[Redbeard]

On 8/15/2018 at 6:38 PM, Mmehdy said:

congrad on coming on the boards sharing your experiences, cant wait to read more, thanks

Thx Mitch.

[Redbeard]

On 8/15/2018 at 7:19 PM, lhcomics said:

Hey Ron! Sorry to hear about your health problems. I wish you a speedy recovery.

My first meeting with Ron was when he was in Newport back around 1986. I had just purchased about 30 mile high Wonder Woman comics and he would give me 3X guide in trade for Batman's and Timley's.

I believe he consulted with Verzyl to make sure they were actually mile high comics.

I remember he had a Mac computer. I had never seen a computer in a home before that. 

Take care and I look forward to your contributions on the boards.

Leroy

 

 

Hi Leroy, good to hear from you again. I moved to Lake Tahoe in late 1986. I don't recall the trade you mention, but it sounds good. No, I never consulted with John on the provenance of a MH book. Actually, people would come to me frequently asking me to tell them whether their copy was indeed the MH copy. I stopped doing that for others when I purchased a book that had the look, feel and smell of an MH copy. The problem was that I already owned the MH copy in my collection. Yes Leroy, I was one of the 1st to employ a computer to have a fully functional point of sale DBMS. At that time there were no programs offered on Macs for that chore. You had flat file managers and a program that I used to create my DBMS called Omnis. You installed the program and you had a window with a blank screen that required its own programming code to have anything display or work. That was a gruesome chore. I foresaw the problems that stores would encounter using old methods to place their new comics orders that were required months in advance. Almost all of them had a garage or back rooms filled with floor to ceiling mistakes of over ordered and unsold books. When you calculate 50% of the cover price was their cost of these books, it was easy to see why so many stores went bottoms up. I would walk into one these garages or back rooms and realize that the store had between $15-$50K in costs into these unsold books. The obvious answer to the problem to me was y=mx+b. That is the formula for trend and growth study. Early versions of home computers offered this in Excel, but comic stores didn't understand or use computers. I quickly realized that those using this technology would survive and those that didn't would go broke. Same for the many distributors in those days before Diamond became the only one.

[Redbeard]

On 8/15/2018 at 9:05 PM, blazingbob said:

Welcome to the boards Ron,  miss you at San Diego.  The only guy at the show calling me kid is Sal.

Sal has both of my booths at the show. Sal and I are very good friends and talk frequently.

[Redbeard]

On 8/16/2018 at 12:23 PM, Primetime said:

I see an All Select 2 lower right. Wonder if that was the Reilly copy, Ron?

I don't think so...

[Redbeard]

On 8/16/2018 at 8:54 AM, Robot Man said:

Yeah, great photo. How often do you see books like Our Flag, Champion, Space Thrillers and More Fun on dealers walls anymore? Think of the prices now. This was long before all the "second tier" books took off.

By the way, I'm not entirely sure, but that might be old school dealer Ritchie Halgua on the left. Ron will know.

Don't remember the year, but it was at SDCC, before they started calling it Comic-Con International.

[Redbeard]

On 8/16/2018 at 8:54 AM, Robot Man said:

Yeah, great photo. How often do you see books like Our Flag, Champion, Space Thrillers and More Fun on dealers walls anymore? Think of the prices now. This was long before all the "second tier" books took off.

By the way, I'm not entirely sure, but that might be old school dealer Ritchie Halgua on the left. Ron will know.

That is indeed Richie, please note Richie still had hair!!!

[Redbeard]

On 8/16/2018 at 6:06 PM, Sqeggs said:

Definitely a cool book either way. 

I don't know if we'll ever know the full story of the SF books.  As has been discussed in several threads, some that BB participated in, and others that were started after he left, the original story doesn't add up in a number of respects.  My impression is that the family may not have given the original buyers -- BB, Plant, and John Barrett (I think) -- a true account, or else whatever the family did say got garbled.   

But maybe Redbeard can fill in some of the blanks. 

Sorry, but bought books from this collection much after they first surfaced.

[Redbeard]

On 8/17/2018 at 6:28 PM, batman_fan said:

Truly wishing for a fast recovery for you and really appreciate you coming to the boards and sharing stories from days in the past.

Thx.

[Redbeard]

On 8/18/2018 at 8:48 AM, G.A.tor said:

I bought some books from cbg ads through the years from Ron. First met at a sdcc many moons ago where I bought a nice stack of early detective comics. I think we ended up talking about various wines and riesling production more than Comics that day. 

that sounds like me...

[Redbeard]

On 8/18/2018 at 9:47 AM, MrBedrock said:

Was he able to get a word in?

If you are referring to me Rick, I believe you can't sell things if you don't talk. Just raising your hands and pointing at things doesn't work. Can you imagine that at one time I was working as an accountant!!

[Redbeard]

On 8/18/2018 at 5:45 PM, blazingbob said:

Looks like a early version of a wombat wall display.  Much better then the particle board ones I remember seeing at the Phil Sueling 70's shows.

 

It was a SDCC show Rich.