Post your Lucky Scores, Finds and Comic Book Stories! 0

[walclark]

16 hours ago, october said:

A few years ago someone drove from upstate New York to sell a stack of golden age to a local store outside of Nashville. Long way to go to sell books that any dealer would have loved!

They posted the Target on Instagram, so I called over to reserve it. When I got there the manager gave me first shot at the rest, including these and maybe 20 others. Still have the Target and the Future, but the others have moved on to another home. 

 

Never had comics travel from NY to TN, but did have my stolen collection travel from TN to NY.  They were too hot to sell anywhere in the South so the thieves drove them (Detective 38, More Fun 52, Flash 1, a bag of other GA) up to NYC and Metropolis.  They immediately recognized them as stolen (the “I bought them from a bum selling them on the street” story was not convincing), contacted me, and I got them back.  Fishler and crew were also helpful in the prosecution and conviction of the thieves.  I’ll always be grateful for their help.

[KCOComics]

35 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

Spent one of my many honeymoons in Las Vegas. We were walking through the casino trying to decide what to gamble on when whaddayaknow, right on the floor is a wad of hundreds - sixteen of 'em! We picked them up and sat there for about ten minutes waiting to see if anyone would come by looking for them. Ten minutes seemed like a fair amount of time to wait in a building built specifically to take peoples money. At eleven minutes we hit the slot machines!

 

I would love to hear about the most surprising collections that you ever acquired. I imagine allot of great collections came from people you were somewhat familiar with. 

I would love to hear about that random guy carrying a lose box of amazing books from his childhood...  

 

As for found money stories.  In college I worked at best buy and was filling in for a delivery driver one day. In the middle of a busy road, there was a purse literally getting run over. So we pulled over and I ran out and grabbed it. 

Between the smashed glasses and demolished prescriptions was a wallet. The wallet had about $500 cash in it, but more importantly it had a liscence with an address.

So we did our last delivery and drove a solid hour out of our way to the address. We knocked on her door and she came out yelling, "I didn't buy anything from best buy. Someone stole my wallet and must have used my credit cards!  I'm calling the police" 

We explained where we found the purse and gave her back everything including the money. She realized she must have left her purse on the hood of her car when she was leaving the grocery store and it just fell off a few miles down the road. 

She rewarded our kindness with Ice Cream sandwiches.  

[Montezuma]

Another time in the 80’s, I had gone back to school and just graduated so I was pretty much broke. I got a lead on a collection in Hoople North Dakota. A lady had 750 comics from the late 40’s through the 50’s.  I went through the collection, and there were no keys, but a lot of nice late golden age stuff. About 10% of it had been read in the bath tub and so had water damage to the bottom edge, and 20% was westerns,  but the rest were nice mid-grade.

   I told the lady that she had a little over $3,000 in comics, but that I couldn’t come up with the money to buy them. I suggested that if she sold me the run of Little Lulu (Yeah, I’ve always loved Dell) I’d broker the collection to a dealer for her.

  Her response was that she’d already talked to a dealer and he’d said the comics were only worth 25 to 50 cents apiece so she didn’t want to go through a dealer. She asked how much I could offer and I told that the most I could come up with was $500. She said that since I had been honest I could have them for that. (Means I got them at 75 cents each)

A couple years later she contacted me and said her son had a bunch of silver age comics. I went again, it was a couple hundred later silver age books, all keys missing, and all had subscription creases. Not really anything I was interested in, but since I had gotten such a deal on the first collection I paid up for the second.

From the first collection

 

 

 

[Robot Man]

26 minutes ago, KCOComics said:

I would love to hear about the most surprising collections that you ever acquired. I imagine allot of great collections came from people you were somewhat familiar with. 

I would love to hear about that random guy carrying a lose box of amazing books from his childhood...  

 

As for found money stories.  In college I worked at best buy and was filling in for a delivery driver one day. In the middle of a busy road, there was a purse literally getting run over. So we pulled over and I ran out and grabbed it. 

Between the smashed glasses and demolished prescriptions was a wallet. The wallet had about $500 cash in it, but more importantly it had a liscence with an address.

So we did our last delivery and drove a solid hour out of our way to the address. We knocked on her door and she came out yelling, "I didn't buy anything from best buy. Someone stole my wallet and must have used my credit cards!  I'm calling the police" 

We explained where we found the purse and gave her back everything including the money. She realized she must have left her purse on the hood of her car when she was leaving the grocery store and it just fell off a few miles down the road. 

She rewarded our kindness with Ice Cream sandwiches.  

I know @MrBedrock worked for Camelot as a kid. He’s told me a couple of stories...

[MattTheDuck]

Found 2 $20s blowing down the loading dock access road at the Safeway.  Found a string bag with about $18 under a high school theater seat.  Took about $3.50 in change out of O'Hare pay phones flying through on the way to visit family when I was about 8.  Admittedly, these all happened in the Silver Age.

"See a penny, pick it up!  All that day you'll have good luck!"  But only if it's lying heads up.

[october]

1 hour ago, walclark said:

Never had comics travel from NY to TN, but did have my stolen collection travel from TN to NY.  They were too hot to sell anywhere in the South so the thieves drove them (Detective 38, More Fun 52, Flash 1, a bag of other GA) up to NYC and Metropolis.  They immediately recognized them as stolen (the “I bought them from a bum selling them on the street” story was not convincing), contacted me, and I got them back.  Fishler and crew were also helpful in the prosecution and conviction of the thieves.  I’ll always be grateful for their help.

Glad you got them back.

Also glad the pile wasn't missing a Target 7 and Future 3 when you got them back.

 

[Jeffro.]

Back around 2013 I went to one of the small local cons in my area. I was thumbing through some unsorted boxes and I came across the very top edge of a comic and immediately knew what it was. I pulled it out of the box and just stood there stunned. Couldn't believe what I was holding. Fast forward a few months and I'm at the same show thumbing through boxes from the same seller and pulled out a second copy. Unbelievable. Total cost for both copies was $54. 

And what were they you ask?

Spoiler

I had almost given up all hope of owning a copy unless I was willing to fork over way more than I wanted to pay. And then suddenly I had two, for almost nothing. It's not the biggest score ever but given that this comic was a grail for me and one I never thought I'd own, it's pretty much my biggest score.

[october]

1 hour ago, Jeffro. said:

Back around 2013 I went to one of the small local cons in my area. I was thumbing through some unsorted boxes and I came across the very top edge of a comic and immediately knew what it was. I pulled it out of the box and just stood there stunned. Couldn't believe what I was holding. Fast forward a few months and I'm at the same show thumbing through boxes from the same seller and pulled out a second copy. Unbelievable. Total cost for both copies was $54. 

And what were they you ask?

  Hide contents

I had almost given up all hope of owning a copy unless I was willing to fork over way more than I wanted to pay. And then suddenly I had two, for almost nothing. It's not the biggest score ever but given that this comic was a grail for me and one I never thought I'd own, it's pretty much my biggest score.

I am jealous. Definitely near the top of my wantlist, but like you I am not going to pay the asking price. 

[comicdonna]

I remember a board member hitting the BIN on an Action #10 on ebay for $200  The book graded a 3.0 and sold on Comiclink for nearly 20K  A hefty price at the time.  

[walclark]

6 hours ago, october said:

Glad you got them back.

Also glad the pile wasn't missing a Target 7 and Future 3 when you got them back.

 

Hmmm, now that you mention it...

[Robot Man]

Went to lunch one day at work and came back to find this box sitting by my desk. Pays to let everyone know you are that “comic guy”...

[Yorick]

On 7/7/2021 at 3:11 PM, Robot Man said:

 

 

Dr Occult is cool, but the better part of these is all that interior O'Mealia art!

[Yorick]

15 years ago I won a lot of beater romance comics on feebay for $10.  This was the one that drew my attention to the lot.

[Bandelier]

A coverless Batman #2 that was also missing the first wrap. It was in a stack of time period ephemera at a non-comic sale for $1. Page #3 of the book (my front cover) doesn't look like a Batman book at all, it was the only comic in the stack. Heart skipped a beat when I opened it up.

[ft88]

I got to these before an estate sale auction. 

[WolverineX]

On 7/8/2021 at 9:57 AM, HouseofComics.Com said:

Newbold's book is The Forensic Comicologist.

 

On 7/8/2021 at 10:29 AM, Robot Man said:

Thanks! I got one on Amazon. 

Bought the digital version and it's fantastic.  Thank you.  Love the Martin sheen story 

[Robot Man]

4 hours ago, ft88 said:

I got to these before an estate sale auction. 

Wow, what a mind blowing mix of cool books! There is no feeling better than to go through a raw unbagged stack of books like that. Slowly flipping them over one book at a time then seeing a book like that Fighting Yank or Startling. Great to see you took that group shot in their found state!

 

[Pat Calhoun]

I'm going to go with the 'Magic Shopping Cart' at Lanning's Books in downtown San Diego in the mid-1960s: it was filled with coverless precode comics for a penny apiece. And the highlight of that was the Wolverton SF; 'Brain Bats of Venus' and Swamp Monster' made a visual-verbal phantasmagoria that transcended the printed page: oozing around me in an all-encompassing universe of wonder. The cart always stayed full – new glories and infinite possibilities abounding. I would pull out foot-high stacks searching for the black spines of TrueVision. Also posting ‘Nightmare World’ splash (more BW ‘nuff said) and image of Trina Robbins that accompanied her memoir of diving for ducks, mice, Lulu, etc, maybe a few years after my PCH wallowing…

Edited July 10, 2021 by Pat Calhoun

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

My favorite old time score was in the summer of 1974 down in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ (home of Jersey Mikes for those who go there). I was at my Aunt's house with the extended family and was probably bored and was reading the classified in the local paper for some reason. I saw an ad for a collection of comics for sale for $5. I convinced my Dad to take me there on the way home and in exchange for a five spot got five full shopping bags of comics. Pretty much every DC, Archie and Mad from 1960-1962 was there!! What a score and what an amazing summer of reading comics.

The guy I bought them from was a real DC nut as there was only one Marvel in the stack; Fantastic Four #4 that was unread. I foolishly traded that that summer; I regret that badly!!

I still have my favorite runs of the DC's in the bunch including JLA (starting with issue 1), Superman, Flash and some great Giant Annuals. I sold all the Archies and Mads years ago and some runs of the DC's including Batman and Detective were sold off too. The Green Lanterns disappeared and became a running joke with my brother who I accused of absconding with them!! Below is the Superman run; condition wasn't great on this collection but there were some great stories in this pile with Jerry Siegel returning to write some of his classic tales <choke>!

Probably the best $5 on comics I ever spent!

Oh and a couple of the Flash issues from this collection as well.

Edited July 10, 2021 by 50YrsCollctngCmcs

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

And for the best fifteen cents on a comic I ever spent; outrageously 1.5 times cover price. From the ground at the flea market.