Popular Post EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Popular Post Share Posted January 24 So here's my story... around 1986 or so, my local comic shop closed down and not having another comic shop nearby, I decided to sign up with a comic subscription service called Westfield Comics. Every month, Westfield would send me a catalog of new comics to be released three months later. And every month, I would pour through the catalog and make my selections... Marvels, DCs, Indies, esoteric material, it was all there to order. And the beauty of it was that so long as I returned my order on time, I rarely missed an issue... and in whatever multiples I wanted. Three months later, and every month thereafter, I would receive a box from Westfield filled with the comics I had previously ordered, all immaculately packed and almost always in perfect unread condition. Opening the box of goodies every month was a lot of fun... each comic was cataloged, bagged, carefully read once, and then put away into my permanent collection. By the mid-1990s though, married life and career had begun to take up a lot of my free time and I was finding my monthly slog of comic ordering and processing a lot more challenging. Eventually I fell very behind in my processing and reading BUT I always managed to send in my monthly order. So what happened over time was an accumulation of unopened comic boxes from Westfield. And by the time I finally stopped buying new comics around 2012, I'd accumulated over 100 of these unopened boxes... all filled with pristine unread comics! They have sat in a basement since I received them. Recently I turned sixty, and with that came a decision to start the process of down-sizing. And so, I am embarking on a project of slowly but surely opening my Westfield boxes and liquidating virtually all of them. I thought it would be fun to share my experience of going through the boxes with this thread. Now that it's 20-30 years later, I'm mostly curious to see how I did in predicting which comics I thought would be hot from just paging through those catalogs all those years ago. Hopefully you'll enjoy taking the journey with me... but if there's no interest I will certainly put us all out of our misery and kill the thread! So this could either be a very long thread or a very short one! Either way, my wife will be very happy that those Westfield boxes are finally disappearing! Oh, and a big thank you to Westfield Comics for all those years of fun and meticulous packaging! Here are a few photos of some of my horde of boxes... enjoy! Semicentennial, newshane, BuscemasAvengers and 16 others 18 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 So here's the first box I've opened... I received it in February 2000. Any good issues come out that month? ygogolak, Ken Aldred, BA773 and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 24 Here's the Spidey that was right on top, with a real nice Doc Doom cover... I decided to have it graded and sure enough it came back a 9.8! thehumantorch, Ken Aldred, aardvark88 and 4 others 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Lightning55 Posted January 24 Popular Post Share Posted January 24 I watched Geraldo Rivera open Al Capone's empty safe. I can watch this. jb4, bc, BA773 and 7 others 1 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 On 1/23/2024 at 9:31 PM, Lightning55 said: I watched Geraldo Rivera open Al Capone's empty safe. I can watch this. I watched that too! Lightning55 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 Here's the origin of Echo... great David Mack cover... BA773 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 I was always a big fan of Alex Ross's painted covers... pmpknface and BA773 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 24 One more for tonight... a classic Avengers pose that also graded nicely... Legion HQ, speedcake, BA773 and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azkaban Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 I also ordered from them back in the day, this is going to be fun EastEnd1 and greggy 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Readcomix Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 Love this time capsule! Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedcake Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 yes more please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramithard Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 are you having the ones sent to CGC pressed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightning55 Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 I'm a little confused (as usual). If these are hoarded boxes you are now just opening, how are you showing the comics as graded? Are the box photos with the raw comics from an earlier time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 On 1/23/2024 at 10:55 PM, ramithard said: are you having the ones sent to CGC pressed? Yes, those have been pressed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 (edited) On 1/23/2024 at 11:21 PM, Lightning55 said: I'm a little confused (as usual). If these are hoarded boxes you are now just opening, how are you showing the comics as graded? Are the box photos with the raw comics from an earlier time? Sorry, let me clarify. I opened the first box three or four months ago and have been taking photos as I go along with this eventual thread in mind. Books that I think are good for grading I put aside and once I get to about twenty of those, I send them in. So it's kind of a rolling process that I actually started a few months ago after my 60th birthday. Think I've opened eight or nine boxes to date... it's totaled about 500 comics... close to sixty I've viewed as grading candidates. There are twenty sitting at CGC as we speak and I have another group that should be going out soon. I've also bagged and boarded all the raw. Edited January 24 by EastEnd1 BA773 and Azkaban 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 24 I've come across a few issues of Batman: Dark Victory in the boxes I've opened so far and the Tim Sale covers and art are just amazing... looks like a very good read. This one, again, was in the February 2000 box... BA773, pmpknface, The Commissioner and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 EC Comics are my all-time favorites... was very cool for me to come across this Millennium Edition Mad #1... gradejunky, BA773 and Ken Aldred 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 As a Baby Boomer, I'm a BIG Superman fan. My whole journey into comics came from watching the old George Reeves Superman tv series every afternoon after school as a kid. And to me, no actor has ever captured the essence of a superhero on screen better than Christopher Reeve in the first two Superman films. I'm sure I was pretty giddy to see in the catalog that my favorite hero was going to be taking on The Terminators in this upcoming Dark Horse / DC collaboration... though I'm sure I thought at the time that it really wouldn't be a fair fight since Superman could simply throw them all into the sun! BA773, ADAMANTIUM, the authority and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 OK that's it for the Feb 2000 box... hope I didn't miss anything good that month! Will download more pics from my phone and be back with another box... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramithard Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 this is awesome !!!!! EastEnd1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
