Poll: How old are collectors? 3 3

[grendel013]

On 5/1/2024 at 7:37 PM, bc said:

My best gig as a kid wasn't the paper boy routine - it was as an altar boy.

Got at least $5 per funeral or wedding tip which would take an hour. Could make an easy $20 a week depending on the season. Most of that went to comics.

-bc

 

My friends were alter boys and wanted me to do it too but I always was apprehensive around priests.

I opted to bus tables at a pizza place once a week instead and usually brought in $20-25. I loved that we got paid in singles most of the time. The owner of the LCS sometimes commented about them having white powder on them. I told him it was flour but I probably didn't even know what he was implying back then. 

[bc]

On 5/1/2024 at 8:00 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

 

Best I can do ATM, idk if the threads are them, but quick sesrch

Thanks sir 

The poll results look dorked, but judging from the posts, the demographics don't seem to have changed much over the past 20 years.

-bc

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 5/1/2024 at 2:21 PM, bc said:

Fellow Paper Boys Unite!

Delivered the now defunct Cleveland Press 7 days a week for about 3 years before we moved out of town during my 6th grade year. Had to do the weekly collections, which never really bothered me since the weather blows 6+ months a year in Cleveland and the sidewalks were seriously uneven. Hated the Sunday paper - the wagon would be plenty heavy. Grew my route to 4 city blocks by the end - think I pocketed a whopping $5 a week.

Moved to the country and got a job on a farm that paid $5 a day (plus food, drinks, horse riding), but it was real work.

-bc

 

[Phicks]

“My friends were alter boys and wanted me to do it too but I always was apprehensive around priests.”

*****************

There’s a standup comic who said “I was an alter boy.  No, no priests ever molested me.  No matter what I wore.”

[factory sealed]

On 5/1/2024 at 9:58 AM, 1950's war comics said:

my first purchase off the rack was Spider-Man #102, with paper route money 

(you only had to be age 11 or older to have a paper route back then)

 

  Here is mine. Still have it. The toploader, far away angle and lighting make the condition look allot nicer but I have always been OCD with my comics, toys, LPs and video games as far back as I can remember. I could have a two hour podcast on the significance of this comic.

Regardless of what your particular collecting goals are, I really think us older folks are truly lucky. When you experienced something in real-time say 60s, 70s or 80s as a kid and now you have the means and ability to chase these collectible artifacts down again in the present day; this is truly next level emotional experience.

There is also nothing better than walking through a vintage comic/toy show and finding something that you weren't even looking for because you completely forgot it about back in the day and a flood of forgotten memories comes rushing back. The power of nostalgia is really incredible because you can relive those lost moments in time once again.

 

[grendelbo]

On 5/1/2024 at 8:19 PM, factory sealed said:

Regardless of what your particular collecting goals are, I really think us older folks are truly lucky. When you experienced something in real-time say 60s, 70s or 80s as a kid and now you have the means and ability to chase these collectible artifacts down again in the present day; this is truly next level emotional experience.

There is also nothing better than walking through a vintage comic/toy show and finding something that you weren't even looking for because you completely forgot it about back in the day and a flood of forgotten memories comes rushing back. The power of nostalgia is really incredible because you can relive those lost moments in time once again

So right on. 

[Hepcat]

On 5/1/2024 at 5:21 PM, bc said:

Fellow Paper Boys Unite!

Delivered the now defunct Cleveland Press 7 days a week for about 3 years before we moved out of town during my 6th grade year.... think I pocketed a whopping $5 a week.

 

I had an incredibly easy route delivering 32 newspapers on one city block which earned me $2.76 per week in 1964. Comics, bubble gum cards and model kits soaked up most of that.

On 5/1/2024 at 5:21 PM, bc said:

Moved to the country and got a job on a farm that paid $5 a day (plus food, drinks, horse riding), but it was real work.

 

I made $15.00 per day on a tobacco farm in August 1967. Much of it ended up going to LPs (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Doors, Animals, Kinks, Yardbirds, etc). What I really coveted though was a Seabreeze suitcase stereo which I didn't get until 1969.

[Hepcat]

On 5/1/2024 at 7:37 PM, bc said:

My best gig as a kid wasn't the paper boy routine - it was as an altar boy.

Got at least $5 per funeral or wedding tip which would take an hour. Could make an easy $20 a week depending on the season.

 

$5! What year was this?

[wardevil0]

On 5/1/2024 at 5:21 PM, bc said:

Fellow Paper Boys Unite!

I had a job that was "paper boy adjacent," I'd say... In college I delivered some of those free classified ads papers you sometimes see around gas stations.  I delivered "Jobs" and "Auto Review" in Lexington, KY and on about an 80 mile loop through Nicholasville, Danville, and Harrodsburg.  I think I got 45 cents per stop and 13 cents per mile or something like that, and there were definitely times I stopped by the comic shop (Comic Interlude) on the way home and pre-spend my paycheck before I even submitted my voucher...

[SeniorSurfer]

With all these paper boy resumés being divulged and noting that we all seem to be older comic fans, the obvious question that comes to my mind is:  Did no one ever deliver the famous comic-advertised Grit that "boys 12 and older" were recruited to hawk since it was "... a swell way to make $1 to $5 weekly in your spare time... and win dandy prizes too!" ?

[SeniorSurfer]

On 5/1/2024 at 7:25 PM, MAR1979 said:

wanna know why there won't be another comics boom...~67% of collectors are 50+

 

[Marty Mann]

While I did deliver newspapers during my seventeenth summer in Scranton, my best moneymaking years were 1944 and

1945 shining shoes on the streets of Newark, NJ.

 

[Robot Man]

My weirdest job (and I’ve had a few) was in the late ‘60’s. I spent the summer at a friend’s parent’s house in Lake Tahoe. We both got a job from 11pm-8am (yes, graveyard shift) at the morgue. Our job was to wash up bodies. Put on a mask and rubber gloves, pull out the drawers and sponge bath dead folks.

Was a bit creepy at first but we got over it pretty quick. The advantages were, we could have long hair and were pretty much unsupervised. There was often not a lot of work so we could burn a joint and play cards and listen to any music we wanted. Our hours were great because we could have most of the day and evenings off and didn’t work weekends. Also, where most kids were working in fast food or gas stations for $2-4 an hour we made $8. an hour. A lot of money for teenagers. 

[Dave2739]

On 5/2/2024 at 9:27 AM, Marty Mann said:

While I did deliver newspapers during my seventeenth summer in Scranton, my best moneymaking years were 1944 and

1945 shining shoes on the streets of Newark, NJ.

 

[BA773]

Who is my 20 years old pal?

[Hepcat]

On 5/2/2024 at 9:27 AM, Marty Mann said:

While I did deliver newspapers during my seventeenth summer in Scranton, my best moneymaking years were 1944 and

1945 shining shoes on the streets of Newark, NJ.

 

Fred and Mike the cooler slightly older kids down the block had a good gig at a shoe shine joint in downtown London. But that's another money making gig that's disappeared for kids.

Edited May 2 by Hepcat

[universal soldier]

Looks like a lot of us are all around the same age but hopefully not representative of the hobby as a whole. Most of my earliest purcahses were obviously funded by my parents and then later allowance. I never had a paper route but my first "job" was going to my dad's dental office and cleaning the chairs and other equipment as well as sterilizing the dental tools. I did this from 11- 13 so clearly some OSHA and child labor law violations by letting a minor run an autoclave unsupervised.  Man, the 70's were really a different time. 

[Hepcat]

On 5/2/2024 at 12:47 PM, universal soldier said:

Looks like a lot of us are all around the same age but hopefully not representative of the hobby as a whole. 

When it comes to collecting back issues from the Golden Age to 1985 or so, I think it is.

[Dave2739]

I'd be curious to see who voted in each age group. I'll be 50 in November, for the record.

[universal soldier]

On 5/2/2024 at 1:00 PM, Hepcat said:

When it comes to collecting back issues from the Golden Age to 1985 or so, I think it is.

 hopefully you are wrong. If not, I've got some fancy TP that will last me through my incontinence years.