Comic Book finds that you have had (or nearly had)

[bminor]

Anyone have any interesting stories about finding old comic books?
Perhaps a near miss. You know the story, if you had just come over two weeks ago, my Mom just threw all mine out!, etc...

I remember going to a rummage sale when I was a teenager in the late seventies and buying a few comics, Archies, etc. nothing to exciting.

Got home opened up the Archie and it had a coverless X-Men #2 in it.
The book still resides in my collection.

B.

[bminor]

Nobody has any fun interesting stories???

[Yoc]

I've never been 'comic book' lucky that way B.
*sigh*

[JVJ (RIP)]

Okay, I will tell you the story of how I got many of my old comics. In 1969/70, when I was out of college and in my first "real" job making "real" money, I was overpaid and under expensed. I had extra money every month and every other month I would take a weekend and drive to Los Angeles and go to the Cherokee Books, Bond Street Books, and Collectors' Bookshop and pile up pre-code comic books in stacks two to three feet high. This was before the Price Guide and I would offer to pay $1 per book and usually they would accept my offer. I would write each store a check for $200-$300 and go home with 500+ comic books. Thus was the JVJ collection built up (painfully) weekend by weekend, 400 mile jaunt by 400 mile jaunt. You can't say I didn't work for those books...

Then there was the time my 1958 Chevy didn't make it back and I ended up spending the night on the floor of a Chevron station in Santa Maria before finding a Greyhound Bus Station the following morning and wending my way home VERY late for work. Such a "find" that was.

Those were the days.  And those were the finds. (|:{> 

[narfstar]

A used book store, when I was in the army in the late 70's, got in a box of comics. I got first look. I got the 3 Showcase issues of Challengers as well as some IW reprints for $2 each as well as Howard the Duck #1 for $5. Not as great but at Heroes Con a few years ago I go my Sparkman #1. Yeah it is one of my favorite books. Of course there have been those great ebay finds that is just not the same.

[JVJ (RIP)]

Wow, narf,
I think those Chals were a heck of lot bigger bargains than the Howard the Duck!

I did recall a super and true CB "FIND" that I made in 1968. Back then, my buddy Pat Price and I had a comic book "shop" in his garage on the weekends and a couple of days after school. I was at San Jose State, but Pat went to Palo Alto High and there was a write up on the shop in the Stanford newspaper - Stanford being in Palo Alto. Well, the following weekend, one of the professors came in with a box of comics to sell us: ECs! Mostly science fiction books, but some of the war and horrors, too. We had wrangle about the purchase price as every article of the day was, of course, "comics are worth so much money!" But we got a good deal and then we almost came to blows about how to divvy them up, because we certainly weren't going to sell them. They still form the core of my EC collection. So that's a real "FIND" in the truest sense of the term.

(|:{>

[narfstar]

Yeah the ironic contrast of paying more for Howard the Duck than those great Challs. I do not come close to your scores Jim. One of my students was telling me today that his uncle gave him a box of comics. In the box an Amazing Fantasy 15. He told his uncle and the uncle is to go over tonight and check out his mistake. I suspect it may be a reprint or a mistake on his uncle's part. He said his uncle has a display of several valuable comics so the uncle knows comics. Not to say he could not have accidently let one get past him. Nice of the kid to let him know it was there not just run off and sell it.

[larrytalbot]

Something Found:
In our neighborhood when I was a kid, there was a large scrap paper & metal yard. The owner & his workers would collect & bind these items for shipping out. This was wartime 1940s. The owner would let the neighborhood kids rummage around the place for stray items of interest to take home. One day a newspaper from 1898 with headlines about the Spanish-American war caught my eye. As I remember it, the newspaper was white, smooth, & complete. I took it home to keep, more as an 'ancient' relic than to read. News of my find must have got around the neighborhood, because a few days later an 'older' kid (I must have been 7 or offered me $5 for it (to show it off in his history class).  That was a lot of money then, maybe $200 today! Turned out he was one of the few 'rich' kids in our area - his father owned a music store. I hated to part with that newspaper, but loved the comics it would buy.

Something almost found.
On our way to a picnic one day in the early '60s, I spotted an out-of-the-way antique shop. Always on the prowl for comics, decided to take a quick look. Proprietor said that just a few hours ago he had sold a box of old comics that had been standing around for a long time. Asked if he could describe some of them, he said "most were about some flying guy in a red suit."

[bminor]

In about 1976 or so saw a ad in the local free shopper.
Some guy had some comics he was getting rid of.
As a teenager I had just gotten my check for about $90 for being a janitor in a local Clinic.
I must have called that guy and said that I would be over asap.

Went over and he had about 300 silver age DC's.

Mostly all from the late fifties to the mid sixties.

In the bunch, Green Lantern, 2,3,4, 40, etc.
JLA 2,3,4, etc.
Flash, including the first appearance of GA flash, #123,
Bunch of Batmans, Detectives, Action, & Superman, Adventure...

They were read copies, but in o.k. condition.

I endorsed  my meager payroll check and was a happy guy.

I have often wondered over the years why he did not buy any first issues...

Well all still reside in my collection.

[CBpop]

I always like to tell the story of my BIG finds. I  had only two good finds- once in 1966 and in 1969.

In 1966 I was working my way through college holding down two part time jobs and a Saturday job at a bookstore near the college. The bookstore owner asked me to look for large lots of comics for his general comics bin that he had at the store. On a summer trip to my future wife's home, I found an office supply store that had a huge stock of comics. Acting on behalf of the store owner (as well as his money) I bought every one of the comics at about 2 cent each ( there were about 1,000 - 1,200 comics). As a reward for finding the comics my bookstore employer allowed me to pick out as many of the comics  I wanted for 2 cents each.  That was the core of my Dell Four Color Comics collection. The best part of the deal was only having to work three weekends to pay off the debt. In the group of comics that I bought was Tally-Ho - Frank Frazetta 1st comic work.  I later traded the Tally-Ho to another collector for a large # of Carl Barks  Disney Comic and Stories. 

In 1969, while in Tech school at Shepard Air Force base in Texas, my wife and I were at a local mom and pop store when someone brought in a box of books to trade. The store owner bought all of the books for 2 cents each (  it was the 1960s and there was no price guide!!! ;-).  I  looked in the box and offered 4 cents each for all of the comics. I know they thought I was crazy but they sold me the comics. The bank account was slimmer than when I was in college, but the box contained Marvels. There were three copies of  Amazing Fantasy 15 and a lot of #1 Marvel issues.  If only I had kept the Amazing Fantasy's ..sigh..but they were traded ... that's what we did IN  THE DAY ; - ).  I was able to increase my collection and I was able to make money on the comics during our lean years after I was discharged from the service.

I still have a lot of the comics from these finds and have enjoyed them over the years. It's a lot harder finding good comic scores now, but I still search old stores and auctions. You never know........

[Roygbiv666]

No. 

[JVJ (RIP)]

Just because I find it a most fascinating bit of trivia, cbpop,
did you know that Tally-Ho was printed at least THREE times. I have two of the three and have see the third. The indicia changes as does the dimensions of the comic in at least two of the printings. The struggle for war time paper supplies was pretty fierce and was apparently on-going.

FWIW. (|:{>

[Yoc]

Thanks for sharing your story CB - I can picture the moment you learned what was in that box... must have been like being hit by lightning.  And if some of them make it onto DCM they'll make that day all the better for all of us.

[OtherEric]

Hmm, good finds stories.  How about going into a trading card shop that has a small dollar bin of comics and finding about 8 60's Marvel annuals & the 2nd-5th Punisher appearances in Amazing Spider-Man in VG+ condition, then when the owner sees you're actually looking at the older books they bring out a pile of silver DC in G-G+.  Wound up spending about $40, got 20+ 10c DC books; Superman and Action and Batman and Adventure and Superboy among them; including the first Lori Lemaris story and (in the 12c category) the original Superman Red-Superman Blue story.

That was earlier today.  Well, Yesterday now.  Posting late because I've been busy reading.   

[narfstar]

So it can still happen! I have seen most shops like that want at least guide value, which is far over ebay available prices, or some want guide value for mint regardless of what condition it is in.