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[DennyWilson]

I attended the Boston Comic-Con Saturday and was taking to a dealer friend who specializes in Golden, Silver and Bronze age comics about these picky customers he had.

They came to his table looking for silver age books in the 9.0 range.  Out of several books they looked at,there was a particular issue of THOR - he had 3 copies, all in the 9.0 range and they were picky about each one, and the nicest one had a small penciled in arrival date in the "T". I think he said the book was in the $75.00 range.

Now, this dealer has been doing this for 40+ years, (and doesn't believe in "Slabbing") is one of the old timers who's good with grading and has good prices. He was also having a bad day in sales. (poor location in the room)

Well, after dealing with these nit-pickers for about 20 minutes looking at these issues, and a couple of other books, he told them point blank that "Look, I am about selling comics to folks who are collectors first and not obsessed in the investment value of comics, and you can take your business elsewhere."

When he told me this part of the story, I was impressed! A person having a bad day sales wise, turns away a potential customer because they were to picky and only cared about quality and invenstment, not content or the joy of collecting!

That my friends is someone who truly understands what comics are all about.

[narfstar]

Great story makes me want to give him my business. Of course I don't want a 9.0 book. What does he have in in poor but complete or coverless that can be scanned and shared. That is what comics are for.

[Astaldo711]

That's terrific! I've always been about enjoying the comic, not the inherent value. Many of the old SA and GA books I had were in pretty poor condition. I just wanted to be able to read them, not resell them. A place I used to buy comics from sold 100 coverless comics for about $10. They were a mix of all genres. I didn't care I couldn't sell them, I enjoyed them and it opened me up to series I might not have decided to buy. One of my favorite series when I was collecting was 'Mazing Man by DC. He was a simple kind of "hero" who would sing Simon & Garfunkel tunes when he got bonked on the head. I don't think any of the books is worth anything but I never cared. I read it because I LIKED it.

[paw broon]

Couldn't agree more. I started off a fan, became a comic shop owner and then back to a fan and I regret the tiny part I may have played in pushing comics too hard, both in the shop and the media.  I hope I didn't cause too much damage to the hobby as it was around then that Valiant and all the multiple covers started and collectors, who came in thinking there was a packet to be made, wanted every cover and regularly asked which titles would be worth much more next year.  We always tried to get over the point that this was a hobby, not an investment.  Still cringe a a bit when I think back.

[DennyWilson]

What I get a kick out of is my friend will actually buy Slabbed books and then take them out of the slab and put them in mylars for sale!

[narfstar]

We went to the "big city" a couple times a year to shop. My time was spent in bliss. 3 coverless comics in a bag for I think 19cents. I spent hours pulling the plastic without tearing to figure if the middle comic was one I had or not. Then I would have to make a stack of the one I wanted and narrow it down to what I could  afford. I did not care that they did not have a cover I could still read the heck out of them.

[Astaldo711]

That's the difference between a Comic/COLLECTOR and a Comic/INVESTOR. I never once bought a comic because I thought it would increase in value. I live in the boondocks so don't have a "big city" near me. There's the "CITY" as in NYC, but don't really like going there. I went to a local comic shop but it wasn't that great. It's not just comics, they have Magic cards, and sports cards, etc. I don't think I saw a comic older than 2005.

[arghhh]

This point is pretty moot in my country, since I don't think we've ever had specualtive comics market.Until relatively recently, we didn't even have much of a Marvel/DC presence.Our comic anthologies mostly consisted of european comics, and we grew up on italian comics like Alan Ford, Martin Mystere, Zagor, Dylan Dog and more.These are considered legendary and unparalleled to the point of fanaticism, and great number of us, no matter the age, nationality or current comic preferences, share this fanaticism.

Yes, preserved early numbers can go for hundreds of units of our currency, but it's just for completion, nobody would dream of reselling, unless in really dire straits.

[paw broon]

Hey, arghhh, I collect and enjoy some of the titles you mention and recently my Italian teacher brought me a recent D.D when she returned from visiting her family. However I prefer Kriminal, Diabolik and all those other costumed villains and heroes such as Fulmine Mascherato, Maskar etc.  And of course Martin Mystere, especially as illustrated by Alessandrini.   Obviously I'm not buying these as investment - how would I resell them? I'm not techy enough to sell on ebay and it's so difficult to get people in U.K to read English language comics, never mind those in Italian or French. - I just love what to me are obscure heroes and masked men.  I notice the huge increase in manga in Italian comic shops.  Same in Spain and France. Very worrying.

[narfstar]

Manga appeals to the young audience the way the crappy oddball silver age books appealed to me as a kid. Much of manga is pure fluff. Hundreds of pages without much going on. Some of it is very cutting edge with concepts untouched anywhere else.

[Ed Love]

I've got a few Italian comics from my few trips there. Not too old though and I don't read a word of Italian. I enjoyed it when Dark Horse actually reprinted some in English over here.

[paw broon]

As usual, these issues don't seem to take off in English speaking countries.  It's a shame 'cos some of you would love the art and weird stories in many Italian comics.  Particularly the work of Giancarlo Alessandrini and a couple of others who did Martin Mystere later.  One of the reasons I started to learn French and Italian was to read comics.  It was Mick McMahon of Judge Dredd fame who sort encouraged me to try Italian.  I already had some French and went on to learn a wee bit of Spanish.  Now, of course, I've discovered Dutch comics and it's a bugger of a language.  Struggling a bit.
Narfstar commented on manga and I was reminded of finding a small comic shop in Menton, France a few years ago which stocked a nice selection of B.D.  A year or two later on returning I found it full to bursting with manga and the French albums reduced to one section.  Very sad.

[arghhh]

[fanatic]

Yes, italian comics are awesome, and insane, especially Alan Ford and Martin Mystere.But other, more conventional comics like Zagor, Il Grande Black or Mister No, had a habbit of breaking out of their then conservative genres of western and action and going in some really zany directions for a few episodes at a time.Italians loved experimenting with genre blending, and it was great, you never knew what was comin' your way, is Zagor gonna crack some desperado heads in business as usual or have a full-blown horror adventure. 

Alan Ford is probably one of the craziest, funniest and harshest satires of human nature, society and culture ever put to paper.It is a comic bible in ex-yugoslavian countries, and such an underrated and seldomly heard of work of genius that it makes little puppies cry.If there ever was a respectable, kid friendly comic that was so subversive and underground that it made dinosaur fossiles look like the tip of the ice berg, all in excellent humour, it must be Alan Ford.

[/fanatic]

[boox909]

Here I go feeling limited by geography again -- if I ever have children I need to think about their being conversant in more than just English .... French, Spanish, German, Italian, Mandarin -- I want them to be able to enjoy more (I wish I knew Italian, operas would suddenly be an uber joy). ::sigh::

B.

[cimmerian32]

I like nice looking books for my collection...  I guess that would make me ineligible to shop with your friend

[DennyWilson]

I like nice looking books for my collection...  I guess that would make me ineligible to shop with your friend

There's a difference between liking nice looking books, and beeking picky over every last part of a nice book

[BobS]

Comic books aren't worth $75.

I quit buying GA comics when issues of Police Comics I bought for $5 went up to $50 in maybe 2 yrs.
I rarely buy ANY new comics because new comics aren't worth $3 up.

I sold my early Batman comics (#5, #16, etc.) when I started worrying about them becoming brittle.

Comic book scans are MUCH superior to paper comic books.
I now have 1000s of comic books scans of comics I couldn't afford to buy in paper, and I have no reason to worry about them becoming brittle.
Let paper comic book collectors pay sucker prices for comic books.

I am still waiting for a larger iPad like device so that I can read comic scans in bed, in an easy chair, ANYWHERE I want to read them.


Bob

I attended the Boston Comic-Con Saturday and was taking to a dealer friend who specializes in Golden, Silver and Bronze age comics about these picky customers he had.

They came to his table looking for silver age books in the 9.0 range.  Out of several books they looked at,there was a particular issue of THOR - he had 3 copies, all in the 9.0 range and they were picky about each one, and the nicest one had a small penciled in arrival date in the "T". I think he said the book was in the $75.00 range.

Now, this dealer has been doing this for 40+ years, (and doesn't believe in "Slabbing") is one of the old timers who's good with grading and has good prices. He was also having a bad day in sales. (poor location in the room)

Well, after dealing with these nit-pickers for about 20 minutes looking at these issues, and a couple of other books, he told them point blank that "Look, I am about selling comics to folks who are collectors first and not obsessed in the investment value of comics, and you can take your business elsewhere."

When he told me this part of the story, I was impressed! A person having a bad day sales wise, turns away a potential customer because they were to picky and only cared about quality and invenstment, not content or the joy of collecting!

That my friends is someone who truly understands what comics are all about.

[BobS]

That's terrific! I've always been about enjoying the comic, not the inherent value. Many of the old SA and GA books I had were in pretty poor condition. I just wanted to be able to read them, not resell them. A place I used to buy comics from sold 100 coverless comics for about $10. They were a mix of all genres. I didn't care I couldn't sell them, I enjoyed them and it opened me up to series I might not have decided to buy. One of my favorite series when I was collecting was 'Mazing Man by DC. He was a simple kind of "hero" who would sing Simon & Garfunkel tunes when he got bonked on the head. I don't think any of the books is worth anything but I never cared. I read it because I LIKED it.

Box after box of comics are showing up on Craigslist in my area.
One comic shop has has several sales with box after box after box of unsold comics as low as 6/$1 and comic mags at 4/$1.
I bought a copy of all the Eclipse mags he had, and various assorted comics.

I liked 'Mazing Man too. Also The Dreamery (with Donna Barr's Stinz centaur stories). Also various and sundry comic series that didn't last long.

Bob

[cimmerian32]

I like nice looking books for my collection...  I guess that would make me ineligible to shop with your friend

There's a difference between liking nice looking books, and being picky over every last part of a nice book

Heh...  true that   My collection tends to run in the 4.5 to 7.0 field, simply because books in that range are nice enough for me...  I really don't care what the book will be worth once I own it, I only care how much it will cost me to acquire it, and what the grade vs. cost ratio is.  I have seen a lot of midgrade books, especially in early Fiction House, where the covers present better than those found on some nosebleed HG books which are faded/misaligned, and only of structural grade merit (one of the points I disagree with CGC on, since they only base their grade on the structural aspects of a book, whereas I hold that the appearance is just as, if not more, important)...

[paw broon]

I'm not that picky about condition. I usually want the comic to read it and, in the odd case, to add to or complete a run of something I think is special..  Two interesting things happened at the last Glasgow mart.  First, there were very few high priced titles on the walls or on the tables and many dealers were trying to sell stock at very low prices incl. umpteen 50p. boxes.  Second, some punters were actually telling dealers that those same 50p, comics (or 3 for a

[narfstar]

I prefer comics in low enough condition that I can tear them apart and run them through my document feeder. Books $2 or less, my time is worth more than that. Those GI Combats and upcoming Fighting Air Force and today Buster Bunny 11 took very little time  As I have said before I loves me document feeder 

[DennyWilson]

For those who don't know what it's like in the U.K., I should explain that 50p or 3 for a