My Life With Comic Books: Part # 73

Cast of Characters:
Paul: age 35
Mal: my wife
Adam: age 10
Cassy: age 5

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 73

I worked hard to earn my living as a seller of comic books, toys, sports cards, and collectibles and was rewarded with a fun place to work, relationships with some really nice people, and a sizeable income. Our lifestyle was not extravagant; money was spent carefully and most of it was saved and invested. My biggest “splurge” was usually spent on a nice vacation.

When I was in my teen years, my family would usually go camping for our family vacation each year. My mother and father would pack up the car with the tent, lanterns, sleeping bags, and tons of other equipment, along with the six kids, and we’d head off to the mountains of New Hampshire or Maine to spend the week “roughing it.” Although I usually put up a fuss about going, I’d end up enjoying the vacation. My father would spend time hiking, boating, and playing around with us. My mother ended up doing more work “on vacation” than she did when she was at home. Cooking and cleaning was much more work at a campsite than at home. It didn’t seem right to me. Now that I could afford a little more “luxury” for our vacations, I wanted it to be fun for my wife, Mal, too. We would usually stay in decent hotels and we’d eat in restaurants as often as possible. But Mal and I also wanted our kids to experience camping.

Our friends, Brian and Claire, invited us all to go camping with them for a couple of days. Brian knew that camping wasn’t high on my list of fun things to do so to entice me to commit to this trip, he offered to have the tent set up by the time we arrived. Brian spent time fishing and canoeing with my children, and Claire was patient enough to include the kids while we all played cards. Although we had a great time with Brian and Claire, our camping trip was still plagued by the usual camping hardships including sleeping on the cold, hard ground, waking up feeling all damp, and being attacked by gnats and mosquitoes. For years, we’d joke that we took the kids on this camping trip so they’d be motivated to work and study hard in school so they could get a good job so they could afford to stay in a nice hotel and they’d never have to camp again.

I’ve told you about this camping trip as a “lead-in” for my real story. The night before we met Brian and Claire on the camping trip, Mal decided to hide her jewelry. Mal didn’t own a lot of valuable items but she did have things that were meaningful to her. She had her high school ring, her original, small engagement ring, the special rings I gave her when she gave birth to our two children, a ring her mother wore, and some other pieces like that. We didn’t have a safe to store our valuables in at the time and although we had an alarm system, we thought it would make sense to simply hide the jewelry. Mal placed the small jewelry box filled with jewelry in the bottom of a small wastebasket and then placed a trash bag inside, on top of the jewelry. She made sure that I knew it was there so I wouldn’t throw it away by mistake. Then, the next morning we went camping.

We returned home on Thursday night after our fun camping trip. We were scheduled to leave for a week long vacation in Disney World early on Saturday morning so we were busy on Friday getting all of our last minute errands and details taken care of in preparation for the trip. As Mal was finishing her packing of our clothes for the trip she said, “Paul, could you get my jewelry for me?” I asked her where she had put it and I was shocked when she told me that she hadn’t taken it out of our wastebasket. It was gone! I had wrongly assumed that she had taken it out of the wastebasket as soon as we had gotten home on Thursday but she hadn’t. I had emptied all of the wastebaskets on Friday morning and put them out for the rubbish company to pick up on Friday morning. All of her special rings, necklaces, and pins were now buried at the dump.

Since it was late at night, and we were scheduled to leave early the next morning, there was nothing that we could do to recover the jewelry. We called my mother and told her the story. She took some of my brothers to the dump the next day and they spent hours digging through the trash piles looking for the box of jewelry. They convinced the dump’s bulldozer driver to help by uncovering and moving large piles of trash. The jewelry box was never found. Maybe someday, many years in the future, some kid will be digging around and they’ll find an actual treasure chest buried there.

Next chapter: Neil Gaiman, the creator of DC Comics Sandman comes to town!

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 72

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 34
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Dean Howley: 10 years old
Cassy Howley: 5 years old
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MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 72

As the 1980’s were coming to a close I took the time to reflect on my current situation. I now had two stores that were successfully selling comic books, sports cards, and other collectibles. With the recent addition of Richard Ortwein and Chris Ball from my newly purchased Fitchburg, Massachusetts store, I felt confident that my group of employees was more than adequate. I now had a bunch of good quality part-time employees, including Mark Dufresne, Rob Leary, Albert Aeed, and occasionally, David Hartwell. Sales were so good that I wasn’t worried about meeting my payroll needs each week. I was paying Richard and Chris more than I thought I could possibly pay them but it was working out fine. I even agreed to pay for their health insurance, which was unusual for someone in the comic book retail industry.

The sports card business was “on fire” and it appeared to many people as if it would be an easy way to make a lot of money. Card collectors and some unscrupulous “flea market” dealers began opening up small card stores in Worcester. They’d rent a small storefront and stock it with new card product and just wait for the money to begin rolling in. At one point in the late 1980’s there were over thirty sports card shops in the city of Worcester. Many of these stores would be out of business within six months. Some hung around longer.

I’m not a big fan of competition. I understand and appreciate the dream of private business ownership, so I don’t criticize people for opening up a store. It’s just that many people try to run a business when they lack the sufficient capital to make it work. Many people just don’t have the “business sense” necessary to take it past a hobby into a real profit-making business. I don’t believe that any business enterprise benefits from having competition. The only thing that I could do to protect our business was to make sure that we did our best to watch our cash flow and be reasonable and fair with our customers. Of course, we didn’t always accomplish this.

One such situation has bothered me for many years. We had a customer named Mike Daley (not his real name). He collected comic books and he’d come into the Worcester store every week on “new comic day.” Mike had a great sense of humor and a deep knowledge of comic books. He’d spend time with our fun group of serious “That’s Entertainment” customers each week (the group that would come in on “new comic day” and hang around for a few hours at a time), talking about comics, laughing at my bad jokes, and having a good time. Mike shopped at my store for quite a few years. One day he called me before he came into the store and asked if I’d be interested in purchasing a 1968 Nolan Ryan rookie card from him. He told me that it was in very good condition and that he wanted eighty dollars for it. If the card had been in perfect condition, it would have been worth about five hundred dollars but in very good condition it probably would sell for one hundred and twenty dollars so I told him that it sounded like a fair price to me. When he brought it into the store later that day, I looked at the card and disagreed on the condition of it. I made him an offer that was lower than eighty dollars. He declined my offer, but he seemed to understand that the card really wasn’t as nice as I was led to believe. But I must have handled the situation wrong somehow. Mike must have felt that I wasn’t being fair to him. Mike cancelled his comic book “reservations” with us and he stopped shopping at my store. I missed his fun personality and for many years I’ve wondered how I could have handled this better.

In December of 1989 a man named Lee came into my Worcester store carrying an old mailing envelope from the mid-1950’s. Inside of it was a comic book published by a company called EC Comics. Lee had received this comic book in the mail in 1954 and he had read it once, placed it back in the shipping envelope and carefully stored it away. The comic book was in near mint condition with beautiful white interior pages but because it had been stored in this mailing envelope for all of these years, there was a slight indentation on the cover where the envelope clasp touched the comic. Lee recognized that this was a significant enough defect to make this otherwise gorgeous comic book actually only be in only very good to fine condition. I offered to pay him fifty percent of the current price guide value of the comic as if it was in fine condition. He accepted my offer and seemed as if he was ready to leave my store when I remembered to ask him this very important question, “Do you have any more comic books?” He told me that he had about four hundred other comic books from this time period.

I went to his home and was thrilled to make him an offer for the entire collection. This collection had over one hundred EC Comics in the original mailing envelopes including The Haunt of Fear, Weird Science-Fantasy, Incredible Science Fiction, Tales From The Crypt, Two-Fisted Tales, Vault of Horror, the original comic book sized Mad Magazine, and many more. Lee also had some of the original form letters that the EC company had sent to the mail-order subscribers to inform them of publication changes and subscription expirations. I bought all of these too! There was also a nice selection of hard-to-find 1950’s DC Comics publications including Superman, Batman, Showcase, The Brave and the Bold, and more. Within a year, all of these comic books were sold to eager collectors.

At home, my son Adam, was doing great. Adam was developing into a unique individual. He was very confident in many of his abilities. He was a voracious reader of books; sometimes he’d read a book each day. He enjoyed comic books, magazines, novels, and history books. His grammar school was located next to a library and one day he came home all excited because the library had thrown out a lot of old books. Adam “rescued” a whole bag of these books from the dumpster including science books and World War II history books about the Nazi death camps. He read them all. Although Mal and I tried not to spoil our kids with lots of toys, we willingly indulged Adam’s desire for books. Adam was also confident in “who he was.” He dressed in nice clothes when the occasion called for it but he had developed, even at this early age, a fashion sense that wasn’t always typical for kids his age. Nothing seemed to embarrass him. The Imago School was having a play rehearsal one day that called for some of the boys to wear kilts, but Adam chose to wear his while he was waiting for our “carpool partners” to pick him up. He had no problem being seen in a kilt as his local town friends rode by on the school bus. I know that I would have been very self-conscious when I was his age. I guess I was too vain.

Next chapter: The big jewelry goof-up. Another one of my huge mistakes!
Pictures: An example of the vintage "EC Comics" and Adam wearing his kilt.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 71

Cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 34
Brian Paquette: a friend and fellow collector

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 71

I had attended a convention called “Spy-Con” in the late 1980’s to promote “The Man From Uncle” comic book series that I was publishing. This convention was a gathering place for fans of spy-related movies and television shows including “James Bond,” “The Man From Uncle,” “The Wild Wild West,” “The Avengers,” and many more. Dealers and fans from around the United States set up booths to buy, sell, and trade many spy-related collectibles. I hoped that I’d be able to locate some of the rare Uncle toys that I was missing in my collection. I was disappointed to find out that most of the dealers only stocked the paperback books, magazines, and fan-produced fiction. There were very few toys offered for sale at this show.

One collector displayed a small notebook that contained photographs of many of his favorite Man From Uncle collectibles and this was of great interest to most of the Uncle collectors. Many of these items were rarely seen by collectors and a group of us discussed the need for a complete listing of everything that was made about The Man From Uncle. When I returned home, I got together with my friend, Brian Paquette, and we came up with the idea of publishing a book about The Man From Uncle collectibles.

I had published the official Man From Uncle comic books in 1988 so I figured that I could handle publishing a “real” book. Brian was an artist and I knew he’d be great with the entire creative end. Between the two of us, we had almost every item ever made about The Man From Uncle television show. We would use our collections as the main part of this new book project. We began photographing the hundreds of items using colorful backgrounds and began to write detailed descriptions of everything. We wanted this book to be different from most of the memorabilia guides based on other television shows so we made sure that the photographs were large and clear and the descriptions were detailed and accurate. We also carefully researched the current values and actual selling prices of these collectibles by attending toy conventions and monitoring dealers’ catalogs and auction results.

Since this project began before home computers were commonplace, the whole book was done by “hand”. The photos were taken using a film camera and then developed at a local photo studio. If the photos came out okay, we matted them with a black paper border. We designed each page and pasted the written descriptions underneath the photos. We got together at my house to combine our collections in order to create a photograph for the front cover of our new book. Brian designed our chapter title pages and was mostly responsible for the professional “look” of this project. We decided to title this project “The Toys From Uncle Memorabilia and Collectors Guide.” My good friend, Michael Warshaw, a very talented writer, wrote the introduction for this book as a favor to me. After a few months of work, we sent the pages to Associated Printers of North Dakota (my favorite printer) and they “screened” all of the photos so the photographs would reproduce quite clearly.

The cost to produce this project in full color, as we had wanted, would have been outrageously high. A cover price of almost thirty dollars would have been required. Brian and I wanted collectors to be able to buy the book for less than ten dollars so the book was printed in black and white with full color front and back covers. Most of the books were sold through Diamond Comic Distributors at fifty percent of the cover price of nearly ten dollars. Although it was a lot of work to put the book together, Brian and I enjoyed this experience.

Over the years following the publication of “The Toys From Uncle”, this book has become recognized as an important reference work and a valuable “checklist” for every collector of “The Man From Uncle.” Ironically, this book now sells on Ebay for as much as fifty-five dollars!

Next chapter: The end of the eighties.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 70

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 34
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Dean Howley: 10 years old
Cassy Howley: 5 years old
Zvi Szafran: a favorite customer, college professor, double PHD, great guy.

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 70

Over the years of running a comic book and collectible store, I’ve gotten to know hundreds of interesting people. Zvi Szafran is one of the most interesting of them all. He began shopping at my store in the very early 1980’s. Each week I would save all of the comic books that he collected and Zvi would come into the store to pick them up once every few months. He would have come in more often if he could but he actually lived in Columbia, South Carolina. He had relatives in Worcester so when he’d come into town to visit them he’d visit my store too. He would buy all of the huge piles of comic books that I had reserved for him and then he would shop for many back issues that he needed to fill in his massive collection.

I always appreciated Zvi’s business but I mostly enjoyed visiting with him. He was always intelligent, funny, politically aware and also the first person I had ever met who was willing to share his Jewish faith with me. Zvi would explain the many differences and similarities between his faith and mine and he was never critical or judgmental. Zvi told me the following story about a trip to Israel that he and his wife, Jill, made years ago and I thought it was interesting enough to share with you.

Zvi and Jill were taking a bus in Tel Aviv, going to the beach. As they got on the bus, an elderly woman sat in the seat behind the bus driver, and Zvi and Jill sat in the seat behind her.

The elderly woman began to complain to the bus driver that he was late. In Israel, the bus drivers are part of a cooperative where they own their own buses, and they don’t put up with much from their riders. The driver said to the elderly woman, “Shut up old woman, or I’ll throw you off of the bus.” A few stops later, a second elderly woman got on the bus and sat in the seat next to the first woman. The first one said, “Don’t complain about the bus being late or the driver will bite your head off.” The second woman said, “You’re so right. That’s how youth are today. No respect!”

The two started talking and the second asked the first where she was from. The first woman answered with the name of some small town in Poland. The bus driver said, “Where did you say?” When the first woman repeated the name of the small town, the driver said, “That’s where I’m from.” He then asked her what her name was. When she told him, he stepped on the brakes and stopped the bus. He grabbed her and gave her a big kiss. It was his mother! She thought that he had died during World War II in the death camps, and he thought that she had died. They hadn’t seen each other in thirty years!

The driver and his mother left the bus parked on the side of the road, and went off together, leaving Zvi and Jill and the rest of the passengers, to wait for the next bus. It goes to show you that you never know just who you’re dealing with when you meet a stranger, doesn’t it?!

Next chapter: Brian Paquette and I publish “The Toys From Uncle” memorabilia guide.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 69

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 34
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Dean Howley: 9 years old
Cassy Howley: 5 years old
Hank: The owner of the “Same Bat Channel Comic Shop” chain
Richard Ortwein and Chris Ball: Hank’s key employees

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 69

Late one night, Hank and I had negotiated a buy-out of his comic book store in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. This deal was set to be consummated if his two full-time employees would agree to come to work for me. Richard seemed ready but Chris refused my offer. I didn’t have any extra employees available to take over Hank’s store so the deal was off. My wife was glad. I was almost relieved because I knew that adding a second store wasn’t just double the work, it was much more than that. More employee issues to deal with, more government paperwork, and more stress.

By the next morning, the deal to buy Hank’s store wasn’t even in my thoughts anymore. But that didn’t last long. At ten o’clock, as I opened my store, the first person to come in was Chris Ball. He explained that he had changed his mind and he wanted to come to work for me. Although Chris had a key role to play in the “Same Bat Channel Comics” chain of stores, Hank had convinced him that the future was most likely more secure if he joined the “That’s Entertainment” team. Chris and I talked about my expectations for employees and what I had planned for the future, including my eventual retirement from active participation in the day-to-day operations of the store. We discussed his required salary and I agreed to continue paying him the same amount that he was earning while he was working for Hank. Chris said he’d be interested in the job.

I wasn’t convinced that this drastic change-of-heart was authentic. I was worried that if I agreed to buy Hank’s store, based on Chris’s agreement to come to work for me, there was no way to force Chris to actually follow through with his commitment. Once Hank had my money, Chris could just quit and I’d be stuck with another store and I wouldn’t have enough employees to handle the increased workload. I was still in the process of trying to find another full-time employee for my Worcester store and I wasn’t having much luck. I knew Hank pretty well and I trusted that this wasn’t a trick to get me to buy his store. Hank was a man of principle and an all-around nice person. My dilemma was that I didn’t know Chris well enough to really trust him yet. He might be doing this just to help Hank’s financial picture.

When we were done discussing a lot of the details, I told Chris that I’d think about this situation and I’d get back to him with my decision soon. I called Hank and told him about this new development. He assured me that Chris made this decision on his own. Hank didn’t have anything devious up his sleeve.

I called my wife and told her that the deal was back on. I was still uneasy about the decision but I trusted Hank enough to take the risk. After I closed the store I drove to Fitchburg and gave Hank a check for thirty thousand dollars. Hank used this money to pay off most of his debt to Diamond Comic Distributors and it allowed the rest of his comic book store chain to survive. Hank began removing his inventory that night. By the next morning I had enough of my inventory there and I was able to open this new store on time. The customers had no idea that there was going to be a change of ownership and everything went quite smoothly. Business was pretty good already but with a new “fresh” inventory and with a renewed enthusiasm of Richard Ortwein, business increased quite a bit. Within six months the store earned enough in profits that my entire purchase price was recovered.

Chris Ball spent much of his time at the Worcester store. I needed the help there and I wanted to spend time training him in the ways I wanted things run and my basic philosophy of business. Chris was a great employee. He worked hard at keeping our customers happy. He had a tremendous memory for details and was willing to do any task I needed done. After a few months had gone by I began to feel confident that Chris intended to stay with my company.

Next chapter: One of my favorite customers tells me an amazing story!

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 68

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 34
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Dean Howley: 9 years old
Cassy Howley: 5 years old
Hank: The owner of the “Same Bat Channel Comic Shop” chain

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 68

I called my wife and told her that I was going to meet with my friend Hank about potentially buying one of his comic book stores. She urged me not to make an impulsive decision but I’m sure she knew I’d do it anyway. I do tend to make quick decisions, but it frequently works out okay when it is comic book related.

When I arrived at the “Same Bat Channel Comics” store in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, I was introduced to one of Hank’s employees, Richard Ortwein. Richard seemed to be a friendly guy. Hank’s “right-hand man,” Chris Ball, wasn’t with him on this night. I had seen Chris many times in Boston while we were all waiting to pick up our new comic books each week and I knew that he was a good guy too. Hank didn’t mention to any of his employees that he was entertaining offers to sell this store to me. He probably figured that the odds were slim that I’d actually buy it because I had told him about my recent purchase of a huge collection of old comic books. There was no sense getting his employees upset or worried about their jobs unless he was sure that I was going to really buy the store.

Hank showed me around the store, including his back room and storage area. This store was a very typical comic book shop. He had display racks along the outside walls to display the new weekly comic book releases and he had the back issue comic books in bins in the center of the store. As I examined his comic book inventory I noticed that it wasn’t very comprehensive. Hank had spread his inventory out over his five stores so it was pretty weak in this location. The inventory wasn’t going to be a major deciding factor in my decision to buy the store because I already had enough extra stock to fill numerous new stores. Hank wanted thirty thousand dollars for this store, without the inventory, and it seemed reasonable to me. I knew I could have made a lower offer but I considered Hank to be a friend and I knew he needed the money from this sale.

Hank didn’t want to discuss the sale around Richard so he suggested that we go to a nearby restaurant for a more private talk. Hank began to give me all of the details about this store. His rent was fairly reasonable and he didn’t have any lease that I’d be locked into. His customer base was fairly small but the store was profitable. The store employed two full-time employees (Richard and Chris) and one or two part-time people. I asked Hank if he thought that Chris and Richard would be interested in working for me if I bought the store and he thought they probably would at least be open to the possibility. Then Hank told me how much he was paying them. I was actually shocked at the high salary he was paying the two full-time guys. It was more than I had ever paid my employees. I questioned whether I could afford to pay the same salary to them if I bought this part of Hank’s business. Even if I could afford to do it I was quite sure that I didn’t want to pay that much!

While we were going over the details of Hank’s offer, Richard and Chris “just happened” to come into the restaurant. Hank didn’t want to be dishonest with his employees so he told them what we were discussing. Both of the guys were surprised that Hank’s situation had gotten to the point where he really needed to sell off this store. They thought that things were going great but, as it frequently is, the employees were unaware of the details and difficulty of keeping a business profitable. Chris had plans to become the overall manager of Hank’s chain of stores and was sure that he’d be making a huge salary soon. Now it must have seemed as if his dream was crumbling.

I explained that for me to agree to buy this store I’d need both Richard and Chris to agree to begin to work for me. Chris said he had no interest in leaving Hank’s business. Hank tried to convince Chris that his future looked brighter with me but there seemed to be no way to make this work. That was the “deal breaker” for me so I thanked Hank for his offer and called Mal to tell her that a deal wasn’t reached. She was thrilled that I wasn’t buying this store.

Next chapter: Chris shows up at my store the next morning.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 67

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 34
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Dean Howley: 9 years old
Cassy Howley: 5 years old

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 67

A few months ago, my brother Jay expressed his shock and dismay at the way I retold my story of “The Talking Toilet Guy” and “The Smelly Lady”. He wondered why I’d be “proud” of being so inconsiderate to people who were obviously mentally ill. Other old friends have been surprised by my interest in casino gambling and they’ve questioned why I’ve mentioned it in my “life story”. Well, I’ve included these incidents in my story to paint a fuller picture of who I am. If I only listed the good and positive things I’ve done in my life and in my business it wouldn’t be an accurate portrayal of me. There have been plenty of times when I’ve been a jerk. I’ve been inconsiderate and rude. I’ve been greedy and selfish. I’ve treated many of my employees unfairly. I’m an imperfect, flawed human being and I’m not proud of any of these characteristics. But I am working on these issues. You see, I believe that we have the power to change ourselves with God’s help. There is a “textbook” with most of the solutions and answers that many of us are seeking. I believe that there’s quite a bit that I can learn from reading the Bible as I’ve been discovering these past thirty or so years. I’ll never be perfect but I am changing for the better as I hope you’ll notice, but I’m still planning to tell the whole story, warts and all.

1989 was a busy year for my family. Adam was working hard at The Imago School. Cassy was busy with her dance lessons. We took Adam and Cassy to Disney World again and then Mal and I went to Los Angeles (and Disney Land) without the kids. Our beautiful in ground pool was completely finished at our Bolton, Massachusetts home. Mal and the kids loved having the pool because they’d normally have to travel to a nearby town to enjoy a community pool. I was thrilled because they’d be able to enjoy the convenience of just walking out to the back yard to swim. I only enjoy swimming if the water temperature is above 80 degrees. That meant I didn’t swim very often because unless you heat the pool, the temperature rarely gets that warm. I’d occasionally break my rule just to play with the kids in the water.

At my store things were even busier. Business was at a point where I couldn’t handle the intensity with just a couple of part-time employees and myself. I had recently lost my only full-time employee, Pat, and I was searching for a replacement. There were plenty of people willing to work at my store, even for the low pay that I was offering. I think that most of them thought that it’d be fun. They probably thought we’d basically be sitting around reading and discussing comic books and collectibles all day but those easy days had come to an end. The store was now hard work.

We had hundreds of regular, weekly customers and hundreds more who shopped at our store slightly less frequently. We had to sort and save the weekly new comic books for all of the customers that were part of our “subscription” service. We had to evaluate and make offers on every collection of comic books, toys, records, and sports cards that we were offered. Then we’d have to “process” these collectibles. For comics, that meant we’d place them in special plastic bags that we had specially manufactured for us, tape the plastic bag closed, put a blank price sticker on the bag, put the collection in alphabetical and numerical order, and I would personally price every comic book. For sports cards there was a similar process but I had help from my employees when it came time for these to be priced. My days at the store were hectic and then I’d do all of the bookkeeping and bill paying at home. I needed a full-time employee that I could really count on and most importantly I’d need someone I could trust. Honesty and loyalty were my two main criteria during my search for another full-time employee.

While I was looking over some possible candidates I got a phone call from a woman in Worcester. She explained that she was responsible for liquidating the estate of the former owner of “Colonial Stamp and Coin,” a collectible store that was once located in Worcester. She told me that her uncle had owned this store and that he had a huge inventory of old comic books that he used to sell until there was a devastating fire in the late 1970’s that closed the store. He had a warehouse filled with coins, stamps, comic books, cards, and magazines that he had not yet brought to his store. After he died, this woman was named as the executor of his estate and she was efficiently getting rid of everything. She had already sold the coins and stamps and was in the process of completing the deal to sell off the large baseball card collection. She was now entertaining offers on the comic book collection.

Although my “policy” was that the comic books must be brought to my store in order for me to properly evaluate them and make an offer on any collection, I decided to make an exception for her. I tried to set up an appointment to see the comic books as soon as I closed my store that night but she explained that she had a competitor of mine already scheduled for that evening. She assured me that she wasn’t going to sell these comics without getting at least two bids so I would get an opportunity to see the comic books the next day. I called my part-time employees and asked them to fill in for me at the store while I bid on this big collection.

When I arrived at the storage building I was surprised to see hundreds of boxes and piles of comic books from the 1950’s to the late 1960’s in varying conditions with most of them being in near mint to mint condition. She explained that her uncle would buy collections of comic books and only bring these copies to his store when he sold out of similar issues. Many of the comic books in this collection were comics that were not eagerly sought-after in the 1970’s but they were really hot now! This was bigger than I had anticipated. I started in one corner and carefully evaluated each and every comic book. I wrote the price I would offer for each book in my notebook and worked as fast as I could. It ended up taking two full twelve-hour days to finish this process and make my final offer. After this painstaking work, I was told that my offer was only four hundred dollars higher than the competing comic dealer’s offer. She explained that the other dealer came in and barely looked at the collection and just made an offer off of the top of his head. She appreciated that I took the time to go through everything so carefully and she accepted my offer. I paid her and began making dozens of trips from the storage building to my store to unload this new collection.

Collections like this one are very scarce. I have always had a great inventory of old comic books and we are well known for having comics in stock that are very hard to find. But this collection was important because we actually needed over two thirds of it in our stock. This collection had complete runs of the famous EC Comics including Tales Of The Crypt, Haunt Of Fear, Weird Science, Crime Suspenstories, and dozens more. There were also great groups of the pre-hero Atlas Comics including Tales of Suspense, Journey Into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales To Astonish, and more. These books were scarce and I knew they’d sell quickly to eager collectors. Normally I’d try to get this collection ready for sale and I’d “premiere” the collection as a special event but I knew it would take me such a long time to price these comic books because I didn’t have any full-time help. Also, I had paid such a high price for this collection and I’d need to start recouping my investment as soon as possible. As soon as I could price a full box of the comics I’d make them available for sale. Many of the comic books sold right away. I had several other comic book dealers buy full runs from me before my customers even got a chance to see these comics!

As I was busily pricing this massive collection I got a call from my friend Hank. He wanted to try to convince me to buy his Fitchburg store. I told him that I had recently spent a small fortune buying this collection but I would still meet with him after I closed my store that night.

Next chapter: Hank makes me an offer I can’t refuse. Sort of.

Picture: Adam at a local pool, and Mal, Adam, and Cassy in Disney World again.