I don’t know where my fascination of collecting came from, but it started when my mom gave me about 400 comics that belonged to my older brothers; all the original marvel titles with a few sprinkled in DC. My mom was cleaning out the storage room in our garage and was going to throw them out, but I begged her to let me keep them. I have always been an avid reader and these were words with pictures, fantastic stories that captured my imagination and made me want to know what was going to happen next. I loved continued comics, but there were holes missing in the collection and I had to know.
I was only in elementary school and I had no money, so it wasn’t until I got to junior high that I began collecting in earnest. I had friends who collected and I bought what I could afford from them. I would save my lunch money so I could buy comics. They were only 20 cents new back then.
I met my best friend, Scott, in junior high and my interest got him to collect too. We would travel all around the city to buy comics. There were only spinner racks in the Majik Markets and 7-11s then, so I continued to miss issues because I couldn’t find it.
Once I got into high school, my collection was staring to look pretty decent. I asked everyone if they had comics to sell and I would buy what I could afford. My first job at 15 helped with that. I also started buying albums and 45s. Farrah Fawcett became popular, so I bought everything Farrah related I could. I even styled my hair ; yes I’m a guy, like Farrah’s and was written up in the paper about how much of a fan I was. Sadly, I never met her, but I was in New York one time and two ladies walked by talking about how they had just seen Farrah, but I didn’t intrude, wish I had.
I continued to buy comics and by the time I went to college, I had amassed about 2500 comics. While in college, I used my student loan money to buy comics at conventions in Atlanta. Back issues were still fairly cheap back then and I bought complete runs of Captain America and Thor among other titles at next to nothing because they weren’t selling, imagine that now. I had a want list and I had catalogued my collection. I also made friends with the local comic store owner in town and I kept his financial records and traded my services for comics. By the time I left college, I had over 12,000 comics.
Today, I have over 30,000 comics after over 40+ years of collecting. I buy very little current comics and no Marvel. All the new universes have me dizzy, so I gave up. I have always enjoyed reading comics, but miss the “original’ characters. I don’t know who the current characters are.
Thanks for reading…….more to come.