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tonicmole Posts: 2
4/11/2016
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I went to a farm auction over the weekend where they were mainly auctioning off old furniture, tools, and household items. However I spotted three boxes of comics setting out in the sun. I thought I'd get all three boxes for $50, but an antique dealer saw me looking and bid me up to $400! Mind you, the comics were bundled in set's of 50 so I had only the vague idea that the comics were mostly from 1965-1970. I took the comics home and started digging and found Avengers #1, Daredevil #1 and several additional issues down the line. Condition varied wildly, but I'm not a comic dealer, so I didn't care. The more I dug the more I found. Several early Spider-man, and Fantastic 4's. First Appearance of Huntress, some really early Thor and Ironman appearances. Really awesome stuff. 4th appearance of Spider-man, 3rd of the Silver Surfer. By far the greatest find I've ever gotten. What's weird is that most of the issues are recall issues. Especially the later 60's to early 70's. Several have the UPC code cut out or the cover ripped in half (not the older ones thank goodness). Also, the cover will be cut or stapled wrong. Maybe the original owner worked at a grocery store and took home the defective comics. Maybe they were merely dumpster divers? I don't know. Anyways, just seeing Avengers #1 got me pretty excited. Unfortunately, about 1/4th of the cover was clipped out for some reason, but otherwise in readable shape. Daredevil #1 was really rough. Complete, but rolled spine, and VERY brittle, and the cover was detached. Daredevil 5 and 6 were actually in pretty good shape. In all around 300 comics mostly Marvel, but I also got a few early 1960's Batman and Superman. It was funny when I had become so spoiled at finding legendary comics that I had to go back through them again to realize I had lesser ,but still amazing comics hidden in there. I'm pretty happy about the whole deal.
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gregbrookins Posts: 132
4/11/2016
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I think the cover cut was when they didn't sell an issue. They could mail the cut portion of the cover back to distributor for a rebate. Technically suppose to have discarded of those after that, but I imagine it happened a lot.
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+1
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BburgDaddy-o Posts: 22
4/12/2016
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gregbrookins wrote:
I think the cover cut was when they didn't sell an issue. They could mail the cut portion of the cover back to distributor for a rebate. Technically suppose to have discarded of those after that, but I imagine it happened a lot.
Kind of like record albums in the cutout bin had notches cut into the sleeves.
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
4/12/2016
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Sounds like a neat pick-up. There were several options for remaindering books. The most common was to tear the title bar off and return those to the distributor. And, yes, the rest of the book was to be destroyed. One could definitely not sell the leftover book.. however, there are no laws, that I know of, preventing the worker/owner from keeping the leftover to read. I kept a few remaindered paperbacks when I worked in a bookstore. (It was a painful thing to have to rip covers off  )
edited by Oxbladder on 4/12/2016
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kds_comics Posts: 652
4/13/2016
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tonicmole wrote:
I went to a farm auction over the weekend where they were mainly auctioning off old furniture, tools, and household items. However I spotted three boxes of comics setting out in the sun.
Lucky you ! Good job.
tonicmole wrote:
I thought I'd get all three boxes for $50, but an antique dealer saw me looking and bid me up to $400! The dealer recognized value - but to him it was risk/rewad number at - what $1 each? The dealer anticipated spoilage.
tonicmole wrote:
I Especially the later 60's to early 70's. Several have the UPC code cut out or the cover ripped in half (not the older ones thank goodness). No idea why UPC code would be ripped - perhaps retailer scrapped it or marked it from themselves.
tonicmole wrote:
IAlso, the cover will be cut or stapled wrong. Maybe the original owner worked at a grocery store and took home the defective comics. Maybe they were merely dumpster divers? I don't know. Comics that were cut wrong were not unusual in the 1960's and 1970s - mechanical presses were used similar to newspapers presses. Just part of the business. Some folks though the wrong cut ones would be worth a lot some day. They were wrong - they are readers worth almost nothing. I have had a few myself.
tonicmole wrote:
Anyways, just seeing Avengers #1 got me pretty excited. Unfortunately, about 1/4th of the cover was clipped out for some reason, but otherwise in readable shape. Ripping the whole cover or a portion of the cover and sending back to the wholesale distributor was the way to track inventory for the wholesaler. The retailer got the price back for the one that did not sell.
See the forum is fun, and education tool.
Congrats again on your find.
KDS
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colbalt91 Posts: 298
4/13/2016
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Currently I am looking at an auction coming up at a Goodwill store where there seem to be about 400 - 500 comic books in the lot and many are from the seventies and there are about 50 that have the cut off upper covers. Many are pretty banged up. I expect the rabble that show up for these Goodwill auctions to completely overbid the set of comics. Probably a hundred to a hundred and fifty in nice shape. There is a copy of Amazing Spider-Man 252 in pretty good shape and some Amazing Spider-Man from the sixties on up to the early hundreds in decent shape. Right now the written bid is $250 but I really expected to go for 400 and over which would negate any real profit to be made from the books. There is a long run of Captain Carrot in these comics too. I plan to show up on Saturday when the final bidding will be done and just laugh in the background at what I expect to happen.
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