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Post by Randle-El on Sept 10, 2014 23:45:50 GMT -5
Saw this on Comicvine the other day: www.comicvine.com/articles/bob-bretall-holds-the-guinness-world-record-for-la/1100-149784/One of several details that blows my mind: Even with his large collection, he still buys 140 books A MONTH. That's got to be everything Marvel and DC publishes, plus a few indies thrown in for good measure. That translates into at least six long boxes added to his stash every year. I wonder how he finds time to read them all. |
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Post by coke & comics on Sept 10, 2014 23:52:57 GMT -5
That is well over twice what I have.
But then he's been at it longer and I stopped buying new comics 7 years ago.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,408
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Post by shaxper on Sept 11, 2014 4:51:29 GMT -5
More than ten times the size of my collection, and I think mine is far too large!
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Post by The Captain on Sept 11, 2014 7:29:16 GMT -5
More than 10x the size of my collection, and my want list is down to less than 200 floppies. Collected editions have proven to be great value both economically and space-wise.
Of course, if I ever decide to go over to the dark side and start reading DC books, I would be able to hit 10,000 floppies easily.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2014 8:33:16 GMT -5
His is about 6 times my collection. Then again, mine was about 99 percent amassed in less than a decade ... roughly 2004-2012. Color me not bowled over, especially since he started at 8, apparently still has those comics, buys some 140 a month & is only a couple of years younger than me.
Impressive, mind you, but hardly staggering.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Sept 11, 2014 8:45:19 GMT -5
That's a lot of comics. I may be 20 years younger than him, but I don't see amassing some 88 thousand comics in the coming 20 years. But then his job just sounds higher paying than mine. But I do have to wonder if he's read all those at least once. If not, is he only buying to get the title of largest collection and not just to read them.
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Post by Randle-El on Sept 11, 2014 9:13:19 GMT -5
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 11, 2014 9:37:35 GMT -5
I thought the Library of Congress has the world's largest comics collection.
Cei-U!
I summon the confusion!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2014 10:22:28 GMT -5
I think mine is far too large! I just ... I don't know what to say here. I really don't. |
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Daryl
Junior Member
Not NOT Brand Echh
Posts: 72 
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Post by Daryl on Sept 11, 2014 10:39:56 GMT -5
I've never known what it's like to have too many comics to read. My last big haul was about 30 books and I finished over the course of a week.
I wonder how many he has read more than once or if he keeps even the ones he doesn't like.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 11, 2014 11:14:56 GMT -5
No,he certainly does not have the largest comic collection. My friend, who sold the Action #1 has a substancially bigger amount. He's about 66 years old and still owns the books he bought as a child in the late 50s. He owned a comic store for decades as well. Still gets many books per week, as a store owner he also got tons of variants. He even has a near-complete run of Four Color Comics, Detective and other Golden Age books.
My old collection would have rivalled the guy in this article. My friends stash was much bigger |
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Post by Randle-El on Sept 11, 2014 11:48:24 GMT -5
I think the qualification being made in the Guinness listing is that it is the largest privately owned collection, as opposed to institutionally-owned or retail inventory. Otherwise Chuck Rozanski could chime in and say that his 1,000,000+ inventory of comics is the world's largest collection. Store owners kinda blur the lines, since they often use their personal collection to stock their inventory and make the shelves look full. This guy is not a comics dealer, and all of his books were acquired for his personal reading.
Guinness records should always be taken with a grain of salt, since the record merely means it was the largest/fastest/whatever certified by the Guinness staff who usually come out to personally witness, record, enumerate, etc. the record. They can't certify what is not reported or what is not known to them. I'm sure there are probably people out there who have surpassed, or are capable of surpassing, records listed in Guinness, but they simply choose not to report them. Bob Bretall even acknowledges this in the interviews I linked:
Collecting is for fun not a competition!
I agree. I stumbled into this record when I realized that Guinness World Records had not yet created a category for largest comics collection. I didn’t set out to have this big a collection when I was 8.
I submitted, did all the necessary work documenting & verifying my collection and am the 1st person to hold this particular record with Guinness.
I fully expect someone to surpass me, but do the work! Don’t just shout out on internet message boards that “I have more comics than that guy”…
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 11, 2014 12:40:12 GMT -5
To clarify, I'm talking about my friend's private collection-not the store stock. And I seriously doubt his collection was/is the largest as well
And just like his ownership of Action #1, he's not going to publicize his collection. I would think many collectors of valuable collector's items tend to want some anominity
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Post by coke & comics on Sept 11, 2014 16:03:06 GMT -5
Distinct issues is also a key phrase. Most stores do not have that many unique comics, with their inventory being full of duplicates.
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Post by Randle-El on Sept 11, 2014 16:09:05 GMT -5
To clarify, I'm talking about my friend's private collection-not the store stock. And I seriously doubt his collection was/is the largest as well And just like his ownership of Action #1, he's not going to publicize his collection. I would think many collectors of valuable collector's items tend to want some anominity Are you talking about the Action #1 that sold most recently? |
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