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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 3, 2018 11:13:45 GMT -5
Around 1995 I was actually selling comics at a local show and one of the other dealers had an Avengers #1. He wanted 100 dollars and I didn't pull the trigger. That's the one that I regret and the one that got away. Anyone else have a similar story ?
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
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Post by shaxper on Aug 3, 2018 11:19:33 GMT -5
I could have had Batman #1 in GD- for $10,000 about 10 years back. No way I ever could have afforded that, but still...what a deal!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,163 
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Post by Confessor on Aug 3, 2018 11:57:21 GMT -5
Sophie Bailey. Man, what a babe she was. *sigh*
Oh! Comics? Right...errr...yeah. Well, when I was competing my Marvel Star Wars collection, back in the mid-90s, I was offered the first printing, 35¢ variant of #1 for only a few pounds more than the regular 30¢ version. I was trying to buy up the complete run as fast as possible and, as such, I wanted my money to go as far as possible, so I turned it down. Being pre-internet days, I guess this was before most folks really knew about the 35¢ variant or before it had become a collectible "thing". Anyway, I passed it over and nowadays, with it being worth a LOT more than the regularly priced copy, I kick myself.
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 3, 2018 13:30:18 GMT -5
The best i can come up with is I saw a Centaur comics from the late '30s... Arrow #1. I can't remember what the price on it was but it would've been the oldest comic book I'd have ever had by a couple years if I had gotten it. One that I had that got away was I sold the first Animal Man in costume comic from the '60s for $1 or something not knowing it had gone crazy in price when they brought the character back again and it was popular. I sold a couple boxes of stuff all at $1 each when i was pretty much no longer reading comics and was not up on things happening at all. It was near mint probably. C'est la vie... Also a friend into funny animal comics traded me the two Frog Thor issues for the first Rocket Raccoon in Hulk. He might still have it and have no idea what that goes for now, should i tell him?  |
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Post by MDG on Aug 3, 2018 13:55:20 GMT -5
A dealer had a Two-Fisted Tales #1 for $125, but even then, I think I'd instituted my $5 limit on back issues.
Of course, I could've bought more mediocre Marvel Bronze Age pages for $5, but who knew? (apparently everybody but me)
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cee
Full Member
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Post by cee on Aug 3, 2018 14:08:50 GMT -5
The worst kinds for me aren't the pricey ones, but the ones that you simply never see : I once won a complete set of Deadline, the UK music/comics magazine which had the first Tank Girl Strips, lots of Evan Dorkin, Philip Bond, Terry Laban, Milligan, Savage Pencil, Shaky Kane, Nabiel Kanan, etc... 70 issuues on ebay, with me as sole bidder. Those never turn up! So I would have gladly paid 5 times what I got the lot for, but as I didn't live in the UK, the seller canceled the transaction stating it would cost me too much in shipping, and that he didn't expect me to go with it, without asking!!!  Once I also had a seller who offered me original pages of Frank Quietly's Batman book in Scotland, at 120$ a page, and I passed, thinking I would reconsider the offer a little later  Lastly, I once helped an old couple to clean hteir attic, and found lots of early marvel key issues, some EC, and some odds and ends. All in FN condition if not better (I may be out of my league there). As I was riding my bike to get home, I couldn't get the whole lot (maybe 4 boxes, not long ones), so they told me to come back whenever, they'd keep the remaining two boxes for me. What happened then I will never know for sure, but it seems the movers took them...  |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 3, 2018 15:27:27 GMT -5
I could have had Batman #1 in GD- for $10,000 about 10 years back. No way I ever could have afforded that, but still...what a deal! That's a boatload of money, but you surely would have made it back. |
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Post by badwolf on Aug 3, 2018 15:28:27 GMT -5
This isn't about a particular issue, but when I was a kid my dad took our family to a baseball card/memorabilia convention, and there was one guy selling assorted silver age Marvel for $5 each. My sister and I were allowed to get one each. I got X-Men #44 and she got Amazing Spider-Man #62 (I think I picked it out for her). I don't remember what else he had, but we should have bought his whole collection...or at least more than we did.
I have both of those comics now. The X-Men is pretty beat up, because even though I think at that age I knew how to take care of comics, I underestimated the fragility of a book that old. However my sister was not really a comics reader and the Spidey pretty much just lay in a drawer, so it still looks pretty nice.
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Post by Duragizer on Aug 3, 2018 17:26:42 GMT -5
I had the opportunity to buy Superman: Speeding Bullets fresh off the spinner rack, but I passed it up for copies of Batman #502 & Amazing Spider-Man #384. It was a poor choice in hindsight, but I managed to rectify it twenty-three years later.
More recently, I came across a copy of The Uncensored Mouse #1. It was on sale for $30, but I don't like paying that much money for single issues, so I passed. Now I wish I had tossed my reticence aside and bought it anyway.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 3, 2018 17:58:37 GMT -5
The ones that got away are actually pretty small stuff in my case.
Marvel two-in-one annual #2, which I left at the newststand. I bought it for a few dollars many years later, but still... Not buying it the first time HAUNTED me for a good long while!
I pAssed a French language translation of Wein and Wrightson’s Swamp Thing in 1978. What could I have been thinking?
I didn’t buy Philippe Druillet’s Loane Sloane 66 when it was available. Supid kid that I was. It was never reprinted.
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 3, 2018 21:24:38 GMT -5
For about $40 this could have been mine in 1992.  I was 13 and didn't have that kind of money at the time. However, the guy selling it also had a Hulk 181 which I bought for $7 and sold for about $35 that week (it wasn't in great shape - I remember there being ink stains on the inside front cover). Not sure which story is worse, that I let a vintage Captain America slip through my fingers or that I didn't pass on a first Wolverine but I didn't hang on to it either. Of course, the $30 profit I made at 13 probably meant more to me than, say, the $300 profit I could make off it in 2018 at 39 so it doesn't really bother me. That guy also sold me a Spider-Man 5 in really bad condition for $20 and Spider-Man 28 in really nice condition for about the same price (that issue's the first Molten Man and what I remember is that aside from a golden smudge, the really black cover was very glossy and otherwise untouched). I traded the Spider-Man 28 later on with some other stuff (maybe the Spider-Man 5) for a copy of Batman 99 which I still have (though the back cover has a chunk torn out of it). Round about 1989/1990 I could have bought Batman: From the 30s to the 70s for $5 but let my brother get it instead. A friend of mine now has it after buying it off my brother and while it doesn't haunt me that I didn't buy it, I feel strange thinking about easily I let it get away. On the one hand, I have color, glossy reprints of most of the stories in there so it's not as if I'm missing much, but it's weird that I poured over that book so much as a kid and don't access to it now. |
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Aug 7, 2018 6:40:50 GMT -5
About ten years ago, I had the chance at an ASM 300 for $60. I bought one copy but should have bought both as they were high grade. Other than that just a million ebay auctions I didn't win  |
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Post by The Captain on Aug 7, 2018 8:07:33 GMT -5
There have been many, but I typically don't count the ones that came at times when I couldn't afford them. They didn't get away so much as they were not available to be gotten by me in that moment.
Likewise, I worked in a comic book shop in college and there were lots of books that sat in our inventory that are worth big money today that no one cared about then. There was probably a quarter of a long box each of Hulk #271s and Hulk Annual #5s, but they were nothing books 25 years ago. I don't count those either, because no one was buying them.
For me, the "one" that got away was my original run of Star Wars comics, which was about 67% complete and which wound up going missing when I went away to college. I've never been able to figure out exactly what happened to those books, but having to replace them 20 years later cost a pretty penny or two.
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cee
Full Member
Posts: 105
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Post by cee on Aug 7, 2018 13:50:19 GMT -5
For me, the "one" that got away was my original run of Star Wars comics, which was about 67% complete and which wound up going missing when I went away to college. I've never been able to figure out exactly what happened to those books, but having to replace them 20 years later cost a pretty penny or two. Wow, so a ghost with taste, or concerned parents? I feel you, especially considering that even common books now were way more difficult to find 20 years ago. I had all my Shade The Changing Man disappear in the very same fashion, an almost complete collection which had taken me (teenage) years to complete. What were you thinking dad?! I still had to buy them back, there's no saving us from comics! |
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Post by The Captain on Aug 7, 2018 14:05:16 GMT -5
For me, the "one" that got away was my original run of Star Wars comics, which was about 67% complete and which wound up going missing when I went away to college. I've never been able to figure out exactly what happened to those books, but having to replace them 20 years later cost a pretty penny or two. Wow, so a ghost with taste, or concerned parents? I feel you, especially considering that even common books now were way more difficult to find 20 years ago. I had all my Shade The Changing Man disappear in the very same fashion, an almost complete collection which had taken me (teenage) years to complete. What were you thinking dad?! I still had to buy them back, there's no saving us from comics! My parents weren't "concerned", like my soul was at risk, because I read comic books. My father was the rock music critic for our city's largest newspaper for 17 years, and he let me listen to all kinds of inappropriate music when I was younger (he clued me into this new band he said was going to be "huge" by letting me listen to the promo album he received three months before it hit the streets; the band was Guns N' Roses, and it definitely wasn't aimed at 13 year olds.) I believe they did it on accident, or at least without malice, as I had taken most, but not all, of my collection to school with me but left the Star Wars books behind, as I had not been working on the run for a while and had read all of them. My mom was constantly in "clean up the clutter" mode, and I think she was simply preparing for the time when I would be moved out for good and she would regain my bedroom to use as a guest room. |
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