The Golden Rule Collection #2

Thematically, this collection follows a very similar path to our Golden Rule Collection #1. Following up on an ad, I went down to east Des Moines to meet a nice gentleman who had a small bag of comics for $10. Definitely not worth the drive out. However, what happened next would be one of the greatest collections we’ve ever acquired. He noted that he actually had a whole storage unit full of comic books. He said he collected for years and had everything including an X-Men #1. Skeptical, I asked if he meant an X-Men #1 from the 90’s and he said, no the original one. We exchanged numbers, but I doubted that I would hear from him again.

Fast forward almost a full year. I was driving around when I got a call. “Hey, I finally got all those boxes out of my storage unit, want to come buy some comics?” I had almost forgotten! Intrigued we set up a time early one Saturday to meet. When I walked up, he had about 40, old carboard boxes laid out in his garage. As we started going through, I realized I was looking at some of the nicest examples of bronze and copper marvel keys I’d ever seen. And then finally, the X-Men box. He wasn’t mistaken, he had almost a full run of X-Men 1-100 including a well loved X-Men 1. What was incredible was the books from the 70’s and 80’s had bright colors, sharp corners, but were sitting in 40 year old bags, with no boards. He noted that the books had been in a dry climate region of the country and went straight from the rack to the bags.

Now for the negotiation, after getting a general idea of value, I asked if he had a price in mind. Hemming and hawing a bit, he said “well, I have a low price, and then a higher price i’d like to get.” I asked him what his high price was, which to my shock, was far too low. I told him good news, I’d be able to go higher than his high price and gave him much more than asking. The collection ended up being our all time favorite comic collection and another example of how treating people fair will always be the core of our business. Reach out today to learn more about our appraisal process and let us know about any collections you may be interested in selling, thanks!