"Post No. 569"

There's now less than 1,500 days left until 12-21-12.

Well, now that the election's over I can get down to somthing REALLY serious; trying to make some extra cash and clearing out globs of duplicates that's been piling up.

I listed seven different "lots" of approx. 50 comics each this week, and to my surprize, one already sold by someone using the eBay "Buy It Now" for $19.99. That's forty cents per book I'm getting out of those which I consider doing very well considering I'd eventually just put them in a yard sale and try to get a quarter each (and less than that if someone would've bought a BIG bunch of them).

Then I got another minimum bid of $9.99 on a lot of kids-type comics I'd been wanting to clear out, so perhaps this auction will go fairly well, 'cause there's 50 books in that lot as well averaging twenty cents each at the lowest bid (comics I'd eventually just given away).

I'm going to keep on re-listing the ones that don't sell until I can get rid of what I can, and next week I'll be adding even more lots. I figure I have at least another 7 of 50 each, and then I have lots of comic book-related magazines, trade paperbacks, hardcovers and sci-fi paperbacks to move. Just sitting there in boxes "collecting dust" sure isn't going to do me any good so I'm trying to get more motivated about selling them.

I think what surprized me the most about selling that one particular lot was that they were ALL modern Marvel Comics; mostly stuff from the 1990's. No one has yet to bid on the best lot which is 50 misc. DC & Marvel bronze-age comics, and they range in dates from 25 to 35 years ago. (Looks like that would have gone first.) But, ya jest never know.

I was up early yesterday morning, awakening at my usual 5:30 A.M. even though I didn't have the alarm clock set. I'm just so used to doing that and can't seem to sleep any longer unless I stay up pretty late at night. And I kept, all day, really busy, getting that package ready and taking it to the post office, doing some housework, laundry, raking/mulching/mowing leaves (for I forget how many times this Autumn), and when this was all done I noticed it was still a good half an hour until noon. Waited around here today until my wife got off from work and then took her out to eat since we didn't get to do that on our anniversary on the 4th., and we had a really good meal at the local "Cracker Barrel".

Lastly today I want to remember an old classmate whom I heard passed away named Douglas Burgess. When I was a preteen we were living about four miles from here and on the road that ran parrallel, about a mile up it, Doug lived and I knew him from school and many a time would ride my bike out to his dad's farm and we'd just hang out. I traded comics with him and one comic I traded him was a copy of Tales to Astonish #27 (Marvel, 1962) which I had personally bought off the racks and, as any "true believer" knows, has the story: "The Man In The Ant-Hill": the first app. of Henry Pym who later took on the guise of "The Ant-Man".

A couple of years later I got real serious about collecting early Marvels and asked Doug if he still had that and he told me he'd traded it to a guy just across the yard from me. So I went over to this other guy's house and, sure enuff, he did have that comic and I swapped it back.

Somewhere along these transactions the comic had gotten in fairly bad shape, losing it's centerfold (which didn't affect the Pym tale, but did affect the next two fantasy stories). Still, I wanted it. Over the next few years it somehow got in even worse shape with a frazzled spine, a little chunk missing from the front cover and tape on the edges of the cover to hold the spine together, but it stayed in my collection as such until I sold it to yet another comic book collector circa 1970 or so.

And I've previously related that tale of how, a good 25 years or more later, that last guy traded it back to me again. The tape finally fell off with age leaving stains, so now's it's in poor even though still quite loved in my collection as I know I bought that one, when it was new, myself.

Oh yeah...Doug had filled out a coupon on both the interior and back cover in ink, so, Doug, at least as long as I keep that comic, you'll still be remembered by an old friend. Rest in peace.