The comic collector’s lucky lottery ticket
I have collected Phantom comics for years. The Phantom was a character that both my father and grandfather had read and over the years I did to. When I moved interstate many years ago, my parents kept my collection as ‘collateral’ for all the money I owed them and my father continued buying the comics. I was even lucky enough four years ago to draw the cover to issue #1387 – “The Boy from San Diablo”. What is the point of this story? Every comic collector has a ‘fantasy’ that one day, an aunt / uncle / grandparent / grandparent’s friend etc will discover an old comic collection in an attic / garage / shed which has been forgotten about. It’s kind of like a comic collector winning the lottery. It rarely happens. However, one lucky comic store owner in the United States had one such occurrence:
It’s the classic story that any comic book fan or shop owner wants to be a part of someday: A person, cleaning out some old stuff in a house finds a comic book. Well, not just any comic book, but a copy of one of the handful of the comic books.
In this case, it was 1939’s Detective Comics #27, featuring the first appearance of Batman. The copy is in good shape, with very minor edge wear, a light dust shadow, and a “Siamese centerfold” - meaning extra paper made it through the press during the printing process. The store/retailer whose hands it ended up in – Todd McDevitt of New Dimension Comics, a Western Pennsylvania chain with five locations around the
“They found it and suspected it had some value, so they took it to another local comic shop where they felt like they were not being treated fairly,” McDevitt said. “Then they called me. They were skeptical at first, but once I spent some time with them and the book they agreed with my appraisal of the book and we made a deal for there.”
In appraising the book, McDevitt graded the issue at Fine to Very Fine. But even that slight distinction between grades has meaning – according to Overstreet Price Guide, there’s a $110,000 price difference between copies in those two conditions. “The real kicker is that it’s nice copy, newly discovered and not obviously restored,” McDevitt said. “Most of the copies out there are worked on and many buyers shy away from that. The right guy who has been waiting for just this kind of copy will be thrilled.”
While most retailers would classify this as a “once in a lifetime” event, for McDevitt it’s actually his 3rd in a lifetime event. “Years ago, I made a sweet little old lady very happy when she flopped some old books on my counter and asked ‘are these worth anything to you?’ There was an ultra rare All-American Comics #16 in there and other great Golden Age books. She was shopping for a new car the next day.”
In this instance though, the seller was fairly savvy – as McDevitt said, they’d already tried another comic shop and knew what they were dealing with. There just aren’t many “little old ladies” any more, apparently. “They came in armed with a price guide. Even with the little old lady story, I’ll never try to steal a deal. My reputation is too important. In fact, they were so happy dealing with me that they are writing a letter to recommend me to another big collection in the wings where they are not sure who to trust.”
McDevitt declined to say how much he paid for the book (“slightly less than my soul”), but confessed that, after 21 years in business, he was ready and waiting for such an opportunity. “I made sure that if this situation ever came up that I would not let it get past me,” McDevitt said. “I paid what I would have paid for any other book like it. It’s just that the decimal point moved over a bit…”
So – what about the other half of the “classic story?” What’s McDevitt going to do with the book now that he’s got it?
“I had a chance to sell it four days after I bought it, but I turned it down partially so I could savour it for a while,” the retailer said. “I’m a businessman, but a part of me wants to keep it. But it’s for sale right now.”
McDevitt added that despite the possible increase in his selling price in which the process could result, he’s not going to have it graded and slabbed by CGC right away, due to a few concerns. “The extra paper will make that tricky in the case. I suspect they could put it in a magazine holder. I would hate to fold it back in, even though the paper quality would allow it without concern. Besides, I want to read it. I think this Batman guy might catch on!”
But, ultimately, McDevitt will sell it. How does a retailer find a buy for a book like this? As surprising as it may be to some, there are buyers looking for these types of book who literally have the money standing by – although there’s an element of matchmaking involved with the business transaction.
“Word about a find like this gets out very quickly,” McDevitt said. “As I mentioned, I made one phone call and had a buyer the next day, but decided to hold onto it for now. Every dealer has the ‘I know a guy who wants that book’ story. The early enthusiasm for it makes me more confident that I made the right decision, and I suspect after the word spreads that ‘right guy’ will surface. It took a while for me to sell the All-American #16, but once I found the customer who it made a fit with, it sold right away to him.”
And in the end, while the transaction will ultimately put some money into the business, the story of the find is also currency of a sort. “When I’m trading stories with other retailers at the bar at a convention, I don’t hear too many like this,” McDevitt said. “Now I’ve got one. But all in all, to say how often a thing like this happens, it’s tough to gauge. Some say that
Needless to say, I’ve started ringing my grandparents and uncles / aunts again on a more regular basis, just to say ‘Hi’.