Double Digit Multiples

BlowUpTheMoon

Bunch of copies of Nick Fury #18

jools&jim

It was part of a big collection I bought 6 or 7 years ago, and sold here on the boards.

The owner was a baseball card dealer who died suddenly. What his wife didn't know is that he also had a HUGE secret stash of comic books tucked away in several large storage units.

He started buying baseball card collections back in the '80s, and continued through the early '00s. And in the '90s in particular, he was buying out whole sports-card stores which were either closing or in financial trouble, and also cleaned out show dealers who were getting out of the trading card business.

The comics were an after-thought, and were often bundled into bulk deals he made -- i.e., if he wanted the cards, he had to take all the comics, too.

His sports card stock was huge and insanely deep, with complete sets from the '50s and '60s of very high quality. From what I heard, his wife sold it all at auction, which netted her quite a tidy sum over several years.

But the comics just got dumped into storage and were completely forgotten, until his wife learned about the storage units.

By the time I got to the collection--a sprawling mess which nearly filled an entire 2-car garage--she had already sold 10-20 long white boxes at a yard sale.

Who knows what was in there? But the absence of marquee Marvel titles from the '70s on (Spidey, UXM, etc.) was not a good sign.

What I did find was 150-200 long white boxes, 50 or so magazine boxes, and another pallet stacked with short whites, all heavy with '80s and '90s overstock (lots of multiples), but also plenty of decent BA runs from all publishers, including a healthy supply of 30 and 35-cent Marvel variants.

It was a long time ago. But if I remember correctly, the Nick Fury distributor bundle was in a magazine box, which also contained multiple (un-bundled) copies of the same issues of Playboy and Sports Illustrated from the early '70s.

It was a great find, and I'm glad it found a good home!