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| Image copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Here's a good one for you. You come home from work one day to find that your wife has given away your prized comic that you've had since childhood to the Church jumble sale, which is on the following afternoon. Next day (after checking on your wife in hospital), you rush down to the sale the second it opens to buy back your treasured periodical, but when you get there, guess what?
There's another issue of the same comic, but in almost pristine condition, whereas your own is really rather tatty. You have only just enough to buy one or the other, as you've only got £2 on you (yours costs 50p, the other is £2), and a snotty kid is beginning to show an interest in them from further down the table so you'll have to move fast.
Neither copy is worth very much on the collectors' market, the comic is only of sentimental value to you, and that pristine issue reminds you just as much of your childhood as your battered old copy. So have a think and then tell me - which one would you buy?
Always the better condition one, even if it wiped me out!
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Anyone else?
ReplyDeleteI think I'd take the old copy, since it was my original copy. After all, every crease and tear is just the signs of where I had read and loved it.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting answer, DD. C'mon, the rest of you Criv-ites - what would YOU do?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the comic that I owned as a child.Because that comic would
ReplyDeleteHave been with me through a magical childhood and would help me to
Connect to that happy time
The original. The other would have no sentimental value for me.
ReplyDeleteThe original copy. One of my favourite read every year comics is the collected Walt Simonson Manhunter. I spilled coffee on it a couple of years ago. The pages are all warped and rippled. I bought a new copy. It's unread, I still reread the coffee stained one :)
ReplyDeleteI see a pattern beginning to emerge here, fellas. JP seems to be the only exception so far.
ReplyDeleteI know why you all choose the original, for sentimentality, but, myself, as soon as I see that pristine one, it becomes even more important to me than the original one!
DeleteI'd want both, so I'd haggle with the assistant and offer £2 for the two of them. That'd be after explaining the comic was mine and should never have been donated 'though, and only if that approach didn't work. Or I'd buy the better condition one and offer £1 for my own, but ask them to wait until I got my hands on another £1. At the end of the day, if none of that worked, I'd just buy my original, 'cos otherwise it would be like swapping your wife for a much younger woman who was the double of her as she was 20 odd years ago, and that's a bit heartless.
ReplyDeleteHere's another question, but you have to imagine that your wife will never see your answer for this to work. If you met a woman who was the double of your wife in looks and temperament, but was half her age (not underage 'though, so your wife would have to be in her late 40s, early 50s) and was really into you and wanted you to leave your missus for her, would any of you be tempted?
Nope! - No bugger else BUT 'er indoors would put up with me!
DeleteWhaddya mean, JP? She gave your favourite comic to a jumble sale remember. (Or am I lost in my own wee world again?)
ReplyDeleteI see the majority opted for the original copy - now, Kid, do you understand why I would never try to re-acquire POTA #5 ?
ReplyDeleteWhat you're ignoring 'though, CJ, is that they had the option of choosing between the original (a day after it was given away) and a better copy. Most of the time, people don't have that option (nor do you), so your point is rather - er, pointless.
ReplyDeleteI'd explain my situation to the vendor and offer to pay double at a later date.
ReplyDeleteFailing that,I'd go for the newer edition,which I guess is what you are really asking.
Think of it like this.
If I were to look at a poster of a scantily clad pin up,such as one of your babes of the day,for example,I would as easily be aroused the next day looking at the same model but duplicate poster.
It's not the image that has magically been imbued with nostalgia,just our perception of it.
Any kind of yearning we have,lies solely in our minds alone.
And,the great thing about that is,it's transportable,only requiring certain triggers to initiate these feelings once again.
Sentimentality,well that's a different matter....
So essentially you're saying you'd leave the wife for the younger double of her, Moony, based on that reasoning? Wait 'til I tell her.
ReplyDeleteI would let the “snotty” kid have whatever comic he wanted (as he’s just a kid and I’m an adult, and that purchase could be one of his "special memories"). I lost a copy of JLA 106 which holds a lot of memories and sentimental value for me as my Dad bought me the original years ago (I remember the shop we got it in, the type of day it was, having a cuppa tea and cake in a local café and having a good wee chat with my dad) I lost that issue about 15 years ago and got a new copy last year (only £5) as soon as I saw it I was taken back to that day but the fact it wasn’t the original copy made any difference for me, the new version took me right back to that day as much as seeing the original. No doubt an old comic, piece of music, old film, toy, smell etc. can act as a great touchstone to the past and if that issue etc was given to you by your dying grannie on her death bed I totally get it , but if it’s just to rekindle a (albeit nice) memory of a sunny day in July when you got that comic in the local newsagents I don’t see the pull the pull of having to have the original.
ReplyDeleteSo what have you got against sunny days in July, PM? Seriously 'though, it depends on when that sunny day was, I'd say. Sometimes, just having a reminder of your youth is a nice thing (especially when you're older), even if the part of your youth you're reminded of wasn't particularly memorable. You're obviously a more unselfish man than I am, because a few years back, whenever I saw Mattel 1966 Batmobiles in Woolworth's, I'd buy them all. I did think about leaving a few so that kids could enjoy the thrill of buying one and making a nice memory for the future, but then I thought "S*d the little brats, I'm having them all!" I've got over a dozen of 'em.
ReplyDeletelol well at least your honest - I wouldn't mind a 1966 mattel Batmobile I lost mine years ago - Do you collect now for nostalgia or for the love of collecting or the love of comics/toys?
ReplyDeleteThe Mattel Batmobile only came out a few years ago, PM, and is still available. (You're probably thinking of the Corgi one.) As for why I collect - all of the above.
ReplyDeleteIf it's not valuable get the original. On the other hand mom didn't raise no idiots and if a mint condition is worth orders of magnitude more then goodbye childhood!
ReplyDeleteHello Yellow Brick Road...? (The meds are kicking in.)
ReplyDelete