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Hard as it may be for most of you to believe, I don't seem to be universally popular in some circles of the comics 'fraternity'. Yeah, who'da thunk it?! People don't seem to like it when I hold (or express) a different opinion from them on some subject, and take it as a personal insult. The stories I could tell you! What's worse though, is when some of them tell blatant porkies in order to cast doubt on my integrity and diminish my good name. Me - a warm, wonderful human being who brings happiness into the lives of everyone he knows. (Pssst! Anyone need two ounces of 'happiness'? That'll be 20 quid to you, mate!) But I jest! One of the accusations levelled against me in the past (by some nutter) is that I steal new digital comics and thereby deprive creators of earnings that are due to them.
Guess what though - I don't like digital comics - don't even read 'em. Wouldn't have them if you paid me. I do have a few data discs with old, out of print comics on them, that the creators (most of whom are now sadly dead) would get no reprint fees from anyway, and whoever owns the copyright doesn't seem to want to do anything with them. And what's more, I have loads of the comics anyway, but rather than spend hours digging through boxes in my loft to find a specific issue for scanning, it's much easier to take the image from a handy data disc. In cases where I don't have an actual issue, the discs are only a stopgap until I can track it down. Case in point: the above PERSUADERS Holiday Special from 1972.
I had this comic back in the '70s and have wanted another for a while now, but I've only ever seen it once for sale on eBay. That was only recently, and you're looking at it 'cos I bid on it and won. Previously, when I showed images from it on the blog, they came from a data disc acquired via eBay. I assume that whoever makes them, scans his own comics for the purpose, and as they usually only cost a couple of quid a disc, he's hardly going to get rich from it. In fact, scanning old comics can be a tedious, tiresome affair, and if he charged for his time, going by the price of his discs, he'd probably make about 5p a week. So if I ever show a comic on this blog that I don't actually have in my collection, I just don't have it at the moment - but I will if I ever see it for sale anywhere at a reasonable (as in affordable) price.
That reminds me - reasonable prices. I was in an OXFAM charity shop the other day which had a couple of BEANO Annuals on display inside a glass cabinet - one book for 1994, the other for 1999. Guess how much? Around £30 each! Picked yourself up off the floor yet? That's right - £30 a pop. A sign said the Internet price was £60 per Annual, so potential buyers were obviously meant to think they were a total 'steal'. I've never seen Beano Annuals for those years sell for anywhere near that sum, so either some chancer on the Internet was taking the p*ss (I've seen one guy asking for £120 for an average condition 1976 SHIVER & SHAKE Annual a week after I bought one for a tenner), or some assistant has heard that old (as in '40s & '50s) Beano Annuals sometimes fetch that price and thinks they're all worth a fortune.
Just think - charity shops are basing their prices on the ludicrously extreme valuations of chancers on the Internet, even though it's highly unlikely that such overpriced items would ever achieve the hoped for amount. Yet try explaining that to a charity shop manageress (so they can avoid damaging their shop's credibility, not because you want the bloody thing) and you get a tedious spiel about how their staff are trained to price things realistically, in accordance with the current collectors' market value of each item. For feck's sake, they're completely ignorant about condition being an important factor, and often overlook missing pages, filled-in puzzles, inscriptions, spines missing, etc. Utterly bloody clueless the lot of them.
But hold on a mo - I've drifted away from my favourite topic of conversation - namely me! Never mind, I'm bound to pick up those reins again before too long, so you can look forward to the supreme joy of reading about your genial host in a future post. Well, whaddya know - I finished on a rhyme.
12 comments:
Not all charity shops tho. I picked up three Valiant annuals - 77,78,79 - a couple of weeks ago for just a quid each at a shop in Partick, in immaculate condition, not a biro or crayon anywhere on them. Oxfam are the worst tho, I try not to buy anything from them. Here in the West End of Glasgow, I've actually witnessed guys from Oxfam going round other charity shops buying books cheap and then reselling them in their own shop at ridiculously inflated prices. And they sell 2nd hand DVDs sometimes for more than new ones cost at FOPP a couple of doors away! Trouble with the West End/University area is that there are quite a few of the more-money-than-sense brigade in the area who will pay silly money for things.
Wish I'd seen them first, OD - I was in the west End around then. You're right of course, but increasingly, more and more charity shops (especially where I live) are asking ridiculous prices for things. The shop with the Beano Annuals is in Clarkston (which I was visiting with a pal), and they had 9 Rupert Annuals (looked like from the '60s perhaps) tied together for £19, which probably wasn't a bad price. (Still a bit high for a charity shop though.) That's the thing that annoys me - there's no consistency to their pricing, yet they insist on thinking of themselves as 'experts'. I've seen them sell wind-up figures for £1.99 that are sold in Home Bargains for a quid.
I know what you mean about lack of consistency. Clothes, books and dvds tend to be the same price but anything out of the ordinary or anything that could be classed as vaguely 'collectable' - like Annuals - and they'll start shimmying the decimal point at random.
What they seem to forget is that, while something that they're asking far too much for lies untouched for months on end (before it's passed along to another branch to try their luck with), it's money that's not going into the till. Far better to price low and shift quickly, as it gives them a speedier cash flow to help the poor and needy, etc. After all, they're hardly short of donations to sell.
Exactly.
Now if only they'd install someone as smart as either of us and they'd be on a roll.
During the summer, I was in a shop of a very well-known charity looking through a box of comics, which were mostly 90s dross - huge quantities of bargain bin stuff, all slightly overpriced in my opinion, and none very interesting (to me at least).
Right at the back I found an early 80s Conan issue drawn by Gil Kane, pretty poor condition, but I thought I'd buy it for the art - there was no price on it though.
Took it to the counter and asked for a price, the lady on the till said she would check and went into the back shop. I heard the sound of typing and her mumbling 'Conan...Marvel...1982...', then she came back out and said "£4.99".
"No thanks," I replied and turned to leave.
"You can have it for £4.50. Its been checked, I know about comic prices," came the strange reply.
When I left the shop, I got immediately onto eBay on my phone and found quite a few copies of Conan 130 listed, the one at the top of the list was an NM condition copy at £4.99. Co-incidence? Maybe, but I would seriously dispute her claim to "know about comic prices".
Incidentally, I was in the shop recently, and - guess what? - the tattered comic is still there!
Yeah, doesn't surprise me, DS. They don't have a clue - not a bloody clue. I bought D.C Thomson Firsts from Oxfam mail order for £17 a few years ago. I needed a copy for reference, so after being assured that it was in near perfect condition (I 'phoned them to ask), I stumped up the money. Truth to tell, it wasn't too bad, but it reeked to high heaven with a terrible musty, fusty smell which it still has to this day. I bought another, non-smelling one from eBay a couple of months back for about £9. Charity shops need to learn that they can't take what some chancer is asking as a guide on pricing.
Never watched The Persuaders..I couldnt stand Tony Curtis ..I always thought he suffered from Recto Cranial Inversion.
I quite liked it at the time, LH, but haven't seen it in years. Perhaps it was a good thing that it wasn't successful enough to get a second series - if it had, big Rog wouldn't have been able to do the Bond movies.
Remember that shop that i mentioned run by a woman who claimed expertise in comic prices? I was in on Saturday and got a 60s Marvel romance comic with some gorgeous Buscema/Romita art for 99p, while a copy of Uncanny Origins #1 (a Marvel series from the late 90s that was staggeringly awful even by late 90s standards) was displayed in a glass case and priced at £5.99.
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the price stickers accidentally got swapped around.
Like I said, DS - not a bloody clue. I bet it wasn't even in mint condition like the one on eBay that she probably looked at. People mostly buy comics in charity shops to read, not to complete collections.
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