World's Largest Private Comics Collection (for now) - May 18

[HassanT]

Bob,

This is really great news. I guess I can get a sneak preview of the collection this weekend when I stop by

[BobBretall]

In terms of getting a society to sign off on your collection, perhaps you should try to do something with this in conjunction with SDCC? Inform the show organizers of the attempt to get into Guinness - perhaps they can arrange something for you. So many comic-related people are in town for the show, perhaps the right person will be available for you. Hell, perhaps you can turn this whole process into a Panel at the show!

The collection needs to be physically witnessed & I'm not hauling 90,000 books down to SDCC

I'd rather not push out my "attempt date" to late July & close to the con SDCC people have better things to do.

That said, I'll shoot them an e-mail to see if they have anyone working for the con that wants to drive up to Mission Viejo on April 20th.

Or you could be a special guest or get a panel or some mention. Would be cool and they are really close. Hell just an article on their blog would be nice.

I spent about 15 minutes digging around the SDCC website looking for a way to contact them. Closest I could find was:
http://www.comic-con.org/contact

Which told me:

Our mailbox is temporarily offline. We will reopen at a later date.

In more local convention news, I've been accepted to do a panel on "Building your Comic Collection" at the Long Beach Comic Expo on May 11th.

[Trev]

[MobileHome]

Happy Birthday, Bobby!

[ctowner1]

In terms of getting a society to sign off on your collection, perhaps you should try to do something with this in conjunction with SDCC? Inform the show organizers of the attempt to get into Guinness - perhaps they can arrange something for you. So many comic-related people are in town for the show, perhaps the right person will be available for you. Hell, perhaps you can turn this whole process into a Panel at the show!

The collection needs to be physically witnessed & I'm not hauling 90,000 books down to SDCC

I'd rather not push out my "attempt date" to late July & close to the con SDCC people have better things to do.

That said, I'll shoot them an e-mail to see if they have anyone working for the con that wants to drive up to Mission Viejo on April 20th.

heh...yah..wasn't suggesting you bring the books to SDCC. Was saying you might find someone qualified to authenticate the collection who is attending SDCC to come to your house. But guess your LCS guy does the job?

e
L nny

[GABE!]

Congratulations and good luck with this, Bob.

I'm interested in attending the party and signing witness statements. I'll keep an eye on my work and travel schedule around April 20th and see what can be done about driving down from Vegas.

[BobBretall]

I'm interested in attending the party and signing witness statements. I'll keep an eye on my work and travel schedule around April 20th and see what can be done about driving down from Vegas.

It would be great to have you there!

[LA Rabbit]

Bob, do you have your DB online somewhere? I am getting rid of a bunch of comics which you probably have but you might not. It is mostly junk from the last 5 to 10 years but a few older ones. If there were a few, then I would give them to you to jump up that count.

[BobBretall]

Bob, do you have your DB online somewhere? I am getting rid of a bunch of comics which you probably have but you might not. It is mostly junk from the last 5 to 10 years but a few older ones. If there were a few, then I would give them to you to jump up that count.

No, not online. If you send a list I can check, though.

[BobBretall]

D'OH!!!!

Doing data scrubbing to get a final "real count", since i cannot count duplicates.

I have 1800 extra comics (titles with a qty of 2 or 3 where I legitimately, for whatever reason, just have more than one copy of the same book accumulated over the years). That's about 7 long boxes worth of duplicates. Ultimately, I'm going to cull those out & get rid of them, this will give me extra storage space.

Also, we found some data entry errors where, for instance, in one case there was a book in box #225. Instead of 1 qty in box 225, must have not hit a tab & the qty field is 1225. Have a few others where something in box 206 has a qty of 206, etc. Bottom line is this added another "phantom" 3k comics to my count.

So, instead of having a bit over 90k, my actual legit count stands today at 86,964. Still enough for the record. It also means I'm going to buy a few hundred comics on my want list to add to my "regina pile" over the next few weeks.

[Perry]

D'OH!!!!

Doing data scrubbing to get a final "real count", since i cannot count duplicates.

I have 1800 extra comics (titles with a qty of 2 or 3 where I legitimately, for whatever reason, just have more than one copy of the same book accumulated over the years). That's about 7 long boxes worth of duplicates.

Ouch, yeah that sucks, Bob, but like you said, you can still top the record so ... YAY!!

And by the way, if you need me to swap out any of my early Image books for any of your silver age FF vol 1 duplicates, to ... you know ... help increase your numbers, you just say the word.


In all seriousness though, I am going to try and compile a list of my "I don't care about comics" tomorrow and then send you a list to see if, by some slim chance, you can use any of them. I can then send them to ya. I want to see you blow the top off this record.

[BobBretall]

In all seriousness though, I am going to try and compile a list of my "I don't care about comics" tomorrow and then send you a list to see if, by some slim chance, you can use any of them. I can then send them to ya. I want to see you blow the top off this record.

To do that data scrub, I extracted my database into a CSV file that I pulled into Excel. PM me your e-mail address if you'd like the Excel file, you can have a look & see if you have stuff that I don't.

[Gilgabob]

I have a couple long boxes of duplicates from a bulk purchase I made a few years ago. It contains mostly 80's and 90's junk but I'd be happy to send you whatever issues I have that you don't.

[BobBretall]

I'll add another windfall....last week one of my son's close friends got asked by his grandmother if he wanted a lot of his uncle's old comics & my son went over & grabbed a lot of stuff.

No treasure trove of golden age stuff or really valuable stuff. The uncle had sold off everything worth any decent amount of cash years ago and what was left cluttering up Grandma's house was the "chaff" BUT I did score a bunch of Gold Key books from series like Twilight Zone & Ripley's Believe It Or Not that were completely absent from my collection before yesterday.

I started sorting through the collection in earnest yesterday & am truly amazed at how thorough the job of cherry picking was on this collection. Any sought after #1 or 2 or #100/200/etc was gone (they left behind Human Fly #1 :whistle: ) and I also noticed that I'd be sorting through a run & every now & again a random issue would be missing (maybe #43 or something). A quick look at my Overstreet showed that was the issue with a value of $10 or more.

That said, there are a LOT of really cool comics here. Lots of Marvel/DC: Conan, Star Wars, Thor, Jonah Hex, Warlord, Sgt Rock, etc. There is some Thor from around #200, nice stuff, story & art-wise. Comics themselves are mostly in the VG & F conditions, due mostly to how they were stored (not bagged/boarded & in regular cardboard boxes). Not finding a lot that I need, but I'd hardly be in the running for largest collection if it did have scads of stuff I didn't.....

BUT, I will be giving a lot of these comics away to people who come by on April 20th. I have this stuff, but most other people do not. Depending on how many people show up, I'm thinking most people can walk away with 10-40 comics, ranging in "book value" from 50 cents to $2 or $3 each, and some good reading....

[Trev]

I'll add another windfall....last week one of my son's close friends got asked by his grandmother if he wanted a lot of his uncle's old comics & my son went over & grabbed a lot of stuff.

No treasure trove of golden age stuff or really valuable stuff. The uncle had sold off everything worth any decent amount of cash years ago and what was left cluttering up Grandma's house was the "chaff" BUT I did score a bunch of Gold Key books from series like Twilight Zone & Ripley's Believe It Or Not that were completely absent from my collection before yesterday.

I started sorting through the collection in earnest yesterday & am truly amazed at how thorough the job of cherry picking was on this collection. Any sought after #1 or 2 or #100/200/etc was gone (they left behind Human Fly #1 :whistle: ) and I also noticed that I'd be sorting through a run & every now & again a random issue would be missing (maybe #43 or something). A quick look at my Overstreet showed that was the issue with a value of $10 or more.

That said, there are a LOT of really cool comics here. Lots of Marvel/DC: Conan, Star Wars, Thor, Jonah Hex, Warlord, Sgt Rock, etc. There is some Thor from around #200, nice stuff, story & art-wise. Comics themselves are mostly in the VG & F conditions, due mostly to how they were stored (not bagged/boarded & in regular cardboard boxes). Not finding a lot that I need, but I'd hardly be in the running for largest collection if it did have scads of stuff I didn't.....

BUT, I will be giving a lot of these comics away to people who come by on April 20th. I have this stuff, but most other people do not. Depending on how many people show up, I'm thinking most people can walk away with 10-40 comics, ranging in "book value" from 50 cents to $2 or $3 each, and some good reading....

Don't forget about the Drink and Swap for the leftovers. Sounds like some fun stuff.