Greatest comic book collection

(via boingboing)

Comic book dealer Chuck Rozanski has written a 17-part series on his 1977 purchase of the greatest collection of golden age comic books. He essentially rescued them from the collector's heirs who threw away some and would have thrown away the rest.

This tale has nothing to do with coins, computers, or numismatic literature. I am bringing it to your attention because it has a lot of insights about collecting, dealing collectables, and what your heirs are going to do to your collection. One amusing tidbit is that Mr. Rozanski was aparently the first person to realize that mint condition comic books from the 1930s, perhaps finest known example and unique in mint, were worth more than 2x the price well-used copy. He started charging 4x or 5x the price of a reading copy. Many collectors hated him for it and he lost friends over it.