LOST OUT ON A BARGAIN?

[stevezodiac]

DOES ANYONE HAVE STORIES OF MISSING OUT ON BARGAIN COMICS? A FEW YEARS AGO AT MY LOCAL ANTIQUE MARKET I PICKED UP DOZENS OF ISSUES OF JINGLES AND TIP TOPS FROM THE 50S IN SUPERB CONDITION - ABOUT 50P EACH! SADLY AT THE SAME MARKET I CAME ACROSS A BOX OF ABOUT 50 DISC AND MUSIC ECHOES POP PAPER FROM 1969/70. THE STALLHOLDER SAID HE'D ACCEPT FIFTY QUID FOR THEM, I WALKED AWAY A FEW STEPS TO CHECK IF I HAD THAT MUCH CASH ON ME, FOUND I HAD AND TURNED TO GO BACK AND BUY THEM ONLY TO SEE ANOTHER BOZO BUYING THEM! WHAT WAS MOST IRRITATING WAS THAT IT WAS ABOUT 1 O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON AND THEY MUST HAVE BEEN THERE SINCE 9 O'CLOCK UNSOLD. CONFUCIOUS HE SAY:" MAN WHO BEATS ABOUT SHRUB WILL SURELY COME A CROPPER - BIG TIME" I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN THAT EPISODE IN MY COLLECTING LIFE AND NEVER WILL - MY GRAVESTONE WILL READ: HERE LIES STEVE MITCHELL - BEATEN TO A BOX OF DISCS - THE GREAT NIT. (DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THAT SCHOOLBOY IN THE KNACK SAYING "YOU BIG NIT, SIR" TO TEACHER MICHAEL CRAWFORD?)

[Kashgar]

Over the years too may to mention but then again I imagine I've pipped someone else to the post enough times so that it evens out.
The greatest bargain I can think of was one that I didn't miss out on personally,as I didn't know about it till after the sale had occured, but it still haunts me as one of those moments when you wish you could have been on the spot. It was the jumble sale find of a lifetime when a Glasgow guy named Douglas Maxwell found a complete run of Broons and Oor Wullie books 1948-1959 just lying in a box and walked away with them all for a tenner and this at a time when the first four books in the run were still 'unknown' editions. Now there's a jumble sale I'd like to have walked into ten minutes before Doug!