Beginnings

[NP]

Dark they were And Golden Eyed in London did have British comics when I went there in 1974- apart from all the Batman and Marvel stuff, they had a big stack of TV 21s which I worked my way through in the summer and autumn of that year. I got 2 per visit, they were the exorbitant price of 30p each, except for issue 4 which was 70p. They felt like gold dust. I've still got them, 40 years later.

I started collecting comics in 1965, Wham and TV21, then Smash! in 66 and Pow! in 67. I would also pick up Beano, Dandy, Beezer, Sparky, Buster and TV Comic when I could. My interest in collecting new comics suddenly waned in early 1969 with the 'new' IPC-style Smash! and I was never much interested in collecting anything after 1970. I was tempted back twice- in 1972 when Mighty World of Marvel began, but I think that was a nostalgia kick for Smash! and Pow!, and around 1973 or 4 when Buster ran a strip called 'Kids of Stalag 45' or something, which for some reason I thought was great. Never even noticed Whoopee or Krazy or anything until I decided to become a cartoonist for a living in 1980. Then I was rejected with distressing frequency by TV Comic, Beano, Dandy, Beezer, Sparky, Buster, and would have been by Smash! if it was still being published.

[stevezodiac]

I remember the LTS shop. I remember having to go down a back alley with all the rubbish bins outside the back of restaurants. You had to go up a narrow staircase to the shop. Its a wonder I didn't bump into Adam Faith as Budgie.

[Peter Gray]

-Collecting old comics has interested me very early on...always first in the line for school jumble sales/fetes rushing to the book stall to get Dennis the Menace 1966 annuial for example...Norman Shaw visits were like seeing Father Chrismtas!!! My best Christmas present from Mum and Dad were old comics which they told me they bought from Norman shaw...My Dad liked comics bring a Graphic designer..artist..cartoonist..so he enjoyed seeing Beano and Dandys from his childhood..my Mum never understands my hobby has an Adult...I'm not the most tidiest comic collector...though I have had a big sort out recently bagging and sorting..
Beano and dandy goldon book..Best of Beezer/Topper...Big Comic (especially) / Funny Fortnightly all encouraged me..
stopped a bit for many years then toonhound.com and comicsuk forum and later Lews blog got me interested again...also moving out having my own flat and space greatly increased my collection plus living near a Saturday car boot walking distances ...
I've stopped using ebay and using 30th century shop instead so limiting myself...got very addicted....and costly..

So its all toonhounds fault,,,

Also my Wife is very understanding of my comic collecting hobby...thank goodness!!!

[Al]

My comic collecting started with issue #3 of Battle Picture Weekly back in 1975. Bought for me by my mum. I’d obviously seen and read comics prior to that (round my nan's), but never once did I think about actually buying any. I was only on 50p a week pocket money, which usually went on Buttersnap chocolate bars (later Dime Bar) and Trebor Refresher chews.

However, after reading that issue of Battle Picture Weekly I was hooked. At 13, I was a very late starter to comic world, but soon made up for it by stopping those confectionary-naughties, and saving my money. After I accumulated about £5, I went round to my mates’ house and bought ALL his old comics for 1p each. This included issues #1 and #2 of Battle, the early Warlords and loads of Lion’s, Valiant’s, Victor’s, Sparky’s and Shiver & Shake’s. Which I still have and love.

After about a year, I became a newspaper boy for Mr Macefield of Chatsworth Road, Hackney and I was in comic-heaven. Sprawled out on the lower shelves was a plethora of comics. Titles which I had seen but never read, until now. Because now I was in the big money. I was earning £1.80 a week plus my 50p pocket money. All of it went on comics and good ol’ Mr Macefield always knocked 10% off the price, which meant I could get another comic! That’s when I started collecting Action, Hotspur, Hornet, Wizard, Monster Fun, Krazy, Mickey Mouse and Cheeky. Which I also still have and love.

I was lucky in the Mum stakes, because she loved them as much as I did, so she never threw them out. However, she always made sure that as soon as I plopped the comics on the kitchen table on the Saturday morning after my rounds, she would read them first (while I watched Multi-Coloured Swapshop). Action and Battle Picture Weekly being her favourites (like me).

I eased off the collecting bug throughout the 80's and 90's, but it was rekindled when I wanted to build a website back in 2000, but didn't know what to have as its subject matter. Football...no; My family....no; British comics...oh yes! This also coincided with the invention of eBay, and the rest, as they say, is history.

My Excel spreadsheet tells me that I have now collected 7952 comics, 279 annuals and 48 specials. I’m also lucky in that when my kids moved out, my comics moved in (from the attic). They are all in air-tight boxes on shelves in the spare bedroom. Of course, with eBay, the collecting bug is still going on

[paul p]

My comic collecting started with issue #3 of Battle Picture Weekly back in 1975. Bought for me by my mum. I’d obviously seen and read comics prior to that (round my nan's), but never once did I think about actually buying any. I was only on 50p a week pocket money, which usually went on Buttersnap chocolate bars (later Dime Bar) and Trebor Refresher chews.

However, after reading that issue of Battle Picture Weekly I was hooked. At 13, I was a very late starter to comic world, but soon made up for it by stopping those confectionary-naughties, and saving my money. After I accumulated about £5, I went round to my mates’ house and bought ALL his old comics for 1p each. This included issues #1 and #2 of Battle, the early Warlords and loads of Lion’s, Valiant’s, Victor’s, Sparky’s and Shiver & Shake’s. Which I still have and love.

After about a year, I became a newspaper boy for Mr Macefield of Chatsworth Road, Hackney and I was in comic-heaven. Sprawled out on the lower shelves was a plethora of comics. Titles which I had seen but never read, until now. Because now I was in the big money. I was earning £1.80 a week plus my 50p pocket money. All of it went on comics and good ol’ Mr Macefield always knocked 10% off the price, which meant I could get another comic! That’s when I started collecting Action, Hotspur, Hornet, Wizard, Monster Fun, Krazy, Mickey Mouse and Cheeky. Which I also still have and love.

I was lucky in the Mum stakes, because she loved them as much as I did, so she never threw them out. However, she always made sure that as soon as I plopped the comics on the kitchen table on the Saturday morning after my rounds, she would read them first (while I watched Multi-Coloured Swapshop). Action and Battle Picture Weekly being her favourites (like me).

I eased off the collecting bug throughout the 80's and 90's, but it was rekindled when I wanted to build a website back in 2000, but didn't know what to have as its subject matter. Football...no; My family....no; British comics...oh yes! This also coincided with the invention of eBay, and the rest, as they say, is history.

My Excel spreadsheet tells me that I have now collected 7952 comics, 279 annuals and 48 specials. I’m also lucky in that when my kids moved out, my comics moved in (from the attic). They are all in air-tight boxes on shelves in the spare bedroom. Of course, with eBay, the collecting bug is still going on

Wow, nearly 8000 comics is very impressive. My Excel spreadsheet tells me I have 3751 comics a number of specials and annuals but I havent counted them up yet but the space needed for 8000 is frightening!!

My comic collecting initially started in the 70's when I was a boy and carried on through my teens in the 80's. I always focused on Buster, Whizzer & Chips, Whoopee although did indulge in Scream, Champ and Spike a little. I rarely bought the Dandy and the Beano but was mad about Marvel and DC as well.

Due to space, I never really maintained much of a collection as a boy but have managed to retain a number of US comics that have been in multiple comic boxes in my brothers house for many years. When I bought my first home in the 90's, whilst I always had an affection for comics, I never had the space to really think about it. This all changed when I moved home at the end of 2012 and now have a decent size loft. In April/May for some reason I saw some UK Comics on DVD on ebay and bought them. Not sure why but that was it, I've bought loads since then. Due to the cost and volume of my new addiction, I have had to start tailoring the comics that I search for on Ebay and a couple of other sites otherwise I wont be able to afford to stay in my new home for long and my wife will divorce me!! My comics are all boxed in the loft and I have bagged and boarded my Roy of the Rovers and Buster collections plus a few others but hope to get to them over the next few months. I wish I had though of doing this as I was buying them. The comics that I collect and have either completed or hope to complete are Buster, Monster Fun, Whizzer & Chips, Whoopee, Krazy, Cheeky, Scream, Champ, Spike, Jackpot, Shiver & Shake, School Fun, ROTR, Cor, Wow, BVC. Once this lot is done, if ever, I may have a look at more of the DC Thompson titles although do have a few of these as well.

[Kashgar]

Just goes to show how mitooken in my assumptions I have been!

kashagar: I have had these visions---for a few yars now--of you as a young pup in the 1960s, purchasing regular orders of BEANO/ DANDY/ TOPPER BEEZER/ SPARKY/ BUSTER/ MANDY /JUDY /VICTOR /HOTSPUR /WHAM! SMASH! POW! ---to name the mere tip of the iceberg, spend all your free time reading them, then storing them carefully in proper storage, correctly assuming that in the fairly 'near future ' there would be a fair bit of interest in the material therein......


You reveal above that it was 'only' 1974 that you started amassing your massive archives: so I would be interested to hear how difficult--or surprizingly easy, perhaps---it was, to obtain a full run of, say, 1963 BEANO or DANDY comics in, say, 1975, to thrust forward an arbitary example.

Hi Rab,

In truth, I think it is probably easier to collect now than it was back then. More expensive but, in terms of access to available issues if you can afford them, easier.
Obviously most things since 1974 have been easy to collect as I just bought titles that interested me as they were published. For instance I've had all things Beano on standing order since June 1974. But even then the notion of 'easy' has to be tempered with the need to have the patience to persevere. I know a lot of collectors who started out with grand plans who have fallen by the wayside in the last four decades.
As for my childhood comic reading, I would read pretty most anything I could lay my hands on but I think the thing that was present even then and which I think fuelled my later comic collecting was the fascination with the 'ones that got away'. The titles and issue numbers that I didn't get to see. And I've been chasing 'the ones that got away' in one way or another ever since.

[philcom55]

I can only remember a period of about three months during my early teens when I made a conscious attempt to give up comics for good. Even then it wasn’t as if I actually wanted to - rather that I felt as though I ‘ought’ to follow my friends in putting aside childish things and preparing for a life of adult responsibilities. All it took was the sight of a spinner rack in a department store and I was hooked all over again!

Having said that the focus and form of my collecting have changed many times during the last fifty years or so. The very first comics I encountered - titles such as Harold Hare, Topper, Beezer, Dandy and Beano - were read and enjoyed, then disposed of almost as casually as tea leaves and the evening newspaper. Comics were ephemeral indulgences on a par with gobstoppers, lucky bags, water pistols, cap bombs and transfer sheets - all acquired out of my limited pocket money from Mr Norbury’s magical paper shop. What’s more, the weighty decision to splash out on a relatively expensive comic rather than ice cream or sweets would often be prompted by the added novelty of a free gift: something that became quite common during the early 1960s as publishers like DC Thomson, Odhams and Fleetway fought for my pennies as though their lives depended on it. Of course their main aim was always to lock readers into the fixed commitment of a standing order (hence the serial nature of most British stories, with their ‘continued next week’ cliffhangers) - and sure enough I eventually succumbed to this siren song by convincing my mum that, as she had her Woman’s Weekly and my Dad had his newspaper, it was only fair that I ought to have my own comic every week! Thus, beginning with TV Comic (which had recently begun to feature Supercar and Fireball XL5), I started to accumulate a growing pile of consecutive issues which qualified me as a proper collector for the first time - though it still didn’t prevent me from picking up odd free-gift issues of other comics like Hornet and Valiant. Over the next ten years my standing order underwent regular changes, as well as expanding from one weekly title to two. Comics that found their way onto the family paper bill at various times during this period included Boys’ World, Eagle, Wham!, TV Century 21, Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic, Terrific, Valiant and Lion! - and with each shift in my enthusiasm I generally allowed any earlier collection to be disposed of with the household waste (in those days the thought that old British comics could actually be worth money would have been laughable!).

However this was only part of the story as I was lucky enough to be around just as Thorpe & Porter began importing American comic books on a regular basis for the first time in almost twenty years. Better still I happened to have an uncle who, remembering these with affection from his own pre-war childhood, developed a habit of buying copies to read on his dinner break at work - after which he passed them on to me! The funny thing is that these comics, which mostly featured one-off stories rather than the endlessly-continued serials of their British equivalents, proved to be collectable in a new way. In effect they became the playground version of legal tender!

Consequently a small pile of American comic books could be like a bank account, allowing you to swap individual issues over and over again, thereby reading as many as a dozen comics for the price of one. And just like a bank balance one judged the value of one’s collection by its size rather than the actual contents at any one time.

Then one day I discovered Stan Lee and Marvel Comics, and everything changed overnight! Thanks to their innovative inclusion of artists’ credits and the exciting feeling that we neophyte ‘Marvelites’ were in on the ground floor at the creation of a whole new universe I turned my nose up at ‘Brand X’ (DC, Dell, Charlton, etc.) and began to seek out individual titles like Spider-Man and Fantastic Four with fanatical zeal - carefully building up complete runs that I wouldn’t even dream of swapping. This was collecting on a whole new level of seriousness and, thanks to Odhams’ fortuitous creation of their ‘Power Comics’ line, I was able to combine my British and American purchases into a single project.

So, for about three years I ‘Faced Front’ and ‘Made Mine Marvel’ as the Inhumans, the Silver Surfer, Dormammu, Galactus and even the Norse Ragnarok came and went in thrilling succession. Then, all of a sudden, it somehow seemed as though I’d had enough. Maybe there are only so many times you can watch the universe flicker on the brink of extinction without becoming the tiniest bit bored; besides which Fantastic and Terrific had in the meantime caught up with the backlog of American material and duly expired. This was the comic collector’s equivalent of the long night of the soul and it resulted in a firm decision to move on with my life: I said farewell to the FF, Nick Fury, Spidey, Doctor Strange and friends, boxed up my collection, and resolved never to look back.

As I said this resolution lasted for all of three months...and the thing that broke it was a brand new collecting drive: nostalgia! The fact is that once the Marvelite blinkers had fallen from my eyes I began to notice other comics once more - in particular those I’d enjoyed years before like Green Lantern, Flash, Justice League of America...not to mention TV21, Eagle, Valiant and the newly-revamped Smash! And in addition to the current incarnations of those titles I discovered that a number of my contemporaries at school had large collections they were eager to offload in exchange for my box of Marvel comics! Thus I progressed to the next stage of the obsessive collector as I began to look more and more to the past, and less and less to the present.

I was just fourteen years old!

A couple of years later my brother picked up a cheaply-produced fanzine from a Manchester newsagent, wondering if it might interest me. Needless to say it did - leading in no time at all to pilgrimages to Dark They Were and Golden Eyed, the first London Comic Marts and my own fanzine submissions as an enthusiastic fan artist. After that there was no going back!

But though comic collecting has remained an important part of my life from then till now it has continued to evolve. Unlike Derek and Ray I’ve become less of a completist and more of a sampler - spreading out my interest across a wide range of comics-related fields. Whereas my original enthusiasm was confined to serious stories with a fantastic element - Superheroes, Science Fiction, Fantasy, etc. - it gradually widened to include Humour, Westerns, War, Girls’ and Nursery comics...even Sport! And as writers and artists became more widely known through the efforts of a handful of pioneering researchers I started to follow creators rather than characters.

As Rab says, old comics were much more affordable back in the early 1970s (though even then the thought of splashing out two weeks’ pocket money on a single item like Fantastic Four no.1 or Amazing Fantasy no.15 was more than I was prepared to countenance!). While not particularly plentiful British comics were especially cheap when you could find them as most fans simply weren’t interested in the home-grown material: this allowed people like Denis Gifford and Bob Monkhouse to stagger home with masses of rare titles and artwork that nobody else wanted! Since then, of course, prices have skyrocketed for many items leading to the appalling phenomenon of ‘slabbing’ in America, and making any prospect of acquiring long runs of early Dandys or Beanos out of the question for the less well-off.

In retrospect it makes me squirm to think of all the things I could have bought at some of the earliest comic marts I attended! These days, not having a great deal of spare cash, I rarely buy anything from Ebay or dealers such as 30th Century Comics - yet in some ways this has become an advantage as it forces me to search out obscure and unregarded items instead. And, while my initial preference for American comic books has become somewhat dimmed by the exhaustive extent to which they’ve been catalogued and reprinted in recent years, the joy of British comics is that there is still so much Terra incognita to explore. In a way I’ve come to think of my collecting as a form of archaeology: exploring those areas of British comics that have yet to become fashionable with other comics fans. And it never ceases to amaze me how many amazing treasures there are out there, just waiting for the discerning collector to uncover...!

- Phil Rushton

[peace355]

I used to get Twinkle bought for me weekly and then graduated to reading my sister's Bunty, Mandy and Judy. Also I regularly got Buster and occasionally a Beano. Unfortunately every two years the big pile of weekly comics got thrown into black bags and burnt, which means I'm still trying to rebuild the collection of comics I used to read and to think of all those burnt comics is painful! One thing my mum did let me keep was all my annuals which included my own and annuals inherited from cousins; Twinkle, Bunty, Mandy, Judy, Buster, Whizzer and Chips, Topper and Beezer. I also kept hold of all my picture story library books, so it wasn't all bad!

My interest in comics never really went away and I ended up picking up a copy of panini comics (UK reprints) Essential X-Men, which led to building up a serious collection of X-Men comics and other American comics. Occasionally I would flick through my old UK annuals, but didn't start trying to collect them until 4 years ago. I mostly do it through ebay, sometimes I find annuals in second hand book shops and if there is a specific comic I am looking for to complete a story I'll usually try 30thcentury comics catalogue.

[Phoenix]

What a fascinating and detailed post, Phil. And quite incidentally, the biographical element within it does suggest that beyond that element in our lives that is appropriately dealt with on comicsuk, there is a further 99% that is just never revealed here. Since reading it I have spent some time reflecting yet again on my own childhood reading, in particular thinking about my attitude to it at the time. The facts are well enough documented elsewhere on the forum, but I don't think I have ever yet considered the nature of my reading, and why I made the choices that I did. From a very early age I was fascinated by the printed word, especially so if it was telling me a story. My earliest library books had pictures accompanying the text, of course, for example in works by Alison Uttley and Beatrix Potter, and they told stories about animals, almost all anthropomorphic. By this time I had already discovered Rupert Bear in a friend's mother's Daily Express, and in some annuals, so later I easily accepted the appearance and speech of Biffo the Bear and Korky the Cat, although I rarely had the opportunity to read The Dandy or The Beano. When I was eight, either for my birthday or for Christmas, I was given one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books, and although I didn't read it straightaway, I think that was roughly the end of the line for Little Grey Rabbit, Fuzzypeg, Moldy Warp, Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Biffo and Korky. A few drawings by Eileen Soper were enough, when combined with lots of pages of text, to convert the anthropomorphics into memories. Then came The Wizard when I was nine, followed in short order, once the Lancaster Royal Infirmary staff had sewn me up and released me, minus my appendix, by Adventure, The Rover and The Hotspur. My life had altered irrevocably. Why?

I believe it was a question of intensity. I do not wish to denigrate in any way the creative skills and works of Alison Uttley or Beatrix Potter, but I think I had just grown out of them. For me, the strips in The Dandy and The Beano, which could certainly make me laugh, simply lacked substance. I needed more than they were offering. Enid Blyton had provided some of it, as the Billy Bunter yellow-back novels and the detective adventures of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were to do later. Real people as opposed to animals will have had something to do with it, but there was something more in The Wizard and its companion papers, something visceral. I once described their effect on me when reading them for the first time as opening a window on joy. In that hospital bed I read in wonder, over and over again, every word of every story, and I have never felt any different about them since, and I still feel a surge of anticipation every time I decide to read a serial again for the umpteenth time. I know what's coming because I know them so well, but I still feel that excitement. It's much more than liking the serials, more than loving them even. It's as if I live them, and on reflection I think I was doing something similar, in embryo, with Peter Rabbit, Rupert and Korky. I still think about them from time to time with real affection, but I don't really want to read the stories again. Thomsons' Big Four though are a completely different ball game.

[Lew Stringer]

All good stuff. It's interesting to hear that some collectors only focus on certain titles or eras. Ever since I was a kid I've tried a bit of everything comics-wise, and still do.

To add to my recollections earlier, perhaps I should mention that over the years I've had periodic sort-outs where I've either binned, burned, sold, or gave to charity, various piles of comics I no longer wanted. (Most of the IPC humour comics I avidly collected in the 1970s are long gone, apart from a few selected issues, and I have no regrets. Likewise, although I've been buying American comics every month since 1967 I now have practically none from 1975 to the present. I tend to throw them out after a year or so because I'm unlikely to read them again.) Do any of you do this, or do you hang onto everything?

As regards my collection, like some others here, I have titles dating back to the 19th Century. I've never restricted myself to my own nostalgia. It's always good to discover comics from before you were born, and to see how they reflected the attitudes, humour, and designs of their times.

[paul p]

I have thrown comics away in my youth but now wouldnt dream of it. One of the reasons I have started collecting again and it may sound silly is because I want to try and retain some of the past history regarding UK comics and I assume as each year goes by, each title becomes more scarce. I'm hoping I can attain some full collections and pass onto my children or another collector in the future when I'm past it. I have about three large boxes of duplicates in my loft and may have thrown these away in the past but I would rather they go to a good home for 99p (obviously I want more than this) and thus continuing someone else's collection.

[starscape]

I can remember a few comics floating around from my youth. Mighty World of Marvel, Planet of the Apes, Shazam!, Plastic Man and Whoopee! being particular favourites. The first comic I really collected was Captain Britain weekly, with Krazy also lighting my fire. I was probably getting around 12 comics a week then (British) but only CB and Krazy as 'collections' until Starlord and Tornado (I always resented 2000AD a little [which I also bought] for taking them from me).

Never really got into DC Thomson. Bought their humour comics occasionally but much preferred the characters in Sparky or Cracker to Beano/Dandy. That said, they seemed far behind Monster Fun or Whoopee!

Their adventure comics were fairly dull too (I know someone you might know that refers to them as Dull Comics Thomson). Warlord and Bullet were exceptions but most seemed stuck in the stiff-upper lip version of the war, rather than the solid action of Battle or future-thrills of 2000AD and MWoM.

I was fairly lucky in that comics grew with me. Crisis and Revolver being standouts of the adult market. On the US front, I collected all the UK Marvels, with many of the US too. Certain DC titles were of interest but only when Marvel creators switched. Too juvenile before then.

Naturally, when I began the comic shop, aside from my own personal collection, I had thousands of them. Too many to ever read. Eventually, I left the UK and sold virtually all of them. Starlord and Ghost Rider being the titles I kept most notably (and some UK golden age superheroes of which Marvelman is the best known).

Since returning to Britain, I've restarted a collection (much to my surprise). Partly for nostalgia purposes and partly becuase the Silver Age/Bronze Age Marvel is easily the greatest period for super-heroes, these are largely Marvel UK. I also retained Crisis and Revolver as I think they are some of the greatest comic ever written, along with Complete Judge Dredds and 2000AD Best of monthlies. There's also a few more I collect, e.g. the JLA/JSA team-ups and a number of other little titles here and there.

I also have a good collection of a number of other Brits from the 80s Eagle to various funnies, and a sizeable collection of annuals, just to read. Comics like the Eagle and The Crunch are much better than I had realised (well, not the photo-Eagle period). I also enjoy DCT adventure comics much more. In fact, it almost seemed to be written for adults. I can't see there'd be enough thrills for a kid raised on TV.

These days, I bulk buy from eBay for reading material but, for collections, I prefer to discover them through fairs, second-hand shops etc. eBay is just too easy. No satisfaction from clicking a button.

So, yes, I have happily bought and sold my collection. And, just like my restarted record collection, I'd thoroughly recommend it. Rediscovering old friends is a joyous affair.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Has anyone on here ever encountered an over-serious, humourless comics collector, who actually made you wear surgical gloves before handling their priceless booty, or even kept the goods locked out of sight?

I've definitely met at least one vinyl record collector like this, he was livid, agitated and furious when I had the audacity to remove his Motorhead picture discs from their protective sleeves.

[Kashgar]

Has anyone on here ever encountered an over-serious, humourless comics collector, who actually made you wear surgical gloves before handling their priceless booty, or even kept the goods locked out of sight?

I've definitely met at least one vinyl record collector like this, he was livid, agitated and furious when I had the audacity to remove his Motorhead picture discs from their protective sleeves.

I'm not sure whether I would qualify in the over-serious, humourless category or not to be quite honest Rab. I think it depends on the degree to which you refer.
I have no problem at all with sharing information and, although I don't do this myself, I see no problem with people sharing scans from their collection for the perusal of others but I think it becomes a little different when 'sharing' the comics themselves is involved.
I think most collectors would like to maintain items in their collection in a condition no worse then when they purchased them and this involves a degree of collection husbandry, certainly on older more fragile comics or annuals or alternatively on newer pristine items that may perhaps border on the humourless depending on your intrepretation of such things. I wouldn't go as far as the use of surgical gloves though but then, now you come to mention it ....!

[Muffy]

It was my mum who wanted to keep everything. I'd take some of the titles other people had given me and burn some secretly at the back of the garden - sometimes she'd find small pieces of comic paper left over the next day and be cross - she thought they would be valuable in years to come. When my sister's oldest was able to read I tried giving some of her old comics back to her, for her children to read, "Oh no, I don't keep old stuff." She said.

My brother still has most of his too, the hoarder gene too - though they are unread for 3 decades now, probably 300 issues or so, kept safely in his boxes.

It was nice selling some 'non-core' on ebay too, though often not for enough, X-men 141 VFN only £8 and the like.
The ones I chose, the ones I paid my hard earned money for (I had an evening paper round, 2 days a week in the mid '80s), the ones I read and adored. These are the ones I kept in good condition, they are the ones I still treasure and will keep forever. I still remember walking every week to collect my regular orders from the newsagents box. And of course I still have that first one.