Captain Blue Hen Comics & Entertainment

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Not only to herald in Christopher Walken‘s birthday today, but to remind everyone that “Ol Blue” is back on top, Baby!!

Yes, a copy of Action #1 just sold for 1.5 million bucks! – easily topping, smashing, one might say, the short held record by Detective #27. It also gave lots of us hope in discovering something special ourselves. The story goes that this copy was only recenting discovered, as it had been hidden inside of an old movie magazine. If you remember, a decent sized golden age collection I picked up last year had just surfaced when a house was being demolished. Then within the same week, a young lady sold me the “Dale and Jeff” collection – comics from the 40′s and 50′s that her Dad and uncle had as kids (you guessed it, the two brothers had to write their names on many of them! !@#*!^&!). None of these had been on the market before. Then, just two weeks ago, that same young lady contacted me again to say that she had found more! I can’t resist the old stuff and bought them, too. This new assortment had lots of Classics Illustrated, Westerns, War, Dell movie titles, and some superheroes – especially Superboy and Adventure Comics. Highlights? Are you a dog lover? Well, have we got something for you!! How about not only the first appearance of the Bathound in Batman # 82, but the first appearance of Krypto in Adventure Comics # 210 ? Check the showcases, as there are some issues I have never run across in 35 years of doing this stuff!

Not into comics quite that old? Joe has got some new inventory for ya. He just picked up a collection with a number of nice runs, which he will be offering at some seriously discounted prices. These will be put out as they are processed, but you can get your hands on a nice Spider-Woman and Ms Marvel set right now, as well as some early Savage Sword of Conans and a sweet deal on a complete Preacher TPB set. These won’t last long, so once again, youse website readers are getting the news first!

And here’s a REAL advance notice and another auction story: I just hit another auction yesterday and picked up 3,000 + issues. There were 9 long boxes of comics – not bagged or boarded, so probably 300 per box – and 9 more smaller “non-comic” boxes with probably 200 per. The auction site listed the time that the paper goods/comics/books were to be offered. I had been to this particular auction house many times in the past and this was their normal procedure and they always seemed to stick to the schedule. So, I arrived about 40 minutes ahead and started to flip through the boxes. They were newer issues, mostly the more popular titles, but completely out of order. I had not really gone through all of them when the auctioner decided to start that session a half hour early and the comics were first!! Now I’ve been to this auction in the past when they had similar comics for sale, and there had always been other comic retailers there and they went for more than I wanted to invest in time and money. I think they might have heard from a few upset people afterward. Anyway, one particular box (had a fair amount of Star Wars comics in it) had an absentee bid placed, so they started with that one. I outbid that person. Then, they decided to auction each box separately. There was some interest in the crowd, but I won the next 8 boxes. Now all of the long boxes were gone and the 9 smaller lots were left. People were looking at me and I guess maybe they figured that they should get into the action, because now more joined the fray. The bids were going up for the smaller, though not better, lots. I shared the wealth a little, and only got 3 of those last 9 lots. A couple of people even referred to me as the “comic guy”. Now I have to start sorting. I really don’t know for sure what I bought, but I know it was a good deal and some of these will make their way to you in sets/runs at significant discounts, as Captain Blue Hen Comics is known for!

While, I’m at this typing thing, I might as well mention a few other items: Kita is our Tee-shirt maven and has just ordered and received some new designs in the shop. Check them out. These are not all super-hero related. The problem with ordering tee-shirts is that we need to put together a sizable order to get a discount that allows us to order them. Sometimes special orders have to wait until we gather enough to meet required minimums. But on a related note, we are thinking about creating our own CBH tee-shirt and maybe an ART CONTEST is in order!? Got any ideas or suggestions for how to run it? Share them with Kita before we start. Thanks!

We know that some of our customers have that “collector’s gene” and they save more than just comics. That young lady who just sold me the second part of her Dad’s comics also found baseball cards from the same era! ’50s baseball cards! When I was the owner, my actual business name was Captain Blue Hen Comics and Cards, but I elected to forgo the card market years ago. I sent her to our good friends at The Collectors’ Box in the University Plaza – just 3 miles back on Rt 273. They are about the only full-fledged card shop left standing in New Castle County. If you have an interest in this sort of thing, stop by their shop and let John know that we sent you.

I had a pleasant experience Saturday with a Craigslist post. I responded to someone who had some silver age comics for sale. One the phone, he mentioned that he was cleaning out the attic and had found them. Being sort of like the guys on “American Pickers”, I asked if he had any other collectibles, like coins, cards, etc. Sure enough, he found some baseball cards from the mid 60′s as well as some Batman, Man from Uncle and other neat stuff. And.. he is a “Bow Tie” man – for the confused, he loves old Chevys, also! I bought the comics and we agreed on a price for the baseball cards. If interested, I already put them up on eBay. Star cards (Mays, Koufax, Ford, Berra, Rose, Spahn,Killebrew, McCovey, etc.) and several groups of 1964 to 1968 cards are up for grabs. Find “CBHCOMICS” under your seller search. They end this Sunday.

By the way, besides “Law and Order” and its seemingly infinite offshoots and imitators, two of my favorite shows now are “American Pickers” and “Pawn Stars” on the History Channel. You have to catch these and you will be hooked. Rick, the Old Man, Big Hoss and Chumley are a riot! And, you’ll learn something!

How can I mention TV shows without saying something about “American Idol“? It’s a shame that Paige had laryngitis, but her last efforts weren’t cutting it. This year’s talent hasn’t hit me overall as being outstanding. I like Big Mike’s voice and think he’s mere presence is gong to take him far. Right now, who’s record might I buy? It would be Crystal’s. I like that Janis Joplin sound and style. Ellen – I like her, but she doesn’t really seem to be able to offer much actual musical advice – sort of like Myley Cyrus‘s comments. At least Usher has some cred.

My word, according to the counter down below my words are over 1200 so far, so I’ll wrap this up now. Just a couple of reminders: we WILL be doing our “4th of July Flea Market”. Details coming soon. And, we are hoping to sponsor an actual comic show around September.

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This entry was posted by paul on Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 at 10:37 AM and is filed under Paul Mart, Store News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.