By late 1965 I was a devoted Marvel comics collector and I was determined to get all the back issues of all the titles that I collected which was all of the superhero titles and even some of the peripheral titles like Sgt. Fury and The Rawhide Kid. Of course in the small backwater town of Savannah, Georgia such a task was very difficult. There were no used bookstores with significant numbers of old comics and comic book conventions hadn’t been invented yet. I had a long road ahead of me. Marvel had been publishing superhero comics since The Fantastic Four #1 in 1961 and I didn’t come on board until 1965 so there were a few hundred issues I needed. The only real recourse was mail order. In 1965 ads by Howard Rogofsky and soon other dealers were appearing in Marvel comics. Also in 1966 I subscribed to the most important fanzine for advertising old comics, The Rocket’s Blast – Comicollector and I started my search with those two leads.
In this modern day Internet age mail order is easy. You see the exact comic book you want on a website and click your computer mouse a few times and the book is on its way. Back in the 1960s mail order was a laborious, expensive, time consuming process. First you had to invest .06 in a stamp to send for the dealer’s price list. Don’t laugh. 06 cents was not a trivial sum of money for a kid in the 1960s. It was half the price of a new comic book! Some dealers even asked for a self stamped addressed envelope and some even had the audacity to charge a fee of .25 or .50 for their latest list. Then you waited a few days for the snail mail price list to arrive. You picked what books you wanted and mailed in your check. That was the fun part but another .06 stamp had to be invested. Then you waited the customary “4 to 6 weeks” for delivery. That was the hard part.
And all this waiting frequently led to nothing if your books were out of stock which was a common occurrence. But comic collectors are a hardy breed committed to their hobby so I just kept plugging away with the stamps and the lists and the waiting. I relentlessly pursued this mail order regimen from 1967 to 1970 when I finished my Marvel comics collection with the purchase of The Fantastic Four #1 circa 1970. I could rest some then but I wasn’t done yet. After 1970 up until 1977 when I joined the Air Force I dabbled in mail order trying to acquire back issues of the pre-Marvel monster books like Tales To Astonish, Journey Into Mystery and so on. Also I started a new passion circa 1971, collecting EC comics. Fortunately by the late 1970s comic book speciality stores and comic book conventions were available and I did very little mail order after 1977.
Howard Rogofsky
Even if you’re a comic book collector who didn’t do much mail order, you’ve heard of Howard Rogofsky. Bill Schelly’s book Founders of Comic Fandom says Rogofsky was the first full time back issue comic dealer. I remember reading many years ago that he was the first dealer to advertise to buy comic books in magazines such as TV Guide. Schelly also says in his book that Rogofsky charged higher prices than other dealers and I agree. The first thing I noticed when I received my first Rogofsky price list in 1967 was the high prices. I was accustomed to thrift shops and used books stores when they had comic books only asking .05 or .10 each. I had never heard of anybody selling used comic books with a number on the left side of the decimal point! I have a Rogofsky price list from 1974 with a price of $2,001 for Action #1. I don’t have a 1974 Overstreet Price Guide but I checked my earliest edition from 1978 and the interpolated Very Good (VG) price is $3281. So I doubt the 1974 Guide has a VG price near $2,000. And Rogofsky didn’t grade books so maybe his $2,000 copy was only a Good or less. Also, regardless of the Guide price in 1974 you didn’t have to pay two grand for Action #1 in VG. I personally saw a VG copy at a comic convention in Atlanta in 1977 in a glass display case for $500. Also circa 1973/74 The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom (TBG) reported on the bizarre case of a Mr. Mitchell Mehdy paying the unheard price of $1,800 for an Action #1. The case was so shocking and embarrassing that TBG columnist Murray Bishoff said the publicity for such incidents was harmful to comic fandom since it confirmed the suspicions of the general public that comic book fans were insane. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Rogofsky was familiar with the Mehdy case.
So I wasn’t able to do much with Mr. Rogofsky. I don’t remember buying anything from him except one book. I had been considering starting an EC comics collection for the last few years but hadn’t bought any yet. About 1971 I spotted a Weird Science-Fantasy #25 in a Rogofsky price list. Of course he had the most expensive one on the planet priced at $12.00. That was a lot of money in 1971. I only paid $30.00 for a Fantastic Four #1 in 1970 by comparison. Also I was becoming more conscious about collecting books in higher grade and Mr. Rogofsky wasn’t noted for being diligent in grading comics. He famously stated in his lists that “Clear tape on the spine or inside the book is not considered a defect” and “Don’t request or expect Near Mint or Mint books.” But I was eager to start collecting ECs and willing to take a chance so I ordered it anyway. I received it while on vacation at my grandmother’s house in Tarrant City, Alabama. The book looked like a solid VG and had no tape on it. So far so good. I enjoyed reading the book and it confirmed all the good things I heard about EC and validated my decision to begin collecting them. Imagine my consternation then when the spine split completely on the book a few days later. To be fair Rogofsky had lots of customers and handled lots of books and maybe this was just a fluke. But I figured for $12.00 you should get a book that isn’t so brittle the spine splits after you read it once or twice. That was the end of my association with Mr. Rogofsky.
Robert Bell
I’ll always have a special affection for Robert Bell. He was my main source for back issue Marvels in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I probably bought more books from him than all my other mail order sources combined. I bought most of my Marvel “Key” books from him including Fantastic Four #1, Incredible Hulk #1, Tales Of Suspense #39, Tales To His Astonish #27 and #35, Journey Into Mystery #83, The X-Men #1 and The Avengers #1. His prices were in line with most other dealers but the main attraction with Bell was his reliability in sending out books in acceptable condition. Dealers in those days didn’t usually individually grade books and Bell was no exception, but you nearly always received a book that was a solid Very Good or a little better. There was ever never any problem with split spines, tape or water damage. He also sent out a note saying your order had been mailed which most dealers didn’t do and in later years he issued “Bell Money” which was good for a discount on your next order.
Mr. Bell was also an innovator. He was the first dealer to sell plastic protective bags. When I bought my last comic from Bell, Fantastic Four #1 in 1970 I lost track of him. Then in the early 1990s I met Gary Dolgoff at a comic convention in Philadelphia. Gary had bought out Mr. Bell’s business inventory and he provided me with a lead to tracking down Mr. Bell who was living in Florida. I contacted Mr. Bell and interviewed him over the phone. The interview was published in the fanzine Comic Book Marketplace #36 in 1996. Most of my experiences with Mr. Bell are in that interview so I won’t repeat them here. But please click here for some Bell price lists from the early 1970s with my comments that aren’t in the interview.
Maurice Henault
Next to Robert Bell, my favorite mail order dealer was Maurice Henault from Winnipeg, Canada. One day in 1967 an unsolicited postcard arrived from Canada from Books Unlimited. The card said collectible books were available and also a comic price list. Leaving no stone unturned in the quest for old Marvel comics I sent off a response to far away Canada to see what Books Unlimited had to offer me. The owner of Books Unlimited was Maurice Henault. I didn’t buy a lot of books from Mr. Henault but I was always pleased with what I did get. Unlike most comic dealers in the late 1960s Mr. Henault actually individually graded comic books! If you ordered a book in the higher grades it always looked pretty nice. He also was a little cheaper than Robert Bell and any other dealer I knew. Getting a better condition book at a lower price was wonderful and I wish now I had ordered more books from him. Mr. Henault also had a friendly habit of including handwritten and typed notes. I’ve included some of them here. I wasn’t the only collector who appreciated Mr. Henault. I remember reading, probably in The Rocket’s Blast – Comic Collector, a letter from a collector who praised Mr. Henault for his reasonable prices. I have no idea what happened to him when I stopped doing lots of mail order in 1972 but I’ll always wish him well.
Passaic Books
In addition to Books Unlimited I have lots of correspondence with other bookstores that issued comic lists or catalogs: Clint’s Books in Kansas City, Missouri, Grand Book Center in New York and Passaic Books in Passaic, New Jersey. Passaic Books is the only one of these I have documentation showing I bought something. I didn’t buy a lot of comics from them but their catalogs were the most fun to look through. They had lots of other cool stuff besides comics, like pulps, science fiction digests and monster magazines. Click here for some photos of pages from their catalogs. Judging from their catalogs it was the type of pop culture bookstore that I wished my town of Savannah could have had. I had to settle for the Globe Bookmart, which wasn’t bad but it wasn’t much compared to what those lucky Yankees had up in New Jersey.
Some incarnation of Passaic Books was still active as late as 2003. I was buying a large collection of high grade girlie magazines in Columbia, Missouri and the seller told me he had been in contact with a guy named Tom who was the current owner of Passaic Books. Tom wanted the seller to drive the magazines to him in New Jersey. I got most of the good material because I made the drive from Virginia Beach to Columbia before the seller did anything with Tom. A short while later I somehow got Tom’s email address and corresponded with him very briefly. I found out he had bought lots of high grade girlie magazines from the Napa Valley collection that I had also bought magazines from and in that case he had gotten most of the good stuff before I did.
All The Other Guys
I have dozens of other price lists from other dealers that I may or may not have done business with. I’m sure any comic collector from the late 1960s and early 1970s involved in mail order would recognize some of these names: Big timers Claude Held and Canadian dealer Ken Mitchell, and also Brian Laurence, Arnold Bob, Ed Kalb, Bill Pearson, Richard Alf and others. If you’re not old enough to have participated in the archaic, pre-Internet days of comic collecting via mail order take a look at these photos to get a small taste of it. I was there back in the day and ate my fill of it then. Then thank your lucky stars if you want to buy a comic book today all you have to do is just click your computer mouse.