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Author Topic: Long Time Digest Collector  (Read 1352 times)

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Offline digestfan

Long Time Digest Collector
« on: October 10, 2011, 11:02:01 PM »
Hi everyone,

My name is Eric and I've just discovered this site. Like many, I started reading Archie comics as a child. Digests in particular caught my attention, as I would see them every week at the supermarket checkout. I started buying digests, and it didn't take long before I knew I wanted to have them all. I found many at garage sales and  flea markets, but when I was down to the last 100 or so it became tougher to find them. I took out ads in the local classifieds paper saying that I was looking for Archie digests form the '70s, and had some success through this avenue. This is how I found my first copy of Archie Comics Digest #1, in 1997. The emergence of the Internet really opened the world up for collectors, and I was able to finish my Archie digest collection by 1999 - every Archie digest title/every issue. I continued to purchase new Archie digest publications through to 2005, when different priorities took over. I figured if I ever wanted to fill my collection at some point in the future, it wouldn't be too hard to find issues from the past few years.

After completing my Archie digest collection, I decided it would be fun to try to collect every comic digest contained in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, from 1968 to present (1968 being the year that the Walt Disney Comics Digest series started, which started the particular format that most comic digests that followed adopted). I now have all Gold Key digests (Walt Disney Comics Digests, Golden Comics Digests, Mystery Comics Digests, etc.), all Dennis the Menace digests, all DC digests, all Marvel digests, all Gladstone digests, and several others. I now only need a few digests to complete my collection up to 2005, mostly just a few scarce Richie Rich digests.

Between 2000 and 2004, I ran ComicDigests.com out of my home, a site dedicated to dealing exclusively in comic digest back issues. I think I was the only comic dealer to ever to focus on this particular niche market. Over 10,000 digests went through my hands in those years, and I always kept the highest graded digests in my personal collection, which allowed me to amass a very high quality digest collection. The average grade of Archie digests in my collection is probably NM-, with no copy graded below FN/VF. I have a few gems, including the highest CGC graded copies of Archie Comics Digest #1, and Jughead With Archie #1 (two of them) in existence, all three in NM+ condition.

I have a few stories of awesome digest related finds over the years. If someone is interested in hearing about them, please let me know.
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Offline aamrun

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2011, 12:58:53 AM »
Every Archie digest ever printed ? I doubt whether the Archie Comics official archive is that extensive !

I would love to hear your stories, sometimes the best books are found in the unlikeliest of places. I got a whole set of Archies from Levis, Quebec. They are in French and I am teaching myself French so that I can enjoy them. :)
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Offline digestfan

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2011, 01:53:44 PM »
I’ve had a number of great finds over the years, but these were probably the two best ones:

In the summer of 1999, I placed an ad in a local classifieds newspaper saying I was interested in buying Archie digests at 25 cents a piece. I got a tremendous response and ended up buying approximately 1,200 digests, over 600 of which came from one long-time Archie fan. His digests were all in great shape. He would read them once and then put them away. While I was at his place to pick up the digests, he asked if I was interested in regular sized Archie comics as well. I said I would probably be interested, but would not be willing to pay more than a dime a piece. (I was primarily buying to resell online – I new the going rate for digests, but not so much for comics.) He was fine with this, and then brought out several boxes full of Archie comics. From what I recall, there were in excess of 1,500 comics, including most issues from most series published between 1974 and 1999. There were in great shape to boot. Looking back, it would have been fun to keep the lot, but at the time I needed the money and so I broke up the collection into several lots which I auctioned off on eBay.

In the summer of 2001, an 80-year old gentleman sent me a letter saying he had many comic digests that he was looking to sell. He had noticed my advertisement in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide for ComicDigests.com. I was intrigued by the letter and went to his home to examine his books. I couldn’t believe the collection of books this man had. He had been buying digests haphazardly for the past 30 years at garage sales, flea markets, etc. I bought all of his digests, about 1,500 in all. He had digests from various series, mostly Archie, but also some early Gold Key titles. He had five copies of Archie Comics Digest #1 and seven copies of Jughead With Archie #1. I sent his best copy of JWA #1 into CGC to be professionally graded and it came back with a grade of NM+. In addition to digests, I also bought a large stack of ‘70s Mad magazines from him, many treasury-sized comics, as well as a set of Overtsreet Comic Book Price Guides, including the original guide from 1970. He told me me had been reading comics his entire life, and even had copies of Famous Funnies from the early ‘30s when he was a kid (the first modern format comic books). Unfortunately, no one could have expected comic values to be what they are today and these comics were thrown away a long time ago…
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Offline Captain Hero

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2011, 03:50:30 PM »
As someone who is thisclose to getting almost a complete digest set, I know exactly what you mean.  I remember being so incredibly annoyed for many years because I had every issue of Archie's Pals and Gals Double Digest for the longest time EXCEPT one.  Somehow, I ended up missing #52.  I had every other one, but number 52 was one that I could not find.  When I got it as a birthday gift from my eBay addicted sister, I was absolutely ecstatic!

Even so, there's a lot of digest titles where I am only missing two or three, and it's almost like its taunting me...LOL!
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Offline digestfan

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2011, 04:03:38 PM »
By the way, in my opinion the best source for finding Archie digest back issues is Doug Sulipa's Comic World, based in Manitoba. He helped me complete my collection more than anyone else. His prices aren't the cheapest, but his selection can't be beat.

His current digest inventory can be found here:

http://www.dougcomicworld.com/INVENTORY-ComicDigestSite.html

Many digests can be found on eBay, but you often need to buy lots that contain dozens of digests just to get one or two that you need. Buying through Comic World gets around this problem.
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Offline aamrun

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2011, 02:19:13 AM »
Quote from: digestfan on October 11, 2011, 01:53:44 PM
I’ve had a number of great finds over the years, but these were probably the two best ones:

In the summer of 1999, I placed an ad in a local classifieds newspaper saying I was interested in buying Archie digests at 25 cents a piece. I got a tremendous response and ended up buying approximately 1,200 digests, over 600 of which came from one long-time Archie fan. His digests were all in great shape. He would read them once and then put them away. While I was at his place to pick up the digests, he asked if I was interested in regular sized Archie comics as well. I said I would probably be interested, but would not be willing to pay more than a dime a piece. (I was primarily buying to resell online – I new the going rate for digests, but not so much for comics.) He was fine with this, and then brought out several boxes full of Archie comics. From what I recall, there were in excess of 1,500 comics, including most issues from most series published between 1974 and 1999. There were in great shape to boot. Looking back, it would have been fun to keep the lot, but at the time I needed the money and so I broke up the collection into several lots which I auctioned off on eBay.

In the summer of 2001, an 80-year old gentleman sent me a letter saying he had many comic digests that he was looking to sell. He had noticed my advertisement in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide for ComicDigests.com. I was intrigued by the letter and went to his home to examine his books. I couldn’t believe the collection of books this man had. He had been buying digests haphazardly for the past 30 years at garage sales, flea markets, etc. I bought all of his digests, about 1,500 in all. He had digests from various series, mostly Archie, but also some early Gold Key titles. He had five copies of Archie Comics Digest #1 and seven copies of Jughead With Archie #1. I sent his best copy of JWA #1 into CGC to be professionally graded and it came back with a grade of NM+. In addition to digests, I also bought a large stack of ‘70s Mad magazines from him, many treasury-sized comics, as well as a set of Overtsreet Comic Book Price Guides, including the original guide from 1970. He told me me had been reading comics his entire life, and even had copies of Famous Funnies from the early ‘30s when he was a kid (the first modern format comic books). Unfortunately, no one could have expected comic values to be what they are today and these comics were thrown away a long time ago…

Fantastic, especially the 80 yr old guy, who is probably 90 or 91 now. In my part of the world, we are practically 1st gen Archie fans, despite being in our late 20s. The only comics which we can discuss with our dads and grandpas is Tintin.
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Offline Zach Ziggster

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2011, 10:57:57 AM »
Yay for Tintin!   That dude (and Captain Haddock and Snowy) are awesome!   :)
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I have so many Archies, I've lost count!  :D

Jughead's #1 fan.

Offline aamrun

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2011, 12:31:23 AM »
Quote from: Zach Ziggster on October 12, 2011, 10:57:57 AM
Yay for Tintin!   That dude (and Captain Haddock and Snowy) are awesome!   :)

Couldn't agree more, waiting eagerly for Spielberg's take on Tintin.
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Offline Frank

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #8 on: October 31, 2011, 12:56:33 PM »
That is fascinating!  I'm not as obsessive about digest as I could be (thank goodness), but I do appreciate them.  Most of my digests go from comic shop to my collection to my daughter back to my collection.  So condition ... varies.  I have been able to get one or two cool ones though.

Disney digests are another story - those I want all of.  I have many of the Gladstone+ era in place.  Which are actually very hard to find.  There are not just the Gladstone sets, but there was also the more recent Gemstone books which are slightly larger than a typical digest (not by much) and very nicely done.  They only did a short set of these and I made sure to buy two copies of each and keep them in excellent condition.

One area that you may be interested in are digest variants!  I was getting into these, but it was getting pricey and I've slowed down.  Here in Canada, we have the exact same digests, printed on the exact same date, and everything is exactly the same.... except for one detail - the price.  I wrote about this extensively on my BLOG about Canadian price-variant comics.  Doug also separates many of these variants out and has also been an excellent source of material for me.  He does have extensive stock, but people are starting to know about him and the real good material sells very quickly.  Trying to get Canadian Golden-Age or some of the harder to find Archie material is difficult - even from him.

Digests are indeed a very under-represented area of collecting and something that would be great to see a large collection of.
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No matter where I go, there I am.  Creepy.

Offline digestfan

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #9 on: October 31, 2011, 08:38:39 PM »
I haven't really gotten into collecting the Canadian price variants. There are just too many. As far as I can establish, these variants started in late 1979 for Archie digests, and most issues published since then have two or more cover price variants. I have a decent number of them from the 1979 to 1981 period, but I haven't bothered to expand beyond this period.
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Offline NoeticHatter

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2011, 07:07:34 PM »
Wow!

How do you store them? Is there a special kind of longbox made for Digests?  Would love to see photos of your collection. (over at the marvelmasterworks.com forums, it's referred to as "shelf porn")
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Offline Captain Hero

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2011, 08:00:02 PM »
I can't speak for the original poster, but here's a photo of my collection as of March 2011...it's grown a bit since this was taken.

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Offline NoeticHatter

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2011, 08:22:05 PM »
 :buck2:

Looks like they're stacked two deep at the bottom. How do you find them? Do you have an Access database that tells you what rack they're on?
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Offline Captain Hero

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2011, 08:56:29 PM »
Quote from: NoeticHatter on December 13, 2011, 08:22:05 PM
:buck2:

Looks like they're stacked two deep at the bottom. How do you find them? Do you have an Access database that tells you what rack they're on?

Yeah, space is limited in my current place of residence.  The minute I move out, I'm getting a larger bookshelf...LOL...

And, all of the books are sorted in numerical order...all the #1's are together, then all the #2's, etc.  I'll probably start sorting them by title once I get more sets completed though.
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Offline Captain Hero

Re: Long Time Digest Collector
« Reply #14 on: December 13, 2011, 08:57:25 PM »
And, yes...I have a database both stored in my computer as well as handwritten in a red binder.

A serious collector, am I.  :2funny:
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