How Many Comics Do I Have And Does Their Condition Matter?

 

Him: "But you've got to bag and board your comics!!"

Me: "No. No, I haven't.  It isn't a law. If I had a few thousand grease proof bags I'd put the comics in them"

Him: "You can't do that! You need the boards and bags to--"

Me: "What do you use?"

Him: "For the high grade books I use mylar. It has to be mylar. For the other books Comicare bags that are lighter than polyethylene and made from 100% virgin material and come in packs of 100 and then the
Comicare boards.Those 24 pt virgin white comic backing boards--"

Me: "Wait -you don't use Mylar for all your comics??  What sort of comic collector are you? Are you using a short box or long box and what type?"

Him: "It's not about my comic collection -it's about yours!"

Me: "Exactly."

You see, I don't like it but I am fully aware of my own mortality. What the feck do I care how good my comics look after I've been dead 50 years -I'm not going to look very good. I want to read my comics now because, as I understand it, and please correct me if I am wrong here, but after I die I don't get re-booted.  I'm not going to turn up at where ever my comics are and say "Man, you have fecking not looked after my books, have you? I'll have to regrade that issue to a 7.5 at best! And...have you used my John Byrne X-Men run to line the hamster cage??? What the ---!!"

Anything I bag is to prevent damage from moving or whatever and everything is in archive boxes because I live in a council property and they can say at a whim "You need to move to another property. What? Why the feck should we care if it's going to break your back moving stacks of boxes with comics?"

I want my gravestone to read: "He went out in a furious sex orgy with Goth-chicks on a bed of Silver Age Comics" but I know it's going to read "Terry....I lost the note. He's dead" Or "Yeah, yeah, so he was telling everyone he was ill.  He's dead. Get over it"

Life ain't fair.

Then we have the: "How many comics do you have?"  Me:"No idea really". Them: "You MUST have an idea?"  Me: "No, really, there are a lot but I've never counted them...."  Them: "What?? How can you call yourself a comic collector and not know how many comics you have??"  Me: "I don't call myself a 'comic collector' -I'm a comic fan at best. And, yes, I have catalogued the comics/books I have but never counted them"  Then: Well, IF you catalogued them them you must have counted them so then you would know!"  Me: "I have dyscaculie"  Them: "What--??"  I explain. Them: "That's a good excuse"  Me: "IThe condom must have been broken"  Them: "WTF???"  Me: "A good reason given by your mother when she found out she was expecting you."

It's all just soooo mauve, don't you think?

The point is that I do not grade my comics.I don't care if the pages are "off white" or "cream" and I do have some 60-70 years old British comics that are browning but the fact they survived at all surprises me so why do I give a hamster belly-tickle what grade they are?

Also, I don't think "I need to upgrade top a better conditioned copy" Not unless the copy I have is so read it's falling to pieces.  I bought the Avengers Forever trade because my copies of the single issue were beginning to suffer from so much reading (cover spines wear fast!).

You need to read and enjoy your comics now. Screw "This is a CGD 9.5 slabbed in a plastic sealed case" -so what? Who cares. It could be a cover with blank paper inside. READ the comic.  Get your kids, if you have any, into comics. 

JUST ENJOY YOUR COMICS NOW