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"Paul" comics club
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OK, this is the "Paul" story...

 

Paul Mittelbusher grew up in MO in the 1940's. He bought loads of comics as a child. As he got older he added in Pulps and Sci-Fi Books. He ammased a large collection which he moved to So Cal. He was active in the sci-fi fandom writing to pulps (as shown earlier) and possibly contributing or putting out fanzines. He was a horder and lived in a house brimming with comics, pulps, fanzines and tons of books. He passed away about 3 or 4 years ago.

 

His family wanting to settle his estate and wanting to clear out the house, contacted a gentleman named Joe and his wife to appraise the collection. Joe took a look and said it could take him as long as a year to do so. The heirs wanting to get rid of the stuff just sold it to Joe outright. (a little like the Church heirs). Joe cleaned ou the house and moved it into several storage units and a garage.

 

There was so much stuff that Joe didn't really know what he had until he started going through the boxes. What he found were several thousand comics dating back to around 1941 and going up to about 15 years ago. He also found pulps, fanzines, magazines, undergrounds and thousands of rare books.

 

Joe started selling the comics on eBay then somehow met up with Ed Robertson. Ed purchased most of the Batman, Detective, All Star books as well as numerous other GA DC's, a group of America's Best and about 5 beautiful Capt america's in the #60's. Best book he got was a decent Batman #1. He also got All Star #8,36, and a couple of nice war time Actions. Lots of consecutive issues of Batman and Detective and quite a few All Stars back to issue #5 I believe.

 

I met Joe at a local toy show where he had two magazine boxes of mixed GA books. They were graded and priced very fair so I bought about a third of them. I concentrated on the more obscure publishers although I did get some nice DC's that were found later in other boxes. I met up with Joe several other times when he would find new boxes of books and bought the best that I could afford at the time. Sadly, I left quite a bit simply because there was so much and I was concentrating on my own collection.

 

All the while, Joe was selling a lot of great books on eBay and to another local guy who is a friend of mine that promotes a big LA toy show and is a toy/advertising dealer. He spent a ton with Joe and bought almost all the funny animal, western and a good portion of DC's. Joe and his wife didn't want to sell to dealers wholesale so other than ebay we got first chance. My friend brought a large amount of "Pauls" to Terry's show last year and was swamped by Harley, Jamie Graham, Brian Peets and other dealers. It was a feeding frenzy!

 

The collection is not pedigree worthy because of four reasons. 1.) There were not enough consecutive runs of titles (except maybe Batman and Detective). 2.) The grades were from maybe 3.0-8.0 mostly. 3.) Other than just a few of us out there most people don't recognize the collection as anything special. 4.) Joe did not keep a list. I can say though after looking at so many of them it is one cool massive collection. Funny thing, I was only interested in the GA books so, other than a few boxes of pulps (which I got about a dozen or so), I didn't see any of the SA/BA books, fanzines, undergrounds, magazines (MAD, Famous Monsters ect) or the books.

 

As far as markings go. Most of the pre-1952 books are marked with Paul's first name on them. A few with his last name and a few have coupons filled out from his MO days. The earlier ones are marked in pencil possible by his mom. The later ones are usually in ink in his own hand. There were also many real cool books that were not marked at all.

 

This collection has been dispersed to the four winds as a lot was sold on ebay. Some have even had 2 or 3 owners since Joe sold them. I seem to find stray ones here and there out here because Joe sold them at all manner of LA area shows for about 2 years.

 

It was a nail biting ride for bout a year. Hard to keep my mouth shut but I didn't want to off the seller and of course I wanted to get as many of them as I could.

 

So Paul, whever you are, thanks for saving so many great books for those of us who love them!

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And just to finish this off, Joe hung on to the EC's until last because he liked them. I did get quite a few. They are all but one or two un-marked. They were all in beautiful condition. This Frontline Combat #13 Double Cover was in one of the boxes!

 

comfrontlinecombat13_zpsxngimntq.jpg

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OK, this is the "Paul" story...

 

Paul Mittelbusher grew up in MO in the 1940's. He bought loads of comics as a child. As he got older he added in Pulps and Sci-Fi Books. He ammased a large collection which he moved to So Cal. He was active in the sci-fi fandom writing to pulps (as shown earlier) and possibly contributing or putting out fanzines. He was a horder and lived in a house brimming with comics, pulps, fanzines and tons of books. He passed away about 3 or 4 years ago.

 

His family wanting to settle his estate and wanting to clear out the house, contacted a gentleman named Joe and his wife to appraise the collection. Joe took a look and said it could take him as long as a year to do so. The heirs wanting to get rid of the stuff just sold it to Joe outright. (a little like the Church heirs). Joe cleaned ou the house and moved it into several storage units and a garage.

 

There was so much stuff that Joe didn't really know what he had until he started going through the boxes. What he found were several thousand comics dating back to around 1941 and going up to about 15 years ago. He also found pulps, fanzines, magazines, undergrounds and thousands of rare books.

 

Joe started selling the comics on eBay then somehow met up with Ed Robertson. Ed purchased most of the Batman, Detective, All Star books as well as numerous other GA DC's, a group of America's Best and about 5 beautiful Capt america's in the #60's. Best book he got was a decent Batman #1. He also got All Star #8,36, and a couple of nice war time Actions. Lots of consecutive issues of Batman and Detective and quite a few All Stars back to issue #5 I believe.

 

I met Joe at a local toy show where he had two magazine boxes of mixed GA books. They were graded and priced very fair so I bought about a third of them. I concentrated on the more obscure publishers although I did get some nice DC's that were found later in other boxes. I met up with Joe several other times when he would find new boxes of books and bought the best that I could afford at the time. Sadly, I left quite a bit simply because there was so much and I was concentrating on my own collection.

 

All the while, Joe was selling a lot of great books on eBay and to another local guy who is a friend of mine that promotes a big LA toy show and is a toy/advertising dealer. He spent a ton with Joe and bought almost all the funny animal, western and a good portion of DC's. Joe and his wife didn't want to sell to dealers wholesale so other than ebay we got first chance. My friend brought a large amount of "Pauls" to Terry's show last year and was swamped by Harley, Jamie Graham, Brian Peets and other dealers. It was a feeding frenzy!

 

The collection is not pedigree worthy because of four reasons. 1.) There were not enough consecutive runs of titles (except maybe Batman and Detective). 2.) The grades were from maybe 3.0-8.0 mostly. 3.) Other than just a few of us out there most people don't recognize the collection as anything special. 4.) Joe did not keep a list. I can say though after looking at so many of them it is one cool massive collection. Funny thing, I was only interested in the GA books so, other than a few boxes of pulps (which I got about a dozen or so), I didn't see any of the SA/BA books, fanzines, undergrounds, magazines (MAD, Famous Monsters ect) or the books.

 

As far as markings go. Most of the pre-1952 books are marked with Paul's first name on them. A few with his last name and a few have coupons filled out from his MO days. The earlier ones are marked in pencil possible by his mom. The later ones are usually in ink in his own hand. There were also many real cool books that were not marked at all.

 

This collection has been dispersed to the four winds as a lot was sold on ebay. Some have even had 2 or 3 owners since Joe sold them. I seem to find stray ones here and there out here because Joe sold them at all manner of LA area shows for about 2 years.

 

It was a nail biting ride for bout a year. Hard to keep my mouth shut but I didn't want to off the seller and of course I wanted to get as many of them as I could.

 

So Paul, whever you are, thanks for saving so many great books for those of us who love them!

 

So, like many heirs, they saw the "big money" as the sale of the house & saw the rest as relatively worthless garbage. I wonder how much money they gave away by not wanting to deal with the "hoard"? It's a bummer this still happens in today's age.

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Thanks for all of the back story Bob,

 

Here is another one that will soon be on its way to me

 

2919621B-BC80-4718-A95C-6B43069D9237_zps0jv18vnb.jpg

 

Nice one Bill. Love that Robot cover. That looks like it came from Ed's buy. These books are really getting passed around but I suspect that one has probably found a permanent home!

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Thanks Bob...I sent matt an e-mail with the story...we'll see if Paul can get some glory. If Cookeville can be on that site, I don't see why Paul can't...

 

To be honest, I doubt it matters to most people. And the Cookville as well as Eldon, Harold Curtis, Cape Cod are other "marked" copies are not recognized as pedigrees just nice collections. Not seeing everything in the collection I am hardly in the position of verifying what was there. I spent a lot of time with the buyer and become pretty good friends with him so anything I've said here is just what little I was able to learn about it.

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OK, this is the "Paul" story...

 

Paul Mittelbusher grew up in MO in the 1940's. He bought loads of comics as a child. As he got older he added in Pulps and Sci-Fi Books. He ammased a large collection which he moved to So Cal. He was active in the sci-fi fandom writing to pulps (as shown earlier) and possibly contributing or putting out fanzines. He was a horder and lived in a house brimming with comics, pulps, fanzines and tons of books. He passed away about 3 or 4 years ago.

 

His family wanting to settle his estate and wanting to clear out the house, contacted a gentleman named Joe and his wife to appraise the collection. Joe took a look and said it could take him as long as a year to do so. The heirs wanting to get rid of the stuff just sold it to Joe outright. (a little like the Church heirs). Joe cleaned ou the house and moved it into several storage units and a garage.

 

There was so much stuff that Joe didn't really know what he had until he started going through the boxes. What he found were several thousand comics dating back to around 1941 and going up to about 15 years ago. He also found pulps, fanzines, magazines, undergrounds and thousands of rare books.

 

Joe started selling the comics on eBay then somehow met up with Ed Robertson. Ed purchased most of the Batman, Detective, All Star books as well as numerous other GA DC's, a group of America's Best and about 5 beautiful Capt america's in the #60's. Best book he got was a decent Batman #1. He also got All Star #8,36, and a couple of nice war time Actions. Lots of consecutive issues of Batman and Detective and quite a few All Stars back to issue #5 I believe.

 

I met Joe at a local toy show where he had two magazine boxes of mixed GA books. They were graded and priced very fair so I bought about a third of them. I concentrated on the more obscure publishers although I did get some nice DC's that were found later in other boxes. I met up with Joe several other times when he would find new boxes of books and bought the best that I could afford at the time. Sadly, I left quite a bit simply because there was so much and I was concentrating on my own collection.

 

All the while, Joe was selling a lot of great books on eBay and to another local guy who is a friend of mine that promotes a big LA toy show and is a toy/advertising dealer. He spent a ton with Joe and bought almost all the funny animal, western and a good portion of DC's. Joe and his wife didn't want to sell to dealers wholesale so other than ebay we got first chance. My friend brought a large amount of "Pauls" to Terry's show last year and was swamped by Harley, Jamie Graham, Brian Peets and other dealers. It was a feeding frenzy!

 

The collection is not pedigree worthy because of four reasons. 1.) There were not enough consecutive runs of titles (except maybe Batman and Detective). 2.) The grades were from maybe 3.0-8.0 mostly. 3.) Other than just a few of us out there most people don't recognize the collection as anything special. 4.) Joe did not keep a list. I can say though after looking at so many of them it is one cool massive collection. Funny thing, I was only interested in the GA books so, other than a few boxes of pulps (which I got about a dozen or so), I didn't see any of the SA/BA books, fanzines, undergrounds, magazines (MAD, Famous Monsters ect) or the books.

 

As far as markings go. Most of the pre-1952 books are marked with Paul's first name on them. A few with his last name and a few have coupons filled out from his MO days. The earlier ones are marked in pencil possible by his mom. The later ones are usually in ink in his own hand. There were also many real cool books that were not marked at all.

 

This collection has been dispersed to the four winds as a lot was sold on ebay. Some have even had 2 or 3 owners since Joe sold them. I seem to find stray ones here and there out here because Joe sold them at all manner of LA area shows for about 2 years.

 

It was a nail biting ride for bout a year. Hard to keep my mouth shut but I didn't want to off the seller and of course I wanted to get as many of them as I could.

 

So Paul, whever you are, thanks for saving so many great books for those of us who love them!

 

So, like many heirs, they saw the "big money" as the sale of the house & saw the rest as relatively worthless garbage. I wonder how much money they gave away by not wanting to deal with the "hoard"? It's a bummer this still happens in today's age.

 

West:

 

Maybe I was out of line mentioning the Church collection here. I really don't believe this was the case. Paul was a very weird guy. A horder just like the TV show. This house not only contained this collection but TONS of trash, garbage, rat poop, porn, and filth. The buyers and the sellers neither had very little idea what was there. The buyers spent months just loading dumpsters while holding their breath. Wasn't like Edgar's neat little basement. We are lucky that the house wasn't just razed and all this stull gone for good. The buyers are very honest people but they, like the sellers were a bit overwhelmed. The comics were mixed with boxes of newspapers, books, magazines and nothing is any kind of order. I can hardly blame the heirs not wanting to deal with it. I commend the buyers for taking on this project. The fact that they scored was a good thing and believe me, they worked hard for it.

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I don't know...I think it was a good thing for Joe...and the rest of us who got Paul's for under guide... lol

 

Joe and his wife worked VERY hard for this collection. (See my response to West). I really don't feel anyone was taken advantage of after hearing what they had to do to get this stuff. The sellers were very fair when they sold this stuff. Everything they put on eBay started at 9.99 with no monkey buisness. It was the kind of thing we all wish would happen to us but I wonder how many of us would want to put in the messy work not knowing exactly was there...

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OK, this is the "Paul" story...

 

Paul Mittelbusher grew up in MO in the 1940's. He bought loads of comics as a child. As he got older he added in Pulps and Sci-Fi Books. He ammased a large collection which he moved to So Cal. He was active in the sci-fi fandom writing to pulps (as shown earlier) and possibly contributing or putting out fanzines. He was a horder and lived in a house brimming with comics, pulps, fanzines and tons of books. He passed away about 3 or 4 years ago.

 

His family wanting to settle his estate and wanting to clear out the house, contacted a gentleman named Joe and his wife to appraise the collection. Joe took a look and said it could take him as long as a year to do so. The heirs wanting to get rid of the stuff just sold it to Joe outright. (a little like the Church heirs). Joe cleaned ou the house and moved it into several storage units and a garage.

 

There was so much stuff that Joe didn't really know what he had until he started going through the boxes. What he found were several thousand comics dating back to around 1941 and going up to about 15 years ago. He also found pulps, fanzines, magazines, undergrounds and thousands of rare books.

 

Joe started selling the comics on eBay then somehow met up with Ed Robertson. Ed purchased most of the Batman, Detective, All Star books as well as numerous other GA DC's, a group of America's Best and about 5 beautiful Capt america's in the #60's. Best book he got was a decent Batman #1. He also got All Star #8,36, and a couple of nice war time Actions. Lots of consecutive issues of Batman and Detective and quite a few All Stars back to issue #5 I believe.

 

I met Joe at a local toy show where he had two magazine boxes of mixed GA books. They were graded and priced very fair so I bought about a third of them. I concentrated on the more obscure publishers although I did get some nice DC's that were found later in other boxes. I met up with Joe several other times when he would find new boxes of books and bought the best that I could afford at the time. Sadly, I left quite a bit simply because there was so much and I was concentrating on my own collection.

 

All the while, Joe was selling a lot of great books on eBay and to another local guy who is a friend of mine that promotes a big LA toy show and is a toy/advertising dealer. He spent a ton with Joe and bought almost all the funny animal, western and a good portion of DC's. Joe and his wife didn't want to sell to dealers wholesale so other than ebay we got first chance. My friend brought a large amount of "Pauls" to Terry's show last year and was swamped by Harley, Jamie Graham, Brian Peets and other dealers. It was a feeding frenzy!

 

The collection is not pedigree worthy because of four reasons. 1.) There were not enough consecutive runs of titles (except maybe Batman and Detective). 2.) The grades were from maybe 3.0-8.0 mostly. 3.) Other than just a few of us out there most people don't recognize the collection as anything special. 4.) Joe did not keep a list. I can say though after looking at so many of them it is one cool massive collection. Funny thing, I was only interested in the GA books so, other than a few boxes of pulps (which I got about a dozen or so), I didn't see any of the SA/BA books, fanzines, undergrounds, magazines (MAD, Famous Monsters ect) or the books.

 

As far as markings go. Most of the pre-1952 books are marked with Paul's first name on them. A few with his last name and a few have coupons filled out from his MO days. The earlier ones are marked in pencil possible by his mom. The later ones are usually in ink in his own hand. There were also many real cool books that were not marked at all.

 

This collection has been dispersed to the four winds as a lot was sold on ebay. Some have even had 2 or 3 owners since Joe sold them. I seem to find stray ones here and there out here because Joe sold them at all manner of LA area shows for about 2 years.

 

It was a nail biting ride for bout a year. Hard to keep my mouth shut but I didn't want to off the seller and of course I wanted to get as many of them as I could.

 

So Paul, whever you are, thanks for saving so many great books for those of us who love them!

 

So, like many heirs, they saw the "big money" as the sale of the house & saw the rest as relatively worthless garbage. I wonder how much money they gave away by not wanting to deal with the "hoard"? It's a bummer this still happens in today's age.

 

West:

 

Maybe I was out of line mentioning the Church collection here. I really don't believe this was the case. Paul was a very weird guy. A horder just like the TV show. This house not only contained this collection but TONS of trash, garbage, rat poop, porn, and filth. The buyers and the sellers neither had very little idea what was there. The buyers spent months just loading dumpsters while holding their breath. Wasn't like Edgar's neat little basement. We are lucky that the house wasn't just razed and all this stull gone for good. The buyers are very honest people but they, like the sellers were a bit overwhelmed. The comics were mixed with boxes of newspapers, books, magazines and nothing is any kind of order. I can hardly blame the heirs not wanting to deal with it. I commend the buyers for taking on this project. The fact that they scored was a good thing and believe me, they worked hard for it.

 

 

Glad to hear no one was taken advantage of. (thumbs u

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