tt_cook1963's Comic Book Blogs

Hey out there,  As most of you know or well the Marvel collectors know that back the in the 1974 - 1976, Marvel ran a promotional progrom known as Marvel Value Stamps, Series A and Series B. These stamps are the bane of many a collector including me.  I recently found this web site dedicated to Marvel Stamps.

http://www.mvstamps.com/introduction.htm

With the help of the web site I was able to go through my collection and check on the books that had stamps in them.  Much to my dismay I found many books with these little stamps cut out or the entire page ripped out of the comic. Reducing some of my VF-NM comics to a nice G-VG or if you get them CGCed a GLOD(Green Label Of Death). I now need to replace this comics in my collection.  I now hate Marvel Stamps and Marvel for doing this. and the comics being from the 1970's are not cheap to replace.  

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I've beign collecting comics for 23 years off and on. And a painful lesson i just relearned today is tape is BAD

I was looking and reading a couple of my older books Strange Tales 120 to be exact and i took the tape off the bag a stuck it to the side of the bag to reuse. removed the comic and read it and then proceed to set said comic on the table...... on top of the bag and board....ARRRGGGGHHHH. i went to pick up the comic to rebag it and to my great displeasure and dismay the bag came with it. the tape has stuck itself to the back cover of the book. After a few cuss word and and jumping up and down, i painfully tried to remove the tape. i got most of it off without damage but not all. That @#$%@#% tape remove a small portion of the back cover from which there is no fixing or repair. I dont know why i wanted to save the tape because normally i just cut it and use a new piece to reseal the bag. i did the exact same thing years ago which lead me to cutting the tape. .

For all you out there. DONT SAVE THE TAPE USE A NEW PIECE. throw the removed tape in the garbage before removing the comic to read. Dont do what i just did.

sadden
tt

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Events here in Colorado have just become overwhelming for me, however, with an endless series of meetings now set up to search for solutions to the flooding damage that occurred at our Thornton, Colorado Mega-Store. In case you missed the announcement in last Sunday's newsletter, a high-pressure water main burst in the back of our largest store on Friday evening. Within minutes, muddy water was flowing everywhere in our huge 11,000 square foot store, damaging tens of thousands of dollars in both merchandise and fixtures. The resulting geyser of water was not shut off for over two hours, so no corner of our store escaped being drenched.

huge generator and compressor (click on image for larger view)

All of the above having been said, it turns out that we were very, very lucky. The huge pipe that burst chose the only time in the week when we had 30+ people in the store, our Friday Night Magic Tournament. To their enormous credit, our Magic players all pitched in to help elevate tens of thousands of comics, trade paperbacks, hardbacks, and cards that otherwise would have been soaked. They also angled a table in front of the gushing water, forcing a great deal of it to flow out of our back door. I cannot express how much I am grateful for their kind efforts in making this awful catastrophe significantly more bearable. All of our fixtures were still soaked to a depth of many inches, but the amount of product that was destroyed was far less than it might have been without their courageous help.

The bad news is that the physical structure of our store needs major repairs. We've had water damage control experts in the store since Saturday morning, and they have accomplished miracles in trying to save our fixtures from disintegrating from the soaking. As the accompanying photos show, they used a huge generator and compressor to remove evaporation from the store, and drilled holes in the baseboards of all of our fixtures to try and dry them out. The jury is still out as to how many of their solutions will actually work, but for now it appears that we may be able to repair and/or restore many of the showcases, bookcases, and comics bins that I thought were completely lost. What we cannot save, however, are the floor and walls of the store. The floor tiles are coming up as the huge area gradually dries, and all of the wet wallboard will need to be cut away to prevent mold. With no floor or walls, we simply cannot reopen for business except to the extent of allowing our regular customers to pick up their weekly new comics shipments.

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