My Valiant Story - time to play some violin music...
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magnusrobot12
- 100 posts! (if you round to the nearest 100)
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My Valiant Story - time to play some violin music...
I remember exactly the first time i saw my first valiant book, it was X-O Manowar 1 and 2 at a small comic book convention in a Holiday Inn Express in Long Island. It was late 1992. I fell in love with the covers. I was at the comic book show just to check out some DC and Marvel. When i saw the two X-O covers, I fell in love instantly. I remember being like: "huh, what the hell is that?". I started collecting X-O and caught up pretty quickly. Soon, the pre-unity books were really really expensive. I went ahead and purchased all the pre-unity Rai, Magnus, Solar, Harbinger and Shadowman. They were like 20-80 bucks a piece i remember, maybe more. I loved them so much but I only read a few of them because I saw them as gold not as a story.
I then started buying all the post-unity stuff and I remember getting them for like a buck each right when they came out. I thought that was odd, but there would be 10 comic book tables all selling Magnus 22, Rai 9, etc and they would cut each other until i purchased them for a buck. Little did i realize that this was a sign the entire valiant financial world was in the brink of a crash.
I then remember so clearly going into a comic book store in Long Island and the owner telling me to dump my Pre-Unity books. I was like, no way. They are worth so much. He said, no there arent. I didnt believe him, and then the prices crashed. Everything i paid for (80 dollars for Rai 4 I remember) crashed. I was a graduate student and was living on 16,000 stipend a year. All my money went into my Valiant collection. I was crushed. I calculated that i spent about $4,000 on my books which also included other stuff such as Vampirella, Lady Death, etc. Nonetheless, i sold my entire collection sometime in 1995 for about $800. Some tell me i was lucky to get that, but nonetheless i was sicken.
So, about 8 years later, after getting my degree and after completing my postdoc, i landed a real job. Now with a little bit of money in hand, i found the same X-O Manowar #1 for 5 bucks at a comic book show that i decided to attend at the last minute. The book felt just as fresh so i went ahead and started to rebuild my collection. I have many of the Pre-Unity books as well as some cool stuff such as Quantum and Woody.
All my books are in Mylar and i love my collection. I will post a list of my comic book collection soon, it needs to be updated a bit. But, this time around, i enjoy my collection so much more than the first time. I am less naive about collecting and enjoy it so much more.
Thanks for reading.
I then started buying all the post-unity stuff and I remember getting them for like a buck each right when they came out. I thought that was odd, but there would be 10 comic book tables all selling Magnus 22, Rai 9, etc and they would cut each other until i purchased them for a buck. Little did i realize that this was a sign the entire valiant financial world was in the brink of a crash.
I then remember so clearly going into a comic book store in Long Island and the owner telling me to dump my Pre-Unity books. I was like, no way. They are worth so much. He said, no there arent. I didnt believe him, and then the prices crashed. Everything i paid for (80 dollars for Rai 4 I remember) crashed. I was a graduate student and was living on 16,000 stipend a year. All my money went into my Valiant collection. I was crushed. I calculated that i spent about $4,000 on my books which also included other stuff such as Vampirella, Lady Death, etc. Nonetheless, i sold my entire collection sometime in 1995 for about $800. Some tell me i was lucky to get that, but nonetheless i was sicken.
So, about 8 years later, after getting my degree and after completing my postdoc, i landed a real job. Now with a little bit of money in hand, i found the same X-O Manowar #1 for 5 bucks at a comic book show that i decided to attend at the last minute. The book felt just as fresh so i went ahead and started to rebuild my collection. I have many of the Pre-Unity books as well as some cool stuff such as Quantum and Woody.
All my books are in Mylar and i love my collection. I will post a list of my comic book collection soon, it needs to be updated a bit. But, this time around, i enjoy my collection so much more than the first time. I am less naive about collecting and enjoy it so much more.
Thanks for reading.
Last edited by magnusrobot12 on Tue May 11, 2010 2:29:49 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Re: My Valiant Story - time to play some violin music...
That's cool! I could hear the violin, but all's well that ends well.magnusrobot12 wrote:enjoy it so much more.
/Magnus
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magnusrobot12
- 100 posts! (if you round to the nearest 100)
- Posts: 76
- Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 8:46:23 pm
- Location: in a pile of fall-colored leaves
Oh yes, the Image books were certainly part of my original collection. Except for Maxx (and maybe a few Spawn books), i did not re-purchase them into my second collection. I think Maxx was one of the most creative and far-fetched reads ever.iggy101us wrote:welcome, mr12
I was in college in the 90s and bought a bunch of X-Men 1s, Spawn 1s, Youngblood 1s, Wolverine (the yellow clawed-through cover) . . . sigh.
I also remember that Todd McFarlane is the idiot that paid 3 million dollars for Mark McGuire's home run ball (the last one he hit) only to be outperformed by Barry Bonds a few years later and then only to see the price plummet even more after the steriods controversy. What a doucebag.
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