Another one of the poster drawings which originally got away. I had stated to buy some strip art from Bruce Bergstrom in Florida by the mid-1980s. One day I received on of this sales lists, and this drawing was on the back cover. Bruce said that he was going to be out of town and that nothing would be sold until a certain hour on a Sunday. I wasn't about to take a chance on losing out on this drawing again, so I called one of his friends, Don Phelps, and asked for his help. He talked with Bruce and was assured that I could buy the drawing once he got back from his trip. Just to eliminate any chance of missing out, I called Bruce about 15 minutes before the selling began and just let the phone ring and ring. The minute Bruce plugged in his phone, I was on the line. He said that I was already covered, so I got the piece, and for $150 less than Don had originally asked for it a few years earlier! Trust me, the savings wasn't worth the emotional tumult that I experienced in eventually buying the drawings that I cheaped out on.
The History of Collectors Book Store and How My Collecting Was Largely Determined by that Dealer, Part 3
On my second visit to Collectors, I met Leonard Brown, the partner who was really in charge of the comic books at the store. Until his retirement from the business in the 1980s, I had countless conversations with Leonard, who was, himself, a bit eccentric. In 1968, the store had changed locations to a very large, upscale former bank building, where the most valuable comic books were kept in a mezzanine protected by wrought iron bars and in the two full-sized bank vaults. A few years later, the vault in the basement had a major water main leak, causing the destruction of many comics. Ultimately, the important comics were transferred to the vault on the ground level, and Leonard moved from the mezzanine to a desk near that vault. That was the set up of the store when my major collecting activities began in the fall of 1977.
Until I moved to Los Angeles to attend Law School, the staff of Collectors Book Store were protected from my enthusiasm for comic-related material by distance. Even after I began to drive, the store was still far enough away that I only went there every few months. Leonard had predicted that I would lose interest in comics once I had a car, but, boy, was he ever wrong. Once I was only living only 10 miles away, I used my car to visit the store two or three Satudays a month.
My increased involvement with Collectors was in part due to the fact that I began to collect animation art soon after I moved to L.A. I was still collecting comic books -- a Batman in the no. 20s could still be had for $25, and the monthly Collectors Showcase auctions were drawing out new material on consignment. The auctions also resulted in my having interests in more areas of comic art, in particular comic strip originals, due to being exposed to more types of art through the auction catalogues.
