Some of My Favorite Comics Which I Bought at Cherokee Book Shop, c. 1966-67

Although I bought far fewer Golden Age comics from Cherokee Book Shop than I I bought from Collectores, there was a short period during which I found and bought quite a few silver age D.C. comics out of the boxes of such comics which lined the hall leading to the room where Bert was found amongst his Golden Age issues. In general, I did not think that the condition of Golden Age comics sold by Cherokee was as high as those I could find at Collectors. Around 1966-1977, I did buy a Batman No. 5, More Fun No. 77, and my first issue of All-Star Comics (No. 54) from Cherokee. None of these was close to being in high grade, and all of them hadthe smell acquired from being wet, a condition which Leonard Brown called "swamp rot" The smell could not be cured through airing out, and I was actually allergic to it. I sold these comics to Bond Street Books in the early 1970s, by which time I already had many other issues of Batman, Moe Fun, and All-Star Comics in much better condition. But the Silver Age comics from Cherokee did not suffer from such condition issues, and I still own quite a few of them.

Up until the Disneyland Comic Con in 1971, I hadn't found a really good source for Silver Age comics, which I have liked above all other comics, perhaps because the early D.C. Annuals and 80 page Giants contained reprints from about 1958 to the early 1960s. D.C. had not retained the art or even negatives from earlier decades and had not yet developed the technology to strip the color from actual comic books -- the colored pages could not simply be photographed because the colors produced halftones which could not be re-colored for purposeds of reprinting. Whatever...I loved the D.C. comics from the Silver Age and could not find many issues I needed. The boxes st Cherokee helped me fill in my runs of Silver Age titles. The first complete run that I managed to collect was that of Justice League of America,. It took me years to finally complete the much longer run of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen. The No. 1 issue of Jimmy Olsen has always been one of the hardest to find -- it was from a period when fewer copies of super hero titles were being printed, 1954. I finally bought No. 1, along with Lois Lane No. 1, Adventure No. 247, Action 252, and many other high grade D.C. Silver Age comics from two guys from Nebraska who set up at the Disneyland Con. They were also the ones from whom I bought the Wood Captain Action splash and the page from Showcase No. 56 with Dr. Fate in his full mask with emotions expressed on it, my third and fourth comic book originals. So, even after I found and bought Jimmy Olson No. 1, I still needed but could not find a copy of Jimmy Olson No. 2. I finally completed the Jimmy Olson run on 1 May 1979, when I bought the only copy I have ever seen of No. 2 in the 8th Collectors Showcase auction.

Back to Cherokee, I have been somewhat critical of Bert Blum, but he was almost always nice to me. He would round down when it came to some total costs on my purchases. And once, as he was showing me and my father down the stars at the end of a day, I saw, for the first time, bags of comic book polyethylene bags, which filled a box sitting on he edge of the stairs. I asked about them and he grabbed a package, gave it to me, and said that I should try them. Even if he just was avoiding having the go back and ring up a small sale, it was still an act that I really appreciated and, obviously, something I still remember after more than 55 years.