Comic Books
When I was a small boy living in Beaver City, Nebraska in the late 1940s, trading comics was a big deal.
Each boy had his own supply of comics to trade. It took great trading skill to increase your
supply of comics.
There were certain rules and principles that were followed
in trading.
Each 15 cent comic
book got 2 -10 cent comic books in trade.
Each quarter comic book traded for 3-dime cent comic books.
Comic books that had been around for a long time and had
been read by everyone were very hard to trade.
If you wanted to increase the number of comic books that you owned, you
would trade for the old comics because you could get more of them for a new
one. The number was negotiable.
Having an older cousin or other source of new comics was a
great asset. I had two such
cousins. If I could catch them in a
good mood, they would give me their comics when they were done reading them.
My friend Bobby and I discovered a new source of comics
one-day. The drugstore tore the front
covers off of the comics they hadn't sold and then burned the comics in a trash
barrel behind the store. We discovered
that they usually did this on a certain day every month. Guess but we did? That's right. We would
raid the incinerator and rescue some comics.
That created a new class of comics to trade. Those without covers. While they were new comics, missing the
cover decreased their value.
I guess it was all good for us. We learned how to negotiate with each other and the probably
helped us to grow up.