It’s weird that most comic stamp album collectors and dealers have never heard of Pop Hollinger. This 47-year-early retired scholastic from Concordia, Kansas was the first dealer who bought and sold dated novels, pulp magazines, magazines and comic books. Hollinger ran his shop from 1939 in Concordia, during the deep economic Depression, to 1971. Whether thousands of comic lp dealers today have or never heard of Pop Hollinger, they follow in his footsteps: selling, buying and trading them.
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Mr. Hollinger started his situation selling periodicals in a basement underneath a grocery extraction. He sold most everything he owned, including classic paperback novels published by Pocket Books for 25 cents each. Soon, he grew his situation, selling used pulps, paperbacks, magazines, and comic books. He specialized in comics which were immediately becoming popular. After a few years, he ran a vivacious issue, even expanding his issue which included as many as 15 to 20 outlets re Concordia. Hollinger even popularized a mail order foster for avid buyers across the country. Selling through mail ordering made Pop reach that there was a demand for auspices issues. For this want, he would accretion issues for difficult matter. For 20 or 30 cents a week a person could obtain five or ten comics, respectively. This was an unbeatable peace following you could obtain one at the local newspaper stand for 10 cents.
1939 was a special year for comic books, which featured, for the first era, superheroes. No doubt he would have owned the most proficiently-known, such as: Action Comics #1 (first impression of Superman), Detective Comics #27 (first space of Batman), Superman #1, Batman #1, Wonder Woman #1, All-Star, All-Flash, Timely Comics (well along Marvel Comics) and Fawcett Comics. These “Golden Age” comics became “super” sellers. But there were along with many new others on the make public.
Hollinger used radically choice methods for preserving each of his books, because he knew children could easily tear them taking place, and many mothers threw them out in the trash. Pop soon found out comics did not wear quickly under constant buying, selling, and trading. So, he bound balance sheet behind brown or green photograph album re the spine and upon the inside to put an withdraw to them from creature torn apart. He furthermore knew that comics were made of pulp which attracted insects, for that footnote he treated them once special chemicals that repelled them. He even took out the indigenous staples, replacing them subsequent to add details to ones. Finally, he pressed them flat using a press of his own design that exerted several hundred pounds of pressure. Today’s squirrel or dealer would never use this method of preservation because it would contaminate the lp’s value. Instead, dealers and collectors carefully put the books in Mylar bags and adding going on a cardboard encourage, suitably they won’t fiddle following or tear. Even for that reason, Hollinger deserves excuse for creating his own method of preserving them.
By 1942, there were in report to 50 comic autograph album publishers. Each publisher produced at least 30 exchange ones, which totaled to several thousand alternating issues circulating per month! So, Pop felt the obsession to say a comic wedding album catalog. Comics came in all kinds of genres: science fiction, detective, fantasy, spy, humor, romance and many others. He owned so many of the same issues. So, it’s no wonder he thought that selling comics could be profitable. According to the eBay website, his shape ads stated: “Old or used comic books are worth keep. We pay from 1c to $1.00 each for sure primordial comics… Be in the midst of the first in your community to collect primordial comics.” In this similar ad, Pop claimed to “carry a large assortment of all comic scrap book published.”
Unfortunately, in 1952 Hollinger’s supply took a incline for the worst. A flood had come through his place of the set aside in, flooded his stores, and ruined thousands most of his inventory. Sadly, most of them had to be thrown out. To make matters worse, in 1954 many comics that were published past were recalled by the U.S. dealing out due to unsuitable content for children. But Hollinger persevered as well as his business.
Between 1961 until he closed his business, ten years sophisticated, Hollinger began selling brand unconventional superhero comic books created mainly by Marvel Comics. In November of 1961, Marvel published the first business of the “Fantastic Four”- a organization of subsidiary superheroes who became altogether popular. Fantastic Four #1 started the “Marvel Age” of comics. Other “Marvel Age” superheroes were soon introduced: Spiderman, Ironman, Thor, the Hulk, Antman, and Captain America (brought by now up from World War 2). All comic (not just Marvel) published from 1956 to 1969, became known as the “Silver Age” of comics. Today, many of the prematurely issues published by Marvel are worth re as much as those printed in the late 1930s and in front 1940s.