This is part one of the tenth in a series of articles by Art Cloos in which Scoop looks at comic collecting from the point of view of the dealer. Whether they are part-time dealers at shows or the biggest of the top players in the world of back issues, comic book dealers have been an integral part of comic fandom and its history, and this is an area we believe is in need of further exploration.

Cloos has been a passionate comic collector since the age of 10. He and his wife and partner in collecting, Alice, have spent many a day at shows across the U.S. looking for that next big find for their collections. His first comic convention was a Phil Seuling con in 1974. His love of the hobby and his interest with both the history of comics and their creators and of comic fandom comes from his background as a history teacher.

Robert Beerbohm – Part One
Interviewed by Art Cloos

Pioneering comic book retailer Robert Beerbohm was born June 17, 1952 in Long Beach, California. When he was six years old, his family moved to Saudi Arabia, where he first discovered comic books. Beginning in 1972, he ran comic book stores for some 22 years straight before he began researching the history of the American comic book. He can be reached at beerbohmrl@gmail.com or through his eBay store.

Scoop: Bob, we are very happy to finally have you sit for this interview. Have you always been a comic book reader?
Robert Beerbhohm (RB): I first started looking at comic books in 1958. Most of the early comics we were reading were acquired in the Aramco PX near a huge oil refinery in Ras Tanara, Saudi Arabia. We moved there when I was in the first grade. The comic books which showed up were like a fantasy lifeline back to the USA for many of us in the international school my late brother Gary and I attended. Kids from some 35 countries, speaking multiple languages we interacted with.

Scoop: Any special titles that grabbed you?
RB: I remember having a coverless Superman #100 as a youngster there. I still recall vividly and fondly the toy robot contest story by Wayne Boring at the beginning of the book....Carl Barks Ducks and Scrooges, Little Lulu, Dennis the Menace, MAD magazine, many others I am sure. My favorite newspaper comic strip I remember as a very little kid remains Dondi by Irwin Hasen, a tale of an Italian war orphan who comes to America. For some reason I related intensely to this being then transplanted half way around the world away from the US of A.

Scoop: Irwin is one of the nicest people in the world. I loved his Dondi and bought a Sunday page from him back at Mike Carbonaro’s show in March of this year. Not to mention he is one of the great Wonder Woman cover artists of the late Golden Age. Were you a collector or simply a reader back then?
RB: In the earliest days it would obviously have been simply reading them. Living inside the adventures of Batman, Brain Boy, Captain America, Captain Atom, Iron Man, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Spider-Man, Superman, Uncle Scrooge, X-Men, etc. Acquiring back issues not yet read once we came back to America in the early ‘60s meant rudimentary collecting concepts that evolved slowly in my head. There was a local used magazine and book store called Ace Magazine Exchange in Fremont, Nebraska, where the paralyzed World War Two vet proprietor we all called "Ace" sold the comics for a nickel apiece. We traded in duplicates two for one, he paid 2¢ in cash.

Scoop: There was a store like that near where my grandparents lived. I was too young to go to it, but a neighbor’s kid was old enough and, man, did he bring back some great books, including a stack of early Justice League of America including the first JLA-JSA team up.
RB: I still to this day remember fondly in 1965 age 13 at Ace's place the first time I came across a few comic books from the 1940s. 1949 to be exact. Donald Duck Four Color #223 "Lost in the Andes," Marvel Mystery Comics #92, the last issue, with its origin of the Human Torch, a Captain America story and someone called "The Witness." These are the two imprinted in my brain forever. I thought I had died and gone to comics nirvana heaven. It was at this point in my young teen age psyche I resolved to try to seek out and acquire one of every comic book ever made as a life's quest. It soon thereafter became a hobby which got way out of hand.

Scoop: I had the same goal at one point. It took a long time for me to realize I was never going to have the room for all those comics.
RB: In February 1966, a longish AP wire service story out of Hollywood, California told the tale of Leonard Brown and his partner Malcolm Willits, who ran Collector's Book Store, uncovering a trunk at a local sale in Burbank which contained "complete" runs of Superman, Batman and other comic books from the ‘30s and ‘40s. There was a picture of Leonard holding up Batman #1 and Superman #1. Among prices for other comics, the article mentioned Len was asking "...a grand..." for the first 30 issues of Batman. "...I think we will get it..." Then, with a reverent gesture toward the trunk, Brown explained the deeper meaning of it all: "This," he said, "this is Americana."

Scoop: He was right, of course. You started selling comics with your brother, didn’t you?
RB: Yes, by this time I was hooked and also got my brother Gary enthused. We began knocking door to door here in Fremont, asking folks who answered if they had any old comic books, pulps, Big Little Books, Sunday newspaper comics sections, etc. they might want to sell. Some simply gave us their old paper, one guy saying, "...Here, it will save me the trouble of throwing them away..."

Scoop: Imagine anyone with that attitude today. Did you get involved with any of the early comic fanzines? My earliest one was a one shot from 1969 that I still have. It had a black and white interior and full color wrap around cover.
RB: The first one for us was RBCC #45. It was the first issue to show up in our mail box. We read it over and over to "death," ended up reinforcing it with more staples, tape on some pages which got torn, falling asleep under the covers with a flash light going all night.

In August 1966 my "Trade Corner" request letter was printed in Blackhawk #225 cover dated October 1966. At this time the trade LOC says I had only #70 from the Quality comics original run, again, scored from "Ace" for a nickel. We had been writing to every person listed in there each issue as best we could seeking to buy, sell, or trade comic books, mostly Blackhawks, natch, but seeking other ones as well. This little known corner of comics fandom's growth which sparked in Blackhawk is much overlooked these days by comics historians who ponder such trivia of where comics fandom grew from.

Scoop: So this is when you really started pounding the pavement, so to speak, trying to find those back issues that everyone into comics wanted their hands on and you found some amazing books I bet?
RB: Correct. Around this time we also got our first Howard Rogofsky catalog after seeing a newspaper article about him. He had been written up in a 1964 Scholastic Magazine article about his comic book back issue business. He was one of the first persons in America to declare he was a full time comic book dealer. He was 16 then, when he started. By 1966 we began trading him Marvels from around here for Golden Age comics.

Scoop: Well, Howard is yet another legend in the hobby, especially his catalogues.
RB: Our first batch from him remains etched in my memory: Flash Comics #1 (for $20 in trade), More Fun #54 (love that giant Spectre cover), All Flash #2, Marvel Mystery Comics #24, Detective Comics #41, More Fun #61 (cool Dr. Fate cover), All Winners #9, Action Comics #7. A pretty cool batch, eh?

Scoop: I’d say it was, yes.
RB: We were finding early Marvels for nickels, taking his Golden Age at his prices for our Marvels at his prices. The back issue Marvel market was heating up then, but we wanted as much ‘40s stuff as we could get.

Once we got it, we sent Gordon money for his advertised back issue supply of Alter Ego #5 (SFCA reprint), #6, #7 (SFCA reprint), #8, and Jerry Bails and Bill Spicer's Guidebook to Comics Fandom, one of the most seminal projects Jerry was involved in among many, doing first Alter Ego, then The Comics Reader (On The Drawing Board), then ComiCollector, which he spun over to GB Love after a pit stop with Ronn Foss. Once the Guidebook showed up, we sent off whatever requirement to every advertiser in there. I repeat, this Guidebook was one of the most seminal fandom "organizing" artifacts made in ‘60s comics fandom. It's editorial data became the foundation basis for what went into Overstreet #1 in 1970.

Scoop: Yes, this is the time when comic fandom was morphing into an organized hobby and so many of the elements we take for granted today were taking form.
RB: Catalogs came back from Bill Thailing (OH), Passaic (NJ), Grand Book Center (NJ), Claude Held (NY), Sonny Johnson (TN), Tom Atshuler (MI), many others, whoever had an ad in there for a catalog, list or fanzine/adzine. We jumped in with both feet to get our hands on it.

Scoop: All I can say is… wow. Passaic in particular has such a history behind it. Do you remember when your first comic show was?
RB: By RBCC #47 October 1966, G.B. got buried in RBCC requests for subscriptions from this new publicity, his sub mailing list now swelling towards 2,000, which had been faithfully hand collated by this guy with cerebral palsy until he could no longer handle it easily. He began converting over to photo offset reproduction for the hordes of classified ads incoming his way. At that point we placed our first humble little ten line ad directly following a three-and-a-half-pager from then-partners Roy Bonario and Marc Schooley out of Houston, Texas. There was also a cryptic one liner in their ad, "Houstoncon is coming in June." There were a lot of write ups and commentary about this strange then-new phenomena called comic book conventions.

Also, RBCC #47 had a cover of The Spirit by Buddy Saunders (later of Lone Star Comics) which contains the first ad for Robert Beerbohm, all of 13 years old at the time.

Scoop: How did your family react to the comic book obsession that you and your brother had developed?
RB: Well, in early 1967 around Easter time my family went on a road trek to San Antonio for something called HemisFair, trying to bring North and South America together (Are We There Yet? in more ways than one). Now, when we got to San Antonio, Pop stopped for gas, he gave Gary and me each $10 for the weekend there.

While he was pumping the gas in to the family car, I spied a used book store across the street. I got over there, asked the guy inside if he had any comic books for sale. I darn near died and went to comic book heaven. He had a whole box of early ones. Lots of ECs in there also. After much deliberation I picked out MAD #1 for all of $5 and Weird Science #18 and 19 for a $1.50 each. Came back across the street proudly beaming to myself that I now had a MAD #1! At that point Pop asked me, "Just how much did you pay for those 'funny' books?" As he railed on, I got buried in Elder, Kurtzman, Wood, Williamson, etc. drinking in some of the best comics I had read to date, barring, of course, Carl Barks’ ducks which still remain my favorites of all the stapled comics format published in America.

Scoop: As the birth of the comic convention began with the news of Houstoncon, you discovered that Gary was sick, though, right?
RB: It was in early May 1967 that tragedy struck our family when my 12-year-old brother Gary died of leukemia. I was devastated. Gary was my best friend. We had been blessed to travel around the world as a family, 22 countries did I pass through before turning 10.

Scoop: That had to be one very rough time for you and your family?
RB: About a month later, the first part of June, all of 14 years old, I announced to my grief-stricken parents I was going to get on a Greyhound Bus in a couple days, that I simply needed to get out of town for a bit, and trek on down to Houston for something called Houstoncon slated for June 17 and 18. Rode the bus for 28 hours, changing a couple times in Kansas City and then Oklahoma City for a straight shot down to Houston. Got there Friday after what sleep I could manage on the bus. In a daze in more ways than one.

Scoop: You went with the intent of selling there?
RB: Being all of 14, I did not yet know renting dealer tables at a show cost $5, nor did I even think that I had no place to stay for the night. But with Gary heavy in my mind, I was able to say out loud, "I made it!" for the both of us. Roy Bonario, Marc Schooley, Bill Wallace, Boyd and Dee Magers, Russ Cochran and many others who were at that early comicon were “good medicine” helping me come to grips and grapple with my brother’s very sudden death. I shall ever remain in their debt of open hospitality which helped immensely coming out of that acute depression. A couple highlights I remember scoring were a Frazetta Li'l Abner 1956 Sunday original all of $6 and a ERB Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar McClurg first edition which set me back $12. Plus more ECs, other Wally Wood comics from Avon, I left with more books than I arrived with, coming home on gas fumes as it were. Keep in mind new Code comics were still "just" 12¢ each. I was hooked on the shows.

Scoop: There was no stopping you, huh?
RB: Next year I went to Southwesterncon this time in Dallas, Texas. Met up with Jerry Weist who had just published Squa Tront #2, fresh from the printer. Bought ten copies from him at 40% off its 75¢ cover price to try to re-sell to other comic book collectors. For me, this was my own personal introduction to the "origins" of the Direct Market concepts, but more on the DM later on. At this point I am now 16 years old.

Scoop: You also co-published a fanzine?
RB: By February 1969, my friend Steve Johnson and I began publishing our dittoed fanzine Fanzation for five issues 1969-70 with able assists and collaboration with local artist later turned pro Deryl Skelton and contributions from a few luminaries of fandom as it then existed. The title was a word play on "Fan's Imagination." Besides a number of varying articles on aspects of comics & related fantasy, we were fortunate to publish a letter by Steve Ditko in Fanzation #3, which Fred Wertham quoted on the subject of creativity in his last book, The World of Fanzines, a largely forgotten book these days wherein he exonerates comics fans as having turned out OK after his infamous book, Seduction of the Innocent, created the stampede which led to the Comics Code in late 1954. #3 also has a very good article on Uncle Scrooge's career time line by Robert Weinberg, one of the originators of the Chicago Comicon, which still runs every summer.

Fanzation #5 sports a Reed Crandall pencil Tarzan cover we had printed up photo offset. We published an article by Jerry Bail discussing the early origins of his ideas on how and why he essentially kick-started present-day comics fandom in 1961. We ran an article by Ted White exploring the origins of EC fandom of the ‘50s leading in to the early ‘60s plus friend Jack Promo also wrote about getting into EC comics fandom with its fanzines of the day along with his memories of working with Jerry Bails, Shel Dorf and others starting one of the very first true full-blown comics conventions, The Detroit Triple Fan Fair back in 1964.

Fanzation is referenced at least nine times in Wertham's final book, which was published just before he passed away in 1974. He had called me on the phone to order a subscription from one of our few RBCC ads we ran.

Scoop: I am sure you were at Phil Seuling’s early shows right?
RB: Oh, yeah, in fact here is a Seuling story for you: In 1971 Steve Johnson and I made our second long trek driving a load of comics and related material for our three table set up at Phil Seuling's fabulous legendary July 4th weekend New York Comic Art Convention.

A couple week before at a Texas show, we had scored a huge pile of Foster Prince Valiant full page Sunday tear sheets for 50¢ a page from Robert Brown (and Don Maris, I think), which they had scored out of some old pharmacy which for some unknown reason had never returned their Sunday newspapers. The place had a basement full of old newspapers. There were several of each from Puck the Comic Weekly from 1938 through 1950 or so. Enough for both Steve and I to have a run each, as well as have a few of each to sell, which we duly hauled to NYC and placed them out for $3 a page for the ‘30s fulls, $2 each for the first half of the ‘40s, $1.50 ea for the last half of the ‘40s.

Scoop: That was quite a haul.
RB: Wednesday had been set-up day. We were right next to The Pulps author Tony Goodstone. He had some cool stuff like the Superman Roll-Over plane, and all kinds of neat character pulps, ERB McClurg hardcover first printings, which we gawked over contemplating our dream wish list. This is the show that someone on Thursday morning jumped on top of Howard Rogofsky's table, breaking the legs, comics spewing in all directions, Howard left, never to set up at a show again, going strictly mail order from then on, but I digress.

Scoop: So that was why he never showed up at any subsequent shows? I never heard that story till now.
RB: That same morning a man comes up, starts going thru the Prince Valiant stack, looking like he had gone into some sort of comic heaven. He told us that years earlier he had cut apart PV pages, pasting them into albums, and now, years later, the rubber cement was staining through, obscuring Foster's art. He proceeded to examine each page, comparing the duplicates, picking out one of each of every page. Steve and I were contemplating our good fortune of obtaining a good sale so early into the show. It was the first hour of day one at the then most popular comics show in the country. Phil knew how to bring us all together and worked tirelessly for many years to achieve that effect. While the man was going thru the PVs, an older guy with longer white type hair wanders up, starts talking to the PV guy, and then asking us if we were interested in looking at, maybe buying, some of his art. We said, "Sure, we always want to look."

He pulls out this huge stack of Roy G Krenkel single panel illustrations measuring upwards of 6 x 6 inches. There were quite a few nudes plus ERB prelim illos of all sorts but the real juice was panel after panel of RGK pen and ink prelims for most all of Al Williamson's EC and ACG work including some of the Fritz WIlli collaborations. One panel at a time. He said they were 50¢ to a buck apiece. Steve and I pulled out well over a hundred of them, simply saying, "How much?" as well as gushing how much we loved Al Williamson art to gaze upon.

The older guy simply smiled, introducing himself as Roy G Krenkel himself, and stating he taught Al Williamson how to tell comic strip stories and how to draw. The PV guy kept sorting through the foot tall stack, smiling.

Scoop: That is amazing, but this happened so much at those early comic shows. I remember one show in 1976 where one could not turn around without bumping into someone famous. At that show I got a Stan Ash drawing and All American #64 from his personal collection for pennies (which is all I had in those days).
RB: About this time a woman walks up, starts talking to Roy and the PV guy, proceeding to also spy the table full of 1930s and ‘40s Disney stuff we had piled up there, like Fantasia glazed planters, many unused rolls of ‘30s Disney wall trim we had scored out of some estate sale in Nebraska. She said they had just moved to Pennsylvania and wanted to do her kitchen in "Disneyana." She proceeds to pull out cool Disney stuff we had, about $3,000 at the prices of the day. It was a large stash, Steve and I were figuring we could cover college costs for sure this year all by ourselves. While the lady was picking and pulling all the while talking to RGK and the PV guy, the PV guy all of a sudden is done , and asking us if we would be interested in trading for some Al Williamson art. We gushed, "yes, but of course," all the while oblivious to the reality which would be presented to us in due course. The lady is still pulling what she likes, building up quite the pile, and still conversing with Roy, the PV guy comes back with an art portfolio case, opens it up, over-flowing with Williamson art of all sorts. Slowly our freshly graduated from high school minds put two and two together, realizing we are conversing all this time with one of our EC gods!

Scoop: You guys really were having a show for the ages here.
RB: We added up a decade's worth of Prince Valiant pages starting February 1938 at approx $3 per page for the late ‘30s, a couple bucks a page for the ‘40s, then delved into Al's portfolio case, pulling out all kinds of pieces, a pile of Secret Agent Corrigan dailies, I remember 60 or so is what we ended up with, some comic book pages including one spectacular unpublished splash page to a proposed ERB Pellucidar 1957 page, which I managed to hold onto for many years. It’s now long gone, and I am left wondering if I will ever see it offered for sale again.

After we had scored our pile of RGK panels, a pile of Al Williamson originals, the lady announced she was done, and she turned to us, saying to go check with her husband up in a room on the third floor (room number eludes me right now), letting him know we had $3,000 in trade credit, and the three of them abruptly depart, headed to some other aspect of Phil's wonderous show, leaving us dumb-founded on so many levels as we contemplated what just happened.

Scoop: So was that was the end of the surprises for the day?
RB: We go thru our day, buying selling trading comics to a multitude of comicon-goers all sharing the same passions. Friday rolls around, the lady has not returned with her husband. In the early afternoon I tell Steve I am going to go to this hotel room upstairs, Steve's last words as I headed towards the elevator were, "Get the money. We need it!"

Got upstairs, walked down some hallway, knocked on the door, it swung open, unlocked. My chin hits the floor as I am suddenly gazing at all the Frazetta Conan paperback paintings on one wall, the Warren Creepy and Eerie covers on another, a third wall with other famous Frazetta paintings. In the middle of the room was the man himself, holding court.

Scoop: Frazetta, too?
RB: There was a table in the middle as well, piled high with every Johnny Comet Sunday and daily. I walk up, introduce myself as the "Disney stuff" guy his wife, Ellie, had picked out a pile from. Frank was so cordial, saying he had heard my partner and I were huge Frazetta fans, that the Comets were $100 each for a two tier Sunday, dailies were $35 each, three for a hundred dollars. Without even thinking, I proceeded to pick and choose 90 originals from among the dailies as my mind told me I would get an "extra tier" going for three dailies for a hundred dollars. More Frazetta bang for the buck, so to speak. In an art-induced daze I wondered back to our tables down stairs, Steve's first words were, "You didn't get the money, did you?"

Punch line of this story is at the end of Phil's show that year in 1971, Russ Cochran ended up with all the rest of Frazetta's Johnny Comets on consignment. He immediately made the dailies $100 each, thereby tripling the trade made with "The Man" himself just a few days earlier. I still have a few of RGK's EC prelim pen & inks safely tucked away, though the actual Williamson and Frazetta art obtained that week end is all long gone as life took unexpected turns.

Scoop: You also wanted to talk a bit about the tale of the first Superman cover from 1933 drawn by Joe Shuster?
RB: Yes. In 1971 I drove to early mentor Russ Cochran's house in Adel, Iowa. He was just getting back from New York City, having just concluded deals with Bill Gaines for the first EC Portfolio reprint projects as well as Frank Frazetta concerning the hand-coloring jobs the master was to soon perform on Weird Science Fantasy #29. I ordered one, treasured it for a long time. (In a moment of weakness some years back I sold it to long time collector-dealer Gary Colabuono.)

When my vintage comic book buying from him was concluded, Russ motioned me to come over to a folio he had which contained therein four ripped up pieces of art which went to one single scene, the edges singed by fire, which, when put together, formed the cover you see here saying, "The Superman; A Science Fiction Story In Cartoons," further, the cover stipulates this is "The Most Astounding Fiction Character Of All Time." 

Russ proceeded to tell me a tale that this came out of the desk of early comic book promoter and publisher, Max (Charlie) Gaines, found by his son William in 1969, crumpled up in the back of a drawer in his father's desk which had sat untouched since the boating accident in August 1947.

Russ said that Bill said he wasn't that much into Superman, then Russ said to me he wasn't that much into Superman either, and did I want to trade him $100 worth of vintage comic books for it. He remains a consummate salesman. I came home with these four torn, fire singed pieces. I did not know what i had then back summer of 1970, but I knew I had something, thinking to myself how best to preserve for posterity what may be something very important to the annals of comics history. I went down to a local printer. He suggested I make up a printer's negative upon which he taught me how to use red opaque paint to clear off all the ripped paper marks. Then we printed 300 copies of what you see here. I began offering them in the pages of Stan's Weekly Express as well as GB Love's Rocket's Blast ComiCollector.

Sold a few to equally curious like-minded souls such as Charlie Roberts (who went on to make a smaller size version of which Joe Shuster signed 50), then forgot about them as I got caught up with being a partner in Comics & Comix as we expanded from one store to four spread out a hundred miles.

Many years later most of the story behind the mystery of this cover has been uncovered, brought to light, a decent synopsis written by me in each annual edition of long-running The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide fronting their main price index section titled, Origin of the Modern Comic Book;

Back in October 1996 John Snyder asked me to relate some of the comics history I have uncovered over a lifetime of studying the art form known as the comic strip in all its myriad arcane styles and formats combining the powerful force of words with pictures, sequential art story telling some of us call it.

Synopsis here is when this first incarnation of The Superman was rejected by a Chicago publisher named Humor Publishing. Joe, so the legend goes, in a fit of depression, threw the entire book into the fireplace. Then Jerry reached in to save the ripped-into-four-pieces cover. Somehow it got to be crushed behind a drawer in Max Gaines desk until son Bill was cleaning out his father's study in late 1969, who then the next year gave it to Russ Cochran, who within a week of that happening, traded it to me.

I then had a small number printed up. Luckily I had left a portion of the stack at my parent’s house when I moved out to the Bay Area in August 1972. If one looks closely at the weird line in Superman's rump plus his forehead. I left that part unchanged by the red opaque paint when the printing negative was being prepped for printing to show at least a portion of what it originally looked like all over before being lovingly restored to see what impact it originally had as devised by the creators of arguably the most popular fiction character of our time to date. There are only a few left now 40 years later.  

When one compares this cover to the three known 1933 published humor comic books, Detective Dan Secret OP 48, The Adventures of Detective Ace King, Bob Scully, Two-Fisted Hick Detective, one quickly notices distinct attributes the Siegel and Shuster lifted to make their creation's appearance conform to the same “house” look, is what I and many others now think after decades exploring this conundrum. It was signed copyright 1928 Joe Shuster and Jerome Siegel, which remains a mystery. Why 1928 was chosen to place there, no one thought to ask either of Superman's daddies. Incredible oversight sure to be lamented by future historians.

Scoop: You were close to opening your first store by this time?
RB: Yes. The following year in late August 1972 with the late John Barrett and Bud Plant, we co-opened the first store in what became known as the Comics & Comix chain at 2512 Telegraph Avenue, moving out to the California Bay Area, becoming a full time dealer of all things comics.

Scoop: But you were already planning something beyond the store?
RB: You are right. Six months later found us hosting the first San Fran Bay Area comicon in the ASUC Building on the University of Califorina-Berkeley campus Easter weekend. UC students were a buck a head, kids under 12 free, general public was $3. Robert Graysmith, then editorial cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, got us the cover and a three-page write-up in the “pink section” main cultural announcement portion of the combined Chronicle Examiner Sunday newspaper.

Berkeleycon 73 was the first comicon in history to be focused on creator-owned, royalty paying “underground-distributed” comix.

Scoop: This is where you made one of the major buys of your career, right?
RB: During the last hour of the last day on Sunday, the fabled Tom Reilly “San Francisco” vintage comic book collection of over 4,000 mostly unread, uncirculated mint Golden Agers 1939-1945 surfaced. We were lucky to score 7/9s of the holdings over the course of a couple months.

Scoop: From all I have heard, that was some collection. Certainly it was one of the earliest major collections to surface up to that time.
RB: I personally sold well over two thirds of the Tom Reilly high grades. I sold the Detective Comics #27 out of that collection for $2,200 to Burl Rowe (who later sold it to Gary and Lane Carter) with it becoming the first comic book to break the two grand barrier, eliciting worldwide AP/UPI coverage which garnered us three more Detective #27s in under a month, along with a flood of other Golden Age. When I looked at the scan they made, I personally think the recent Heritage million dollar Detective #27 is the Reilly copy.

Scoop: So, did you retire with the money you made from it?
RB: The phenomenal “over Guide” sales of Tom Reilly’s books enabled us to open three more stores in San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento. The resulting firm lasted more than 30 years.

Part two of the Robert Beerhohm interview will appear in the next installment of “What’s Your Best Price?”