The dollar bin trick that got me a full run of X-Men #94-100

I was digging through a shop's $1 bin in Portland last Saturday and noticed all the comics were organized by cover date, not issue number. So I found a stack from 1975-1976 and pulled out 7 issues of X-Men that were all from the same Claremont run, each for a buck. Anyone else find a hidden organizing system at a shop that paid off big?

3 comments

3 Comments

anderson.piper15d ago

People who organize their collections or stores by weird systems like that are basically leaving money on the table for anyone paying attention. It's like when libraries sort DVDs by director instead of title - you find a whole run of something you love but nobody else bothered to check that section. My buddy once cleaned out a guy's garage sale where everything was just tossed in boxes by year, got a first print Killing Joke for 50 cents cause the seller didn't care to look past the date. That cover date trick is genius though, most shop owners just stack stuff in order and don't realize the dollar bin is where the real gold hides if you know how to look.

amy_anderson15d ago

The old guy who ran the comic shop near my house back in 2003 sorted everything by artist last name. Drove me nuts at first but I found a whole run of early Frank Miller Daredevil in the back corner that he had been sitting on for years because nobody else checked that section. He had all the Miller issues mixed in with some random stuff so the price was just cover or less on most of them. @anderson.piper is spot on about the cover date thing though I always flip through dollar bins in order of publication date first because that's where the reprints and second prints hide. I picked up a nice copy of Batman 404 for a dollar once because it was sandwiched between two later issues in a stack. The shop owner just saw the date and figured it was from the same era.

murray.jana11d ago

Dollar bins are where I found my first Walking Dead issues, just mixed in randomly.