Our newest lot was collected last Sunday - a 6-hour round trip to Devon!
I love southern pickups, the scenery is gorgeous, the drive is beautiful, and the landmarks... Recognisable to say the least. Driving past Stonehenge in all its glory at 6am, shrouded in mist, like a whimsical scene from a fantasy novel. You just can't beat it.
This pick up was a risky one, with a list written by a non collector, stating conditions that we couldn't really take as gospel (and it's lucky we didn't as a good chunk of the collection was unsellable due to low grade/cover detached/torn etc) BUT, this did not matter in the slightest.
The lady we spoke to was lovely, and made it clear that neither she nor her husband were collectors, and didn't want the lot, nor really had the capacity to store them. We agreed a price, I checked out the driving time, then we agreed a collection the very next day. My only mistake here, was that in a moment of idiocy, I was in Dartford when I checked the driving distance, which added another hour to the duration (CLEVER ME) and didn't realise until we left at 6am the next day! Of course due to this... mishap (Which was clearly Amy's fault not mine, nothing to do with me), we arrived an hour early, having left at 6am to get there on time. BUT SALVATION AWAITED US, in the form of a costa coffee and a gingerbread-man biscuit. Too early for a gingerbread biscuit, you say? BEGONE WITH YOU. Plus, the early arrival gave us the opportunity to explore the little Devonish village that we were in, a pretty little quaint place that felt almost as if it shouldn't be there, out in the middle of nowhere. For a town so small, its high street was actually pretty impressive.
It was here that I made the mistake of mentioning on the Fantasy Road community server where I was, which triggered one of the other Admins (Josh, King of Badgers), to attempt to guilt-trip me into driving another hour to go and see him. He even tried to bribe me with a roast dinner (Hah jokes on him, I hate roast dinners). Full disclosure, if I didn't have a valuable lot of comics in the car, I probably would have gone. Free roast dinner B free roast dinner, Yaknowworameannnnnn.
Now, getting back on topic, you may be wondering why I mentioned moments ago that the condition of the collection didn't matter. We've just driven 3 hours, with 3 hours to get back, and half of the collection was junk? Surely we would be pretty miffed? No. And I'll show you why.
Detective comics #359 in all its mid-grade glory! This was just one of the beautiful books we found, the entire collection of over 2,000 issues was absolutely riddled with stunning keys, from first Nightwing, first He-man, first Deathlock, and a list so countless that I could go on and on and on.
Overall, a trip well worth taking!
