As a kid, Ralph Chicorel was careful with the comic books he faithfully bought for 10 cents at the drugstore in his Detroit neighborhood.
“I loved the artwork so much that I took real good care of them. I turned the pages very carefully,” the 78-year-old said. “I relished, treasured them.”
Chicorel's diligence will likely pay off when 110 or so of the comics he started collecting as an 8-year-old go up for auction soon at Heritage Auction Galleries, an offering that's expected to bring in about $500,000.
The sale will begin Thursday with the most important comics, followed by the rest over the weekend.
"These comic books are all very hard to find, and if you do find them you're not going to find them in this kind of condition," said Maggie Thompson, senior editor of Iola, Wisconsin-based Comic Buyer's Guide.
“Some of these are key comics in the field,” she said.
The collection boasts the likes of "Batman" No. 1 and "Marvel Comics" No. 1. The most expensive comic — expected to clear $100,000 — is the scarce "Marvel Mystery Comics" No. 9, noted for its cover battle between the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner — the first time two superheroes appeared in the same story, said Heritage's director of comics operations, Barry Sandoval.
Experts say most comics from the “Golden Age” — the late 1930s through the 1940s — were thrown away or fell victim to World War II era paper drives. And most of those saved were read until they were in tatters or stored in places where light, moisture or heat got to them.
"If a comic book was really good in the 1940s, chances are it got read to death," Thompson said.
In a world where a creased corner could take tens of thousands of dollars off the value, Chicorel's careful treatment of his collection over the years will make it especially coveted.
"They're high grade across the board," Sandoval said.
Chicorel, who now lives in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls, said that by the time he turned 16 in the late 1940s, his attention had turned to movie magazines and records. The comic collection that had lined the shelves in his closet was boxed up and put away as life marched on.
He spent a year in the military serving in Korea, attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and eventually returned to Detroit in 1955, marrying and going into the restaurant business. By 1968, he and his wife decided to move their family to Wisconsin to open a Weight Watchers franchise.
Needing money for the move, Chicorel ended up parting with the first half of his comic collection for $3,500, he said. When he sold those 900 or so comics, he thought that was his entire collection.
"The comic book craze was just beginning that year and I didn't know it would skyrocket," said Chicorel, who said two guys ended up bidding on the comics.
Al Milgrom was 18 when his aunt told him that her friend, Chicorel, was selling his comics in 1968. That collection left him in awe, but he didn't end up raising enough money to bid.
"It was an amazing collection — comics I'd never heard of before, and comics I'd heard of but hadn't seen in person," said Milgrom, now a freelance cartoonist who has worked for the likes of Marvel Comics.
In a matter of days, Chicorel found the rest of the collection, which had also been boxed up in the attic. With no time to do a second auction, he moved them with his family to Wisconsin.
Over the years, he heard that comics were increasing in value. Chicorel, who retired in 1992 and continues a lifelong passion for composing music and lyrics, said that with the downturn in the economy and his advancing years, he decided that it was time to sell the remainder of the collection.
Sandoval said collectors will appreciate that this collection has had only one owner all these years — the kid who bought them off the newsstands.
For most Golden Age comics, he said, 20 to 200 on average exist today.
"Almost all they made of these were in trash cans long ago," Sandoval said.