Black Market Antiques Blog

An Action Comics #1 reportedly has sold for $1,000,000, marking the first time a comic book has eclipsed the million dollar mark.  The comic, which marked the first time Superman appeared, originally sold for ten cents in 1938.  The comic sold to a private buyer on Comiccconnect.com

The same comic book sold for $150,000 just 15 years ago.  The million dollar sale of the comic is doubly surprising in the current slow economic market.  The previous record high sale for a comic book was for the same title, which sold over $317,000 in 2009.

Black Market Antiques now has a Facebook page.  We invite you to visit our page and become a fan.  You’re probably wondering what’s in it for you?  Well, we don’t know yet.  But we’re working on it.  We may offer specials for our Facebook fans or we may make special announcements…you’ll have to make us a fan and just stay tuned.

For those of you who are into Twitter, you can follow us on Twitter too.

“Blindfolded, kiss the homeliest person in the room.”  Those were the instructions on one of the game pieces that we pulled from a vintage circa 1930′s party game called Smacks: A Kissing Party Game.  It’s probably hard, or at least undesirable, to imagine your grandparent or great-grandparents having a kissing-orgy as a means of entertainment.

When we found the game, it had already been partially played with a few of the little rolled up pieces of paper removed.  With instructions to seek out the ugliest person in the room to kiss, it seems like the game may have ended in an argument…rather than in an X-rated Depression era orgy of affectionate depravity.

Still lots of good plays left.

If you haven’t heard…The History Channel has a new antiques oriented show on Monday evenings at 9 PM EST.  It is called American Pickers.  The show is a reality based video documentary style program that follows two pickers, Mike Wolf and Frank Fritz, on their treks through the countryside looking for antiques.  If you’re looking for another Antiques Roadshow type program, this isn’t it – too light on info.  If you’re looking for another Bargain Hunt or Cash in the Attic type program, this isn’t it – too light on info and way too light on personality.  Still the show is worth at least checking out.  The History Channel website for the show has clips that you can watch (if you’re worried about wasting an entire hour).

Recently a couple of our pickers stopped in with a load of antiques to the Black Market Antiques office and the show was one topic of conversation during the visit.  Everyone seemed to give the show lukewarm reviews, which is considerably better than many of the posts on the History Channel forum for the show.  One picker was amazed at the relative ease at which Mike Wolfe got one of the sellers to part with merchandise for ridiculously low prices.  Which is one of my main issues with the show.

I have a saying “All auctioneers are going to hell.”  I told one auctioneer that and he replied “…and all antique dealers are going there too.”  After seeing the first three episodes of this series, I believe Mike & Frank will be there for sure, if not for ripping off old people and just being plain annoying, then for revealing secrets of the trade.

Maybe it’s just the way the show is edited, but I find it hard to believe those guys actually make a living as pickers.  Their “shop” (which is a pole building) looks brand new, as does their van and all the decals.  Perhaps those were History Channel incentives.  Mike and Frank’s Antique Archeology website is basically an advertisement for the show and was obviously made after the series was taped.  Mike’s grimacing at the price of the Vespa Ape and reaction to the price of the one seller’s carriages suggests that perhaps he isn’t the world renowned picker that the History Channel describes on their website.

All that said though, American Pickers was relatively entertaining and the consensus here is that everyone will keep watching it, even though everyone likes Pawn Stars better.  Future reviews may even be done on a per episode basis…possibly by the employee that is most annoyed with each episode.