[Ronnie73]

I have a very long list, especially since eBay and so many other auction houses are online now. Before internet days, everything was very slow paced and easier to remember certain things. I started using eBay in 1998 and even a year before that, I was starting AOL chat rooms and selling coins, stamps, comic books, and baseball cards. The only item I remember getting away from me was back in 1986 when I was 13 years old. I live in Connecticut and a couple weeks during the summers, the family would drive to our summer cottage vacation home in Vermont. I'd try to save money during the year to bring with me. There were a couple small stores that had collectibles and we were right on Lake Champlain so some money went to fishing supplies also. I remember that summer so clear. I had $80 saved for 2 weeks of time. During the road trip up to Vermont, you could see a monster sized tag sale from the highway. I begged to stop, so we did. there were so many different sellers, it was impossible to try and see everything. Plus I was only 13 years old, had limited money, and this was before the internet, so everything was learned by picking up a book and reading it or listening to conversations at dealer tables. While I was at the monster tag sale, (which my parents didn't want to be at), I was able to locate a guy selling comic books. So my parents were like, find something, and lets go. We still had a couple more hours of driving to go. So I started searching a random box of comics. At the time, I was more of a coins, stamps, and baseball cards collector. But I had friends I'd always trade with, and a few of them really liked comic books. Half way through the box, I felt my heart stop beating. It was a Detective Comics #27 (First Appearance of Batman). It was in a comic bag but not even a backboard. Nearly all his comics were that way. It also wasn't some oddball comic that didn't fit. The whole box was very early 1930's and 1940's. Very early issues of Superman, Batman, Action Comics, and many Detective Comics. I even saw the Action Comics #1 (First Appearance of Superman) but it was priced at $200 and I only had $80 and my parents were really pushing to go. I pulled out the Detective Comics #27 and I didn't see a price on it, so I asked the guy. He acted like I was wasting his time because I was young and probably had no money. He said $50. I was thinking, I had $80 to last me two weeks and we haven't even gotten there yet and I'm thinking about spending more than half of my money during the first 2 hours of vacation. So I put it back, made my parents happy by saying, lets go. That whole rest of the ride, I regretted not buying it. I asked my parents if the tag sale was still set up on our way home, if we could stop again, they said yes. I only ended up spending $20 during the whole 2 weeks while in Vermont. On the way home, no sign of the tag sale. It's haunted me ever since.