Even though Comic Book Secrets concentrates on the financial side of the hobby, from time to time it’s nice to sit back and enjoy some of the “intangibles.”

Recently I’ve increased my selling on E-bay. Some of this selling is “spring cleaning” to move out comics I’m not really interested in collecting or orphan comics, and also several sales put my money where my mouth is – members will read about this in the winter 2010/11 market report. In that report I’ll talk about the future of non-key and high grade comics (look for it after Christmas).

But a funny thing happened when I held a stack of X-Factor #1-#35 in my hands…

The original X-factor run isn’t valuable at all, these books are found in dollar and quarter bins at conventions across the US. My copies were read at most once (if that for some of them), then put into mylites with boards. They’ve been stored ever since they were first purchased then packed tightly in a long box. Out of curiosity I opened up the #1 issue and it hit me.

I could smell the fresh paper aroma.

I gently opened the comic and saw the pure white pages.

It was like I was receiving them from Westfield all over again.

I sat there for a few minutes enjoying – “geeking out” as it were – and remembered when they first arrived. All of them, pure white and fresh. I thought of the low price they would fetch. Like I said, they aren’t valuable.

And then I did it. I stacked them one more time and put them away, ready to be enjoyed in another decade or so.

Some memories just can’t be sold so cheap.