 Hi everyone, this is Chisholm. Welcome to my channel. Now I was recently reminded that I had made a promise to tell you guys the story of when I almost bought Amazing Spider-Man number one, when I was given the opportunity to buy Amazing Spider-Man number one. And I thought this would be a good video to start the new year with the 2018 new year, right? So before we get into the details of how the opportunity presented itself, I sort of have to sort of set the stage so that you know where I was at, my mindset, my finances, to have a really good appreciation of what this opportunity meant for me and how I tried everything possible to be able to get my hands on Amazing Spider-Man number one. Now this thing occurred back in 1989, 1990, when I was in university. I was going to University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. And I basically decided to, you know, it was time for me to bunker down and stay, get a piece of paper that, you know, the university offered for me to be able to do what I wanted to do for the foreseeable future anyway during that period. And what I wanted to do was get a geophysics degree with a math minor. And I ended up doing that going to University of Waterloo. And for the next 10 years or so, I sort of worked as a geophysicist and trekked around everywhere. And it was amazing, right? It is, it was basically what I had in vision, and it was basically how it all played out. And I was very lucky in that aspect, right? And if you want to know a little bit about my life as a geophysicist, I put out a video, you know, we talked about some of the stories, some of the experiences I had as a geophysicist and what being a geophysicist entailed, right? So I was in the process of getting my degree for that, right? Getting a piece of paper that said I was qualified to do this and getting a little bit of education along the way to learn the instruments, to learn the mathematics behind what I was doing, right? And basically, during that period, it was a lot cheaper to go to university than it is now. But it was still expensive for me anyway. And it was expensive at the time, because you have to sort of take everything, or relative, right? As we talked about with differential accumulation, it's not really absolutes that matter, it's relatives that matter. And relative for that period, the prices had slowly started to hike up, right? So it was fairly expensive for me anyway, to go to university or Waterloo, because I was living on campus as well, I was living away from where I was, because I was in Vancouver, so I had to go to Ontario to go to school, right? So we're back in 1988, 1990. I've decided to bunker down and go to university and get my degree in geophysics, so I could do what I think I can do doing geophysics, right? So I was living on a budget, and basically I was living in a one bedroom apartment with three of us living there, right? And basically, during that period, 1989, 1990, I sort of had a little space in the one bedroom apartment, and I was sleeping in a sleeping bag on some carpets that I layered. So I basically had a little padding of carpets and a sleeping bag on top. And I was living like that for the first couple of years when I went to Waterloo, Ontario, right? Going to university. And as you can tell, it was very low budget I was trying to maintain my expenses, right? But one aspect of that going to university was I was very lucky was I was in a co-op program. So what that basically meant was you went to school for anywhere between four to eight months, and then the university helped you get a job, you know, they set up interviews and stuff like this where you could work for four months, and then you would come back to university, and I had student loans, and every now and then I would I would borrow money from friends and I would get emergency loans from the university or whatnot, right? So that's the sort of a financial situation I was in, okay? And the workload for me was fairly heavy going to university because I was sort of doing extra stuff to be able to get my minor in mathematics, right? So basically, I really didn't do too much socializing during the first couple of years of going to university. I was trying to maintain my budget. I was trying to learn a lot of content, right? So I kept a pretty low profile. We didn't even have a TV at the time. We didn't even have cable at the time for the first couple of years anyway. So I ended up reading a lot of books and doing a lot of my homework, I guess. And there was definitely no, you know, internet you could serve or anything like this or handheld devices and stuff like your handheld device was basically if you were lucky enough you had a sort of a CD player, right? CD portable CD players were just becoming popular then and I was lucky enough to have a CD player or we share the CD player between two of us living in the apartment. So I was lucky enough to be able to have music with me while I study, while I read books sometimes or just chilled or did whatever it was I was doing, right? But there was one out that I had as far as entertainment was concerned. Actually, there was two of them. One of them was going to movies. I would go to a lot of movies, right? Nice distraction from reading, learning differential accumulation or what do you call it, derivatives into girls' mathematics, four-year series or whatever it was, right? The other sort of entertainment thing that I had was I went to the comic book store and the comic book store that I went to was the first comic book that I set up a poll list, right? So during that period was my first real introduction to a comic book specialty retail store because it was the first time that I was able to get a poll list and take a look at what was coming out and sign up for titles. Once you get a poll list in a comic book store, what generally happens is you sort of hang around there for a bit. It's very weird. You sort of get to know the people working there. You get to know other people that have poll lists because if you have a poll list, in general, you usually go in on when the comics ship in, which is usually on Wednesdays. And for some reason back then, I remember a comic shipping twice a week. I don't know if comics really ship twice a week, but I would go to the comic store twice a week. I would go there on Wednesdays. I believe it was Wednesdays back then as well. And I would go there on the weekend, right? Because that was when I didn't have any classes and I needed a little bit more break. So I would go to the comic book store on weekends and sort of look through the poll list or look in the bins, look at the back issues and look what was on the racks. Look to see if I had any more money that I could buy any additional comic books and stuff like this. So in general, I went to the comic book store twice a week. On Wednesday when the books came out and on the weekend, I think usually it was Saturday. That's why I think there were books being released twice a week, right? Now, for me, I didn't know this at the time, but I was lucky enough to have a poll list at a comic book retailer that was considered to be the oldest comic book retailer in Canada and I believe in the United States. And the comic book retailer, the comic book store I was going to, was now and then books, right? Hopefully now and then books. I'm looking up the name of the owner because I talked to him a lot. I didn't know his last name, but I called him Harry, right? So I would talk to Harry a lot. So it was now and then books in Kitchener, Ontario. Kitchener, Ontario was sort of the cities that are right beside each other. Waterloo is where I went to university and Kitchener was right beside it. It was sort of a road that broke up Kitchener Waterloo, right? But there were basically two cities that are right beside each other, right? So I would go from my city to Kitchener, Ontario, catch the bus, or drive a car that we shared, right? Go there and then I would go to the comic book store because it was a little of a trek for me if I was taking the bus or driving wasn't that far but taking a bus was a little bit of a trek. I would hang around the comic book store and stuff like this, right? So now and then books, not knowing this at the time, was considered to be one of the or the longest, the oldest comic book specialty retail shop in North America, right? And the owner of that retail shop was Harry Kremer, C-R-E-M-E-R, right? And he was a phenomenal guy, seriously. Having your first experience at a comic book store, getting a pull list at a comic book store where the owner treats you well, where the people coming in and out of that door are aficionados, or creators, or artists, or people who have been collecting comic books for during the 90s or 1990 for like 20 years, 30 years of people collecting comic books and getting to hear conversations, right? It was a great place to be, especially taking a break from what I was doing at university, right? Stressful, a lot of work, but amazing returns, right? Amazing experience, okay? So it was fantastic sort of being in that comic book store and whatnot. And just to let you know how important Harry Kremer is to the comic book industry, there is an award that is named after him that is given out every year. And the award is the Joe Schuster comic book awards, right? And I believe it's only given out, it's only Canada, but I think they're also involved in giving, you know, with award ceremonies in the United States as well, okay? But Joe Schuster comic book awards, and Joe Schuster comic book awards is named after Joe Schuster, which was one of the co-creators of Superman, right? And Harry Kremer, the comic book owner of now-and-man books where I had my poll list in 1989, 1990, well 1989 to 1992 or something had my poll list there. But for those three, four years where I had my poll list at his store, he was the owner I was, he was a person that I was dealing with and I talked to him a fair bit and he was a phenomenal guy, right? So huge respect for him and he died. I believe it passed away in 2002 and the Joe Schuster award was created, that aspect of it was created in honor of him, right? To recognize his work in the comic book media, right? So I had a nice little poll list. I would go in twice a week, I would talk to people and after, you know, a year, after a few months, after a few weeks, you really got to know Harry and you got to know the store and the way I basically ended up getting a poll list there, I was looking for some flash comic books, right? Because I was, I went to a used comic books, used bookstore and I bought some flash back issues and there was gaps in the read. So I had to go to a comic book store, especially store to be able to find those gaps and found my way there and got my poll list there, right? Now one day when I was in the comic book store, I don't know if it was, it was during the beginning stages of me going to noun them bucks, right? It was after a few months and one day when I went there, I, you know, I, I went to, you basically what you would do is you would go to, if Harry was in the front, you tell him, hey Harry, I'm here to pick up my poll list or sometimes he was out in the back as you came in through the door and if I remember this correctly, there was, the cashier stand was in front of the door right across from the door and then there was a whole bunch of comics behind him on the wall and there was comics. You went to the, towards the cashier side of the comic book, comic book store and along the walls, if you went in a little bit further along the walls with the new racks and he had stuff on the walls and across from that on the, on the back of the store was where his office was, right? So if Harry was in the front, you say, hey Harry, I'm here to pick up my, my poll list, right? On Wednesdays and if I couldn't get it, get there on Wednesdays or go there on Saturdays, right? Or if he wasn't there, you go, you know, someone in the front would say, oh he's in the back and you would go in the back and he was usually sitting on his chair, little swivel chair, right? And as soon as you walk through the door, or door to his office, you stood there, you never really walked into the door, just for me anyway, you never really walked into his office, I sort of stood at the doorway, right? And he'd be swiveling around in his chair, he'd go, hi, how you doing Harry? And then he had, he, as soon as you were at the door, he had the pull list little bins on the wall over here, and then he would look up your bin and give you your comics, right? So one day when I was there, I went up there and said, hey Harry, I'm here to pick up my, my poll list, he was rotating on his chair, he was holding a comic book, right? So we got into a little bit of talk and said, what are you holding? And he goes, amazing Spider-Man number one. I was like, you're doing what? You're holding amazing Spider-Man number one. It was in a bag and a board, right? It wasn't slapped or anything. There wasn't too many graded slap comics floating around at the time. The first time I ever saw a slapped comic was during the comic book convention, I believe it was 1992 or something, where I had a booth where I was selling off some of my collection to, you know, get some money so I could buy more comic books, right? So I did the circuit of going, going to some of the conventions and setting up a booth and selling and trading with other collectors and stuff like this. So I said, you're holding amazing Spider-Man number one. So I said, can I, can I take a look? Right? He goes, yeah, for sure. So he handed it to me. I put my comics back in my bin. I looked at the thing, oh my god, this is beautiful. It's fantastic. It was a very nice copy, right? There wasn't, I remember this. I don't know why I remember this, but I don't remember. Maybe I don't remember it accurately because our memories, human memories aren't very accurate. We're in general, rememberable. We want to remember or we associate with other things. If you look into it, it's really interesting how the human mind works, right? But basically, I remember holding amazing Spider-Man number one, right? For a time, I thought it was amazing fantasy 15, but it wasn't, right? The more I thought about it, it was definitely amazing Spider-Man number one. But I remember it being very, very, very nice shape, right? There weren't any tears in the comic book. There weren't, there weren't any parts missing or anything like this. So I looked at this thing and I went, wow, this is beautiful. It was the first time I'm holding amazing Spider-Man number one. And it was definitely first time. It was the most expensive book I've ever held in my hands, right? And I was going to university. So I was, you know, I was young. I was like, I don't know how old I was at the time. I was probably like 19, 20 years old at the time, right? It was, it was an interesting period, right? Taking a break from doing, doing mathematics, physics, calculus, and a lot of environmental work and stuff like this totally different world, right? And I told him, I said, did you, are you selling this or did you just buy this or what's going on? He goes, well, I'm trading this. I go, you're trading this? What are you trading this for? And then he reached over, his swivel chair, he went over to his table and grabbed a piece of white paper, right? It wasn't a comic book page. It was a, but it was a big page. It's sort of an art page, like a sketch, sketch, you know, those large pieces of, I don't do art, so I don't know what they call them, but those large pieces of sketch, booklets that people have that do sketches. It was one of those torn out and it was in a plastic, I believe it was in a plastic protective thing, but I don't think so. It might have to be, right? I'm just thinking about what it was and I'm telling myself that it had to be, but for some reason, you know, I held it, I could fold it, but he did, you know, he brought it over when he handed it to me, just goes, be careful with it. I said, okay. So he gave it to me and I looked at it and it was beautiful artwork, right? And you gotta remember, I was sort of new into comic book collecting at the time. I have comic book collection, I've been reading comics since I was really young, right? We put out a video where I showed you my first comic books that I still have, right? Some of my first comic books, which were the Tintins that I brought over from Iran and came over from Canada and they're all in Farsi, right? And I had other comic books as well that never made it with me, right? X-Men as well back then in Farsi that we couldn't bring with me, right? So I've been around comic books for a long time, but I never really considered comic books a form of collecting. I just bought comic books and read comic books and I had my stacks of comic books and I never put comic books in bags and board or anything like this back then, right? During the time I was, I had my polis I did, but when I was a child I didn't, right? So I looked at the piece of artwork that he handed to me and I went, wow, it's beautiful. And the piece of art was, it was a drawing, a sketch of Swamp Thing. And it was beautiful and it was just a torso, the picture. It was big intricate face of the Swamp Thing and it went down to, it wasn't a full body sketch. I don't think so. It went, you know, if my memory serves you right? It went down to, you know, a little bit above, like to about here of Swamp Thing and it was in profile mode, right? To a certain degree sort of turned like this, right? And I looked at it, wow, this is very nice. I go, you're trading amazing Spider-Man number one for this? How come? And it goes, look at the signature. You know me I'm bad with reading names and pronouncing names. It goes, it's burning rights and sketch, pencil sketch, right? At the time, you know, I knew of Bernie Wrightson, but I was just learning about the great masters, right? Like, oh, Bernie Wrightson, I go, but you're giving up amazing Spider-Man number one. He goes, yeah, but I'm doing a trade with the original sketch of Bernie Wrightson, right? It's what I want and I'm willing to give up amazing Spider-Man number one and I sort of, oh my God, like for me, I wouldn't have given up amazing Spider-Man number one for Bernie Wrightson sketch. Would I now? If I took copies of amazing Spider-Man number one, I would, depending on the condition of amazing Spider-Man, I would. The way I remember the condition of amazing Spider-Man number one to be the Bernie Wrightson sketch, I don't know what it's going for, Bernie Wrightson sketches, right? You might look that up. What I give it up, I would right now. I would trade amazing Spider-Man number one with an original sketch of Bernie Wrightson pencils and a big piece of paper and it was beautiful, right? I remember it being absolutely beautiful, right? The reason I would give it up, I don't know what the prices would be, is because Bernie Wrightson, right? Look up his work. It's absolutely brilliant, right? And I, at the time, I looked at this thing and I sort of gave him back his the Bernie Wrightson painting and I grabbed the amazing Spider-Man number one. Again, I was awestruck with amazing Spider-Man number one and I said, how much is this trade worth, right? And he said, $1,400. Basically, it's the value we've figured out it's going to be. And I said, so $1,400, you're basically doing a trade for Bernie Wrightson painting? He goes, yeah. I go, so basically this amazing Spider-Man number one is worth $1,400. He goes, yeah, if you bring me $1,400, right? I'll give you the amazing Spider-Man number one and I'll give the cash to the person who has the Bernie Wrightson paint. Let's get strong and I'll take that, right? So basically he said, bring me $1,400 and I'll give you amazing Spider-Man number one, right? And I confirmed that. I said, so you're willing to sell me amazing Spider-Man number one for $1,400, this copy? He goes, yeah, right? I said, okay, okay. When is this trade taking place? He said, on Monday, right? This was a, you know, I had a couple of days. I remember it. If it was Wednesday, then it would have been a Friday. If it was Saturday that I went in, it would have been the Monday that he was going to do the trade, right? He was holding on to it. He was holding on to the Bernie Wrightson painting. He was that. Like everyone trusted him, right? And now on then bucks, you have to appreciate how grand it is, right? One thing I forgot to mention, Dave Sim, the creator of Cerebus worked at now and then bucks. He created someone's original sketches for a newsletter that now and then books had, right? He used to do signings at now and then books. He was best friends with Harry, right? Harry was best friends with a lot of comic book creators, right? So people trusted him. So he was holding on to the Bernie Wrightson sketch drawing and the Amazing Spider-Man number one for a couple of days until I guess the person would come back or whatever the deal was for them to do the handover, right? For the guy to take Amazing Spider-Man number one. Okay. And he gave me two days to come up with $1,400 to buy Amazing Spider-Man number one. Now, this was at the beginning stages of me going to university. I didn't have very much money. I was racking up student debts, right? Every now and then I would take emergency loans from the university. You could get $100 emergency loan for food, right? And I would do that every now and then. I slept on a sleeping bag for a couple of years, right? This was probably a year and a half into my university stint, right? Beginning stages. I probably did one co-op work term already or something, right? So I grabbed my police. I paid for it. I went home and I'm thinking to myself, huh, am I going to get $1,400? That's a lot of money, right? For me at the time anyway. I couldn't go to emergency loan. The most they gave me was $100 at university. I didn't have any friends that had $1,400. So I called my family in Vancouver. I called a few members of my family in Vancouver. And I talked to some friends that I had in Toronto as well. I called a few people. And for a couple of days I tried to raise $1,400, right? I remember one conversation I had. I can't remember who it was with. Basically, I called them up and said, hey, how's it going? How's it going? Good, good, good. What are you doing? I was studying stuff like this and I said, hey, listen, I got a favor to ask you. Can I borrow some money off you? And the person said, sure, how much do you need? I go, I need $1,400. The person was like, what? $1,400? What do you need it for? And I said, I need to buy a comic book. On the back of the phone. What? You need $1,400 to buy a comic book? Are you out of your mind? I go, listen, this is Amazing Spider-Man number one. So I went to the whole spiel I had because I had asked a few people. And everybody said, no. Everyone said, you're out of your mind. We're not going to give you $1,400 to buy a comic book. So I tried again because I wasn't into deceiving anyone as to where the money was going. I was going to play possum. Pretend this was money for staying in your university or for food or for whatever it was. I was being straight up telling them why I needed the money. And the person was, no, you're out of your mind. I'm not going to go, listen, please, this is pretty important to me. I won't get this opportunity again. It's a good deal. I trust it. It's great. It's well. That's very important when you buy something like this. I knew exactly what the worth of this comic book was. It was worth a Bernie rights and original art piece and I was pretty sure Bernie rights and original art piece was worth a fair bit of money. So I put a fair bit of value on Amazing Spider-Man number one because I really at the time had no idea about grading. I trusted Harry. After a little conversation the person said no. I couldn't get it. So one thing I did was a couple of days later I went back to now and then Bucks and I went up to Harry and I said, Harry, have you done the trade yet? He goes, no. I haven't done the trade but the guy's coming in this afternoon and he's going to take the Amazing Spider-Man number one. I go, listen, is the price still 1400 bucks? He goes, yeah, the price is still 1400 bucks. I go, is there any way you'll let me have it if I do a payment plan? If I pay you a little bit every month? He said, no, I can't do that. I can't do that Chicho. At the time I wasn't going by Chicho. He called me by my real name but I can't do that Chicho and I said, okay, it was worth a try for me. Thank you for letting me see it and whatnot. And that original art piece I told him looked beautiful. I told him my hope is worth the trade and he told me 100% is worth the trade. 100% is worth the trade, right? And I can't even imagine what Harry, the original art and sketches and what type of comic books he had collected over the years up to then and up to, he passed away I believe in 2002, right? So I can't even imagine what he had acquired up to that point, right? It would have been magnificent collection, magnificent collection, right? I would have loved to been able to do an ASMR or a video showing off his collection and I wish this medium was available for that during that period, right? But it's memories. It is what it is, right? And I learned a lot of lessons through that transaction, through that effort trying to raise the money to be able to buy Amazing Spider-Man number one. I learned a lot through understanding what people gave worth to, value to and I learned that you don't necessarily need funds, cash, currency to be able to do interact, you know, transactions. You can do trades, right? And that's something that happens in the comic book medium and with collectors and stuff like this a lot, right? Right now everything, things that people are collecting, a lot of it is done online. You buy and sell based on sort of fiat currencies and stuff like this and that option is going to increase maybe through cryptos or barter systems. There's forums where you can do barter systems with people and stuff like this and you used to do a lot of that back in the day when you went to comic book shows and conventions, right? If you had a booth, you had other collectors that had booths. You would come in and take a look and you would go and take a look at their stuff and you would do trades and even buy stuff like when I went to conventions I would buy things, right? I would do trades with things and you know I have stories to tell of those, right? But this is one of the stories that has really stuck with me and influenced me a lot and I bring this up a lot with because family is family, they're still with me and over the years I've brought this a lot to them, right? Remember that time when I asked you guys to give me $1,400 to buy Amazing Spider-Man number one and you told me no? Yeah and I bring that a lot and I go, do you know what it's worth now, right? And we laugh at it and stuff like this, right? It's brilliant. I learned a lot through that interaction. I learned about economics, right? I learned about trading, I learned about investing, right? I learned how time plays into the scheme of things, right? And what people give worth to, right? Very important, very important to get involved in investing and collecting and markets early on so you can build an appreciation for a certain genre or certain or finances or budgets and stuff like this, right? I learned that I should always have some kind of a nest egg, some kind of stay liquid to a certain degree where I can take advantage of opportunities that may present themselves, right? Very important when it comes to investing, right? But I thought I'd share the story with you guys. I promised a while ago to tell you the story about how I almost got my hands on Amazing Spider-Man number one and I was just recently reminded through a comment, thank you very much for the comment, reminded me that I promised to share the story so I thought it would be a great story to share with you guys for the beginning of 2018, okay? A lot more to come, a lot more to come, okay? Happy New Year everyone and I guess I'll see you guys in the next video. Bye for now.