Old comics mean new cash

Hockey cards, comics in storage unit auction may fetch thousands

Armed with a wad of cash anted up by her husband, a directional driller in the oilsands, Chantal Burn arrived early Thursday to her first storage auction.

“I was so excited, I was like a kid on Christmas morning,” said Burn, a fan of the popular television program Storage Wars.

Accompanied by her in-laws, Lindsay and Aaron Wick, she hoped to find abandoned treasure at U-store-it on the north side of Edmonton.

Ignoring the advice of her cohorts, she outbid rivals to rummage through three dusty storage lockers.

“We came to see if there was anything of interest, but when they opened the units it looked like too much trouble,” Lindsay Wick said Friday as she helped load Burn’s booty into a trailer. “It’s OK. Chantal bought enough for everybody.”

The lead singer in a band called Burn ’N Papa Blues that plays gigs all over the city, Burn paid $1,400 for objects that even she agrees appeared at the time to be of questionable pedigree.

For $725, she won a bidding war on one locker that contained an electric boat motor she and her husband, Trevor, can use at their cabin on an island shaped like a fish in the middle of Stuart Lake, B.C.

“I knew the motor was worth it, but the rest of the stu looked like junk,” Burn said.

But there was more. Much more.

“When we started looking through it, I said to Lindsay, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we found some old comic books?’ ” Burn said. “Then she told me she could see some and I started climbing over a mountain of stuff. You should have seen me. Things were tumbling down around me.”

Combing through the contents, they uncovered plastic tubs full of comic books, all but a handful protected in plastic sleeves, most in mint condition. There was also a large black garbage bag jammed with comic books in plastic sleeves, and boxes full of hockey cards. There was a Gretzky here, a Kurri and a Messier there.

The comic books, likely worth thousands of dollars, included editions of Spider-man, Superman, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, X-men, The Human Torch, Ghost Rider, Night Rider, The Avengers, Hercules, G.I. Joe, Captain America, The Avengers, Space Family Robinson, Wolverine and The Thing. “There has to be thousands of them,” she said.

Burn said she has learned one book alone may be worth as much as $660. Calls to comic bookstores in Edmonton solicited a variety of opinions, with estimates ranging from $1 or $2 per book to hundreds of dollars. On an online auction site in the U.S., some books were valued at between $90 and $210.

“It is so exciting I am crying happy,” Burn said.

On Friday, Burn and the Wicks made several trips to the dump to discard dirty clothing and blankets and other items she didn’t want. At home, she stood in front of her garage, marvelling at what $1,400 brought. In the other lockers, she found fishing and camping gear, a weight bench, a big-screen TV, boxes of tools, a brass eagle, a washer and dryer and a photograph autographed by the Rolling Stones.

“I watched Storage Wars on Wednesday night to get some tips,” Burn said. “I am addicted now.”