There's a great, telling scene in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" when Steve Carrell's protagonist, Andy, finally snaps, reveals his true colors and lays into girlfriend Catherine Keener for trying to convince him to sell his meticulously cultivated action figure collection (pristinely boxed in the original packaging). While I never was quite that anally obsessed during my days as a collector (everything from comic books to rare 7" punk singles to lovingly framed rock posters and beyond), it was a scene that certainly struck a familiar chord with me. When Peggy moved into my apartment in 2001 (then on 12th street), I (somewhat begrudgingly) made room for her and opened up space at Manhattan Mini-Storage to house my unwieldy piles of largely idiotic stuff (`cos, y'know, GOD FORBID I actually part with any of it). It was neither easy nor fun.
Ironically, nine years later, I've almost forgotten about what actually resides in my storage space (despite the fact that I continue to pay pretty handsomely to maintain it). Periodically, though, I have attempted to stem my collecting ways and prune my garden of crap. During one bleak summer in my college years, I tried to generate some quick cash by selling off some comic books and old hardcore singles. Mercifully, I wasn't very successful. In a nutshell, while that 7" vinyl of, say, "Halloween" by The Misfits might hang on the wall for somewhere in the neighborhood of $75.00 (or so), don't be fooled – they probably have box loads of them behind the counter. In many instances, I couldn't even give the stuff away. I had a crisp, mint-condition issue of "Howard the Duck #1" that had previously been able to fetch upwards of $35.00. When I tried to hawk it that summer, I learned the sad truth that stock in that particular title had plummeted in the wake of the movie (which had only come out about a year before). "You're better off trying to give it to a church," said the dude behind the counter at (long since vanished) Action Comics. He did, however, pay me a paltry sum for some of my John Byrne-era "X-Men" issues (a transaction I bitterly lament today). Whatever money I was able to generate wasn't very much, and was probably spent by the end of the same week. It was a lose-lose situation. At the end of the day, things are only really worth what people are willing to pay for them.
Since then, I've taken the odd steps to sell off CD's I don't care much about anymore, but it doesn't happen all that often. The remainders of my comic books, my records and my rock ephemera collection now largely live in storage crates untouched, but even still -- our home is overrun with the detritus of my youthful fascinations. Absurdly, I still find myself perusing eBay to curiously kick a few tires of a few antiquated items. This weekend, however, I spotted an item that stopped me dead in my tracks.
Since becoming an ardent fan of the band during my high school years, I'm always on the lookout for anything Stranglers-related. Beyond their sonic output, I've amassed a clutch of rare t-shirts, posters and even an official deck of Stranglers playing cards (emblazoned with logo from The Raven). Being that I'm fascinated by their bruised and blackened rise to prominence in the UK Punk scene (suffice to say, the ever-scowly band was not renowned for playing nice with others), I've picked up a few books on the band, notably David Buckley's sprawling bio "No Mercy," ex-vocalist Hugh Cornwell's autobiography, "A Multitude of Sins" and an informative little tome called "The Stranglers: Song By Song." This last book probably only set me back about twenty bucks or so, and featured Hugh Cornwell delving into detail about the origins of every song in the Stranglers oeuvre. I bought it back in 2002, read it over the course of a weekend, and it has since sat on my shelf gathering dust.
So imagine my surprise, then, when I spotted two copies of the very same book selling on eBay for, respectively $157.28 and – wait for it -- $641.45 Obviously, the book in question has gone out of print, but really -- $641 dollars for a 288 page book? I checked over on Amazon, and found used copies of the title similarly (i.e. outrageously) priced.
Incredulous, I remarked to Peggy about it. "You should sell it," came her immediate reply. As if on cue, my collector instincts recoiled in horror. While I honestly can't remember that many details about the text of the book in question (I'm now reticent to take it off my shelf to revisit it, lest I grab it the wrong way and crease the cover), the notion of parting with it seemed ludicrously out of the question. But still, ….. $641 is an awfully pretty sum.
While I ponder the option, herewith the Stranglers dusting off an old favorite.
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