Ashleworth is a little place in Gloucestershire, the kind of village you do not end up in by accident. I ended up there in the early hours of the morning, headlights on empty lanes, because of a man called Paul and a change of heart.
A change of heart, the night before the van
Paul was moving house. Like a lot of people with a collection, he had assumed the comics were coming with him: box them, tape them, load them on the van with everything else and worry about them at the other end. Then, the night before the move, he had the thought that a lot of sellers eventually have. He was ready to part with them. And with a house move to pay for, the money would be a good deal more useful than another eight boxes to carry.
So he got in touch, late, and told me what he had. That was the moment I sat up.
What was in the boxes
A complete run of Amazing Spider-Man, issue 250 all the way through to 350. If you know the era, you already know why I put my coffee down.
A run like that is not just a hundred comics in order. It is a run that happens to contain some of the most collected books of the whole period. Amazing Spider-Man #252, the black costume landing in his own title. And, sitting right in the middle of it, Amazing Spider-Man #300: the 25th anniversary issue, the first full appearance of Venom, the Todd McFarlane cover that half the hobby has chased for decades. When a run is genuinely complete across 250 to 350, those keys are in there by definition, and they were.
Why I drove through the night
Here is the honest bit. Paul mentioned, in passing, that he had spoken to someone else too.
I do not say that to make it sound like a race, but in this trade it sometimes is. A fair collection at a fair price, with a house move happening in the morning and another buyer in the picture, is not a situation that rewards saying "how about next week?" We worked out a price we were both happy with over the phone, and I told him the truth: I could be there that night. So I went. Four hours down, arriving when the rest of the village was asleep, and back again with the boxes before his removal van ever turned up.
Paul got the money before his move instead of after it, one less thing on the van, and a price worked out properly rather than a rushed lowball from whoever happened to be nearest. I got a run I was genuinely thrilled to take on. Nobody lost.
The point of the story
I tell this one because it is the whole job in miniature. I am one person who actually cares about the books, so when it matters I will get in the car, and distance is not the deciding factor: I buy the length and breadth of the country, and a village in Gloucestershire at two in the morning is not the furthest I have gone for the right collection.
If you are moving, clearing a house, or you have simply reached the same point Paul did, you do not need to know what anything is worth. That is my job. You just need to send a few photos.