It’s strange that most comic book collectors and dealers have never heard of Pop Hollinger. This 47-year-old retired teacher from Concordia, Kansas was the first dealer to buy and sell old novels, pulp magazines, magazines, and comic books. Hollinger ran his shop from 1939 in Concordia, during the deep economic depression, until 1971. Whether thousands of comic book dealers today have heard of Pop Hollinger or never, they follow in his footsteps: selling, buying and trading. .
Mr. Hollinger started his business selling periodicals in a basement below a grocery store. He sold almost everything he owned, including classic paperback novels published by Pocket Books for 25 cents each. Soon, he grew his own business, selling used pulps, paperbacks, magazines, and comics. He specialized in comic strips which were rapidly becoming popular. After a few years, he ran a vibrant business, even expanding his business to include as many as 15 to 20 outlets in Concordia. Hollinger even popularized a mail-order service for interested buyers across the country. Selling through mail order made Pop aware that there was a demand for back issues. For this purpose, he would store numbers for future business. For 20 or 30 cents a week a person could receive five or ten comics, respectively. This was an unbeatable bargain when you could buy one at the local newsstand for 10 cents.
1939 was a special year for comics, featuring superheroes for the first time. He would certainly have owned the most famous ones, such as: Action Comics #1 (Superman’s first appearance), Detective Comics #27 (Batman’s first appearance), Superman #1, Batman #1, Wonder Woman #1, All-Star, All-Flash, Timely Comics (later Marvel Comics), and Fawcett Comics. These “Golden Age” comics became “super” sellers. But there were also many others on the market.
Hollinger used radically unorthodox methods to preserve each of his books, because he knew that children could easily tear them and many mothers would throw them away. Pop soon discovered that comics didn’t get along with constant buying, selling, and trading. So, he bound the books with brown or green tape around the spine and inside to keep them from tearing. He also knew that comics were made of pulp that attracted insects, so he treated them with special chemicals that repelled them. He even took out the original staples and replaced them with new ones. Finally, he pressed them down using a vise of his own design that exerted several hundred pounds of pressure. Today’s collector or dealer would never use this method of preservation because it would ruin the value of the book. Instead, dealers and collectors carefully place the books in Mylar bags and insert a cardboard backing so they won’t bend or tear. Still, Hollinger deserves credit for creating his own method of preserving them.
By 1942, there were approximately 50 comic book publishers. Each publisher produced at least 30 different ones, totaling several thousand different issues circulating per month! So, Pop felt the need to publish a catalog of comics. Comics came in all sorts of genres: science fiction, detective, fantasy, spy, humor, romance, and many others. He owned many of the same problems. So it’s no wonder he thought selling comics could be profitable. According to eBay’s website, their trade ads said: “Old or used comics are worth money. We pay 1 cent to $1.00 each for certain vintage comics… Be one of the first in your community to collect comics.” ancient”. In this same ad, Pop claimed to “carry a wide variety of every published comic.”
Unfortunately, in 1952, Hollinger’s supply took a turn for the worse. A flood swept through his area of the state, flooding his stores and ruining most of his inventory. Unfortunately, most of them had to be scrapped. To make matters worse, in 1954 many comics that were published earlier were withdrawn from the market by the US government due to their content being unsuitable for children. But Hollinger persevered in his business.
Between 1961 and going out of business ten years later, Hollinger began selling entirely new superhero comics created primarily by Marvel Comics. In November 1961, Marvel published the first issue of the “Fantastic Four”, a group of new superheroes who became very popular. Fantastic Four #1 the “Marvel Age” of comics began. Other “Age of Marvel” superheroes were soon introduced: Spiderman, Ironman, Thor, Hulk, Antman and Captain America (Brought from World War II). All comics (not just Marvel) published between 1956 and 1969 became known as the “Silver Age” of comics. Today, many of the early issues published by Marvel are worth almost as much as those printed in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Pop Hollinger was a rare businessman who foresaw the value of comic books. Who knew how he thought comics were valuable to be read and collected, not read and thrown away? No one would have thought of starting such a dealership, especially in the late 1930s during the Great Depression. In fact, it would have been “funny” to have opened a comic book dealership. Pop beat the odds by starting a business that hardly anyone would have considered. If you ever come across an old comic with brown or green tape across the spine, you probably have a classic pulp gem owned by the legendary distributor.