comic books

I Miss Discount Comic Boxes

Anyone else miss discount comic boxes?  Remember when you’d go into a comic book store and troll through the 25 cent or 50 cent bins?  I’d spend hours and hours pouring over those boxes trying to fill in collections or find new books to try.  That’s where I found most of my Bronze Age gems like All-Star Comics #58-74 starring the JSA.

Seems nowadays those discount boxes are getting harder and harder to find.  Those I have found are now priced a dollar per comic and typically are packed with 1990s Superman comics.  And not the good ones.

Over Thanksgiving I stopped by Comic Central in Sanford, Florida.  They had a wonderful discount bin!  It was like those bins of yesteryear packed with Bronze Age gems and more recent interesting comics.  One particular comic I picked up was Super-Team Family #15 by Gerry Conway, Arvell Jones, and Romeo Tanghal.  Would I ever pay “price guide” value for this book?  NO WAY!  However, in the 25 cent box?  HECK YA!

Super-Team Family #15 by Gerry Conway, Arvell Jones, and Romeo Tanghal

Am I alone in my love for discount comic bins?  If you know of any well-stocked discount boxes at your local comic shops, please mention it in the comments.  Let’s give shout-outs to those awesome LCS’s that still provide this much beloved service.

14 thoughts on “I Miss Discount Comic Boxes

  1. You are not alone. My up until recent LCS has a ton of dollar bins with a lot of varied stuff in them. Every year around the Super Bowl, they have their Big Annual Sale and make all of the comics 3/$1.00 and I just go to town. Last year I got a big ole stack of Giant Sized Conan and Conan Annuals (none of which I have read yet)!

  2. I guess they don’t technically count as discount bins, but Half-Price Books sells most of their comics for about $.90-$1 and they’ve been known to have legit discount bins in the past. 🙂

  3. If you live in FL, Shag, i am sure you know about Coliseum Of Comics. Their downtown Lakeland location is my LCS and every Wednesday anyone can select 4 free comics from the $.50 box just for stopping in. As far as I know this policy is company wide and goes on in all the CoC stores around central FL. Lately I have been getting some gems from the Age of Apocalypse storyline. But next time I am in the Orlando area I will have to search for Comic Central. A few years ago I stumbled upon a shop in New Port Richey on the west coast, a place called Yancy Street. They had some sweet boxes of discount books, I filled a long box for $20 which is pretty amazing since the box itself was worth about $12.

  4. I sure do – they used to be rare here at the best of times – now they are almost forgotten about.

    (Continues building time machine to the 80’s)

  5. I love discount bins! There were several stores in Atlanta with $.25 bins. I got tons of great stuff in those. In fact, I got nearly an entire run of Baxter Legion books out of them. My new local store has some dollar bins, but I haven’t had time to go through them.

  6. Come by Comics and Collectibles in Memphis, TN. Always a great selection of discount comics as well as a HUGE general collection of back-issues. I just have one problem. They mark the bags of discount comics with a red marker, and by the time you finish thumbing through several boxes of them, your hands are glowing red, lol. At least they don’t mark on the comics themselves liquidcross.

  7. there’s a lot of characters and titles i love today i would never have known anything about had i not had those 3/$1.00 bins to go through back in the 80’s.

  8. Thanks for all the comments! Great feedback!

    @Kirsten – Half Price Books – HOORAY!!! I’ve been to a couple in Minnesota while visiting and fell in love with these stores!!!!

    @Firestormfan89 – I’ve been to the one in the Sanford Mall and they only had a few short boxes with discount books. I did manage to get some Micronauts from there! I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more Coliseum stores.

    @David H – I totally agree!

  9. While their 50-cent bins do tend to be of the 1990s/2000s cast-offs variety, Atlas Comics in Charlottesville, VA (my LCS) has a pretty good discount trade bin where they unload TPBs and hardcovers for 1/2 off. Plus, in many cases they charge the original cover price for much of what’s in their back issue bins. I picked up the majority of “The ‘Nam” over the course of the last few months for the same price I would have paid when they first came out. Not as cheap, I know, but I appreciated paying $.75 for several issues instead of $4-$5.

  10. Shag, remind me when next Dragoncon comes around, and I can show you around to a couple stores with kick ass quarter bins.

  11. LOVE discount bins. A “collectible” store in the local mall has $1 bins, but I have found lots of good 70’s and 80’s DC books that are fun reads….

  12. Again, great comments! Keep ’em coming! Let’s give credit to the comic shops that offer these boxes of awesomeness!

    @Adama – You’re on, sir. Can’t wait!

  13. As a cynic, I believe the future LCS will be filled with little more than discount boxes. For instance, I hit a Christmas clearance sale this week where all back issues were 50% off. However, my rule of thumb is that I can get most books for $0.75 at MyComicShop.com, and these guys had all their crap at NM prices or higher regardless of actual grade. I walked out empty-handed. I think I’ll go in after Christmas and try to haggle, or else check to see if their dollar boxes are going for a more reasonable two-bits. In the land of the trade paperback, the dude with 5 for a dollar boxes is king. Seems like Houston is full of nothing but barons with mortgaged provinces.

Leave a Reply