40 Years of Hunting Rare Comic Books and Collectibles | Carmine De Santo

Carmine De Santo bought his first comic book in 1978. By 16, he’d opened his own shop. Four decades later, he’s still in the game, running Dr. Comics in Orillia and organizing comic cons across North America.

In this conversation, Carmine walks us through the world of rare comics and collectibles. He talks about buying a Batman #1 at 18 and selling it for $90,000 (it’s now worth $3.5 million), why the collectibles market exploded after the pandemic, and what it was like losing $850,000 worth of inventory in a fire that destroyed his downtown Orillia shop.

He also shares the story of the Tim Maple collection, one of the most fascinating pieces of comic book history you’ve probably never heard of.

Whether you’re deep into collecting or just curious about where to start, this one’s worth your time.

Please note that this transcript was made through a software and it may not be entirely accurate.

00;00;02;14 – 00;00;11;24
Unknown
You’re listening to the Behind the Village podcast, where we invite you to join us on a journey to understand how to live a life worth living.

00;00;11;26 – 00;00;23;00
Unknown
Comic books and collectibles have been around for decades. It’s a world we hadn’t explored until recently, when we sat down with Carmine De Santo from Dr. Comics.

00;00;23;03 – 00;00;44;20
Unknown
It all started like, 1978 was my probably my first comic book. It was a Fantastic Four comic book. So, you remember the issue number, like, I think like 289. I just love that cover because I think the thing was fighting the Hulk on that cover. And, I always like the Hulk because when I grew up as a kid in the 70s, the Hulk TV show was one of the coolest things to watch, you know?

00;00;44;20 – 00;01;10;27
Unknown
So I loved Lou Ferrigno, and I loved the Hulk. And I saw that Hulk on that, comic book cover, and it’s been a niche, and it’s been stuck with me ever since the whole comic book world. So I think that’s my first book, and that’s the first time. And I actually went downtown Toronto, woke up early on a Saturday morning, got on a bus, took a subway all the way down to, Silver Snail because that was the hangout for everybody to buy comic books on Queen Street West.

00;01;10;29 – 00;01;31;26
Unknown
You get off at Osgoode. And you walk there and you get your comic books. And it became like a weekly habit. So we’d always go downtown. Me and my good buddy, and hit like 4 or 5 shops and buy comic books. I was 16 years old and my mom owned a mattress business, like at the Western world, and Finch in North York, and she had a front office that she never used.

00;01;31;26 – 00;01;48;07
Unknown
And then one day, she saw me reading all these books, and I went to her and I said, mom, you’re not using a front office. I would open up a comic shop. I have fun doing that. So I’m like, okay, so I opened up a comic book store. I was 16, it was called Dr. Comics because, me and my friend opened it, and the story behind it is my last name is De Santo.

00;01;48;09 – 00;02;12;26
Unknown
His last name was Richie. So we said, you know what? Let’s do? Let’s do Dr. Comics. And we did. So was Dr. Comics and, and then we always came up with that little slogan, we’ve got the cure for all your comic book needs, and was a small little shop with weekly releases. But there’s a lot of history in that first store, because we saw a lot of, a lot of nice books that came through that front door.

00;02;12;26 – 00;02;32;14
Unknown
And that’s something that I still enjoy to this day. That’s why I love my shop. I love people bringing in the books, and I love appraising them, and I love looking that. I love smelling the mildew. When you open up the book, that’s a big passion of mine, I love it. So when we opened up that store in 93, it was great.

00;02;32;14 – 00;02;47;26
Unknown
It did very well. And, like I said, we had a lot of people bringing us books and, you know, we got robbed many times at night time. There’s no security. People come in and, you know, you know, one week alone, we were like, broken into three times. But there’s a lot of history in the book.

00;02;47;28 – 00;03;10;12
Unknown
I mean, in that store, a lot of famous books were in there back then. Amazing fantasy 15, which is a famous comic book. First appearance of Spider-Man. Now it’s worth like 100, 200 grand, even a million. It depends on the grade. I had. I have a famous picture of my mom’s house and me and my front counter, with eight of those in the back of my wall in a row, and back then they’re only $400.

00;03;10;14 – 00;03;30;24
Unknown
All right. So we had I had eight of them. I wish I had I have one now, but I wish I had all eight of those. But that’s the kind of books that would come through the door. And then my biggest purchase is when I was 18 years old, a guy came in with a Batman number one, 1939, and we bought it for 30 grand, me and my friend, and we sold it a week later for 90,000.

00;03;30;27 – 00;03;49;24
Unknown
I regret it now. It’s worth 3.5 million. Wow. Well, you learn that’s the kind of fun it is in comic books. And I always laugh at my bankers and everybody. All these investment guys. Yeah. Invest in money. And your gold and silver in stocks. I’m like, nah, I make more money in comic books. That’s how we do it.

00;03;49;24 – 00;04;09;19
Unknown
It’s a collector’s market right now and that’s why I’m in the show business. That’s my bread and butter is the shows. I do actually comic control over North America. We do 150 a year. We do pokey guns, anime fests and comic cons. And that’s why I’m always on a plane. Never ends. Yeah. What? Why do you think you know that?

00;04;09;19 – 00;04;28;21
Unknown
Collectible culture. Like, what is it that kind of keeps people so passionate about it and so involved in it? Yeah. So what it is, it all started during Covid because we didn’t have nothing to do at home. Right? So everybody was home and they wanted to get into a whole new market. And they got into collectibles because the stock market died and they wanted to try something new.

00;04;28;23 – 00;04;50;17
Unknown
Like, like a month ago, the famous shark tank guy, Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O’Leary, he bought a double logo NBA card signed by Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. He bought it for 15 million at Covid. Now it’s worth 26 million. And he tell people, you know, these cards are like Andy Warhol worked up like one off pieces or Picasso because there’s only one of them.

00;04;50;17 – 00;05;19;20
Unknown
And and that’s what’s keeping people engaged in this card market or comic book market, because there is some one offs. So right now you can open up a pack of Pokemon cards and find yourself a $25,000 Charizard. It’s going to be there. And that’s what’s keeping people passionate into this business. Because of all these new surprises, or these one of ones, or one of 50 or 1 of 100, and now you can get a piece of a hockey player jersey signed by like Sidney Crosby, and it’s $50,000 and it’s stuck in that pack.

00;05;19;20 – 00;05;39;21
Unknown
You have to buy a box. Some people are looking for packs. People are looking for those gems, and it’s out there and nowadays there’s still undiscovered ones. So that’s why people are very passionate to get into these same things. With the comic books where, you know, a year ago, Batman Number One came out, but it’s an evil Batman to Batman that kills people, and no one expected it.

00;05;39;23 – 00;05;58;18
Unknown
But that book now it’s like $800 because they did a little print run because they didn’t know it’s going to be so successful. So there’s a lot of these risks that people are taking in the collectible world that are making overnight money. Like there’s a YouTube videos of kids opening up packs ago. Mom, look, I got a $10,000 card, right?

00;05;58;21 – 00;06;05;15
Unknown
It’s wow. It’s another world when it comes to collectibles.

00;06;05;18 – 00;06;16;01
Unknown
So how did Carmine end up here in Orillia, in that iconic downtown location, and how did he fare after the fire that destroyed the entire building?

00;06;16;04 – 00;06;34;09
Unknown
I was in North York from 93 to 2003. Then I moved to downtown Toronto, Kensington Market. So I’ll give you a little secret. I’m a foodie, I love food, and Kensington Market was so good. So I moved my shop on Canton Avenue because I want to eat like a champion every day.

00;06;34;15 – 00;06;49;09
Unknown
Oh, it was good and it did very well. I didn’t want to be. It was nice because that was the Mecca of comic book world, was the whole west side of Yonge Street. So like Queen Street, Kensington Market, and there was a few shops in there and we were one of them. We were on the second floor. It was amazing.

00;06;49;09 – 00;07;11;05
Unknown
And then I think in, oh, 2013, I had a home here already on the lake up here in Orillia. And I said to myself, I’m not driving back and forward. So, I drove downtown one day and I saw that perfect corner spot, and I fell in love with that store. It was a perfect location, and I love it because it’s very retro building from the 1700s, right at Mississaga and, Peter Street.

00;07;11;05 – 00;07;33;02
Unknown
And I fell in love with the location. And I drove by and I saw for rent sign on the window. I’m like, okay, Dr. Comics new home right there. Yeah, meant to be. I wanted to ask about that, too, because you mentioned we everyone local remembers that the building. Yeah, went up in flames. And so what have collectibles like we’ve just talked about the value and like you did you lose everything?

00;07;33;04 – 00;07;54;21
Unknown
Yeah. I lost, $850,000 of collectibles there. Now, I did take up some of my gems. I left one gem there and I regret it, which is a famous, famous Funnies number one, which is a rare book to get, but I just wanted to showcase that because we love educating people, too. So because that was the first comic book ever made, 1934, that went in flames in those gone on.

00;07;54;23 – 00;08;18;01
Unknown
And the chief is a good friend of mine, Chris, and I was trying to bug Chris. If I can get in there just to grab that one book, they won’t let me. I was in Florida, and a neighbor of mine in Florida told me my building was on fire. When I say my neighbor in Florida, not a neighbor in Orillia, a neighbor in Florida, was listening to the news and saying, oh, Peter Street and, Mississaga Fire, coming out of the roof, emergency on site.

00;08;18;01 – 00;08;34;00
Unknown
And I’m my friends are all calling me my guys let me know whatever. It’s probably pizza pizza or something. And then one of her friend called me goes, it’s your building. And I said, baloney. And I checked my cameras and I had no power. And I’m like, oh, boy. And then my landlord called seconds later saying, we’re done.

00;08;34;00 – 00;08;47;11
Unknown
We lost the building and I’m like, and I was going to get on the plane. I was going to come up here and they said, there’s no point. They made it a crime investigation scene, and we couldn’t get it and we couldn’t do nothing. So everything fell apart. And everything happened all in one day. They’re like, in five hours.

00;08;47;11 – 00;09;10;11
Unknown
The whole building was down. Yeah. So everything like nice Pokemon, nice Pokemon cards I had. The rarest stuff is not the collectibles, the stuff that I had rare in the in the store was I had famous signatures from comic cards from my whole life, like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, all legends, the creators of, the creators of, Simpsons, Mickey, all those.

00;09;10;14 – 00;09;30;18
Unknown
I had all the artworks on the walls that are priceless. That what kills me because I can never get that again. It’s the one offs, right? So it’s those pieces of history. I’m actually have a picture of me and Jack Kirby having a cigar together in, in New York City back in the 90s. That’s the kind of stuff you’ll never you can never replace.

00;09;30;20 – 00;09;52;10
Unknown
Devastating. Yeah. That’s. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s terrible. That’s, I, I lost a lot there, and I learned a lot there. So, but it was, you know, I always tell people, no rest for the wicked. And, we opened up in the mall, and I love where I am right now. No complaints. Yeah. Did you did you debate whether you would reopen?

00;09;52;10 – 00;10;08;20
Unknown
Yeah. I didn’t want to do it. I really didn’t want to do it. My wife, gave me an idea because she’s like, okay, calm, you know, she knows my passions. Hunting. I love hunting, I don’t care about value. I don’t care about what I find. I just like to hunt. And I think everyone does that.

00;10;08;20 – 00;10;23;14
Unknown
When you go to a garage or you leave your house five in the morning, you love hunting. When you go to all these flea markets, you love hunting. And my wife’s like, you’re not going to hunt anymore. And I’m like, yeah, good point. So that’s what triggered it. So she’s like, you know, you’re not going to stay home and not hunt.

00;10;23;18 – 00;10;43;08
Unknown
You love what you do. So I’m a little bit blessed because I knew everyone. I’ve been doing it for over 40 years. So I had a lot of collectors I talked to. So the first thing I did when I came back from Florida was, first week I bought like a 96 hour long box collection. Guys, it shocked me that even locals were calling me donating stuff.

00;10;43;08 – 00;11;02;20
Unknown
And I’m like, guys, I want nothing for free. That blew me away, too. And I’m like, wow, there’s a lot of people locally that wanted us back. And we had a lot of people would just leave comic books and toys in the mall in front of my shop for Carmine free. And I’m like, gosh, like so sweet.

00;11;02;23 – 00;11;09;03
Unknown
It was it was very sweet. But that’s why I knew, like, it was time to come back.

00;11;09;05 – 00;11;18;10
Unknown
Carmine is so passionate about everything retro and everything comic books. What’s one of his most memorable finds?

00;11;18;13 – 00;11;32;23
Unknown
I found a pretty rare collection. I still have it. I found a pretty rare collection, in the 90s, when a lady called me and I was 17 years old. Lady called me in the middle of the night, and I was at the store because I was talking for the next day.

00;11;32;23 – 00;11;53;14
Unknown
It was a Tuesday night because Wednesday is comic book days. And a lady called me, she says, I have an estate for sale, and I didn’t know what the hell she was talking by state. I can’t afford a house. What do you think you’re talking about? She goes, no, my brother passed away and, he left a basement full of comic books, and that phone didn’t close fast enough.

00;11;53;14 – 00;12;23;25
Unknown
How fast? I got to her house? Because, she said there was, like, rare stuff there. I went the next morning, and I did buy it, and, the person I bought it, the collection from, it was a guy named Tim Maple. And Tim Maple is very famous in the comic book industry world. In the world, because he would write to Stan Lee every time in the back of the books and back in the comic books in the 70s and 80s, there was a Stan Lee section in the back of each book that he would write back to people like it was like fan, fan letters, and he would write back.

00;12;23;25 – 00;12;42;18
Unknown
He actually did it in every single book. But this Maple guy probably did 100,000 comic books that he would write to. Stan Lee. And Stan Lee always wrote back to him, and Stan Lee called them T.M. Maple because of maple syrup. That was his nickname. And then he went to school with the creator of the Simpsons, this TM Maple guy.

00;12;42;20 – 00;13;06;00
Unknown
And on the show, the comic book shop owner was named after Tim Maple. Oh wow. And I have his collection. I still have it to this day. He has stuff that no one’s ever seen. So that to me is a piece of history that I’ll never give up. And luckily that wasn’t in my shop. Yeah, that’s one thing I have, and that’s my pride and joy I’ve had since 1994.

00;13;06;00 – 00;13;17;11
Unknown
I think. Don’t get me wrong, Batman number one is beautiful. I would have been $1 million richer, but this is a piece of history that you’ll never find.

00;13;17;13 – 00;13;25;11
Unknown
As someone looking to get into this world of collecting trading cards or comic books, how do you get started?

00;13;25;13 – 00;13;35;17
Unknown
I think starting the journey is going go to the partners small little shops like mine and the rest of the five and a trillion. Right. Go to the other just two other stores I think, or three that do Pokemon tournaments.

00;13;35;17 – 00;13;51;15
Unknown
I don’t, I just there’s enough just with comic books. So it’s good to get in the go into these tournaments and educate yourself to see what kind of cards are being traded and what’s going on, and like my shop or these other shops start getting the packs because the packs and a month from now, what have you bought it for?

00;13;51;15 – 00;14;06;24
Unknown
It’s going to double easy. And then the biggest thing I recommend is going to the shops. The closest shows to us are probably Vaughan and Toronto and nowhere. You have to wait for my show and we have a Pokemon show, we have an anime festival, and I get all the dealers that come up and we sell. And that’s how you educate yourself.

00;14;06;24 – 00;14;25;12
Unknown
You get into another shows. We have panels, so I’ll tell you a success story talking about getting into this world. One of my good friends, private buyer. I can’t mention his name, but I’ll just tell you his story. What happened? He owned one of the biggest bread companies in Canada. Okay, big. He shut it down in January this year.

00;14;25;12 – 00;14;50;02
Unknown
He’s making more money doing comic book conventions on the weekends than his bread business. Oh, wow. And he’s like, shocked. He goes, I don’t know why I didn’t do this ten years ago. So there’s a success story and there’s something to think about. I don’t know, maybe I should be switching careers here. Geez, he does a killing on, you know, just like last week.

00;14;50;02 – 00;15;09;06
Unknown
He makes it going to $186,000 on, you know, six comic books. Wow. That’s the kind of money he’s making. But, you know, but he’s buying he’s buying rare gems from the 40s. Yeah, of course. And that’s his investment. He knows they don’t last because the serious buyer is always looking for those. For these ten sellers. That’s what I do.

00;15;09;08 – 00;15;30;09
Unknown
I’m, I’m I’m a golden age. I love the old stuff. The new soaps. Great. I’m old. I like anything up to 1956. After that, who cares? Yeah. Know I think he cares. The big money’s 34 to 56. Those are the years that make some serious money on comic books. Yeah, but even like you think about it. And you mentioned the Batman one that came out even just a year ago.

00;15;30;09 – 00;15;48;29
Unknown
You gave that time, right? Yeah, because that was a great writer. And they only printed so many. Yeah. And they changed the story around. They made him psycho psychotic. And he carries a gun now and he shoots people. You know, Batman’s supposed to be keep, keep wondering, you know, doesn’t kill people. Just kills him. And Jill and I just knew Bruce Wayne.

00;15;48;29 – 00;16;08;29
Unknown
This new Bruce Wayne is. You get a line, I shoot you in the head. I don’t care. Is that the. The community loves it. They love this. Absolutely. It’s called absolute Batman, actually. So. Oh, that’s how we get the trade ins. I think the two hardest things right now in comic books is the absolute Batman. And the TV series invincible.

00;16;09;01 – 00;16;26;21
Unknown
The guy that got a lot about it. Yeah. So the guy, The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, whatever. And, he does, he doesn’t mean well. And if we can keep that comic book. And so again, that’s not a yeah, the early issues are big money, but people are loving that for the story. They love the invincible story.

00;16;26;24 – 00;16;48;23
Unknown
It’s a great story. It’s a great superhero. It is fun. And that’s why I enjoy doing the shows. My shop, like I said, my shop, you’re in an Orillia mall and have billboards on the highways because I want to get comic books through that front door. I’m looking for collections. I love my store, but my shows, I love doing them because I love seeing families coming in and educating themselves and coming up with a big smile saying, you know what?

00;16;48;25 – 00;17;11;25
Unknown
We’re getting into Pokemon right now. We’re getting into Dragon Ball or we’re getting into, One Piece. It’s amazing. It’s an it is an anime world. Don’t kid yourself. Everything’s anime. Everything. These kids are finally in the North American culture is adapting to this Japanese culture. I got people not coming to my shows looking for Japanese Kit-Kat because they got the watermelon flavor or the cappuccino flavor, right?

00;17;12;00 – 00;17;19;12
Unknown
They love it. Or they’re coming to understand about where can I get a good ramen? Yeah.

00;17;19;15 – 00;17;38;06
Unknown
I encourage people to come out. So we have panel sessions, you know, you know how to cosplay, right? That’s one of the sessions. Cosplay is big. I forgot to mention cosplay. That’s a big part of our show. We love cosplay. We support the whole cosplay community. So how to get into cosplay? How to get into, you know, Pokemon trading or One Piece trading or Dragon Ball trade or they call it TCG.

00;17;38;06 – 00;17;56;05
Unknown
How to get into TCG. How to get the comic books right. So we have panels, we have sessions, and then we have the Vas. You can talk to the Vas, the voice actors, and then we have vendors selling different types of merchandise, people selling jewelry, apparel, comic books, posters, anything you can think of. The other big part of the show is the local artists.

00;17;56;05 – 00;18;20;11
Unknown
We love supporting the local artist. Right? People want to come and see, like we have a few in Orillia, you know, we we love that have the met the show, showcase the art. We love that. And that’s why that’s why we encourage people to come up to the show. It’s not a geek hangout anymore. It’s it’s more about education and getting the family up because it’s it’s nice to see everything you’re seeing on TV with Akira and, you know, you’ll have your show in, one piece.

00;18;20;11 – 00;18;41;14
Unknown
It’s nice to come and see you to get that merchandise now, because it’s not easy. Merchandise you can find, you know, day to day. And don’t get me wrong, there’s the big shows downtown Toronto, you know, like the fan Expo center, you know, the four days. And they’re great. They’re great to go to. And they got all those panels, just a one day small show, budget friendly, family focused free parking, $20 to get in.

00;18;41;16 – 00;19;02;11
Unknown
None of this. You know, you need a mortgage. It goes to somebody, shows up very expensive. We don’t do that. We just small. And we’re like a little tiny piece of the pie of these big shows. And like I said, my angle is totally different. I keep it simple and I keep it budget friendly. We did our first show there last year, our first Anime Fest show, and we got 4700 people to come out.

00;19;02;13 – 00;19;21;04
Unknown
I still had the record for one day attendance for a show when I did my first Orillia Comic Con, we had 7900 people. Oh, that’s a lot. And it was made two for weekend. It was raining outside and everybody came to our show, was at the Curling Club. It took four hours to get into the show.

00;19;21;06 – 00;19;41;07
Unknown
If you came at 10:00, got in at 2:00, 3:00 in the afternoon. That’s a long. The lineup was and I brought a lot of good names. I brought the creator of Deadpool, the creator of Thanos. Iron Man was hot then. So I brought the famous Iron Man artist, the artist of venom, the creator of venom. It was good.

00;19;41;08 – 00;20;02;16
Unknown
That was a good show. Then you come by the store, please. Would take it. You know, I probably won’t be there, but I got an amazing team. I got a really good team. I’m blessed with my team. I got great people that work for me. So it’s it’s good. And they’re they’re bigger than me. Like, I have to go to them for anime knowledge because only so much I, I’m an see people.

00;20;02;16 – 00;20;17;13
Unknown
I’m the old school comic book guy. The new stuff talk to my staff. They know all the new stuff. They know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do they know they’re making more money than me? Like I was making it their age? My goodness. With the comic.

00;20;17;15 – 00;20;28;24
Unknown
Thank you, Carmine, for sharing your knowledge and infectious enthusiasm with us. We’ve definitely been convinced to start our collectible journey and can’t wait to chat with everyone over at Dr. Comics.

00;20;28;27 – 00;20;48;14
Unknown
Thank you for listening to the entire episode. All the links and info you heard in this conversation will be featured in the show notes on our website. If you’d like to know more about anything we mentioned in this episode, make sure to check Villager Magazine Talks Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you’re listening from.

00;20;48;16 – 00;20;57;08
Unknown
If you’d like to help this podcast grow, consider subscribing to our podcast channels like YouTube or Spotify so you never miss an episode. Thanks again and I’ll see you next time.