Interview Series with Brogan's Heroes Owner - Jeff Brogan

     There is often a bad taste in a lot of collector's mouths from mystery boxes.  The appeal of a mystery box is usually a chance at a high value book or a minor/major key with your purchase of a box of random comics curated by the seller. There are several that are popular however this interview is with Jeff Brogan, who hands down in my opinion, has the best mystery boxes out there.  A great seller who truly packs books well and is super nice, he also moderates a few Facebook groups and manages to do hundreds of mystery boxes pretty frequently.

What got you into comics?

• Been reading since I was 6 or 7, have always been a Spider-Man guy.  I grew up reading all my Dad’s comics which were primarily Silver Age Marvel.

Favorite childhood memory about comics?

• Definitely soaking up my Dad’s Silver Age books.  I started with Amazing Spider-Man in the early 20’s and Daredevil.  I really loved the cheesy old villains like the Jester, Mr Hyde, Stiltman and many more.

What got you into selling comics? What got you into selling mystery boxes?

• To earn extra income for my family.  I did really well buying up Watchmen sets for $30-40 and flipping them for $200+ shortly after.  I started doing mystery boxes after seeing people doing raffles where 99% of people going away empty handed.  I wanted a better alternative that would give people a good shot for a grail with ultimately some cool cover art and variants if they didn’t win.

Biggest mistake you made when you started selling?

• My biggest was not using painter’s tape to package for shipping.  Another was buying with your heart to sell.  For example, I loved to read Scalped, bought a lot and took a beating, it was still a good read though!

What’s your favorite character or title to collect?

• Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men & Daredevil.  It took me a while to warm up to Miles Morales as Spider-Man, however my son has helped me love him too.  Although Peter Parker is my guy!

Next big thing for your personal collection?  Your grail?

• I want a CGC 9.0+ of Amazing Spider-Man #39 & #40.  They by far are my favorite covers of all time, Romita is a god.

Most unique or favorite thing in your collection?

• It would probably be Daredevil #8 which is the first appearance of Stiltman.  It’s the first comic I ever read.  I have a JTC Yoda variant that he inscribed “do or do not, there is no try”, great words of wisdom from Yoda lol.

Raw or Graded? Why? 

• Raw, once read, it’s fine for slab actually.  But I still read most of my Silver Age a final time before sending them to CGC for grading.  I still love the smell.

Best find or score? 

• A raw Flash #123 I found on Facebook for $50 late one night. It came back graded at an 8.0.

Advice to new sellers or collectors.

• Over pack and ship like you’d want them to land in your own mailbox. Learn how to grade are the two most important things in my opinion.  Just be kind to other collectors, collecting isn’t always monetary.  Your Excalibur run is just as important as your fellow collector’s Spider-Man run.

 A huge thanks to Jeff for taking the time out of his busy schedule to be interviewed by us.  If you've bought a mystery box in the past, let us know how it went and drop a comment below.

Check out Brogan's Heroes here

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