Ryujin
Legend
I'd been collecting since I was maybe 4 years old and many of my comics have 10c and 12c cover prices. My oldest was a 1962 Batman featuring Doctor Tzin Tzin as the villain. The scumbag convinced my brother that he was doing him a favour by taking them at the cover price, in exchange for new comics.Somewhere in this house I still have the sword from the original action figure...
I feel your pain - I loaned a whole shoebox of old X-Men comics to a "friend" who decided to sell them for drugs. There were probably over $600 worth of comics in there even in the crappy condition they were in.
(Only the fact that he was dating one of my actual friends at the time saved him from getting severely beaten.)