Heroes in Business - Vincent Zurzolo, 3.2 Million Dollar comic and collectible trader, six Guinness World Records, COO Comic Connect

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Vincent Zurzolo, 3.2 Million Dollar comic and collectible trader, six Guinness World Records, COO Comic Connect is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances entrepreneur community and host of the Heroes Show.    

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. All right, so welcome back to the show. You know, I'm always excited. Why? Because I have the opportunity to share stories of everyone with you, with our listeners, and with our viewers. And I can't be more excited than ever in regards to our next guest. Are you ready for this?

Vincent Zorzolo, $3.2 million comic and collectible trader. Not one. Not three. Not five. comic and collectible trader not one not three not five six guinness book of world records and he's president of comic connect and you can reach him at comic connect.com vincent oh thanks so much for being here today we're so excited what's going on with the whole comic industry? I mean, gosh, how do you accomplish, heck, I can't even get one Guinness Book of World Records. Well, the comic book world is doing great. First of all, thank you so much for having me on. I really do appreciate it. It's always great to be able to talk about your passion. Comic books are my passion. And so I've been

buying and selling comic books for, wow, it's over 37 years now. And the market is extremely strong and resilient. We had some banner years the last few years. We've come back down to reality a bit the last six to eight months. But during the COVID lockdown, the numbers were beyond extraordinary. And I believe that was part and parcel to several different factors, including people being stuck in their homes and having time to actually look through their collections. People trying to figure out what do they need, what do they want to sell? trying to figure out what do they need, what do they want to sell. And so you have that combination along with a lot of people sharing what they're buying and selling on the Internet. And what this created was this, first of all, I think keeping up with the Joneses, that type of feel,

where everybody out there says, oh, this guy has a really nice book. I need to get a better one. Or this guy has a really nice piece of art. Oh, I want one better than that. And that's kind of like the American way. You're keeping up with the Joneses, trying to outdo your neighbor. And then it's also FOMO, fear of missing out. People were seeing books going up at record prices and record time, and they wanted a piece of the action. So you saw this really amazing combination of factors that went into the collectibles market in general going through the roof and comic books also.

So it's been an incredible last few years. If anything good has come out of the pandemic, it was an increase in collector and investor passion for buying and selling collectibles. And so that's been really fantastic. And I mean, you've been in the industry, which, what, 100 years? I mean, you know it probably better than almost anybody else, given your experience with it and that. But while I know the story, you got to share how you even got started in the business. I think it's a phenomenal story. Nobody would know. So first of all, this is my second

time being on your show. And I had such a great time the first time when my publicist told me I had another opportunity to be on with you, David, and Christine was such a great big help. I jumped at it and I was really happy to be here and be part of an amazing cross-section of experts in different fields and people that you've had on as guests in the past. So that's really wonderful. So in terms of my beginnings in comic books, I loved comic books since before I could even read. When I was a little boy, I had two older brothers. They had a comic book collection, and I would go into the basement and look at their comic books all the time. And I have very distinct memories of looking at comic books. In the 1970s, I was on a powder blue carpet.

I had this globe, red, white, and blue. It looked like a basketball, and there was a net. That was the light in my room. And I had a little fishbowl with a crayfish in it. And I have a very distinct memory of sitting there on this powder blue carpet, looking at Ghost Rider comics and being just completely baffled and blown away by the incredible artistry and the great stories and just the visuals and the colors. And fast forward all through elementary school, my friends and I, we would collect together and just like kids traded baseball

cards, we would trade comic books. And then I was around 14, 15 years old. A friend of mine said, hey, why don't you come with me into the city? We'll go to the comic book store. And we did. And we had a really great time. And he said, we should start buying and selling together. And he was a little bit older than me. He was in the coin business. And I said, look, I'd love to, but I don't know anything about this. He said, look, we're going to take an ad out. We took a quarter page out, a quarter page ad out in the Comic Buyer's Guide, which was a weekly newspaper dedicated to comic books and comic book art. And it was the standard bearer for decades in the collectibles world before there was an internet.

And people would go there to buy and sell. And we would get leads all the time. And then everybody in school, in junior high and high school, they knew that I was buying comic books. So anybody who had a relative with a collection or anything like that, I was the comic book kid. And they would call me up and either my buddy or my mom would drive me over to the house. We'd go all over Brooklyn, Queens, you name it. Somebody's uncles, plumbers, cousins, whatever, had a collection. We would go buy it. And I did pretty well doing this all through high school.

And then when I went to college, I was doing this part time through college and doing conventions all over New York City. And it was very easy to do conventions. There's one pretty much every weekend. Fast forward. I'm graduating from St. John's University, summer of 1993, spring, summer, and I meet a friend, a new friend, at a comic book convention. He says, hey, we both live in Rockaway. In fact, that's where we're doing this interview. I'm at my house in Rockaway, Rockaway Beach, New York, and we both live in Rockaway. I sell comic books on the streets of Manhattan. Why don't you come with me? I said, can I really make any money selling

comic books in the streets of Manhattan? He said, trust me, they just need to get to know what you have. And then once they do, they'll start buying. So I said, okay. So the first day we drove into Manhattan, parked the car. We put, I had two card tables and eight boxes of books on the table. And the first day I made 50 bucks. And I looked at my friend. I said, what are you doing taking me out here? I'm making nothing. He said, trust me, trust me. They just have to get to know what you have and who you are. Keep coming out with me and we'll see what happens. Second day, I made $60. I looked at him. I'm like, dude, between parking, gas, tolls, this is is crazy what are we doing here he said trust me trust me have some patience we'll get this going so the third day I did $200 in sales we worked

from 10 to 3 p.m. and I was like all right this is cool and what was awesome about this first summer doing comic books full-time is that I could go out and sell comic books on the streets of Manhattan. I was set up on Broadway between John and Maiden, which was a really cool area. It's right near the Wall Street area, financial district. So you had all different types of people coming over to buy comic books. So after I'd finished, I'd drive home, park my car, put my boxes of books in the garage, and get on my shorts and go down to the beach. And I'd play volleyball the rest of the day on the beach with my buddies.

And we would go swimming and have a good time. And I did this all through the first summer that I was full-time. And that was a really big decision-making point in my life because I had to figure out, was I going to do comic books full-time or was I going to go get a job in marketing and work in Manhattan? And I sat there one day and I was like, it's an hour and 15 minutes to get into Manhattan, an hour and 15 minutes to get out. I'm going to have to wear a suit, which I hated. Or I could wear my boxers in my apartment and sell comic books and probably make double what I make coming out of school. And it wasn't a tough decision to make. And I grew up with an entrepreneurial spirit. My father came over to the United States from Italy with my mom. He came over with nothing. He was in

agricultural research in Italy. He's barely spoken any English. Came over, started as a dishwasher and worked his way up to a pizza man, butcher, and then sous chef, and then chef. And he learned to be a cook and then started, owned his own pizzeria, restaurants all throughout New York. So he always taught me that this was a possibility. This is a way that you could create a life for yourself by being an entrepreneur. So I took those things that I learned from my father, things I learned from my mother, combine those and brought it to fruition with my own business in comic books.

Now, when I started out, and pardon me if I'm just going on here, but I could talk about this all day because I really believe that a lot of people out there didn't have the same type of benefit of having parents like I did. Many people have great parents but maybe they worked for a company and maybe they're trying to figure out how to do this themselves. I was really fortunate because I had two parents who were, well my father an entrepreneur, my mom was the ultimate housemaker and ran our home and she taught me so many things also about how to run my business.

What I learned from them beyond the fact that I could do this was that there were certain ways I could compete against very stiff competition. You have to understand something. Even though I'd been doing this all through high school and college, I was competing against guys who had 20, 30 years of experience, so much more knowledge, money, networking, you name it. They had me beat every which way. How could I beat them? I looked at the one area that I saw a weakness, and that was in customer service.

I built my business off of customer relationships, networking, and customer service, something I learned from both of my parents. My father in the restaurant, where even though he's a chef, he would come out and greet patrons all the time and sit down and talk, give him a glass of wine and chat. And people loved my dad. He was a consummate showman. He was also an extraordinary chef. My mother at home was the same way. You came into my house and before you could sit down, my mom was cooking something for you, making something for you. You always felt at home. So I took those types of lessons that I learned from my parents and I brought them into the comic book business.

And I've met people that bought comic books from me 30 some odd years ago in my basement. They've come up to me recently, as recent as a few months ago at a convention and said, hey, man, I remember when you were selling comic books in your basement and how great you were to me. And I can't tell you how much I cherish those memories and appreciate them. And it's like warmed my heart, but it also really showed with absolute definition, clarity that there is something to this. You treat people, whether they're spending a million dollars with you or $50 with you, you treat them with respect, you treat them with compassion, and you treat them in a way that they know they actually matter. And this helps you to build a

business. Now, on top of that, I will say I was working my tail off. I worked extremely hard. I was at conventions all the time. I was middlemanning deals. I was finding warehouses. At the time, in the early 90s, there were warehouses filled with hundreds of thousands of books. I would move 100,000 books and make two pennies per book. That was $2,000. I'd rent a truck, move out the books, bring them to a warehouse and sell them basically to another organization. Then I was doing conventions. Then I was building up my mail order company. And you combine all these things and you continually do these things. And you do not take a break and you do not sit there and go, oh, this is so hard.

Right. It was easy. It was easy. Everybody'd be doing it. It's not easy. It's not easy at all. I buzzed my butt. And so many of my friends will tell you that while they were out

playing football, while they were out of bar, I was schlepping my butt to a convention on the weekends and sometimes coming home, breaking even, sometimes losing money, but I did it. And you build up this type of work ethic and you build up this type of network and this customer base and you build your business from there, and you see it grow. And now I'm proud to say I am co-owner in Metropolis Collectibles, which is the largest dealership for vintage comic books in the world, bar none. ComicConnect.com, the premier online auction site for vintage comic books, original comic art, and other collectibles, and also proud curator of Metropolis Gallery, the only comic book art gallery in New York City dedicated to comic book art and fantasy art. I just got back from Italy. I did an art convention in Italy.

I've traveled all over the world for comic books and collectibles. This is something I am so passionate about and I couldn't be happier doing it. It wouldn't matter for me if I was making what I made 20 years ago right now because I love doing this and it makes me happy every day. So Vincent, which comics should we be looking at buying now? I mean, you know, I know it's, you know, or are there, or should, let's say, for example, you know, we're looking for something that, you know, could potentially go up in value in that,

or should we really be focused only on the past? So that's a great, that's a great question. And something we believe in at Metropolis and Comic Connect is the past is your future. You know, comic books are from the past, but they're your future. And what we're doing is having right now an amazing event auction on ComicConnect.com. It ends next week. It's June 5th through the 9th. So the 5th we'll have ends next week. It's June 5th through the 9th. So the 5th will have original comic art, pulps, video games, VHS, and memorabilia. Then the rest of the week is all comic books.

And what's great about our auction is everything's at a $1 star price. There are no reserves. And rather than telling you, you should buy this or you should buy that, you need to look for opportunities in the marketplace. And the way you can figure out opportunities in the marketplace is by doing a little bit of research. There are two great online price guide sites to be able to understand the marketplace better. First of all, you can look at the sold section on ComicConnect.com to see what we've sold. Then you can also go to GPanalysis.com,panalysis.com, and gocollect.com. These are two paid sites where you can see what things sell for. And you can use that knowledge that you gain there to figure out what's a good deal in the marketplace. So right now, for instance, we have an auction with a comic book called Journey into Mystery 83.

It's the first appearance of Thor from Marvel Comics. Journey into Mystery 83. It's the first appearance of Thor from Marvel Comics. And it's a 9.4. 9.4 on the comic book grading scale, which my company created, the 1 to 10 grading scale. It's used throughout the world of comic books. That book is one of the best in the world. It's probably worth a little over $400,000. And right now it's hovering a little bit over a hundred thousand dollars now it's true that a lot of the bidding will happen at the very end but this book is way off where it needs to be so there could be an opportunity there now having said that i have seen times where a book's at a hundred thousand dollars today and the closing night it goes to five hundred thousand dollars a lot of people wait to the last minute to bid right um we have superman number one in 2.0 condition,

which is a gorgeous looking copy of Batman number one. Why is it? Why? Because that's what? One of the most expensive comics, right? The first issue of, was it Superman? First issue of Superman. That's the first self-titled issue of Superman.

Superman first appears in Action Comics in 1938. That's his first appearance. But this is his first comic book, his own self-titled Superman. Why do you think that's such the most valuable one that's out there? Well, so Superman is the first superhero. So Action Comics is by far the most valuable comic book. Second would be Detective Comics 27, which is the first appearance of Batman. You also have Captain America Comics number one, Marvel comics number one, which is the first Marvel comic. And there's probably another three or four or five other books that really are in that upper echelon of the most expensive comics. Now, if you're asking me, see, I see two different opportunities here in the comic book market. As I had said earlier

in our conversation was that the market went nuts for the last two and a half years. And the last six to eight months has come back down to reality to a degree. So there are a lot of opportunities in buying silver age comic books. That means 1960s comic books to the modern age, the last few years even, even current comic books that have some collectability. But the golden age of conflicts in 1930s, 40s, and early 50s, that's an area that has been very, very strong, even resilient beyond the changes in the marketplace over the last six to eight months. Having said that, I see opportunities everywhere, and I do not pigeonhole myself into one specific area. The one thing I do say to

collectors who are looking to start or investors, find something you love. Maybe you love Superman, maybe you love Batman, maybe you like romance comics, maybe you like war comics. There are tons of ways for you to buy and invest and collect in these types of different categories, genres, time periods, you name it. Artists, writers, things like that. Everybody collects in different ways, specific types of covers. So there's so many different things. Graded or not graded? Should we have our comics graded or not? That's a great question.

Should we buy our comic graded or not? So there's not one pat answer for that. So you can buy graded comic books. I have many comic books that are CGC graded, CBCS graded, PGX graded. These are the three major grading companies. But I also have many raw comic books. And it all depends. The thing that you have to be aware of is grading a comic book can be rather expensive. So you want to take a look at the cost of grading a comic book, which all the grading site, grading companies have their submission tiers and forms with pricing. You have to make sure that it makes sense to you that you are grading a comic book.

Once you've done that, you can buy graded or raw. If you know how to look at a comic book, check for restoration, know how to look for a grade, you can feel much more comfortable buying raw books. Also, you can buy them from a reputable company like mine. We stand behind our grades in terms of, so we have a 10-day money back guarantee for any reason whatsoever. If you get a comic book graded and it came back restored where we missed something, which is very seldom because we're very, very good at our jobs, but there's still sometimes an expert who has found a way to get it past us, you would have a full credit with

our company. So we really try to make sure that you're covered, but we want people to be able to feel confident and comfortable buying raw comic books all right press versus original and by the way our audience may not know so can you just do a very quick note part on what the difference is so pressing is when you take a press and you press a comic book um and basically uh it was slightly looked at in a skeptical manner and frowned upon a little bit early on. However, it has become the commonplace in the business because you're not structurally changing a comic book when you put pressure on it. What you're doing when you're pressing a comic book is getting out subtle defects or maybe even extreme defects that when through pressure you can remove or minimize. Folds, certain indent indentations things like that um when you do that it increases the grade of the comic book and increases the value of the comic book so why wouldn't you want to do that well there are only there are only

certain instances you want to be careful when you're pressing but first you first of all you want to make sure you you're hiring somebody who's competent at it. My company has their own internal pressing service where we do the pressing for you. It's very inexpensive compared to a lot of our competitors. And then basically what you have to take into consideration when pressing, you have to make sure the quality of the paper of the comic book can withstand the pressure. Sometimes if you're dealing with a brittle book, it'll just split. You do not want to deal with that. That would be a nightmare. So here's what you do. In my opinion, if you're buying a comic book, as long as it's pressed well, which if it is, you won't be able to tell the difference. You can buy pressed comic books. It's not a big deal. It's not even a,

I don't think it's really a matter of debate anymore. Got it. All right. So we've got time for one more question. And that is, is, is, you know, you've been very successful. You found your passion. I mean, 99% of people never find their passion in life, period. You found your passion. So what kind of advice would you give to children out there who are trying to find what, what do I want to be? What do I want to be? What do I like? What do I, what do I know? And how can I make a living doing it? Like Vincent? Here are certain things that I think you go into this, this whole thing. And I could go talk for hours about this, but some of the basics, don't worry about the money, find something you love. The money will come later. And if it doesn't come to such an incredible degree,

you're still doing something you love. And I would say talking to my friends, I'm 52 years old now, and talking to my friends and people that I've met, everybody comes up to me and says, oh, my God, it's so great that you do what you love. Now, know this. Even when you do what you love, like I do, people say, oh, if you do what you love, you don't work a single day. And you're like, that's nonsense in my opinion.

I work my tail off. I'm passionate about it. So I don't mind. And I'm a hardworking guy, so I don't mind. But realize you're going to have to put in a lot of effort no matter what you do. So what I find is a very valuable tool is writing down things. I make lists. I set goals on paper or on your computer. And you say, write a list of all the things you love. And then whittle it down and find out what is it? What can I do to design a life? I don't even like saying making a living. I like it beyond that. Let's design a lifestyle. What do I want to do with my life? How do I want it to be? Envision what you want. And when you put that down on paper,

and when you envision what you want out of life, you're much more likely to actually achieve it. Then you have to put steps in place. And one of the things I would do in order to put steps in place is to find a model, a role model that you can base your future success upon. This guy did it or this woman did it. Maybe I can do it and take pieces of what you learn from that person. Now, I've learned things from people from all different walks of life. One of my greatest mentors is not even alive today, hasn't been alive for 50 years, was Bruce Lee. I read Bruce Lee's books.

I studied his martial arts. Bruce Lee helped me to envision that anything is possible. Now, I also had two great parents that told me the same thing. But don't limit yourself. Be limitless. Make sure that you believe that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. And then put a plan in place to make those ideas a reality. So those are the things.

I'm going to give you a quick story. And I'm going to move the camera for a minute. this is something i told you i wanted to share with everybody so when i was in my 20s and i was working out of my basement apartment on comic books i envisioned one day that maybe i would have a place by the beach by the ocean i pictured a glass house by the ocean where i could work on comics books. And I am so fortunate and so blessed that I was able to buy a house right by the ocean. And if you look in the back, you'll see the beach. And in the summertime, I get to work here on comic books.

And as you can see, we've got our boxes of comic books here. I don't know if you can see those. And we're working here today and we're making things happen and i'm on the phone and i'm doing deals and we're grading and looking at conflicts so again we're coming over no problem come on down we'll barbecue for you um it's it's a dream come true that something i envisioned in my mind and it came true because I worked towards it, put in a lot of effort. I made very smart decisions. I'm not saying I'm the smartest guy. I just happened to be able to save money, look for opportunities and find ways to make my dreams come true in terms of business, in terms of life. So another thing I love to do is I love to travel.

So I figured out a way to make comic books something that I could do traveling. I've been to Australia, the Middle East, Europe for business. So I've made that happen. And look, anybody can do this. You just have to focus and you just have to be willing to put in the time my success did not come overnight I've been buying and selling comic books since I was 15 so you know it's a ton of time and I'm very happy by the way a new challenge for me this year I will be premiering my first comic book I've dreamed about making my first comic book since I was a little

kid it's called The Addiction and it'll be out in October. And anybody out there, you should buy a copy. It's going to be awesome. Excellent. Well, Vincent, you know what? You've made your mark in the industry. You grew up in the industry. You treated the industry right, and you've been rewarded for that. And most of all, you're sharing your passion and your lessons with others. That's a hero. Vincent Zerzolo. He's won a $3.2 million comic and collectible trader. Six, not one, six Guinness Book of World Records. He is the president of Comic Connect.

And you can reach him at ComicConnect.com. That's a hero. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. Thanks so much. Vincent, you've got to dance with me now show. Thanks so much. There you go.