Heroes in Business - Vincent Zurzolo of Metropolis Collectibles is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances Heroes radio show amfm.

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

Vincent Zurzolo of Metropolis Collectibles is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances Heroes radio show amfm. Zurzolo is the reigning Guinness World Record Holder of having purchased the most expensive comic books in the globe - Superman Action Comics #1 sold for $3.2 Million dollars. His gallery is located in NYC, and holds some of the most coveted items in the collectibles industry. He and David talk about collectibles, his world record books, and what his super power would be.

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. Now, back to our super host, David Kogan, founder of Alliances. Wow, what an exciting morning it has been. We just interviewed the king of sales training. He is the CEO of Sandler Training. And next, when you find out who our next hero is, who holds five Guinness Book of World Records, you are going to be amazed. Guinness Book of World Records. You are going to be amazed. With that, this morning, Saturday morning, I have Vincent Zerzolo with MetropolisComics.com. He is the owner. Good morning,

Vincent. Hey, thanks so much for having me on the show. Well, it's all about heroes and certainly your gallery, your auction site, your site online has more heroes than anyone because you do exactly what? I buy and sell vintage comic books, and we also auction vintage comic books and original comic art, and we also are the only gallery in New York City dedicated to original comic book art and fantasy art. What a fun business to be in. Now our audience is dying to know because we've had commercials out there. We started our show with it too as far as Guinness Book of World Records. They're holding onto their seat. What Guinness Book of World Records does you and your store

have? Well, we hold several different Guinness World Records. We're the first company to ever sell a comic book for a million dollars. That was Action Comics No. 1. That was in 8.0 condition, and that was in 2010. We also held the world's record for the most expensive comic book ever sold, which was Action Comics No. 1 in 9.0 condition for $2.2 million. Then we broke that record when we purchased what is now the world's most expensive comic book, Action Comics No. 1, a different copy in 9.0, for $3.2 million back in August of 2014.

And then we also sold the world's most valuable action comic book in the 1960s. Action Comics No. 1 is from 1938, but we also sold the most valuable Silver Age comic book, which is from the 1960s, the first appearance of Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy 15, 9.6 condition. We sold that for $1.1 million. We also sold the world's most expensive check, the check that was written out from DC Comics to the creators of Superman to buy Superman. That check was written out in 1938, and the sum total was $412, which was not just for Superman. It included several other stories that they had written. And we sold that check for a record $160,000.

And we sold comic books, original art, movie posters. We delve into a bunch of different types of collectibles. We've even bought and sold dinosaur fossils. And I've even sold a block of hair, the hair from the head of one of the creators of Superman. We sold the lock of hair for $1,000. Unbelievable. This is unbelievable. And again, you can reach Vincent by going metropoliscomics.com.

That's M-E-T-R-O-P-O-L-I-S-C-O-M-I-C-S.com. You can also go to eliances.com, the place where entrepreneurs align, by going to Eliance's.com because this is all about heroes. These are ones that are building the community, creating jobs, making their mark in society. So, Vincent, what was the first comic book that you ever read? The one that pops into my head that I remember is before I could even read, I was just looking at pictures. I was a very, very little boy. I had two big brothers who had comic books, and it was a Ghost Rider number 19. This is the early to mid-1970s. I remember there's a picture of Ghost Rider on his motorcycle fighting the devil. And I was a little boy, and I didn't

understand. The guy in the motorcycle is basically a skull for a face, and the other guy is shooting rays at him. And I didn't understand any of this stuff, but it fascinated me. And from that point forward, I was hooked. And, you know, you have two big brothers. You want to do everything they do, so they collect comic books. I wanted to collect comic books. And I did that all through elementary school and junior high school, And then I started buying and selling comic books when I was about

16 years old and did that all through high school and in college. And then when I got out of college, you talk about entrepreneurial motivations. I sat down and I said to myself, well, I can either get a job in marketing, which is what I went to school for, and sit on a train going an hour into Manhattan and an hour back to my hometown of Rockaway Beach, where I grew up in Queens. So that's two hours commute every day and make really crappy money. Or I can sit in my boxers in my apartment and make probably double that buying and selling comic books. It really wasn't much of a choice. It was obvious to me.

I wanted to pursue my passion, and that's what I did. What I also did was set out goals for myself when I first started out. My goal, my number one goal, was I wanted to be the biggest comic book dealer in the world. And that was in 1993, and I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I decided I was going to start working really hard and trying to figure things out. And I was doing four conventions every month, buying and selling warehouses of books as a middleman, wherein I'd find 100,000 comic books, and I'd flip them to a packager who was, at that point in the early 90s, they were packaging comic books, three for a dollar, and selling them through Walmarts and things like that. Unbelievable.

I was also selling comic books on the streets of Manhattan. I would drive into Manhattan with two card tables, set them up with eight boxes of comic books, and I'd set up on Broadway between John and Maiden, and I'd sell to all the Wall Street guys who came out around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. That's what I was doing it. I was selling comic books at conventions on the streets of Manhattan, doing the packaging deal. And I built my business from there and started doing conventions all over the country. And in 1996, I co-founded Big Apple Conventions, the longest-running comic book convention in New York City.

Very shortly after founding that and starting it, I left that company because I wanted to focus more on my core business of buying and selling comic books, which is something that's really important for people to do, especially entrepreneurs. There's a great book on it called The E-Myth and another one called The 4-Hour Workweek. We have to realize you do have a limited number of resources in yourself, and and you have to be able to say this is what I want to focus on this is what I want to do and this is what I want to make sure I provide I excel at and for me I realized that with the amount of work that went into doing a comic book convention really was was too much compared to me being able to go

out and buy a great collection of comic books or original art and you certainly and you certainly you certainly certainly have followed your passion in that and again those of you listening uh tuning in we have the owner of metropoliscomics.com vincent zurzolo and you're listening to alliance's heroes on money radio am AM 1510 and FM 99.3. And are you a hero in business? Go to Eliance's.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. And Metropolis Comics, Vincent holds not one, not two, five Guinness Book of World Records for comics and collectibles and doing so much. In fact, first comic going to read was Ghost Rider, now to becoming the owner, metropoliscomics.com.

I mean, no one knows more about comics or superheroes probably than you. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? I'm a New Yorker, and New Yorkers always want to get things done fast, so The Flash. I'd love to have super speed. That would be my superpower. And, I mean, just incredible. And is there any comic book or memorabilia that you haven't been able to get that you wanted? We pretty much bought and sold everything. it? We pretty much bought and sold everything. We've sold more copies of Action No. 1 in the last 10 years than the entire industry in the last 20 years. We hold numerous world records in terms

of highest-priced items sold. We're constantly on the outlook for new collections that are popping up. We're centrally located in Midtown Manhattan. We're all over the place. I eat, breathe, and you know what, comic books and artwork. So I'm always on top of things, and we're looking for new comic books. We're always buying, selling, taking things on consignment for our auctions at ComicConnect.com. So we're out there. But look, you're talking about heroes, and you're talking about entrepreneurs,

and I just wanted to point out one thing. I kept running my business, and the one guy I couldn't figure out how to beat was a guy named Stephen Fischler. We started doing business together. He owned Metropolis Collectibles. I guess you can see where this is going. And the old saying, if you can't beat him, join him. We merged companies in 1999, and from there our business took off,

and we've probably quintupled the sales and revenue generated by our companies from that point to now. And what we're really happy about seeing is we're happy about seeing the incredible success of the television shows and movies that have brought a lot of new collectors and investors into the comic book and original comic art market so that makes a big difference also having comic books for people who don't know how to grade comic books about 16 years ago people were able to buy third-party graded comic books from CGC and CBCS. So that helps anybody out there who's interested

in doing this to be able to buy comic books. Fantastic, fantastic. And again, thank you, Vincent, with MetropolisComics.com. This is David Kogan with the Alliances. Thank you, too, to our producer Christine Jeffries from loopydocs.com for helping to produce the Alliance's Hero Show.

She speaks geek and you can reach her at loopydocs.com. And when we return, when we return, we're going to be having the creator of a new sustainable building systems like no other and another hero who is a collegiate and professional basketball trainer. This is David Kogan with E-Liances.