Pacific Comic Exchange

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Nation's Business July 1995

Up,Up - And Away!

By Michael Barrier

Robert J. Roter was a software-systems engineer in the aerospace I industry for 11 years. "I really wasn't that happy with it," he says of his former career. "It wasn't something that I loved and enjoyed."

In the late '80s, as defense spending slowed-and Roter's prospects in the defense industry shrank accordingly-he began thinking about building a new career around something he did love and enjoy: old comic books.

How well he succeeded can be judged by the headlines he made earlier this year when his Los Angeles-based company, Pacific Comic Exchange, brokered the sale of a copy of Action Comics No. 1-the 1938 comic book that introduced Superman and triggered the birth of dozens of other costumed heroes. The price: $137,500 (including PCE's commission), the highest price ever paid for a comic book.

It was around the end of 1988 that Roter hit on the idea of a computerized comic-book exchange. The idea was that sellers of old comic books would submit them to the exchange, which would grade the comics' condition precisely and then list them on its own on-line service, with the seller's asking price. Potential buyers who subscribed to the on-line service could use their modems to call in, see what was listed, and make counteroffers. When negotiations between buyer and seller resulted in agreement on a price, the buyer would pay the exchange, which would collect a commission from both buyer and seller.

Roter turned to two friends, a computer scientist and a young lawyer who shared his enthusiasm for comics, to help him put a company together. PCE started operations in February 1991.

The first year-when sales volume was $30,000-"was a learning experience," Roter says. He learned, for example, that he had to offer return privileges when buyers were unhappy with the condition of a comic book-but most buyers, he adds, "are very satisfied with the grading, and the consistency." When someone submits a comic book for sale through PCE's system, Roter or Todd Reznik, his lawyer partner, examines

copy in existence, Roter believes. The very best copy, he estimates, is worth somewhere between $350,000 and $500,000. "If I was someone who had $100 million in assets," he says of the best copy of Action No. 1, "I'd offer [the owner] $1 million, to get it out of his hands. The idea is that you're going to own the best; and that Action No. 1 is not only the best copy, it's probably the premier book"-the comic book of comic books. Roter, 41, is still a collector himself, and

Comic-book broker Robert J. Roter; president of Pacific Comic Exchange, with an Action Comics No. 1, which recently sold for $137,500: "The idea is ... to own the best."

it--wearing surgical latex gloves-and grades it according to such characteristics as rust on the staples and browning of the pages.

PCE's sales volume in 1994 was about $800,000, up from $525,000 in 1993. Roter expects that this year's volume will be "at least $1 million." The Action No. 1 'he sold is the third-best

it's when he speaks of his current collecting choices that one can sense just how far his interest in comic books has evolved since he was first collecting them as a boy more than 30 years ago. Like any experienced business investor, Roter says: "I put money in a quality piece that's going to have high liquidity and potential for appreciation."

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