Several folks have sent me links to the above photo, which is in the UCLA Photo Library. You can glimpse a larger version of it at this link. The caption on it reads…
COMIC BOOK HEAVEN — Rick Durell, El Segundo, left, operator of a gasoline station*, and Burt Blum, manager of Cherokee Book Shop, 6607 Hollywood Blvd., look over comic books in store, largest center for them in the country.
In '65, I was thirteen years old and an occasional patron of Cherokee Book Shop. It was a business which claimed (probably rightly) to have been the first store in the world to sell old comic books to true collectors. At the time, America was dotted with second-hand booksellers who offered any old comics they came across at a nickel-or-so apiece. Cherokee sought out the earliest books in the finest conditions and priced accordingly.
The business got a lot of publicity — newspaper articles that were incredulous that anyone would pay ten (gasp!) dollars for an old comic book, even if it was Superman #1 — and the impact of those articles was huge. First and foremost, it sent people scurrying to their attics and basements in search of lost treasures. They'd find old comics, phone Cherokee and wind up selling them for what seemed like glorious found money…usually less than 10% of the resale price. Then the articles would also drive new customers to Cherokee and, of course, they spawned hundreds of copycat businesses, including several within a few blocks of where it all started.
A visit to the store was an adventure. I don't believe Burt Blum was actually the manager of Cherokee Book Shop. I think his brother Jack was. But Burt presided over the comic book division, which was upstairs and open whenever Burt felt like being there. You'd sometimes go in and be told Burt was off surfing…so too bad. Even when open, the business revolved around Burt's whims. No prices were marked. You had to ask him and he'd charge you whatever his mood (and his estimate of your desperation to own that issue) told him to charge. Some fans went to enormous lengths to get on Burt's alleged good side, which I'm not sure I ever saw. Most of the time, I'd see him barking at kids to unbutton their jackets. He treated every one of us as a potential shoplifter, which was justified. There was much thievery, though usually not by the folks he suspected.
He made his real money off customers like Rick Durell, who I also knew. Rick, who passed away around fifteen years ago, claimed to have started this whole business of paying real money for real old comics. As the story went, he walked one day into Cherokee, which specialized in rare antiquarian books of other kinds. There, he met Jack and/or Burt and offered cash for perfect condition copies of Golden Age Comics. Soon, the store was locating them and in the process, it developed a client list of buyers like Rick who built huge collections — in some cases for investment; in others, to recapture their childhoods. The Durell Collection — I have no idea what became of it — was amazing. At one point, he claimed to own two dozen copies of Action Comics #1, all in perfect condition.
I never bought many comics at Cherokee. I couldn't stand the little game of humbling yourself before Burt to ask the price of a comic you wanted. The prices were often steep and you felt like a pauper if you declined the deal. Some fans I knew had developed a cozy enough relationship with Blum that he was willing to haggle a little…but he could also turn on you, decide you weren't a serious customer and order you off the premises.
But it was an interesting place to be, even if the cramped quarters and atmosphere weren't conducive to hanging around. You might meet someone famous (I met Jules Feiffer there) and you might make friends with a fellow lover of fine comics. You might also see the second act of the following drama: A kid would come in and spend, say, fifteen dollars for a copy of Batman #4 from 1941. A few days later, the kid would be back with the comic…dragged there crying and screaming by a father who'd accuse Burt of cheating his son and demand a refund. I wasn't there that often but I saw it happen at least twice, and a friend of mine who worked there estimated it as a twice-monthly occurrence.
At some point, Burt's supply of Golden Age Comics seemed to dry up. The last time I was up there, the oldest book on the premises was a Wonder Woman #12 or thereabouts. The day had passed when Burt could idly fan out a bridge hand of thirteen copies of Captain America #1, just to gloat. He began catering almost wholly to buyers like Rick Durell and opening the room upstairs only when one of them had an appointment. I have no idea when the whole enterprise closed down because by then, I didn't know anyone shopping there.
Burt Blum surfaced years later running a pretty good old book shop in Santa Monica but according to this article, it shut down in 2002. I was in there once and I knew it was Burt because someone had told me. But I didn't buy anything there that day. I was afraid I'd have to ask him the price and then, if I didn't want to pay it, he'd throw me out of the store. (No, that's not true. He was an okay guy and I wish I'd had the time or inclination to interview him about his Cherokee days. He was a pretty important part of comic book history…)
*UPDATE, added much later: The caption on the photo from the UCLA Library reads as quoted…but Rick's family tells me he didn't run a gas station. He worked for the Chevron (formerly Standard Oil) Refinery, in El Segundo.