Celebrating 35 Years of Service to the Collecting Community!
In June of 1973, Bill Cole was watching the PBS Channel 2 annual auction. What caught his eye were two tickets to a Comic Book Convention and along with it three issues of Monster Mania Magazine. He bid and won it. A $15.00 value for only $12.00. (Which he still owns to this day.)
Going to his first convention brought back memories of his childhood. All those books that he hadn’t seen in years. New comics at that time were selling for only 12 cents. Being a novice, he started to buy up everything in sight. From Spiderman, Superman, to Donald Duck. Of course each book had to bagged and boarded. (Seems like nothing has changed over the years). As the collection grew, he started to take space at these cons and purchased plastic sleeves for resale. In October of 1973, because of the oil embargo, he decided to manufacture his own bags, since normal supply channels were not able to keep up with the demand.
His first order was for 50,000 sleeves bulked packed. This led to his counting by hand every sleeve in quantities of 100’s, which was both time consuming and tedious. During this time he found out that comic book collectors had two outlets to buy and sell. They were the Buyers Guide for Comic Fandom and the Overstreet Price guide. He then started advertising in both these publications. Sales grew, but due to time constraints of his Safety Equipment business and being in the Army Reserve, he needed to narrow his scope and specialize in one type of comic. So he started collecting Disney Comics; specifically, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge drawn and written by Carl Barks. The story lines were simple and carefree- much he believed like life should be. Later at a New York Convention, he met a dealer by the name of Steve Geppi and from there a long term friendship was born. In the mid seventies along with Geppi he purchased a collection that came to be known as the Poughkeepsie Mints. There were multiple copies of the most beautiful Dell Comics that had ever been seen. Bill Cole easily became the largest dealer of Disney Comics at that time.
From then on his name, fame and reputation grew. Around the late 70’s, he started to sell a new product called “Mylar®” sleeves; a plastic sleeve manufactured by the DuPont Company, that slowed the aging of comic books and paper from turning yellow. It was so successful that in 1980 he started to manufacture his own sleeves and later to sell just collector supplies, worldwide. It was in the 80’s that he decided to take Bill Cole Enterprises from a part time hobby to a full time business.
In addition, he retired from the military after 24 years of service to his country, with the rank of Major. Today, he continues to serve his country by serving as the 4th Congressional District Coordinator of Massachusetts representing the Admissions Office for the United States Military Academy at West Point. Bill’s son Matthew is a 1998 West Point Graduate and is a third generation family member who served in the military.
Today Bill Cole Enterprises, Inc, is a major supplier not only to hobbyists, collectors, schools, museums and The United States Government, but also to many archival supply houses around the world. They sell not only comic book supplies, but also developed a line of Comic Book Artists Supplies, which is sold through its subsidiary Comic Artist Supplies.com. More recently Bill Cole Enterprises has made the move to expand into the Ephemera market developing two new web sites “Preservationsuplies.com and Archivalsupplies.com.
We are 35 years old and still growing!
