I Spoke with Mitchell Mehdy

To comic collectors of a certain age the name Mitchell Mehdy might seem faintly familiar.

In 1973 Mitch Mehdy paid a then-unheard of $1800 for a copy of Action Comics #1 and, in so doing, he changed the face of comic book collecting forever after. Newspaper articles about his purchase abounded nationwide and he even made an appearance on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. I didn't see that show myself but I do seem to recall that it was the talk of the schoolyard the next day.

I had a chat on the phone with Mr. Mehdy this week. I plan to have a longer conversation with the gentleman in the future, but this week I was calling to see whether he had a tape of his Tomorrow Show appearance. I was hoping to give that footage its first public viewing in forty years at my C2E2 panel this weekend! (When I told this to Mitch he was unfamiliar with C2E2 but he said I should host a panel in San Diego. I mentioned to him that that summer convention is already sold out and Mitch said that if I host a panel they have to let me in. As you can tell, Mitchell Mehdy believes in getting right down to business!)

It turns out that Mitch does not have a copy of his NBC television appearance but he wishes he did so he could show it to his family. If you know the whereabouts of a copy of that Tomorrow Show segment would you please let me know? Mitchell Mehdy and I would both like to see it!