The Holy Grail


I used to collect comics, even though I was probably the world's worst collector. See, I actually read my comics. I read them all the time, re-read them, carried them around with me, fell asleep reading them, spilled pop on them, rolled them up and put them in my pocket -- all the stuff you're not supposed to do, I did with my comics. But man, I loved them.

And my favorite hero was Captain America. He still is my favorite.

Though I don't collect comics any more, I still read them occasionally, and I keep in touch with some friends who are active collectors. And I still have a little bit of the collecting bug.

I want something -- anything -- from the World War II era that features Captain America. The picture above is the Captain America Sentinel of Liberty Membership Kit. If I had a Holy Grail to search for, this would be it.

But I would settle for just about anything from the 1940's with Captain America on it -- an ashtray, a airline barf bag, a cereal box. I don't care.

And it's not the money; I don't care what something is "worth". I just think Cap is cool, and I would like to possess something historical, something from that era.

I've done a lot of traveling, and I have been looking for Captain America memorabilia for a long time. There's not a lot out there, folks. The membership kits -- if you can find someone who will part with one -- run about $3000.

So that's out. I would have a hard time justifying the investment of that kind of money in something like that.

But if money didn't matter, I would have one of those kits hanging on my office wall.