Jerry Heasley

Realistically, I can’t give Jerry Heasley’s Rare Finds: Mustangs & Fords a fair review. I read it with the misplaced hope that I could relate to its subject matter based on universal feelings of euphoria any collector feels when he finds a treasure. I was mistaken. I am not a car buff. I am, or have been, a collector of comic books, baseball cards, CDs and records. However, what I felt from reading story after story of finding Mustang after Mustang was not equivalent to the thrills I felt in finding an old Superman comic book at a garage sale.

Having laid those cards on the table, I’ll proceed with my review.

I might have enjoyed the book more if it wasn’t so narrowly focused. The hay-day of collectible Mustangs was from the mid-60s to the mid-70s. In that time, the body style really didn’t change all that much. So finding a 1960s Mustang under a toadstool or an early 1970s Mustang under a bed didn’t really spark my imagination. If the book was one about finding vintage cars from the 1940s and 1950s – particularly from automobile companies that were short-lived or absorbed into one of the Big Three – I would have found it much more fascinating.

And the condition of most of these cars! My gosh, when I would find that Superman or Green Lantern comic book at a garage sale it was in one piece. Not these things. How one can find a half-shell, restore it and feel like you own a classic car is beyond me. It would seem to make more sense just to start from scratch, perhaps with a seal of approval from the original auto manufacturer.

There’s also a lot of jargon in these stories that will mean nothing to a detached reader.

So, I just have one last thing to add: Is there a book that chronicles the adventures of finding old comic books?… (mere)