Comic-book fan Merrick “Rick” Elfman, ’83, was just 13 years old when he stumbled upon a used-book store in his hometown of Boston that was selling back issues of popular titles for 15 cents apiece. At a local fan convention, the same issues were selling for $1 to $1.50.
The young Elfman realized there was money to be made. “I was like, ‘Wow—this is unbelievable,’” he recalls, grinning. “It was a side hustle long before the days of the internet or anything digital.”
Soon after, Elfman registered for his first dealer table at a show. “I made $25, which was a lot of money back then,” he says. That experience led Elfman to start hunting for private collections to acquire by placing classified ads in newspapers. A few months later, his mother loaned him $200 to start a full-fledged business reselling comic books, a venture his brother later joined.
The pair called their business The Little Elves. They expanded to baseball cards and other collectibles, and the company was soon operating throughout New England. Elfman estimates they brought in more than $100,000 in annual profits some years, and enjoyed 60–80 percent margins on sales. Although he started the company when he was barely a teenager, Elfman operated it profitably for well over a decade.
“I was able to pay for four years of education in economics and political science and the two years of my MBA in finance at Booth from our earnings selling memorabilia,” he says proudly.
Elfman has a knack for investing and entrepreneurship. He eventually evolved from spotting hidden gems buried among superheroes and gumshoe detectives—at least as a business venture—to buying and selling companies. But even with his keen eye and talent in salesmanship, Elfman knew that to move on from The Little Elves, he needed formal training.
“With the money we made, I started investing in stocks as a teenager,” he says. “I realized that I really liked it and wanted to find my way onto Wall Street someday. But you couldn’t do that without a degree from a top school—and Booth provided me with a springboard to later go to Goldman Sachs. Booth is where I learned accounting. I learned how to analyze a financial statement but also how to think critically in business. School gave me a good working knowledge of what I needed to get ahead in business.”
Elfman joined Chicago-based investment management firm Sterling Partners in 1987 as partner and is now a managing director.
“Imagine that I’m in my 20s and trying to get 65- or 70-year-old people who see their companies as their babies to sell me their firms,” he says. “Business school gave me the fundamentals I needed to do the analysis, ask sellers the right questions, make sense of revenue forecasts, and break the numbers down. At the same time, the comics and collectibles side helped me learn to work with people from every walk of life and understand what motivates them to do business with someone.”
Elfman’s 37-year career at Sterling has proved a storied one. He recalls a meatpacking business he bought and grew: “We turned $200,000 into $20 million in a couple of years. That was a good investment.” And he describes his investment in School of Rock, the for-profit music education company, as “emotionally rewarding, financially rewarding,” and the organization as “fantastic to work with all around.”
These are just two great finds among many by a guy who, in another life, has scored everything from multiple Mickey Mantle cards to a copy of Action Comics #1. (For the uninitiated, that’s the one where Superman makes his first appearance.)
“My dad was a hard worker—one of those guys who used to work evenings on a construction site to be able to put himself through school,” he reflects. Elfman, who has served on the Council on Chicago Booth and currently sits on the Chicago Booth and Polsky Center Private Equity Council, clearly has the same tireless work ethic. “I was fortunate enough not to have to work nights in construction—I got to do it with comics and baseball cards instead,” he says.
“I was able to pay for four years of education in economics and political science and the two years of my MBA in finance at Booth from our earnings selling memorabilia.”
Rick Elfman shares some of the remarkable early finds that set him up for a successful business as a reseller of comic books, baseball cards, and memorabilia.
“Someone in Salem, Massachusetts, answered my classified ad, and it turned out they had a huge collection of Disney comics from the 1940s and ’50s. I didn’t have enough money. My dad was skeptical, but my mom loaned me the money to buy it anyway. She was like, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’ It ended up making so much on resale that I paid my parents back within a month, and it bankrolled the rest of the business and really put us on the map. I was 15 years old, and it got me to Chicago for the first time for a comic convention. As you can see, I really liked the city.”
Paid: $800
Current value: $500,000+
“One time we rented a suite on the ground floor of a Ramada Inn in Maine for a weekend. Some guy dropped off a small stack of comics and said, ‘Take it,’ because he was just going to throw them out. He didn’t even leave his phone number. I was so busy I didn’t have a chance to go through the lot until later that night. Most of the comics were worthless—but then, all of a sudden, in the middle of the stack, there it was: Fantastic Four #1. And it was in really nice shape. It was probably worth around $100 back then—today it would resell for much, much more.”
Paid: $0
Current value: $250,000
“I found a pair of comics display racks that dated back to around January or February 1941. I was able to buy them for very little, and it turns out they’re one of two pairs that are known today. I have one rack in my office at home, where it displays comic books the same way it would have in a five-and-dime back in the day.”
Paid: $1,000
Current value: $25,000–$50,000
“I had this theory that the old Yankees in New England never threw anything out. It turned out to be true: we found a set of Bowman baseball cards up in Maine—and that find paid for a year of college. Topps and Bowman were the two main card companies back then, and some people think the 1953 Bowman cards are among the most beautiful baseball cards out there!”
Paid: $130
Current value: $100,000+
“To top things off, we discovered a hidden gem in a collection of comic books that we bought. Round the World Gift was a giveaway back in the day. It didn’t have a price on it and wasn’t worth that much money, but no one knew what it was. I contacted Bob Overstreet, who published the annual Comic Book Price Guide, and even he had never heard of it. We took pictures of the book, got them developed at the drugstore, and mailed them to him. He thought it was great and listed the book in that year’s price guide with a credit to my brother and me for finding it. That was cool!”
Current value: Priceless
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