In 1963 I was a freshman at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.  My roommates and I discovered Marvel Comics and became as obsessed with them as today’s youth are with video games.  We had complete collections of every series, and shared them around with each other.  One day I decided to get ahead of the game and went down to New York City to get the latest issues before anyone else.  I made my way to the Marvel ofices at 635 Madison Avenue and met the gang there; I don’t remember names (never have) but I’d assume one of them was Stan Lee.  Anyway, in addition to the latest issues I checked out their T-shirts; I don’t remember if I had read about them or just discovered their existence on that occasion, but I know I bought at least one of almost everything, including a Hulk sweatshirt with a cute image on the back showing the Hulk going away pulling a toy with wheels.  My daughter still has that one.  The rest I either resold to my classmates at Trinity or wore out myself; but I managed to keep one Thor T-shirt in wearable condition (barely) for 60 years.  It has a couple of small holes and stains, but retains its colorful Jack Kirby graphic of Thor swinging Mjolnir.  The tag reads “ALLISON MFG. CO. INC. RN13851 100% COTTON” and the graphic has a copyright saying “1966 MARVEL COMICS GROUP”.  I was sure my trip to NYC was in 1965, but the copyright suggests it must have been 1966, spring term of my junior year.

Today my son was wearing the shirt and we thought to ask Google if it might be valuable.  Gemini’s answer, “You have an incredibly rare, highly sought-after piece of pop culture history!” caused him to take it off and carefully sequester it in a clean plastic container.

Now what?  Do I sell it for thousands of dollars to a collector, or look for a Comicon to wear it to?  Decisions, decisions…