Eric Jaskolka discovered a love for Marvel Comics, especially the X-Men, when he was 19, and ever since he has taken to building a one of a kind collection that continues to become more valuable by the day. Jaskolka was introduced to the X-Men by his former Sunday school teacher, who used to run a local comic shop. After suggesting he should check out the X-Men, Jaskolka became a fan almost immediately, and that discovery led to assembling a collection of over 20,000 X-Men toys, statues, comics, costumes, clothes, and any other X-Men item you can think of.
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“What got me into specifically X-Men is the tie with X-Men and Judaism and the Holocaust,” Jaskolka told Yahoo. “There’s a lot of themes throughout, as far as mutants being put into camps or mutant registration acts. But today it [represents] all of those who are different, or being ostracized. And in my life I’ve had that time…you get picked on. So It’s also kind of rooting for the underdog.”
His collection has grown to encompass around 9,500 comics, 500 statues, and 850 figures. He’s spent around $150,000 on it, and now it is appraised as worth well over $225,000.
“I have over 20,000 X-Men items — comic books, action figures, statues, bobbleheads, stuffed dolls, lunch boxes, Wolverine sneaker snappers from the UK, masks, costumes,” Jaskolka said. “Do I ever get rid of anything? No.”
“People think I’m crazy. I think I’m crazy,” he says of his passion. “I get all kinds of comments, from ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this, you’re throwing money away,’ [to] ‘this is cool, this is awesome, I wish my wife or my husband or my partner would let me do that.’ When I met my wife, at the time, it was a package deal: It was a small collection of a couple hundred action figures, a few comics, myself and my dog.”
Jaskolka’s best friend said, “‘May you have enough children to name [after] all the X-Men!’ I did name my youngest Logan. By the third one…my wife said, ‘We’re done.’”
Jaskolka recalled when he had the chance to meet Stan Lee, who also held a few records in the Guinness Book of World Records. “I actually got to show him that we’re both in the Guinness Book of World Records on opposite pages, and he says, ‘Now we’re connected for life.’”
Jaskolka said the X-Men are still “absolutely relevant today. I think the world has become much more open. People are comfortable coming out with who they are and what they represent, and that is a consistent theme in X-Men throughout the years.” Jaskolka also believes they’ve made him a better person overall, saying “I like to make sure that I always keep an open mind and always look at everyone for who they are, and the possibilities within them. I always try to look at the good side of people.”
What do you think of the collection? Let us know in the comments!
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