Elfquest Collector's "Questing Beast"

[mikekn]

You hear folks talk about the "Holy Grail" of collectibles - always some hard to find item that everyone is looking for.  Every collecting hobby seems to have one, although for some collectors it's a more personal item (your "Holy Grail" may not be the same as mine, even though we collect the same stuff).  Thankfully, as if from the Monty Python movie there is usually more then one out there, so several of us can posses it at once.  ("No thanks, we've already got one...")

In terms of Elfquest collecting, I always considered Fantasy Quarterly #1 to be the Holy Grail.  It's the first appearance of the comic, and can be fairly hard to find.  It's a nice piece and something every EQ collector wants to get.  Not every collector agrees with me, but that's ok.

There is another item on the EQ collector's list that is some times called the Holy Grail, but I prefer to think of it as the Questing Beast.  You remember the Question Beast, right?  Strange creature with a snake's head, the body of a leopard, the legs of a lion and the feet of a deer.  In the Arthurian legends, she is pursued by King Pellinore, but never caught.  For me the Questing Beast was the Elfquest Hologram Pendant:



I heard about it from the comic, but by the time I noticed it you couldn't buy it.  For several years I doubted that it existed.  Both Richard and my friend Seth (another big collector) assured me that it existed.  So I kept my eye out for it (and that's a long time to keep an eye out...)

Fast forward to now, it's been years since I really hunted EQ stuff.  Most of what I had looked for, I had found.  The rest of it was either not worth much effort (like a small press newsletter with an interview) or one of a kind items (like original artwork) or the Questing Beast (which I never expected to catch anyway).  Well, recently Richard Pini started auctioning off some stuff on eBay and damned if he doesn't put up a Hologram Pendant.  I bid on it, but was out of town when the auction ended (and my snipe was too low...) - it wound up going to a guy I know out in Ohio - another big EQ collector.  A couple of weeks later, I was surprised by a second one going up - my sources had said that of the few that survived storage, only one was likely to be auctioned.  Unfortunately, this one went up with a reserve that was out of the reach of all the bidders.  It went up a second time, and again had no winners.

Then about a week ago I get an email from Richard asking if I'd like to buy it directly.  This was very cool - but the coolest part was his reason why: "I probably would put the piece back up and try again but, because it's you, and you've done a lot for EQ, I thought I'd ask."

I've known for years that Richard and Wendy didn't think much of us collectors - didn't really understand the completist mentality.  But through the years I tried to give back to the fan community as well as enjoy my collecting, and so it was just very nice to hear that from him.

Needless to say, I bought it. :) 



Now I need to go sell some old MtG cards to pay for it, and perhaps think up a new Questing Beast...

As a side note, I'm looking forward to The Searcher and the Sword: