>> join the conversation which tweeting me. and that is how fox reports this saturday. now. announcer: a sup a super storm whacks the jersey shore. >> you walk in, what do you find? >> you couldn't even get through the front door. >> it was overwhelming, the damage that had been done. >> a town institution obliterated. but could a strange inheritance of super heroes save the day? >> i was folding the books up and screaming like a little giddy schoolgirl. we had comic books during the war period with superman beating the snot out of hitler.

♪ today i'm driving along the jersey shore that took a beating from superstorm sandy in 2012. i'm here to meet a family rebuilding from the disaster, and their strange inheritance may end up being their lifesaver. >> i'm rick. our family business has been here in new jersey for generations. i found something in the attic that's going to help us save our business. >> they're a fixture in this tiny beach community, best known for a restaurant called salty's. but like so much of the jersey shore, it got pommelled by sandy. it was not your average ice cream parlor. >> we were the largest bulk ice

cream distributor for hershe's ice cream. every year they would come and give us a golden scoop. you're talking 200,000 gallons of ice cream. >> what was the traffic like here on a good daysome >> salty's was the place to come. >> there would be a line out the door. sometimes even around the block. there could be music, hermit crab races. >> why is it important that salty's come s back? >> it's an anchor of our community. >> the story of salty's begins with his grandfather, gustaf. he sells comic books and may have been his own best customer. >> he was an avid comic book

collector. it was all different genres, not just science fiction. there were western comic books, comic books about baseball players. >> his son, bob, inherits his dad's love of comic books. his favorite chronicles the adventures of a space explorer that he would name his son after. >> his favorite character was named brick. >> brick bradford, yeah. i see it. >> the rosy cheeks. >> in 1962, bob wenzle moved to the beach and opened salty's. over the years, it involved into an ice cream shop and restaurant. >> by the time i was 14 years of age, i started which own bait company. i had a passion for it that just

continued to grow. the commercial fishing industry was extremely profitable. >> it's my first fishery experience. what are we going to do? >> we're going to put you right to work. >> you want me to wear these? >> yes, ma'am, i recommend it. >> you do? >> yes, i do. >> orange is the new black. while i do a wardrobe change, let's deep the bluefish on ice and bring brit in. it's stormy day in 1997. >> blowing northeast, 20, 30 miles and hour. >> a childhood friend notices brick's fishing boat has come loose from the dock. >> i was waitressing at a restaurant. >> it wasn't just tied up, it was tied up perfectly. not everybody knows how to tie a boat properly. >> we looked at each other like, that's you all grown up. we had known each other since childhood.

>> one impressive nautical knot and the next thing you know, they tied the proverbial one. in 1997, when brick's dad retires, he hands the business down to the kids. >> during the summer, the restaurant does real well. when there's no tourists around, the fishing income is what kept us going. >> okay. cue the girl and the waiter. >> all right, brick, now what am i going to do? >> we have these bluefish here. they're going to go into 100 pound totes and shipped out. >> this guy is waving at me. >> you have to get them swimming downstream as they go through. >> there you go. >> got to put them the right way. okay, bye. see you. >> okay. now we've got to put them in the box over here.

that's a big one. >> wow! >> whoa. >> these will be on their way to new york in an hour. >> i still have time to make a reservation. 100 pounds. bluefish. >> brick tells me each box like this will sell for $80. today's total catch is worth about $2800. >> good day's work. thanks. >> no, thank you. >> i'll see you later. >> there's a thing i have, fishermen are always starving, but they eat well. >> they want a safety net. a way to turn the family's seasonal business into an enterprise with year around cash flow. real estate in this beach community is always a good bet. so they purchased new properties and renovate the family's old one. when his grandmother dies, they remodel her house, as well. >> after my grandmother passed

away, we had to demolish the building. when we took out one of the walls, there were comic books stuffed into the walls, just like insulation. we had a feeling they were worth something, but we didn't know much about it, because i'm not a collector. >> so they just put them away and move on to other business ventures. along the way, they really roll the dice. >> we dropped insurance that we had carried on the property, and it was because premiums had gotten so high. >> we were looking at of $30,000 in insurance annually. so we decided to take that money and invest in, some in the stock market, some in other pieces of property. >> a decade and a half go by and their gamble seems to be paying off. then in the fall of 2012, they prepare to celebrate salty's five decades on the jersey shore. >> this is real popular during the summer. hermit crabs. >> as they do, on october 22, a

tropical storm in the caribbeans becomes hurricane sandy and the jersey shore is in its cross hairs. >> we've seen what happens when a storm hits, but it was the first time we ever saw a storm of this magnitude. >> that's next. but first, our strange inheritance quiz question. which jersey artist has the most number one hit singles?

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♪ ♪ oh. announcer: which jersey artist has the most number one hit so which jersey artist has the most number one hit singles? it's c, whitney houston who hit the number one singles spot 11 times. brick and britta are planning a celebration for salty's, an ice cream parlor that's been in the family for half a century. then they turn on the news. >> we're declaring a state of energy in anticipation of the storm. >> they board of salty's and get off the island. sandy is the jersey shore's perfect storm. it hits at high tide, amplified by a full moon. >> we're one block in off the beach, and there are waves of

water rushing down washington avenue. you really can't drive on these streets right now. >> reporter: two weeks later, they return home. but nothing can prepare them for what they're about to see. >> it was overwhelming emotionally to just absorb the damage that had been done. the roadway itself had big holes in it, and telephone poles down. and then at salty's, all the ice cream cases before all flipped, all the display cases in the gift shop was a giant pile of broken glass. >> for 15 years, they've gone without flood insurance. now their luck's run out. they estimate that rebuilding their home, salty's and their other businesses will run seven

figures. they scramble for loans and learn there's no quick fix. and lots of red tape. >> this is paperwork from just one building we're working on. >> so all of this just to get one of your properties in order? >> yes. >> we needed cash right away. at least to start demolition. after the storm, cash was king, because people would not work for anything but cash. >> so we started slowly working our way through the family's belongings. and liquidating what we can. >> as brick is rummaging through the house, looking for anything that could be sold, he stumbled across that old stash of comic books, the one that goes all the way back to his grandpa. >> one of the things that my grandfather left for my father, which my father left for me, was comic books. we had them up in the attic.

>> how many are we talking about? that's next on "strange inheritance." here's another quiz question for you. which was the first comic book hero to get his own movies? was it superman, captain marvel, batman, or captain america? the answer in a moment. key nutr from food alone. let's do more... ...add one a day 50+. complete with key nutrients we may need. plus it supports physical energy with b vitamins. one a day 50+ if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution that's right for you. with easy step-by-step guidance, we're here to help you turn your dream into a reality. start your business today with legalzoom. we're here to help you turn your dream into a reality. we're reinventing inhow we do business, so businesses can reinvent the world. from pharmaceuticals to 3d prototyping, biotech to clean energy. whether your business is moving, expanding or just getting started...

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so which was the first comic book hero to get his own movies? it's d, the captain marvel saturday movie serials launched in 1941. he was followed to the silver screen by batman, captain america, and superman.

for cash to rebuild their family enterprise after superstorm sandy. that includes salty's, the ice cream parlor that's been in the family for half a century. as they do, brick rediscovers a long forgotten collection of vintage comic books. a strange inheritance, going back to his grandfather, that may be a treasure trove. >> we had them up in the attic. >> where there wasn't water? >> correct. >> how many comic books are we talking about? >> turned out we had over 1100 comic books. >> that's amazing. >> thank goodness they had been stashed in the attic. anywhere else and sandy would have washed them away. what's more, he realizes his grandfather kept his comics in pristine shape. >> they weren't fingered through, there weren't a lot of bent pages. it was set aside and some day they might be worth something.

>> and possibly the gold mine he's been looking for. he scours a guide on comic book values. >> i took the first out and i looked it up and it said, $1200. and i screamed. and i took the next one and it was $2,000, $3,000, $3,000. i was screaming like a little giddy schoolgirl. >> he researches further and learns that the biggest places to deal comics are comic conventions like comic-con. >> you can imagine people walking around in costumes. that's not my thing. >> in march 2013, he cast his net in new jersey where one person at the convention catches

his eye. >> this one young man was making out a check. i took a peak and it was for $1 million. >> are you exaggerating? >> no, no. >> and you're like, hello? >> i saw that. i said, that's who we want to go speak with. >> the big shot broker is this guy, vincent, co-owner of metropolis collectibles in manhattan. wow! vincent, this is unbelievable. you must be a kid in a candy store every day at work. >> every day i'm the happiest kid in the world. couldn't get any better than this. my company purchased the world's most expensive comic book for $3.2 million. action comics is the holy grail, the first appearance of superman. >> let me see what he looked like in the beginning. >> vincent sold the most expensive comic book in history,

so they were the ones with the jingle and that's who we wanted to ring. >> he told me he had sufficient from the '40s, '50s. it was just astounding. >> when vincent sees a sample of the collection, he's definitely intrigued. >> what was great about the collection was, he had comic books from the 1940s, like a superman 17 with superman beating the snot out of hitler. >> what happens when you break the news to your new best friend vincent that you have 1,000 more? >> you could tell on his expression that he didn't believe we had that many. we had more than we thought. i think it was closer to 1200. >> vincent just has to go there to see the whole collection with his own eyes. >> worth the trip? >> definitely. the breadth of the collection was astounding. it wasn't just the typical super hero collection. they had hero, war, and romance, as well. >> here's why i love comics. cover, romance, pimples

disappear before your eyes. how do i know when a comic is valuable? >> there's a variety of different things that go into the value. first of all, the most important ones are first appearances of characters like superman, spiderman, batman. then there's a condition, which plays an integral part. you're looking for an accumulation of defects. which ever one has the more defects has the least value. you're looking for creases, bends, tears, things of that nature. >> you're not going to test me? >> a little bit. >> he hands me a comic book and asks me to smell it. >> tell me what you smell there. >> ocean? >> that's really good. that was stored in a collection that was by the sea. when you smell something, it takes you back to a time in your life. these subtle nuances can really affect somebody, and then you go, bang, i want that comic book.

>> brick's strange inheritance was stored down by the sea too. and marinated for decades in whatever sweet scents wafted up into the attic. >> so in the end, did your super hero comics save the super day? that's next. let's talk asse. sure. you seem knowledgeable, professional. would you trust me as your financial advisor? i would. i would indeed. well, let's be clear here. i'm actually a dj. [ dance music plays ] [laughs] no way! i have no financial experience at all. that really is you? if they're not a cfp pro, you just don't know. find a certified financial planner professional who's thoroughly vetted at letsmakeaplan.org. cfp -- work with the highest standard. come from all walks of life.

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it's time to find someplace new. book the hotel you want with the flight you want, and we'll find the savings to get you there. and now back to "strange inti inheritan inheritance." salty's ice cream parlor owned by brick and britta, remains ousion due to superstorm sandy. >> it's been hard to look out of the window and see little kids who just run up the block and get here and realize we're not open yet. but it takes a lot of time.

>> and money. >> we decided to open a gift shop and mark everything down. >> basically everything is on the table. >> but they're pinning their hopes on 1200 comics brick inherited from his father. he discovered them in his attic after the storm and turns to an eager vincent to auction them off. >> when you have those different genres, you're going to have everybody feasting on this collection. >> they don't expect to get nearly enough to fix all sandy's damage, but they're hoping for enough to tie them over. >> getting rich wasn't in the equation. it was about trying to recover from the storm. >> in may 2013, seven months after sandy, vincent opens online bidding for brick's comics on his website, comic connect. >> we start our auctions at $1. >> all told, they sell over

1,000 comic books, but lots of them go for just $10, $20. then some go for more, a lot more. like superman number 15, fetches $850. a marvel mystery sells for more than $1200. archie and jughead, $1300. a batman number 3, 2,000. a thriller named venus, $2250. and the superman clobbering hitler, $3,000. how did they do? >> we were able to outperform our preoption estimates by about 50%. >> the total haul for the collection $300,000. >> in the end, did your comics save the super day? >> it was seed money for the process of rebuilding from sandy.

♪ >> i'm inspired by brick and britta and the small town's determination to rebuild from sandy. so before i leave, i do my part to help bring salty's back to life. >> bring it on. what else you got? do we get a lunch break? there's one heirloom from his grandfather that brick didn't sell, these scrapbooks of comic strips, dedicated to his father before he was born. some of the strips are nearly 100 years old. he doesn't know how much they're worth, but given the growing market for comics, he says he may hold on to them for another rainy day, or just keep them as a memory of the grandfather whose comic collection came to the family's rescue. i'm jamie colby. thanks for watching.

and remember, you can't take it with you. do you have a strange inheritance story you would like to share with us? we would love to hear it. send me an e-mail or go to our website, strangeinster hans.com. >> crazy thing about roy orbison a rock 'n' roll legend.bison >> from 1959 to 1964, he had 21 top 40 hits. >> he dies too soon. with three young sons. >> he always wanted us to be musicians, but he wasn't going to push. >> does he send them on a musical mission from beyond the grave this >> i got this cassette of a song that nobody has heard before. >> will this strange inter hans bring roy and his boys together again? >> had you always dreamt of playing with your dad? >> always, yeah. >> mercy.