In the Dark

A journal by Tnerb

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About this journal

Oblivious to anything new

Entries in this journal

Not Even One CGC

Or a The Choices we Make It has been a while since I purchased a graded CGC book. My last graded comic book I bought was off of Bagofleas. I made the decision to have a few books graded in Baltimore and a bunch more in New York. My most recent purchase was a raw copy of one of my holy grails along with My Weekly Haul. My reader books are part of a separate budget. I did get the grades from Comics To Astonish on my New Mutant Annuals two and three. These books I wanted as they were, in other
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A Day Off

Or Time to Clean I have two days off a week, they just don't coincide. One is Tuesday and the other is Thursday. Of course when everyone is happy it's Friday I'm thinking, Monday already? Today is my cleaning day, the day my chores must get done, especially putting my comic books away. I decided to move some things around, furniture mostly, and doing this myself is not as easy as it once was. I used to pride myself on the amount of long boxes I owned, but about seven years ago with my purge
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AA

Or It is a Longshot When I first started collecting comic books, I stayed away from wall books and back issues. The fourteen issues I needed for The New Mutants was the only exception. I didn't have anybody tell me the bins were where the history was, where the money was, and that it is totally worth the extra money. My mindset was stuck at $3.00 could either get me four new issues or one back issue. At the time I was a quantity over quality type of guy, after all I loved reading these things.
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My Collection is Incomplete

Or half Way Home I'm excited. My 9.8 copy of the New Mutants Annual #1 is no longer at CCS. CGC has just marked that it was received. Although I say my 9.8 copy, it is no longer a 9.8 copy. Once a slab is cracked, a book is no longer certified as that grade. This was the one book I never cracked because I was afraid that it would not retain the coveted grade that we strive for. I talked my self out of it when I had the chance to have Chris Claremont sign it. I did the same thing when I could h
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The Pitfalls of Collecting

Or What happens when you don't Budget? I can't remember the last CGC comic I purchased. I knew with both the Baltimore Comic Con and the NYCC there had to be a compromise on what I could and couldn't do. I chose to get books graded. The Baltimore convention was for me, with only a few to sell while the NYCC was to sell with a few for me. I have been watching my invoices carefully. I have six at CGC with another two at CCS. That's eight invoices and right around fifty books with approximately
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Closer to a Decision

Or Can I make it Two? I have been giving clues to what my next set is going to be. I have decided to go after it, but I also decided to ask for another set. I need to collect what I like, what I'm passionate about, and everything else be damned. I tried collecting Ka-Zar. I tried to start collecting The Thing and Locke & Key. I even attempted the copper age first appearances. The latter being one I will attempt again, but for the time being I just compiled a list of books, 45 to be exact.
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One Point

Or a point to make? My over all ranking is a bit over the four hundred mark. The majority of those points stem from two different sources. One being the single copy within my Amazing Spider-Man set and the other is my full 9.8 set of The New Mutants. These are my largest point values, but one of my favorites, probably my absolute favorite is my New Mutants that just made its way home. Of course even after they fixed the mistake, it still has to be corrected. I first had this signed by Chris
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What Just Happened?

Or Aren't Fast Tracks Supposed to be Fast Tracked? My first two invoices from the NYCC were accepted one day after the other. The first one was Forever Evil #1 3D variant. This was accepted on the 17th of October. The second was my own personal copy of The New Mutants annual, the first annual I ever purchased. I only had this cracked from its slab so I could size up the bags for my 9.8 copy. Both annuals were signed by all three creators. The 9.8 went through CCS, my 9.4 went straight to CGC.
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21 Years Ago Today

"I become Father?" I was collecting comic books. The only difference was I stepped into the speculative world hoping that some of these comic books would some how finance my new born son's future. This didn't necessarily mean by actual financial means, but maybe, just maybe, his imagination. As a young boy, he opted for coins, pennies to be exact. We found most of these in flea markets. He was happy with his purchases and being that his mom and I were not an item I never brought up the comic
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Variants be Damned

Or What if the Insides were different? More times than not I am happy with the normal cover a comic book comes out with. At times I might buy a variant if it's the same price. A little before the NYCC I purchased a few variants at a heftier price hoping for 9.8's. One could only be a 9.6 and I never should have tried, but with a double signature, it might make a collector happy. In the nineties the variant craze blossomed. Gold variants, gold covers, and early 3D covers piqued my interest. T
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CGC Vs. NGC

Sibling Rivalry NGC has this great little addition to their portion of the site that seems to overlook us in all its glory. They have something that is known as a Collection Manager. This allows an NGC member to create their own set with the coins they already own. I love this idea. I wish they would bring it over to us so I can get rid of my one comic sets, not to mention we don't have to wait as long for a new set to be created. By the way that is not a slight against CGC, to my knowledge on
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Another Clue

Or Will the next set Please stand up I posted about a week ago my last clue. I even showed a partial of a cover and that is what you will see from below. Let's recap for a moment. We are dealing with Marvel. This is the company that I fell in love with, if not the first company I purchased comics from. The second clue (29) signified the copper age of comics, especially since it was 1984 when I never looked back, I was 12. The third clue was point blank and blunt. It is not currently a set. I s
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Nick Cardy

Or the Best artist I never collected. Today was a long day. The Eagles played, and won. Tables at work were sparse, so when I came home to rest a bit and unwind while jumping around the internet I found some devastating news on Facebook. From there I went to Google and read on Bleeding Cool, that the great Nick Cardy, became the late Nick Cardy. He passed away at the amazing age of 93, may we all be so lucky. You can read what some others have said here: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/11/0
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David and Goliath

or Trying to compete with space or the lack there of. Nothing makes me feel like I am accomplishing something as much as moving things around my place. It's small and what keeps me here is the very cheap rent. It's also mine, and as much as I hope to have a bigger place one day, I am happy with what I have, even when I am not. I know I am going to have to start getting rid of things to make this work around here. Of course I would like to get rid of the things I don't want or use, like about t
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CGC vs. NGC

or WHich one was Adopted Before I collected comic books I collected pennies. These copper coins were easily procured from my grandparents and parents, although my Pop-Pop gave me dollars. Once home they would make it inside a piggy bank and eventually taken to the bank for larger denominations to spend on candy. As I got older I still love a good wheat cent, but that's about it, unless it's silver. I don't collect coins anymore and the title of the journal isn't so much to gang up on NGC, bu
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30 in 30: The 4th Year

Or, Has it been that long? The first time I initiated this challenge in 2010 I was still struggling with things to write about. I wanted to work for a website and needed to know if I could write with a deadline looming as much as I have been for fun. By the time I finished the challenge I was told that waking up wasn't the same without a journal entry from me. I was flattered, so I wrote another one. I repeated the task in 2011 and 2012. I started early this year and completed this task in
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Budgeting for More

But most likely not for today. I picked up an extra day at work. I still haven't decided what to do with an extra day of funds, but I think it's safe to say I'll treat it like any other day. I originally planned to purchase one of the comic books I hope to get turned into a set. This thought changed at the prospect of paying back what I owe that much quicker. I enjoyed going to Hawaii this year and to go I had to borrow the money from my parents. I think they do this now so when I pay them b
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124 in 30

Or 1/526 Who would have thought that a journal would no longer linger for days. The top spot racking up views for lack of anything new. Imagine if you would Wednesday after Wednesday, no new comic books making it to your LCS. Or if Marvel decimated DC, if Image was just that, or Disney replaced X-Men with F-Troop, what would you read then? When I first started writing on the journals there would be times a week would go by before another journal was placed on the registry. That is no longer
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One Year Ago, today!

Or one step closer. Hurricane Sandy hit the eastern sea board. Philadelphia was suppose to be slammed, it wasn't. I went to work that day hoping I wouldn't spend money online searching for comic books. I was as wrong as forecasters telling my fellow Philadelphians we were going to get the brunt of the storm. Like today, I went in on my day off. So I'm wondering, am I going to make a purchase today or am I going to actually make some money on my day off. I need to get caught up. If I don't,
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Weekends Suck???

Or Waiting for Change My last change for my invoices occurred Friday evening. I knew there would be NO change to any of them over the weekend, but I checked anyway. Not including any that are currently at CCS or other means, I have four invoices at CGC. Two are currently marked graded. This means they will both take the back stop and be marked "Grading/Quality Control" next in the line up. I think it might be time to update the protocols they use and maybe have it be completed as the following
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Choosing Raw over CGC

Or, the Final Stretch Could I do it? Could I possibly find the last two copies needed in the New Mutants set for both Bagifleas and myself. At the moment I don't have many signatures I want at the Megacon. This gives me a numerous amount of booths to wander through looking for the most pristine copy I can find. Issue 58 and annual four are not by any means popular issues to have graded. I was able to attain 9.6's on both of these. My issue fifty eight was signed, but couldn't get the 9.8 ra
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The First Clue

Or once done, your journey to the dark side will be complete. Should I be blunt or sly, so let's see how new are newbies are. The company of the new books I am thinking of collecting are from a company once called Timely.   But enough about what might never be, I have my Amazing Spider Man #181 now marked as graded. This should take a backwards step into the grading/quality control category by late next week. My other invoice, with a good amount of my books signed by Sal Buscema have also
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Something Old, Something New

Or, I stepped on a Smurf, now my shoe is Blue I have been toying with the idea of collecting something else. I tried with Locke & Key. I even thought the Thing would be good and snagged a good amount of Ka-Zar the Savage. I could spend hours staring at Bagofleas collection since he and I share some of the same loves (Rom, Alpha Flight, and Dazzler for example), although not as great the New Mutants, which is an underrated point value with 202 sets. I realized for me to have the desire to c
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Two Weeks Later

Or one more for the Signature Series Bagofleas not only had his copy of the New Mutants signed by Bo Hampton, he also asked if I wanted my copy signed by the artist. I couldn't pass it up. I'm sure he will read this and correct me if I'm wrong, Bagofleas that is, not Bo Hampton, but my younger brother fast tracked his book not only through CGC but also through CCS. Both of us were worried about our 9.8 copies dropping during a signing. Although we both meticulously create the proper signing
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An Imaginary World

Or, Where do I go from here? I have always thrust myself into the Marvel Universe with trust and anticipation. In my youth I did this with financial abandon. Now that I am older I am more apt to stop reading a title if I feel that it is not going anywhere. One of those titles I'm giving a last shot at today, but what happens if a title one is collecting is being collected in a CGC 9.8? With my New Mutants collection coming to a close I have started a couple other series like Kazar the Savage
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