Or maybe I should say, "Another SPECTACULAR Pickup Story".

Last year, at Baltimore CC 2013, I picked up a raw copy of Avengers #196 (1st appearance of Taskmaster) for $20 and proceeded to have Joe Rubinstein sign it at the show and then submitted it for grading.

It came back CGC SS 9.8 WP!! I have a total of only $55 in it total!! (Thanks big bro for letting me jump on that)

I didn't think it could get any better than that. Then in January of this year I went to a first-time convention in Pensacola, FL called "Pensacon". It was a little strange since the whole dealer floor was on top of the ice of a hockey rink!

Getting around in the building was a nightmare. They had guests all strewn around on the different floors on either side of the building, with just one elevator and stairway on either side. It was crowded and very unpleasant moving around to get to the guests, but the guest list was very good, so it helped make up for it. Just having David Michelinie there made the show worth it!

But for some reason, there was only one actual raw comic book dealer there that was even worth spending any time at. So that's where I was for the majority of the time once I was finished with my signings and photo ops.

This dealer had a boatload of very nice copies of books, and quite a number of them were even 80s newsstand editions in excellent condition!! We can argue the merits and/or beauty and rarity of newsstand vs direct edition books another time, but suffice it to say I was ecstatic to find so many gorgeous Newsstand copies!

Among a number of awesome books I picked up was a copy of Spectacular Spider-Man #64. I love Cloak and Dagger and had been hoping to get a 9.8 copy of their first appearance someday. This copy was gorgeous!! And a newsstand edition too!! I took it out and looked it over closely. I felt it had a real shot at 9.8, so at only $17 I didn't hesitate to pick it up.

Fast forward to August. I went to the Tampa Bay CC with my oldest godson, where I got a number of signatures on books, a photo op with John Rhys Davies, and turned in the SSM #64 along with a few others for universal grading.

Well the results of this book are in now, and I AM STOKED!!!

Spectacular Spider-Man #64 - CGC 9.8 WP!!!

Yesyesyes!!! I have a total of just $37 total in this book, which is WAY cheaper than it would have cost me to get it like this now.

This marks the second occasion for me to pick up a raw book worth hundreds in 9.8 at a mere fraction of the cost!

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