F For Fake

Nothing terribly exciting, but picked up a couple of fun things at the toy mall today. Got the Locust for a nice price, have to decide now whether to leave it sealed or open it up! The Evil Lyn was cheap and pretty clean. I was most excited about the Fisher Price Adventure Team van and dirt bike! I'd JUST been thinking about the bike earlier in the week, as I loved it as a kid. Found these for $15, had to have them, and now I wonder if I might not need to track down the whole set!

Did a trade with a local guy that I usually sell to, one of the relationships I've made on FB. He got a stack of modern hot-ish stuff, I got these. He probably came ahead in $$$, but I just plain LIKE this stuff better, so I figured what the hell. Not perfect condition, but the Mikey one-shot and #6 are signed by both Eastman and Laird. TMNT are flaming hot these days, they've mostly dried up locally. Trying to get a foot in the door on the other books in this collection, but I'll take these for now.

LOVE IT! I think custom bound volumes are so cool. I've gone down the rabbit hole several times, researching them and considering having some of my own done, but I don't have the patience. But I love it when other people do it, especially old school volumes like this, Very cool!

I know CGC misses stuff, but surely they wouldn't miss a horking huge tape pull of that size, would they? So I'm assuming it's an odd printing defect, but am surprised they didn't knock something off the grade all the same.

I think they'd be more valuable if the Kenner toys themselves were valuable, but for the most part they're cheap and easy to find (the toys, that is), with a few exceptions. But a full set of the comics, all flat a nice, is VERY cool thing to have!

Huzzah!

I sent a walk through submission last week, think I dropped it off Saturday. They marked it "received" in their system yesterday, Tuesday. I DID write "WALK THRU" (because who has time for those extra letters?) in fairly large letters next to the shipping label. It's getting a clean/press so I expect that will add some time, right now estimate is 10 days for Walk-Through. I guess we'll see what happens.

Very sorry for your loss, Az. Those sudden, unexpected losses are the hardest to process. Looks like you have a lot of great memories and reminders of your friendship to help you weather the storm. Hang in there.

Awesome, thanks Patrick! I knew it was in the scale but I couldn't seem to find it. Much appreciated!

Calling upon the power of my fellow toy nerds! Can anyone ID this little guy, what line he belongs to? He's roughly Starcom scale, but no articulated knees like Starcom, and is a softer, more rubbery plastic. I'm drawing a blank. Anyone know?

I know, right? Apparently they're fairly hard to find. The transformation is pretty awkward but when it comes to relics, this thing is about as 80's as it gets!

Thanks man! I was particularly stoked about the Cobra Bunker, couldn't believe the whole thing was there.

Thanks, yeah, I couldn't get my wallet open fast enough! The thing that surprised me is that this sale was run by a local estate sale company that I've bought from before, and usually those sorts of operations price stuff high. In this instance they were also auctioning off the propert itself and a car, so I guess this stuff was small potatoes.

Thanks Patrick! I know, I LOVE the PAC-Man game, I'm going to display it next t my PAC-Man arcade cabinet!

Thanks man, definitely my best score in a long while! I'm just happy to know these little treasure troves are still out there!

This sale advertised a boxed Odyssey 2 system with games, and didn't say a word about toys. By the time I got here, the Odyssey was sold. I was going to leave, but I decided to walk the house in case there was anything of interest. I made my way back to a bedroom, and in the center of the bed was a cardboard box marked "$5 All". The huge helicopter caught my eye, and I saw some bits of Transformers and Joe stuff, so I figured for $5 it was worth picking up. When I got to the next bedroom, I found three Ziploc baggies marked $5 each. One with Rambo/Ghostbusters, one with Joes, and one with Secret Wars! I really thought the days of finding stuff like this dirt cheap at estate and garage sales was over, but the deals are still out there, so keep digging! Once I got everything home and unpacked, I found nearly all of the accessories for the Joes and other figures (Tunnel Rat's backpack even has the little flashlights!) as well as a near complete Cobra Fang (missing the cage, per usual, but all of the rockets and bomb are there) and a complete Cobra Bunker. I don't collect Rambo, but this Skyfire chopper is complete and pretty cool, and there was lots of random stuff, a little Starcom, a little Centurions, Ghostbusters, even a Colt Robo! I was tickled. It's exactly the sort of cheap, random haul that makes the hunt fun. Everything below (and more) for $20!

Saturday was a beautiful 73 and sunny (a welcome respite from the 100+ temps earlier in the week) so I decided to hit up some estate sales, for the first time this summer. The first was just down the road, and has advertised "Vintage Star Wars", but all I found were a few random 90's POTF figures. However, it wasn't a total loss, as I scored these Star Wars SNES games, carded Commando die casts, and this really cool Tomytronic PAC-Man with box and instructions. The next sale was more productive...

THIS, 100%. Sometimes I might need some cash, so I'll put up auctions or Buy it Nows priced to sell. But for the most part, I don't HAVE to sell my stuff, and it costs nothing to list an item (I have a "store") so there's no harm in listing stuff that I'm not particularly worried about selling. You can pay my price, or I can keep it. I'm 100% fine either way. Sometimes I've gotten whiny emails from buyers who act like they're doing me a favor by low-balling. As I tell them, if you can get a copy of the book (or toy, or whatever) at the price you're offering, good for you. If you want my copy, you have to pay my price. I'm not unreasonable on pricing, my BIN's are fair, so I'm not going to take a loss on an item when I don't have to.

Nearly a year ago, JMD was 1 sig free, every book after that $5. I saw Giffen a couple of months later, and there was a sign on his table saying something similar, but when I asked what I owed him, based on the sign, he seemed to not know where the sign had come from or anything about the pricing, and didn't charge a penny for the sigs (I got five books signed.) He was set up next to Spencer Beck's booth, and I know Spencer sells his art, so I don't know if Spencer was repping him at the show and was the one who set up the sign, but Keith didn't seem to know anything about charging for sigs. That was around November of last year, not sure if it has changed. Short answer: probably 1 book free, possibly $5 a book after, but if you're lucky, maybe all free if you're not greedy. Good luck! Keith is a swell guy, very fun to talk to.

I think it is simply the cost. I'm certainly INTERESTED in Unicron, but he's about three times as expensive as the next largest Transformer ever made. It's cool. VERY cool. But $600 for a big plastic toy...I just can't do it.

I've always wondered what the cover was supposed to be, but from the back I can see now that it's supposed to be...a tombstone? The front always confused me. Why is Spidey swimming though a cloud of cotton candy?

Comic Book Coin is far and away my favorite absolute bonkers idea in thread form. The absurdity of the idea coupled with the way the thread unfolds, :MWAH; magnifique!

I have. The only sig I miss!

That's a good point too. I've owned several chromium covers that are structurally "near mint", but the chromium itself has tons of tiny scratches. I've always wondered how CGC grades those?

YES, you're talking my language. For the last few years I've bought every copy of GR 15 I find for $1 or less. So, in that time I've managed to pick up a handful of golds as well, though I don't run into them nearly as often. But yeah, that gold glow in the dark book really pops, it's super. I put my gold copies at the TOP of the rack! Even more elusive than the golds, however, are the newsstand copies. They're still glow in the dark, still card stock, but they have the UPC. I've only got three or four of those over the years. Silver Surfer 50, that's the one that kicked off the craziness for me too. I love the 2nd and 3rd print variants, I pick them up whenver I see them, which is less and less these days. Word is out on how cool those are, apparently.