F For Fake

Had a great time at Gem City Comic Con this weekend, as always. This is still my favorite regional-ish show, because it's just COMICS. No wrestlers, no power rangers, just comic books and comic artists. I'll have to confer with @DocHoppus182 , it felt like maybe there were a few less vendors this year vs artists, but that could just be my faulty memory. I spent most of the con in a sleep deprived fugue. My buddy dragged me to Endgame Friday night, a 9pm show, which meant that after a three hour movie, credits, and 20 minutes of pre-show trailers, we got out around 12:30. Had to take him home, got home and finally got to bed around 2:00. Got up at 5:30, and hit the road for the 2.5 hr trip to Dayton, so I could get in at 9am early bird open. By noon I felt like a ghost wandering around in my own brain, so I went back to the hotel and tried to crash. Regardless, did lots of fun buying. Lots of nice Golden Age if you're a buyer. I don't dabble in those waters often, so I can't really speak to prices. but if you're in the area, for $10 admission I'd think it would be a show worth checking out. I mostly dwell in the bargain bins, and there was some great hunting in the $2, $5 and $10 boxes this year. I also picked up some random recently hot junk, some old junk that no one in their right mind would want anymore, and also went on a mini mid-grade bronze X-Men kick. Lots of fun, wish I'd brought twice as much $$$. Next year!

Wow, I knew it wasn't as high as what Bud Plant was asking, but I also didn't see it going that low either. Of course, that's the danger with auctions these days. I wonder if it would have sold for $300+ if it'd been a BIN?

That's cool! There are definitely deals to be had, as they are in the business of turning stuff over pretty quickly. As for the grader, I've known him a loooong time (since I was a kid, really) and I think his tendency is to undergrade the higher stuff (meaning you'll find "VF's" and "VFNM" that are strong NM) but the mid-grades can be a tad overgraded sometimes (some F's may really be a little closer to VG/VG+, etc). It usually all evens out in the end. I picked up a VFNM Cap 109 from that collection that was a "VFNM", but is a NM all day long in current condition and could maybe press higher. It's that nice. There are some gems to be found for sure. Glad you got some good stuff!

I've done estate sales for a while, and they used to be a gold mine. But these last couple of years, especially since, say, last summer, it seems like people are really overpaying for stuff and driving prices up. If they were just collectors who were excited to find the stuff and have it in hand rather than buying through ebay or whatever, I could understand that. But I know a lot of these people are flea market and vendor mall sellers, and I don't see how they're going to make their money back based on what they're paying versus what I know the current market value truly is. It's true that prices are generally on the rise for all of that vintage stuff, and 80's toys have been red hot for some time, but the buying I'm seeing at these sales lately is crazily optimistic, if not just plain crazy. Still some bargains to be found, and I love the hunt, but yeah, it's strange days for sure. Oh, and re: your comment about the 8am start, I also appreciate it when they stick to the announced time. It's only fair. And I don't mind getting out early either, I've shown up at 4:30 and 5am to get in line for these sales. But a hard start should be a hard start.

I'm definitely a believer, even as long-winded as I was above. I just think it's gonna take a hit sooner than later, then settle somewhere comfortable.

You have to tell him, too, or it's entrapment. Or wait, maybe that's something else.

The FOMO seems to be driven by the Disney/Fox merger, with most people assuming that it's only a matter of time before Disney/Marvel start making their own X-Men movies. (I personally think it's going to be a while before we see anything other than maybe another Deadpool movie. Feige has the next Marvel phase all planned out, apparently.) So, the way the movie hype/spec cycle has been going these past few years, prices have been jumping once there is an announcement, then peaking right around the time the trailers hit, and then tapering back off after the movies are actually released. In this instance, it looks like people are trying to get a jump on the pre-announcement hype. The end result is that prices are going nuts much earlier than they normally would in one of these movie spec hype bubble scenarios. So what will be the end result? Will the book keep going up up up until the announcement? If so, will it then jump AGAIN, even further still? Or will it peter out soon, go back down, then jump again once a movie is confirmed to be in production? I think it's more likely that people figure out pretty soon that we're probably at least 5 years out from a Marvel X-Men movie, and they'll get panicky, and start dumping, and prices will come down a bit. But I don't think they're ever going to come back down to where they were even a year or so ago. The genie is out of the bottle on this book. It's a seminal bronze key, It has always been a "money" book, even though there a blue million of them out there, because of just how friggin' popular the X-men have been for 40 years or so now. X-Men ruled the 80's and 90's. No comic was hotter. I'm not sure how well new issues sell these days, so modern readership likely isn't going to drive back issue value, but you also have to factor in the Rule of 25 and nostalgia of buyers who came of age reading the 80's books or watching the 90's cartoons. Soon we're also going to be coming up on a nostalgia wave for the X-Men movies themselves, as the first X-flick itself is almost 20 years old. X-Men are poised to continue as a dominant pop-culture force for some time to come. I do agree that the prices realized lately are insane, but by the same token, if I find a decent GSX 1 at a price I want to pay soon, I"ll be buying, because barring a total collapse of the collecting community, this train has left the station. I fully expect prices to come down, but I don't think there will be a total collapse, and once the movie hype begins again, we'll see the real action.

I was going to make a Minimum Carnage joke but then I remembered that was an actual thing, so now I'm just sad.

I realize it's not viable for everyone, and the market will likely depend a lot on where you live, but lately I've been doing most of my business locally via FB marketplace, meeting up in public places and doing cash deals. I've already made two new regular customers who are keeping me plenty busy. I haven't had to eBay a book in a few months now. Not sure how long it'll last but I'm enjoying the tax and hassle free cash transactions. But to be clear, I'm not a "real" dealer, and I don't operate as a small business. People who make their living on eBay...I have no idea what they're going to do. But it's a scary time, for sure.

Ooh, what did ya get? Chances are I pawed over it at some point, I was in there every single day for a few weeks, looking for good stuff! That's good to hear! It's been a couple of years since I got down to Nashville (well, I've gone through it several times, but I don't usually have a chance to stop and shop around) but I always enjoyed those shops. Maybe I'll make a point to get down there this summer.

Sure, I'll see if I can dig them up when I'm home later! And yeah, there's some beautiful cover art on the trades that didn't show up elsewhere. This is one of my favorites. I got a print of it from Dave Dorman a couple of years ago, always loved this cover.

You know, as devoted as I've been to collecting the various Aliens comics over the years, I never gave much thought to the tpb's, but that would actually be a cool set to collect, as so many of them have been reissued with new cover art, etc. The only ones I have are the first tpb edition of the first series (with the old newsprint pages, and before Alien 3 was released and Hicks and Newt became...Billie and Wilks, I think?) the nice anniversary HC from a couple of years ago, and the Omnibus collections. I may have to get on that!

Not meaning to further derail the thread, but I'm also a big fan of Turkington's work with Tim Heidecker, On Cinema, all of that good stuff. Ok ok, back to Greg Theakston!

That would be the biggest surprise of all, so that may actually be what happens!

Probably. It's a chain here in the mid-south/south. The headquarters it the Nashville store, which is about 50/50 records and comics, or it may even lean a little more in the records direction, actually. They used to own several shops. I'm not sure how many of them are still open, but the Louisville branch seems to still be going strong. They do neat stuff like festivals, etc. My band played their Record Store Day festival a couple of weeks ago. Stuff like that, community engagement, is really important for shops, I think.

Yeah, I got lots of goodies from that jaw-dropping collection, but all of the big stuff blew out the door almost as soon as it dropped. Within an hour or so of the first posting on instragram, they'd already sold the ASM1, X-Men 1, Avengers 1, etc. all to one guy, I believe. I got in the next morning and got FF 6-10 (to go with the FF 5 I picked up there a couple of months before) and have picked up other random goodies here and there. I also appreciate the way they've been handling that collection, which they are still slowly rolling out: they're not holding books for people, they're just putting a few out at a time, and whoever gets to them first can have them. Seems like the only fair way to handle it. The sharks were really circling those first few weeks but it has slacked off a bit and they are still putting out nice stuff. The early silver marvels were mostly beaters but the mid-60's and up stuff is all in nice shape, most of it VF or better.

Yeah, it was a mixed blessing because the archives were great, but if they'd been able to see just a little bit into the future and know that high res scanners were coming, a lot of great books could have been saved. Basically the process involved bleaching the color out, or something like that, right?

Regardless, after Endgame and Game of Thrones this weekend, gonna be a lot of nerd tears flowing.

Gregg Turkington aka Neil Hamburger? That's cool! The Nose, wow, that takes me waaaaaaaay back to high school. I know of maybe three other people total who would have any idea what you're talking about.

You must plan on having a, uh...rigorous...viewing experience! Enjoy, stay loose!

I've been going to my LCS since I was about 9 years old, worked there briefly in my 20's, and am now 42. They never jack up prices on hot books or variants; anything I sub to is always in my folder at cover price regardless of if it "popped" overnight, there's a 15% discount on new books and 10% discount on back issues for holds customers; they offer layaway and holding for pricier items; they price back issues under FMV; they have great sales, etc. We have a few other shops in our town that are fairly decent as well. I'm apparently a lucky guy. But that's why I continue to buy my supplies and new books and as many back issues as I can from my LCS, because they do a great job and I want to see them continue on. They've been in business 42 years (easy to keep track of as they were opened the same year I was born). The manager is a lady, the staff is about 50/50 men and women, and the employees actually read and care about comics. It's a cool place. No, I'm not telling you what shop it is, I want all of that good stuff for myself! j/k: It's the Great Escape in Louisville. If you're in town, stop by!

Not a lot of folks get to lay claim to an entire restoration/archiving process being named after them (ala "Theakstonization"). R.I.P.

Taking care of the rust absolutely makes sense, as that could continue to spread. My previous comments were specifically in regard to touching up any of the actual paint, sorta like doing restoration/color touch on a comic. But yeah, for sure, you don't want the thing to dissolve before your eyes. Can't wait to see it once it's all done!

...there are other countries?

Aftermath? It doesn't open until tomorrow night, right? Let the sleepers sleep for at least a couple more days!