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zuulioso
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Posts posted by zuulioso
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One of my favorites (sorry so long)...
A Craigslist find out in West Virginia. This was maybe 2012ish. I saw the ad for a large collection split maybe 50/30/20 silver/bronze/copper located deep in West Virginia. I'm in the Baltimore/DC metro area and loved loved loved traveling around looking at collections. This was pre-movie hype and after requesting a list, talking on the phone, and debating on whether or not it was worth the two and a half hour trek out west into the mountains of WVA, to take a look at this collection.
From what I remember, I think the ad said maybe 5k-6k books. I was in the position as a collector looking to complete runs. At the time, I was looking for early Avengers and FF books and he had a bunch. We spoke on the phone and I had hoped for a whole collection purchase, but after talking, I knew going into it he had an unrealistic expectation on prices as he was pricing at NM using some online resource. After some discussion, I had thought we came to an understanding that I was to come to look at some books and not the entire collection.
So, I took a beautiful drive out into the middle of nowhere. The place was a small house on a lonely several acres of land with no houses around it. It ended up being a very small house in a beautiful area in the mountains. When I arrived, I met an older man, maybe late 60s early 70s. He seemed friendly and greeted me kindly if not a bit overly enthusiastically at the door. His energy had me a bit off guard from the beginning. I entered the small house and it was littered with comic boxes in every room. I didn't make it through all of his boxes, but he had already gone through it all and priced it and knew where specific runs were.
Almost immediately, as I was scanning the first box, he told me was that he was selling his collection to fund travel expenses so that he could bring his bride in from an Asian country (I admit forgetting which). He then showed me a picture of someone that appeared to be in their early 20s. I looked at him, then at the picture, and formed some opinions of the situation, but smiled and wished him luck as I continued sifting through books.
As I pulled titles of interest into a pile, I began trying to set the expectation that I would not be interested in the entire collection and thought maybe we could come to a deal for specific books. He seemed open to that. Again, at the time he wanted a number that I thought was far more than reasonable for what I found. There were no keys, but there were some nice upper VFish books that I was looking for.
I think I came up with a preliminary pile and he took it and led me to his computer where he proceeded to look each book up on whatever overpriced website he was using and quoted me the NM price for each. Ugh. I quibbled that the condition was important and the books I chose where not NM. I removed some books and asked to keep sifting. As I was going through a box, he said "I have some chili I made, would you like some?"
Without thinking about it, I thought to myself, "I like chili and I don't want to offend this nice gentleman" so I accepted. After all I was hungry and someone offered me food. He brings me a bowl of his homemade chili while I continue to sift through his collection as he is telling me about the deep love he and his soon to be bride have for each other. The chili was tasty, but not great. I'll cut to the chase. I didn't wake up in a tub with a missing kidney or anything, but in retrospect, it probably wasn't the smartest move.
As I was eating the chili, he came out with a shotgun. Yep. Just out of the blue, he came out and was holding a shotgun. He showed it to me and I was so surprised by this unwelcome turn of events that I don't recall why he was so proud of this weapon or why he was showing it to me, but he handed it to me to admire. So, I went from "Oh , I'm dead" to "He is handing me his gun". So, like a gentleman, I took it, inspected it, and being the non-firearm educated person that I am admired it, turned it over in my hands, and handed it back to him.
Okay. So, here is my pile of books. Now, at this point I wanted to get out of there. I had brought maybe $1500 cash with me and had maybe $350 worth of books that I wanted. I was willing to go up to $500 and $500 is what we ended up settling on, but I started at $300. Pretty gutsy for a guy that just showed me his shotgun because he was not happy about my offer in any way. He wanted $1000 and we ended up in the middle.
Looking back, it was an innocent exchange but certainly one I remember well to this day.
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@newshane I am curious about your 9.8 pre-screening approach for determining if a book was worth sending in. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I have the run up to around issue 260 and have 19 of them graded. This thread has inspired me to go in and closely look at each issue to see which ones are 9.8 candidates. It was easier to justify the cost for grading with the key issues since the value was still there if it ended with a 9.6. I did decently with the 19 I submitted with only five coming back lower than 9.8.
My general strategy is any spine tick automatically made it a 9.6 in my mind unless the book was otherwise visibly flawless. That said, I still submitted a few that had a single tick and they ended up with a 9.8. I have seen leeway given on spine corners as well that aren't perfect.
I assume you had a similar approach? With the scarcity for ultra high grade in some of the lower print run issues, did you take risks?
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This is an amazing collection! I haven't posted much in recent years, but I have lurked the modern forum often looking for Spawn threads. Glad to have found this one!
I have a similar journey as a Spawn collector as you talk about age and collecting when I was younger. I have always been proud of my collection as well, but this is simply amazing in comparison! I think I stopped in college for a number of years for similar reasons. Other interests but also lack of funding. I held on until issue 100 or so then stopped until maybe issue 185 then went on a quest to backfill?
I remember being super excited about the movie and being extremely let down (and even slightly embarrassed) when I insisted all of my friends go to see it because it was going to be amazing! The HBO series was far better in my opinion. I do hold hope they make something again one day, but have low hopes of quality.
Issue 15 stands out to me and is only one of the earlier books I got graded. I remember there being some sort of mail away deal for a signed copy, so I got my subscription issue from my LCS and either mailed away for the signed copy through him or did it myself. I can't remember, but I was so excited to get MacFarlane's sig on a Spawn book! I had it graded last year (because why not) and it got a qualified 9.8 which was unexpected. It's qualified, but still meaningful to me. I stopped collecting the title in recent years, but was active during the variant cover run and have most of those in 9.8 which is cool.
Thanks for putting this together!! I am going to eagerly await updates as you share your journey!
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Are Topps garbage pail kids on the roadmap?
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55 minutes ago, zuul said:
It's been a long time since I posted. I mostly lurk these days but I just saw it and wanted to share my thoughts.
I loved it.
Secret wars and Infinity Gauntlet we're always my favorite mini series. I loved how Doom strived for God like powers and I very much enjoyed the brief moment when he tried to sieze the gauntlet for himself in the comics.
I always dreamed of this as a movie and I was in no way disappointed. I loved the character depth on Thanos and the cgi is much improved.
I typically choose not to go too deep or expect to do much from comic book movies though so take that for what it's worth.
I especially enjoyed...
Banner as the surfer replacement crashing into Dr. Strange's pad. They made an effort to pay homage to the artwork from IG1.
Also I really appreciated the farmer scene at the end.
Overall just blown away. So happy.
Weird. That was me but it was from my phone. For some reason it thought I was a new person?
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Is there a way to adjust font, background color, or theme settings in general? I can live with it but it has a kind of bubbly feel and it would be nice to tweak the appearance if possible. Low priority request obviously.
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It's gonna take some getting used to and I hope there are some emoji shortcuts but I can deal with it.
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I feel lied to and deceived.
Andrew Lincoln felt sick to his stomach about the episode?! Gut-wrenching?
Just garbage. Garbage writing. It saddens me because I feel like the show is going down the ter and it's long been my favorite show.
The Glenn dumpster scene.
Burning the hoard in the river.
Daryl blowing up the biker gang with a rocket launcher.
Denise replacing Abe.
Now this "cliffhanger".
None of these scenes or anything close to it would have been included in the earlier seasons. They're laughable scenes and I've never felt this show was at that level in the past.
I loved the rocket launcher, but of everything on that list I thought the "Burning the hoard in the river" was the weakest.
I was wondering where they left it when they confronted the largest group of Saviors. Would have been handy.
I too am among the pissed and think it was a total cop out but what they did do right is stir up a lot of emotion for me. My wife and I were definitely nervous the entire episode so they built it up right but then... then they just made me not really care. I cared more about if other people were as angry as me then who got killed.
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I am going to say 2.0 current and 3.5/4.0 after the press if you can fix the roll.
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I bought some non-standard size Bug Bunny books from Jerry and they came packed securely and in great shape. He was easy to work with and communicated well. Thanks!
-John
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Eric was very easy to work with. Quick payment and communication when they book was received!
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Cool!
Hulk 180
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But then again... this could be a fun show also
I would literally give $50 to anyone who could excise that horrible song from my memory banks.
Glad I watched with the volume off!
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Maybe it has something to do with the large amount of shows they have been doing that have been complete disasters.
You mean like their China show?
http://www.twoamericansinchina.com/2015/05/the-big-con-nightmare-guangzhou-comic-con.html
They moved the venue to a tent and many people were stuck outside inline in the heat hours past the open because they wouldn't let people in until others left.
By 12:00 the celebrities started arriving, and they were not happy with what they saw. Thousands of guests and fans were still standing outside in the broiling sun, and inside, it was so crowded there weren’t even any chairs for them to sit and sign autographs....and it gets better
About 2:30, the organizers announced that no one else would be allowed inside (not that they had let anyone in since about noon) and only VIP ticket-holders would be allowed inside on Sunday. A mini riot broke out, which caused the celebrity guests to be evacuated the police to form a human barricade around the tent. The organizers then said they would issue refunds for all the regular ticket holders, but they didn’t give any directions about how to get the refund. We have contacted event organizers directly as well as Wizard World and Coke via their website, Facebook, and Twitter, all to no response, so we have not received any refunds. -
I was a full run collector but have since sold several off. The primary reason was that it is more fun for me to hunt them down then it was to actually own it. In the end, once I was done collecting the run to my satisfaction it just sat in a box to occasionally be pulled out and looked at as a whole.
When it came time to sell, nobody wants the fillers so you definitely lose money there.
With that said, I still have my full run of X-men to issue 320 and a full run of Spawn, both of which I will likely sell eventually.
My current collecting passion is covers with amazing art.
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One of my favorite series! I am anxiously awaiting the next book "Peace Talks"
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Just got these two beauties back!
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Just got these two back from Baltimore last fall. Took forever but I am very pleased! The signature placements are great especially Milgrom!
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I love them both. I have owned them both. I hope to own them both again.
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Just saw it for the first time. I thought it was great. My favorite X-Men movie so far.
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Let's try another over graded. Got this back hoping for a 6.0 - 6.5. Now I am a typically a pretty tight grader but I thought this might be generous. Thoughts?
(click through to enlargement)
What does the back look like?
I don't have a pic handy. Will take one tonight, but from what I remember it was similar to the front as far as wear goes with no additional defects.
SPAWN! A look back at an award-winning collection of graded slabs.
in Modern Age Comic Books
Posted
I want to express my thanks as well @newshane. This has been a lot of fun following the thread. I too sold the larger part of my collection during the Covid boom. I am down to only 26 graded books, 22 of which are Spawn. I can't remember if I or anyone else asked this anywhere during the thread, but did you ever consider or have interest in news stand variants? I had a decent looking first gunslinger (119) that I thought had a shot at 9.4. Turns out, I missed a small color breaking defect on the back cover and it got a lowly 7.5. It was the only one I had that I thought might be worth a shot.