blazingbob

Boy those are some nice books, wonder who is selling them?

I never did business with Jay Maybruck of Sparkle City comics. I was not collecting during the Sparkle City heyday. I got back into comics after Joe Vernault split from Jay and started JHV. For all the years that I've known Joe he doesn't discuss Jay. Any tidbits I get from him about Jay are nothing exciting to write about. Vinny did a very long and extensive interview with Jay. Jay did call me when the "New" Sparkle city hired him. I told him to never call me again. I'm sure there was a lot of powder deals done in the 80's.

Wondercon is not even close to San Diego. My wondercon sales are 25% of my SDCC sales. I very rarely see the same customer base as I do in San Diego. It seems that a lot of West coast collectors don't like to travel to Anaheim or travel in general to come to the shows. Mascone in San Francisco seems to have a very bad attitude and almost extortionist type business model with the comic promoter and comic collecting community in general. It seems that the collective "We" collectors/dealers bring no $$$$ to the city when the show is in San Francisco. I'd love to meet the genius who thinks that. I think that most collector's don't know how many hands are attempting or are getting into promoter's pockets when they run shows. And this is not just a problem in the US. I've heard some pretty interesting tales of "strong arming" in the UK. Terry's show is great but it is one day. My expenses are very close for a 1 day or a multiple west coast show.

FF #2 VF was the first big book as I believe I stated earlier in this thread. Was the first Phil Seuling show in NY I went to. We didn't have comic stores in my neighborhood, new issues were sold at stationary stores. Back issues were the monthly/big comic books shows which were only in NYC, mailing away for comic catalogs with your (SASE - Self addressed stamped envelope) or the big monthly newspaper that you could call dealers and buy from. When I advised in it I had to type up my ad on a Royal typewriter. I couldn't afford a professional ad.

FF #16 well centered and striking colors is a great book. FF #5 in high grade with a great spine is always a awesome book. Hulk #1 in 9.0 or better definitely gets my attention. Journey into Mystery #84 in high grade. While not a Silver age book I loved seeing the 9.6 Batman #49 Genie cover. Batman #44 is also a great book

1). I never really knew at first that you were Canadian. 2). You are respectful in person. 3). I might have been too rough on you. 4). You have never conducted business at my booth though some other Canadian(s) seemed to have forgotten to read the dealer manual on that one. 5). You have never taken out a couple of rows of my wall books while helping me at a show like Jim has. Still love him but letting him take down books has been deleted from his job resume.

Generally it turns out to be a stolen credit card. Customer calls in, says they didn't make the purchase. While the credit card company can automatically approve the transaction it sometimes takes up to 30 days for the statement to be sent/processed by the customer. You google earth the "cc owner" address, beautiful house, google earth shipping address and it is generally not a very good neighborhood, in some cases I've found trailer park homes. There was a ring in NJ that was doing this. Chargeback goes against your account even if you have every possible form of proof.

Appreciate that, thank you.

Vinny and Mike Carbo both went to look at the Oakland Collection. If I remember they had to wear gloves while handling it. Imagine Mike Carbo with white gloves :). I was part of the 4 man team (Mike, Vinny, his first wife, me) down in Vinny's basement passing around the books grading them. It was a very cool collection to grade. I'm sorry that there isn't more on my end because I wasn't the one who went to go see it. I was just working for Vinny at the time and helped them grade and process it. I was at a few shows were it was unveiled. It definitely got a lot of attention. It was also the time when high grade collections were priced at multiples of guide. There were definitely some customers who balked at some of the multiples on some of the books. In hindsight, they would have done just fine.

FF #12 has always been my favorite, great cover, the first time anticipation of a Hulk/Thing battle. Giant-Size Super-stars #1 was my bronze age off the rack introduction to the battle between the two, from there I had to go back and buy the first one when I had the money.

Suspicious address, shipping to a different address then billing address. First time buyer who pays full price, buying it for their "son" at a different address.

Yes, especially if it was a 9.8. And then he would sit down with the forest animals and tell them over and over again.

Before CGC there always seemed to be two types of keys buyers, low grader buyer and high grade buyer. It wasn't until CGC came onto the scene that 6.0-8.5's started to sell better. 8.5 used to be a kiss of death grade. Low grade key buyer - this buyer came to the show with around $3K to spend. Whatever got them the most "book" for the money got the sale. If a low grade key has good eye appeal I generally don't have a problem selling it. Mega keys to me but technically you could create a "what is the mega key in a particular age" One guys Action #1 is anothers Hulk #181. Action #1 Batman #1 Captain America Comics #1 Detective #27 Superman #1 AF #15

LMAO

I was never really a X-Men fan in 1975 because at that time I was collecting the back issues. I basically grew tired of the same stuff month after month. As frankly my impression of Wolverine back then was a skinny little guy fighting the hulk in a yellow costume.

No. Since my business is high grade comics I generally get to buy and sell high grade copies of issues I've owned before. People seem to forget or are not aware that sometimes a big collection being brought to the market creates a cross current of interest. Look at what Jon Berk's collection sale brought to the market. Under copies get sold, books that haven't been seen before are displayed and sold. Market numbers and perceptions are changed. When I sold my collection the FF market was kind of thin. I learned a lot from the sale of my collection and it continues to serve me well to this day.

Should comic collectors check out "Cinder" where comic collectors can date like minded individuals? For disclosure "Cinder" doesn't exist but since you are some experience in that dating world I heard you were the man to run this by. How many dates should a collector wait before revealing he collects comics? When is it ok for a collector to come out of the bathroom wearing his costume for a night of passion?

This really belongs in the Bronze age thread under the sub-title Byrne X-Men

If a customer is nice then I'm more apt to be a little more transparent when trying to work out a price that works for the both of us. However, I run a business. If I can work with them I will, if I can't I will tell them. It is not personal though some think that is the case. If a customer is nice and complaining about things I can't control like their currency exchange rate I'm not exactly sure what I can do about that. I don't tolerate liars or "collector's" who ask for a bigger discount then sell the book a week later. I've learned over the years to be very careful about profiling a customer. I have customers that have failed the "look" test and pulled out a large wad of cash and pay for the book.

Brian and I are waiting for the Ask John thread

Golf clap

13, I'm 57 young thank you.

Lets put FF #48 into perspective. When you go to a convention today and see a stack of new issues at a modern booth and you get to flip through them to pick the best copy that is what FF #48 used to be. The book is common. Silver Surfer is cool now. If Disney makes a great FF movie with the Silver Surfer/Galactus or even by himself the book will continue to be in demand. I feel that both FF #48 and #52 can have a lot of high grade copies come to market if a certain price point is hit. All it takes is one new GPA high and off to the races. Black Panther is still riding on a great movie.

LOL, that question would have been more "back in the 70's". I was buying off the newstand in 73 and I did not have a "first book" that I read make a lasting impression. I found bronze age a bit lacking and went to work cutting lawns etc so that I could go to conventions and buy back issues.

I get complaints that they are too dark and I get complaints that they are too light. I have tried numerous settings, I do NOT have enough time to go back and forth on every book. I have been playing around with settings, read Vue scans manual but frankly even with my tech background I have no idea what they are talking about when tweaking this or tweaking that. Doing the best I can Every time I change a setting for one book the next one comes out different. While I'm glad vue scan has enabled me to use an older scanner I really miss that scanners software.