Rockblazer

P.S , I did find a short 1:38 video Buckeye Comicon July 2019 on YouTube from the con someone posted. I made it in it at the :27 to :31 mark. Back turned , white shirt , green backpack. Finally on YouTube after all these years.

I just returned home from Buckeye Comic Con. It's a small show in a hotel. Just like back in the 70's when I attended my first cons. I like it because it is dealers loaded with comics. There are some small press writers and artists in attendance. They say the attendance is 400 for the one day event and that looked a little low to me. Very busy. It is held every four months and I plan on being there in November for the next one. I picked up some high grade Swamp Thing , pristine Spawn 1to 7 ( $40 bucks for those).Wolverine 10 and a Spawn 9. The Thor 134 looked to be a 3.5 but it was cheap and finally a Spiderman 129 CGC 8.0. It wasn't cheap but a decent price. I stopped going to Mid- Ohio Con a couple of years after it became a Wizard World. I would rather spend $4 to check out 20 dealers in a hotel than $50 to shop a few in a convention center. All and all quite pleased with this show.

Sometimes it can be a determined bidder on auction web sites that will run items up. A recent example was on some high grade CGC graded Twilight Zone comics. I bid on 12 issues and was number 2 bidder on 11 of them. I only won issue 2 which was an 8.5 for 51 dollars. It was the lowest graded copy. Most were 9.6 and 9.8's. I bid in the upper $400's on a number of 9.8's and still lost. This person was willing to spend more than I was. Could have gone higher but that same money on silver age Marvels would benefit my collection a lot more. Speaking of silver age Marvels I found two titles that were a bargain compared to other Marvels and were buying those for a few years but now the jig is up and I have moved on to other bargains. If you search you can still find good books for decent money.

Ray J , those are some good signatures to get.

Tnerb, It's good to see you back. I would say wait one more day since you have already been waiting.

David, A few years back I posted similar questions and the majority of my fellow collectors thought I should have sent in some pedigree comics I own. I ended up picking what would help my set completion and value comics. The pedigrees are mainly titles I could never finish due to length of runs. You'll do what's right for you.

I actually have a number of cameras outside the house ,two looking at the porch but just so happened one of my Wifi modems took a dump that day. I got a new modem that night and if it happens in the future it should be on video.

The seller said he insured the book but getting reimbursed would be difficult I bet. I just bought some books on Comiclink and checked the UPS box instead of the Fedex box because of what happened. I wonder if that shop owner recovered any money spent?

I wanted to mention something and get your opinion on it. Recently I purchased a CGC Fantastic Four 2 from a trusted seller. I thought I would get this book while I could still afford to buy it. It's a nice looking 3.5 off white to white paged copy. I asked the seller to send FedEx with adult signature confirmation. Basically an adult 21 and over has to sign for it. The seller did as I asked and I expected myself or my wife to be home to sign for it. The day it was due my wife had to leave for a doctors appointment which had been scheduled before I bought the book. She left at 2:30pm and the driver showed up at 2:53 pm. I got home from work at 3:15 pm and the package with the comic was sitting on my front porch. I was kind of disturbed that it was left without a signature as a neighbor had a package stolen off the front porch around Christmas. I called Fedex and asked how could it be left without a signature. I gave her the tracking number and she said it was signed for. I asked who did and the response I got was it was signed by me! I said I was still 15 miles from home at 2:53. So the driver signed my name and left it. He signed my first initial and last name . Not how I sign by the way. Another funny thing was the Fedex rep no longer responded to my questions about the package. It was live chat. I talked for about 10 minutes more with no response and then hung up. I got a transcript of the live chat but it had most of my questions edited out and the times changed. Interesting. What if the package had been stolen? It was signed for with my name but I wasn't there. Has this happened to anyone else? It was a pricey comic, I just wanted to ensure it's safe delivery. On to my next subject. I often get beat on Comiclink auctions . Often the runner up bidder. I have been bidding since July of 2009 on their site. You can look at your past auction bids on the site. I decided to see what my actual record was. I added it up and I had 34 wins and 51 lost. I was feeling somewhat bad about that thinking if that were a baseball teams record I would be in last place. Then I started thinking as a player if I went 34 for 85. I figured it up and I'm batting .400. That would make me batting champ. Now I see my auction record in a different light.

The last picture is so sad. I think all of us have fond memories of the shops we knew in our youth. My "Home Shop " The Bookery Fairborn ,Ohio since the eighties is still going strong but the owner mentioned last year when he retires he does not think that there is going to be a buyer when he calls it quits .

I plan on being there. I have the Air Pirates Funnies from the show in right now at CGC along with seven other books from my collection. Two being Northland's and one file copy among them. Really would like a 9.4 on the Air Pirates but you never know. See you in four months at the show.

Ozzie's looking quite intense in that shot.

One thing else to mention. I am so happy my old journals are now back on the new journals site. There are collectors who no longer write journals because of the new format and I can now reread their journals. I miss their input.

Thank you.

I haven't journaled in a while mostly because I have been busy working but today I have my first Thanksgiving off since 2011 and it feels good. Back in September My wife and I attended all three days of the Cincinnati Comic Expo. I wanted to share my thoughts on it. It was a mid size show, good location and set up nicely but did not have as many comic dealers as I would have liked. Even though the number of comics bought was few I was happy with what I came home with. I started Friday night right away finding an Air Pirates Funnies 1 that had never been on the rack for $75. The man said he bought out a store and he had some old comic stock he never set out. Another great buy was a Gold Key Yellow Submarine movie comic which still had the poster. It was detached but there. Just so happened that the artist for the book Jose Delbo was there at the show and so was CGC. I had a long conversation with Mr. Delbo and his wife and both were a joy to talk too. She asked me where I had bought the comic and how much I paid for it. I said at the show and $225. She said they paid $260 for a low grade copy some time ago and thought that was a great buy. She said they would have bought it if they knew it was there. It came back from CGC 7.0 white pages which of course I thought it would do better but not complaining. I also nabbed a Star Wars 1 CGC 9.6 for $360. The dealer did go down on price. The reason I mentioned that was the dealer next to him would not budge one dollar on an Avengers 2 I had my eye on. I also picked up a few Turok, Ripley's and Boris Karloff file copies for a good price. I also ran into Collectors society member Rude Badger and his wife at the show or I should say they found me. Always good to talk to follow collectors and talk shop. One last item to mention. About 5 weeks ago I got the urge to go to Ohio's Largest Antique mall which is less than a half hour from my house and look around. I found few comics but did find a print of Bill Wards cover for Overstreet's price guide number 8 signed by him. I believe it to be legit as he dedicated it to Dragon's Lair comics which was a shop in Dayton Ohio which shut it's doors I think about 2004. It had been there about 30 years. I included a picture of the signature in case someone would know. It is a little different than how he signs his art as it is not printed cursive hand writing. Actually I got ahead of myself there is one more item. I travel in my job and was in Barrie Canada and stopped in at Big B comics in Barrie, Ontario which was only a couple of miles from my hotel. It was not the best of weather and about 6 pm so the shop was slow. Not a large shop but it was packed with comics. Marc Sims the owner was there and drug out box after box of comics for me to look through. He was very helpful and so was the young woman working the counter. I always enjoy seeing young people with an interest and knowledge of comics. It was a great shop. Unfortunately the day I stopped was the day Stan Lee passed. We swapped Stan Lee memories which made us feel a little better. I hope my pictures load if not I will try again. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I have a couple of books that have the wrong issue number on the label. They are both Gold Keys which sometimes confuses Cgc with the numbering system they used.

The most recent purchase from Metropolis did take longer than 3 weeks to ship. 27 days to ship , 29 to receive.

Eh, I meant Mr. X .

Mark it was a Turok 37 9.8 . A lot of the ones I had come up short on were Thor from issue 128 through 160. Those books are going up into the upper hundreds of dollars on high grade issues.

Neal Adams is also a class act. The first time I met him he would not accept any money for his autograph. The second time the following year he did accept five bucks. The only other artist or writers that have refused payment for an autograph I've talked to were Joe Staton and believe it or not Stan Lee!

I wanted to get your thoughts on what do you consider to be slow shipping when you buy a comic online? I did a" Buy It now" from Metropolis on May 25 of a Turok 56. Nice 9.6 , good price but ultra slow shipping. I got an email from them on June 6 saying they were about to ship. That's 12 days after purchase. They then sent an email on June 13 saying it shipped. Seven more days. It arrived June 16 finally. Now to be fair it does state that they take 2 to 3 weeks to ship but I've never bought a comic from them that has taken more than 10 days to arrive. On the same day at the same time I bought a Thor 131 9.4 from Worldwide Comics and had it 3 days later . I bought a Comic from Comiclink a few days after the Metropolis purchase and it beat the Turok here. So what do you think is slow? On a brighter note I had a string of being second on online auctions come to an end with a win on Heritage the other night. Recently on the 9.8 and 9.6's I would come up just short but finally broke through with 40 bucks to spare from my high bid. Well today the images of those two books are not loading or any other picture or I would post them. Sorry about that. TRYING to load again, Hope it works.

I stopped my subscriptions when Jane Foster became Thor. I agree, older back issues all the way.

Hopefully the other books will grade as high. One more thing, Thank you for your service.

Well tomorrow (3/24-3/25) in Dayton Ohio is the 2018 Gem City Comic Con. It's not a big show but it has grown over the years. It is a true Con not a celebrity sign fest where you can actually buy comic books! I am making my list for tomorrow and plan on being there by 8 am and will spent the extra 5 bucks to get in an hour early at 9. Last year my best buy was in the first five minutes of the early entry hour. So if you are within a few hours of Dayton I would suggest stopping by if you can. In the picture are my two most recent buys. The Thor annual 2 is a 9.4 Boston Pedigree and a Thor 140 9.4. I think I am becoming a 9.4 collector by default as I bid on a lot of 9.6 and 9.8's but come in second a lot. Then I go buy a 9.4 of the same books after the auctions. For a lot less though!

RayJr 9.0 is great since back then CGC was even thought of and to get white pages too.