OrangeCrush

I'll say this, having a nice clean bathroom can have a significant impact on the overall image/opinion people have of your establishment. I will never forget one of the first times I drove out west and hiked the grand circle of national parks. I was with my girlfriend and my best friend and we wound up stopping at this small gas station in the middle of Nebraska. With those kinds of gas stations, I had come to expect nasty bathrooms that are lucky if they get cleaned once every couple of weeks. I try not to even go into those kinds of bathrooms unless I absolutely have too, but this gas station was different. Amazingly, it had one of the nicest bathrooms I have ever been in before. Not only did it smell fantastic (smelled like one of those really nice cinnamon candles you can buy), but it was also extremely well lit and decorated amazingly well. It had nice framed artwork on the walls, had this really beautiful large plant in the corner, and it was so clean it absolutely blew me away. It was like I had stepped into the bathroom in a 5 star restaurant. My girlfriend told me the female bathroom was the exact same way. This may not seem like a big deal and to some people it may not be, but it can leave a pretty strong impression on people, either positive or negative depending on just how nice it is or just how bad it is. I certainly remember some of the worst bathrooms I have been in as well. I also remember this bar in Moab Utah that had these framed cork board's above the male urinals and they would pin the front page of the paper as well as the front page of the sports page on these boards so you could actually check out the news while going to the bathroom. It was certainly a lot nicer than staring down into the urinal. This is just an example of things you can do to help make the bathroom a bit nicer and a bit more memorable, in a positive way. Either way, the condition of your bathroom will definitely have an impact on some of the opinions people form of your store. My advice would to be take a page out of that Nebraska gas stations book and make the bathroom as nice as possible and make sure it smells really nice in there and always nice and clean.

This right here is what its all about! 95% of the people I know dread going to work and can't wait for the weekend. And they are always bummed out when the weekend starts coming to an end and they know they have to go back to work on Monday. Being your own boss and doing what you love for a living...well, words simply can't adequately describe just how amazing it really is and ultimately, it will make all the difference in the world in regards to just how happy you are and ultimately just how content you are. All the extra time I spent in college (an additional 6 years), the HUGE amounts of money I spent going to private art colleges, the ridiculous amounts of money I had to continually spend on photography equipment which pretty much made me dirt poor for the first 3-4 years I started my business, etc. While I was in the initial thick of it, it was VERY HARD, sometimes overwhelming so. I openly admit that there were PLENTY of nights I started doubting myself and wether I made the right decision to drop out of environmental engineering so I could pursue photography, but I always wound up casting those doubts and negative thoughts aside and just continued to work as hard as I possibly could towards building my business. When I wasn't working. I was out shooting pictures trying to improve my portfolio's as best I could. There were days I was so exhausted that I could barely get out of bed. Those were easily some of the hardest years in my life, but I am extremely grateful to be able to say that it all wound up being worth it, a 1000 times over. I actually get excited for most of the jobs I do. As I said before, I truly believe that if someone is passionate enough about something and willing to work hard enough, anything is possible. Given what I have read from your posts thus far, your definitely passionate about the comic market and your clearly working extremely hard. As long as you continue putting in the kind of effort you have shown thus far....well, I have absolutely ZERO doubt I will be reading posts from you in 2-3 years describing just how great everything is going!

They absolutely do not bow. I'm 150 lbs and I can stand on empty Drawer Boxes and they are 100% stable. As Shadroch said, your clearly thinking of BCW's file boxes or one of the other knock off's and not Drawer Boxes. And the BoxLox clips that you can add SIGNIFICANTLY add to thier stability as it literally attaches each box to the boxes beside them. I can actually push into my stacks with significant force and they don't even budge. And mine are stacked 6 high and are over 5 years old and they are still in pristine condition. Not even the slightest bit of bowing taking place and most of my boxes are 100% full. The Collection Drawer even addresses this issue. Competitor Failure Warranty I actually just found a comic store by me called Back to the Past that actually sells them. The Collection Drawer has a stores section on their website that shows what stores in each state sell them. So for those looking to buy just 1 or 2 boxes, you should check that section and see if there is a store in your state that sells them. Here is the link: http://collectiondrawer.com/store-list This is what Back to the Past's website says about Drawer Boxes and they actually have a picture of someone standing on an empty box as well and that guy weighs 205 pounds, which is 55 pounds more than I weigh. I was impressed that they were stable when I stood on top of them and I only weigh 150 pounds. The fact that a 205 pound guy can stand on them without them bowing of buckling under the pressure is just beyond impressive. These things are built like a tank http://gobacktothepast.com/comics-drawerboxes/

Wow, nice piece!

Agreed. Its one of the most popular pieces of Vampirella Art the last 30+ years running. I expect it will go much higher. And I hate to admit it, but this is a piece of art that I have done copy stand work on with my 8x10 camera. I have only done this a handful of times without the permission of the artist and its always for personal use and I would never try and actually sell such pieces. I actually have it in my will that all of my copy stand pieces are to be destroyed when I pass away. While I was working for Hedrich Blessing, one of the largest photographic labs in Chicago went out of business and since Hedrich Blessing had given them a CRAPLOAD of business for 50+ years they gave everyone who worked at Hedrich Blessing first dibs on all of the equipment they were liquidating and they gave us just insane deals. 3 of us that worked at the Michigan branch of Hedrich Blessing wound up driving out to Chicago with a 15 foot Uhaul truck and we literally filled that thing to 95% capacity. I wound up getting an Omega D5XL Chasis & Baseboard with a Zone VI cold light head, A Bessler color enlarger w/ condensing head, a densitometer, a crapload of misc darkroom supplies and a Linhof Technopro Copy Stand. I wound up paying $1500 for all my purchases and the actual value was easily 10-15 times that amount. The Linhof copy stand was definitely one of the best purchases I made that day as you get just insane quality doing 4x5 or 8x10 copy work. I usually always get permission from the artist when doing copy work. For example, Michael Light gave me permission to make copies of many of his pieces from his Full Moon and 100 Suns books and John Sexton gave me permission to make prints of many of his pictures from his Listen to the Tree's book. As long as your doing it for personal use and agree not to sell them, most artists don't have a problem with it, but I have done it a couple of time without permission. I know, I'm a terrible person!

If your biggest regret is a sale that netted you $5,000 in profit...well, your certainly doing a lot better than 99.9% of the other collectors out there, myself included. I'm that same way with limited edition prints. If there is even a tiny ding on one of the corners, I just cant do it. The prints I buy have to be in mint condition with no visible flaws or defects.

Yeah those prices are just ridiculous. $350 for a signed POP Figure, lol. You can buy Hot Toys figures at those prices. That is clearly a store aimed at people that have so much money that purchases at those price levels are just inconsequential to them.

You could always use them for storing other types of things, at least until you come to need an additional box for books/magazines. I don't know if you have any other collecting hobbies or not, but one could really store lots of different things in those boxes. Qualty storage boxes are something that I am always in need of. Or if you have any friends that also collect, you could see if they were interested in going in on a batch of boxes with you. Or if you have any comic shops in your area, you could always put forth the suggestion that you would like to see them start carrying Drawer Boxes. It certainly wouldn't hurt to throw that suggestion out there. It really is a shame that more comic stores don't carry Drawer Boxes as they really are hands down the highest quality cardboard storage boxes for comics. Its a shame you don't live near me as I could use 2 of those boxes myself right now so I would have definitely split an order with you.

A short Drawer Box is 18" long and should hold around 140 comics. So its very close to other short boxes. I used to use BCW so Drawer Boxes were roughly 1" longer. I don't understand why more comic shops don't sell these. It would be nice to be able to buy them one at a time, although that would likely be more expensive. When I finally decided to use Drawer Boxes, I decided to switch out all of my old boxes in one fell swoop so it didn't bother me that I had to buy in bulk as opposed to buying 1-2 boxes at a time, but I can understand that for people looking to just buy one of two boxes, that this would be an issue.

I have had some huge scores in some of my other collecting hobbies, but comics not so much. I did win a storage bin auction like 5 years back that had 6 short comic boxes full of silver age comics, but the condition of the comics were around 5.0-6.0 tops, at least in my estimation. So many still had a decent value, but nothing astronomical. Wonder Woman's increase in popularity since the films release has defintely helped the value on many of those comics as like 3/4 of one of those boxes were nothing but Wonder Woman comics. That said, I think my biggest score, at least given the current market, is probably an order I placed with Dynamite Comics like 7 or so years back. This was before Dynamite switched over to each cover having a unique UPC number so just what cover you got when you ordered a particular comic was purely left up to chance. Lucio Parrillo had become one of my absolute favorite artists with his Vampirella, Warlord of Mars and Queen Sonja runs so I got in touch with Dynamite CS by email and told them I was interested in buying a LOT of Vampirella, Warlord of Mars, and Queen Sonja comics, but only if they allowed me to pick which cover I got as I was only after the Lucio Parrillo covers. To my surprise, they actually agreed and I wound up getting around 5-10 copies of like 35 different Parrillo covers including Vampirella #19. And because my order wound up being so large, they actually wound up giving me a 15% discount off the entire order. The problem is, I don't know the exact value of those comics as I don't have an up to date price guide. I just know by watching eBay that many of those covers today are selling as high as $15-$30+, especially the copies that are in roughly 9.6-9.8 condition and all of the comics I got were definitely in the 9.6-9.8 range. I have seen mint Vampirella #19 covers sell as high as $100 recently. So I really don't have an exact figure that I can give, but I know its SIGNIFICANTLY more than what I paid. My biggest regret is spending as much as I did to replace all of the Michael Turner prints I lost when we had our house fire as Aspen wound up tanking the entire Aspen print market and most of those prints have lost 60-70% of their value. You win some and you lose some. That's just life.

Yeah, his latest Vampirella release was definitely trying to recreate this cover in a slightly different manner and while its still a great cover, it doesn't come anywhere close to matching Vampirella #19, at least not IMO.

This is an easy one for me. Lucio Parrillo's Vampirella #19. IMO, not only the best Vampirella iteration to date, but also the sexiest comic cover in the entire history of comics. I am actually really bummed out I didn't get a chance to bid on or buy the original. If it ever goes up for sale again, I will definitely make a significant sized bid to try and win it. The fact that the original is an oil painting as opposed to a drawing with pencil and ink makes it that much better.

Green Lantern for me. Being able to conjure any mental projection would just be so cool. Plus he gets to fly into space and go anywhere he wants. And I like the idea of being a part of the Green Lantern Corp. Your not just one super hero, but part of a team of super hero's trying to protect all of the various sectors in space.

Couldn't agree more which is why I have stated multiple times now, to each thier own. And I used to have the same opinion you do, that being not wanting to spend unnecessary money on supplies. Back then I wanted to spend as much as possible on actual comics and not boxes or bags and boards. Problem was, I wasn't enjoying many of the comics I was buying because they were in boxes that required moving like 10-15 boxes to get too. Finally deciding to invest the money into Drawer Boxes was without question the best decision I have ever made in regards to comic collecting and again, it has increased my enjoyment of the hobby significantly as I can now pull out and enjoy any box of comics in 10-15 seconds without having to move a single box. At least for me, that is worth every last penny Drawer Boxes cost. If others feel differently, they can choose whatever storage method they want. I only put this information up on the board to inform people who might not know they even exist, or how the boxes work. What choice people ultimately decide to make is 100% up to them.

If you really want a nice dolly, I HIGHLY recommend Magliner. Its what I use when on photography jobs to transport all my cases around with me. The things are practically indestructible. I have had mine for roughly 12 years now and its still in perfect working condition. The best part about Magliners is you can use them as a standard upright dolly or collapse it down and use it in a vertical mode. Here are a couple pics: They are definitely a bit more expensive than your average dolly, but again these things last forever and having a great dolly is an incredibly useful tool. Here is a link in case anyone is interested: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1255681-REG/magliner_gmk81ua4_gemini_sr_convertible_hand.html?ap=y&c3api=1876%2C{creative}%2C{keyword}&gclid=CjwKCAiAtorUBRBnEiwAfcp_Y_CTCHLENdSnL_1nH4rKnYZ-S4zdWM0eekulAVoG50XRdtT7XeAUvhoCthAQAvD_BwE

Yeah, short Drawer Boxes are the only way to go IMO. Then again, I have never been a big fan of long boxes. And your right, it is up to 8 categories and not 7 as I originally stated. I was thinking it was equal to the number of upright dividers you can use, but I forgot about the initial space in the front of the box. So you are correct, its up to 8 categories, not 7.

You can create up to 7 categories in a box if you want. You just have to have the Box Sort Rails and the BoxSort Upright Dividers. Here is an instruction page from The Collection Drawer that will give you a better idea of what they actually look like and how they work. Here is a link to that page in case its hard to read. http://collectiondrawer.com/sites/default/files/Assembly_Instructions.pdf

This was already answered by Shawnismaximus (much appreciated), but I want to include pictures so people on the forum can see what the boxes look like and exactly what the Box Sort Rails do. IMO, Box Sort Rails are easily the best invention made to date when it comes to organizing comics in comic boxes. Here is just a basic picture of what a Drawer Box looks like and its important to note that these boxes are significantly more sturdy than any other cardboard comic boxes on the market like BCW. As I stated before, I'm 150 pounds and I can actually stand on top of an empty Drawer Box and it doesn't even begin to buckle under the weight. Its perfectly stable and thats pretty impressive in and of itself. And if you look closely you can see the side of the box has small holes on the side. Those holes are for BoxLox, which are these small plastic pegs you can buy from The Collection Drawer (the company that sells Drawer Boxes). They basically allow you to attach the box to the boxes beside it, thus making your stacks just that much more sturdy. If you use BoxLox, which I definitely recommend, you can basically push into your boxes with some significant force and they won't budge. These are unquestionable the most stable cardboard comic boxes on the market. You would have to move up to using plastic storage boxes to get more stability in your stacks of boxes. And here is a picture of what Box Sort Rails do: The box on the left is just an ordinary comic box and as you can see, the comics tip over when the box isn't full. The box on the right has Box Sort Rails installed and as you can see, it allows you to create sections within the box so not only do your comics not tip over when the box isn't full, but most importantly it allows you to leave room to spare so you can add comics to a series or collection as it grows or progresss without having to take comics out to put new ones in. It makes keeping your collection organized as you go along much easier. Its a very basic and simple idea, but one that works amazingly well. Yes, these boxes are more expensive than regular comic boxes but for good reason. Its really no different than choosing to use Mylar over polypropylene bags. Your getting a much higher quality product so higher prices are just a given. And when you stop and think about just how much your going to spend on the actual comics and the bags and boards that actually fill that box...well, the price of the storage box itself will wind up being inconsequential by comparison. And these boxes are so well made that you will not be needing to replace them down the line. These boxes are a one time purchase. And they do offer small discounts if you buy in quantity. Anyways, as always to each thier own. My advice would be to definitely go this route even if you think its a bit expensive. In the end I guarantee you will be thankful you did. I know I certainly am and even if I had paid double or even triple the price I paid, I would still feel the same way.

Buying directly from Gerber is your best bet as they give you substantial discounts if you buy in bulk. You get the best price if you buy 1000 at a time. Its the only way to go IMO if you really want to use Mylites and Halfback/Fullback boards. Here is the link in case anyone is interested. http://www.egerber.com/catalog.asp

I would at least get in touch with CGC and explain the issue. People spend a LOT of money to have comics slabbed so when something like this happens....well, I certainly know I would wouldn't be happy with the end result, especially when its a CGC Signature series. So I would definitely be pushing CGC to re-slab the comic. If it was just a hair off I wouldn't consider it a big deal, but that is one of the most off centered CGC comics I have seen to date. Definitely get in touch with CGC and explain the issue.

Won't be too long now, lol.

Especially if your using Mylites 2's or 4's with Full Back Boards for a lot of your comics. Using those bags and boards definitely add significant weight to your collection.

I don't store my comics in the basement so getting wet isn't an issue. And even if I did store them in the basement, I would simply buy or build something that would keep the bottom of the stack roughly 12-16" of the floor. That is a very easy issue to address, and you could do so using a variety of different methods. I have tried pretty much every type of box out there over the last 30 years and I haven't come across one yet that beats Drawer Boxes, for a variety of different reasons including the box sort rails, the strength and stability of the boxes, and the fact that you can attach rows of boxes together to make them even more stable. I'm 150 pounds and I can actually stand on the top of a single drawer box and it doesn't even begin to buckle under the weight. Those boxes are INCREDIBLY strong and stable. If there is a better comic box out there, I certainly haven't seen it yet.

I hear ya on that one. Turning 46 this year and believe me, I definitely feel it, lol.

To each thier own. I just put that out there for anyone that was thinking about reorganizing thier collection. After using Drawer Boxes for the last couple of years, I just couldn't imagine going back to regular boxes again. I have a bad back and have actually thrown my back out on multiple occasions over the years due to lifting comic boxes. Not to mention, when I was using regular comic boxes, I would almost never access the comics that were near or at the bottom of the stacks as I knew it required moving a bunch of boxes to get there. Now that I use Drawer Boxes, I can access any box of comics that I own in just 10-15 seconds, regardless of where it is in the stack. That is why using Drawer Boxes has significantly increased my overall enjoyment of the hobby so much as I like to just pull out my comics and look at them and I just wasn't doing that with the comics that were at or near the bottom of the stacks as it was just such a pain to get to them. Basically the comics that were in the bottom boxes were basically in comic limbo.