cstojano

Just knock off a few zeroes from all the number so that mortals can relate. Basically this is like Johnny charging me 3 dollars for a Hostess honey bun back in 8th grade that his mom bought by the gross at BJ's.

I need to print this and superglue it to my monitor (as I stare around my bedroom at art I bought and cannot sell that I have no connection to).

I have used various courier services for high value items coming from the UK and I don't think there is any solution to the anxiety shipping causes. I was just talking to a guy yesterday who was expecting a DHL that they handed off to Royal Mail for the final leg. He was like, why am I paying DHL fees for Royal Mail service. Disconcerting. I do work with museums and have had to pay for their fine art shipping service. The cost was 2500 each way plus I had to pay for the crate to be made for the items, which was 5k. Yes it came on its own truck with cushioning but ultimately it was two guys driving across the country making stops along the way. It was certainly more secure than another service but it wasn't like a secured delivery or anything. The museum would not let me pickup and re-delivery the items myself either. These were low value but irreplaceable research specimens not fine art or other collectibles. I have also used Freighters and Craters for an art shipment across the country. What was disconcerting there was the pickup at the Estes trucking depot and the free for all it was. There were just crates and pallets all over this massive outside loading dock area, hardly seemd very secure at all. Edit: even if you hire a private delivery service there are still issues. I was this delivery service once, driving rare specimens from one museum to another. It was me in a U-haul. I still had to sleep one night, and didn't sleep well for fear of the truck being broken into overnight. So unless the drive was within a day presumably the same issue would apply. On private moves I have taken things into the hotel with me at night but I doubt any third party would do the same.

No man needs two Buscema Indy pages in their retirement, just saying...

Yes I think I was "that guy". First item I remember bidding on was a loose Kenner Indiana Jones action figure for something like 40 dollars. I was sniped and sent a nasty email to the high bidder. Total cringe moment now, of course. You could even leave feedback for random people back then

Exact same thing happened with toys with Toyshop Magazine, down to the overnight shipping and the best stuff selling ASAP. I loved the full page ads for stuff I couldn't afford to buy or auctions that I had no hope of winning. Lots of stuff on offer was stuff I had never seen before or knew existed, prototypes, etc. You'd call in your bids to the person. A well known collector clipped these for vintage Star Wars and saved them. This amazing resource is online: https://www.sandcrawler.com/webpages/chrisgscrapbook/ I miss ogling at 1 inch black and white pictures of super rare toys

Memory lane time... Usenet groups pre eBay, auctions ran in a total vacuum, no paypal, fraud was rampant (both in the bidding and lack of delivery). I don't even think there were pictures. You took what you could because there was almost no other way to get anything. Ebay comes on the scene, an amazing time for collecting anything, this was late 90s. New discoveries, third party payment, pictures. Its hard to overstate how important eBay was for my early days of collecting (toys, not comics, but likely the same), which makes its downfall all the worse. I swear I have for sale listings that some algorithm buries to page 12 because I get no action (these are buy it now listings, prices are fair as well not stupid, I don't get it). Yahoo and Amazon auctions, both short lived, easy money to be made flipping to eBay, that didn't last long. A 50 dollar purchase was so exciting.

Something about this always reminds me of taking turns flipping pages in the Monster Manual and having to pick just one monster per page. I love it because it reflects something hard to discuss in other ways - the psychology and value systems we intuitively use when collecting. That's harder to pin down without real examples.

See, my brain says, "I have props from this movie so I can't break up the set"

That's where I had it. Seems an odd pull to make up the deficit.

I honestly have no idea what the TOD will sell for but the fact that they pulled that from his collection to sell suggests I am WAY undervaluing that piece

Collecting shoes or referring to unworn shoes as deadstock, despite that term having a very specific meaning in retail (or so I thought)? My brief exploration into the hobby makes it seem like its very much about scoring shoes at drops and/or having a connection, so like Mondo poster collecting of the 2010s (based on artificial scarcity). Now youtube is telling me the resale market is dying though

Curious when you sent the pieces in to them? I get the sense HA had these early in 2023 if you hoped for a summer offering.

Youtube recently send me down the sneaker collecting rabbit hole. Its always fun learning what the inside lingo means in different collecting areas. I kept wondering what the shoe brand DS was Is the price difference between used and brand new (or DS) sneakers the same phenomenon as grading comics? I'd argue NOT, which would drive me crazy about sneaker collecting.

Yeah I kept waiting for the annoyed spouse angle to thaw...but it didn't. Always love hearing Dave's take on things.

I forget the numbers, maybe 4. Its the one of the closeup of the black cat. I probably don't have a chance in hell of winning this cover BUT given its fairly small size and obscure imagery I think this is a candidate for framing with a copy of the book itself, which I have never done,

Its funny how the 600k Stormtrooper costume sort of gets lost in this isn't it? Would love to hear predictions on the Guice TOD cover. Felix may have misspoke and called it #2 or maybe that one is coming this summer? Ditto for the Campbell cover. I like's his assessment that the interiors from that series are really the draw. The covers are very strange IMO.

Great listens, but that 2.0 episode made me feel so uncomfortable

Don't know how some of you guys do it. I think I have 50-60 pieces max for my entire collection across multiple genres and feel weighed down by it all at times.

I had my shot at one on CL I believe within the last 4 years or so but have not see another since.

Tom Coker posted this one to CAF

Was wondering if they added numbers there. I have the Smith cover carted. These books are great but so take up so much space.

I don't see anything sold out??

I almost quit collecting when I saw this.

Damn another Wed auction I forgot about.