SeniorSurfer

ASM 13 and 15 per PM.  Thank you!

On 7/31/2022 at 7:16 AM, Ken Aldred said:

Slim, but you’ve clearly never seen actual old-school wasp waists.

Did someone mention me?

Great report and having never been to one, I too am living vicariously.  I'm only interested in older comics so a lot (figurines, moderns, sketching, funkos, etc.) would be wasted on me, though I confess I always wanted to go and meet Stan Lee as I thought (maybe mistakenly) he was a fixture.  I also assume dealer's setup/rental fees to be higher than any other con, so I'd hazard (again, maybe mistakenly) that they'd have to raise their book prices accordingly.

On 7/24/2022 at 5:49 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

No clue.  I don't pay attention to that stuff.

This show was kind of a waste of time. 

Only $6 to get in.  The only dealer I spent money with is Craig out of Pennsylvania.  His inventory hasn't been added to in the last two years or so.   I think the biggest book in the room was the FF # 48, CGC 4.0 at $2200.   I did snag that X-Men #1 framed poster for $20, though. 

Thank you for posting these.  Though I agree that there didn't seem to be "must buys," the kid in me likes to see these shows I remember from back in the day. 

On 7/9/2022 at 10:50 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

oh wow, I have never heard the phrase "guilding the lily"  I've often wanted that or felt that expression, but I didn't know it was a "thing"  Learned something new. It sounds familiar that I might have heard it on TV once upon a time but ha, thanks for that  

Yeah, an entire childhood reading Stan's prose stays with you.  When I throw out a Nick Fury/Ben Grimm malaprop on purpose, the family really gets annoyed and there's a lot of eyeball rolling.

I've been following that thread and pulling for its positive resolution, which seems to be on track.  I think sellers and buyers here are more responsible, honest and professional than many found outside these pages ("adult" is the word I would use), so thinking about adding one these proposals may seem like gilding the lily.  Still I suppose that more information would help both parties and cut down unnecessary interruptions for a sale.  A buyer might choose not to take a chance on a book not in the possession of the seller, or they may just not want to wait for that extra step, while any information a seller can provide - normal or unusual - may help sell the book to the right person or at least cut out some added explanatory emails should things go wrong, thusly:  

1) Suppose the book's owner provided only a picture of the front of the slab, the CGC seller makes a deal, and the buyer receiving the book notes glasses and a goatee drawn on Albert Dorne in the back.  Setting aside whether Al looks better with a goatee, maybe the buyer doesn't like extra writing on their books.  Email generated.  

2) Suppose the buyer negotiates with the CGC seller and $50.00 is knocked off the final price.  Buyer rejoices getting a book featuring their favorite artist, Melvin Schnorr, at a reduced price, CGC seller is happy for the sale, owner gets paid and ships.  Buyer receives the book and sees the owner's return address is from none other than... Melvin Schnorr, who (it is well-known) is destitute and selling off his collection to make ends meet.  Buyer has a bonus hand-written envelope from Melvin that he can now sell on eBay, but is wracked with guilt that he took advantage of a someone that he admired and is needy.  Email generated.

2) Suppose the buyer buys, the CGC seller sells, and the book's owner ships.  Buyer receives the book, but on receiving it finds that a slab corner is cracked because it was wrapped in a few sheets of the NY Post inside a manila envelope and now the buyer is ticked.  Maybe because there are missing pages to a Post article they wanted to read, maybe because they're more of a NY Times enthusiast, or maybe... there is that slab issue.  Email generated.    

More information is a good thing when selling/buying on the internet and it would only take an extra sentence to note a book's origin point or whether it's on consignment.

On 7/3/2022 at 3:36 AM, lou_fine said:

I could tell from your Batman 27 avatar that you was clearly also into collecting vintage comic books and really meant more as a general comment on the hobby more than anything else.  

Heck, at least you was smart enough to have made only one speculative buy and that was for your son, whereas I have made hundreds of speculative buys back in the day and I don't think any of them has really worked out that well at all.  

Your $300 figure reminds me of a funny story that I have told on the MA boards here before.  Went into one of the suburban LCS's in my area in the latter part of the 80's and the owner hands me a book which he had special ordered for one of his customers.  Told me that he could also special order a copy for me direct from the publisher and it would only cost me $300.  Being a mainstream type of comic book collector, I opened up the book and thought right away who in their right mind would shell out $3 for this fugly putrid piece of toxic looking doggie poo poo, let alone 300 big ones.  Boy, what kind of a no-brain idiott or sucker did he think I was.  Handed the book back to the LCS owner as fast as I could and if this had been 2021 or 2022, would have gone for the bottle of hand sanitizer as fast as I could.  

To make matters even worse, being a Miller fan at the time, I ended up instead ordering a signed and numbered limited eidtion of the Dark Knight for $40 which is probably worth less than that nowadays, which is certainly not the case for the TMNT 1 which I had just passed up on.    

I never even got the chance to sniff the first print of TMNT 1 back then but was curious and ordered the second issue.  I thought it was an interesting idea, given how they incorporated all the latest "hot" book series into the title, and I wasn't averse to going off the mainstream every now and then (more Underground books than new publishers though).  When I got #2 and read through it, I also thought it was really a "#2" alright and didn't pick up another issue, following the tried-and-true "buy what you like" mantra.  I don't regret it, since for every TMNT there were copycats (like "Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters") so who was going to guess right and shell out dough for all the different titles that were hoping to hit it big?  (As an aside, they parlayed their idea into a big money-making franchise and hey... more power to them, but I still wouldn't read or buy one of those stool samples for love nor money.  Like they need me anyway.). 

Thank you for the report.  Between this and some live IG sales feeds I felt I was there.  Maybe next year I'll make the trip from FL.

Thing is... by CGC taking in these volumes of drek - and of course they're not to blame since they're in the business of making money - they are taking away personnel and time from the legitimate grading of "things that really deserve to be graded" (Monty Python take note).  Sure there are some submitters that just want anything in a slab for their collections, but judging by the amount for sale on The Bay/IG/FB that number is dwarfed by the hordes more that are just submitting crapola in the hopes of hitting it big.  Or maybe they're just buying into the hype of variant covers, "key" issues in the 14th incarnation of a Spider Man title, 9th printings that are "scarce" or sketch covers of Wolverine by their nephew.  Meanwhile, here we are waiting long months for submissions that normally would have taken (at most) half the time.  

As noted above, I hope things normalize at CGC when these individuals learn the hard lessons.  Maybe.  I don't know as much on coins as I might on comics, but I can't picture myself just reaching for the change I get from the grocery and indiscriminately sending in handfuls to be graded/slabbed in the hopes of making money.  Actually I can't picture getting any change from the grocery lately, but that's another story.

On 6/26/2022 at 9:23 PM, frozentundraguy said:

This book was my first Marvel Pre-Hero book.  Tape, writing on the cover, creases throughout, well worn, the book has it all.   Then about 20 years to upgrade to a better copy.  The better copy is currently in scheduled for grading status.

 

With some luck, you'll get it back before another 20 years pass.

Mark Evanier notes in his 1/19/17 article (which in turn was a re-run of one from 2/14/02) that more than a strong resemblance to a young Jack Kirby can be seen in the floating head drawing of Mr. Fantastic on the cover of FF #7.  As this was a cover that Kirby himself inked and as Mr. Evanier knows a thing or two about Jack Kirby, I can believe it. https://www.newsfromme.com/2017/01/19/fantastic-find-2/

On 5/7/2022 at 8:20 PM, dupont2005 said:

She looks scantily clad

I concur... her cladding is quite scanty.

On 5/7/2022 at 4:19 PM, Rip said:

Haunt of Fear 17

Slight bend to numerous interior pages.

Some minor staining on back cover

VG/F $1000

per PM.  Thanks!

Like everyone else has noted, it's basically just an attention grabber to have you buy the book, and it's difficult to come up to the standards of a Frazetta or Adams or Wrightson or etc. cover unless the whole interior is by them.  Even without using Frank Robbins as the go-to guy who's work is (by definition) worse than any book's cover artist, I was going to feel disappointed and a little cheated.  For example, I had nothing against Frank Springer, but he couldn't sharpen Steranko's pencil and it was a real cold shower shock when I cracked open SHIELD #7:

Uh  oh...

On 4/21/2022 at 6:59 AM, Ryan. said:

On 4/20/2022 at 2:02 PM, mlovest said:

Yes, I've been frustrated by that as well.  I always enjoyed pretty MJ and Gwen, but today things are getting crazy.  I'll take the 60's thru 80's any day!  Just me...

It would have brought a higher price if they had sold the complete set with Ditko and Kirby.

Never seen that Vic Flint!  He sounds like one of the character names the MST3K guys came up with for that "actor" when they riffed "Space Mutiny" (Buff DrinkLots...Roll FizzleBeef... Biff McLargeHuge...Thick McRunFast...Punch RockGroin...Splint ChestHair)