justafan

And a direct result of that is that the source (or middlemen) then becomes the auction houses, the new pricing floor is set by the dealers and collectors bidding on the same items at auction and for those won by the dealers are then resold at the new marked up price. This could keep driving prices up and up until only the biggest dealers can afford to grab them at auction and only the collectors (or investors) with deep pockets can afford to buy them on the tertiary market. So what happens next? Are collectors better off staying out of the auctions and allowing the dealers to nab them for lower prices and then in turn resell them to us at more reasonable prices? Is the comic art outcome inevitable for comics?

We'll dang. How am I supposed to make it to Bob's booth with anything left now?

Great! I look forward to kicking some of your HG ASM tires. Maybe this time I'll actually buy something if I can make it to your booth before I blow my whole wad on OA, dollar bin drek, and overpriced food.

I used to see legit craigslist ads for SA, BA, and CA runs for ASM, Thor, Iron Man, SS, XMEN, FF, etc. Now all I see are dealer ads. The 2 LCS near me used to see regular SA- BA collections walk through the door or phoned in from around the state at least once a month. It's been a year since they've pulled in a new collection. I think it's a combination of both. There are fewer collections coming to market than before and the ones that are have more market aware owners who are either pricing out the smaller dealers or going directly to the top auction houses for the convenience. Not sure if the scarcity has anything to do with there actually being less hidden collections or that people are quietly holding onto them.

Cool, thanks BassGMan. I'll probably end up doing the same just to check it out. Looking forward to just the experience of it. If I manage to be able to hunt for and buy some comics while I'm there I'll be happy.

depends on how much longbox digging you do. I hit every comic dealer and go through at least 4-5 of their long boxes looking for the various items in my focus. That usually takes up a day and a half. Then if my eyeballs haven't fallen out of their sockets from the shear exhaustion there's browsing the cool wall books with an occasional big purchase here and there and there are usually enough dealers at this show that it takes a day and a half to hit all of them. Then I spend another chunk of time at either of the grader booths either submitting books or cool book watching just checking out what cool raw books are going to find themselves into new plastic homes tombs. then there's the cosplay pictures and gawking and the fun costume contest that makes for a nice break from standing up or squatting down all day. Occasionally I check out the artists or guests but not interested unless there's some one whose work I'm really into there. In between there's lots of great restaurants, bars, and sights in Baltimore. So if you're bored there's always the nightlife or museums (Geppi's but also the Aquarium and children's science museum which actually is pretty cool for all ages.) However, I'm mainly there for the comics so if I could knock that out in a day or less, that's all I'd need but alas this is a good comics show with lots of comics. I'm doing SDCC this year for the first time and I'm trying to figure out how to hunt for comics at that show without getting crowd mauled or sensory overload by everything else that will be going on.

anyone know what time the show starts and ends on saturday and sunday? Looking forward to this one.

Got tix to the 4 days but not preview night. Wondering, is there any reason to show up Wednesday between 5 and 9pm if you don't have tix to preview night? Any side shows, parties, cool spin-off/spill-over events from when preview night events end or move outside? Also, I'm in VA and haven't received my badge yet so you're not alone if you haven't gotten yours yet.

I'm actually going to try to go to both shows. It really sucks that they are both on the same day because these are 2 of the 3 biggest shows of the year that I regularly attend and pretty much means I'm losing 1 full show. Fortunately, I did manage to get tix to SDCC for the first time so I guess that makes up for it. So I'm doing awesome con 1 day only just for stan lee and heroescon for the other 2 days just for buying comics. Awesomecon is more like a wizard world type show with a greater focus on media guests and cosplay and most of the comic vendors tend to be local to me anyway so I doubt I'll be missing out much. Heroes con is where I tend to do the bulk of my comic buying along with Baltimore comicon. My advice is that if you can only attend one of those 2 shows and don't need to meet stan lee, go to heroescon.

I 2nd egerber. Both egerber and bcm are excellent quality but my preference for egerber is mainly since I live close enough to buy them in bulk and pick them up which saves on shipping. If im not mistaken Hotflips on here is a reseller of both of these and they may provide easier customized ordering options and shipping. That being said, if you buy in large quantities and live near maryland, you can't get fullbacks and mylites2or mylites4 of any size for a better price than at egerber. How you store them can be up for debate. Most store them 1 comic per bag and board. If you use fullbacks with mylite2s those are sturdy enough. However I get the issue with the spine being all on 1 side. You end up with a slight bulge or fanning of the comics to 1 side and you might be able to fit a few more in the long/short box if you alternated which side you place the spine on. However you should never over stuff your box (giggle) beyond being abe to insert 2-3 fingers between comics or you could risk damage to the comics when removing and replacing. Personally I would not put 2 comics on opposite sides of a board unless they are cheap moderns or reader copies of older less expensive books. However, I have thought of placing every other comic upside down to even out the spine distribution in the boxes but it might be too annoying to see the comics upside down when looking for a specific issue.