hammer-migration

Lofwyr, I'm always looking for any fighting tapes (I have all the commercially available contests already on tape) of either Vitor Belfort or Mark "the Hammer" Coleman. Practice tapes, gym tapes, sparring, rolling, etc. Please keep me in mind if you see something that fits the bill.

Lofwyr, Do you have your tapes/contests catalogued? Do you have any "home-spun" tapes of reknowned fighters sparring as well?

If I had $5,000 to invest in comics, I'd be wondering what the hell happened to the rest of all my money!!!!

Now how's THIS for ironic! This is the very same seller that always offers those cheesy $14.00 (can be bought for $5.00 in novelty stores/catalogs) hand held black light, "fool-proof" restoration detectors (for identifying color touch). How do you suppose he "missed" the entire black area of the spine (painted with acrylics) with cases of those "fool-proof" gadgets in his home? web page

No, NO...she tried!! It was half-hearted it seems but not a bad start, and awfully cute coming from Joanna!! OK..since she went out of her way with her maiden effort, I'll do my part and play along by hitting the "notify the moderator" button on her post as if I'm "incensed beyond all comprehension".

Can you just imagine the look on Arch's face when after taking about 12 hours off from moderating the Board, and coming to the site to see what was "cookin" after sitting down with the "fam", partaking of the Traditional X-Mas Goose, he started reading?!?!?!?!? I wish I could have a picture of THAT look of astonishment and horror as a "Kodak Holiday Moment"!!

I can only imagine what the always unpredictable Jens has in store for us on April 20th (Adolph's Birthday).

"Sorry I missed the infamous X-Mas Day Massacre...sounds like fun" Hey, we've got Easter Coming, another Religious Holiday. Who knows what the Easter Bunny will bring this year?

I just reviewed many of the threads mentioned that I saved for posterity. Most have been unceremoniously deleted from the Forum and hurled into the pits of the Penalty box. By far, my vote for most memorable moments, events, whatever, is an easy choice!! What other thread was responsible for so many members being thrown into the Penalty Box at the same time!! This thread had it ALL!!! In my estimation, by a wide margin, the best of the "beast" was "the X-Mas Day Massacre", when for once, the Spirit of X-mas and good fellowship, chained to the bumper of a vehicle driven by no less than a dozen Forum members, was dragged through the dirt and given an indecent burial, until Arch got wind of what was going on and called an abrupt halt to the ensuing "festivities", by pulling the plug on a bunch of angry participants.

The SCAN sells the book. The more detail available, the better. As a seller you want BOTH the positives AND negatives to show and should use the description to call attention to these attributes in the image. Negative attributes are just as important to be seen in an auction, as Positive. Grading is a DEDUCTIVE skill, not Additive. Every book starts out flawless, and the amount and severity of each flaw deducts cumulative points from what started out, theoretically, unflawed. When the parcel is opened by the buyer, you want the book to be represented accurately or the only one enriched by the transaction is PayPal and/or the Post office, for a round trip, back to the seller. I've found auctionwatch to be the best hosting company. I can store an UNLIMITED amount of scans there and pay one charge of $12.95 monthly and using their site is fool-proof. Fast and easy. Mostly, I store my scans there at a size of 200KB. This seems to yield the best results on Ebay and produces an image of approx. 1.5 times comic scale.

I read you. Thank you for the valuable info! They're badly curled but when you open them up, the surface is free from cracks, fissures, etc.

Thank you Pov!

Pov, In your estimation, could a press like the cast iron one (which I assume you can REALLY torque up without breaking) be used to press photos?? I have hundreds of photos taken by my grandfather's brother, of ball players between the period of approx. 1946 to 1956 at Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds, and Ebbets Field. They are Kodak B&W snapshots with very glossy stock and the fluted/scalloped decorative edges of approx. 4" by 6" in size. They're in beautiful condition but VERY curled, most actually rolling up. Whenever I've tried putting them in a photo album, they just eventually curl their way out of the "magnetic" pages. They were kept in a large hat box for YEARS, where they now are still stored. Any ideas?

I just stand on them with my custom, muskrat-stuffed cinderblock, platform lifting shoes when I'm doing 1000 pound power-shrugs. After THAT, even 80 page giants are pressed as flat as a pancake. THAT'S the secret!!!

I'd like to see "Eo" made into a motion picture!!!

Any relation to Jimmy "the Iron Bull" Pellechia (alot of the same letters), just about the strongest man who ever lived? Also, I think that the Christmas Day Massacre was just a tune up. I sense a MAJOR upheaval in the near future with the "Coinees" (those smug SOBs) that will make the Christmas Day debacle seem like a spirited game of dominoes by comparison!!!!!

Murph, The Hulk 181 you purchased is a BEAUTIFUL example. ALL 9.4s SHOULD look like that. Square corners, not much tilt, black line on or near the spine, bright colors, no cover smudges or printing flaws, etc. A GREAT example of an exceptional Hulk 181. More like a 9.6 to 9.8 quality book if not for the two, tiny, flaked, transverse stresses. This copy blows away others I've seen slabbed 9.4 and even 9.6 by virtue of it's tremendous eye appeal, structure, and paper quality as evidenced by the image.

Even more of a challenge is finding one without the usual white left edge on a front cover, right-shifted copy. I see the majority of 9.4s and 9.6s (and even the two 9.8s which ran the same week on Ebay...smart, huh?) have the off-centered cover as well as the black/gray print lines and smudges that trail from the chains, down towards the bottom of the book. In my estimation, if you're going to pay a premium anyway, $2000 to $4000 for 9.4 to 9.6 copies, try to get a hold of one WITHOUT the extremely common factory production problems, and with a BRIGHT RED cover. Many of even the highest graded copies appear to be slightly weak in this respect, appearing more towards the orange end than the Fire-engine Red color. They're out there. You just have to be patient and selective.

You BLEW it!!! Believe it or not Arch made ABLUE our probation officer!!!!

Bug is correct. The Penalty box is just like Toon-Town from "Roger Rabbit". Why anyone would want to escape is beyond me but I'll be damned if Rick and I didn't find an old ventilation shaft we were going to use to bust out of there right about the time that Warden Arch commuted our sentences.

Nope. This VF should should end at about $12K.

Most of the AF15s I've sold have gone in the $10K range. That seems to be the upper limit of affordability for the average comic collector if he's hell bent on owning one and a seller is willing to take time payments. If not for the time payments, the average Ebayer (maybe 98% of all Ebay comic hobbyists) could NOT afford to come up with the scratch. At a rate of $1K per month, it's do-able for most that want one. Once you step up into the $25,000 range, you're in progressively rarified atmosphere and have eliminated all but 1 to 2% from accessibility.

Big jump, Murph! $12,000 vs potential $25K to $30K dependent on whether a REAL or "gift" 9.0 . And for that matter, if you're going to AUCTION a VF AF15, how about at least a clear, focused, bright, COMIC-SCALE-SIZED IMAGE??? Be nice to have some kind of idea on what the book looks like. You can only tell so much from miscropped, postage stamp sized images.

Study the history of the hobby. Try to compile a library of Prime reference material: A half dozen or so Overstreets spanning 5 year intervals Back issues of early CBMs Gerber's Encyclopedia Vol 1 and 2 History of Comics by Olshevsky Steranko's 2 Volume Treasury size History of Comics Articles by Duncan MacAlpine, Sean Linkenback, Dr.J.Keith Contarino, Gary Carter, etc. Study Ebay results on comics in the field of your interest. Keep notes. Ebay is the most accurate barometer in the hobby for determining the accurate market value of an item. Above all, DON'T COLLECT IT IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT! Collect it because you enjoy doing so because of an affinity you feel for the items of your focus. Sometimes your likes and dislikes change. Don't be afraid to make adjustments to your scope of interests.