1Cool

Only a couple more days before this great Con. Sounds like the hotel will keep the restaurant open all afternoon so you can grab quality food before or after digging through boxes.

Hector - you setting up at shows any longer? Last I remember was you were selling books at any reasonable offer. Hope you are doing well.

Big keys are not in my wheel house so not sure about current prices. Big keys are a small portion of the hobby - the books I’m more familiar with are well below 2020 levels pretty much across the board.

Back to low-end 2020 prices? Yes - for quite a few books.

Wow - that is kind of crazy to see. No idea how you grade but a 9.4 to 5.5 is quite the drop!

And they want free shipping and for the seller to eat the 3% paypal fees. If it aint cheap then I don't see many bronze - modern slabs trading hands on the boards. It's been that was for as long as I can remember and only getting worse.

Selling common slabs on the boards is a nightmare if you don't want to give a 15 - 20% haircut in value. People on the boards are frugal and will always want a deal unless it's a really hard to find book. I agree selling on the boards gets a lot easier when you have a ton of raw books at a fair price (and even that can be hit or miss).

Nobody is getting Disney+ to get Hulu. Not saying Hulul doesn't have a few good shows and some value but the 60 billion price tag seems silly.

From your mouth to gods ears!

My mistake - only knew half the story

People are not hyping any copper / modern (or Bronze for that matter) because there is nothing that can be classified as hot. Books are selling (very slowly) for sure but I've not seen much newer stuff that isn't cool to ice cold. Just my observations.

I'm setting up at this show and bringing my better books along with a ton of $10 / $20 high grade books. Always a packed hall and the promoter is telling us there will be a lot of new blood at this Con. Come check it out this Sunday. I'm sure we will have the Browns on the radio.

I agree there is no really good route forward at this point since any changes will push down subscription numbers which will off share holders. But if I produce 6 great shows (and 10 not so great shows) for billions of dollars that you can stream in a couple months then it's a loss for me as the producers. If all services push monthly fees up to $30 but then offer a year long subscription for $15 will give you locked in people money. And at this point if all the subscription services start raising prices drastically what options do people have? We have all cut the cord so there really is no going back to the old ways (where we were all paying $100 a month). Things will have to change once all the services lose tons of cash.

Streaming services will have to lock people in for 6 or possibly 12 months to combat people switching services each month. Monthly services will double in price and the only way to keep the "cheap" service will be to lock yourself in kind of like they do with phone services. The current price structure is just too cheap considering how much shows can be digested in a month (even 2 hours a day is 60 hours of entertainment for $15 ). The number of people signed up will plummet but they will also plummet with everyone switching every month or two.

I see quite a few past sales for well over $100 so if people are starting to be desperate enough to put CGC 9.8s up for auction I can see why it's getting a lot of action (especially if it's only going for $83 in CGC 9.8). Prices for slabbing are way up and CGC seems to still be strict so I'd not expect a $50 copy to pop up any time soon.

As Roy recently stated, the Uber high grade books are still holding their value and if anything still going up since the big bucks guys are now concentrating on the cream of the crop and there isn’t much of that stuff. As money (or stocks) concentrate into a few 1% books then the rest of the market will probably continue to recede.

I was commenting on his obvious inability to see if he thinks you’re warm and cheerful

There typically is some huge shirt booths right in the center of most bigger cons that I've gone to and I didn't see any of those this year. There was shirts to be bought but the mega shirt booths must have not been profitable.

You will never see more books in a room than at Baltimore (maybe tied with Heroes Con). You will probably see more very high end books at NYCC or San Diego but there is just a sea of books at Baltimore.

Must be what is in demand. I saw a lot less Pops booths then a few years ago and there seemed to be less mystery box / shirt booths also. I do agree there was a lot of sword booths!

Isn’t being blind a severe disadvantage as a comic dealer?

There was a booth at Baltimore which was offering boxes and boxes of variants for $5 a piece but you could get a whole short box for $100 (which is less than $1 a piece). I don't venture into that end of the pool but that one booth is what I think of when people ask about variant fatigue.

Thanks for the detailed review of what you experienced. I heard quite a few seller expressing similar lack of sales so you were not alone in having a bad sales year.

I did hear a few people complaining about the smaller crowds and some complained about the lack of onsite grading. The on-site grading definitely added some excitement to the Con which has been missing. A ton less cosplay on Friday which makes me wonder if that “fad” is winding down.

I ended up staying 15 minutes south of town and it worked out great. Hotel was much better - beds were great - no charge for parking over night. I’ve not had terrible experiences staying near the convention center but being able to leave the city at night had its merits.