sckao

Wizard Guide… Not what people were actually paying possibly… But his memory is accurate. 

Plustek OpticPro A320E

https://wisconsincomics.com/scanning-graded-comics/

Dealers don't actually expect or have access to electrical outlets generally in my experience. (Or WiFi) (Plus, think of the nightmare situation if someone actually plugged in a space heater or something. Or someone shorts out and trips the local circuit. That space heater or illegally plugged-in equipment might get you a fine or start a fire.)

That's an additional cost usually. So if you have a subset of booths with electrical access, you can and probably should charge extra for them.

On 12/14/2021 at 11:27 AM, Galen130 said:

Well, that wasn't so bad timeframe-wise.  All 20 of my Mechanicals came back today.  I'm going through them now, but I wanted to post this picture.  Someone else may have mentioned this in the thread already.  Is this the new way of packing slabs, or are Mechanicals coming back shipped differently to avoid more mechanical returns???  Lots of bubble wrap...no corrugated cardboard sides or bottom now. 

This makes more sense if external side pressure on a fully packed carton can transfer the pressure to the slabs inside with the old design. You want the shock or pressure wave to dissipate along the internal cardboard load-bearing struts and wall of the box itself when it flexes.

The top cardboard slab already does that because the vertical cardboard walls are higher than the slabs and take the pressure from above. The what look like empty shipping boxes on the end is what I use as well in my long boxes. (They look similar to the comic shipping boxes that hold about 10 comics in my case that you can put into a USPS padded Priority Envelope.) The lack of bottom padding is a bit concerning though as my delivery people tend to just drop my packages onto my porch much of the time.

(To answer the question, "How do you safely ship 25 plastic cases ultrasonic welded and held together in basically only a few places.")

So is this the answer? 

Or do we need a martial arts expert to hit a fully loaded box of slabs as an experiment?

The Authority/Planetary which then spawned the Ultimates and the Ultimate universe (which is pretty much what the MCU is based on.)

I would not let the dealers push their tables out as they wish as this will cause havoc with the way people congregate in front of and on the sides of their booth at the expense of the surrounding dealers. It will also make it easier for theft to happen as the gap between tables will then become non-standard. (That table line is one of the ways you're creating a barrier to entry for people to not cross over to the expensive rack books.)

Some dealers (I used to do this with narrow 48" folding tables.) will also bring their own tables to supplement yours which may mean they can come up with configurations you had not thought of. (It may be a small table there to hold their laptop or receipt box away from the crowd.)

This is actually a pretty interesting question that comes up over and over:

Can old comic bags be recycled?

Some very old comic bags were created using polyethylene while more current bags are probably created with polypropylene. Both are probably NOT ACCEPTED by your local recycling service (waste management pickup). At least mine doesn't. Mine doesn't even allow loose plastic bags of any kind.

Mylar is not recyclable at all apparently.  ( TerraCycle may take them at a price?)

So the question then is what do we do with all these thousands of old bags after we re-bag and re-board a bunch of old comics?

Which Plastic Recycling Codes Can (or Cannot) Be Recycled? Here's Your Quick List. - Greenopedia

Find a Drop Off Location - Plastic Film Recycling

BCW is shipping an order of 4000 bulk boards now too so something came in…

On 12/2/2021 at 12:44 PM, GACollectibles said:

Bring on the Bad Guys (Fireside) F/VF $60

Back Cover

  Reveal hidden contents

 

People may slab books for purely sentimental reasons. Collect what you want, and slab what you want. It’s your hobby or business, your money, and your own happiness. 

(Coming here to vent about TATs is not the same thing as denigrating others and their collecting choices.)

They were probably tired of people putting down 15x12x3 for the size when they were really supposed to put down 16x13x4...

(I always put down 15x12x3 anyway... but I've noticed I've gotten two additional postage due notices recently which is two more than I've ever gotten.) (I recalibrated my postal scale.)

Ah... too bad. I remember my brother and I used to ride our bikes along the park path along the river to the original (?) location. They kept some comics in the corner and had the rest of them stacked in heaps in a tiny unfinished closet near the back.

(Now, I know they were in terrible condition and were mostly drek... but at the time, it was a magical place.)

Small world... I used to live in Richland, WA briefly. I remember there was a small, used bookstore there that carried comic books called the Bookworm.

On 11/26/2021 at 3:54 PM, zoso99 said:

Amazing Spider-Man King Sized Annual #10

$24

I think that if you were to ask CGC who they'd prefer... you with your ultra-rare $33,000 Walkthrough copy of whatever that they charge you $1000 for versus a modern submitter who submits 40 books at a time over and over for between $900-$1500 (fast track) each time, the economics would not be in your favor. They have a payroll to maintain, rent to pay, and a business to run. Someone who submits 1000 books a month is generating at least $22,000 a month in gross revenue for them.

(They cater to everyone and would no doubt love to see the Batman #1 for the minutes it takes to grade it... but bottom line, the mass submissions probably pay the bills.)

So have we identified the cause of these case fractures and could they be caused by G-forces on the case during shipping? Or is the damage done during encapsulation?

They seem to occur near the same place on many of the images I've seen... On the opposite side of the sonic weld?

I just got this back unfortunately. The box was fine with no discernible outside damage... but the slab has a small fracture it seems which refracts the light when scanned.

Doing a large number of books at once is similar to what was done for the seeding round of the March Madness head -to-head Grading Contests. That’s how we determined #1 through 16 seeds. 
 

It’s a lot easier to handle administratively.

Usually, there are regulations and permit requirements for almost everything required for special events... even for cold food onsite vs hot food. You'd think it would be easy, but if you want to actually do it legally and take money for admissions, you have to jump through some hoops usually and it may take some time. (Plus parking/loading/unloading logistics, table and chair rentals, clean-up, garbage disposal, possible security, etc.)

Plus, it may be on you as the promoter to make sure your sellers all have legal permits to sell? (Or have them sign a contract saying so?)

The question you should really probably be asking for everything is, "Will I need a permit?"

On 11/21/2021 at 7:59 AM, joeypost said:

I would like to know as well. While we are at it, why are golf clubs seized as  restricted items? Seems fishy to me. 

Certain kinds of golf clubs are restricted items because they interfere with airplane avionics systems. (Swingless golf clubs)

Australia has been in a shipping crisis for a while. The USPS suspended service to there for several categories in September. There is a problem getting cargo flights apparently.

So it may not be specific to the CGC slab, but may be because they just can’t ship there right now in a timely fashion. 
 

Apparently, it’s also not permissible to aggregate shipments or do Assembly Orders. I don’t know if this also hurts the situation:

Assembly Order shipments are where shipments from multiple suppliers to one consignee are consolidated into a single shipment.

That's a great wall.  Do you live in an earthquake-prone area and are they kept fixed to the wall somehow?

On 11/19/2021 at 7:27 AM, ft88 said:

Minis x4 $15

 

 if still available