Bumble Kitty

What a fantastic convention! A big thank you to Terry for sponsoring it! A big hello to Dr. Love, Inaflash, Silver, Sacentaur, TriColorBrian, RickNeatStuff, RareHighGrade, MusterMark, dem1138 and a few others I can't remember at the moment. I was so busy talking and gabbing and doing the "show and tell" that the day almost seems like a blur. I bought a few books and made many notes of others. I didn't even get to visit every dealer's table. I also wanted to ask Robot Man a few things, but I lost track of time. Oh well, I guess I have to do it on the boards. The Good Stuff: The show has a wide variety of books, reasonable ticket prices, free parking, nice weather, clean venue and good eateries within a 10 minute drive. For me, it is also fun to talk about kitchen remodels with other boardies. The Bad Stuff: Quite a few attendees had to wait in long lines to get in. Also, the line for CGC was quite long and slow. If attendees had bought a pre-sale ticket, you entered any time you wanted, waited inside in an air conditioned waiting room and entered the dealers room at 9:15 AM. For CGC, it really helps to do the paperwork ahead of time. It took me no time to drop off my books with two copies of the packing slip. Others spent considerable amount of time using a tablet type of device to slowly enter their information. Here are a few shots of the day:

There is a Marie Callender's about 10 minutes west of the convention. For some reason, it is not crowded at lunch time. But for dinner, there is usually a wait for a table. There are some fast food eateries south of the con (just north of the 91 freeway). There is a Polly's Pies and a Mimi's Cafe south of the Con, but they are packed for lunch.

What a great time I had! Thank you to shortboxed for setting up the event and a big thank you to Terry for sponsoring the Con and giving your OK to Preview night. It was more of a gabfest, with some eating and drinking (Foolkiller...) and a few books changing hands. I can't wait until tomorrow. For those who couldn't make it, here are some pics to give you an idea of what it looked like. I took them at 3 PM. A lot of folks didn't arrive till a bit later. By then, I couldn't leave my selling area because it was a little busy.

OK, another PGX book. I cracked it out of a PGX 5.5 holder. I graded it as a 4.0. This is not too surprising when your mom yells at you to ... ok, I won't mock those guys. So I had it pressed and it came back as...

This book originally was in a PGX 7.0 holder. I cracked it out and I graded it as a 5.5. This was disappointing, but not too much of a surprise, considering...( ). At least I didn't pay too much for it back then. So I sent it off for a press prior to grading.

I received a small batch of books today. I was very happy with the grade on this book:

The wife and I had lunch in Old Town Orange on Sunday. I walked over to Big Red Comics and I took this picture.

I frequent Old Town Orange from time to time. Here's another reason to go!

Here's a favorite of mine:

Forgot about this one, until I showed a fellow boardie a box of Quality's...

I would gloat, but there is no emoji for that.

This just came in today. I tried to sell it raw at SDCC this year and I had no takers. I even received one disparaging remark about the book. I had graded it as VG. So I submitted it for grading (straight sub, no pressing) and I braced for a grade of 3.0 to 3.5, because CGC had been hard on my last few submits. Plus I had no interest from others in the book. So look what CGC thought...

My bank account seems to die even if I don't give in to the Baker fever!

I hope that doesn't mean I'm getting a fever.

I bought this one a while back. It was one of those times where I was so excited to buy it that I overlooked some obvious defects. So prior to slabbing, my heart sank when I looked at the back cover. I figured it would get a 5.0, but CGC really hammered it. Oh well, the nicest 4.5 I have ever seen.

Here's another one that came back from CGC earlier this year. I bought it from a national dealer (many years ago) who graded it as VF+. On receipt, I figured it was closer to F/VF, because of the back cover. Just prior to slabbing, I really looked for defects and I felt CGC would give it a 6.5.

...and one more...

Here are a few Bakers that came back in the last month:

Thank you Stan. You made my childhood memorable by introducing me to the Marvel universe.