San Diego Comic Con Dealer report

[arexcrooke]

book transport

Maybe you can answer a question I have always had about this Dale

How do you go about shipping books from where you live to SD (or any other con that you dont drive them to)? How do you pack them, who do you ship them with (as I dont think USPS is the correct answer ) and how much does it cost roughly?

Thanks,

Arex

[CAP Freak]

Good report. I'd be interested in hearing from other dealers as well. It's interesting reading reports from "both sides of the table".

 

I agree nice report. Also, what was the name of your booth/ or location in the Con. I was wondering if I bought something from you without asking if you were a board member.

[MrBedrock]

Nice report.

 

So, do you think it was worth it? San Diego is the most expensive place to setup in the country that I know of. They have such outrageous prices. It was something like $1800 for a booth right? Do you think the sales were enough to outweigh the time, effort, expenses and cost of product to make it a profitable venture? I often wonder if the bulk of dealers make money at San Diego. I sometimes think they just go to have fun, because except for a few dealers I just don't see how a healthy profit could come from it. I hope you did well though.

 

With two booths, my set up costs about the same as one months rent at one of my stores ($4000). Travel expenses, food, employee costs, parking etc. add up to another $4000 or so. I had six employees and helpers, thus three extra hotel rooms. $4k is about the same as a months worth of store expenses. With 100,000 plus attendees, there is way more traffic than through a store in a month. But sales for me are usually at the same level as a months store sales.

If I keep my stores open for that kind of return, then I definitely think the show is worth doing. It is expensive, but nowhere else can you buy that kind of captive audience.

 

This year my sales were down a bit, but this was mostly due to the fact that my inventory was pretty weak. I really didn't have a great selection of some things that were in high demand (silver age marvel keys, high grade bronze). But our misc. mid grade gold selection was pretty strong and a bunch of cool books found new homes...(some highlights)...

Action 5 (restored) $2000

Mystery Men 3 fn+ (tear seal) $1500

Creepy Mag 1 cgc 9.6 $2060

All Winners Vol.2 #1 vf $3000

Miss Fury 1 fvf (minor resto) $800

Fast Willie Jackson 2 vf $15 (I was afraid that the guy who bought this, in his excitement, was gonna try to kiss me)

We also sold a TON of Dells. How many folks are trying to put together runs of Four Colors now?

 

The big bonus of doing this show for me is the residual business. If you are able to add new customers, find want-list books for existing customers, hoard con exclusive merchandise to take back to your store customers, turn over inventory via trades with other dealers, make contacts for new collection purchases etc., you can continue to generate sales long after the show is over.

 

[OldGuy]

Thanks for the report!

[Fazybones]

This is an excellent thread to hear some details of dealers costs, sales and

their views about the con. Thanks for the information guys and glad to hear you

had successful conventions. It must be a ton of work and logistics even if you make a tidy profit.

 

Thanks again and maybe one year I can make it.

fay

[chrisco37]

 

I still had multiple requests for Marvel Spotlight #5 in high grade. Also, Am Spidey #300. Sold multiple GL #76s in 7.0 to 8.0 range. Seems like mostly the usual suspects to me. Books keep coming to me that I sold as well....

Batman #232, 227(sold 2 232 (8.0 raw 225, cgc 9.4 for 750.00 to a dealer)

Amazing Spider-man #129(raw 9.2 450.00)

Amazing Spider-man #121(raw 8.5 225.00)

Am Spidey #31(8.0 260.00)

Ghost Rider 1 ( sold 2 9.0, 9.2)

X-Men #3,4 (8.0 raw , 900.00 each)

All Star seemed like a hot title, as lots of people were asking.

As far as a genre, pre-code was obviously great for me. So was GGA. So was high grade Marvel.

 

 

Right on. Thanks Dale. Usual suspects; keys and classic covers always rule the roost.

 

Ah, the 9.4 Bats #232 that I person_without_enough_empathyed about in my Heroes Report sold. For what I said it was "worth". Beautiful****

 

 

****Side note: I picture myself as George at the Soup Nazi booth looking in the bag saying "Breadsticks...beautiful". Waiting for Dale to respond, "You're pushing your luck, little man." (Not saying Dale is the Soup Nazi! I'm saying all this in good fun (thumbs u)

[sckao]

 

Hi Dale,

 

I was the guy who picked up the 1/3 shortbox of World's Finests (Super-Sons) and the Romance comics on Friday. Thanks for helping me finish the main Super-Sons run which was my mini-guest at SDCC.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't see any Elseworlds 80-Page Giants (1999) and I've since found out that it was RECALLED by DC and that there are only European distributed copies around (which makes each about a $200 book.) I had remembered that happening in 1999 but hadn't known that it contained the last Super-Sons story by Haney.

 

 

 

 

[Dale Roberts]

Cool, that is a great run of books from the 70s. I loved those stories when I was a kid, probably haven't read some of them in a very long time.

 

I forgot who asked up the thread, but I was booth 737. Greggy has some pics of my booth in his con thread.

[Foolkiller]

Were there any new collections unveiled? Wasn't there a dealer in Cali claiming he had uncovered an OO collection or something?

[Sharkey]

Excellent thread!!! (thumbs u

 

Thanks for posting. This to me is as interesting as the attendee reports. Would be cool if more dealers would post their sales reports. Kind of like an Overstreet "Market Report" thing, except current.

 

And Dale already has had a non-attendee say "hmm, got any ___". Good for business.

[sckao]

Were there any new collections unveiled? Wasn't there a dealer in Cali claiming he had uncovered an OO collection or something?

 

Are you talking about Heroes and the Marin County Collection? (I may have not gotten the name of the collection correctly.)

 

As for the dealers in this thread, did you have any problems with theft? I know Chuck Rozanski and his team nabbed two shoplifters according to his Con Reports.

 

I heard from Bunky Brothers that they experienced some losses (Hulk 181, etc.)

 

 

 

 

[Foolkiller]

I hate the shoplifters... btw, this was an excellent market report and i wish we saw more like Dale's.

[MrBedrock]

I heard from Bunky Brothers that they experienced some losses (Hulk 181, etc.)

 

I was set up across the isle from Brian and Jerry (The Bunky Bros.).

They were busy, busy , busy. But any losses they might have incurred (and I hope they were small) were more than made up for by the original art buy Brian made. Three, count 'em, Three complete Bob Powell Cave Girl stories, all from the same issue. One Thunda story short of the entire book (I think it was issue #14). BEAUTIFUL!

 

Chuck's booth was so packed at times that I don't doubt he had some theft issues. On Preview night he had a kid over with security. A book had tried to jump into this kid's book bag and he couldn't understand how it got there. He meant to pay for it. I don't think I have heard that much begging and pleading for mercy since, well, ever! Turns out the kid's dad was a navy guy. Probably a whoopin' in that boys future. You can't beat the traffic at Comic-Con, but sometimes you can have too much. If it gets really hard to watch your stuff someone will surely take advantage.

 

We didn't have any problems with theft that I know of. But we had so many people helping out that most of the time there were more Bedrock staff watching then there were people shopping! We also recently had a sizable theft in one of our stores so it has been an issue we are very cognizant of.

[GACollectibles]

Did Cliff(the guy with Steve Ritter) nab the Flyin' Jenny #2?

[Foolkiller]

I think this is key -- having enough staff to watch the booth... I know Ted VanLiew has made a concerted effort to watch more carefully... the people who steal at these shows just make me shake my head... they're surrounded by super heroes yet still motivated by greed or whatever thrill to take that $20 trade and not pay for it.

[Dale Roberts]

Did Cliff(the guy with Steve Ritter) nab the Flyin' Jenny #2?

 

I am not sure who bought it, but I know it wasn't Cliff. Maybe Al. That is a great Baker cover and unacclaimed. I have never heard anyone mention that book.

[AtlasT]

What condition were the Venus books, and do you have any others?

[Dale Roberts]

I am pretty sure I did not lose anything at the show. Possible that I might have lost a cheap Bronze age book or two, because we don't watch that as closely. If someone needs to steal an 8 - 10.00 comic, they need it worse than I do. I lost a few books at Heroes Con (first time there, nice X-Men in the 20s, probably 4 or 5 at 100 - 150.00 a pop). Historically, MegaCon is worst, followed by San Diego and maybe NY. Had a guy last year that stole a couple of Supermans from me, and tried to sell them to Al, and we busted his little punk rear end.

[Dale Roberts]

All over the place on the Venus issues, #17 and 18 were decent grades, like 5.0 range, #19 was a rag, #14 doesn't ring a bell with me. Seems like I still have a #12, but I am not sure. Check me out at Chicago.

[Fazybones]

That's disgusting that some people can always find a way to ruin everything

and stealing comic books or anything for that matter makes me sick.

 

I've talked to Ted via e-mail and he's had a few big thefts in the past

and a few of the books I had ordered once he couldn't find them and had

no records or recalled selling them. What a shame dealers have to hire

staff to watch those lowlifes.