• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Wizard World Chicago Dealer report

Started by Dale Roberts,

50 posts in this topic

Dale Roberts

Dale Roberts

Posted
Posted

Holy Cow! What a month of travel, selling comics, buying comics, and meeting people! I am flat out exhausted (partly because of staying up too late playing cards), but mostly due to San Diego and Chicago and everything that goes with it. Will try to throw some sort of comprehensible report together for you guys though.

 

Wizard Chicago was a big success again, and a pretty good show for me, though no where near as good as San Diego. The crowds seemed bigger than the past few years to me. I got the idea that cash was not flowing as freely at Chicago as on the West Coast though. I had a LOT of credit card sales at Chicago a big percentage. Still a pretty decent show for the old book guys(maybe I should state that differently based on the number of gray hairs I am seeing on my head), but I think almost all of the new book guys had considerably down years. I will comment (maybe rant, if Bob doesn't have total claim on it) more on this later.

 

Set up on Weds went well, but not many people around with open booths. Harley and I roamed the hall, making a few purchases and missing a few, but mostly people set up and left. Not much in sales on Weds.

 

Thursday started off pretty well and I bought a ton of books. Actually bought a ton of books the entire show, but I will address that later. Once again, only a few pre show sales, mostly to regulars and a couple of dealers. About 4:00, preview night starts. Have several guys run by the booth quickly to see what I have. Also see several of my regular customers who always run by. Besides that, not really a lot going on. Seemed like mostly people picking up exclusives from the publisher's booths. After the show, Harley, Ron, Jason, Nelson, and myself went to Harry Caray's and had a great meal. A bit pricy, but everything was very good and the service was impeccable. After that, we went back and played some dealer's choice poker with a few other dealer until about midnight.

 

Friday was probably my busiest day of the show. This is the day that most of the serious collectors try to get around and pick up books before they all get picked over. Sold some very nice stuff and met several of the forumites(Rhino, Flying Donut, thewatcher and many others). After the con, went with Nelson to a little diner, had a pretty decent meal(quickly) and headed to the poker game to set everything up. I think we had 43 players this year and a very happy couple of winners(they split 1st and 2nd place money). Lots of fun and quite an interesting group including Ricky Evans, me, Harley, Nelson, Ed & Lon Heritage, foolkiller, John Verzyl, Baschara, Joe V, Gary K, and lots of other guys(sorry, too many to list everyone not to mention that I am too tired to think that hard). All in all a great night.

 

Saturday was packed and was very busy for the 1st half of the day with a lull in the middle and a frenzy for the last couple of hours. Sold a couple of pretty big books and picked up some nice stuff as well. Probably more people walking around trying to sell books than I have seen in a while. After the con, I was wiped out, and I and a couple of friends went to Giordano's for a quick meal.

 

Sunday had a pretty decent crowd, even tho probably the smallest of the full days. Sales were spotty all day long. Sit for a half hour, sell some books, sit for a half hour, sell some more books. Fortunately had a few pretty good sales so it worked out. Load out was the typical Chicago mess. (I might rant a little on this too).

 

All in all, a very good show with lots of sales, and lots of purchases. I have a little over 3 weeks to recover before Baltimore, so may do a little ebay stuff, a little comiclink stuff and then the show will be here.

Notable sales

Eerie #15

Web of Mystery #17

Strange Tales #11, 30

Dynamite #7

Vault of Horror #31

Adventures into Terror #26

Fight Comics #23, 25

Jo-Jo #11 (great cover)

Kaanga #4

Marvel Mystery #86

Harvey Hits Tim Tylers Jungle Terror

Out of the Shadows #7

Strange Fantasy #9 (Ditko)

Strange Fantasy #5 (1st Ditko)

Tomb of Terror #14

This Mag is Haunted #14

Superboy #174 cgc 9.4

Dr Solar #11

Batman #251

Batman #70, 93, 222

Turok #91

Adventure #178, 207

Lone Ranger #17

Tales from the Crypt #20 (#1)

Sea Hunt #7

Hulk #181

Unseen #13

World's Finest #91

Tales from the Crypt #23, 46

Am Spidey #203 CGC 9.6

FF #197 cgc 9.6

Strange Suspense Stories #20

Journey into Mystery #124 cgc 9.4

Amazing Spider-man 3 (raw 8.0/8.5)

Hero for Hire #1

DC 100 Page SS #4

Lois Lane #22, 23

Jimmy Olsen #19

Adventure #285, 288, 289

Adventure #106, 127, 138, 175, 208

Superman #102

Action #104

Am Spidey #121 (9.2 raw 450.00), #129 (9.0 raw 450.00)

Cow Puncher #7

FF #49

Am Spidey #33, 87

Fight Comics #29

Adventure #166

Young Allies #13

Planet #70

Blackhawk #24

Tales of Asgard #1 CGC 9.4

INC HULK #210, 218, 235, 246 all CGC 9.4, $65, $65, $50, $50)

Ms Marvel #7, 19 both CGC 9.4 ($50 ea)

Iron Man #103 cgc 9.4 ($60)

Warlock #4 cgc 9.4 $75, #6 cgc 9.6 ($95), #13 cgc 9.4 ($75)

Captain Marvel #2 cgc 9.6 ($275), #24 cgc 9.4 ($110), #29 cgc 9.6 ($185)

Ms Marvel #15 cgc 9.8 $125

Thunder Agents #3 cgc 9.0 175.00

Dr Strange #178 cgc 9.4 ($175)

Jungle Action #19 (klan cover) cgc 9.4 $65

Sub Mariner #30 cgc 9.4 $125

Am Spidey #214 cgc 9.6 $75

GL #88 cgc 9.4

Black Hood #15

Mary Marvel #21

Catman #29

Saddle Romances #5,6

also sold a couple of GA shadow comics to Harley, but I can't remember the numbers. Also tons of Silver and Bronze high grade box books. May have left some stuff out that I can add later. I will also add a list of purchases when I get them processed.

 

Getting ready to go to a Hootie concert, so gotta cut this a little short. Will add a couple of rants and the purchase list later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Dale Roberts

Dale Roberts

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Notable purchases

 

- All-Select #1 - apparent 5.0 with only a tiny piece of tape on interior of spine at staple, very nice eye appeal and a great book

 

- True Crime #5 (classic " RAT" cover)

 

- Stars and Stripes #2,3,4 (very tough centaurs with Amazing Man, all in nice shape)

 

- X-Men #1 CGC 7.0

 

- Amazing Spider-man #3,4,17,32,33, 98 all in high grade

 

- X-Men #2,7 high grade

 

- Showcase #11 in VF+

 

- a big stack of around 40 ECs, including some pre-trends and the extremely rare Shock Illustrated #3 (not sure what I am going to do with that one yet). Also a pretty copy of Weird Fantasy #21 (Frazetta Williamson cover)

 

- several early Avengers issues including a nice #5, #8, #9, and #13

 

- Batman #179, 189, 222, and several others from that range

 

- a nice stack of about 40 - 50 high grade DC War books, mostly Our Army at War

 

- about 25 high grade Strange Adventures in the #3 - 50 range

 

- a short box of VFish of silver age World's Finest and Superman

 

- about 25 random Pre-Code horror comics

 

- about 8 high grade Pre Hero Atlas issues

 

- some Tomahawks, including #2, 7, and some of the Neal Adams covers

 

- a large group(2 plus boxes) of 70s horror mags(Warrens, Skywalds, Marvels) all in high grade

 

- lots of misc DC Silver Age, including Flashes, Adventures, Supermans, Batmans, Green Lanterns, and Detectives

 

- and about a mag box of Silver Age Marvels including Thor #165, 166, Amazing Spideys, Avengers, Captain Marvels, and lots of misc.

 

- finally a few random golden age comics (Fiction House, DC, Fox)

 

All in all, a very good show for buying, and lots of new inventory going into the fall.

 

As I said earlier, I do have a couple of rants about the convention. I have a good friend that deals strictly in modern era books, and his show was down this year. I also talked to probably 4 other large modern book dealers and the con was really off for them as well, in fact they told me all of the Wizard shows are down for them. This is a trend I see with Wizard Cons in general. All of the publishers have so many Convention exclusives that it really sucks a ton of money out of the room. Also, the Wizard VIP passes are just ridiculous. I am guessing they probably sell around 1500 of the 150.00 VIP packages, a bunch of the smaller packages, and a few of the bigger ones. For these glorious packages, attendees get a group of junk that includes variant covers, busts, and other assorted trash that seems cool, but all of which could be bought on Ebay in about a month for 50.00. It is a completely effective marketing tool by Wizard which leave the customer with product which is perceived as rare, but is basically worthless product.

 

Also, here is a rant on load out.....Wizard should just get out of the way and let the dealers do their thing. Every year they insist of making us get passes, lineup, tell us where to park, etc. Most of the con dealers do this many times a year and I guarantee that most want to get out of the convention as quickly as possible. Just get out of the way, let us work, and we will be gone......whewwww, I needed that.

 

Anyway, that pretty well sums up the show for me. Hope everyone had a great time and got some cool stuff.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Fazybones

Fazybones

Posted
Posted

 

 

 

 

 

- a nice stack of about 40 - 50 high grade DC War books, mostly Our Army at War

 

Mr. Roberts would it be privileged information to know where those are going

up for sale or do you already have a customer. Will some wind up on your

e-bay site if you don't mind me asking.

 

Thanks in advance and thanks for the great reports,

Fay :foryou:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
qualitycomix

qualitycomix

Posted
Posted

 

 

 

 

- a nice stack of about 40 - 50 high grade DC War books, mostly Our Army at War

 

Mr. Roberts would it be privileged information to know where those are going

up for sale or do you already have a customer. Will some wind up on your

e-bay site if you don't mind me asking.

 

Thanks in advance and thanks for the great reports,

Fay :foryou:

 

I got dibs Fay. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Fazybones

Fazybones

Posted
Posted

 

 

 

 

- a nice stack of about 40 - 50 high grade DC War books, mostly Our Army at War

 

Mr. Roberts would it be privileged information to know where those are going

up for sale or do you already have a customer. Will some wind up on your

e-bay site if you don't mind me asking.

 

Thanks in advance and thanks for the great reports,

Fay :foryou:

 

I got dibs Fay. :)

 

:sumo: I've been gaining weight and seeing your recent pictures I think I could

wrestle you for them. (only kidding of course - about the weight!!) You take the

low numbers and I'll take the higher numbers. :foryou:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
qualitycomix

qualitycomix

Posted
Posted
I would basically challenge him to a drinking contest.

 

After seeing what a lightweight he was at the Chicago forum dinner I think you would get them all lol

 

That tequila wasn't as smooth as Roy said it was. ugh.

 

If I'm a lightweight, then you're a bantamweight. :baiting:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Go to topic listing