2/15 Philadelphia Comic Con Report

[Foolkiller]

I feel like I could just cut and paste last month's report into this month's report because the Philly show often never changes.

 

As I walked the floor, I pretty much saw the same dealers you always see there... which is in some ways good, but in some ways bad. Mad Cow comics was there with a number of Journey into Mysterys all the mid-low grade range, but not priced too rediculously. Most of his box stock was 30% off which was nice... but unfortunatley, I didn't find all that many deals in the boxes. I spoke to Al Stoltz for awhile who had some interesting comments about the marketplace and the Overstreet guide in general. Ended up buying a Journey Into Mystery Annual #1 from him that was pretty solid. Another guy bought a pretty nice stack of books from him, but most of them seemed like mid grade tales of suspense and then some other key books. He spent about $500, which was a good sale for one customer at this show. Reportedly, Al has done well at this show in the past.

 

Gary Platt was there and he had a nice run of Bat-books. Most of the books from the silver/70s were probably an average of about a VF and the other earlier 50s/silver were VG/F to Fine+ ... pretty nice eye appeal on all the books as well.

 

Koop was also there, but I didn't spend a lot of time looking since I had spent so much time looking at Al's stuff. I rarely check out the other dealers, and only briefly looked at John's (from Harrisburg ) inventory. Some nice stuff, but nothing that blew me away. It's generally all mid grade with him anyway, but occasionally, you can dig out a nice piece cheap. There's another dealer there with a huge display with outrageous prices and fairly inconsistent grading... can't remember the name, but I've seen this guy's stickers elsewhere and disappointed customers later trying to shop his books.

 

I saw one guy who had a fairly nice stack of golden age books he was looking to trade. For such a young guy, I thought he had a fairly good understanding of the gold books and an impressive little run of them. Another guy (who I see often) was shopping some Marvel silver, but again, all nice books, but nothing unusual or special.

 

All in all the show was fairly crowded, and I enjoyed myself. But... many local shows bring out the guys who have $100 and want 50 books (as Al noted to me and I agree) so many times I don't expect to find anything of particularly high grade. That's not what the Philly show is about. You also would have a difficult time selling a lot of high grade there I imagine because the room doesn't have a lot of customers of that type. There are some... but probably too few. Best thing about the Philly show? great conversations with the dealers, it's always a show where I get a chance to talk to the dealers.

[drbanner]

I spoke to Al Stoltz for awhile who had some interesting comments about the marketplace and the Overstreet guide in general.

 

 

Thanks for the report!!