Conventions - What I Learned!

[sfilosa]

I finally made it to MegaCon a few weeks ago and also went to a local convention here in South Florida yesterday.

 

Here's what I learned and would like to know other collectors opinions (especially those that go to other conventions).

 

1) Mid to late Silver-Age / Bronze-Age / Modern books are in ABUNDANCE in grades of VF (maybe VF+) and lower. Even at a local convention which might only have 5-10 real comic dealers, other than a few keys issues, pretty much any book you wanted you could find (and usually well below guide). Also any Marvel book (even the FF #1, AF #15, etc) is available in low grade / restored.

 

2) True NM Silver-Age and worthy Bronze-Age books (i.e.keys, special artist, etc.) are ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to find. I spent five hours looking through box after box, and came away with just three books that I thought were NM. Even at MegaCon, I did not see ONE NM Silver-Age book that wasn't slabbed. Obviously, I didn't see every book, but when I asked Graham Cracker Comics if they had any unslabbed VERY HIGH GRADE early Silver-Age books (9.0 or better), they said NO.

 

3) CGC books at shows tend to be lower grade than what is available on eBay. I didn't find one CGC book at MegaCon that I wanted to even consider making a deal for, yet I usually can find 5-10 books on eBay in any given week that I'm interested in (but I might only win one or two).

 

 

Anyone have the same experiences or are other shows much better.

[MK Ultra]

I almost went to the Pompano con, was it worth it?

 

I haven't been to one in ages, and I've only been to a couple back in the early/mid 80's. I would hazard a guess that any high grade CGC book is put on ebay in case they hit the lottery and it generates a bidding war. They type of prices some books realize on there are much higher than any dealer could ask for with a straight face. Also, any high grade book would be graded for the same reason. They're going to generate more slabbed and ebayed.

[jbud73]

Well I'll tackle this one for a bit. The number one reason I go to cons (about 2 a year) is to see the books man !!!! We all bemoan the bad grading the shipping profiteers the suspect auctions the bad scans the feedback debacle the Ebay quality and service whatever they are called insufficiently_thoughtful_persons (actually this would be a dream job as they dont do anything). The credit card surcharges, as in comiclink, the Heritage Juice, the Bump the lack of transparency.

 

Well at a Comic Con its all there is 4 color/black and white. The smell, the ability to hold em in hand, or in a plastic coffin. I mean I can understand the frustration if stuff you are after is not showing up at the shows. For all the good that ebay has done eliminating the middle man and I think making a collectors collection more valuable - with more opportunities to sell, there is something to be said for flipping through boxes and bins looking for that special book.

 

I can also see that its getting harder and harder to find the books, but I still love looking at the covers and discovering books Ive never seen before. I can go through more books in 20 minutes that I could click up in 20 days through the net. So maybe they arent what they used ot be but, with the ever depleting stock of back issues in comic stores, the only vestige of my youth is going to the con and seeing / examing all those books. Worth the price of admission every time.

[shiverbones]

Well, i think if you are looking for anything obscure you are not going to find it no matter the grade. Case in point, the last wizard world east i went to, my goal was nice copies of Skywald horror Mags & Eerie pubs. horror mags (not to be confused with Warren's eerie). I searched every table and came back with about 7 skywalds & 6 eerie's. With the skywalds i left about 7 or 8 that were too beat. Out of the 50 some they printed i only saw about 15, and maybe 10 of them were different issues. i bought every single eerie pub. mag in the room. They printed hundreds of different issues, i found 6. Some are only 20 years old, no dice on any of those. If you are looking for super hero i think your statement is pretty true, but once you hit horror, war, humor, etc, its a different situation.