wondercon report

[OldGuy]

'House brought 2 things to the show. Alot of Trades and alot of TOS #49 he had 8-9 copies.

 

TOS #49 doubled in price from last years OS to this years. Some of us knew this would happen, but 'House actually did something about it.

[LordRahl]

Unfortunately Ron still hasn't recovered his art portfolio. He does always have some killer books and his prices are more than fair. He brought over an Aquaman #1 a couple of months ago that was absolutely stunning. It graded out as a 9.6 What an awesome book, but it looked much better raw than in the slab. You really couldn't appreciate how glossy it was in the slab.

[FFB]

Unfortunately Ron still hasn't recovered his art portfolio. He does always have some killer books and his prices are more than fair. He brought over an Aquaman #1 a couple of months ago that was absolutely stunning. It graded out as a 9.6 What an awesome book, but it looked much better raw than in the slab. You really couldn't appreciate how glossy it was in the slab.

 

What happened to you? You were supposed to attend the dinner.

[jbud73]

Jbud, great report. I'm at work now but later on today I'll be writing another long report of my experiences at Wondercon and the Forum dinner. I'm still suffering from both the "con-buzz" as well as a lack of sleep so I'm kinda' walkin' around like a zombie. But My report later on will be quite long.

 

I did want to say now that I really lucked out at the con on Friday. I was right there at the open with nothing but Bronze DC horror on my brain. Just by luck the Heroes booth was the first large dealer where I did some serious buying, just about 30 minutes into the show. I bought around 25-30 of those great HOM and HOS books and I feel sorry for anyone that had to follow me at that booth looking for the same books. And all at half price of what they listed at pretty close to FMV, not bad. The books I brought to the dinner on Saturday were from a second run through and not the primo stuff I bought Friday. Later on today I'll list in my report all the DC bronze horror books that I aquired. -------Sid

 

Yes I probably had to rummage all weekend for the run of HOM books that were at Heros on Friday, but I got my fair share of high grade HOM and I happen to know who the dealers were that cherry picked the real nice stuff on Thursday, we chatted a bit and some of those books may still be mine in the end.

 

I wasn't aware of a standing order that what is said at the dinner stays at the dinners. The dinner was a free for all - and really the food and the alcohol kinda blurs all the discussion from my memory. But I will state again that the people at that table knew their stuff - it was kind of like taking the top 10 threads of the past year and throwing out all the insults and petty agendas, what was left over was some amazing discussion.

 

Not to put ppl on the spot but the lead discussion for clean and press involved Pov and Garth, I argued the lack of notations on the label with Steve and I know that Supa was on this as well. Scott / FFB got into it with respect to Wizard first. I was to far removed to hear the Lighthouse Steve et al converastion that involved Plitch and others.

 

As far as label notation after the discussion I have concluded that I do not agree with the motivation behind, or the policy in general that CGC has adopted for label notation, or lack thereof. It is dealer driven and does a disservice to the collector. I do appreciate the honesty and candour that Steve showed with respect to answering my questions - he is in that respect a standup guy.

[supapimp]

 

mr. beerbohm and a ASM Ann 2 in NM-9.2 that FFB bought.

 

random pics at the WC

 

this couple changed costume's six times on sunday, this was the best one

 

gotta love the star wars fanboys

[OldGuy]

 

[jimm94]

Indeed, 'House's hoard of TOS # 49's was very impressive in person. He even had them arranged from top row to bottom, left to right, in order of condition. I hope he sold a bunch of them!

[jbud73]

The TOS's aside, for my money the best book on that rack was the Conan #1. A great book at a great price. I'm not in the market yet, but I'll know who to hit up when I am.

 

[OldGuy]

for my money the best book on that rack was the Conan #1. A great book at a great price.

 

What grade and how much?

[supapimp]

it wasn't in NM, maybe a FN.

[jbud73]

I didnt really look at the entire defects just pulled it for a quick glance however for a $100 bucks it had nice gloss and was a pretty solid book. If it was true HG "house woulda had it in a slab, but compared to the new CGC 9.9s and 10.0s it just stood out as it was the cheapest book on the rack.

 

Hey Supa thanks again for watching my horde when I got that awesome Yeates sketch.

[supapimp]

anytime!

[FFB]

I almost forgot to mention my chat with Mr. Beerbohm -- one of the high points of the Con for me.

 

I got to meet Bob Beerbohm on Thursday evening as he was setting up and as I was walking around to check out the early stock. A nicer guy you will not meet. For those of you who don't already know this, Bob is the guy who co-writes the historical sections (including intros for the Victorian Age, Platinum Age, and Modern age sections of the Overstreet guide). Most of the Victorian age comics depicted there are his personal copies, which tend to be one of perhaps 2 to 5 existing copies.

 

I chatted with Bob for about 45 minutes to an hour on Thursday as he showed me his stuff. He told me about the convention when the Reilly/San Francisco collection turned up and what that was like. He showed me his briefcase full of Victorian Age comics and explained why these rightfully should be considered "comic books" too, despite the lack of word balloons.

 

He then sold me an Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 in NM- with white pages, seen below. What a great guy. Even if I hadn't purchased a single book from him, it would have been one of the high points of the Con for me.

 

Speaking of nice dealers -- I met Harley Yee this weekend. He is also a very nice guy with some sweet books. But he has the WEIRDEST grading scale I've ever seen! He doesn't use PR-MT. He uses A through H, where H is Mint and A is Poor. 1 means "minus" and 2 means "plus." So a G2 means "NM+," not "Good 2.0" like it does on the CGC label or in the Overstreet Grading Guide. Aside from this peculiar way of grading books, Harley's set up was absolutely first rate for a silver and bronze collector like me. He had some nice looking GA stuff too, but I don't collect it and can't judge the quality of his selections for that genre.

 

mr. beerbohm and a ASM Ann 2 in NM-9.2 that FFB bought.

[FFB]

Oh yes, and thanks to Supa for going to tell Bob B. not to sell the ASM Annual #2 to anyone else before I could get there on Friday!!!! Jimm94 and I talked at dinner about how we had both seen books we wanted, walked away from them, then sweated all night and the next day until we could get back there and buy them before someone else snapped them up. (Jim's was the FF#48.) Thanks also to Mike and Supa for keeping Liz occupied while I shopped for books and chatted with the other guys. She really enjoyed meeting you guys, and now you've made it that much easier for me to convince her to come to San Diego!

 

anytime!

[PedigreeMan]

I got to meet Bob Beerbohm on Thursday evening as he was setting up and as I was walking around to check out the early stock. A nicer guy you will not meet.

 

I don't think I've ever heard one negative thing about Bob. And I have to believe that if I did I would automatically assume that person was lying. The nicest guy in the business, hands down. Plus his knowledge of the comic book business is encyclopedic!

 

Alan

[Aces]

 

That's an FF 2 I see!

Low grade?

[garthgantu]

Excellent post!!!! This is the first post I've seen that addressed the dinner issues and discussions.

 

It seemed that everyone has danced around it thus far. I was expecting a verbatim transcript of the entire dinner/discussion/press conference/debriefing from someone by now, given the profuse outflow of "verbal diahrrhea" coming from the Wizard First thread It's like pulling teeth... unless everyone attending is mot allowed to talk about it? "what happens at CGC dinner, stays at CGC dinner"

 

 

Wonderful experience jbud and thank you very much for sharing.

 

Sorry I haven't posted any comments to this thread previously. I have answers from Steve B. to the "tough questions" he invited me to toss at him at the dinner, and am planning to run that Q&A by Steve, per his request, via PM and phone over the next 24-48 hours. Once that's done, I'll post the responses, along with some other nuggets that came from Paul L. and CGC, which I suspect were lost in the general drunkenness at the table.

 

Geat to meet everyone at the dinner, good to see Jbud again, great fun playing basketball on Sun. with QualityComix over in Berzerkeley, and let's do it again in no more than 12 months!

[supapimp]

SUPAlow grade, i think it was only $200.

[fantastic_four]

Speaking of nice dealers -- I met Harley Yee this weekend. He is also a very nice guy with some sweet books. But he has the WEIRDEST grading scale I've ever seen! He doesn't use PR-MT. He uses A through H, where H is Mint and A is Poor. 1 means "minus" and 2 means "plus." So a G2 means "NM+," not "Good 2.0" like it does on the CGC label or in the Overstreet Grading Guide.

 

When the heck did he start doing this? I never saw those designations on his book last time I looked over his stock about two years ago, and he lists standard Overstreet grades (NM etc) in his catalog and his ebay auctions.

[Aces]

SUPAlow grade, i think it was only $200.

 

Just what I was looking for!

 

A Good/Good- range.

Can you get me in contact with the dealer?