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Whirlwind Buying (some stories to follow)

Started by Foolkiller,

172 posts in this topic

scooter99

scooter99

Posted
Posted
Thought I'd share the last 10 days of buying in a story... but I'll write it out tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some of the books I picked up just today. Very excited.

 

RecentBuys.jpg

 

(worship):o(worship)

 

Holy mackeral! Awaiting the story tomorrow.

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COI

COI

Posted
Posted
I officially give up on comic collecting. What the _____ am I doing wrong here? Can someone tell me what kind of career I need to get into?

 

Go to law school, med school or make a killing in the stock market? (shrug)

...and don't get married... :gossip:

 

That's good advice, generally. Or so I've been told. :grin:

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COI

COI

Posted
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is the story include winning the lottery?

 

With this build-up, it better be far more interesting...like seizing an African country in a bloody 10-day coup.

 

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chrisco37

chrisco37

Posted
Posted
Thought I'd share the last 10 days of buying in a story... but I'll write it out tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some of the books I picked up just today. Very excited.

 

RecentBuys.jpg

 

Nice! Where are the keys though? :insane:

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Ogami

Ogami

Posted
Posted
is the story include winning the lottery?

 

With this build-up, it better be far more interesting...like seizing an African country in a bloody 10-day coup.

 

bloody 10 day coups :cloud9:

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arexcrooke

arexcrooke

Posted
Posted
Thought I'd share the last 10 days of buying in a story... but I'll write it out tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some of the books I picked up just today. Very excited.

 

RecentBuys.jpg

 

all the good DC's must be under the covers

Very true

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Foolkiller

Foolkiller

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Just so you don't think I neglected DCs... i did pick up the Batman 121 CGC 8.0 on the Link... looked like a sharp 8.0 of a tough semi-key.

 

Anyway, several folks have asked me where I generally am able to come up with my books... so I thought I'd take people through a "buying trip". If you're reading this and don't know, I'm a lawyer but I typically spend about 2/3s to 3/4s of my year on the road. During that time, I try to make the rounds to major dealers, comic book stores, private collector appointment collectors and leads that I am given an opportunity to explore. As you can imagine, some turn out to be great buys, others only marginal, and some, complete busts.

 

When I used to go out to do buying, I was literally picking up anything I could get my hands on that I either thought that I wanted to fill in some gaps with or, that I could one day flip. Most of those "one day I'll flip it" became books that sat in boxes and eventually made their way towards Christmas threads as I simply didn't have time to ever get to them and decided in many cases to take smaller gains rather than try to hold out for more moola.

 

As travel increased and my desire to ratchet up my spending and go after "bigger books" I started looking for keys, higher grade and "significant books". I started buying collections, big pieces and other kinds of material. One problem that I've run into is that while I have a "core collection" and stuff that I generally hang onto, I haven't been able to find the time to process stuff as quickly as I like. The difference is now I don't mind having the stuff because it's lower volume.

 

Generally, I have to spend time out on the road, meeting with experts, physicians, clients, taking depos, arguing motions/hearings or collecting information, and that provides the opportunity to visit areas of the country I'd never go to. It's really opened up some fantastic opportunities, and I've been very lucky.

 

The month of June was a really big buying month, and I won't go over everything (why I'm confining myself to the last 10 days or so). June essentially started with this pickup from Blazing Bob Storms that I was very excited about at WW Philly. This was obviously for my collection, not for resale:

 

hulk1cgc70.jpg

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Foolkiller

Foolkiller

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About 12 days ago or so, I had to visit a surgeon in Connecticut. I was going to have to drive because there were no direct flights I could find to where I needed to go and by the time I was switching etc. it didn't make any sense. The surgeon had scheduled the meeting for the evening, and it would take about 5 1/2 hours to drive to where I needed to go. Woke up early in the morning and plotted out three stores I wanted to visit in New York state and Connecticut.

 

Generally, I'm looking for anyone who carries vintage stuff, even if it's not a lot, from time to time, because they generally get some good stuff in. I think you can generally tell even from google reviews or a brief description of the place whether they get in back issues. And there's always a chance they won't have anything that you want to buy, which is part of the risk by stopping.

 

However, I stopped in a store in New York which had about 5 short boxes of vintage silver/bronze and some nice x-men. I bought the stack for a very nice number and one of the nicer books was this x-men 96:

 

xmen96.jpg

 

Bought a handful of other high grade bronze x-mens which should grade out nicely but nothing crazy.

 

Drove another 40 minutes or so and reached another store. This one had a lot more vintage back issues and the wall and case had a few nice books (Cave Comics). Unfortunately the owner wasn't there, but I did manage to snag a few nice looking books and the woman at the counter still gave me a little discount, which was really nice.

 

avengers54.jpg

 

ASM68.jpg

 

Unfortunately, there weren't any really "big" books, but I was happy with the small stack of books that I was able to acquire.

 

Went to my meeting and then drove back to Northern NJ to crash for the night.

 

Got up the next morning with two stops on my way back.

 

At the first one, I was able to pick up a few random books including an ASM 122, Cap 109 and a few other nice looking books, as well as an FF 112 that hopefully will get to a 9.2. Another surprise at this store was this reasonably priced mid grade Batman 227...

 

batman227-1.jpg

 

A little further south in Jersey, I got a call from a store dealer friend of mine who had recently purchased an Avengers 4 CGC 9.0 and a couple boxes of decent Silver Age stuff. Bought the Avengers 4 and about 20 other random minor key and nice looking stuff. Traded the Avengers 4 for some cash and this book... as I already had several Avengers 4s....

 

ASM15cgc92.jpg

 

Next up... in a little while, my trip to New England Comics and Harley Yee in Detroit....

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