San Diego Con-Any Reports Yet?

[TomG]

How was the overall Golden age comic selection out in San Diego??? See any Rare books such as Suspence# 3 Red Raven # 1 Fantastic Comics# 3,Etc.

 

The selection depending on what specific issues you were looking for was good. I did see a Suspense #3 and also Red Raven #1. Several copies of Marvel #1 were in the con as were a number of other key comics.

 

Tom

[nearmint]

I forgot to mention...for those of you that were concerned about the casting of Jessica Alba as Sue Storm because she isn't blonde...well, she's blonde now. Saw her at the Sin City panel and she looked GREAT.

[delekkerste]

good stuff gene.....conrad is out of his tree when it comes to prices for his art and books. He is not playin with a full deck. Hear of any big sale or deals going down or was it in your opinion before the show started. Any nice raw books around?

 

To be honest, I hardly looked at any books while I was there, focusing instead on original art, socializing and just taking in the scene. I heard from others that both Preview Night on Wednesday and Thursday were very busy...didn't hear or see anything go down on Saturday, though I wasn't looking very hard.

[comicwiz]

Heroes & Dragons broke out some books from their vault that hadn't been on the market in quite some time. The classic cover on Startling #49 in CGC 9.4 was getting a lot of attention, as was the National #7 Church copy in 9.6, which many consider the best Lou Fine cover of all time. They also had the restored Marvel #1 9.4 that Decaprio was/is considering. They had many others that I'm not recalling, but I'm sure others will.

 

and that stunning copy of Weird Science-Fantasy 29 CGC graded at NM 9.4

 

...but of course, no undergrounds

[Dr. Love]

I do not get it. As a collector of Golden Age, I would think you would be drooling over being to able to acquire several premium copies from a pedigreed collection. Collections like this do not come around every day so what is Berchara supposed to do? give the stuff away? ...I am not the only blubbering fool to have purchased these high grade, high priced books.

 

Bill Hughes got a large part of the Crowleys, his point of view is that when a big collection comes out ya gotta bust a move. He predicted that some belittling would go on by other dealers but in the end the higher grades would get the multiples at retail. As far as page quality, of course it's true, compared to the Mile Highs cream/off white doesn't cut it, but that's a standard for newly emerging Gold that can't be met.

 

Being a one trick pony these days, that being romance, I was overjoyed at picking up every single slabbed Fawcett love book Bechara had (188), except one. All photo covers, over half 9.4 and better, the other half mostly 9.2 and a few 9.0. These babies are simply impossible to find in grade, amazing considering the exposure this genre had at one time. I paid reasonable multiples, not that there would be a lot of competition for this stuff, but romance is heating up as it is both challengingly scarce and still relatively inexpensive.

[Silver]

Here are some of my observations from my two days in San Diego. As a note, I collect mostly mid-high grade DC Superman titles from the 50's-70's, so my observations were based on my collecting interests. I also will not pay multiple guide for high grade books, so I tend to look for mid-high books priced to OS guide.

 

Wednesday night preview night keeps getting better and bigger. It seemed like a lot more people were there than in the past. You had to have a pre-paid four day pass to get into preview night. Nice stuff priced right had a good chance of moving before you ever got in the door Thursday. This was my preview night catch from Heroes:

 

 

One of my favorite smaller dealers, Ron Murray had some nice stuff; he was showing his 9.6 Aquaman #1 (highest census). I got this ow/w paged beauty from him on Thursday:

 

 

It really hit me Thursday that several dealers that I was used to seeing were not there this year, Showcase New England was gone, All American from Baltimore was gone, and many others. I knew that there were less dealers showing up, but it really struck me this year.

 

I also really noticed that most dealers overgrade their raw books, and way overprice their slabbed books. Metropolis was almost all slabbed books, and had a amazing selections of very expensive books. I wish they would put some of that stuff on eBay with no reserve so that they could see what true market value is. While their booth is fun to look at, I could never bring myself to pay what they ask for stuff at this show. My eye was totally caught by their 8.5 Adventure 247 and 7.5 Lois Lane 1 though.

 

Right next to Metropolis was Superworld. Besides having a very cool website they had a lot of nice books on hand that were reasonably priced, and they are friendly and negotiate. I bought this long coveted book from them:

 

 

And found other stuff I wanted as well, but I can't afford everything I want

 

Motor City had a very nice display of books, both CGC and raw. There prices usually keep me from buying anything from them, but I always stop and look. One book of note that I saw there was a Harvey Black Cat 52 with the radium cover in 9.2. It was a gorgeous book! I didn't bother to ask the price. They had a TON of nice slabbed stuff. I'm sure the more deep pocketed con goers found some of their treasure there.

 

I looked at the Crowley Fawcett books for awhile. My friend Steve bought a Captain Marvel Jr. 37 in 9.4 for 4X guide. It has a cool newsstand/infinity cover. He also bought a Captain Marvel Jr. 114 raw that had a stunning black cover. The raw books were very reasonably priced, and I am sure that I will regret not buying one in the future.

 

I picked up some other books at a couple of different places. Heroes always has a nice selection of books at 50% off, I picked up a great NM Witching Hour 23 for 11 bucks, a NM Strange adventures 243 for 6. I found a couple of undergraded Superman giant sized books that were nicely priced at A-1 and another booth that names escapes me. I also got a nice Lois Lane 43 that is helping me close in on a 100 issue run of that title.

 

My last nice purchase was this c/ow paged beauty at Graham Crackers:

 

 

 

They had a great selection of books as well.

 

I felt like the selections of material this year was better than the last couple of years, but prices were high and you had to shop for deals. In all cases every dealer I dealt with was willing to deal on reasonable offers. I did see a couple of books at Knoops (Koops?) that were nice, a Batman 69 CGC'd 6.5 for WAY over guide at $650 and a World's Finest 86 in 8.0 that guides for like $210 and was priced at $550! Please put these mid grade beauties on eBay so that your punishment can be administered!

 

All in all I found no problem spending my allotted amount of money and could have easily spent more. I had to pass up a nice mid grade Superboy 40 from Neat Stuff that was priced very nicely...

 

I spent a bit of time in the rest of the con areas, my two days there were not enough time to take it all in, but I had a great time with my 16 year old daughter who went with me, and we both are looking forward to next year.

[joe_collector]

Wow, thanks for posting that comic. That was one DC comic I remember with fondness, after I scarfed it from my Dad's collection when I was about 6.

 

[dam60]

Great report!! Thanks!

 

I really want to get to SD one of these days . . .

[shiverbones]

Nice report silver, pretty books!

[lou_fine]

Heroes & Dragons broke out some books from their vault that hadn't been on the market in quite some time. The classic cover on Startling #49 in CGC 9.4 was getting a lot of attention, as was the National #7 Church copy in 9.6, which many consider the best Lou Fine cover of all time. They also had the restored Marvel #1 9.4 that Decaprio was/is considering. They had many others that I'm not recalling, but I'm sure others will.

 

Surprised to hear that the MH National #7 is back out on the market so soon. Didn't this book just sell in one of the recent Heritage auctions last year. Reminds me of the time I saw a high grade copy of this book at the Metro table in SD a few years ago. Believe it was the Crowley copy and it was a pretty nice looking book.

 

In full agreement with you that this is probably one of Fine's best cover. Surprising that it still guides for so much lower in comparison to some of Fine's other classic covers, especially when this is probably the premiere book from the entire National run. I guess this continued undervaluation along with scarcity is one of the reasons why this book hardly ever shows up in the marketplace. Based upon prices on copies which I've seen over the years, the guide is probably 4 - 8 years behind market on this book.

[Foolkiller]

Silver:

 

I'm betting that was Koops Comics -- although a nice guy, his pricing on CGC books is generally a bit off. Although he's generally willing to negotiate. With starting prices like that though, it's hard to even look.

 

I'm hoping to get to SD someday too -- maybe next year.

[PUNYHUMAN]

Sounds like it was a great con!!! It seems all you guys made out pretty good on your purchases if you took your time & did some shopping around!!!!

[BassGMan]

Geez, the jetlag is still killing me even though I didn't change any time zones. So I write this half asleep. I just opened my suitcase. Looks like airport security went throught it and cut open one of my boxes of comics. Then taped it back up with a notice of inspection. At first look I don't think they damaged anything, better not have.

 

Great show, as usual. I went there with Bronze age horror and romance on the brain. I certainly satisfied my hunger purchasing maybe 80 mostly DC horror books and about 15 Young Love/Young Romance including the very elusive Young Love #69 in VF. I focused mainly on HOM, HOS, Unexpected, Witching Hour, Ghosts and delved into Weird War for the first time. Bought a beautiful NM copy of GS Dracula #3 as well, one of my favorite Marvel horror covers. I never thought I would buy any Lois Lane comics but I happened onto a few and got hooked. Those issues between #100-130 or so contain many with bondage/women in peril covers. My favorite was #122 in which I bought three copies. For half a day on Saturday all I ran around doing was looking for nice LL covers between #100-130.

 

After a full 4 1/2 days of the con I was ready for more and am eagerly awaiting Chicago. Right now I am going through my nearly 150 books looking for CGC candidates. I'll probably send in 15 newly purchased books for Economy service and 30 for Modern (mostly 1975-1985). As I made my purchases I had to mentally add in the cost of the CGC slabbing and guesstimate what I'd be able to sell the books for slabbed (eventually). So I was constantly running figures in my head, but hey, that's fun. Eventually everything I own will be for sale, but I do hold on to my favorite books for a while. Only my least favorite, or doubles get sold right away.

 

Socially the con was very fun. The forum dinner was great as I was able to have at least some short conversations with other forum members including Deathlok. Heck, we just talked about Survivor, who needs comics? I met Greggy, and what can I say, he is just Greggy. Still wearing shorts, but not too tight this time. I sat next to CGC's Mark Haspel and got to know him a bit. I think that guy was born, raised and schooled in a comic shop. Certainly an expert in grading and the entire comics industry. Steve B. introduced me to some bigwig dealers whom I can only aspire to someday be in the same league with. I stopped by Lighthouse's booth several times, talked a little about comics, and a little about his "other" favorite topic (and mine).

 

Additional comments:

San Diego women The best looking women in the country.

 

My friend Tom almost got arrested for J-walking in front of the convention center. He put his hand out to stop a bus, was pulled into a police car, and eventually let go.

 

The lines for some of the video games and non-comic events were huge and made walking very difficult when going through those areas. The "comic side" of the center was by far the least crowded and I rarely had a hard time seeing what I wanted to see as I visited each booth.

 

Plenty of porn and certerfold models/actresses selling their photos/kisses/videos. Nice to walk by and check out but I'd never buy something from them. Well, maybe, but rarely.

 

All the confood was ridiculously expensive except for the $3 pizza slices upstairs.

 

Well, that's about it for now. -------Sid

[Jagull]

was the upstairs pizza any better than the downstairs?

 

SD women are hawt *_*

[BassGMan]

was the upstairs pizza any better than the downstairs?

 

SD women are hawt *_*

 

The upstairs pizza was sold by slices as compared to the downstairs pizza which was sold as personal sized smalls. I didn't try the downstairs pizza but they looked like they were made differently. Upstairs it was pretty much equivalent to any restaurant and pretty good. -----Sid

[greggy]

[realitytrip]

Ok, I guess I will chime in here. I was in San Diego for Fri-Sun. I went to the con all three days. I flew in Friday morning, hungover from celebrating my birthday the night before with my too eager friends.... flying hungover is NOT fun btw. Anyway things got better once I got to the con. I was mainly looking for some bronze books, Giant Size, 25 centers, western, stuff. Also marvel price variants.

 

My first stop was at CGC's booth where I made my first submissions to them. Man, writing a check for hundreds of dollars to have your comics graded.... it was tough, but I feel good about the books I submitted, and the guy at the booth, Scott was great to work with. Now I only have to wait a few months, oh well. Dropped by Lighthouse's booth to pick up my Overstreet Guide from him, and he even gave me a free upgrade to hardback! He grabbed me and had me sign Greggy's Romance comic for the forum dinner. I then started to look around. I have to say the dealers were exceptionally nice this year. I have run into some rude dealers in the past, but this year every experience was exceptional. Every dealer was nice and gave me time and answered questions, and there was never a hard sell. Kudos to all the dealers who frequent the board, all of whom I spoke to at least once over the three days, including Metropolis, BlazingBob and qualitycomix.

 

Most of the books I was looking for were around, but never in the condition I wanted, especially the 25 cent Giants, which were plentiful in low grade, but scarce and high priced in high grade. Motor City Comics had an impressive collection of books I was looking for: lots of variants (for details check out the Bronze thread), nice 25 cent Giants, and two copies of TMNT 1 that I drooled over but passed on due to the high price and loose grading. I did pick up a very nice Rawhide Kid 93 from them, the only one I saw at the show. They were very nice, and I would have bought more from them, but their prices were very high and they didn't want to take off much if any, so......

 

I must have had a twin at the show, because half of the dealers asked if I had talked to them earlier. It was really strange at first, but I got used to it by about the sixth time they said something.... if he was there I never ran into him...

 

qualitycomix had some very nice 30 cent variants, and I was thinking of purchasing some from him, but I waited too long, and he submitted them to CGC, which judging by some of their conditions, could be quite lucrative for him.

 

I got to meet some of my favorite current artists including Richard Moore, Sean Chen and Steve Rolston.

 

Ted at Superworld had some great stuff that I was looking at. I finally pulled the trigger on some super Westerns on Sunday, including a Rawhide Kid 50 (was this a Mile High 2 book btw? Check out the ridiculous census numbers on this book!) and a Mighty Marvel Western 1. I really like buying stuff from Ted, he is just so much fun to talk comics with.

 

Picked up some unmarked 30 cent variants here and there all weekend. Some dealers still have not caught on that there were 30 cent variants that looked like normal books. Most dealers who did have their variants marked as such had pretty unrealistic prices on them.

 

Saturday night I went to the forum dinner. Most people did not know who I was either in face or my forum id (because I tend to lurk ) but everybody was great. I talked to many forumites including Greggy, Bronty, Borg, lighthouse, Big Man and qualitycomix. I didn't get a chance to talk to everyone, we had a large party over three tables (35? people). It was a really great experience and I recommend that all of you forumites who have a chance go to one.

 

Sunday was more laid back. Checked out Artists Alley. Oh, I did pick up a couple of nice Xmen reprints from Joe Vereneault for very fair prices. Cleaned up on some half price TPBs, there were several booths, including lighthouse's that focused entirely on them. Half price essentials, Alan Moore TPBs, and oh yeah, Box Office Poison. Good stuff. Some neat non comic stuff was at the show. I liked the life size X-wing. After the Star Wars presentation, EVERYONE had one of those "Revenge of the Sith" Tshirts. Ah, whatever. Lots of models/playmates/adult stuff everywhere. Nice eye candy I guess, but the long lines of people wanting signed pinups of them was kinda depressing to me. The comics end of the center was far, far less crowded than the Star Wars/fantasy/gaming end. Man, whenever I ventured to that side, I quickly became annoyed at the vast number of people. Too many people. Anyway, great show. Liked meeting everybody and got some great books. Not a bad way to spend three days. Thumbs up.

[comicwiz]

Sounds like it was a great con!!! It seems all you guys made out pretty good on your purchases if you took your time & did some shopping around!!!!

 

Despite what some have said, I did manage to find a few things at decent prices. On preview night, I picked up a Fair-Good copy of Daredevil 1 from a dealer for US $50. The book was really not that rough, but someone put three additional staples along the spine. All in all, the book was intact, complete and not as much of an eyesore as the price would seem to indicate. One thing I have learned over the years is that there will always be someone interested in a 1st issue of any high-caliber silver-age hero book, as long as its complete, is priced reasonably, and can make for a good reader.

 

I took it back to my room where my travelling buddies proceeded to ridicule me for buying the POS. I stood it up on the nightstand and admired it for what seemed to be a whole second before I crashed (first days always a doozy).

 

The next day, I walked up to a dealer that dealt in both Undergrounds (UG's) and mainstreams with that same Daredevil 1 and did a straight trade for a true NM Cherry Poptart 1, first print (which I should add was stickered for no less than US $175 on the con floor), two California comics (which are tough to find, and both have outstanding fantasy covers) and a F+ copy of the Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, first print (tough).

 

Later that day, I picked up a copy of Snatch Comics 2 (1st print) -- very tough UG -- for US $40. I later found another copy at another dealer for US $250, so I was pretty happy to pick up the copy for such a great price from Comic Relief. I also picked up two Marvel Masterworks (FF and Spidey, Volumes 1) for US $50. I later got comped about a dozen or so books from the folks at HippyComix for research into the Underground price guide -- some really cool stuff -- including a few compilations of early underground works by people such as Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Gilbert Shelton and Spain Rodriguez.

 

The rest of my money was spent on con exclusives, which are arguably the best deal going if your lucky enough to get 'em. All in all, the allure to drop serious coin at a con like San Diego will always be there, and this year was no different. If there is anything this years experience did for me, the San Diego con allowed me to crystallize all preconcieved notions about certain dealers being on borrowed time, with their idiosyncracies and moronic quirks. Often these philistines make it so easy for collectors like me to feel good about walking away and hanging on to my hard-earned money.

[greggy]

This is the only slabbed book that I bought!

 

 

 

 

More juicy details from my evesdropping will be provided once I scan all my books and write my report!

 

*** Find out what Mark Wilson told Tom Brulato about the details about the non-sale of the Amazing Spider-man 1 CGC 9.6! ***

 

The story differs materially from what has been posted on the forums.

[comicwiz]

This is the only slabbed book that I bought!

 

It was great to meet you greggy, and hook-up after the con for some grub

 

And now I'm really looking forward to reading your report