Tales from the Comic Box - Rookie Adventures in Buying/Selling/Cons 5 5

[Wall-Crawler]

6 hours ago, spreads said:

Sorry, not to derail the OP's thread, but on the topic of having an SUV (I got this Tiguan a year ago, an upgrade from my corolla and absolutely love it).

I picked-up this box at lunch (estate auction from Eastern Ontario), it was so heavy they aren't allowed to lift it at CP (nor would I expect someone else to lift it). 

 

What's in the box?

No derailing here...I enjoy that this journal sparks informative and casual fun banter!

FWIW...I have a Honda CR-V and I also have use of my dad's Ford F-150.  Huge benefit.  And only costs me the gas!

[Wall-Crawler]

11 hours ago, Artboy99 said:

Yes he is always buying.

We did a show several years ago where a fellow vendor wanted OUT at the end of the show and we went over and bought him out for relatively cheap. If I recall it was $20 a longbox. It wasn't great stuff but for dollar book stock it was good.

Then there was the guy at a Calgary Expo who was selling books from the estate of his friend. Tons of good stuff for relatively cheap. Of course by the time we hear about it all the great stuff is gone but we still bought quite a few books from that guy. Got this gem for $100 Canadian:

At our last show at the end of September, the last hour he was gone from the booth off buying.

The show is over and I have some person I have never met come to our booth:

"Hi, are you Karl?"

Yes

"I need to borrow your cart."

Ummm.... I am going to be using it right away.

"No, you don't understand. Your partner Dave is over at our booth and he bought a whole bunch of comics. Several longs so we need your cart."

Friend vendor right beside me at hearing this:

We are already going to be over packed in our cars trying to get home what we already have at the show and now we have several longs to contend with????

My car usually looks like this when we pack up at the end of a show:

 

In the end, you have to support your partner, and Dave has a good eye for sellable books. I trust his decisions.

 

@thehumantorch @Artboy99

I think it is awesome that you guys team up like that...Very cool. Thanks for sharing THE ORIGIN OF TORCH AND ARTBOY!

[spreads]

43 minutes ago, Wall-Crawler said:

What's in the box?

No derailing here...I enjoy that this journal sparks informative and casual fun banter!

FWIW...I have a Honda CR-V and I also have use of my dad's Ford F-150.  Huge benefit.  And only costs me the gas!

I posted the pics in the Garage Sale find thread...

[Wall-Crawler]

So I am busy with regular work, getting ready for a show and off to in-laws for (Canadian) Thanksgiving.  Here is just a quick and small sample of the nearly 8 long boxes I picked up...Still not have had a chance to give a "thorough thorough" look see.  Collection is 99% modern but good thing most are at least NM.  This individual likes more girl themed comics, hence all the exclusives, particularly all the Zenescope Con exclusives/variants (only showing one here). 

Built 5 sets though so far too.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Wall-Crawler

[Artboy99]

1 hour ago, Wall-Crawler said:

So I am busy with regular work, getting ready for a show and off to in-laws for (Canadian) Thanksgiving.  Here is just a quick and small sample of the nearly 8 long boxes I picked up...Still not have had a chance to give a "thorough thorough" look see.  Collection is 99% modern but good thing most are at least NM.  This individual likes more girl themed comics, hence all the exclusives, particularly all the Zenescope Con exclusives/variants (only showing one here). 

Built 5 sets though so far too.

great stuff!

[thehumantorch]

2 hours ago, Artboy99 said:

great stuff!

Ssswing

[Wall-Crawler]

Well I have a lot of Zenescope to work through better pace myself...

[thehumantorch]

31 minutes ago, Wall-Crawler said:

Well I have a lot of Zenescope to work through better pace myself...

Let's see some more.

[Wall-Crawler]

12 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

Let's see some more.

If serious I will upload more back when I am home.

I will likely try them out on a board sale here before eBay...

[Wall-Crawler]

This Thanksgiving (Canadian) it was our turn to travel to visit the in-laws (we alternate Christmas and Thanksgiving).  One of the things we did is we went out and about touring hitting antique shops and flea markets, etc.  I always like this as I usually find something comic related.   This time I got some pretty cool books and some really "interesting' magazines...Enjoy...

The next few things are probably the most obscure things I have ever bought and I admit I wasn't sure if I should but I have never seen these before, they were bizarre and I just felt I had to save them from rotting away...If you think the covers are something, the articles/stories inside are just as "interesting". Mind blown.

 

So the books are in order of appearance, Man's Age Vol. 1 #3 (1962), Men Today Vol. 1 #2 (1961), Men Today Vol. 2 #2 and True Men Vol. 6 #1 (1962).

Crazy right???

[spreads]

There should be a disclaimer not to view this post at work!  I love that Batman cover, one of my favs! I know I have a low grade copy as part of my collection at home.

[Wall-Crawler]

2 hours ago, spreads said:

There should be a disclaimer not to view this post at work!  I love that Batman cover, one of my favs! I know I have a low grade copy as part of my collection at home.

 why are you surfing instead of working?

Edited October 10, 2017 by Wall-Crawler

[spreads]

3 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

 why are you surfing instead of working?

I was building a report that takes a few hours, during the formatting there's a few quick minutes here and there I can surf.

[Wall-Crawler]

On 10/6/2017 at 11:02 PM, thehumantorch said:

Let's see some more.

@thehumantorch

I am in the process of getting ready for Northern Game Expo this Sunday, but I have gone through and scanned some. I didn't want to bog it down with like 30+ photos so just made them into a collage.  This is not all of them (and in some cases I have doubles) but should give you a good representation of the Zenescope books I acquired. There are a few "rarer" ones in the mix too, but this will have to suffice for "show and tell" for now.

 

[Wall-Crawler]

Well, I am all set for NORTHERN GAME EXPO!

Few things have popped up, I am still not sure *exactly* how my space will be, apparently there were some last minute switching around so I might have to wing it a bit, kinda getting use to that with some of these shows but I am prepared for whatever is thrown at me.

I have to be set up by 11 AM. I could start at 8:30 AM but I hope to be there at 9:30 AM.  The show goes until 5 PM.

I plan on using a fair bit of table space to display books flat, mostly sets. I really want to push sets this show. That is my goal. I think these may be good with a more "general" crowd as it is more of a gaming crowd?  We shall see.

This is what I am bringing:

• 5 long boxes of mixed $2 books or 3 for $5
• 6 long boxes worth of completed sets
• 8 long boxes of individual titles (stuck to the popular stuff, Avengers, Bats, Spidey, JLA, X-Men) 
• 1 long box of assorted horror titles  - I figured Halloween is around the corner, why not????
• 1 long box of mixed semi and key books
• 14 CGC books
• Small selection of action figures, magazines and other specialty/unique items

Again, it was hard to decide what all to bring but I really want to push sets this show and I am not 100% sure what to expect.  Oh and the one downside...This will suck for travel and unloading but hopefully it will bring more people out to the show...

Edited October 15, 2017 by Wall-Crawler
me no good at spelling

[spreads]

Best of luck, keep us posted!

We had our monthly show today, while it turned-out to be the weakest in dollar sales for me it was still okay and the foot traffic was high.   We got a bit of the rain, luckily very little when arriving, big pours while we were ready to leave. 

I'm really curious to see how you did and I like your diversified approach.  Having some horror stuff is a good idea, there was a guy beside me that had a customer ask about a bunch of that stuff, Aliens, Predator, Bronze/Silver Horror, etc.

[spreads]

Also wanted to ask you guys what your opinion is on the top five-ten titles, by popularity what volume of sales.  hypothetically speaking, if you could only bring one character (multiple years/series) what would it be?  I think most agree with Spiderman and Batman, how would you round out the top 5/10?

[thehumantorch]

1 hour ago, spreads said:

Also wanted to ask you guys what your opinion is on the top five-ten titles, by popularity what volume of sales.  hypothetically speaking, if you could only bring one character (multiple years/series) what would it be?  I think most agree with Spiderman and Batman, how would you round out the top 5/10?

Interesting question.  What sells changes all the time depending on what movies and TV shows are topical and what's new in inventory.

Overall i'd toss in:

Wolverine
X-men - issues between 94 and 150 are steady sellers
Walking Dead
Harley Quinn
Deadpool
Conan - we sell a lot of Conan and Red Sonja sets and issue 1 to 24 trickle out

[Wall-Crawler]

Hey guys! Super fast update on Northern Game Expo

First of all, I traveled the morning of and made it there with time to set up, but...

The weather sucked big time so it was a mad scramble to get everything inside so it didn't get soaked. Some boxes took a bit of a water hit but nothing too bad. As I had to basically run everything in, setting up was a bit more haphazard but I got it done.  Packing/loading up was less wet but it got really cold.

The space I was provided with was fantastic. Two 8 foot tables side by side and I was on an end row at the back so I was able to make use of my own 4 foot table (see pic).  I did decide to lay some books flat and display a few more (more on that next update).  This show seemed to be really well run. 

Crowds were pretty decent.  I am horrible at judging crowd sizes (fake news!), especially as the venue itself was a good size but once things started I was solidly busy right up until the last hour. I am glad I had help as I couldn't be at two ends of the booth at once.

The top books I was asked about:

• Aliens and Predator
• Carnage and Venom (anything)
• Deadpool 
• New Mutants (I wonder if the new trailer had anything to do with it?)
• Harley Quinn

I can't say yet what sold "the best' yet as I have not gone through receipts, but I think sets, overall, "won" the day.  Generally speaking, anything over $40 - $50 seemed to be a harder sell,  whether it be singles or sets.  My single lowest sale was one $2 book.  My highest single sale was $305 (repeat and very good customer).  Besides comics/sets, I sold a single slab, a few action figures (four, I think) and one treasury edition.

All in all, it was definitely (in my opinion) worth to do the show.  After table, gas and food costs, I did approximately 7 X my expenses in sales.  this was the second best show I have done, so I was pleasantly surprised given how it was gaming centric but being able to offer a variety of product definitely helped.

The shot below is my set up for this show.  The shot is "curvy" as I used panoramic mode to get it all in one shot.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Wall-Crawler
Corrected expenses vs sales info

[thehumantorch]

Glad you did well, 10X expenses is great - unless expenses run $5....

Booth looks great.  It looks like you have some space behind your tables, consider placing another table behind the table displaying flat items and doubling your flat display area. 

Also consider going from a trade show setup, which is essentially tables in front and space for you behind, to a retail setup, which could be a          

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configuration.  You can further increase display by adding an island in the middle or doubling up the tables on the ends.            

I guess I'm suggesting that you experiment with your booth and try to maximize what you can display.  Sometimes I cut up pieces of paper in the shape of tables and move them around a diagram of my booth to improve my setup.

Edited October 16, 2017 by thehumantorch