Readcomix Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 1 minute ago, Sqeggs said: I think the slabbed grade is pretty accurate. The raw book was graded VG+ or something like that. So, I was happy with CGC's grade. Oh, ok. Sometimes it's hard to tell with a pic of a slang, but it sure does look stunning. Of course, maybe my crappy copy side by side helps make me think yours is under-graded! Either way, I don't think there's a lot of them out there. If we started a club thread, I'm not sure we could double membership. Sqeggs 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricksneatstuff Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 5 minutes ago, Sqeggs said: Saving the other half for breakfast? Nah, I never do leftovers on vacation. Tonight was Hemingway’s at the hotel. A better meal. Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress is pretty awesome place with 1500 acres of property. Sorry to continue the Travel and Leisure section of your thread Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sqeggs Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 3 minutes ago, Ricksneatstuff said: Nah, I never do leftovers on vacation. Tonight was Hemingway’s at the hotel. A better meal. Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress is pretty awesome place with 1500 acres of property. Sorry to continue the Travel and Leisure section of your thread Mike. Remember that I'm always available to carry luggage in exchange for food. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Readcomix Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 6 minutes ago, Ricksneatstuff said: Nah, I never do leftovers on vacation. Tonight was Hemingway’s at the hotel. A better meal. Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress is pretty awesome place with 1500 acres of property. Sorry to continue the Travel and Leisure section of your thread Mike. Food porn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 1 hour ago, Ricksneatstuff said: Nah, I never do leftovers on vacation. Tonight was Hemingway’s at the hotel. A better meal. Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress is pretty awesome place with 1500 acres of property. Sorry to continue the Travel and Leisure section of your thread Mike. Please feel free to post more! I love food pics. Are you hitting Disney or Universal? We are in Cabo for spring break. I'll post some pics later. Nothing as good as Il Mulino but still who doesn't love Tex Mex? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricksneatstuff Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 5 minutes ago, n2wdw said: Please feel free to post more! I love food pics. Are you hitting Disney or Universal? We are in Cabo for spring break. I'll post some pics later. Nothing as good as Il Mulino but still who doesn't love Tex Mex? Went to Magic Kingdom for a day but that’s all. I’ve spent my fair share of time in Disney. Went to Disney Springs. They really built that up. Had another great mean in Orlando at this Robata place called Dragonfly. Recommend it. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 (edited) We are Disney-holics. That's why my name here is n2wdw (as in, in to walt disney world). As an example, my 22 year old daughter (my oldest) has been to WDW about 25 times. Here at Cabo, we have 3 of our 4 kids with us. My second oldest daughter had to stay at college because she couldn't miss classes. Edited March 30, 2018 by n2wdw Ricksneatstuff 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 1, 2018 Author Share Posted April 1, 2018 Food and Comics in Cabo We're in Cabo for Spring Break with me, my wife and 3 of my kids (my 4th had to miss it because she couldn't miss class). I like Cabo. I like Cancun too. Vacations in Mexico are great because they're fun and relatively easy on the wallet. The 18 pesos to one US dollar definitely makes it an attractive place to go for holiday. The place we're at is particularly beautiful. This is our 3rd time here and the landscaping has always amazed me. The food is excellent too. On a long weekend vacation like this, we don't even leave the resort as there are enough good restaurants to go to without repeating. Here's a sampling of the food we're got so far: I've been trying not to spend so much money on comics lately. But still, I've managed to add a couple jewels to my collection while on vacation (and just before). Thanks for reading. badback83, Ricksneatstuff and Readcomix 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 1, 2018 Author Share Posted April 1, 2018 Very annoying! I was all set to watch last week's Homeland and I got this. Ugh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 8, 2018 Author Share Posted April 8, 2018 Harvey High Grade Romance I picked up these high grade Harveys recently. I'm amazed how affordable they are. szucchini and badback83 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 9, 2018 Author Share Posted April 9, 2018 18 hours ago, szavisca said: Terrific pick ups, while these are still affordable. I don't really know how common some of these are in high grade or not, its really hard to say because they're still not valuable enough to slab for most of them, and who really knows with the whole file/warehouse copy thing. But I will say that the good ones, like you've been posting, seem to be getting increasingly scarce in VF or better. There used to be several online sites that had tons of them and most of the places I'd found them are starting to run dry. There's one eBay seller I've bought most of mine from, but his stock seems to have dried up (no listing at all on eBay at the moment). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 9, 2018 Author Share Posted April 9, 2018 Matt Baker Nos. 150 and 151 I managed to pick up a couple of Matt Baker comics recently. Lower grade Bakers -- like the ones I bought -- are still somewhat affordable, but still I had to spend more than I would have in the recent past. Just shows that a rising tide raising all boats. An advantage I have in the marketplace (or flaw, depending on how you look at it) is I don't mind restored copies. Especially here, with TAR #1, with a "small amount of color touch on cover." My reason is, I probably wouldn't be able to detect minor CT if I bought the comic raw at a con, so I'm willing to add a purple copy to my collection. One of my collecting goals is to get a copy of every comic with a cover by Baker. In my list there are 295 Baker covers. These 2 Bakers I recently got are #150 and #151 for me, so I'm a little more than halfway there. I'm not sure thought if I'll ever complete this collection. Even putting aside the rising cost, some Bakers are just incredibly rare and you never see them. Also recently I bought a qualified Pictorial Confessions 3. The centerfold is missing. I usually don't buy comics with missing pages. But I thought the cover was in good shape and the price was right. I actually also have a raw copy of this comic. I've thought about marrying the comics. But for now I'm keeping them as they are. Ricksneatstuff 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 14, 2018 Author Share Posted April 14, 2018 Matt Baker In Romantic Marriage Matt Baker has 2 covers in Romantic Marriage, #23 and 24. Last night on eBay I won a low grade 23. Hopefully some day I'll be able to get a better copy. But for now it'll do as a filler to allow me to complete this little Baker subset. I got the #23 last night for $114 and despite all its flaws I'm surprised to have won it. I got my #24 about 4 years ago (also on eBay) for $57. Oh for the good old days. Point Five 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sacentaur Posted April 14, 2018 Share Posted April 14, 2018 Two excellent covers! Congrat's on the reasonable ebay win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricksneatstuff Posted April 14, 2018 Share Posted April 14, 2018 Nice price on the Romantic Marriage 23 Mike! I was going to snipe it for 150 but forgot. I’m glad you picked it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sqeggs Posted April 15, 2018 Share Posted April 15, 2018 On 4/14/2018 at 7:32 AM, n2wdw said: Matt Baker In Romantic Marriage Matt Baker has 2 covers in Romantic Marriage, #23 and 24. Last night on eBay I won a low grade 23. Hopefully some day I'll be able to get a better copy. But for now it'll do as a filler to allow me to complete this little Baker subset. I got the #23 last night for $114 and despite all its flaws I'm surprised to have won it. I got my #24 about 4 years ago (also on eBay) for $57. Oh for the good old days. RM 23 is one of my favorite Bakers. Usually doesn't get a lot of love, though. Nice pickup! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 16, 2018 Author Share Posted April 16, 2018 Steel City Con Report Part 1 This weekend I went to Steel City con. I went for 2 reasons. First, because my son asked to go to a comic con with his 2 best friends. And second, because the con is in Pittsburgh where my oldest daughter goes to college. She's graduating this year so we wanted to see her. Also, her cosplay video from Katsucon was selected for the Pitt Film Festival so we of course wanted to be there for that. Here are the 3 boys moments after walking into the con. My son is on the left. Steel City is a pop culture con like Wizard World (and a lot of other cons nowadays). They have celebrities and comics ... what makes Steel City a bit unique is their emphasis on toys. They have the best selection of toys of any con I've ever been to. While many of the vendors had comics for sale, there was only about 6-8 dealers with most of their booths devoted to comics. Here are some wall pictures, but there wasn't much of interest. But, while there were no grails, I found a nice stack of comics for my collection. Prices are cheaper in the Pittsburgh area so I was able to fill some holes at good prices. Hot Flips had a good selection of comics at 75% off. Something I got was this Marvel Comics Index #5 (Thor). I bought the first issue (featuring Spider-Man) when I was a kid, via mail order. Since then I've been trying to complete the 12 issue series. Now I only need #2 (Conan). Sure, I know I could complete it in 5 minutes on eBay, but I want to do it on the cheap. I got the Thor issue for $5, which is a bargain. Where I really scored was with Star Trek and Star Wars toys, especially the large figures. I bought them for about $10 each. I remember when they were going for 3 and 4 times that. With these new acquisitions I'm getting close to completing my collection. Here are more toys and other stuff I thought were cool but didn't buy. STORMSHADOW_80 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 16, 2018 Author Share Posted April 16, 2018 (edited) Steel City Con Report Part 2 I got 3 shopping bags and a short box of stuff at Steel City. The best deal of the con were these vintage Star Trek The Motion Picture action figures. They are the rare alien figures, and the Q is even signed by actor. The cards and blisters are in great VF/NM+ condition. So I had a momentary ethical conundrum. These figures are rare and go for hundred of dollars. They were being offered for $5 each. Normally I would have no problem with just buying them, but the dealer told me this was a collection of a fan who recently passed away. The dealer was selling them for the wife. What would you do? Tell the dealer to raise the price, or sell them on eBay to have a better chance at getting FMV? In the end, I didn't say anything and bought them for the offered price. Honestly I don't feel guilty (well maybe a little). Anyone can check out the internet for FMV before going to a con. Also, the wife wasn't poor and didn't need the money for food -- the dealer told me the wife was selling the stuff to clean out the basement. I did buy a lot at the dealer's table to send some money over to the wife. Here's some other miscellaneous stuff I got at the con. Edited April 16, 2018 by n2wdw aardvark88 and STORMSHADOW_80 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 24, 2018 Author Share Posted April 24, 2018 Steel City Con Report Part 3 Just to finish off this report ... I got signatures of 2 celebrities, Tiffany (the pop star from my high school days) and Terry Farrell (Dax from ST Deep Space 9). My final impressions of the con are -- it was a fun time. I got a ton of stuff for my collection, especially Star Trek and Star Wars action figures. I went Friday and Saturday morning, and 1.5 days is the most you need to go to this con. In fact, 1 day is more than enough. But again, a fun time. I think I'll definitely go again. badback83 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted April 25, 2018 Author Share Posted April 25, 2018 New Fun Stuff For the Comic Book Room Isn't collecting fun? There's so much cool stuff out there. Even when I'm not chasing after a Matt Baker or a major first appearance, there's just so much cool things to buy. A big part of it too is the serendipity aspect of collecting. When you see something you've never seen before. Like these Baywatch comics. A boardie had these for sale in the mixed age thread. I only have casual interest in Baywatch, but what caught my eye is, these are photo comics (also called fumetti). For some reason I've always liked photo comics so I buy them whenever I see them, especially when they're cheap (I got the pair for $7). The same boardie was selling these Star Wars Galaxy Collector magazines. There are tons of magazines about Star Wars. But not many about collecting Star Wars. That's what these magazines are about, and they focus on collecting Star Wars toys and comics. These magazines are somewhat hard to find, especially inexpensively. I got these for $2 each. Recently I won an eBay auction for 5 Modesty Blaise books. Modesty Blaise is like a female James Bond, except better. If you like JB then I highly recommend that you check out Modesty Blaise. The prose novels are better than the graphic novels in my opinion. And, Peter O'Donnell only wrote about 10 novels. There have been numerous editions throughout the world. My collecting goal is to get a copy of every US edition of the prose novels. Of the 5 book lot I just won on eBay, I only needed 2, Night of Morningstar and Pieces of Modesty (Pieces is actually a short story collection). I'll probably give the other 3 away to our local lending library. Thanks for reading. STORMSHADOW_80 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...