Achieving the moment of 'contentment' with your collection? 5 5

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 8/23/2021 at 1:32 PM, Robot Man said:

Toys are fun. Especially early toys from before my youth. 

I discovered them while looking for comics at flea markets, garage sales and antique shops. Picked up my first battery operated robot and off I went. 

About the only ones I still seek out now are old motorcycle toys. But anything space or character is still game on. Especially tin and wind-up or battery toys.

I think someone’s avatar is showing in the top pic!

[Pantodude]

On 8/23/2021 at 2:32 PM, Robot Man said:

Toys are fun. Especially early toys from before my youth. 

I discovered them while looking for comics at flea markets, garage sales and antique shops. Picked up my first battery operated robot and off I went. 

About the only ones I still seek out now are old motorcycle toys. But anything space or character is still game on. Especially tin and wind-up or battery toys.

This is so COOL!   Thank you for sharing.  

[Robot Man]

On 8/23/2021 at 11:37 AM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

I think someone’s avatar is showing in the top pic!

Ha, caught that huh? He is called Chief Robot Man. One of my favorites and one I actively sought out and paid up for. Noisy, lights up and lots of actions. 

[KCOComics]

On 8/23/2021 at 2:37 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

I think someone’s avatar is showing in the top pic!

Well that solves one of the hobbies great mysteries! For most of our avatars I can place the comic.. @Robot Man always stumped me! 

Now that, that's settled I'm content with my comic goals. 

[innocuous]

I was content for this summer. Lots of bike riding, caught a Chinook, camping and read a some comics. Then, I decided to log back on to the boards. All of a sudden, I want more!

[eschnit]

On 8/15/2021 at 6:04 PM, lm1589 said:

Is there anyone out there 100% satisfied and content with their collection?

How close are you to achieving this moment of comic 'oneness'?

Or is hunting / upgrading a never ending quest (and part of the fun)

 

After I completed my main SA Marvel runs recently (+ mentally accepted I've missed the boat on FF1-5 so won't complete that run) - I thought I might be there....... But I've now gone down the Batman /Tec Golden Age rabbit hole which is even pricier + trickier to find an 'end point'

 

 

There’s no end point, that’s part of the fun. But that’s not why I’m responding.  So, Fantastic Four 1-5 are pricey no doubt.  But nothing in comparison to Batman/Tec Golden Age.  I mean, I don’t know what grade/condition you’re building with, if you’re talking 100s of books, then FF 1-5 would be attainable.  I’m not suggesting scrounging up the $25-50k it would take, depending on low grade or mid grade is doable for most, but it might be over time for anyone that has been able to build the rest of the collection.  
 

It may not be something you’re interested in doing at this point though.  But by comparison, if you can’t envision accruing Fantastic Four 1-5, you’ll be stuck in place trying to get very far with Batman/Tec.  There’s a 1.0 Tec 31 in the Heritage auction in a couple weeks that will probably go for more than a mid grade run of FF 1-5.

[Pantodude]

Luckily, I had some books from long ago, then life happened (a child, etc).  When I returned to the hobby a few years ago, I came up with a want list to track progress while being disciplined.   I really needed an objective means of determining whether/when I "should" be content.  While I highly recommed coming up with a want list, being content need not be inconsistent with continuing the hunt in some capacity.  The folks above who (happily!) predict no real end point are on to something.  A dynamic contentment that invites changes to a PC over time might be preferable to a static contentment based on a fixed set of books, because human nature is to get used to things.  At this point, my want list mostly out of the way, I can still spice up my PC, not just by adding books per se, but books (key or not) that enhance my enjoyment of my PC.  So overall, I think I am as content as I need/hope to be, so long as I can enjoy/appreciate other folks' amazing PCs without being [too] jelly.    

Edited August 26, 2021 by Pantodude

[frozentundraguy]

I guess I have been a collector of something or another for most of my life. When I was 8 or 9 it was baseball cards. Then at 10 I discovered coin collecting. I can recall going to the bank with a few dollars to get some rolls of pennies, and the fun of finding one that was old. I never did run across a 1909 VDB though.   Then I did not collect much until the late 80's when I got caught up in the baseball card collecting frenzy. Thank you Mr. Griffey Jr. Then after a few years and several full storage tubs of new cards   I realized I should have gone after the cards from the 50's and early 60's, instead of gobs of newer cards. In the late 90's I received as a gift about 150 comic books from my mother in-law. There was a lot of drek in there, but also two early superhero issues. Those were Superman #89, and Superboy #27. At first I was collecting a lot of Silver Age reader books I found in local comic shops, which included Superman, Detective Comics, Challengers, the Atom, the Flash, and Tales of the Unexpected, and an occasional Marvel book. After a few years of this I found myself desiring books in higher grade. In short much of the fun, as many others have indicated, is in the hunt. In 2015 I also delved into collecting vintage paperback books, mainly to obtain some of the works by the masters of golden age science fiction. But now I also find myself picking up a few for the GGA art.

[Robot Man]

I divide my love for comics two ways

I started out as a random reader as a kid. My favorites were Batman & Detective as well as all the DC war books mostly. I bought them here and there at the drug store. I got some at garage sales or from friends. No real direction and read whatever landed in my lap.

One day while out with my grandpa, he let me get some comics and I discovered MAD Magazine #72. It blew me away. I started looking for issues I didn’t have everywhere. A trip to Cherokee books and I saw a MAD #9 for the massive sum of $3. I had to have it. I had never paid more than cover price for anything. The gloves came off and I became a collector.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Robot Man

[UncleAnwar]

Good question. 

 

I'm almost there I think. I've completed ASM 1-400, FF 1-400, XMEN 1-300, Captain America 100-300, and a ton of bronze series (tomb of dracula, werewolf by night, marvel teamup, Luke Cage, iron fist, nova, rom, man-thing, Warlock, and the list goes on.

I've got a handful of Daredevils left to get and 7 higher issue Strange Tales to finish those runs. After I complete those this year then I'll have to re-evaluate and decide if I want to chase another series or not. 

But...I'm sure I will, because like many have said, the thrill of the hunt is half the fun

[frozentundraguy]

I neglected to mention two other factors of collecting comic books that add to the enjoyment here on the boards.

The first is interacting with other collectors and appreciating their collections. The second is the ability to track ones collection in different ways.  For me it's primarily tracking my collection using Xcel. I also use Nostomania to at obtain at least obtain an approximation of my collections value. And yes a lot of the values they apply to books are way off base. What I also enjoy is being able to use Microsoft SQL Server tools to track the more valuable books in my collection, and all of them in another database. I found that an Excel list could be imported into Sql server, saving a whole lot of key strokes, and after a bit of data manipulation a table could be made. Below is a snapshot of the logic I used to convert from the alphabetic grades to the numeric equivalents as part of that process.

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by frozentundraguy

[KCOComics]

On 8/27/2021 at 10:22 PM, UncleAnwar said:

Good question. 

 

I'm almost there I think. I've completed ASM 1-400, FF 1-400, XMEN 1-300, Captain America 100-300, and a ton of bronze series (tomb of dracula, werewolf by night, marvel teamup, Luke Cage, iron fist, nova, rom, man-thing, Warlock, and the list goes on.

I've got a handful of Daredevils left to get and 7 higher issue Strange Tales to finish those runs. After I complete those this year then I'll have to re-evaluate and decide if I want to chase another series or not. 

But...I'm sure I will, because like many have said, the thrill of the hunt is half the fun

This are some incredible runs! It must have taken lots of focus. 

That's always been my problem with run collecting. I usually start out fast, then lose focus. I'm currently working on a complete HOS run, with 81- 154 being higher grade. But I tend to get distracted and let my focus drift. 

[Professor K]

Good topic. I can just imagine some of the great collections many of you have.  My first collecting started in 1975 with a rack pack of baseball cards. I stopped in 1979. They were trashed by time I was done. I collected Mad Magazine and Wacky Packages as a kid also. Trashed them too. Gave them all away and stuck the Wacky packs on phone booths, soda machines. and anything else they could stick to all over my little home town. From 1986 to 1990 I amassed thousands of baseball and hockey cards then sold them for peanuts around 1995 and bought some nice PSA cards and put together a near mint 1975 baseball set that took years to complete. Sold those too in 1999/2000 when I got a computer. 

 I've dabbled in coins as well. And I admit Action figures, mostly 1970's Mego's and 1980's WWF . Sold them.

Then I believe in 2001 I bought a raw Hulk 144 from Nick Cage and then I was hooked. But I didn't like graded comics, something about locking up in a piece of plastic forever didn't seem right. Over the next 10 years I amassed thousands of Silver and Early Bronze raw books, many full runs, mostly Marvel.  

In 2011 I decided to make a killer Silver and early Bronze (ending with GSX 1) CGC collection by selling my raw books. All those long boxes were taking up too much space anyway. I made a list of about 200 books mostly 1st apps. I submitted a few of my raws first but only about 25% got the grades I wanted so I thought best to sell them all and buy the graded stuff with the money. 

2020 - Was darn close to finishing my list then prices got Crazy. I have about 20 books to go to finish that old list. And by gum I'm gonna finish it . I missed the boat on a few big keys but I'm happy I got what I got before the Big Bang of 2020 and I finally sold the last of my raw stuff now that every penny gets reported to the tax man. So I'm content a little, but I wish I started buying up Gold and Silver age books 30 years ago.

 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Professor K

[UncleAnwar]

On 8/28/2021 at 4:57 AM, KCOComics said:

This are some incredible runs! It must have taken lots of focus. 

That's always been my problem with run collecting. I usually start out fast, then lose focus. I'm currently working on a complete HOS run, with 81- 154 being higher grade. But I tend to get distracted and let my focus drift. 

Thanks man! I got lucky in the fact that I bought a lot of the big keys 10 or so years ago before prices went nuts. But I hear you on focusing on runs, I was all over the place for a while

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

Contentment is an illusion. The thirst is unquenchable. There’s always the next book

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 8/27/2021 at 10:22 PM, UncleAnwar said:

Good question. 

 

I'm almost there I think. I've completed ASM 1-400, FF 1-400, XMEN 1-300, Captain America 100-300, and a ton of bronze series (tomb of dracula, werewolf by night, marvel teamup, Luke Cage, iron fist, nova, rom, man-thing, Warlock, and the list goes on.

I've got a handful of Daredevils left to get and 7 higher issue Strange Tales to finish those runs. After I complete those this year then I'll have to re-evaluate and decide if I want to chase another series or not. 

But...I'm sure I will, because like many have said, the thrill of the hunt is half the fun

I highly recommend JIM/Thor for your next quest!

[Professor K]

On 8/28/2021 at 10:05 AM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

Contentment is an illusion. The thirst is unquenchable. There’s always the next book

That's very insightful. Confucius? It's very true. The collection never ends it goes on and on and on and on. Or Just when I thought I was out, the next book pulls me back in. 

When it comes to these things complete contentment is just not possible. 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Professor K

[Subby1938]

I’ve collected my whole life wether it was comics ,cards vintage BMX bikes or statues.  Before the big comic price boom I had a longer list of wants but today I’ve settled for my absolute childhood favs. I’m trying to round out my collection with few big books and some original art I can sit back smile and watch my son grow.  
 

Sub-Mariner Comics Timely 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,13 (to finish the run a tall order but so much fun hunting these down)

Amazing Spiderman 1,3

Amazing Fantasy 15

Fantastic Four 5,48,49,50

original sketches of namor by John Byrne 

original sketches of black costume spiderman by John Byrne and Clayton Crain 

 

This is my want list and if I had these I would be content. I have many more cool comics , cards and art so taking time to see if I can pull this off would be great