Baltimore Comic-Con - October 28-30, 2022 - Baltimore Convention Center - Baltimore, Maryland. 4 4

[Ron C.]

On 10/31/2022 at 4:59 PM, ttfitz said:

Ah, that explains it - I went to the 1pm Miller panel, at 1:30 with nobody there and nobody bothering to tell us anything, I left to wash my hands before the George Pérez appreciation panel.

I felt so sorry for Frank. By the time we got to the front of the line (with my 2 "Gold" packages that were rolled over from last year) he looked absolutely spent.  Apparently, not only did they roll over all of last year's FM signings, but BCC was selling new ones right up to the show. I heard that some people didn't even get their signatures. If you are going to pay for a "Platinum" or "Gold" package you should at least expect to be in the room when the artist actually talks.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Ron C.

[ttfitz]

On 10/31/2022 at 5:23 PM, Ron C. said:

I felt so sorry for Frank. By the time we got to the front of the line (with my 2 "Gold" packages that were rolled over from last year) he looked absolutely spent.

Yeah, I actually walked by the panel room on my way to the Pérez one and he had just arrived and was walking down the aisle towards the stage. He was moving really, really slow, and didn't seem to be doing so great.

[Robot Man]

On 10/31/2022 at 1:14 PM, alexgross.com said:

such a great, insightful and unbiased assessment of the show and the market right now.

in my short time here on the boards, i've learned that dealers here will either say any given show was insane, over the top sales, or they will say it was pretty good, or they will have nothing to say.

naturally it is against their interests to say publicly that a show was dead or the market is slowing down since that would result in more of us annoyingly lowballing them on our offers. and dealers who specialize in different stuff will have different results. 

 

In my many years of dealing in collectibles I have found that nearly no dealer wants to admit they had a bad show. If they do, they often blame it on buyers, the promoters or economic conditions. They never want to take any of the blame. It might be they had the wrong stuff, their prices are too high or maybe they just aren't "people people". Everyone want to be a success and they want everyone to know. Not that the seller had anything to do with an unsecussful show.

As a seller, if you low ball me, whine, or disrespect me or my merchandise, you usually leave my booth with nothing. Buying and selling collectibles is supposed to be a positive interaction between buyer and seller. This is what usually separates good shows from bad ones. 

[Foolkiller]

On 10/31/2022 at 6:05 PM, Robot Man said:

In my many years of dealing in collectibles I have found that nearly no dealer wants to admit they had a bad show. If they do, they often blame it on buyers, the promoters or economic conditions. They never want to take any of the blame. It might be they had the wrong stuff, their prices are too high or maybe they just aren't "people people". Everyone want to be a success and they want everyone to know. Not that the seller had anything to do with an unsecussful show.

As a seller, if you low ball me, whine, or disrespect me or my merchandise, you usually leave my booth with nothing. Buying and selling collectibles is supposed to be a positive interaction between buyer and seller. This is what usually separates good shows from bad ones. 

This is a really great observation and shows someone who remembers being on both sides of the table.  I always shake my head at the folks (and I mean this everywhere, whether on YouTube, FB or where ever) who seem to want to say how all the dealers are thieves and they're all over priced as if the dealers are the enemy.  This is unequivocally untrue.  The same for the idea that the LCS owner is trying to rip you off.  Likewise, if you haven't sold much as a dealer, it isn't always that the buyers are 'too cheap' or there weren't enough people there.  There's been a real price correction the last couple of months, but people are still buying.  

Some of the disconnect comes from the idea that dealers are not trying to all 'blow their material out' or even 'give good deals'.  Many are patient and want to set at or above market pricing.  Just because they're not all looking to sell you something at the last GPA or what you perceive the true value to be doesn't make them the 'villain'.  This is a model that has worked well for many, many dealers.  Especially those at the top of the market.  They aren't always chasing last GPA etc.  Many folks who need to have good flow of product or work on a model of higher volume turn and burn want to give deals so that their cash flow is constant.  Still others are simply under capitalized and can't afford to just wait for a return, while others believe in cultivating a client base where they aren't squeezing every last dollar.  I don't think any of these are the 'right' or the 'wrong' way to do things.  There are enough sellers who want to raise capital or who believe in quicker turn over that there's no need to deride the folks who are more patient and may have higher prices.  They also may have rarer books or higher quality.  

Like many things in life, the relationships really matter.  I find the relationship you have with dealers, store owners, and fellow collectors is what really carries the day.  That's not to say that I've been perfect in every action with every single person with how I've treated them or how they've perceived I've treated them.  But overall, I would say that understanding what the seller wants to achieve and what they respond to is what opens the door to more and better deals.  

[Murphman13]

Strong relationships with other dealers, collectors, and anyone else tied to this industry has been one my biggest assets that has opened many doors for buying and selling books. 
Baltimore produced some interesting results for me. Even though my total sales were the lowest they have been for the past 5 shows, I set a new record for customer only sales made during the cons operating hours. Especially surprising was that I didn’t bring any of my $5, $2 and 50 cent boxes because I was sharing my booth. I did sell some wall books but only three would be considered high dollar books. Most of my sales came from my $10-$150 books in the boxes. I had a little bit of everything, gold to modern, mags, trades, sets and slabs in the boxes and they all did well. 

[ttfitz]

On 10/31/2022 at 8:09 PM, Murphman13 said:

Especially surprising was that I didn’t bring any of my $5, $2 and 50 cent boxes because I was sharing my booth. I did sell some wall books but only three would be considered high dollar books. Most of my sales came from my $10-$150 books in the boxes. I had a little bit of everything, gold to modern, mags, trades, sets and slabs in the boxes and they all did well. 

This reminded me about a booth I saw and wondered about. I've seen plenty of $1 boxes - and now $2 boxes - at shows, but one booth had 2 or 3 boxes with a sign that said "$10", a few more with "$20", and some more with "$30" (there might have been higher, but you get the idea). I skipped over this booth the first two days, as it seemed more trouble for me to look for my wantlist items 3 or 4 different times for each set of boxes, but I was about finished on Sunday and ready to leave, so I thought, why not?

But when I looked, the books were just randomly placed in the boxes, no order at all  (beyond segregation by price). Yeah, not for me.

I wanted to ask how they were doing with that setup, as I thought it might be bad for business, but decided they might take it poorly and find it rude, so I just left.

Or maybe it's just me - I don't usually bother with unsorted dollar boxes, either, given that my list of wants consists of an issue or two of 70 or 80 different titles and it's just too much to deal with, but apparently people do buy from those, so who knows?

[1Cool]

On 10/31/2022 at 8:09 PM, Murphman13 said:

Strong relationships with other dealers, collectors, and anyone else tied to this industry has been one my biggest assets that has opened many doors for buying and selling books. 
Baltimore produced some interesting results for me. Even though my total sales were the lowest they have been for the past 5 shows, I set a new record for customer only sales made during the cons operating hours. Especially surprising was that I didn’t bring any of my $5, $2 and 50 cent boxes because I was sharing my booth. I did sell some wall books but only three would be considered high dollar books. Most of my sales came from my $10-$150 books in the boxes. I had a little bit of everything, gold to modern, mags, trades, sets and slabs in the boxes and they all did well. 

This is interesting in terms of how the market is doing.  I heard a lot of dealers say that load in was pretty dead and dealer to dealer sales were much, much lower than usual.  The general public seemed to flock to a few booths that either had killer selection or low prices and those few did really well (the rest did ok to poorly).  Did the general public pick up the slack because the boxes were less picked over from the dealers and flippers?  In general It sounds like sales across the board was lower even compared to pre-COVID numbers except for a few booths.

Edited November 1, 2022 by 1Cool

[blazingbob]

On 10/31/2022 at 6:05 PM, Robot Man said:

In my many years of dealing in collectibles I have found that nearly no dealer wants to admit they had a bad show. If they do, they often blame it on buyers, the promoters or economic conditions. They never want to take any of the blame. It might be they had the wrong stuff, their prices are too high or maybe they just aren't "people people". Everyone want to be a success and they want everyone to know. Not that the seller had anything to do with an unsecussful show.

As a seller, if you low ball me, whine, or disrespect me or my merchandise, you usually leave my booth with nothing. Buying and selling collectibles is supposed to be a positive interaction between buyer and seller. This is what usually separates good shows from bad ones. 

I may be an exception but I will gladly tell you when I've had a bad show.  To most people if they hear I'm having a bad show it is almost like telling them I had a death in the family.  And there are a number of reasons why I could have a bad show and who I will assign blame to.

If my prices are too high or my inventory price points are too high for the customer base at that show that is my fault.

Customers who complain that there is nothing at a show really should be more specific at what exactly they are looking for.  My convention schedule is up 1 year in advance.  If you can't look at my website and ask me to bring books to a show how am I going to know you need MTU 100-115 in high grade?  Or War books,  Or Charltons, Or Dark Horse Aliens?  Not doing a little research before coming to a show is the collector's fault.   

If there is low attendance or lack of customers that is the promoters fault.

If you are down to that 1 or 2 customers making your show there is a good chance you will eventually have a bad show.  The replacement and addition of new customers is very important to why I set up.   While I like seeing old customers I also want to meet new buyers.  If you can't cultivate new customers that is the dealer's fault.  One reason could be the area doesn't have the economic scale to support your business model.  Being down to 1-2 customers making a show is why I no longer do Boston Shows.  While people think that there is a lot of money in Boston my sales numbers over a large timeline strongly disagrees with that.    

If there is a low number of dealers at the show that is usually a signal that the show has issues.  I have been the last dealer standing at shows.  (Philadelphia).  Dealers that make money at shows will come back unless there are circumstances that outweigh the profit of the show.  NY Comic con is a perfect example of that.  Great show,  Very profitable show but the load in/load out stresses make you question whether it is worth doing or not.

If sales are slow and there are no books to buy your way out of the show then it is highly unlikely I will be back.   

Edited November 1, 2022 by blazingbob

[1Cool]

On 11/1/2022 at 11:56 AM, blazingbob said:

I may be an exception but I will gladly tell you when I've had a bad show.  To most people if they hear I'm having a bad show it is almost like telling them I had a death in the family.  And there are a number of reasons why I could have a bad show and who I will assign blame to.

If my prices are too high or my inventory price points are too high for the customer base at that show that is my fault.

Customers who complain that there is nothing at a show really should be more specific at what exactly they are looking for.  My convention schedule is up 1 year in advance.  If you can't look at my website and ask me to bring books to a show how am I going to know you need MTU 100-115 in high grade?  Or War books,  Or Charltons, Or Dark Horse Aliens?  Not doing a little research before coming to a show is the collector's fault.   

If there is low attendance or lack of customers that is the promoters fault.

If you are down to that 1 or 2 customers making your show there is a good chance you will eventually have a bad show.  The replacement and addition of new customers is very important to why I set up.   While I like seeing old customers I also want to meet new buyers.  If you can't cultivate new customers that is the dealer's fault,  could be the area doesn't have the economic scale to support your business model.    

If there is a low number of dealers at the show that is usually a signal that the show has issues.  Dealers that make money at shows will come back unless there are circumstances that outweigh the profit of the show.  NY Comic con is a perfect example of that.  Great show,  Very profitable show but the load in/load out stresses make you question whether it is worth doing or not.

If sales are slow and there are no books to buy your way out of the show then it is highly unlikely I will be back.   

How did Baltimore go for you?

[blazingbob]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:03 PM, 1Cool said:

How did Baltimore go for you?

I did very well at Baltimore across all categories,  Wholesale, retail,  buying,  new customers etc.

[Foolkiller]

On 10/31/2022 at 9:02 PM, ttfitz said:

This reminded me about a booth I saw and wondered about. I've seen plenty of $1 boxes - and now $2 boxes - at shows, but one booth had 2 or 3 boxes with a sign that said "$10", a few more with "$20", and some more with "$30" (there might have been higher, but you get the idea). I skipped over this booth the first two days, as it seemed more trouble for me to look for my wantlist items 3 or 4 different times for each set of boxes, but I was about finished on Sunday and ready to leave, so I thought, why not?

But when I looked, the books were just randomly placed in the boxes, no order at all  (beyond segregation by price). Yeah, not for me.

I wanted to ask how they were doing with that setup, as I thought it might be bad for business, but decided they might take it poorly and find it rude, so I just left.

Or maybe it's just me - I don't usually bother with unsorted dollar boxes, either, given that my list of wants consists of an issue or two of 70 or 80 different titles and it's just too much to deal with, but apparently people do buy from those, so who knows?

I think this depends.  As a collector, I can completely understand this logic and wanting to skip those unsorted boxes.  You are looking for specific issues you want and it's frustrating to constantly comb through to just find a handful of issues.

But if you are a flipper, unsorted boxes generally are a good sign.  It means the dealer generally didn't want to be bothered sorting through the boxes on his or her own and are satisfied to let you sift through and find the diamonds, which you often can do, even in this environment. If they priced, bagged, boarded and organized it, they likely pulled anything that you'd want to try and make money on.  In general at that level ($1, $5, etc) flippers spend well more than collectors and for the hours of work that go into sorting that kind of material, the marginal profit return isn't worth it I'd imagine/. in other words, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Foolkiller

[blazingbob]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:08 PM, Foolkiller said:

I think this depends.  As a collector, I can completely understand this logic and wanting to skip those unsorted boxes.  You are looking for specific issues you want and it's frustrating to constantly comb through to just find a handful of issues.

But if you are a flipper, unsorted boxes generally are a good sign.  It means the dealer generally didn't want to be bothered sorting through the boxes on his or her own and are satisfied to let you sift through and find the diamonds, which you often can do, even in this environment. If they priced, bagged, boarded and organized it, they likely pulled anything that you'd want to try and make money on.  In general at that level ($1, $5, etc) flippers spend well more than collectors and for the hours of work that go into sorting that kind of material, the marginal profit return isn't worth it I'd imagine/. in other words, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Most want POP UP PROFIT.

Least amount of work for the most amount of money.

Much like some of the Home run upgraders I know.  

Please point me to your slabs that I can make a lot of money on.

[Foolkiller]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:18 PM, blazingbob said:

Most want POP UP PROFIT.

Least amount of work for the most amount of money.

Much like some of the Home run upgraders I know.  

Please point me to your slabs that I can make a lot of money on.

No need to point, I'll just look myself.

[ttfitz]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:08 PM, Foolkiller said:

But if you are a flipper, unsorted boxes generally are a good sign.  It means the dealer generally didn't want to be bothered sorting through the boxes on his or her own and are satisfied to let you sift through and find the diamonds, which you often can do, even in this environment. If they priced, bagged, boarded and organized it, they likely pulled anything that you'd want to try and make money on.  In general at that level ($1, $5, etc) flippers spend well more than collectors and for the hours of work that go into sorting that kind of material, the marginal profit return isn't worth it I'd imagine/. in other words, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Yeah, I get that's the target audience for those low priced unsorted boxes, and I get it, it isn't aimed at me, which is why I generally avoid (if you have a "regular" booth and just a box or two, I'll probably look thru). Which is why I was surprised by the $10, $20, etc boxes that were unsorted - you have apparently made the effort to pull out stuff that isn't just the leftovers, but you can't spend an extra 10 minutes sorting out the 3 boxes you've pulled? Wasn't really sure who the target audience was in this case.

[1Cool]

On 11/1/2022 at 1:22 PM, ttfitz said:

Yeah, I get that's the target audience for those low priced unsorted boxes, and I get it, it isn't aimed at me, which is why I generally avoid (if you have a "regular" booth and just a box or two, I'll probably look thru). Which is why I was surprised by the $10, $20, etc boxes that were unsorted - you have apparently made the effort to pull out stuff that isn't just the leftovers, but you can't spend an extra 10 minutes sorting out the 3 boxes you've pulled? Wasn't really sure who the target audience was in this case.

The target audience for these type of booths are people looking for a discount on a book and are typically not as worried about finding a particular issue.  Set price booth sellers seem to be guys with a lot of inventory and would rather sell a ton of books at $5 / $10 / $20 a piece with a bit of meat left on the bone then spend the time pricing out each book.  Buyers know this and flock to these guys for the perceived discount and don't mind hunting for the forgotten gem.  Plus you get the people who have $20 in their pocket and don't want to hunt for 4 books in a sea of priced book but know they can grab 4 books for a bunch of $5 book boxes and their $20 will cover it.  It really comes down to lack of effort on the buyer and seller with one wanting less books with little effort the other wants a discount with little haggling.

[Kevin76]

On 11/1/2022 at 1:22 PM, ttfitz said:

Yeah, I get that's the target audience for those low priced unsorted boxes, and I get it, it isn't aimed at me, which is why I generally avoid (if you have a "regular" booth and just a box or two, I'll probably look thru). Which is why I was surprised by the $10, $20, etc boxes that were unsorted - you have apparently made the effort to pull out stuff that isn't just the leftovers, but you can't spend an extra 10 minutes sorting out the 3 boxes you've pulled? Wasn't really sure who the target audience was in this case.

I have a buddy of mine that does that, looks through box after box to try and turn $2 into $20.  I don't have that kind of patience for that.  I do have a lot of patience, but not for that.  

 

[Wags82]

This was my first Baltimore Comic Con and I really enjoyed it.  I will admit I'm a newer collector and my focus was more on meeting artists and submitting CGC signature books.

Does anyone know what the actual turn around time is for any books being submitted at a show, to show up on the CGC website?  I'm not in a hurry I just have no knowledge/expectation to see how long it takes to register that they have been received.  I know that the CGC rep said the current turn around for modern books is "about 20 days" which is always changing.

Thanks!

[alexgross.com]

On 11/2/2022 at 8:43 AM, Wags82 said:

This was my first Baltimore Comic Con and I really enjoyed it.  I will admit I'm a newer collector and my focus was more on meeting artists and submitting CGC signature books.

Does anyone know what the actual turn around time is for any books being submitted at a show, to show up on the CGC website?  I'm not in a hurry I just have no knowledge/expectation to see how long it takes to register that they have been received.  I know that the CGC rep said the current turn around for modern books is "about 20 days" which is always changing.

Thanks!

 

 

[Terry JSA]

On 10/31/2022 at 5:23 PM, Ron C. said:

I felt so sorry for Frank. By the time we got to the front of the line (with my 2 "Gold" packages that were rolled over from last year) he looked absolutely spent.  Apparently, not only did they roll over all of last year's FM signings, but BCC was selling new ones right up to the show. I heard that some people didn't even get their signatures. If you are going to pay for a "Platinum" or "Gold" package you should at least expect to be in the room when the artist actually talks.

The Frank Miller signing was an absolute sheet show. I purchased the Gold package and heard they weren’t supposed be selling any more due to the rollover from last year, as you mentioned.

Personally I felt the whole thing wasn’t worth $300 whatsoever after experiencing it for myself. And to add insult to injury, some of the Silver package holders waited in line for hours and didn’t even get to meet him, let alone get a signature.

[blazingbob]

On 11/3/2022 at 12:04 PM, Terry JSA said:

The Frank Miller signing was an absolute sheet show. I purchased the Gold package and heard they weren’t supposed be selling any more due to the rollover from last year, as you mentioned.

Personally I felt the whole thing wasn’t worth $300 whatsoever after experiencing it for myself. And to add insult to injury, some of the Silver package holders waited in line for hours and didn’t even get to meet him, let alone get a signature.

I sat across from Frank Miller at Morton's on Friday night.  Didn't say hello but it was cool to see him.  I guess I saved some money since I didn't have to spend $300