Mgc015 Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 He said in the first post that he stopped getting new books in 2012, so I’m waiting to see if he got an Ultimate Fallout 4 and any variants. What a great find that would be. Good luck. EastEnd1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newshane Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 On 2/25/2024 at 9:31 PM, ADAMANTIUM said: I thought the same with fingerbends. Still sounds like a worthy thread. The start of say 1997 up to about 2014 is when I didn't think too much of comics nor see a lot of them. This thread could be very informative for me, not having read probably countless threads form the boards during that time. 😂 We have the Spawn thread as well, and this is a bit everyman that I'll enjoy too. Speaking of Spawn... let me know if you have Spawn 156. I'd appreciate first dibs on "the one that got away." ADAMANTIUM and RockMyAmadeus 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADAMANTIUM Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 On 2/25/2024 at 9:45 PM, newshane said: Speaking of Spawn... let me know if you have Spawn 156. I'd appreciate first dibs on "the one that got away." If I think about it when I see it I'll look out for you, I don't own it currently. I did think of you as a LCS got in some a while back, but I didn't remember the issue number and etc didn't know where to find it 😂 on the boards. I should have pmd you. No I don't currently own it though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newshane Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 On 2/25/2024 at 9:58 PM, ADAMANTIUM said: If I think about it when I see it I'll look out for you, I don't own it currently. I did think of you as a LCS got in some a while back, but I didn't remember the issue number and etc didn't know where to find it 😂 on the boards. I should have pmd you. No I don't currently own it though It's gotta be a 9.8. ADAMANTIUM 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 On 2/25/2024 at 10:00 PM, fastballspecial said: Amazing so many graded so high. I thought for sure you were screwed on the Ultimate Spider-man 1 from the first pic. I was pleasantly surprised on that one too... was one of the weaker comics coming out of the box. But they're all so structurally sound from being untouched since they were shipped that even the ones with a few minor defects easily benefit from a press. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 On 2/25/2024 at 10:31 PM, ADAMANTIUM said: I thought the same with fingerbends. Still sounds like a worthy thread. The start of say 1997 up to about 2014 is when I didn't think too much of comics nor see a lot of them. This thread could be very informative for me, not having read probably countless threads form the boards during that time. 😂 We have the Spawn thread as well, and this is a bit everyman that I'll enjoy too. 1997 - 2014 is an interesting collecting space as it's the period that followed the 1990s implosion. Collectors were leaving the hobby in droves and circulation figures were deteriorating substantially. I remember consciously thinking at the time that new comics were going to be scarcer than their predecessors, creating an investment opportunity, and this is one of the things that drove me to keep buying even though I wasn't reading them anymore. ADAMANTIUM and BA773 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 On 2/25/2024 at 10:38 PM, Mgc015 said: He said in the first post that he stopped getting new books in 2012, so I’m waiting to see if he got an Ultimate Fallout 4 and any variants. What a great find that would be. Good luck. I know I gave up on the Ultimate line well before 2012, but since Fallout was more of a short special event type of series, it's possible I ordered it... especially if Westfield was recommending it at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 On 2/25/2024 at 10:45 PM, newshane said: Speaking of Spawn... let me know if you have Spawn 156. I'd appreciate first dibs on "the one that got away." To be honest, I thought I'd given up on ordering Spawn much earlier on too, but there's been at least one Spawn comic in every box so far, even going beyond #100. If I come across a #156, it's yours! ADAMANTIUM 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 (edited) In the early 1980s, I saw my first independent comic book on the stands at my local comic shop... Jack Kirby's "Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers." It was from some new publisher called Pacific Comics and inside were ads for other titles Pacific was planning on putting out. Can't say I was overwhelmed by Captain Victory, but I saw this new output from a new publisher as a definite opportunity to get in from the ground up, and decided to buy every issue Pacific put out. Soon titles like Mike Grell's Starslayer, and this amazing new artist find named Dave Stevens (I especially liked Betty in The Rocketeer ), did manage to grab me and I began to buy multiples of every Pacific #1. By the time Sergio Aragones's Groo the Wanderer came out, I was buying a whopping five copies, more than I was buying for even Marvel and DC #1s at the time! So what does this have to do with the December 1998 box? Nothing really... but these are the memories that came flooding back when I pulled this other Sergio Aragones one-shot from the box... for me, Aragones will always be tied to the Pacific Comics Groo... Edited February 26 by EastEnd1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 I love this Abraham Lincoln Batman cover... BA773 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 I know we have a lot of X-Men fans out there. Starting with the Claremont / Byrne Phoenix saga issues, I committed to buying every issue of (Uncanny) X-Men. Looks like I was still keeping up with it in late 1998... Second Blight 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 One last one from the Dec '98 box... I've always been a sci-fi fan too and this painted cover by John Bolton I thought was pretty neat... ADAMANTIUM 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JollyComics Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 It's always fantastic to watch your time capsules. I realized your former subscription came from Middletown near Madison Wisconsin, not far from my uncle and aunt who residue in Middletown. My parents live in Burlington - about two hours away. Are you living in Wisconsin? I checked Westfield Comics website. They are still in business. Have you informed them about your recent graded comic books? I am sure they will be excited to hear about this. EastEnd1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 On 2/26/2024 at 8:51 PM, JollyComics said: It's always fantastic to watch your time capsules. I realized your former subscription came from Middletown near Madison Wisconsin, not far from my uncle and aunt who residue in Middletown. My parents live in Burlington - about two hours away. Are you living in Wisconsin? I checked Westfield Comics website. They are still in business. Have you informed them about your recent graded comic books? I am sure they will be excited to hear about this. Thank you so much... really appreciate it! Nice to make the Wisconsin connection, but no, I'm from New York. I'm not sure how I found Westfield to be honest. I remember being in a panic to keep my comic runs going after my local comic shop closed down. There was no internet to research from back then, so my guess is I found them from a comic book ad. Funny you mention that they're still in business. When I was writing my opening post for this thread, I actually did think to go see if they were still around and I was glad to see that they were... I guess they didn't suffer too much from losing me as a customer! I hadn't thought about reaching out to them but that's a good idea. I'll definitely do that. They should be happy that I'm giving them all this free publicity! ADAMANTIUM, JollyComics and BA773 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BA773 Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 On 2/26/2024 at 6:40 PM, EastEnd1 said: I love this Abraham Lincoln Batman cover... You will also appreciate Detective #773! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JollyComics Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 On 2/26/2024 at 9:36 PM, EastEnd1 said: Thank you so much... really appreciate it! Nice to make the Wisconsin connection, but no, I'm from New York. I'm not sure how I found Westfield to be honest. I remember being in a panic to keep my comic runs going after my local comic shop closed down. There was no internet to research from back then, so my guess is I found them from a comic book ad. Funny you mention that they're still in business. When I was writing my opening post for this thread, I actually did think to go see if they were still around and I was glad to see that they were... I guess they didn't suffer too much from losing me as a customer! I hadn't thought about reaching out to them but that's a good idea. I'll definitely do that. They should be happy that I'm giving them all this free publicity! Happy accident! Just curious. Can you tell us what is your breakdown? How many books have you submitted? How many books were returned with 9.8? I am sure that Westfield Comics did a superb job on packing the books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 On 2/27/2024 at 1:21 AM, BA773 said: You will also appreciate Detective #773! Wow, that is one violent cover! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 On 2/27/2024 at 5:21 AM, JollyComics said: Happy accident! Just curious. Can you tell us what is your breakdown? How many books have you submitted? How many books were returned with 9.8? I am sure that Westfield Comics did a superb job on packing the books. Sure... the first group I worked through consisted of eight boxes and totaled about 500 comics. About 60 of them I considered worthy for grading, meaning that they had 9.8 potential (or lower in some cases) and enough value "in grade" to justify the cost and effort of grading and selling (and sometimes pressing). I've received back 40 from CGC so far and 37 hit 9.8... so a hit rate of about 93%. Westfield did do a great job of packaging. When I'm going through a box and I see an issue with some value, I'd say about 80% of the time, it will have 9.8 potential. And that also holds for the 440 books I'm choosing not to submit... most have 9.8 potential. Westfield was a pretty big subscription service when I was using them, and I had this vision of immense tables with huge stacks of comics that they would pull from to fill my subscription. There was no picking through the stack to pull the best one... I'm sure I just got what ever copy was on top when they got to my order. But they were dealing with such volume that most of their books had to have been pristine... they were by necessity so minimally handled. You also have to remember that CGC didn't exist when I started with Westfield, and grading, though important, wasn't quite as particular as it is today. So the fact that so many of these have 9.8 potential is a testament to their care in getting me my books in great shape. I do remember a few instances when a box arrived crunched at one corner which impacted the books inside, but this was rare. There's one box I just pulled that was badly crunched on two sides, one corner actually completely cracked open, but the books inside were still perfect. Those styrofoam packing peanuts really work! This past Sunday I pulled ten more boxes to start going through (including the broken one). I know people want to see books from the era so I'll be photographing and posting a lot more comics once I get to these boxes. I'll also post them more contemporaneously instead of waiting to get books back from CGC so I can keep a better flow of posts. I'll still post the graded books too when I get them back (good or bad) so you can see the results as I do. grendel013 and Qalyar 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BA773 Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 On 2/27/2024 at 2:52 PM, EastEnd1 said: Wow, that is one violent cover! Sorry to confused you... it was 774 not 773 LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastEnd1 Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 On 2/27/2024 at 3:18 PM, BA773 said: Sorry to confused you... it was 774 not 773 LOL Ah, much better... now I understand what you were getting at! BA773 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
