Registered: 03/23/05
Posts: 19263
Loc: Alberta Canada
Originally Posted By: podboy66
Great report guys. Family commitments didn't allow me to stay for long, I would have liked to meet Stan the Man.
Dave, I hope you keep the Marvel Mystery 20 as its a really nice copy.
The show has some really nice golden age books which is really rare for Calgary. I picked up an Action 31 cgc 7.0, a Sub-mariner Comics 15 cgc 6.5, Marvel Mystery 73 in G/VG, All Winners 15 in VG, a Fantastic Comics 4 in VG- and a Miss America Magazine 1. Sold Marvel Mystery 20, 57, and 67, Sub-Mariner Comics 6, Marvel Tales 111, and a Heroic 1. Pretty good for walking around for a couple of hours with a back pack!
The MM is a keeper. Who had the All Winners 15? Dang I would have picked that up.
I think the selection of vintage books will only get better in the future.
Registered: 06/11/03
Posts: 12576
Loc: Edmonton, Alberta
Originally Posted By: thehumantorch
My next customer was a very shy 14 year old boy. He asked how much the Avengers 1 was. We had my low grade copy for $400 and 500club's nice copy for $2600. He looked at mine and then gave it back. I'm a bit of a joker and teased him about something and he just turned and walked away. Oops, didn't mean to scare him off but there's no way he's buying Avengers 1.
He came back and like a fool I teased him again and he again walked away.
He came back a few minutes later and handed me $400. I must say I was surprised. I gave him the Avengers and asked him if he liked Spider-man. He did so I gave him a decent copy of ASM 252. He was thrilled. I gave him my card and told him to call me if there was any problem and I thanked him for the sale. And yes, I'm sure I teased him again.
He walked off and then came back an hour later and purchased some Marvel Star Wars.
Next time I saw him he was with his mother. She could not believe he had bought a comic for $400. More shocked than mad but I'm sure the thought that I had ripped her son off was in the back of her mind. She was also concerned that he had been convinced to send the comic to CGC after Stan had signed it.
Turns out they are farmers and he earned the money milking their 60 cows every day and he spent almost all of it on one comic.
We had a long discussion about collecting comics and why certain comics were worth so much. She didn't mind her son spending $5 on a Star Wars comic; but $400 for one comic? I told her she had it backwards. The Star Wars were relatively low demand books and the Avengers 1 was an important old key book featuring popular characters and an easy book to resell.
During this discussion I had a couple $100 type sales and then I sold nice copies of FF 10, 14, 17, 26 and 28 to one guy. As I jammed the pile of $100 bills into my Batman cash bucket she realized that grown men were spending hundreds or even thousands of $$ on funny books before her very eyes. And she could see that my cash bucket was absolutely stuffed with big bills.
I also explained that it was a good idea to submit a signed book to CGC to ensure the signature was verified.
And I told her she had raised a great kid and collecting comics was a wonderful hobby and that comics were an art form.
I gave her my card with a link to the CGC message boards and him to come here and read about comics and I told her if he wanted to sell the book back to me at any time I would give him all his money back and I told her to contact me if they ever had any questions.
The whole time that kid had a silly, happy, I'm in heaven look. He was totally digging comics and the show and our discussion and he'll be a comic collector and fan for a long, long time - unless they chain him to a cow.
I would have felt guilty gouging him that badly on that drekky copy of the book.
piperpiper Fortunately, I'm below the radar on these boards and am not worthy of a custom title.
TOTAL NEWBIE
Registered: 07/18/06
Posts: 6509
Loc: Edmonton, AB
I wouldn't say that the Comics were a side event but there were a number of people who were there strictly for the Star Trek Next Generation Cast. As evidenced by these photos in the autograph/photo op section of the convention space:
piperpiper Fortunately, I'm below the radar on these boards and am not worthy of a custom title.
TOTAL NEWBIE
Registered: 07/18/06
Posts: 6509
Loc: Edmonton, AB
There were several dealers selling moderns, trades, statues etc. However, there were only two booths with any real quality stuff: Harley Yee and the Edmonton band. Harley's stuff was priced aggressively but he had the goods...
I managed to snag these pictures while Harley was hard at work...