n2wdw's comic book room

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Thank you for sharing your experiences. I just fount the journal section and have really enjoyed your thread. I also like GGA and find Stevens really fits my tastes. I, however, collect his covers raw only to save $$. Did you disclose how you chose to sell off a good chunk of your collection?

Some Miscellaneous Stuff

* Hi cupny, thanks for your note. I haven't yet sold the comics I've purged from my collection. Those number about 20,000 comics. I'm tempted to just sell them all to one of the big national comic companies like Mile High. Or I might first try to sell some comics here or eBay. Not sure yet.

* I've mentioned before how Franchesco is one of my favorite modern GGA cover artists. Unlike J. Scott Campbell, Franchesco has done a reasonable number of comics. Thus, it's possible to put together a complete CGC collection of comics he's done. I'm working on that, picking up (or submitting to CGC) a comic here and there. My goal is 9.8 only and while I'm not looking for SS, I don't mind getting them because (1) his signature doesn't really push up the price much, and (2) Franchesco always picks a good place for his sig so it never hurts the art.

So here's one I got recently. The transaction was kind of sweet. The seller originally had BIN/Best Offer. I offered about $65 and the seller turned it down. A couple months later, the comic came up for auction (by the same seller). I ended up winning it for $50. How often does that happen?

* Jen Broomall is another GGA cover artist I collect (she's done even less comics than Franchesco). I bought this comic raw at the BDI table at last years SDCC, and got it back with my latest CGC modern submission. I recently commissioned Jen for a Gwen Stacy double cover sketch. Can't wait to see what she does with that.

* Speaking of Gwen, I picked this up cheap off eBay for my Gwen Stacy collection.

You got great taste in covers my friend!

SW3D

Russ Cochran's Complete EC Library

I like EC books, but I decided early on NOT to add them to my want list. They're too expensive, and I already had too many collecting goals. So when Russ Cochran published the Complete EC Library it really appealed to me. I could get every EC comic in nice looking, slipcased volumes. Here's a description of the Library from Wikipedia:

The Complete EC Library

From 1978 to 1996, this project reprinted almost every EC comic in 66 hardbound volumes contained in 17 slipcases. Unlike the original comics, these were done in black and white, except for Mad, which had both black-and-white edition and a color edition. The complete issue was reprinted, including house ads, letters pages, text stories, and editorial content. Covers for each issue were printed in full color on glossy paper. These volumes included annotations and commentary by various comics historians, including John Benson, Max Allan Collins, Martin Jukovsky, Bill Mason, Bill Spicer and Bhob Stewart.

In the mid 1980s, I subscribed to the Complete EC Library from Russ Cochran's publishing house. But being just out of college, I couldn't afford the subscription, so I canceled after receiving 3 of the slipcased collections.

My goal now is to finish the rest of the library via eBay. I picked this one up about a month ago (for only $35!). This collection has volumes of Impact, MD and Valor.

Midtown Comics and Spider Gwen

I'm somewhat intrigued by the Spider Gwen story, even though fundamentally I don't like the idea of turning Gwen Stacy into a superhero. I was in NYC last week so decided to stop by Midtown comics in Broadway, as they released some of the Spider Gwen variants.

Midtown had piles and piles of the variants. I looked through all they had on the shelves, but only found a few that were 9.8 possible. The experience hit home that it's not easy getting 9.8s even when buying fresh off the stands.

I wanted to buy a stack of the Spider Gwen blanks to get sketch covers down the road. But Midtown was limiting to 1 copy per customer per visit. I went once by myself and then again with my wife and managed to get 3 copies (I only show 2 of them below -- unfortuantely the 3rd got dinged on the trip home). They were at cover (around $4) so I wanted to stop by again to get more, but eventually figured there were better things to do in NYC with the wife than get more Spider Gwen blanks.

(I also picked up a few copies of the current Comic Shop News with the J. Scott Campbell cover. I'm thinking about submitting the best copy, to see how it'll look in a slab.)

Craft Beer and a Surprise Ebay Win

This weekend my wife and I are at Va Tech watching our 17 year old daughter compete in the East Region Sectionals swim meet. At night for dinner we usually go to a bar called Bull and Bones that has smoked meats, craft beers and alot of TVs playing the NCAAs. Drinkwise, I started with a Maker's Manhattan (not alot of bourbon choices here, although the relative sweetness of Maker's always makes it a good choice for Manhattans) and then had this sampler of their craft beers (for only 7 bucks!):

And here's their board describing the beers:

Earlier in the hotel room before the meet, I was surfing eBay to kill time. I have the books on my active want list bookmarked, so it's easy to quickly check what's new for sale. I saw a new offering for Hawkman #4. This book, the first appearance of Zatanna, has been on my want list for years. I already have this low grade raw copy, but I've wanted to upgrade.

The closest I came to upgrading was two years ago at SDCC. A dealer had a 5.0 - 6.0 raw copy on sale for about $250. I was about to buy it when I took it out of the bag and saw a water stain on the back cover.

About a month ago, I almost worked out a cash+trade deal for a raw copy with a boardie here. The book had a beautiful cover, but it had one detached staple. At the end, both the seller and I mutually walked away from the deal because we had different ideas of the value of the book.

Prices for Hawkman #4 have been strong the last few years. Right now, GPA has an upward green arrrow on the book in almost every grade, and 9.0s start at $1000. I'm not sure why the book costs so much. Maybe as much for all the cosplaying as the actual comics.

So anyway, back to the copy I found on eBay. It was CGC 5.0, and a nice looking copy based on the eBay pictures. The seller was offering it at $299 BIN/Best Offer. That's a good starting point for this book. Most others start higher. On eBay there are a couple 5.0s starting at over $450. There is one CBCS auction starting at $279, but I'm not interested in CBCS graded books.

GPA pegs a 5.0 at $250. I think GPA is low for many silver and gold books. There's just not data that gets fed into GPA. Not just CLink, but also behind the scenes deals where alot of the action takes place. But GPA is still useful as it sets a general floor for the book. I think the actual market value for Hawkman #4 in CGC 5.0 is some place between GPA and the eBay listings.

Anyway, I offered $200, $99 under the BIN price. I was expecting one of those immediate, automated declines. But, I got a "the seller is considering your offer" message from eBay. Soon after my wife and I left for the swim meet.

We were at Bull and Bones when I checked eBay on my iPhone. I expected a $275 counter from the seller. You know how it goes. He counters with $275, I counter with $225, and then we both have to decide if we want to go for $250, midway between his original price and my original offer.

Would I have gone $250? I don't know, maybe. That was the GPA price, but I usually try to get books for under GPA. That's what we all try to do right? Get books for what we perceive (guess) the market to be. At the same time, $250 is not a bad price, and I could finally check the book off my want list.

To my very pleasant surprise, the seller accepted my $200 offer! I gave a silent toast to the seller as I finished off my beer samples.

The funny thing is, if you look on GPA right now you'll see my $200 purchase, which brings down the GPA average. Ugh! I hope some of those CGC 5.0s on eBay sell soon to get the average back up.

Archie GGA

Before I get to the title of this post, allow me to vent a litte. So, this weekend a comic I wanted came up on eBay for a BIN/Best offer of $370. To me, when a person sets it up with Best Offer, he's inviting offers. So, based on GPA, I offered $250. In response I got one of those immediate declines.

Okay, I'm cool with that. I thought about it, and offered $275. Again I got an immediate decline.

So I thought about it more. I checked out other eBay auctions of the book, plus C-Connect and C-Link, as well as Lone Star. (This was over the course of a couple days.). I decided to go higher, so I entered a best offer of $300. This was the last offer eBay allows.

Finally the seller responded. He countered with $360.

Really? The seller knows I'm down to my last offer, and he comes down only $10? Why even invite offers if you're going to be so firm with your asking price?

Okay, whatever. I decline the seller's counter and do my best to forget about this experience. As I've said before, most comics are not rare, and this comic certainly is not. In fact, I've entered a bid on a copy of this book on C-Connect.

But guess what happens next? Later the next day, I enter an offer on another book. Coincidentally, it's the same seller. (Yeah, I know, how likely was that?) And he's banned me! He's banned me from bidding on his comics!

This is what I don't get. If you're listing on eBay, you're trying to make money right? Why would you ban any buyer? True, this back-and-forth was disappointing to both of us. But it's not like I screwed him on money. I didn't take his comic and then not pay him, or report him to eBay for some nonsense. Why ban a potential buyer who's never -- NEVER -- had negative feedback?

Anyway, whatever. I've bookmarked the seller's store, and I will never buy from him. So I guess we're even.

Okay, so now a reset to the title of this post. There's a lot of great Archie GA GGA. Maybe the most famous is Archie 50. It's not my favorite Archie GGA book. In fact, at best it's #4. But you can't really have a "legitimate" Archie GGA collection wiithout having #50 in your collection. So it's been on my want list for a while.

Back at the SDCC this past summer (probably the last one I'll ever go to, since it's a lot of hassle and less and less a comic convention), this one was on sale. A purple 0.5 (a scary combination), but what a nice cover. It was priced at $350. I offered $200 and the seller immediately passed (sounds like eBay).

Since then I've bid on a few copies of #50. The book isn't rare, it's just expensive. I'm not looking for a high grade copy, I just want a copy without major cover flaws. Finally a low grade, nice looking copy came up on eBay. I won it as the only bidder! I think it was one of those lucky times when I was the only person shopping. Only a 2.0, but it has a clean cover, and I got it for less than the list price of the purple 0.5. The book looks alot better in real life, the lighting is terrible in this picture.

So what are my #1-3 favorite Archie GGA books? Well, here are #1 and 2. I don't own a copy of #3 yet, so I'll wait until I get one (if ever) to post it here.

Those are all great covers and congratulations on getting a nice looking 50... can't go wrong with a copy like that!

And that's a weird eBay story.

I find this amusing...

Your #1 is a 4

Your #2 is a 3

Your #4 is a 2

May be a dumb question, but what does GGA stand for...?

Hibou - Ha! I didn't notice that, strange.

Vikingreed - GGA is good girl art, which in its truest form is suggestive and tease but not nudity.

N2wdw,

Anyone who blocks a collector with exceptional cover taste and knows to select Maker's Mark when ordering a Manhattan is a SOB in my book.

Spring Break and a Unique Comic Collectible at Universal Orlando

I’m on Spring Break vacation with my wife and kids. This year we decided to go for a couple days to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in Orlando, followed by a Disney Cruise. We’re big Disney fans – that’s why my name here is n2wdw. My wife and I have been to Universal before. I didn’t like it as I get motion sickness from all the motion rides. But we’re also big Harry Potter fans, and always wanted to see those sights at Universal. We had a couple days before the cruise, so this seemed like the perfect time to go.

I didn’t expect to get any comic related collectibles, despite the fact that Universal has the Marvel license, rather than Disney. But yesterday I found Marvel pressed penny machines in the Marvel side of the park. And, Universal sells this cool book to store your pressed penny collection.

That got my collecting juices going. Could I find all the pressed penny machines to get a complete collection? Would I have enough time, since I discovered these machines only at the end of the day? Did I have enough quarters and, more importantly, shiny pennies? As my oldest daughter said to me, the game was afoot!

So, I limited my quest to just the Marvel and cartoon sections of Islands of Adventure. Because, while I may be obsessed, I’m practical. I went into every store and restaurant looking for pressed penny machines, and also scouted along the sidewalks. Along the way I found a few cool subtle signs of the Marvel universe.

In the end, I found 5 pressed penny machines.

Here’s one of the pressed pennies, of Captain America.

And here’s -- ta ta -- my “Universal Islands of Adventure Marvel Pressed Penny” collection.

So you’d think that would be the end of this story, BUT THERE’S MORE! This morning we arrived at the Disney cruise terminal and what do I find but pressed penny machines!

There are 6 variants, one for each of the Disney Cruise ships (Fantasy, Magic, Wonder and Dream), one of Castaway Cay, and the last a generic one of the Disney Cruise line. What people do is, they get a penny for each time they’ve been on a ship. So I immediately jumped on this! This will be our 5th Disney cruise. So I got 2 Magic pennies, 2 Wonders, and 1 Dream. We have not yet been on the Fantasy. I immediately told my family we have to go another Disney cruise next spring break – on the Fantasy – so I can complete my collection. It didn’t take too much convincing for them to agree.

Hi,

I have viewed your Journal before but always thought you were a ham radio operator.

Now I see it "We’re big Disney fans – that’s why my name here is n2wdw" New To Walt Disney World.

Thanks,

Jim

K0HW < My Ham Radio Call Letters

Collecting While on Vacation (and a few vacation pictures)

Hey Jim - You're not the first to think n2wdw is a ham radio call signal. It actually stands for "In To Walt Disney World."

So just got off the Disney Magic and now waiting in the Orlando airport for the flight home. Here are a few highlights of the cruise (I'll keep it short, feel free to skip to the bottom where I get back to comics).

As you know, Disney is expensive. But, they had Blanton Manhattans for only $12. In fact, all their bourbons were priced reasonably, and they had a decent selection (Knob Creek and Makers in addition to Blantons). I got a Manhattan each night before dinner. This one was at O'Gills Pub, their sports bar.

O'Gills had an excellent "snacks" buffet. Here are a couple of their offerings, pigs in a blanket and meat pies. I tried both but for the most part managed to avoid pigging out in-between meals.

I'm pretty boring when it comes to food. Mostly I got steak every night. Their food was consistently really good.

Disney lets you bring on your own wine (without any limits on the number of bottles unlike other cruise lines like Celebrity and Royal Caribbean). So we brought on 7 bottles, one for each night.

If you've been to Disney, you're probably familiar with the Mickey ice cream bars. This is an undocumented feature of the Disney cruise line. They have the Mickey bars, but only though room service. They're free, but not on the menu, so you have to know to order it. My kids love these things. Believe or not, they each got about 20 of these during the course of the cruise. You might think they're fat, but they're not. They're still at the age they can eat anything they want and still be skinny. (I didn't have any; unlike them I have to watch what I eat, and I prefer bourbon and wine to ice cream.)

I'll mention just our first port. It was Key West, and of course we had to go to Sloppy Joes.

This was Monday, and Sunday was the season ending episode of Walking Dead. So this was my only chance to download it as the other ports were non-US and thus too expensive. We found a Starbucks but the wifi was unbearable slow. It took 2 hours to download the episode in SD! But I got it, then I watched it in 20 minute segments over 3 days to make it last. Also during the cruise I watched the last episodes of Last Ship, Falling Skies and The 100. I'd watch 10 minutes of an episode, read a chapter of a book on my Kindle, switch to another series for 10 minutes, etc. My wife and kids thought it was weird, but there was limited (and expensive) wifi on the ship so what I brought with me onto the ship was all I was going to have, so I wanted to make it last.

Fortunately, surfing eBay doesn't take much bandwidth, so I managed to pick up a few books while on vacation. I was actually in Key West waiting for TWD episode to download when I came across this Adventure Comics #407. It had a BIN price of $60, including shipping, so I jumped on it.

Recently I lost the top spot in my Lady Mechanika registry set. A few new issues have come out lately and another collector managed to take the top spot by adding most of the new issues. I worked out a deal for 4 SS 9.8s so, depending on what the other collector does, I'll take back the top spot once I enter the books.

While I opted for the 9.8s, the other collector has managed to get an impressive array of SS 9.9s. I could have done that, as there are 9.9s on eBay right now. But at 3x the cost, I decided to go for the 9.8s. I'll post pictures of my new Lady Mechanika books once I receive them.

Thanks for reading.

New Walking Dead SS Books

I like collecting Walking Dead books signed by the actors from the show. Here's one I picked up recently on eBay. It's issue #100, the first appearance of Negan and the death of Glenn, and it's signed by Steven Yeun who plays Glenn. Recently there's been a ton of TWD books signed by Yeun on eBay. Was he at a WW show lately?

These books are fun to collect but I can't imagine trying to make money off them. Once you sum up the autograph and grading fees, the price of the book, plus the time waiting in lines, the slight (if any) profit doesn't seem worth it to me. Even books signed by Norman Reedus -- the most expensive TWD autograph to get at WW cons -- aren't a good investment. There must be a dozen SS Reedus books on eBay right now, and I doubt the hammer prices will cover autograph and grading fees (at least for some of them).

I always wonder whether SS increases a book's monetary value. From a collector's point of view, there's no doubt a SS authenticated signature increases a book's value. But money-wise? For me, SS will often decrease a book's value if there's bad signature placement (a la Stan Lee). Otherwise, I'll pay a little more for a SS book versus a blue. Others may feel differently, but for me I think SS books are really cool but I'm not willing to pay significantly more for them.

Here's another fun, TWD-related, SS book I picked up recently. How often do you see this, the Walking Dead Playboy issue in high grade, signed by Kirkman? The answer to that question is, ALOT! At least right now there's a lot, just check out eBay. Someone must have gotten a high grade stash of these magazines because there must be 6-8 SS copies on sale right now on eBay.

Since I'm on the subject of actor SS books, I also got this book recently for a good price, Nightmare on Elm Street signed by the actor who played Freddy Krueger. Again, there are a bunch of these on sale right now on eBay, so I assume the actor was recently at a WW show.

These are fun books to collect and right now with the high supply, there're not too expensive to collect. A good thing about CGC, when there's a flood of product onto the market, you don't have to worry about fakes, you know they're authentic.

Hey n2wdw,

I like that Adventure #407, nothing like a DC 15 cent cover and those Supergirl Adventure issues have started to grow on me. I'm glad you had a good time at Disney, those smashed coins are neat and it looks like you have some good bourbon. I couldn't help but noticed the signed Playboy, Raquel Pomplun is beautiful!

Brandon

*raising my Manhatten right now

n2wdw,

What did you think of the Magic? and was this your first Disney cruise?

We were on the Magic back in May 2011 for a delayed honeymoon and as far as I'm concerned it was the most relaxing vacation I have ever took.

We would like to take another Disney Cruise in the future; but the wife wants to go back and visit Disney World with our grandson before we go on another cruise. I would rather go on the cruise first; but I think she is going to win.

Psy

That's a really nice Adventure Comics... if I remember correctly, it was around that time where some of those covers looked a bit risqué as they kept altering Supergirl's costume.

A few of those might fit nicely into your collection!

n2wdw,

 

What did you think of the Magic? and was this your first Disney cruise?

 

We were on the Magic back in May 2011 for a delayed honeymoon and as far as I'm concerned it was the most relaxing vacation I have ever took.

 

We would like to take another Disney Cruise in the future; but the wife wants to go back and visit Disney World with our grandson before we go on another cruise. I would rather go on the cruise first; but I think she is going to win.

 

Psy

Hi Psy - This was actually our 5th Disney cruise. We had a great time, you can't beat it for relaxing, the shows are good and the food plentiful and delicious. If you want adventure you can do excursions at the ports, or just stay on the boat and take advantage of what it has to offer.

We like Disney World too, but it's certainly not nearly as relaxing a vacation with all the running around. What some people do is do a few days at Disney World first, then go on a shorter 3 or 4 day Disney cruise, so it's still about a week vacation but you get the best of both worlds.