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Wizard World Philly Thursday PM

5/31/12 Well I got a chance to swing in on Thursday night for the preview. Dropped off some books for on-site grading (one batch is already done, saw my orders up top updated with the invoice) and got some mixed to happy results; my Next Men 1st appearance of Hellboy came back a 9.2 and I was hoping for a 9.4. Mostly moderns done so far but my 1940s-1960s books are on deck. Lots of good vendors so far. Saw a LOT of slabs around including a convention special Killing Joke wall for $39.99, gr
duckduckmike

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Wizard World Philly

Boo Wizard World. Yay Wizard World. While I understand the number of reasons why people are against some of (if not all) of the Wizard World sponsored cons, I'm very exicited to have such a big local and easily accessible event AND to have CGC onsite available. I'm saving my pennies for another 30 X-Men to drop off (plus or minus a few Golden age goodies). I usually do Pittsburgh and Philly due to access to family in both areas, plus the diversity. Pittsburgh is a great indie-heavy show, IMO
duckduckmike

duckduckmike

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Wayne Collectibles Show Prep

Getting ready for next show and FREE STUFF if you meet me at the Wayne NJ show. On Sunday I'll be at the Wayne NJ Toy and Collectibles show. You can check out the homepage here: http://waynenjtoyandcollectiblesshow.com/ This is the second time I've done the Wayne show. It's a firehouse style show, a step above a swap meet but lots of fun items all around. Getting ready for my first show last month was tough, I had to take it like a blue sky project and just brainstorm how much I could bri
duckduckmike

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Walking Dead #100

Ah variant covers So I decided to sign up for a deal at my local shop to get the package they offered off all the WD #100 covers for a flat price. I was thinking about slabbing them, flipping some, and keeping others, but as a WD fan, I also wouldn't mind keeping these in my permanent collection (I strongly believe in never collecting something unless at the end of the day you like the item and don't mind holding it even if the price is nearly zero in 5-10 years) That said, what's other peop
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Waiting Game Test and some thoughts

Yeah, we get mad at CGC... and I hate these teaser sections. So today is the "20th" day on my express coupon submissions, so I'm just waiting out the rest of the day, hoping they are on deck and done by the day's end. But in the end, it won't matter if they are "on time" or miss by a day or even a week. Sometimes when I get mad at the turnaround times (talking about my 5 month waits from the past), I think about PGX. Here's the things I reflect on: Why do I grade a comic? To lock in a v
duckduckmike

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Turnaround Time Activity Sheet!

There's a lot of turnaround time questions/complaints so I'd like to propose some better alternatives to twiddling thumbs! What to do while waiting for books: 1) SCAN YOUR SLABS! I am very very bad in this area, but it is a great reference for others to use (I love comparing mid grade slabs of rare books) plus it adds some value. We can all google an issue to find out what the cover looks like, but I love having a one-stop shop here. I promise, I'm going to start. 2) PGX FUN: I am not adv
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To John Hancock or not John Hancock

Signature Series books In my quest to fill out and upgrade my primary collection of Silver and Bronze X-Men, I've had some frustration recently in finding some books at prices and conditions I would like to buy that are NOT signed. More and more I see yellow label slabs with Stan Lee usually that seem to be overpriced in the market, or just... don't fit my Universal grade collection. X-Men 58 (First Havok) is becoming a bugger to find in blue label at the right price. I started to wonder i
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There's no reason to be a jerk from the get-go

Already regretting selling a book on ebay So I just sold two books in one lot, a couple of Michael Turner cover Wolverine issues, one being a signature series. After taking a couple of days to pay, the buyer contacted me with rather explicit and demeaning instructions on how to pack the slabs. They went over the top with the directions and concluded with " I do NOT want cracked CGC cases." My first reaction? "No SPIT, Sherlock". My second was to cancel the sale. But I responded back with a n
duckduckmike

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The value of scans

Why do you do it... I've been very neglectful in not adding scans of my books to my CGC registry lists. It doesn't take "a lot of time" relatively speaking, but sometimes I wonder why do it. So I made some pros and cons. PRO: Display great cover art Show some condition quality for those "less than perfect" copies of old comics Fun to browse when trying to remember which issue # is which story. CON: I'm not adding anything new by scanning another 9.8 copy of X-Men 201...212... 500..
duckduckmike

duckduckmike

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The Pyramiding Scheme

aka "laddering the collection" So I've taken some time off to streamline my X-Men collection, focusing on the core of X-Men 1 through the Byrne era. I sold off a number of later X-Men slabs, mostly 9.8s and I just recently sat down to add my new acquisitions to my scores. I was pleasantly surprised at how many books I've been accruing that are worth a decent amount of points. I'll never have a high score to win an award (at least not in the near future) but as I've been selling off lower cop
duckduckmike

duckduckmike

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The Doors, Track 11 (or side 2, last song)

This is The End... I heard "The End" in my head as I was packing my last CGC bundle for live drop off at the Pittsburgh Comicon a couple weeks ago. I decided to throw in all of my ungraded remaining X-Men for the sake of getting a grade for completion (still missing issue #1 and #3) but I felt this sense of completion, the closing of a chapter. Work has been busy and I've been reprioritizing while watching my collection gaps continue to close. So I thought, this is the end of my project. I
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Thanks Gemma

Got the 411 I contacted the CGC and got a nice reply back from Gemma on how to recertify my "invalid" book. I want to give a nice shout out and thanks for the quick attention and potential resolution on getting my new book re-certed. (I just made that word up). Thanks to all those who sent me replies, information, and horror stories!
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duckduckmike

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Tales of... voodoo? Sets gone bad?

Uh my collection got bigger? Anyone see their registered sets have funny additions? My X-Men sets are showing "Tales of Voodoo" (a book I've never collected) in my Uncanny X-Men sets At least after a google search, I've discovered a new book I'm interested in haha... To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.
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September

Earth, Wind and FIRE! My Uncanny X-Men 1-201 run is waiting on a few books to come back that are in my "100 business day turnaround" batch. I'm the 2nd most complete set in the group, and I'm closing in on the top 10 scores... and impatience is a terrible thing. This has led me to some recent purchases to upgrade some JB run issues from 9.6s to 9.8s, and the spending curve is getting steeper to upgrade my books. I've started doing "bang for the buck" score upgrades, combining information on
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duckduckmike

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Selling the cheap books

CGC loss leaders from my collection So as I've been laddering up the issues in my X-Men 1-201 collection (very proud of some of the recent acquisitions), I've been moving the lesser value copies on ebay and at shows. While some of these books may have been acquired for 5-25 bucks and the CGC grading cost was between 20-30, I'm not always able to get all that money back. The CGC costs are averaged out over different tiers/services/coupons, and I'm cool with that. Many of the books would prob
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duckduckmike

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SCHEDULED!!!!

June 21st submissions finally on deck! Man, it's like Christmas waiting and waiting and finally the books are on deck! I've got a whole bunch of X-Men that are one step closer to coming home. As per my new budget rules, I don't send in more books until some come back, so I'll be prepping another order form this week... To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.
duckduckmike

duckduckmike

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Scheduled to Graded!

A mixed bag, but recovered from depression. So my 3 collector coupon submissions are graded! Here's the breakdown: X-Men 3 Apparent SA 4.5 While I am disappointed in the SA, I was thinking this book would be about a 3-3.5, so there's one big plus! Obviously the SA is a setback but it gives me hope in being able to flip this towards a same/better copy... unrestored. X-Men 4 Universal 7.0 This was a bit of an X-periment ha ha. I bought this at a deep discount as a PGX rated 7; I've h
duckduckmike

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Scheduled for Grading!

My April books are finally scheduled for grading! The light IS at the end of the tunnel! I dropped off a bundle of 30 X-Men comics for grading at the Pittsburgh Comicon (great fun con, btw, if you ever get to go) and the invoice dated 4/20 is now in SCHEDULED status! I missed these books. I can't wait to see how they do, and update my sets. I hope this adds some hope for those who (like me) have been waiting a long time due to the recent backlog. I have another bundle of books from Philly W
duckduckmike

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Scheduled for Depression

Waiting for the shoe to drop So I checked on my 20 day submission coupons and saw it was scheduled for grading. Great, right? Then I looked in to the received details for the first time... my X-Men number 3 is an Apparent SA. It wouldn't have mattered if I knew this 19 days ago, yesterday, whenever, but it looks like I've got another hack job book. I'm going to go through my ebay receipts and other receipts to track down the seller, but I think this may have been the copy I picked up at th
duckduckmike

duckduckmike

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Same day dropoff, two different journeys

Pittsburgh (April) Comic Con submissions So I dropped off two batches of books with CGC at the Pittsburgh ComicCon. I do this every year, and it usually takes until September to get the books back. Funny thing. The other day I checked my status and saw that one invoice was graded! Oh happy day to me. Books were getting done! Today they are marked as shipped. The other books are still in "Verified" status. The batch on the way to me is 4 modern era books, and the ones waiting are 20
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Restored copy sells well, thanks to CGC

Woo hoo! Teaser! Ahhhh. A big sigh of relief today. I wrote earlier about the hearbreak of getting a dreaded purple label on my X-Men 3, a 4.5 SA for slight touch up and a cover tear repair. I'm not into flipping, but my collection plan is to have all blue labels. I put the book up on eBay to try to get some money back towards buying a new raw or low graded copy. The auction sat for almost a full week at around the $30 mark until the last day. Suddenly, it jumped up to $160. The bidder ha
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Old Blue vs New Blue label

Are CGC "old" labels worth less than new ones? Recently, some of the books I've accumulated have been great deals, and I noticed that some of these are the "old" style CGC Universal grades. Comparing to other books on auction sites (ebay cough cough) and some cons, are the older CGC labels considered less valuable or am I making something out of nothing? Any thoughts from others? Is this a recent trend? I'd rather have all "matching" labels, but in the end I don't care, I just want to know
duckduckmike

duckduckmike

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Next 4 in for grading (coupon submission) with mid-high hopes

Next 4 So I got my CGC renewal coupon and decided to put in 4 books right away. Avengers #5: picked this up for a $100 barter session and it's really nice given that it's in the 7-8 range. Hoping for an 8, but less than 7 would be a let down. I couldn't resist it... Daredevil 53: ... and this was part of the deal, got it for $25 and looks like it could hit as high as a 9.2 if I'm lucky, but thinking an 8.5 One of those covers I just loved too much to resist. X-Men 100-101: Picked these
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Killing my registry sets softly

It was easier as a kid to just buy "cool books" and throw them in a box... I've been thinking a lot lately about my Uncanny X-Men 1-201 run that I've been working on. I have one of the most complete sets in the registry, and did a lot of work upgrading my copies of existing issues. Then I started a 3-front war between economics, patience (or lack of) and hobby lust. My set has reached the point where in order to get some books at a nicer grade, I have to start shelling out bigger and bigge
duckduckmike

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It's my comic now... but not...

Anyone have trouble with a CGC transfer? I picked up a CGC 8.5 copy of X-Men 44 on the cheap from Heritage, but when I've gone to register it in my sets, it says the typical "this is owned by someone else blah blah..." Usually, I get the transfer verified in a day or two, but this one has been outstanding for about a week so far. Any thoughts/suggestions on how to nicely force the transfer through? I'm guessing that if the person has not read their email yet, they probably aren't going to
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