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Just Another X-Men Full Run Dream

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speedcake

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In this journal, I'll be talking about my quest to finally finish a full run of X-Men volume 1, from #1 to 544.  I can't tell if many boardies read the new journals or not, and I like the old format way better, but at least this will be a place to help keep myself focused and on track if nothing else.

I've been a fan of the X-Men since the late 80s when I first really started reading comics in earnest. I've dreamed about having a full run since my early 20s, but made the huge mistake of not focusing on the silver and bronze runs first. So like all full run noobs everywhere, I eventually completed a run from about #141 to 544 by picking up a book here or there at shows, looking for sales online or on Ebay, the usual. 

So here we are, its 2018 and NOW I'm going to get serious about finally finishing the run? Ok, great! I clearly have no sense. But I still love the X-Men. 

I have a plan, sort of. First and foremost is to start shedding excess fat from my roughly 1000 book collection. This is going ok so far. I've sold some things on eBay, through craigslist, and even here on the boards so far.  I don't pick up many monthly new books, but I'm going to look at that list and probably at least cut out a few books and put that money towards the run instead. I'm also selling off the last of my Transformers collection. This should net a decent pile of dough to also put straight into the run. I've already sold about a third of it in a week, so this is going pretty well so far.

And finally, I need to stay disciplined. I get easily distracted by shiny books, runs of other titles (I recently picked up a huge run of Amazing Spider-man for example and I'ma sucker for Iron Man), and other interests. So instead, I want to work on resisting all of that temptation and focus as much on the X-Men run as possible. I don't want this to be my only focus, I don't want to burn out on it, but it needs to be priority #1 or I'll never finish this.

I am missing ALOT of books. Nearly the entire Silver Age run, and most of the Bronze Age run minus a handful of the keys. So it will be a marathon, not a sprint. I just hope it is as rewarding at the end as I hope it will be.

One big decision I have to make (big for me, small potatoes for some reading this I'm sure) is whether or not to sell things like my raw NYX complete run in very high grade. I'd like to have a few issues from the run graded, but not unless I'm sure about the minimum grade. Selling the set would translate into a decently big chunk of the X-Men run. I love having this set, but we'll see.

Later today I'll post a list of the missing issues and any other thoughts I have.

Thanks for reading, whomever drops by, and please comment with your own thoughts.  Call me nuts. Call me names for waiting so long. I'm good with it, just talk with me.  :D

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oh good grief, is the intention that I post a new journal entry with updates or what? I don't have an update just yet, just saw the new journal entry button. But we are all talking here?!

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106 and 110 are such filler trash, just tried to reread them and couldn't do it.

Weird Al is rocking some books!!!

"I've been browsin' inspectin' X-Men comics ya know I collect em'"

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Ummm....110 was my first ever comic book. Trash?!? It's the book Jean joins as Phoenix. Nothing in that run to me will ever be trash. I'm almost done completing 94-143 all at 9.6 or better!!! 

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Nice! My run won't be quite that high grade. At least not at first, I'm trying to keep the bronze books at vf/nm minimum. Eventually it will be fun to upgrade everything, but I don't wanna think about that right now ha.

Good luck finishing the run :) 

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Long time no update!  Here are the latest additions.  Ignore the gross slab in the first pic. The comic is still purty.  #143 is an upgrade.  All but the  121 were bought here on the boards. The 121 was bought at my LCS.  :x

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So this year hasn't really gone the way I intended it to at all. I was going to focus hard on my Uncanny X-Men run. I really want to finish it, but alas...

The first derailment came when I discovered Lucio Parrillo. I absolutely love his art style, his painted covers, and embarked on a quest to complete several of his early runs on Queen Sonja, Warlord of Mars, Vampirella as well as began picking up his more recent work. Well, TLDR version is that I now have a short box of very nice high grade Parrillo comics, a decent pile of lower grade dupes, no complete runs (I'm missing TWO issues from his Warlord of Mars run, ughh), but quite a lot of enjoyment from chasing all these books down.  Obviously this has meant a great deal of time and resources diverted from the goal of finishing my X-Men run.

The second total and complete distraction was going off on a tangent and working on my Amazing Spider-Man run... now why I did this, I can't say. I love Spidey, and some very good deals popped up on the boards here for various back issues. I couldn't pass them up, and have managed to amass a pretty serious copper and modern Spidey run with very nice copies of some of the good stuff. But once more, Charlie spent alot  of time and resources on something other than the X-Men.  I have had alot of fun putting it together so far. But my poor, neglected X-Men. :(

And now something else has come up. I have an opportunity to buy a collection of silver and Bronze marvel books but both need some funds and some space in the apartment. This means I've decided to sell, sell, sell.  I'm going to sell all of my Parrillo comics. I love his work, and might keep a small pile of my favorite covers, but almost all of it is going to new homes as soon as I find them.

I've also decided to change my focus on both the X-Men and Amazing Spider-man runs.  I just don't have the space for a 500 and 700 issue run if I want to also have other stuff.  So I've decided to also sell all Uncanny X-men down to right after the first appearance of Bishop. AND I'm going to sell my Amazing Spider-man run down to somewhere around the later 300s, maybe after the last semi important Venom story. I'll still keep bigger keys from both those runs (there aren't that many in the Uncanny books after 300, lets be honest)

It's going to be time consuming, but absolutely worth it i'm able to pick up the collection I'm hoping to get.

So I'm done buying comics for a little while until I've made some serious progress on selling what I have, but I'll be looking for X-Men issues along the way. I'm not passing up good deals if they come along. I'll be a bit pickier for a while, though.

This is very rambling. Thanks all for reading!

Anyone interested in a list of what I'm selling, feel free to PM me.

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4 hours ago, speedcake said:

So this year hasn't really gone the way I intended it to at all. I was going to focus hard on my Uncanny X-Men run. I really want to finish it, but alas...

The first derailment came when I discovered Lucio Parrillo. I absolutely love his art style, his painted covers, and embarked on a quest to complete several of his early runs on Queen Sonja, Warlord of Mars, Vampirella as well as began picking up his more recent work. Well, TLDR version is that I now have a short box of very nice high grade Parrillo comics, a decent pile of lower grade dupes, no complete runs (I'm missing TWO issues from his Warlord of Mars run, ughh), but quite a lot of enjoyment from chasing all these books down.  Obviously this has meant a great deal of time and resources diverted from the goal of finishing my X-Men run.

The second total and complete distraction was going off on a tangent and working on my Amazing Spider-Man run... now why I did this, I can't say. I love Spidey, and some very good deals popped up on the boards here for various back issues. I couldn't pass them up, and have managed to amass a pretty serious copper and modern Spidey run with very nice copies of some of the good stuff. But once more, Charlie spent alot  of time and resources on something other than the X-Men.  I have had alot of fun putting it together so far. But my poor, neglected X-Men. :(

And now something else has come up. I have an opportunity to buy a collection of silver and Bronze marvel books but both need some funds and some space in the apartment. This means I've decided to sell, sell, sell.  I'm going to sell all of my Parrillo comics. I love his work, and might keep a small pile of my favorite covers, but almost all of it is going to new homes as soon as I find them.

I've also decided to change my focus on both the X-Men and Amazing Spider-man runs.  I just don't have the space for a 500 and 700 issue run if I want to also have other stuff.  So I've decided to also sell all Uncanny X-men down to right after the first appearance of Bishop. AND I'm going to sell my Amazing Spider-man run down to somewhere around the later 300s, maybe after the last semi important Venom story. I'll still keep bigger keys from both those runs (there aren't that many in the Uncanny books after 300, lets be honest)

It's going to be time consuming, but absolutely worth it i'm able to pick up the collection I'm hoping to get.

So I'm done buying comics for a little while until I've made some serious progress on selling what I have, but I'll be looking for X-Men issues along the way. I'm not passing up good deals if they come along. I'll be a bit pickier for a while, though.

This is very rambling. Thanks all for reading!

Anyone interested in a list of what I'm selling, feel free to PM me.

Best of luck!

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That must be quite a collection to be letting go of the complete Xmen ASM dream. My collection finally got the best of me this last year or so and I ran out of space as well. I finally bit the bullet and starting listing lots on ebay as well selling some bulk locally. I'm trying real hard to only get Xmen and ASM but like you said...distractions lol@speedcake

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A kindred spirit.

I started buying x-men in 75 when I had the good taste/fortune to buy 94 off the shelf.  No one else was into the book so I gradually picked up a ton of SA books at a relative bargain (seemed expensive in the baby sitting days).  Didn't really think about a full run ... just kept looking for bargains, especially SA books.

Kids got mildly interested so I kept buying books, but never really attacking the issue.  Kids grew up and I kinda forgot about it.  Soooo... don't hate me ... but after 3 moves and a ton of family drama I finally unpacked everything else and started going through my comics ....

I'm missing 3, 65 a bunch of reprints and a handful in the 500s ... not sure whether it "counts" but I'm also missing Giant Size #1 and I think Hulk 181 just "fits"

I'm going to get rid of everything else (OK, maybe I'll hold on to some Wolverine stuff).  I'm currently slabbing my high value doubles.  My collection is pretty high quality, but there are a few issues that are pretty ratty.  My #1 is, unfortunately, not my crown jewel.  

So, that's the story.

My advice is to go slow, have fun with it.  Know what a deal is and take it when it's there.  Even if it's a double, trades with individuals are much cheaper than buying from a store.  Focus on the hardest stuff first, non key issues will work their way to you naturally and if they don't (like me and reprints) they don't go up in price like key issues do.

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nice! thanks for the story and your comment. Looks like you are almost done without even realizing! :)   I'll get there eventually.  I have to reaaaaaalllly work on focusing my attention on fewer directions, but I don't beat myself up too much about going off on collecting tangents.  I do wish I had started this 10 or 15 years earlier, but meh what can ya do?

I'm starting to think I may not need/want to downsize my x-men and amazing spidey runs to accomplish my current goal. I may still do so as they do take up quite a bit of space but if I can keep moving other comics I don't want then I won't need to worry so much about it.

And ya @STORMSHADOW_80  , its a great collection. Not full of too many big keys (it does have 1st app of Blade, Gamora, early Vulture appearance,  Spider-Woman, Furry Beast, a couple Ms Marvel #1s, a pile of Spider-Woman #1s lul, and a number of other minor keys and nice books like a mid grade Namor #1, low grade spidey 121, etc).  There is a run of about 90 issues of Incredible Hulk from 104 to 223 (no wolvie keys, of course doh!  )  and a nice run of Tales to Astonish before that, a run of high grade marvel treasury editions 1 to 15 (only missing #12), a bunch of issues of FOOM in high grade,  just lots of great stuff. Most of it is mid to low high grade. About 1100 books total. So ya, gimme that!

Can't wait to get it all and start reading

Edited by speedcake
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I did a thing! A few of these are readers, but on average they are mid grade goodness with a handful in higher mid grade and I’m very happy to scratch them all off my list 😎

I finally bought the collection I’ve been after: going to be fun reading it all. I’m planning on selling 2/3rds of it eventually. 

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Long time no see!  So I recently made the decision to only focus on X-Men #1- 144.  I've sold off everything above that, keys and all. Eventually I'll pick up the keys again, but I needed the space and when the time comes if I decided i want a full vol 1 run, it won't be that big of a chore to get one.

I also spent all of last year very much not focused on completing this quest. I added a book or two here and there, but got sidetracked on a regular basis. For example, I bought a short box of Thor that was almost a complete run of his solo title up to about #256 and instead of filling holes in my X-Men run, I filled some holes in that run. And my Hulk run. And then I got into horror mags... oof

But I think it's time to focus hard again on the X-Men. The new plan is to cut way back on buying this year, sell some stuff, save up, and look for a nice presenting lower grade #1.  Something between a 2.0 and a 3.5. I hope to find a raw copy, but yeah good luck with that.  Then I'll work on the next biggest key I'm missing and so on. I'll still grab filler issues if I find great deals on them.


Here are the books I did add since my last update!

23, 37, 40, 41, 43, 44, 48, 50, 61, 63, 94, 99, 100, 110, 112, 113, 115, 124, 128, 142


And here is the updated missing list:

1-14, 16-21, 24-26, 28-31, 33-35, 39, 42, 46, 47, 49, 51-53, 55-59, 62, 64-92

95-97, 102, 103, 106, 107, 109, 111, 114, 122, 131, 132, 133, 136

 

 

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Awesome job ! I’m in a similar quest my friend and have maybe 35 more to go ? Easier said then done ( when simultaneously focusing on other runs ) there’s a handful of the 530s and 540s I need , but I feel I can acquire those “ whenever “, the early ones have been the most elusive - but thankfully not impossible 

 

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In case there is anyone who might check in on the journal, I got the big one! I've pecked at the X-Men run here and there, but as usual I can't stay focused on one run for long and have filled in holes in my Thor, Hulk, Amazing Spider-Man, Tales to Astonish runs. Last Fall I decided I should try to get an X-Men #1 before the price for even low grade copies made it impossible. I sold nearly my entire Parrillo collection as well as almost all of my copper/modern Amazing Spider-Man run (including a ASM 238 in cgc 9.4, a really nice raw 361, the rest of the McFarlane run including a super nice 316), and I scraped together the funds for THIS oh yeah baby! I've already posted it elsewhere on the boards, but thought I should update the journal, too.  Maybe if I remember to do so more often it will help me stay focused on completing this run. Now that I have a #1 out of the way, the goal seems significantly more achievable.  

 

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Updated need list:

2-14, 16-21, 24, 26, 28-31, 33-35, 39, 42, 49, 51-53, 55, 58, 59, 62, 64-67, 70, 73, 75-77, 79, 81, 84, 90-92

95-97, 102, 103, 106, 107, 109, 111, 122, 128, 131, 132, 133

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13 hours ago, Trifisherjoe said:

#65&77 are on DIG auctions now...looks like pretty low bids...one day left, good luck!

What/where are DIG auctions?

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