jbud73

Well it doesn't happen every day now a days, or week, or month for that matter, but once in a while I scratch one off the list

That's $7 well spent but I thought I ordered a 172 and 173

My 18 month no Heritage OA purchase streak remains in tact its gotten so bad that I have started buying comics again just so I can afford something I appreciate LOL

That has got to be a record for a Sienkiewicz piece no? I thought it would surprise people, but when it crossed 25K I

cough cough the magic number is 7 and I haven't bought one off you in a while

Well .... since my colleague above is a bit longer in the tooth (sorry Marc I meant Pov, as I took too long to write this) I will try to fill in the blanks A long time ago in a galaxy far far away ..... I used to write extensive comic con reports for the 4-5 shows I traveled to as a buyer in CG, they were written from the perspective of the comic BUYER/COLLECTOR and related to the 'books only' and a straight forward opinion on what was at the show book wise, as well as some of the vendors who I purchased books from. The latter half of that got me into a bit of steamy water here around 2008-2009 so here is the disclaimer that I used then and use now... 'the forthcoming opinions that these of one comic collector on a lazy weekend spent spending his (1000s or 100s of $$) of hard earned money on things that used to cost a dime or quarter. These opinions are solely the provenance of the OP and should not in any way, shape, or form be used as a basis for your A) attendance B) expectations C) DEALINGS WITH Comic related people at the show for which this Con report is in reference too.' On to the show.... Ok, so Marc and Tim to a great job at this show, its a COMIC BOOK show with 10-12 dealers (a mix of local collector/dealers, local shop owner dealers and 1-2 National dealers, meaning hey travel to multiple big shows throughout the year). The space is about right so as to let the smaller guys set up as well as let the larger dealers bring their set up. The benefit here is you get 12 comic dealers is a smaller room right next to each other, so 12 dealers you would see at Silicon Valley or WonderCon except its $5 to get in and you don't have to look for them between toy and other vendors. There are no guests, its just books, one day for 6 hours ... I honestly think the Con is almost ready for a bit bigger room, BUT I applaud Tim and Marc for building slow and making sure they get a good dealer mix so everyone has a buying audience and that is A LOT TOUGHER THAN IT SOUNDS. How about the books ..... There is a great cross section of books, GA, SA, BA 1 dollar books on the floor boxes, so something for everyone. You can see pictures of the wall books from previous photos, all I can say is I have never failed to spend less than $500 at the show. Ok lets meet some of the dealers that I dealt with and got my money. CW (GIFT SHOP Banner in Photos): Chris and I have know each other since he was not able to come out for a drink with the Bay Area collector / dealers after Wonder Con when it was in SF BECAUSE HE WAS UNDERAGE for a drink and I have purchased a number of books off of Chris over the years. Chris will bring a nice cross section of BA and SA and he will usually have "hot books" and BA Keys around for the purchasing. You can deal with Chris but he knows as much as anyone about the current market trends so low ball asks on hot key books is probably not going to go very far, but if you are remotely serious he's not "going to the coffin" with the books, waiting for a sucker to buy them either. Heroes/Comic Collector Shop: They had an entire side, and rightly so with their stock. Lots of Raw keys, grading is solid, they offer discount boxes for VF range books as well. So basically you can spend some cash on NM stuff or, they will discount the VF stuff, which is nice because VF range non-keys rarely sell for guide so at least they're consistent with that. It is also great to talk comics with Phil and Alan (who was not there, though his books were). House of Comics: Definitely a stop if you want some titles on the 'more difficult to find side' including Westerns and War books. Probably the widest selection, meaning Marvel, DC, Gold Key, Atlas etc. I've purchased a lot of books off of Marc over the years and buying some books is a nice way to garner an invite to his storage facility in Berkeley. Steve Wyatt: Steve started the Big Wow Con, which was cultivated from the Golden State Con and built small, from the grass roots level up. I remember the early 2000s shows in Oakland, which would go on to become a large tent event at the San Jose Civic/Convention Center. When WonderCon left for Anaheim this was the only large comic con in the area and for that a lot of us Bay Area collectors owe a thank you to Steve for the tireless work he did to pull off one of the best artist attended shows outside of San Diego I have ever seen. Steve has an absolute encyclopedic knowledge as well as being a big art collector, as it happens Steve and I were just talking about OA when I decided to go through his HG boxes. As it turns out he hasn't set up at a show in a while and was actually trying to get some projects done around the homestead. Cut too .. he found a bunch of stuff in boxes that hadn't been opened in a while including some DC Don Rosa's and brought them to the show. I ending up buying every one he had a nice 20 book stack. Funny hobby, how just chatting about comic conventions and original art will lead to a larger comic deal. I can honestly say I've never had a bad experience dealing with Steve and as large national dealers go, that's not always the case. I think it went something like, "uh this is the part where I give you money for comics." Ya, then we can go back to talking about comic art. Ok, cool. Independents: So the guys like you and me. Tim and Marc save a few spots for some local collector/dealers that have enough books to make a dent at the show. Very easy to deal with two of them that had some nice OO Bronze Age books, white pages, willing to do a deal on larger volume. So ya I bought some books, even if they were less expensive, the price is usually right, again if you buy some volume. Overall I put in probably a B+ effort, meaning I didn't really hit all the vendors in force, but did larger deals with a few of them. This is probably due to many of the cool collectors that attend this show, where we end up talking books with the dealers which detracted from my going through every box at the show. I mean I spent almost an hour trying to see if Pov would buy a She-hulk 1 just so I could get a pic of (Mr. Pre-Code, million year picnic, uber collector) buying a She-Hulk 1. Ok here are a sample of some books (I bought a lot more) that were purchased at this Con - All of these are NON WALL BOOKS, yep these were in boxes for the taking.

WOW look at the colors on that book. Ah Pedigrees = yes please.

Are Ghost Town's books still up there? Its hard to look at them and not burn all my comics LOL. I've got a few new ones that I will post. Hard to believe that was a 2004 Thread. It should be pinned but hey that's me, provenance and the history of some of the greatest collections purchased off the stands being an important topic in Comics General

You know I think it goes in cycles, for a loooooooong time I thought it was KC208 and WWT15. Then 3-4 years ago 5-6 WWTs hit the market in a short period of time. I still think the KCs are all just tough. I think the Ringo 28 had a bit to do with the original 30c Variant site that went up as it was the book pictured for the 30s. I would have said KC205 (non-starburst KC) but 3 more of those have surfaced in the last 2 years. I also think that once a variant collector gets their copy of a toughie they tend to diminish its rarity. These are some that took me a long time to find.

WTF I think its in my saved threads that were migrated but I'm scared to look.

Have just over 100 Auctions ending tomorrow, blowing out some books at rock bottom prices. centralcoastcomics MARCH EBAY AUCTIONS EBAY STORE for some more expensive and graded books.

that might be the 30c Variant purchase of the year. Its pretty much like finding it in the wild.