Price Variant Club 32 32

[wormboy]

1 hour ago, Metarog said:

Wow, nice pickups... any story behind them? 

Thanks! Yes there is. I’ll tell it as soon as I (hopefully) finish mining the vein 

[KolmarAvenue]

Low grade but picked this up today!

Edited October 23, 2017 by KolmarAvenue

[wormboy]

On 10/22/2017 at 8:48 AM, Metarog said:

Wow, nice pickups... any story behind them? 

Thursday night, for some unknown reason (thank you variant gods) I decided to look for comics on craigslist.

This was only the second time I've searched for comics on CL this year, as I usually find it to be a sea of drek, and people who think their spawns are worth $100 each, and hundreds of repeated "I buy Comics" ads .

This time was no different, until I saw this photo in an ad:

I proceed to relentlessly bombard these poor people with CL response emails, texts and phone calls 

When I finally reach them, I ask if they still have the Kid Colt and Ringo Kid books. They say they're not sure, that they need to look and will call me back. 

Trying to wait patiently and not get too excited, I wait and pace and wait...  They found them! It's late at this point, so I ask if I can come to pick them up first thing Friday morning.

"Well, we have things to do tomorrow". But I'm afraid of losing them as has has happened before, so I ask if I can meet them anywhere at any time for the books and they name the place and time.

Friday I drive and drive, and....drive. And meet them, and the books are lovely and I bought them.

I ask if they have any more variants and he says, "oh yeah, a ton of them". "I used to have to trade two of these for a regular one because no one wanted them". 

I arranged to meet them at their house this morning. They don't normally let people come to the house, but at this point I'm in good with them as we had a nice talk about comics at the meeting place.

At the house they had probably 25 boxes of comics on two tables in the living room and dining room, all bagged and boarded, for me to go through.

Mostly silver and bronze. Nice mid grade runs. Most of the keys had been cherry picked: GLGA 76, IM 55, WWBN 32 etc. (except the Hulk 181 and ASM 129 which they decided to get graded). The good news is those key pickers usually aren't after this stuff.

Many of the bronze runs had at least one 30 cent variant in the run.

Here's what I picked up today 

I left a few more in a "Save for Tim" pile - they're going to come to Berkeley Comic Con (which Marc from @HouseofComics.Com and I put on) on Nov. 4 - and will bring them to me there, but I left 20-30 more in the boxes.

Mostly commons (no more horror or westerns), and none are really high grade (I'd say mostly Good to VF), but if you need any for your set PM me and I may be able to pick them up on my next run, or ask them to bring them to the show if they have them.

 

[MustEatBrains]

@wormboy Really nice score!

[wormboy]

Thanks MustEatBrains!

I was like a kid in a candy store. Super fun. 

[Metarog]

Congrats... great find on some real toughies. Although I finished my set over a decade ago I remember that Ringo 28 being one of my last 5.

[wormboy]

I remember! You found your set at record speed. Months rather than years if I recall correctly 

[Metarog]

53 minutes ago, wormboy said:

I remember! You found your set at record speed. Months rather than years if I recall correctly 

It took me 18 months from start to finish and I had 95% in the first 6 months but those last 8 or so were brutal. I actually got my last two (Rawhide 134 and Kid Colt 208) within 2 days of each other from different sources.

[wormboy]

That’s amazing.

I’m slightly embarrassed to say I attempted to collect the run in CGC 9.4 White pages (only). I bought all of Darth Deisel’s 9.4 Whites, a few from Canickus, and many others, but never passed the halfway mark,  and finally Capitulated after many years.

Now I just collect raws for my bronze Marvel runs. It’s just as (or more) fun this way.

[joeypost]

[Timmay]

[fastballspecial]

On ‎10‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 5:24 PM, wormboy said:

Thursday night, for some unknown reason (thank you variant gods) I decided to look for comics on craigslist.

This was only the second time I've searched for comics on CL this year, as I usually find it to be a sea of drek, and people who think their spawns are worth $100 each, and hundreds of repeated "I buy Comics" ads .

This time was no different, until I saw this photo in an ad:

I proceed to relentlessly bombard these poor people with CL response emails, texts and phone calls 

When I finally reach them, I ask if they still have the Kid Colt and Ringo Kid books. They say they're not sure, that they need to look and will call me back. 

Trying to wait patiently and not get too excited, I wait and pace and wait...  They found them! It's late at this point, so I ask if I can come to pick them up first thing Friday morning.

"Well, we have things to do tomorrow". But I'm afraid of losing them as has has happened before, so I ask if I can meet them anywhere at any time for the books and they name the place and time.

Friday I drive and drive, and....drive. And meet them, and the books are lovely and I bought them.

I ask if they have any more variants and he says, "oh yeah, a ton of them". "I used to have to trade two of these for a regular one because no one wanted them". 

I arranged to meet them at their house this morning. They don't normally let people come to the house, but at this point I'm in good with them as we had a nice talk about comics at the meeting place.

At the house they had probably 25 boxes of comics on two tables in the living room and dining room, all bagged and boarded, for me to go through.

Mostly silver and bronze. Nice mid grade runs. Most of the keys had been cherry picked: GLGA 76, IM 55, WWBN 32 etc. (except the Hulk 181 and ASM 129 which they decided to get graded). The good news is those key pickers usually aren't after this stuff.

Many of the bronze runs had at least one 30 cent variant in the run.

Here's what I picked up today 

I left a few more in a "Save for Tim" pile - they're going to come to Berkeley Comic Con (which Marc from @HouseofComics.Com and I put on) on Nov. 4 - and will bring them to me there, but I left 20-30 more in the boxes.

Mostly commons (no more horror or westerns), and none are really high grade (I'd say mostly Good to VF), but if you need any for your set PM me and I may be able to pick them up on my next run, or ask them to bring them to the show if they have them.

 

That will be your find of the year right there. Great job good hussle. 

BTW great job of telling a story as well. The rest of you pay attention. You find a variant
you tell the story. Unless of course you are pilfer more then you can tell the story later. 

 

[fastballspecial]

On ‎10‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 2:25 PM, Metarog said:

It took me 18 months from start to finish and I had 95% in the first 6 months but those last 8 or so were brutal. I actually got my last two (Rawhide 134 and Kid Colt 208) within 2 days of each other from different sources.

Yeah I remember him and Cosmic Spider-man compiling their collections like mad.

Of course back then Comichunters was really the only big competition. Everyone else helped out when somebody needed that book. That why STL was so great.

Not the Metarog cant find a needle in a haystack   it was just less competition back then I thought.

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2017 by fastballspecial

[androolx]

A few months ago I bought a lot of 40 misc books on eBay, which included an Avengers 149 30 cent variant, about FN+.  Prior to that time I never thought twice about 30 cent variants, but the book for some reason fascinated me.  The fascination exploded, and I am now slowly selling off my comic book collection to finance my new interest in Marvel 30 cent variants.  Anyone have an opinion as to why this happened to me at 54 years old?  All I can think of is that in 1976 I was 13 y.o., prime comic book reading age, and this is some kind of nostalgia.  My dilemma is I live in a small city in western WI with little opportunity to hunt for price variants outside of eBay and other online sales outlets.  I have yet to obtain a Western title, but do have WWT 17, C of C 22 and 23 and X-Men 98 and 100.  I want to be patient as far as condition and price go in buying books, but feel like I am way behind the curve.  Does this resonate with any of you?

[ADAMANTIUM]

Kind of because I had noticed some price variants at half price books, and i showed others asking about it a couple of years ago when I was such a noob. 

During those times I was told that they weren't anything special, yet the next time I'd go those would be gone.

It's the rarity of my brain telling me if I don't get one they'll all be gone

 

 

[androolx]

1 hour ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Kind of because I had noticed some price variants at half price books, and i showed others asking about it a couple of years ago when I was such a noob. 

During those times I was told that they weren't anything special, yet the next time I'd go those would be gone.

It's the rarity of my brain telling me if I don't get one they'll all be gone

 

 

It is definitely a different mind-set that focusing on just one or a few titles like I used to.

[wormboy]

On 10/30/2017 at 5:37 PM, androolx said:

A few months ago I bought a lot of 40 misc books on eBay, which included an Avengers 149 30 cent variant, about FN+.  Prior to that time I never thought twice about 30 cent variants, but the book for some reason fascinated me.  The fascination exploded, and I am now slowly selling off my comic book collection to finance my new interest in Marvel 30 cent variants.  Anyone have an opinion as to why this happened to me at 54 years old?  All I can think of is that in 1976 I was 13 y.o., prime comic book reading age, and this is some kind of nostalgia.  My dilemma is I live in a small city in western WI with little opportunity to hunt for price variants outside of eBay and other online sales outlets.  I have yet to obtain a Western title, but do have WWT 17, C of C 22 and 23 and X-Men 98 and 100.  I want to be patient as far as condition and price go in buying books, but feel like I am way behind the curve.  Does this resonate with any of you?

Welcome to the boards!

Yeah, I think a lot of folks have similar stories about not caring for a long time, then, all of a sudden caring a lot 

You will need to be patient, regardless if you want to or not, because many of these books are hard to find in any grade.

Many are just not available at all in high grade. Many are not available at a low price.

If you really want to complete the set you can’t worry that much about grades, and you’ll likely have to overpay for some of the rare books.

That said, it seems like you’re off to a good start with the books you mention you have! Good luck - keep us posted with your finds.

[androolx]

8 hours ago, wormboy said:

Welcome to the boards!

Yeah, I think a lot of folks have similar stories about not caring for a long time, then, all of a sudden caring a lot 

You will need to be patient, regardless if you want to or not, because many of these books are hard to find in any grade.

Many are just not available at all in high grade. Many are not available at a low price.

If you really want to complete the set you can’t worry that much about grades, and you’ll likely have to overpay for some of the rare books.

That said, it seems like you’re off to a good start with the books you mention you have! Good luck - keep us posted with your finds.

Thanks for the encouragement and advise!

[fastballspecial]

Yeah it takes a long time regardless. Ive been picking them for around almost 10 years now and I would still only be 75% complete on either set. There are some books that just have a very small amount of copies available until someone sniffs some more out or more collections come out and they do periodically.

 

[wormboy]

Another trip to the source.

Taking another trip tomorrow to (hopefully) knock at least one more off of Jbuds list