Discoveries from My Parents Basement

[Myparentsbasement]

This Journal will be my journey through thrift shops, selling toys, flipping comics, and trying to complete my list.

 

Through out the early/mid 90's I collected the main X-men titles. The X title story lines kept expanding; no longer were there just four books to follow. If you wanted to follow a storyline you'd need to pick up X-men, Uncanny X-men, Cable, X-man, Wolverine, Excalibur, Generation X, X-Force, X-Factor, X-Men Unlimited, and any other major Marvel title the storyline weaseled into. This became too much to follow for me as a limited income college student.

I followed Preacher religiously after issue 40 in 1998, and I read that book until it wrapped up in 2000. Over the following 15 years i'd try to pick up some random books: Unwritten, Walking Dead, random X titles to see if they could grab me again. Too much time had passed with the X titles; Jean Grey dies again, Cyclops is with Emma Frost, Deadpool is the new Wolverine by being having a cameo in every book and cover it seems.

2015 was the year I decided to get back into comic book collecting. I still haven't found a title that I pick up on a monthly basis, but I've found a new hobby in digging through the dollar bins and thrift shops. I set out with a small list of books that I'd focus on getting my hands on: X-men #1 (1963), Iron Fist #14, Uncanny X-men #221, X-men #4 (1991). I thought the list was varied in prices with some being high hope pipe dreams and others being more easily accessible.

 

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I purchased a copy of X-men #4 for $5 at a lil comic book shop. $5 was a fair price I thought; the issue looked good with no major flaws. This past weekend I visited two Half Price Books and picked up these two bad boys.

 

 

They were a buck a piece and look better than the $5 copy I had previously picked up.

These aren't high value books, but it felt good to get a book off my list and to find extra copies was more sugar on top.

 

This Journal will be my journey through the thrift shops, selling toys, flipping comics, and trying to complete my list.

 

See more journals by MPB_MN

[Brandon Shepherd]

Nice journal title!

 

I hear you on the X-Men titles of the '90s. I tried to get in on the death of Professor X and the Age of Apocalypse storyline in '95. I was 13 then and felt like I had fallen into the middle of the ocean. I had no idea where to start and what title continued with what.

 

Good luck with your searching through various dollar bin and second hand stores. Sometimes, is the small purchases, like your X-Men #4 example, that are the most fun.

[Myparentsbasement]

Hey thanks!

 

I feel ya on the AOA story line. Issue 2 of Title 1 affects issue 3 of Title 4; if you missed a couple of issue then you'd get lost. Onslaught is where I think they went overboard on the story size. Onslaught covered the X-titles, main Marvel books, and oddball books like Green Goblin.

If you never caught up on the AOA storys they are easily accessible, at least in the dollar bins i've been through.

[Myparentsbasement]

Out of habit I dig through dollar bins starting at the X's. This is probably held over from the X-men books being my main read as a kid. Last weekend I was at Half Price Books digging. I'd been through X-men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Force, and nothing was jumping at me. There were enough copies of Uncanny X-men #283 for every man, woman, and well-behaved child on these boards. (Why does Uncanny X-Men #282, Bishops 1st cameo, sell for more than UX #283 1st full appearance of Bishop?)

 

The X-Factor section must have come from a collector. I hit a run: issue 40, 39, 38, 37. At this point I would expect there to be an issue jump to a random number 17 or 60, but it continued. 36, 35, 34, 33, 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27. There's no way this run would keep going. Someone at Half Price would know that the Apocalypse issues are hot at the moment. 26, 25...24. I had to pause for a second.

$1.

They were charging $1 for a good looking copy of the first full appearance of Archangel.

I picked up both X-Factor #24 and #25 for $2 + tax.

 

Now I wonder do I hold onto the book?

Do I shoot the book off to eBay while the book has some heat behind it?

Maybe fast track it at CGC.

 

 

This weeks pick ups.

 

[Myparentsbasement]

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first antique show. I went in expecting a couple of sellers with a few stacks of unbagged fifty cent books. Much to my surprise there were three people selling only comic books. One of the sellers had a re-print of Star Wars #1 and a large lot of Archie books. The second seller specialized in modern variant books; if you were looking for Deadpool on a cover, or a DKIII book this man had it covered. The last seller had a nice selection of titles across the big two. Their dollar bin turned up nothing of interest , but they did have a nice selection of currently hot comics. There were multiple copies of Uncanny X-men #282 ranging in price from $8 to $15.

 

The past few years I'd been putting off picking up this issue. There's never a shortage of them at local conventions and a NM copy could be obtained for around $10. The book isn't a wallet breaker, but the character never grabbed me. I passed on the issues being sold at the antique show. I'll pick up a copy at the next show I thought. This past weekend I swung by a Half Price Books in one of the first ring suburbs. Low and behold as I was flipping through the X's was a copy of UX #282. $4. I could make space in a long box for this book for $4.

 

This weeks pick ups.

The Huntress #1 – 1989

Jonny Quest #2 – 1986

iZombie #2 – 2010

Vertigo Preview – 1992

X-Men #54 – 1996

Deadpool vs Thanos #2 – 2015

 

 

I picked up the Deadpool vs Thanos variant covers in hopes of flipping them for a slight profit. Unfortunately I didn't notice the back covers before purchasing. One book had a crisp sharp fold, and the other looks as though it had soaked in a bucket for a few weeks. I got skunked on these two.

 

This weeks toy pick ups.

 

 

CGC Submission update

Modern slow track.

Received – 1/7/16

Verified – 1/25/16