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  • bigbillguts | Male | 44 years old | Auburn, NY

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Slabs From CBCS!!!

1773 views • Feb 4, '20 • (1) Comment

I finally broke down and decided to send in some comics for grading to CBCS. 

I had one comic that needed signature verification, a few that needed pressing, and a few that I just wanted to get slabbed.  CBCS was running a 20% off sale, so I decided to take the plunge and see what came of it!

CBCS prices are comparable to CGC (about $2 less per book), even without a sale.  What they do not tell you, however, is that if you have some books that need pressing, and some that do not, they will actually split your order and tack a bit on to the shipping (and extra $16 in my case).  I was a bit disappointed by this, because it wasn't clear when I submitted the order and paid. At the same time, this isn't the end of the world, and I now know to submit my books separately in the future. 

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Amazing Spider Man!

858 views • Jun 11, '18 • (0) Comments

Hello all!  

Summertime is here, and that should mean all kinds of stories of epic hauls from random garage sales and cool stories of comic conventions where I got to meet cool celebrities!

Well, I have been less than zealous about scouring for new treasures as of late.  I have kept the comic purchases to a minimum and spent lots of time at cool concerts and dance recitals, boy scouting events, and outdoors, in general, taking the kids fishing.... So much good weather and not enough time!

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Hey all!  Been busy lately, but I figured now would be a good time to check in (before work sucks me back in!!!).  

This week, my son had a Pinewood Derby race at the local mall for Cub Scouts.  The local mall has been dying for years, much like every mall in the US over the last decade.  One thing our local mall has done to prevent going out of business is bring in local vendors to run shops 3-4 days a week.  It is mildly frustrating when you do want to go into a shop that is closed on certain days, but with big events, most shop owners are open.  The mall staff also ran a few other events at the same time, including a Garage Sale event where anyone can rent a table space and bring in stuff to sell.  If you pile enough events on, the mall almost appears to be busy like it used to be!!!

One of the garage sale vendors was a record guy that I know from various other events.  I noticed that he had a couple of boxes of comics to pick through, so I decided to peruse while we waited for my son's race to begin!

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I dropped a bit more than usual on comics this week.

As I do every other week, I went to the local flea market again.  Much like every other week, same guys selling the same comics.  However, I noticed a guy had a new stack on his table- with some comics in mylars.  I was excited to find something new, so I headed over and started searching!

The vast majority of his new stock was low to mid grade early Daredevil issues.  Prior to this, I had a couple of keys in the vol 1 run, but no issues under number 102.  In all, the pile had 40 Daredevil issues, with lower grade copies of 11,12, and 13, plus a smattering of decent mid to higher grade issues up through 138.  Someone had clearly gone through the stack and pulled all the good keys, but I figured it might be a chance to get a deal on a bundle of older books- Daredevil doesn't usually fetch the highest prices, so I decided to take a chance.

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Flea Market finds!!

1063 views • Feb 6, '18 • (2) Comments

Another wintry week, another trip to the flea market.  The cold weather tends to keep the attendance lower for the flea market, including sellers.  Over the last few weeks here in upstate New York, there were weeks that I showed up to the flea market to find 8 vendors where there are normally about 50- makes it a lot harder to find a decent comic!

I was in luck this Sunday, howerver- one of the regulars had a newly replenished stock of bulk comics- $1 and $2 bins.  Looking through, I was able to find a few more Punisher vol2 issues that I needed, plus a couple of ASM vol1 and Uncanny X-Men vol 1 issues I needed to fill out my run.

The hidden treasure of the week was Defenders vol1 # 28-1st full appearance of Starhawk.  The book looks like it had been folded in half, but not creased.  I am not totally sure that this one would be worth getting pressed and graded, but I am seeing the fold disappear after just a few days of resting it under some weight!  Totally happy to have scooped it up out of a $2 bin!

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Comic book haul and Ollie's sale!!!

3438 views • Jan 29, '18 • (2) Comments

Hello all!  It has been a little while since I posted- work has had me beaten down pretty hard, but I am back amongst the living!!!

This weekend, I was able to make it to the flea market.  Nothing huge, but there was a new vendor that had a handful of cool comics in his dollar bin- some Punisher, X-Men, He-Man, and Eternal Warrior. I scooped up a Bloodshot #0 and #6- first app. of Colan King (becomes Ninjak).  The best find in the lot was Eternal Warrior #4- first cameo of Bloodshot!  I was able to fill in some missing gaps in my comic runs and add a key that I haven't found in the wild in a long time!

Next, I was off to my favorite shop- he doesn't sell new books, but survives solely on buy and selling collections of all manner!  This means he skims through his boxes for the obvious valuable books, then throws the remainder into his bargain section- where he prices comics at 3 for a dollar....  This is a great place to find issues to put together runs and to find lesser known keys and obscure titles with value!  I grabbed about 50 books from him this weekend - mostly X-Men and Amazing Spider Man issues to fill gaps in my collection, but also snagged an X-Factor#1, George Perez's Sirens #1E Sketch variant, 4 copies of Spider Man 2099, and 2 copies of Captain America vol5 #1 (first cameo of the Winter Soldier).  I even picked up a copy of Wolverine #8 for $7 because I didnt have one yet, and bought my son some Garbage Pail Kids!!! I walked away with tons of comics and spent all of $25 or so!

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No comics today....

1234 views • Jan 3, '18 • (2) Comments

While I was working, my wife went on a trip to the mall with her aunt.  There is a comci shop at the mall, so I figured I would save myself a trip and have my wife grab me a few new comics- new comic Wednesday and all!!  I know the shop I normally go to gets their comics on Tuesday and has them sorted and ready to go by Wednesday morning, so having my grab me some sweet new books seemed like a no-brainer.

A couple of hours later, I got a text from my wife telling me that the shop did not have their comics sorted and ready for sale...  It is about 2 pm when she is relaying this information to me...  Normally this wouldn't be a huge deal, but the nearest comic shop to my house is a solid 45 minutes away, and I probably won't make it out there until the weekend, and I assume I won't be able to grab up copies of Batman 38 and The Walking Dead 175 by then.

What time does your local shop get the books on the shelf?  Here's to hoping I can grab the comics I am looking for!

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Punisher Mini Series

1328 views • Dec 20, '17 • (5) Comments

I started watching the Netflix Punisher series a couple of weeks back and I am really enjoying it!  I would say this is my favorite Marvel run on Netflix to date.

When I started collecting comics, Punisher was my go-to.  I liked him because he didn't have super powers- just an angry bad- guy that was always seeking vengeance.  He had no qualms about wasting low-lifes and stealing their money to advance his vendetta.  He wasn't always trying to do the right thing like most super heroes, but his mission was compelling and interesting to watch- a guy that would employ violence and terror to fight crime is pretty wild!  Knowing that he was a mortal human also added to his appeal- this guy could actually die if he screwed up.  The story is much more interesting IMHO.

Watching the show got me sifting through my Punisher collection and I realized that my favorite vigilante of all time barely exists in my collection.... I used to have an almost complete run of the first 100 in the vol 1 series, but those all disappeared years ago.  I figured it was time to start building the collection again- other than ASM 129, Punisher comics are relatively cheap and accessible!

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New DC comic haul

1347 views • Dec 11, '17 • (0) Comments

I happened to be at a comic shop at the mall this weekend and found some new release DC comics that I wasn't able to find at my normal shops:

Batman Annual #2

Batman: White Knight 1 second print

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Nice haul from another local shop!

993 views • Dec 4, '17 • (0) Comments

This weekend, I found myself at another local shop near the airport.  I was waiting for my friend's flight to land and I had some time to kill, so I figured it would be a great night to rummage the dollar bins!

The shop owner was running a special this weekend, and everything in the dollar bins was 3 for $1- this is a great price to start filling out my runs of Punisher and Uncanny X-Men!  He almost always has random issues for each run, and there is the occasional comic that catches my son's eye in there too.  

I found Pokemon for my son, and a sweet copy of Youngblood 1 in there.  We also found TMNT #1 and I threw it in the pile because my son usually likes to read TMNT comics.

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