I was cycling and took a nice spill on a hairpin turn this past Saturday and popped my clavicle out at the ligament. To make things worse I tore a muscle in my chest during the fall which is making it hard to sleep! Gah. The takeaways here are that I’m not 25 anymore and my wife thinks I’m an idiot.
Last reminder that tonight we are finishing up our 1st Annual Canadiana auction on our internationalcollectiblesexchange eBay handle. Don’t wait on these things, they are not the common items you see up all the time, some of them very rarely ever come to auction. It’s a nice mix of art, resource material, comics from various eras and even some tees, good luck if you are bidding on any of the items. And remember a nice chunk of the proceeds will go towards the 80th Anniversary commemoration projects best summarized here.
I was talking with Ivan Kocmarek about this event and we both agree that the Canadiana Auction should be an annual event at the very least, perhaps even bi-annually if we can make it happen. This one was a bit of a last-minute commitment and I wasn’t happy we could not hit the 100 item plateau. Buoyed by the warm reception this one has received we are motivated to make the next one that much better.
Business at Big B Comics has been super strong since we’ve been allowed to open our doors. The 15% capacity is going up to 25% on June 30th and that will be a welcome event as we had lines forming all day this past Saturday, props to all those store supporters for their patience and understanding. Nothing beats foot traffic inside the shop, our store is just crammed with neat things in every nook and cranny and people always seem to find an item or two extra to enjoy, something that just cannot happen online.
I think we’re starting to win the battle of getting books posted onto the Big B Vintage page, we’re up past 14 pages now and we’re adding more and more each week, finally! Our stock on the International Collectibles Exchange (I.C.E.) is getting back up to respectable levels too as we are approaching 400 quality CGC graded comics (we had it down around 180 in early May). I’m aiming for 500 plus on I.C.E. as I’ve been buying aggressively lately. I also want at least 25 pages full of raw vintage comics on the Big B Vintage page.
Our regular weekly internationalcollectiblesexchange auction on eBay posted some strong results again last night. I’d like to focus on a personal favourite, a nice Off White pages Fantastic Four #49 graded at CGC 5.0 sold for $1,567 which is a bit below the 90-day average but it did soundly beat the last sale recorded on GPA of $1,452. The Silver Surfer is huge now and will continue to gain in importance, here we have the Surfer’s first cover appearance embedded in one of the most prized story arcs in comic history, the Galactus Trilogy of Fantastic Four #48-50. Advantage buyer.
Sorry you took the spill. I went down twice my last trip out with the kids, on mountainbikes, fortunately both low speed on forgiving dirt and gravel surfaces. Went over my handlebars another time and even with a helmet on, got a very minor concussion for a minute or less, rang my bell as they say. Interesting experience and felt very dumb. I was seeing double! so take care of yourself there Walter!
Eager to see what I might score tonight in the Canadiana auction. I dusted off my old esnipe program (normallyt I have nothingn to do with Ebay) and then got pretty darned aggressive. Of course, that rarely works on Heritage anymore, being aggressive I mean, there’s usually is someone else wants it more. I did score a VG- All American #8 last nite, with a wonderful Ultra-Man cover, I am still jazzed. Been after thatd for a long time, fills in my pretty good run of pre-Green Lantern issues! Scribbly’s in it, too!
Walt, sorry to hear of your tumble. We old guys have to be careful. We’re at the sge where bones break easily.
As for me, they almost had to restart my heart. I looked on Heritage last night and there is a pedigree collection called the Promise collection. Dear Lord, comics bought new in 30s-40s and stored for 70 years. Each comic CGC’d at 9.8 and secured bids of $500k to over $1mil USD.
Many keys and just desirable books from that great era. Probably ranks next to the Edgar Church collection, if not in better shape. What a find that was. It shows you that some really great stuff is still out there.
My brother is in his 70’s and rides bikes in a senior division and has had a few spills like that… I think he is crazy! Wow on the FF 49… sheesh… maybe I should get that second set CGC’d and make a few bucks!
Walt, after I told her of your crash, my girlfriend thought I should write you a poem. Here it is:
There once was an old man named Walt,
Who took things with a grain of salt,
He went for a hike,
And, instead, took his bike,
“Big mistake!”, said the asphalt.
Nice work Klaus! You guys do know that mountain bikers take a rather bizarre pride in their scars…like swastikas on RAF and American fighter planes in WWII. I don’t know about street bikers…poor guys have to dodge cars instead of rocks and trees.
I had an exciting time with the Canadiana auction tonight…scored big. You Canucks let some good books slip out of the country, but I’ll take good care of them. Low grade, but scarce little puppies regardless. I even settled for two coverless books…one was a Canadian Heroes #1, the other an early Nelvana alppearance. it’s more fun to have one than no book at all, in my strange little world. When a book is $1600 in good, and still impossible to find…a coverless copy offers an awful lot fun for a fraction of the price. Advantage buyer!
Thanks for the fun, Walter, Ivan, Lipson (?) and whoever else put the auction together.
Is there a list of the final sale prices from the auction? I went to the ICE site but all of the ended suctions are no longer there. I was wondering what everything sold for.
It was very exciting in the last hours. Ivan’s donated art page brought C$1700! I didn’t have enough Paypal funding in place to top up my bids on a couple of the Double A’s so got outshot pretty quickly. The auction caught me by surprise so wasn’t really prepared, I was sad to see them slip away. And it fell on buying new glasses month too! Drat!
Also, I kind of ignored the heavily damaged or coverless issues which I see by Bud’s comment that IS a mistake. Me needs rethink that attitude (maybe someone could do a more in depth article on that low grade aspect – how much value and how far would you go for a scarce little puppy?) Take care of ’em Bud, secret bidder -***-?, if ever you want to pass them along we’ll be ready.
Congrats to all the winners and the organizers! See you next year, I hope.
Thanks for sentiments guys, I like the sound of those low speed crashed Bud, I’ll aim for one of those next time.
Klaus, you wordsmith, I love that poem, thank you!!!
I thought the auction did very well and will be pushing Ivan to help me develop another one much bigger in scope. Some of those Anglo American’s had such great covers and I thought the two coverless were great pic ups because they were key and very early issues, one had the 4th Nelvana appearance!! I was surprised by the strength of the FECA books, those early 1950s Canadians did very very well.
Thanks to all who supported this event through their views and bids.
Klaus again, I think if you look at our current auction and you sort by Ending Soonest, then go down the left column and click on Sold Items you will see the auction in sequence as it ended.
Walt, thanks, it worked. I didn’t know that you could look up sold listings.
I’ve been looking up sold books across many sales site since the early 2000’s and always adding new sales like this auction to a database, including scans,buyers, indicia details and index summaries that I know of.
By tomorrow I will be finished adding yesterdays auctions due to an unexpected afternoon flood if you need more info.