We were in a new part of the city again with a few spare minutes so we busted out the GPS and searched for comic and card shops in the ‘points of interest.’ There were a TON of shops around where we are, but they were all in the wrong direction. . . so we picked one of the few in the ‘right’ direction and headed its way only to find it closed.
Another store was sort of on the way — Pastimes — a shop that bills itself as ‘Comics, Cards and Games’ in the GPS. The gaming selection was mammoth, and they did have comics and sports cards, but I didn’t see any non-sport cards. I hung out for a bit to ask, and a clerk did ask if he could help me so I asked if they carried any non-sport cards. His response was “Did you say non-sport cards?” and he sort of looked at me as if I had three heads. I’m still surprised that some shops apparently have no clue that anything exists besides gaming and baseball cards. Ohh well, GPS’n was a bust today.
Jon
Such was the case last December — why I’m bringing it up now will be more clear in a moment, but last December I won a Cat Staggs Hellboy sketch from eBay seller hux777. Now, I bid on quite a few auctions, and I ALWAYS calculate the shipping cost into my maximum bid — this auction was no different, and while I did win it was only by pennies and I won for my highest bid — slightly over $21 to make the final cost slightly over $25 after adding the $4 shipping fee. 
After running through the show once, chatting with Ed Webb, Jake and Matt and a few other dealers we were pretty exhausted so we checked out the concession stands and grabbed a table to pop open a stack of 38 packs of Twilight Zone I bought from one of the scattered dealers at the show. The food actually was very good for con food — perhaps some of the best con food from any convention I’ve attended — sure it comes with the convention price, but at least it was decent food. The packs weren’t nearly as good as the food, in fact they were severely cherry picked — to the point that I left the cards, including the few chase we did find, sitting on the table. Hopefully they wound up in the hands of a new collector.
The show was located at the Westin in Lombard IL, which is a really nice location with lots of stuff to do, and there was free parking, which is always cool. The floor space at this show is similar to a very large hotel show, they also have a film room and an art gallery typically with a featured artist. The Saturday entry fee was $25, which I’ve always felt was high compared to other shows, especially when you consider I really just want to go browse the dealer room. The show typically isn’t all that crowded so they probably need to have slightly higher ticket prices in order to offset the lower attendance than say a comic show would probably bring in. Upon check in you get a badge with your name printed on it — which is a nice touch, as well as a stack of papers, some magazine-type things and a bidder number. I found it a but presumptuous to give me a bidder number for an auction I had no intention on attending. . . it also concerned me a bit that if I lost this bookmark sized scrap of paper someone could bid on a bunch of stuff in my name. The bidder number was stuck in the stack of papers in my hand as I walked through the door. It immediately became apparent that it would be very difficult to look at anything with these two magazines, a stack of papers and a bidder number in my hand. . . they must have forgotten to give me a bag . . . I went back into the hall, but there were no bags given out just stacks of papers and crap.
I wandered around the show a bit not finding a whole lot interesting until I stopped at David Saunder’s table. He had books and a new trading card set based on his father Norm’s artwork. David was a cool guy, fun to talk to and very interesting. We chatted about his dad and the industry a bit. The book looks phenomenal, and is only $40 with tons of trading card pictures. I ended up buying one of the sets from him and chatting about a pieces of art I purchased that was attributed to his father several years before. I had never known if it was actually Saunders so I was curious about it. Surprisingly David knew exactly what piece I was talking about — he drew sketches on the back of a post card depicting what he remembered from the art along with his email address. He confirmed it was done by his father and inquired about obtaining the art from me. While I’m not sure that I want to sell, the authentication of that piece of art was worth the price of admission for me.
I’m not sure what I was looking for on Craigslist. . . I have a number of hobbies that take me there from time to time. Unfortunately for the most part Craigslist has been a series of ‘I’m sorry it just sold before you called’ experiences for me.
Rick was exceptionally friendly, in that stereotypical ‘Chicago Guy’ fashion. He was very interested in talking about the hobby, but less interested in digging through boxes to find cards. That’s not to say he didn’t grab various things and show them to me, but by his own admission the monster boxes and shelves were in no particular order. The pricing on most things was pretty much on the fly — most packs were marked $3-$3.50 regardless of age or desirability, the Daredevil box was $65, and Women of Marvel boxes were $90. Rick seemed pretty willing to work on prices for most things and I spied what looked like most of a box of Iron Man. It was marked $4 a pack, and there were 23 packs in the box. . . plus there was a pack taped to the wall making a full box of packs. I had been considering picking up a some Iron Man since I really enjoyed the movie so I asked about the price, and he said he could sell them for $2 a pack. I realize that $48 for a box worth of packs of Iron Man isn’t exactly a spectacular deal, but I had the itch to open something so I pulled the trigger. Once I decided to buy the Iron Man another patron came into the shop and I literally stood there while Rick and this guy had thirty minute conversation about the Watchmen. Various other collectors walked in and walked out. . . some waited to be able to get a word into the conversation to ask a question, but most simply waited a few minutes and walked out. At this point I had been in the shop for well over an hour and didn’t want to walk out empty handed, so I waited for my opportunity and told him I wanted the Iron Man cards.
Unfortunately I’ve seen similar sell offs in the past. . . FPG, Sportstime and several small manufacturers liquidated in the 90s. . . which was also a time when companies like Comic Images had been known to ‘dump’ product directly on the market. What happens at the end of the day? Some products recover, some partially recover and the rest never recover.
The question is how to you survive. . . It certainly will be ugly to watch the prices of the cards you may have fall in value. . . perhaps they’ll recover in price, but perhaps not. . . You can collect some solace in the fact that there is a good chance deals will be out there to be had. . . Unfortunately it’s impossible right now to know what a ‘deal’ is. . . The cards I bought for $20 might be relisted in a few weeks for $15, or $10, or even $5. . . that all depends on how many need to be absorbed back into the hobby — the seller might have hundreds of these that they’ll be selling for the next few years, or they might run out of them after they sell the next 6 they have listed . . . Without knowledge of what exactly is coming it’s impossible to know what to expect. You could ask sellers how many they have for sale, although you may not get an answer, and of course you can watch auctions for specific information — like the seller of the Iler autograph stating there were 340 signed — he won’t run out of those for a VERY long time. The only thing you can do in a case like this is make sure you are buying cards at a price you are happy with, and try to enjoy the ride.