bargain bins vs. gas prices..are they REALLY a bargain?

[Brother J]

First, as many of you do, I absolutely LOVE going to comic shows, rooting through bargain boxes and pulling up books that you either need or know are worth some good money. I've been fairly lucky in doing this over the years. There are two shows I attend fairly regularly, one is here in Milwaukee, the other is in Gurnee, IL.

Out of the two, I usually enjoy the Gurnee show more, less people, more room, free admittance and in a much cleaner enviroment (a hotel meeting room as opposed to a dingy hall in a bowling alley that smells of mildew). However, the Gurnee show is a bit of a haul, 43 miles each way. With the price of gas, am I really getting much of a bargain when I buy a bunch of cheap comics there?

I guess if I came out with a longbox full it might be worth it, but it hasn't been all that productive lately. There's one dealer who always has good stuff in his 50 cent boxes, but often he's the only guy I buy from.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I think I will be sitting out the next show. I just don't see it being such a great deal once you factor in the gas price. Any thoughts (other than that I'm a cheapskate)?

[xoken]

Get a hybrid

[greg]

Assuming you're spending about $10 on the round trip...
Are you getting about $10 worth of "shipping" for your trouble?
Do you get $10 worth of "I saw it in person" knowledge that helps
you avoid a poor (internet) purchase?

As long as you can justify the added expense vs. the cost of buying
those same books in the same condition elsewhere... you're good.

[GGSAE]

That's a good point...I went to a local show this summer for the first time in a decade. It was a total waste of time, few comic dealers and none had any valiants except a few useless commons. I work at a hotel. Sunday mornings are the most lucrative, and by my right of seniority I work the coveted 9-5, i could do 7-3 if i wanted to do the bus luggage but i like to sleep in a little

Anyways...I probably lost about $60 by working afternoon instead of mornings. I wasted over an hour commuting by buses to get to this place and the $5 in bus fare as well as a morning spent that i could have been outside enjoying the nice weather.

So it was a loss, but i looked at it as an acceptable risk of a much larger opportunity cost had there been some real bargains. These shows are every month so i'll wait when the winter comes and try my luck when more dealers are around. I'm also gonna try to get a list of how many dealers there are and if try to contact them so i don't waste my time. My advice to you, if you've already plucked from some of these dealers before chances are the barrel of valiant keys might not be as full as before. I'd say call some dealers and if they don't have much, skip it this time.

[tcolli]

Sorry to move this off the topic but does the show in Gurnee get hosted by a man named Alan? He does some local shows here but there is terrible turnout and I really never find anything Valiant related good. When it first started, I got a couple decent silver age books but never really anything else. The best thing to come out of one of these shows is I met Sonicdan in person!

[Valiant OCD]

First, as many of you do, I absolutely LOVE going to comic shows, rooting through bargain boxes and pulling up books that you either need or know are worth some good money. I've been fairly lucky in doing this over the years. There are two shows I attend fairly regularly, one is here in Milwaukee, the other is in Gurnee, IL.

Out of the two, I usually enjoy the Gurnee show more, less people, more room, free admittance and in a much cleaner enviroment (a hotel meeting room as opposed to a dingy hall in a bowling alley that smells of mildew). However, the Gurnee show is a bit of a haul, 43 miles each way. With the price of gas, am I really getting much of a bargain when I buy a bunch of cheap comics there?

I guess if I came out with a longbox full it might be worth it, but it hasn't been all that productive lately. There's one dealer who always has good stuff in his 50 cent boxes, but often he's the only guy I buy from.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I think I will be sitting out the next show. I just don't see it being such a great deal once you factor in the gas price. Any thoughts (other than that I'm a cheapskate)?

Hey Bro, aren't you forgetting the most important thing? Let's say you spend $10.00 in gas, and spend 3hours digging through bargain bins and find a book for .50c that's worth $9.50. Did you break even?


I contend that you made out like a bandit. Here's my reasoning. How much is the fun you had worth to you? If you paid $50.00 at a ball game or $100.00 at an amusement park, would it be more gratifying than hunting for a little gem? Some where on this board I read the other day

"once you start making money at your hobby, it's no longer a hobby".

I say stop scutinizing the "bottom line" and just hunt for the hunt. If you spending time making yourself happy, it's a bargain at 100 times the cost.

[tcolli]

Hey, I like the way you think. People pay doctors thousands to forget about their troubles, thousands to do drugs to get away and enjoy, what is a few dollars for pure enjoyment? Good post above

[Brother J]

Sorry to move this off the topic but does the show in Gurnee get hosted by a man named Alan? He does some local shows here but there is terrible turnout and I really never find anything Valiant related good. When it first started, I got a couple decent silver age books but never really anything else. The best thing to come out of one of these shows is I met Sonicdan in person!

yep, Alan runs the show in Gurnee, while he just sets up at the Milwaukee show but it is run by a local guy. Alan is also the guy I mentioned who I normally spend most of my money on at these shows, I can usually pull a decent amount of good deals out of his boxes. Nice guy but he has a habit of telling the same jokes over and over. I believe some of the other board members are familiar with Alan because we've discussed him here before.

Lately there hasn't been much in the way of VALIANTs at these shows at all, but I always have that fear in the back of my head that the show I miss will be the show that someone brings in a bunch and I'll miss out!

[dave]

i totally agree too-it's just so fun to hunt the books down-even if you don't end up with anything (although i always seem to find SOMEthing) because i've branched out a bit (crossgen, goldkey, batman s/b, transformers/gi joe...ugh i could go on...battle of the planets new universe) too good to pass up! she hulk might be next (seems like you could find the entire run for $1 an issue)

i was thinking about garage sales....are they worth it? never seen a cmoic book at one-but i don't frequent them much either...

[Daniel Jackson]

i totally agree too-it's just so fun to hunt the books down-even if you don't end up with anything (although i always seem to find SOMEthing) because i've branched out a bit (crossgen, goldkey, batman s/b, transformers/gi joe...ugh i could go on...battle of the planets new universe) too good to pass up! she hulk might be next (seems like you could find the entire run for $1 an issue)

i was thinking about garage sales....are they worth it? never seen a cmoic book at one-but i don't frequent them much either...

Most of the ones I've seen at yard sales would barely qualify as reader copies. Sometimes you get lucky though.

[Brother J]

i was thinking about garage sales....are they worth it? never seen a cmoic book at one-but i don't frequent them much either...

I only go to local yard/garage/rummage sales if they advertise in their listing in the paper specifically that they have comic books. Even the ones that mention comics more than half the time only have early 90's crap that no one wants. One guy had 50+ copies of each of the Superman:Funeral for a Friend issues, guess he learned not to speculate on comics!

[slym2none]

I used to get up early on Saturday mornings (now, that's just crazy-talk) and hit all the yard/garage sales in the area, looking for comics. I'd hit 10-12 most mornings, and at least one would have some comics - but not much good stuff. I found a few X-Men that I wanted/needed, but my best pull were NICE looking copies of Marvel Premiere #'s 1-3 (the first time "Him" was called Adam Warlock) for $15 - I held onto to those for prolly 10 years, and sold them for something like $75. Even with inflation, I made money! They were all at least VF, and the #2 was an easy 9.0-9.2. (This was late-80's when I bought them.)

Nowadays, yard sales are a dream - literally. I sleep most Saturdays until 11AM or so, the lazy bum that I REALLY am!





-slym

[Daniel Jackson]

One guy had 50+ copies of each of the Superman:Funeral for a Friend issues, guess he learned not to speculate on comics!

Ha, ha, ha... and right there beside them are a 100 copies of Turok #1.