DC comics buyout at Ollie's part 1

A little over a year ago now, a new Ollie's Bargain Outlet opened up in Cookeville (TN), which is about thirty minutes away from me, and even though I've wanted to go since it's opening, it wasn't until two Saturday's ago that I finally did... what can I say? I hate long car rides, and anything over ten minutes is considered by me to be a long car ride.

Before going, I was really curious to see how this Ollie's would compare to the one in Nashville (that experience can be read about here), and after going, I can say that they're pretty similar, although the one in Nashville is quite a bit bigger.

When I arrived on that fateful (too dramatic?) Saturday morning, I headed for the books section first (most people seem to do the same) and couldn't help but notice a giant table with stacks and stacks of what appeared to be mostly trade paperbacks. As I made my over to the table and started looking through every thing, I kept thinking how odd it was that they would have all these (ignorance is not bliss), especially since the Nashville location didn't have anything like this last summer.

Since I was going somewhere (see below) after Ollie's that day, and I was trying to get home by a certain time, I didn't look through everything quite as thoroughly as I should have, that being said, I still found some really great stuff.

It was only later that night, after doing some Googling, that I found out what's what... namely, that Ollie's had bought a huge (19 truckloads, according to their ad) inventory of DC books, which included graphic novels, omnibuses, TPB's, etc. And as per usual, I was probably the last person to find out about this once in a lifetime sale, which at this point has been going on for a little over a month now.

After finding out about the sale, I decided that if everything worked out alright, I would go to the Nashville location, as well as back to Cookeville for a more thorough searching the following Saturday, which I did, and all those goodies will be seen in part two. And if all goes well, I will be going to Knoxville for the first time in a couple of days, and wouldn't cha know it, they just happen to have an Ollie's as well, so I wouldn't rule out a part three.

Since I haven't read any of these books yet, I can't really provide too much commentary, so I'll just go with my standard VHS post format, which is to show the cover, and in case anyone sees something of interest, the synopsis on the back.

I picked up quite a few Batman books, most of which will be in the next post.

People seem to be split on the "Showcase Presents" series, mostly because they were reprinted in black and white. While I do wish they would have been done in their original colors, most of the titles are from the pulp era, which means that most of those original books tend be on the pricey side, so I can forgive the black and white printing if it means that I get a chance to read them. Plus...

... it's pretty darn hard to complain about getting over 500 pages of something like this for $2.99!

I'll have a few more of these in the next post as well.

This one sounded really good, plus it's got a really fantastic cover.

My only complaint about this liquidation sale is that I wish there were more JSA titles.

After reading about some of the other stuff that people were finding at their local Ollie's', I had thought that there was going to be an overabundance of New 52 books, but after thinking back at what I saw during this trip, as well as what was seen during the second outing, I can't say that I really saw too many of The New 52 titles. Although for the record, I don't hate the New 52 stuff as much as some people seem to. Other than this book, which is a hardback by the way, and the "Showcase Presents", everything in this post was $3.99 apiece. I would also find out after my second visit, that a lot of these were the only copies to be had at this particular location.

Since I was already there, I couldn't leave without perusing the toy aisles, and while they weren't very impressive at this Cookeville location, I still managed to find two things that had to come home with me:

I initially thought this Stay Puft was from one of the countless newer toy lines that were paying homage to the original film(s), but instead it's from the recent remake/reimagining, which I haven't seen, and have no intention of ever seeing... but once he's out of the package, I can just pretend that he's from the original. Also, he light's up:

It would have looked better in the dark, and my finger's sort of in the way, but you get the idea.

This guy's from the recent picture as well, and even though I don't know anything about him, he was just too cool looking to leave behind.

And here he is lit up.

After Ollie's, I went to a place called Mountain Top Comics and Collectables, which is also in Cookeville. I only found out about this shop recently, even though I've driven by it every time that I've gone to Nashville, and never had a clue that it was there. Since this post is getting a little long, I will provide a more in-depth review at some later date, but for now I will just show one of my two purchases (the other item is going to be a gift so it will remain unseen):

This shops toy selection was amazing, I could have dropped a thousand dollars in just a couple of minutes, provided of course that I actually had an extra thousand dollars to spend.

As always, I had no idea that McFarlane had done a Grinch line in 2007, if I had, I would have gotten them all at the time. Not surprisingly, these now sell for quite a bit, but I got this "Two Sizes Too Small" figure for considerably cheaper than what it goes for online.

I've mentioned it here on the blog many times, that I am a dedicated package opener, but on this particular figure, I'm actually slightly hesitant to open it. I'm sure it's just because of the price tag that they seem to carry, as I'm not accustomed to opening things that have actual monetary value. I guess just so I don't end up with some kind of opener's remorse, he'll remain in the package for a little longer.

If you liked this post, you might also be in the next one, as it will feature the spoils from my trip to the Nashville Ollie's, as well as another stop at the Cookeville location the following weekend.


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Icee Love

While sorting through some cards recently, I came across a few that I thought might be of interest to the patron saint of bloggers, aka Mark Hoyle. Since three of the four cards featured Ted Williams, I figured it would a good idea to check and see if Mark already had them or not, because as I'm sure everyone already knows by now, Mark has a pretty healthy Ted Williams collection.

After firing off a quick missive via the direct messaging on Twitter (@Markhoyle4), I found out that Mark did want them, and even though I wasn't looking for anything in return, Mark asked if I would be interested in a spare 1972-73 Icee Bear Bob Love that he had. Since I only have a couple of Icee Bear's, and with Bob not being among those couple, I was definitely interested.

This is a set that I fully intend to collect all of at some point, probably after I complete a few more of the 70's Topps basketball sets. I hadn't paid much attention to the photo selection of the three or four that I already have, but for some reason, this card made me wonder about that very thing.

After doing a small (like ten minutes worth) amount of research, I have found that four out of the twenty photos used for the set are the same ones used in the 1971-72 Topps set. At least six, although different, look like they may have been taken at the same time as the images for the 1972-73 Topps set were shot (Bob being one of those). And the last ten, well... those are going to require a bit more research, preferably being done by someone else :)

Mark, thank you for the card, I very much appreciate you helping me knock a card off of a non-existent checklist for what will be a future set build.


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Floored

If someone had told me when I got back into card collecting around eight years ago, that at some future point I would be collecting multiple different memorabilia/relic sets, I probably would have scoffed in disbelief, as I really didn't think to highly of them at the time.

Fast forward eight years, and I find myself working on eight different relic sets, one of which is the Parquet Performers set from the 2004-05 edition of Skybox Premium.

I only found out about this set around two years ago, and was immediately enamored with the idea of owning cards that featured a bit of the original parquet floor from the old Boston Garden, which unfortunately was torn down in 1998. That Parquet floor was probably the most famous floor in the history of sports, and to my knowledge, no other floor has had as much winning occur on top of it, as that old parquet did.

These cards fell at 1:12 packs, or since boxes contained twelve packs, you were basically guaranteed one per box. Even though those odds are relatively low, these don't come up on the secondary market all that often, and when they do, they're often priced higher then something with those odds normally would be. I haven't read anything about why they seem to be so scarce, but I believe Fleer went belly up not too long after this set was released, so that may or may not have something to do with it. There were also signed variations, which were 1:144 packs, or one per case. Printing plates could also be had, but I have no idea how one would figure out the odds on something that is a 1/1.

With the addition of Dave I now have three of the fifteen, Danny Ainge and K.C. Jones being the other two. I also have the Robert Parish cyan printing plate as well.

Had I been collecting at the time of the set's release, I'm sure I would have had it finished a long time ago. As of now, I'm acquiring one about every six months or so. Because of their scarcity on the secondary market, it always feels like a major win when I am able to get one on the cheap, as was the case with Mr. Cowens, who I was able to acquire via COMC a few months back for just a little over $9.


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COMComics

With my long dormant interest in comic books being awoken shortly before COMC's last Black Friday sale, I decided to appease those recent stirrings by trying to seek out some new (to me) reading material during the sale.

Spending so much time on the site, I was aware that the amount of comics on the site had been growing fairly rapidly over the last year or two, but with no real interest at the time, I had yet to ever look through the comic book listings. Not knowing what to expect, I was surprised to see just how many books were on the site, and since I had no expectations whatsoever, so to come away with five books seemed to be alright, considering that it was my first foray into the comics section of the site.

Having just bought a cheap lot of Unexpected books on eBay the week before, it seemed only natural to try and find some more cheap copies during the sale. I ended up finding two, both of which were later issues in the series, that I considered to be reasonably priced.

Even though I knew that it wasn't going to have anything to do with the 1936 film, just seeing "Dracula's Daughter" on the cover of this issue triggered an almost Pavlovian like response, so much so, that in that moment, I probably would have bought it for almost any price. Being away from comics for so long, I'm pretty clueless as to what the going rate is for most things, but I think paying $1.80 and $2.60 respectively for these two issues wasn't too obscene.

Back issues of The Tomb of Dracula were still a very popular, and expensive, when I was young, so for me, it was always one of those someday series'. I don't know if this point in time qualifies as "someday" yet, but I certainly won't pass up any cheaper copies that I happen to come across... even if they are what some people might consider to be "well-loved" copies.

I vaguely remember the original Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series, but I don't recall ever seeing issues #13 and #14, which featured dead and inactive characters. And I know for a fact that I somehow never encountered issues #16-20 of the expanded Handbook deluxe edition series, which was an A to Z of deceased characters. Considering that the deluxe edition came out in the late 80's, I find it almost impossible to believe that these were able to have escaped my attention all the way through the 90's, as I was still very actively collecting at that time.

All the comics in the Handbook series had wraparound covers, which look especially cool on the Book Of the Dead titles. Since I couldn't find any pictures online (big surprise) that showed the inside of the books, I didn't really know what to expect.

To say that I was very pleased with the amount of detail that was put into the write-ups, would be a major understatement for sure. Everything you could possibly want is here, first appearances, history, personal information, death's (obviously), and so forth. Since the binding is so tight, I wasn't about to try and scan the inside, so this picture is really the best I could do.

And one more. Some of the major characters get 3 or 4 pages, while the lesser names get a page or less, which was fine, as some characters weren't developed enough to warrant more than half a page. Either way, you get/got plenty of bang for your buck (or in my case, a $1.25).

I was only able to get the first two, of the five Book of the Dead's, which covered Air-Walker to Hobgoblin. Hopefully I won't have too much trouble getting the last three for a reasonable sum.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my first group of purchased comics from COMC. And as per usual, everything was packaged really well, which is a credit to them, especially since they had fit them in with multiple other small card boxes. Like any other place, there are plenty of overpriced items on the site, but if one keeps an eye out, deals can be had... and as more stuff continues to be added to the site, I would imagine that, in an effort to keep up with the competition, the owners of those overpriced items might start coming down a bit, lest they be left out in the cold.


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Are you ready for some football?

Even though I haven't paid much attention to football in the last couple of years, that doesn't mean that I am no longer a fan of the sport, I'm just not a fan of the sport in it's current form. With that being said, one would to have to be living under a proverbial rock to not know that, following Sunday's "Big Game", another season will officially be in the books. So, since I did have a few (not nearly as many as usual) football cards in with last year's COMC stash, I figured this would be as good of a time as any to show them.

I picked up this '59 Y.A. just a couple days before his passing last October for around $4. 1959 was the first year of Y.A.'s supposed decline, which was followed by an even worse year in 1960. And as most people know by now, that is when the 49'ers decided to trade their "washed up" quarterback to the Giants, to which he responded by leading the New York to three straight championship games.

Sometime before last summer I came across a seller who was in the process of liquidating their store. I don't know if they didn't have very much to begin with, or if I was just late to the sale, but either way, by the time I saw it there wasn't a whole heckuva a lot left that was of interest to me, except for... eight cards in the 1960's football category, all of which were in really good shape, and all just happened to be Boston Patriots. Needless to say, I bought all eight of them, I mean how was I supposed to turn down the above trio of '61 Topps for less than 50 cents each?

And a solid trio it was, all three guys were members of the original AFL Boston Patriots, and Jim Colclough and Bob Dee were both named to the Patriots All-1960's Team. Chuck Leo never got the chance to earn too many accolades, as just four games into the 1962 season he suffered a severely torn hamstring in a non-football related accident, which effectively ended his career.

In today's NFL, it would be basically impossible to imagine a flanker/kicker being the most important/popular player on a team, but were you to travel back in time some fifty years, you'd find Gino Cappelletti being just that (although it was in the AFL, but you know what I mean)... so much so, that he even earned the nickname of "Mr. Patriot". He is the AFL's all-time leading scorer (1,130 points). It was until 2005, that his Patriots all-time leading scorer record was broken (Adam Vinatieri), a few of his other records have also since been surpassed, but considering that he was playing 14 game seasons, it's amazing to think that so many of his numbers took so long to eclipse.

The above '68 Topps was bought from the same seller as the three 61's, which for some reason, I decided to scan, hence all the pixilation. Everything else in this post that isn't from that seller was photographed on a different day, I thought I'd point that out, just in case anyone wonders about the varying image quality. Now that I got that out of the way, how about seeing a few more needed 68's (different sellers though):

Dave entered the '68 campaign coming off of the best season of his, at that point, ten-year pro career. Taken by the Saints in the 1967 expansion draft, Dave led the league in interceptions (10) and was selected to his first Pro Bowl, which also made him the first Saints player to ever do so. A few years prior, Dave was also a member of the 1963 Chicago Bears championship team.

Randy was drafted in 1966 by the Atlanta Falcons, making him the newly formed franchise's, first quarterback. Randy never quite lived up to his former All-American status, although playing for such bad team, certainly didn't help. He played with four teams during his ten-year NFL career, and spent one season ('74) with the Hawaiians in the World Football League. After football his life completely fell apart, should anyone be so inclined to read about the sad details, you can do so by clicking here  and here.

As a result of their respective Super Bowl appearances earlier in the year, Topps decided to do something a little different by giving all the players from the Packers and Raiders a specially designed horizontal card, each of which featured a different comic style background. I really wish Topps had done this for the whole 1968 set, as I absolutely love the look of these cards. Not surprisingly, there are a number of hall of famers amongst these horizontal cards, including this Doctor Zhivago.

This group of '69 Topps was the other four cards that I was able to get from the Patriots seller. I should have scanned these individually, but I didn't, and it's too late to go back and redo it now.

Cappelletti and Colclough are making their second appearance here today, this time joined by
Mike Taliaferro, who played for the Patriots from 1968-70, making the all-star team in 1969. The other new face to be featured in this quartet is Jim Whalen, who was yet another member of the Patriots All-1960's Team.

I don't if I will ever collect all of the 1970 Topps Super Glossy inserts or not, but Jack Snow here, was just too cheap for me not to buy.

The football section of my hoard wasn't made up entirely of vintage, there were also a few newer and shiny things as well, namely this quartet of cheaply acquired 2001 Topps Archives Reserve:

One of the nice things about the Archives Reserve set, is that the checklist is comprised of pretty much all hall of famers, as well as a few guys who haven't quite made it yet. One could make a very easy case that, John Brodie, who has yet to be enshrined, is much more hall worthy than Joe Namath... but of course, Joe has the name recognition, which unfortunately, is sometimes more important than statistics.

I put in an order with a seller on the Beckett Marketplace just the other day, which was made up of nothing but football cards, so for anyone out there who enjoys the pigskin posts, I should have another one ready to go within the next couple of weeks.


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