March Madness is here and MENSA Announces its Bracket Winner!
The MENSA BULLETIN just arrived, and as promised, the winner of the Heroes Bracket Challenge has been named. I should have seen it coming, and I give Robert Madonna credit for doing so, but the majority of MENSA members who voted went with their homey – Albert Einstein! I still disagree with Albert being more “heroic” than Superman (my pick to go all the way); but regardless, Rob Madonna is our winner. Congrats, Rob! Stop by the shop to pick up your major award.
The above announcement was deliberately timed to coincide with the announcement this week of the NCAA’s March Madness bracket. Although we are not offering a bracket contest at the shop (I’m sure there is one at your place of employment), we are offering an American Idol challenge. There is no purchase necessary to enter, but you need to act quick as entries must be received before the final ten are announced. Your job is to as accurately as possible, predict the final order of those last ten contestants. That is not going to be easy with this year’s talent. On a side note, either there was a mean-spirited reader or some rule about posts on Craigslist mentioning trade marked names. I had placed an ad on Craigslist mentioning our contest and it was flagged very quickly. I did a second one just mentioning “Idol” and it is still up. Join the fun!
Picking
While I’m typing, and it’s still fresh in my mind, let me tell you about some recent “picking” adventures. During a 6 day stretch last week, I went to 5 different sites (mostly auctions) trying to find treasures.
Tuesday – I attended an auction that usually has lots of box lots, smalls, and furniture, but it was also having a separate coin auction. Coins did quite well as they always seem to, even on eBay. Silver is WAY up at the moment and common silver coins were bringing 20 – 30 times face. I picked up a cheap lot of miscellaneous coins, mostly wheat cents and a huge lot of coin books/folders. This lot contained at least 40 empty coin folders, many brand new. I paid $5 for it and found two year sets with $3.62 face value in one! I waited and managed to buy a box full of Pokemon cards for a great price. It was getting late, so they bundled it with about 2 dozen packages of paper plates (still shrink wrapped), an old wooden boot remover, and a large broken piece of a slate counter top. No, I didn’t take the last two home with me. Cheesh!
Wednesday – a sad day! The auction started at 3 in the afternoon with tables outside full of all kinds of material – clothing, tools, boxes and boxes of sun tan lotion, a piece of fencing, exercise bikes, you name it. Once that was done, the auctioneer came inside and proceeded to the indoor tables. I originally attended because they had advertised comic books, even ten-centers, but they were in a showcase and a short staff meant that I never got to view them in advance – though I could tell they were most very worn Disneys. Oh, yeah, back to it being a sad day – I picked up a 54 volume set of Britannica Greatest Works and a 12 volume set of the Harvard Classics, all in great shape, for just $2.50 – in case you think I made a decimal mistake, that’s two dollars and fifty cents! Sad, eh? To compound it, later someone “won” a stack of about 12 copies (which judging by the edges, had been exposed to water) of Amethyst #2 for three dollars!? Read that again – 12 identical, water damaged copies of Amethyst #2 brought more than 66 volumes of classic books. I left the auction around 6 PM and it was turning dark. There on the tables that had been sold earlier, was an unclaimed, complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica! A sad day.
Thursday – I had to work – besides it was Chuck Norris‘ birthday. I had other plans
Friday – I think I blew it, I think when I dropped out at $45 for a NOS Chrome Corvette Stingray fender emblem. For those unfamiliar with the term, NOS, stands for “New Old Stock” when referring to original car parts, not reproductions. These bring BIG money as restorers prefer original parts for their projects. It even had the original box. I did blow it when just after regretting wimping out on the Stingray piece, they brought out a box and mentioned that there was a Chevrolet emblem in it. Now I hadn’t noticed this before and was seated fairly far back in the chairs. I won it for $10 to discover that it was a used, slightly rusted emblem missing part of the last letter! Then again, I may make out since they bundled this tray lot with 4 very old looking car cigarette lighters, a metal “made in the USA” toy ship, a pocket watch and a few other odd-ball pieces. Still, look before you leap. Later that night, I bought a couple dozen state-quarter bears and dozens and dozens of Ty Beanies real cheap. I know, I know, beanies are not hot, but at the price I paid and my plans on doing flea markets when the weather breaks, I just couldn’t resist.
Saturday – a catalog auction with a large group of coins and comics. The auction provided a printed list of the approximately 450 lots with an estimate of what they thought the realized prices would be. It started with “antiquey” stuff (dishware, vases, prints, etc.) that I had not interest or knowledge of, but I noticed that the items were not bringing near what they thought, in most cases. This gave me some hope as the coins were coming up and the comics were toward the end. Nope, again, the coin sales were strong, usually WAY surpassing the written estimates. Silver, again, was scooped up by the investors. Right before they switched to the comics, a rare book from 1699 sold to a bidder on the phone (they had live internet bidders, also) for $6,800 – plus a 15% buyer’s premium!
The comic lots started with the Golden Age comics. A lot of 4 early Four Color Disney books, a group of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordons, 18 Planet Comics as a lot, all went for way more than I thought I could get for them. Good news for comics!! Then they switched to lots of Silver Age. Groups of 30 – 40 issues of Lois Lane, Superboy, Jimmy Olsen, Superman, Westerns, Dells, etc. brought more than I wanted to pay. But I did manage to snag two lots. One was listed as a group of Daredevil comics. Yes, there were many DD’s in there, mostly low grade, but I spied a two-digit Batman in the pile. Passing on the I Love Lucy‘s, Fantastic Four group, and so on, I won a complete run of Roy Rogers from 1 – 42. If You are interested in this as a complete run, see me soon as I plan on breaking them up and selling on eBay. Westerns do sell there – not so much in Newark, Delaware. The comic section ended with long and short boxes of comics. They sold for as little as $10 per box to $220 
(it had lots of Westerns in it). With the end of these, I checked out and went home. I wanted to stay to see how much an old telephone booth was going to go for, but had some dogs to feed – everyone else in the family was at the St. Patrick’s Day parade. That phone booth was definitely cool – an old wooden one in great shape – like the one Superman himself used.
Sunday – checked out the flea market on Route 40 across from the airport. Not much, and I think many forgot to set their clocks ahead as people were late setting up.
Back to St. Patty’s Day, bring your green on Thursday and take advantage of a green sale. This will not be announced in advance in the shop. Another, website special!!
I always enjoy reading your adventures Paul. You definitely have a way with words, keep it up!!