I’m Calling It an Upset! Not the Ravens Win, but the Mensa Greatest Toy Bracket Challenge Final!

PAUL BLOG!

Transformers–really? really?–over the Ball?! The January issue of Mensa‘s “Bulletin” magazine just arrived and that’s what they revealed. Supposedly, Transformers handily defeated the Ball. The writers of the article mentioned that this year’s bracket challenge was opened up to anyone, and perhaps a younger group swayed the vote. Anywho, that makes Joe Valiante our winner. Even though Joe had not picked Transformers to be the eventual winner (only our very own Mike Z did!), he did a great job in earlier rounds and could have only been overtaken if the Ball was crowned as champion. Congrats, to Joe V. Now come get your prize!

By the way, during the month of January, Mensa is offering a FREE (normally 18 bucks) online sample test if you, family members, or friends are considering joining. It will give you a good idea of what to expect should you decide to take the supervised qualifying test. Then again, you may have already qualified by scores you received on other tests in the past. The site to take the sample test can be found at: www.us.mensa.org/mht.

The past month has been pretty dry in regards to picking up new Silver and Gold. I did buy two small collections of Silver Age–one a group of Strange Tales and the other a nice run of silver age Showcase comics with a number of first appearances, but the auction circuit hasn’t yielded anything. I have gotten calls about my Craigslist post that advertised that I was buying old comics, but most people either did not read the specifics about what I was looking for or were just taking a shot in the dark that I would be interested.

One caller said he had 10 and 12 cent covers including superheroes. Hmmm, worth a trip. As I followed my Mapquest directions, the route seemed familiar. Sure enough, I had been to this person’s home about a year and a half ago. Back then, someone had taken the time to put post-its on most of the comics with very unrealistic prices. Condition was not taken into consideration. His all-or-nothing price was WAY more than I could pay. This time, those stickers were still on there, but he was ready to move them! Turns out, he was moving out west in the coming months and did not plan on taking anything with him. Nothing major, but I bought them and will put them out in the bins shortly.

Another caller described having a lot of Conan related issues, including Savage Sword. There was a nice run of the magazines, but the early issues were really beat. The Conan comics did not have anything “key”. There were piles of other miscellaneous comics, but nothing significant. What did catch my interest, though, was a stack of undergrounds. I have a box full behind the counter, and these are slow movers, but darn neat, anyway. After asking what he wanted for the group (this turned out to be another story of needing to move shortly), he did not have a figure. So, I offered what I know was a very fair amount for the entire group. He immediately came back with a figure 4 times that. There was no way I would ever get that back, never mind some profit for my time and effort. I could not even make a counter offer. I remember feeling somewhat sad and disappointed as I’m sure no one else would be willing to take all of them for what I offered. He called back a week later, and agreed that his price was wishful thinking, but even though I came up $50, he was still on a fence, and would have think about it.

Relating a good auction buy–a few months ago, I attended an auction up in Kutztown, PA. This was the auction where I picked up the 1947 Cheerios premium set featuring the Donald Duck Atom Bomb story. After several hours of working through the tables and tables of collectibles, the auctioneer moved to another part of the huge room to do the farm equipment. There was still a small table left in the other part of the room that he had not sold, and when it was called to his attention, he told us to just grab whatever we wanted and bring it to him to sell–some of the items did not bring any interest. I brought up a group of three items–a scarf from the 1939 World’s Fair, a Shirley Temple Big Little Book, and a retailer promotional piece from 1935 that was to be used to advertise a thick Christmas card available at the time. There were 24 panels in an accordian style, each with a part of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (better known as ‘Twas the night before…”) and each panel having comic book characters. This piece, when spread out, was 12 feet long. From what I learned by googling it was that the card it advertised had the panels separated and stapled together. I could not find any listed on eBay, but my gut told me that it had to be scarce, and it certainly was interesting. Produced by King Features, there were graphics of Popeye, the Katzenjammer Kids, Barney Google, Blondie and the like. Surprisingly, the very first panel had Mickey Mouse. I guess my timing was right, as I got all three pieces for five dollars! I sold the scarf for $40 and the Shirley Temple BLB for $45 on eBay- been buying and selling a fair number of BLB’s lately. And, I accepted an offer of $200 for the promo piece. Not too shabby for a $5 investment!

Time’s UP! Someone messed up by not checking their winning ticket in the Festivus drawing!

Ripped From the Headlines?

Dave and P.E.D.’s! Hoping to dispel the rumors, Dave says he is going on Oprah to openly deny using Performance Enhancing Drugs! Eh, Dave, I don’t think anyone had those suspicions!

I.O.C. and the N.R.A. Once again, the International Olympic Committee has turned down the N.R.A.’s request to be able to use assault weapons during the target shooting events. However, it was suggested that members could use them to bag their next meal, after their background check.

Kim K. and Kanye Kid – Sorry, already bored.