Convention score
Moderators: Daniel Jackson, greg
Convention score
I went to a small local con today and was gratified to find some scattered pre-Unity issues among the bargain boxes.
I picked up the following for $10 apiece.
Harbinger # 2
Harbinger # 4
Rai # 4
Rai # 9 (gold)
Likely a fair price (~1/2 of market value) but absolutely astonishing, given that I remember when all of 4 of these were $50+ wall books back in 1993-1994.
Rai # 4, in particular, took me *years* to find for my first copy - because it was on the wall of my LCS for $55 seemingly forever. And while Valiant later confirmed Rai # 3 had the smaller print run, I always came across more copies of Rai 3 in the wild.
I left behind some other pre-Unity books today, including Magnus 10 and 14 for $1 per, and Rai 2 and Harbinger 3 for $10 per - but I'm happy.
This was for 15 year-old me, who looked up at the walls of my LCS and dreamed about one day being able to score those books.
Even though today, 30+ years later, I already had dupes of all but the Rai 9 gold, finding them all for $10 each simply makes me smile.
I picked up the following for $10 apiece.
Harbinger # 2
Harbinger # 4
Rai # 4
Rai # 9 (gold)
Likely a fair price (~1/2 of market value) but absolutely astonishing, given that I remember when all of 4 of these were $50+ wall books back in 1993-1994.
Rai # 4, in particular, took me *years* to find for my first copy - because it was on the wall of my LCS for $55 seemingly forever. And while Valiant later confirmed Rai # 3 had the smaller print run, I always came across more copies of Rai 3 in the wild.
I left behind some other pre-Unity books today, including Magnus 10 and 14 for $1 per, and Rai 2 and Harbinger 3 for $10 per - but I'm happy.
This was for 15 year-old me, who looked up at the walls of my LCS and dreamed about one day being able to score those books.
Even though today, 30+ years later, I already had dupes of all but the Rai 9 gold, finding them all for $10 each simply makes me smile.
Re: Convention score
Nice score! I remember the Rai 3 and 4 craze, I was lucky enough to be one of the few reading Rai and picking it up as it came out. Solar 3 was the one that took me years to get a copy of. All those pre-Unity issues still seem special and stand out from other back issues to me.
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grendeljd
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Re: Convention score
Right on, man. Im still looking for a copy of Harbinger #4 to replace the one I traded away in the late 90’s before all those issues lost their value (I got a really good copy of Conan #1 in exchange for a set of Harbinger #1-12 at the time).
I love that pre-unity books are still revered as such a core element within the entire mythology of Valiant all these decades later. And despite it being a little bittersweet - I love that the joy is still there in discovering bargain bin prices on all those once-hot comics that some of us couldn’t afford as kids back then.
It always feels like the promise of their becoming that valuable once again in the future is ever a possibility, if the pattern of the company potentially coming back from nothing like when VEI came along repeats itself. It will always be a thrill to get them cheap for any longtime fans who remember those days, and maybe it will feel like that for any VEI fans who collected all those variants of that era.
I love that all of this feels like it’s woven right into the fabric of being a fan of Valiant.
I love that pre-unity books are still revered as such a core element within the entire mythology of Valiant all these decades later. And despite it being a little bittersweet - I love that the joy is still there in discovering bargain bin prices on all those once-hot comics that some of us couldn’t afford as kids back then.
It always feels like the promise of their becoming that valuable once again in the future is ever a possibility, if the pattern of the company potentially coming back from nothing like when VEI came along repeats itself. It will always be a thrill to get them cheap for any longtime fans who remember those days, and maybe it will feel like that for any VEI fans who collected all those variants of that era.
I love that all of this feels like it’s woven right into the fabric of being a fan of Valiant.
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My wife likes to draw stuff too, and she is better than me! [I'm very proud of her]... https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sara-Dec ... ref=stream" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;