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How did you become a VALIANT collector?

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soundoftheuniverse
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Listen to me Ramble about myself for a minute...or 2

Post by soundoftheuniverse »

I started collecting comics back in the 6th grade, before that Garbage pail kids. :twisted: I remember really liking NOW Comcis w/ MR T!! Those where the days. The first comic I ever bought was off a rack at the local Safeway. It was Amazing Spiderman #386, I loved spidey and got hooked on collecting them, then added a few more titles as money allowed. Of course I was already in Pep and Honors Band playing the Trombone I decided to drop one of my quote nerdy habits and focused on comics.

I recall walking into Who's Comics & Cards in Olympia back in the early 90's and seeing a solar 7 on the wall. The cover struck me but I was on a mission for something else I don't recall now. What I remember about that day and what haunted me later is that I didn't actually start collecting Valiant until Unity. I had a great chance to pick up a Pre Unity book and blew it!!!

Oh well, it was then a mad dash to get every Pre Unity asap. I traded most of the old books *not many* I had for Pre Unity's. Sigh, the arrogance of youth. But I didn't pay much for the old books so I was happy with the deal. The only one I remember beeing a really nice book was a Superman hundred and teen someting. It was pretty old and in good shape and it should have been kept.

I collected Valiant feverishly buying multiples of everything because they were WORTH ALOT OF *SQUEE* MONEY!! OH YEAHH!! I remember beeing soo excited to see the reports in Wizard of what was Hot! An Eternal Warrior Gold Emossed was UNHEARD OF. Unless you were willing to fork over $200+ It's really mind boggling how well Valiant marketed their product. Tossing new characters in the mix. You never knew which book would have a Cameo of some new character. Fans loved it. I loved it and honestly if Shooter had held the reigns and the Massarsky/Acclaim fiasco had neverhappened then perhaps it all might have ended well. Just imagine Harbinger 1 might actually have become like an Avengers 1. They were that good.

After Shooter got canned I continued *like a fuggin *SQUEE** to read Wizard and all the hype. I continued to buy mulitple copies of several Valiant titles. Until I reached the epiphany that the company was going in the WRONG direction. I stopped buying Valiant around Harbinger 16 and started following what Shooter was doing.

I'm the guy who paid $75 for a Plasm Binder. Thank God I sold it for $100 with all the cards but none the less it was like everything I held sacred in comics was falling to *SQUEE* in my hands. I became disenfrachised with comics. Packed em up in my room and headed off to college in 94.

Eight years later while doing random searches for things I found this site. It was a revelation that all that is sacred in comics is still alive and well. And that I was a *SQUEE* for not buying Valiants while traveling around the planet playing basketball. Duh.

So I started on a quest for 100% but then I realized there are only a few books that give me that "special" feeling when I find them. They mostly happen to be Pre Unity books and the shiny Gold ones so those are what I primarily collect. I've got 1 or 2 of most everything else and would like to sell off some sets here in the future but for now I've grown comfy adding the best specimens I can find into the club.

I played Everquest for a few YEARS off and on but they don't call it EverCrack for no reason. I sold my EQ character for a grand and used that mostly to finance kickstarting my Valiant collection.

Anyway the best guild on my server Bristlebane was Club Fu. They were the first ones to kill the Sleeper on my server which was a VERY Big Deal. In honor of my guild and the fact that I love the name, I use it for my ebay ID. It's also going to be the name of my Man Cave when I get a house big enough to keep 4 women happy and leave space enough for my poor comics. No respect I tell ya, Comics get No respect.
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Re: Listen to me Ramble about myself for a minute...or 2

Post by whetteon »

soundoftheuniverse wrote: I played Everquest for a few YEARS off and on but they don't call it EverCrack for no reason. I sold my EQ character for a grand and used that mostly to finance kickstarting my Valiant collection.
Sold my EQ character for 600 and a SoD for another 600 to try and buy an Amazing Spider-Man #1 cgc'ed at 4.0 for 1k but I took to long and the seller placed the deal on eBay.

Your store reads well. You sure we didn't live down the street from each other? Seems like we share alot of the same memories! :thumb:
The Site for Tracking Collectible Comic Trends on Ebay
http://www.lyriacomicexchange.com/

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Post by depluto »

It must be painful getting rid of those EQ characters. Who the heck buys those things anyway ... isn't the experience of building one up part of the fun?

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soundoftheuniverse
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Post by soundoftheuniverse »

When I first started playing EQ I ran around the woods in Erudin for 2 days just amazed this was all online and live. Then I discoverd a cave where all the trading in the game took place. People would kill a dragon or Troll or whatever and get loots. Some of these loots like a SoD (Scepter of Descruction) super fast... was the fastest most damaging weapon in the game for a long time, can be sold for premiums on ebay like sites for EQ characters. One I used was Playerauctions.com.

From around 1000 EQ Platinum I traded my way to around 1.5 million plat over the course of my first year. With that I bought the best gear for my lvl 1 Warrior and lvl'd him to 65 + over the next year. The game's ALOT easier if you have established friends already online to help you get the good stuff without struggling. But the struggle is what really makes EQ rewarding. It's REAL. You die, you lose all your gear. You must get back to your corpse and retreive your stuff before your corpse rots with everything you own. Of course Sony gives you time to get your corpse but the game has alot of faction and consequences for your actions which makes it really fun.

If your item, character or plat sells then you arrange for an in game transaction where the item, character info and items or plat is exchanged. It's not fraud proof and EQ is a haven for crooks. There was one guy , the only guy to ever have a better stock of droppable items. We all found out he was using stolen credit cards to buy people's EQ items online then sell them in game for plat, then sell the plat online. I'm not sure what Plat is going for right now but for example 1,000 Plat used to be worth around $10.

Some items are DO Drop which means once you loot them they're on your character forever. Good No Drop items increase the value of your account while the best Droppable items like a SoD demand whatever price the owner is charging because they are IMPOSSIBLE to get in the game unless you litterally have dozens of HIGHLY dedicated people willing to commit days, weeks months or whatever it takes to get the job done.

In the end I just didn't have the time and patience to deal with the ever growing population of newbie teenage kids who expected to have a SoD handed to them. I never did get a SoD, I used Braided Cords of Corrupted Mana which was about the same but didn't have the Damage proc. LoL, i'm such a nerd.

Anyway, I've heard the EQ2 is pretty spectacular graphics wise. I imagine there's still alot of punks playing which does take away from the overall experience.

Like don't go around not knowing exactly what's going on. People then will think you bought your account online and tease you. After awhile you have to make the decision to dedicate most of your waking moments to it in order to get the "Good" guild stuff. Or you just play recreationally and get nada. Most take option 1.

When I quit playing my Warrior was lvl 65 with 280+ Alternalte Advancement points. Needless to say that was alot. When you have an Orge that beefy the game's alot more fun because you can pretty much go anywhere alone and with a good group you can do some real mission impossible stuff.

Like running around and whacking all the ceatures in an area then getting them all to attack you while you taunt them to attack you more, then getting your cleric to heal you just before you die, thus wiping out everyone. Keeping all the attacking creatures aggro you then have your wizards use Area of effect spells to wipe out the critters. If you have a good cleric, super beefy guild clerics mostly, then you could power lvl up to 60 in a few weeks and get to 65 in a few weeks more.

But that's for players who have a good hook up. If you were just a joe blow like I was and picked up the game with NO friends and just started playing. It can be a very daunting task because all of your associations are in game. It does help tremendously to have Real Life friends to play with. Trust is everything in EQ.

Anyway, your question brought back some memories so I had to ramble on a bit more. :littlesmile:
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Post by depluto »

The main reason I never played is because I knew I would be hooked. I love that kind of *SQUEE*, but I just don't have the time for it anymore. Ends up cutting into my sleep.

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Post by depluto »

soundoftheuniverse wrote:Anyway, your question brought back some memories so I had to ramble on a bit more. :littlesmile:
Ramble on, man!

If nobody else reads this, I will at least. :D The most I ever played an RPG was around 40 hours for some D&D game years ago. I played about 30 on a KOTR Xbox game last year.

And I played Angband (you out there Myron?) every night for months about 10 years ago. No graphics, just fun.

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Post by gowaltrip »

soundsoftheuniverse wrote
Until I reached the epiphany that the company was going in the WRONG direction. I stopped buying Valiant around Harbinger 16 and started following what Shooter was doing.


Epiphany was right! Shooter was gone, and everybody had tons of the new Valiants trying to turn them into instant gold. I can remember walking around a pretty big convention and everyone had them at outrageous prices. Smacked with Epiphany. It was like knowing the stock market was going to crash. :o
I'm the guy who paid $75 for a Plasm Binder. Thank God I sold it for $100 with all the cards but none the less it was like everything I held sacred in comics was falling to *SQUEE* in my hands. I became disenfrachised with comics.
Your pretty lucky on that one, because I still have mine and I doubt I will ever get over $10 for it until another 10-20 years go by. I personally love that thing! It has the Splatterball comic in the back and some special card you could only get with that binder. Im hoping eventually that binder will be sought after. I thought the price was more like $50 though? I cant remember. I know at the time I thought it was a sure thing. Then I remember they *SQUEE* everyone off by putting that free Warriors of Plasm book inside Previews before the actual 1st issue came out, and it was seen as a retailer fiasco because their preorders were in or something like that. They just got off on the wrong foot. 2 issues into their history, nobody cared. Instant quarter bin material. :cry:

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Post by Brother J »

Knightt_333 wrote: ONE thing that is the pride and joy of my collection is the premium Plasm Tin that came with ALL the cards on thicker stock, four special cards and an audio cassette tape. Now this set came out for $176.95 back in the day... I picked up a tin for a mere $35 now. Can you imagine paying that much for something that today costs so little ? So, I am glad I didnt fall for it back in the day... now I pick all of it up cheap and I love it. Only one book needed to complete the Defiant stuff and a smattering of cards. This stuff was great when it came out but so over priced... it is great now, just cheaper.
You should be proud of that set. I've been looking on eBay for that one and haven't seen it yet. There's plenty of the tin sets with the 25,000 print run but none of the other one. I wonder if they actually sold many of those at that issue price? At just under $200, I think I would have wanted Shooter to home deliver it to my house and stay and chit-chat awhile! :D

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Asheron's Call 4L1f3!!!

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Post by justin »

Knightt_333 wrote:I have a friend who bought one for the gross amount of $170 and when he got it in, he was shorted something like 6 cards.

I got nervous because when I was flipping through my set I noticed that I had doubles of one card and I thought, 'oh great, I will get shorted the number that I have extra.' Nope, I just happen to have four extra cards of card #39.

I put my Premium set of cards in the edition #1 binder... it looks sweet.

Now just to find ONE Shooter signed card, I recently bought five boxes of Plasm cards and pulled a Shooter signed card... well, I know a guy (you do too) who is trying to collect all the Shooter signed card and I knew he needed that one as we joked about it... yep, you guessed it, I gave it to him. So, I am on a search now for at least one (MAAAAYBE three to fill out all binders).

My mission is to have all three edition binders with full card sets.

I also just got into the Continuity Deathwatch 2000 set.

About two cards shy of a VE2 set and NOT ONE Deathmate card. CARDS... why did I get into cards ? LOL
What VE2 are you missing. I have loads of them! Let me know Knight, its yours!

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Post by gowaltrip »

knightt_333 wrote:
I was able to even get all THREE editions of the Plasm binders. Yes folks, for a long time we all thought that there were only two but a 3rd edition turned up and ended up being sold by Revco
I never knew there was even 2! That 3rd one is SWEET! I love that back cover! I would think that Revco edition would be considered extremely rare and would generate some serious Value down the road. Heck, I still have hopes that my generic one with all the cards (which made the cool #0 ish) would *eventually* be worth something. Whats the going rate for the Revco edition these days if you can find one? Any idea how many exist? Whats the estimates on the other 2 normal ones (print run, estimated current value?) Im going to have to dig up mine, because mine is packed away in a closet, not with my normal collection. I think its time it rejoined it. :P


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