SLABBED SATURDAY - TMNT #1... SIGNED!

Sent to CGC in December, Received in January, Signed in March... and now, finally, my boys are back home!

A few years ago I found a Third Printing of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" #1 at a flea market for a dollar. Yes, you read that right. I still can't believe it; I come across some lucky finds, but this one is easily in my Top Five.

I held onto it for a few years and kept going back-and-forth on whether or not I wanted to get it graded and slabbed. And then, CGC announced that TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman was going to do an in-house signing. Welp, that sealed the deal.

I immediately sent the book to Pressing Wizard Extraordinaire Gary Kendra at Impressive Comics. Then came the waiting. Hoo BOY, the waiting.

Finally, it arrived this past Thursday. The slab is clean, the signature is crisp and in a perfect spot, and best of all Gary took a crusty, dirty dollar book and turned it into a friggin' SEVEN POINT ZERO. For a roughly under $200 total investment, I now have an easy $1K+ Grail to add to my ever-growing collection.

Thank You to Mr. Eastman for the signing (and for helping bring our favorite Heroes In A Half-Shell to life!), Thanks to Gary for his always-excellent work, and Thanks to CGC for making this possible! COWABUNGA!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 6/6/21

Kind of a slow week with only one major surprise...

I picked up a handful of common PS2 games from the flea market for $2 apiece, all of which are headed straight to this year's AbleGamers donation box.

Goodwill provided me with some $1 CDs; the live album "Good Friendly Violent Fun" from Thrash Metal legends Exodus was a neat find; it's currently OOP! I have a good friend who collects rare 80's and 90's Metal albums, so I'm gonna see if he wants it for his collection.

The soundtrack to "Once Were Warriors" is also an interesting pickup. Along with also being OOP, it's the backdrop to a fantastic, criminally underrated movie. Both the album and film are worth checking out!

And the big surprise of the week is "The Silent Majority", the lone outing from the fantastically strange Rock band Life Sex & Death. While the album can be purchased digitally via Amazon and other outlets, the physical CD itself is long OOP.

Mainstream Radio had no clue what to do with this band, which is a shame, because the album has some absolutely phenomenal tracks on it. If you're a fan of Shock Rock, early 90's Alternative, or want to see a performance that's a combination of Punk, Glam, Grunge, and even more (yes, really), then please check this album out. A single copy can currently be picked up via some blogger's eBay store...

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 5/30/21

Another week of thrifting yielded me even more GameCube games plus some interesting comics!

Three GameCube titles for only $3 apiece, plus a few semi-valuable PS3 sports titles for only $0.50 each was a great way to start my day at the flea market... but then came the comic books!

I'm always on the lookout for weird or obscure books if they're cheap enough, and so when I saw some special variants and a #1 I'd never seen before (Dee Snider's "Strangeland") for a buck apiece, I just had to grab them. Color me surprised when I did some research and found copies of "Strangeland" selling for upwards of Thirty Dollars!

I have yet to come across anything incredibly rare or expensive this thrifting season, but that's not going to deter me... I'm sure a large Grail is just around the corner! Just have to keep thrifting, just like everyone reading this should be doing this Summer as well. :-)