FEELING BLESSED.

This month marks my fourth decade around the Sun, and I just want to say... I feel blessed.

I'm by no means a religious person, so I don't use the term lightly. Between the success of the recent First Annual Blue Hen Comic Con, to the growth of Blog followers, to the sales I've had on eBay, and the feedback I've received from folks who've stumbled upon my Archival uploads... I'm really feeling like I've found a place in the "geek" community.

I love thrifting, I love sharing, and I love that even a fraction of what I enjoy doing becomes something that others can also enjoy.

So I just want to say THANK YOU to anyone who's ever visited the blog, my online storefronts, or interacted with me in a positive way.

As is tradition, starting next week I'll be sharing Out-Of-Print Holiday Season goodies... STAY TUNED!

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. :-)

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 5/16/21

Took a break from thrifting for a week, but came back last week with a vengeance!

The GameCube games (of which WWE Crush Hour is uncommon) were both $4 apiece and were both CIB. All of the other discs came from a "dollar table"! The HELMET CDs are all original prints; if you haven't heard "Betty", give it a listen, it's a great album.

The Diablo coaster set was also fairly cheap, and I was surprised to see how much it goes for; they may end up on the Sanctum's eBay page soon.

Lastly, the Nintendo DSi only ended up being $5, as the seller did not have a charger to prove the handheld worked. Luckily I had a charger at home, and after about an hour charge, it did indeed work... SCORE! It's always worth taking a risk as long as the initial cost is low!

As the weather gets warmer, more and more people will be setting up tables at local flea markets, and prepping for yard sales... don't miss out on the thrifting season! You won't know what's out there unless you go out and hunt!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 5/2/21

I only made it out to the flea market once this past week, but hooo boy was it ever worth the trip!

First off, one of the "dollar tables" had a nice little selection of GameCube, PS1, and PS2 games. I grabbed a couple to split between my collection and this upcoming Holiday Season's AbleGamers donation box. Obviously I'm keeping the "Mary-Kate & Ashley" game for myself. I mean... how could I not?

And then came the biggest surprise... on a table full of mish-mashed stuff, there sat a Golden Age - sized comic bag and board, and inside of it was a picture of Marina Sirtis (who played Deanna Troi on "Star Trek: The Next Generation"). It appeared to be signed. While I'm not a "Trek" fan myself, I know a few people who are. I asked how much, and the seller said two bucks. I figured "what the Hell", and grabbed it.

Opened it up... and behind that signature were three more: another one by Marina, one by Johnathan Frakes, and HOLY CRAP one by Sir Patrick Stewart!!

I'll be sending these to Beckett Authentication and then deciding what to do next with them. What a steal! Like I keep saying, there are always deals out there to be discovered... go out and HUNT!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 4/25/21

Thrifting's been a bit slow the past few weeks, plus I've been busy with other things, so honestly I'm glad to have found anything of note over the past seven days!

The sealed C.S. Lewis slipcase contains two hardcover novels, "The Screwtape Letters" and "Mere Christianity". I found it for only a few dollars at Goodwill, and was shocked to discover that it usually retails for over $40 and up! Definitely a sweet find!

The two Burger King glasses from the original theatrical release of "Return of the Jedi" were only a dollar each... and considering how Disney wants to phase out any kind of physical collectible featuring the notorious "Slave Leia" outfit, I figured for that cheap of a price, I may as well grab them and hold onto 'em.

And finally, the children's album "I Have A Little Shadow" was also a dollar. When I couldn't find it available via the major outlets such as Amazon or iTunes, I decided to buy it so I could share it here. However, after doing a little more digging, I discovered it is available via the original musical team of Steve and Caitlin Klaper via Steve's Bandcamp page. If you enjoy the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson and enjoy musical renditions of his works, I'd highly suggest checking it out.

Nothing major, but still a few gems nonetheless; Summer is coming up fast, and that's when the real deals start popping up... can't wait!

SLABBED SATURDAY - "The Space Adventure" for Sega CD!

A little while ago, I posted that a friend of mine was downsizing his video game collection. In that post, I pointed out that he was considering sending one of his rarest titles, Sega CD's "The Space Adventure", to WATA for grading.

Well, he decided to go for it! It just came back, and he's absolutely ecstatic.

The game was, indeed, 100% Complete-In-Box (CIB), even including the Registration Card. WATA graded it at a whopping 8.5 CIB, making it - to the best of my research - the highest-graded CIB copy of this game in the world.

If you want to check out the game, I'd suggest doing a search for an ISO. The only (somewhat) legal download of the game is a Japanese port from the TurboGrafx-16, available via MyAbandonware.

Grading companies across the board are getting swamped: WATA, VGA, CGC, Beckett, you name it. That being said, if you happen to have any rare games, comics, or cards, you may want to consider having the patience to get them graded. You never know how desirable they may be in the future!

SLABBED SATURDAY - Impressive Comics does it again!

Back from CGC this morning!

 

More stellar work from Gary Kendra; check that "Hulk" 340!! This is the second time in a row Impressive Comics' taken a classic McFarlane comic from my childhood and magically turned it into a 9.8, the other being a "Batman" 423 1st print!

The "Castlevania" 1 is now one of only four CGC-graded copies in existence, making it one of my rarest books.

The only book for sale at the moment is one of the "Wolverine" 16s, which I've listed through ShortBoxed... however there may be others on the Sanctum's eBay store in the future!

Can't wait to see how my next batch fares!

SLABBED SATURDAY - Cards Get Slabbed, Too!

"Slabbed Saturday" isn't just for comic books; many other collectibles are encapsulated for preservation, including video games and trading cards!

Case in point: this past week some of my "Magic: The Gathering" and "Pokemon" CGC submissions came back, and I'm VERY happy with the results!

The crown jewel is a Lotus... a "Jeweled Lotus"! I pulled it from a "Commander Legends" Collector Pack that I bought at 2nd and Charles, and immediately sleeved it and set it aside for grading. Good thing I did; pack-fresh, unpressed, and it returned a Gem Mint NINE POINT FIVE! It **may** make its way to the Sanctum's eBay store; I'm still on the fence about it, lol.

"Gaea's Cradle" is one of my favorite cards from MTG. I regrettably sold my "Urza's Saga" copy for around $120 well over five years ago, and regret it immensely. Now, that print of the card is kinda out of my price range... so I'm scooping up the next-best thing, the gold-bordered "Championship Deck" editions! I had two of them come back as Near Mint 8s, and I'm super happy to have them. Absolutely NOT for sale.

My copies of  Pokemon's "Mallow" (Mint 9) and "Olivia" (Near Mint + 8.5) aren't pictured here because they quite literally sold as soon as I announced I had them!

The box of "Time Spiral Remastered" is an added bonus in this pic; my local game shop managed to get a few booster boxes of this elusive, hot set... and I was able to grab my copy for only $150! It's staying sealed. If you find any boxes under $200, I would highly suggest grabbing them.

If you have any already-valuable cards in what you believe to be Mint condition, it may be worth your while to submit them to CGC, PSA, or Beckett and have them slabbed... it may pay off big in the future!

 

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 3/21/21

Things are looking better and better on the thrifting front as the air warms and the sun shines for an extra hour a day!

My semi-local 2nd and Charles yielded me some excellent comics for only $0.95 apiece, including a virgin variant "Regular Show" #1, the "death" of Steve Rogers, and two copies of "Mystery Girl" #1, which is currently being optioned by Netflix!

While not the best MGS title, I picked up two factory-sealed copies of "Ground Zeroes" for $8 apiece.

"Fall Down Laughing", the autobiography of the late, great David L. Lander ("Squiggy" from "Laverne and Shirley") was a Goodwill find. This now-OOP 2-CD set is currently available via the Sanctum's eBay Store.

And finally, I was able to score a pristine sealed copy of the comic-and-cassette combo pack "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete Adventure" for around $30! I bought it with the sole intention of cracking it open (GASP) and sending the comic to get slabbed by CGC. There are only a tiny handful on the CGC census, and I want to add one more copy to those numbers.

If anyone wants to hear the awesome audio adventure, you can grab your copy right here on the TRS blog!

I hope all Sanctum Dwellers are also making the best of the great weather, and heading out to find their own deals; you never know what you'll find unless you look! Good Luck!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 3/14/21

Finally things are picking up in terms of... uhm, picking up things.

I had a great day at the flea market earlier in the week, where I stumbled across a bunch of uncommon PS2 games for only $5 apiece... and they're all CIB!

The "Magic: The Gathering" deck boxes were also five bucks each, and each one contained a mish-mash of older cards. Nothing huge, but definitely worth what I paid.

And finally, the single Sega Dreamcast title cost me one lone dollar!

A few of these items will be cleaned up and make their way to the Sanctum's eBay store, so keep your eyes peeled!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 3/7/21

Very, very slim pickings this past week as the cold weather continues (come on, Spring, where are you?), but it included two hits for two very different reasons:

First, I found a super-clean copy of legendary LP "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" by Herb Alpert. I love this iconic album. No, really, I love it a LOT...

And second, I came across a very rare copy of "The Night Angel Trilogy: 10th Anniversary Edition" by Brent Weeks. This thing isn't even available anymore via the author's own website, and the cheapest copy on Amazon is close to TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. Absolutely crazy!

I'm hoping that the weather warms up soon, so the flea markets will get back into full swing; I need a bigger thrifting fix, and fast!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 2/21/21

Due to the bi-weekly dumpings of ice and snow in my area, chances for thrifting have been slim as of late. Thankfully there was at least one decent day weather-wise over the past weekend, so I was finally able to head out to the flea market.

I walked away with a hard-to-find First Edition of "Now, Ameriky", an original CD print of a classic Run-D.M.C. album, a CIB copy of an excellent Wii title, and a complete collection of EA Sports games that usually has a disc missing!

All of these items will be making their way to The Random Sanctum's eBay store, so keep your eyes peeled and make sure to Follow us so you don't miss out!

BIG Retro Video Game Sale on the TRS eBay!

Just a quick announcement to let Sanctum Dwellers know that starting today, the Sanctum's eBay Store will be offering up a selection of awesome retro video games!

I have a friend who is downsizing and selling off his collections. We still have a ton of comic books to go through, and we already made our way through his MTG cards. Now it's time for the games, and there are some doozys in here!

The complete "dot HACK" series, several titles in the "Tales" series, two "Growlanser" entries, "Fatal Frame II", "Arc The Lad"... there's some serious stuff in this stack!

We may end up sending "The Space Adventure" to WATA or VGA.

So if you're not following the eBay store yet, DO IT NOW! There are always new random collectibles being added every week... and once an item sells, it may never appear again!

SLABBED SATURDAY - Dual Adam Hughes CGC SS!

Been waiting a while for these to come back! Trinity Comics hosted an exclusive signing event with legendary cover artist Adam (AH!) Hughes and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity.

His run of "Catwoman" covers is nothing short of incredible, and his cover for the semi-recent "Superman" #12 is a personal fave in no small part to the obvious homage to the opening of the classic Supes Paramount/Flesicher theatrical shorts from the 1940's.

I'm not sure if I'll ever part with these slabs, but I routinely put others up for sale on the Sanctum's eBay store, so keep an eye out! And be sure to follow Trinity as well as other CGC-authorized stores such as Alpha Omega Certification and CGC themselves to get your own signed books!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 1/10/21

This was definitely a prosperous week, as I only ended up hitting two locations yet still managed to find well over $200 worth of goodies!

A visit to 2nd and Charles netted me "Asterix & Obelix: Kick Buttix" for PS2 and "Crime Life" for the original Xbox. Thanks to prior trade-in credit, I paid zero dollars out of pocket.

Everything else in the picture came from a Goodwill stop; the discs were all $1 apiece and "1999" was a whopping $2. I got a kick out of seeing a CIB copy of "Halo" that wasn't an NFR or GOTY edition!

Just goes to show that, even in the midst of a pandemic and a recession, there are still plenty of treasures to discover... #ThriftingIsntDead !

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 12/27/20

The last Thrift of 2020 yielded some pretty awesome items!

"ZOIDS" DVDs and games are hard to come by, especially in good condition; I picked up the Volume 1 DVD and it looks like it was just taken out of shrinkwrap! It will more than likely end up on the Sanctum's eBay store soon, so keep an eye out!

The two CDs were $1 apiece, and both are OOP. Believe it or not, between the obscure Indie Rock band CD and the big-budget Hip-Hop Soundtrack, the Soundtrack is the one that isn't available anywhere for streaming!

And finally, the biggest hitter of them all, and one helluva way to end the year: a FIRST EDITION hardcover copy of Stephen King's debut novel "Carrie"! It was only $1 at Goodwill. It, like pretty much every other 1st Edition book I find, headed straight to my wife's library.

If this is how 2020 ends in terms of thrifts, I can't wait to see what 2021 will bring!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 11/29/20

I had a pretty busy week, so I didn't do a whole lot of thrifting outside of stopping at a local flea market one day before heading to work.

Luckily, my gut feeling paid off; I stumbled across a bunch of comic books, including SIX (!) copies of "Spider-Man" #1 from 2016, the first solo series for Miles Morales!

While it would've been crazier to find six copies of "Ultimate Fallout" #4 in the wild, coming across easily Near-Mint copies of this is still pretty incredible... especially since they were only a buck apiece.

All of these will be getting pressed and graded in the near future, and a few may appear on the Sanctum's eBay store. Keep your eyes peeled both on the store, and when you're out thrifting; you never know what you'll find while you're out and about!

Donations from a Sanctum Dweller!

Well THIS was a surprise! A very generous follower named Andrew Wilmot sent me a decent-sized stack of games!

Prior to starting this blog, I ran a YouTube channel where, throughout the year, I would stock up on games for the AbleGamers charity. AbleGamers is a nonprofit public charity that aims to improve the overall quality of life for those with disabilities through the power of video games.

Several of the titles Andrew sent me will be put in next year's donation box, and a few others are replacements for games I currently own (you should see how wrecked my old copy of RE4 is!).

To thank Andrew for their generosity, I'd like to direct other Dwellers to their book "The Death Scene Artist", which can be purchased HERE. It's a pretty awesome premise: the recounting of a love affair with someone who has figuratively lived hundreds of lives. Check it out... and Thank You again, Andrew!