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Your narrator, the Leader
The Leader attended the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con in Hunt Valley, Maryland 13 and 14 September 2018. This is the Leader's favorite show of the year because he gets to see lots of popular culture items that he doesn't see at comic book conventions. The Leader left his home in Virginia Beach, Virginia 12 September amid the many hysterical and dire predictions concerning Hurricane Florence that was due to hit soon in nearby North Carolina. But the Leader has never let hurricanes or any other natural calamity stop him from going to collectibles shows he likes. The Leader was pleased to see his old dealer friends who almost always attend this show: Brendan Faulkner, John Gunnison, Keith Hurd, Larry Newman, Bill McMahon and his partner Stephen St. John, Chick Veditz, Jon P. Del Gaudio, Art Harvey and his crew of Mitchell Harvey and Robert Lentz. And of course he was especially pleased to see his favorite comic book dealer, Gene Carpenter. On his return home late at night on 14 September the Leader was curious about what damage to his home may have been done by the hurricane but on his arrival his mild apprehension was relieved when he saw everything was still intact.

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Thursday 13 September 2018
Bill McMahon
Bill McMahon and his partner Stephen St. John always set up as dealers at this this show. I also see Bill at what was the Williamsburg Film Festival renamed the Williamsburg Nostalgia Fest. Here’s Bill with a 1960s era Batman game and a large Marilyn Monroe doll. The Creature from the Black Lagoon is lurking ominously in the background. At right in the black shirt is Stephen St. John talking to a customer. Stephen is a former National Geographic magazine photographer and while I was setting up this shot he took a picture of your humble narrator.
Bill McMahon
Bill talking with a customer. Two expensive 1960s metal lunchboxes are in the foreground: Land of the Giants and The Rifelman. Another dealer Bryan Schemine at far right is looking over Stephen St. John’s display of 1950s spaceman figurines. Speaking of Stephen …
Stephen St. John
Here’s Stephen setting up his Archer and Glencoe companies’ 1940s 1950s spacemen, spacewomen and robot toys. Behind Stephen’s hand is a Buck Rogers hardcover book.
Bryan Schemine
Bryan Schemine is another dealer I always see at this show. Here he is with some of his popular culture collectibles.
Bryan Schemine
For this year’s show Bryan turned up a box of Detective magazines from the 1940s and 1950s. Detective magazines from the 1960s onwards usually had photographic covers and are not worth much money. But the older magazines with the lurid painted covers are worth fairly decent money, especially in nice condition like these samples are.
John Alakiel
When I was a kid in the 1960s in Savannah, GA I bought most of my comic books from a nearby 7-11 store. One day there in 1966 I noticed a display box of Marvel Comics bubble gum cards sitting across from the store’s cash register. I started collecting the cards and still have a nearly complete set. Of course I wasn’t smart enough to keep them in nice shape. How did I know that one day a complete set in Mint condition would be worth about $400? As shown in John Alakiel’s display folder, each card has a piece of a puzzle on the back and when you assemble the entire set of 66 cards you have a group of Marvel superheroes. Soon after this first Marvel card set another set of Marvel cards came out which were the sticky-back variety. You peeled off the paper on the back and stuck the card to your lunchbox or something. I only have a few of those cards today and apparently they are rarer than the first set from 1966. I hardly ever see them at shows.
Brendan Faulkner
Brendan Faulkner of R&B Enterprises in Danbury, CT is another dealer I see at this show every year as well as Pulpfest in Pittsburgh, Ohio. Brendan has been in the collectibles business a long time and he has lots of rare, hard to find pulp magazines, monster magazines, science fiction hardcover books and movie memorabilia. Here is he chatting up one of his customers.
Brendan Faulkner
Brendan with an ultra rare advertising piece for one of my favorite movies, The Time Machine directed by George Pal. I’ve seen all the movie poster variations for this movie but this advertising image caught my eye because I had never seen it before.
Chick Veditz
Chick Veditz with his 30 foot long table of collectible non-sports cards. I find it hard to believe but Chick tells me there are some card dealers in the world with more cards than him. I haven’t seen any dealer at a show with this many cards. I talked to Chick about me wanting to buy complete high grade sets of two card sets I collected in the 1960s and still have in well handled condition: Monsters From The Outer Limits, 1964 and Battle, 1965 both with spectacular artwork by Norman Saunders. Chick’s estimate of about $400 each for complete sets wasn’t encouraging. I told Chick I was delighted with the bloody images of death and carnage in the Battle set and he told me that another set with Saunders art called Civil War News was about as bloody.
Chick Veditz
Chick didn’t have any Battle cardsd to rekindle fond memories but he did have these two Monsters From The Outer Limits cards.
Leon Vincent
Did you know there was a movie memorabilia museum in the little town of Bowling Green, Kentucky? It’s owned by this man Leon Vincent who was setting up at this show for the first time. Leon is showing off here an Italian movie poster with a large image of Claudia Cardinale of an obscure John Wayne movie Circus World. This is one of the few post 1950 John Wayne movies I’ve never seen. It never came on TV when I was a kid. It was never on Laser Disc. It’s isn’t on Blu-Ray or any American released DVD. I’m not going to buy a crappy bootleg edition from overseas so I will just have to wait awhile longer.
Keith Hurd
I see veteran autograph dealer Keith Hurd at this show and the Williamsburg Film Festival ever year. Keith has here a large photo of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi from the 1939 Universal Studios movie Son of Frankenstein. The big $750 price isn’t for the photo but for the little piece of paper beneath it. There aren’t many pieces of paper in the world signed by both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.
Packy Smith
I had never seen this dealer Packy Smith before who was set up next to my favorite comic book dealer Gene Carpenter. Packy’s book publishing company Riverwood Press puts out an annual softcover book about the history of the many mostly Western films made around the town of Lone Pine, California in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Packy also is one of the curators of the Museum Of Western Film History in Lone Pine. A hardcover book John Franakenheimer A Conversation about the famous movie director caught my eye on Packy’s table. Frankenheimer directed many movies I have on Blu-Ray like Seven Days In May, The Train, Seconds but I never heard of him doing any Westerns. Packy told me the Direrctor’s Guild of America liked his books and commissioned him to publish this tribute to Frankenheimer. This copy is only one of 25 signed by both Frankenheimer and noted Los Angeles film critic Charles Champlain. When I balked at the full $60 price Packy cut the price in half and I bit the bullet.
Gene Carpenter, Steve Simeone
As usual I've saved the best for last. I last saw my favorite comic book dealer Gene Carpenter at Pulpfest last July and I will see him at upcoming shows in North Carolina and Virginia in October. Here he is holding forth in his usual authoritative manner with two of his customers. On his left is a new comic book dealer to this show, Steve Simeone. The comics on the display wall behind Steve and Packy Smith are Gene's so maybe Gene was renting them table space?
Gene Carpenter
Gene with a large advertising display for a 1950s show with the famous stripper Lili St. Cyr and others.
Steve Simeone
I had never met this long time comic collector Steve Simeone before and I enjoyed talking with him about an early comic dealer we both did some business with in the 1960s, Howard "Tape Is Not A Defect" Rogofsky. Steve had just bought from Gene this very expensive Green Lantern #27, 1947. He had a nice collection of Dell and Gold Key covers with painted covers including this eye-catching Tyrannosaurus Rex cover for Dell Four Color #1256, 1962 featuring the first appearance of Kona Monarch of Monster Isle.
Movie Room
When I was done taking photos for the day I stopped in late at night to see what was playing in the movie room. Not many people in the room this late.
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