I arrived with a messy list that mixed House of M tie-ins I did not even want. Mara cut it to eleven numbers, found eight in six weeks, and posted photographs of a spine roll I would have missed on the auction thumbnail. The ninth copy took longer than I liked, and I still think the dealer in Leeds overgraded the back cover, but the notes meant I could argue the price down.
Client stories
Boxes opened, lists shortened, spines lettered
These notes name the commission. They are not star widgets. One of them includes a copy we still argue about, because a Leeds back cover was not as clean as the listing claimed.
Priya measured my Children’s Crusade pamphlets including the one with the smashed corner I refused to replace. The folio opens flat on the kitchen table, the wire core does not bite the sleeves, and the spine actually says the years I asked for instead of a vague ‘Scarlet Witch’.
A seller described a hex drop as ‘the issue plus extras’. Owen’s brief listed a redeemed print and a file that had already been transferred twice. I walked away. Later they sourced a sealed collector box with matching serials; it sits behind my floppy run, labelled, not mixed in.
I was ready to submit a foil hex cover that looked clean in the shop. The raking-light shots showed a scratch through the metallic scarlet. They told me not to press it. I was annoyed for a day and then grateful I had not paid a grading fee to learn the same thing.
Owen spent most of the hour on the difference between reading Wanda’s apology issues and collecting every crossover that borrowed her cape. I left two longboxes at home that did not need to travel, and I still use the next-five list when a weekend fair gets noisy.
A longer visit: Helen’s House of M shortlist
Helen arrived with a spreadsheet that treated every 2005 tie-in as mandatory. The consultation cut the chaos-magic spine to the Scarlet Witch-centred numbers. Sourcing then ran for six weeks: eight copies from UK lists, photographs of a spine roll, and a ninth copy that lagged because the only honest VF sat in a private collection near York.
She declined two auction lots after the condition notes showed colour-breaking creases through a hex pattern the thumbnail had hidden. The work was slow on purpose. The folio came later, once the gaps were honest gaps rather than forgotten pamphlets.
A longer visit: Sofia’s sealed hex box
Sofia had been offered an NFT comic Scarlet Witch issue described as complete. The edition brief found a redeemed print. She did not buy. A second search found a sealed collector carton with matching serials. That box now sits labelled behind her floppy run; it is not sewn into the wirecore, and she did not want it to be.