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Blast from the Past- Avengers Release

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Blast from the Past- Avengers Release

YoSoyAhPuch

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Friday, May 4, 2012.

That day I woke up, ready to go to my first DSF release. I had just moved to Southern California, and I was very excited!

I figured I could get there a few hours and be guaranteed my set of pins. I parked at the Highland garage with butterflies in my stomach, and this is what greeted me:



Phew! Not too many people! So there I stood, without a chair. Then I sat on the floor. The air had the faint smell of urine and McDonald's food. As the line grew, people started to pin trade. As I knew none of these people, I just looked on. Like a creeper.



Here come the pins! Here come the pins! See that Jack Skellington in the top left corner? Well they had run out of PTDs and substituted this pin for them.



Then the time came for the vouchers. The first 150 people in line could buy 2 sets of pins. I arrived about 3 hours before the store opened. This was my number:



A newswoman arrived in front of the El Capitan to do a story on the Avengers movie opening. She was wearing a Wonder Woman costume. People in line yelled at her for wearing the wrong comic company. (C'mon, this was a Marvel movie, not DC!!) What is all the commotion up front?



Is that?... no, it can't be!



It's the ice cream delivery! The line cheered. But who is that behind the ice cream?



No way.
Time to go buy the pins. What an easy first release!



Opening weekend of The Avengers, and I was going home with my full set of Avengers pins! My first DSF release, and everything went smoothly and perfectly. No camping out, no fights in line, no arguments, and the pins were of great quality.



..... Damn.


I just thought I would share this old trip report to show people how much these releases have changed in just a few years. Tomorrow is another BT release, bringing with it lots of people and Im sure some surprises as well. Good luck to all of you, and remember to be courteous to one another at GSF tomorrow.

- Alex
 
Thanks for the story and pics. It looked like a very fun release. I hear you on the butterflies in stomach, I get nervious when we go to one and can't sleep for days before. I think it is cause we have to drive 5 hours and if we don't pull good #s it was a waste of time, car rental and gas. Well see you tomorrow at the release and good luck to you 🙂
 
OMG, Hulk was upside down lol. That's such a cool little recap of the day. Wish I could have been there, but I hadn't discovered pin trading yet :lol: That would have been so neat to see Stan Lee! See you tomorrow Alex!
 
Holy... I think seeing Stan Lee would be the highlight of that trip, even if I didn't get the pins... 🙂

Never saw an error pin like that Hulk before, how many of those have turned up? (It'd be funny to have a whole set with the cover upside-down... 🙂 )
 

From what I know, I have the only one. I'd be interested to see if anyone else has one as well.
 
I got there the night before and remember all of the people coming out of the midnight show asking why we were there. I mentioned to someone that we should start a rumor that we were waiting in line to get Stan Lee's autograph...and then...holy cow, there he was right next to us in the morning 😀
 

That must have been fun to see. You didn't act like Sheldon Cooper, did you? :lol:
 
this was really interesting to read but I just cannot get over someone wearing a DC comics costume to report on marvel. *facepalm*

Congrats on such a smooth first release!
 
Good story. I've been collecting marvel comics since I was kid in the 60's and saved them so I have a lot of early ones, so you can imagine how much I wanted that set. Unfortunately I live outside of Boston. Clear across the country. I couldn't get them at cost but did get a fairly good secondary market price and since then the price has gone sky high. I'm glad the Marvel pins are getting the respect they so justly deserve. Just wish I lived closer to DSF! Thanks for the trip down memory line.

Jimmy
 
Here's my first time report:

Some time in 2011 I went to see a movie at the El Capitan. It may have been the Muppets. After the movie, I browsed the gift shop, saw that they had pins, and thought why not, I'll pick one up. I thought to myself, "This is sort of ugly; I'd probably never be able to resell this later if I wanted to change out my collection"

It was the Muppets marquee.

The rest is history, and it's never been the same.
 
One of those back in time threads?? cool cool I remember reading about the release...

BTW I know I saw another of the upside down comic pin on ebay at the time. how much did it go for? don't know never looked at it again
 
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Thanx for this for my first release I just had to turn up and make sure I got a wrist band to guarantee my pins I'm coming back to California in October/November staying at knotts berry farm hotel for 3 weeks and I'm going to come down to gsf again and hoping to get the pins and do some trading there and meet some of you guys there
 
Thank you for this! It was really fun to read, and I laughed when you called yourself a creeper because I do that, too! (Only my family calls me a creeper, instead :lol: )

Do you still have that Hulk? 😀
 
Love the stroll down memory lane. That was the first I had visited DSF myself. It was a great experience. I believe I arrived there around 6am and got two sets. Kind of wish I had waited to trade the second set, but I am not too disappointed about what I received for the trade.
 

Nessa! I remember you telling me about your first trip to DSF!
 
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