Show off your B5 collectibles

[LateArrival]

Okay Collector's here is a question for you. I'm pretty familiar with removing adhesive from physical media I collect with this one exception...

Any thoughts?

?? Possibly research information on restoring/cleaning documents, as there might be some information there? Seems as if any attempts would just as easily damage/alter the paper. ?? Possibly some sort of eraser, but most low-?-cost erasers tend to discolor the page (pink eraser leaves a pink stain on the page, etc).

Mat idea is a great workaround for weird sized items. Had the opposite problem with a "signed/numbered B5 cast photo thingee" foolishly purchased on Ebay, as the frame was GIGANTIC and not the highest quality. Ended up having a framing place trim $$ a few inches off the mat and put it into a much smaller frame. ...however... ...had an issue this year with an oversized signed B5 poster in the 20-inch-ish range, and as a temporary workaround purchased a Large Toploader from a vendor at a convention. Maybe someday try a frame+mat for it?

 

[LateArrival]

Also decided to look into a frame for a Fan Club poster. COME ON!!!!!! 13"x20" REALLY?!!!! Where am I going to find a 13"x20" frame that won't cost more than the poster is worth.

Delayed follow-up. Have a 12x16 poster, and for the moment went with what (I think) is a 12x19? top loader. Picked it up from a dealer at a local convention, as didn't want to purchase a 10 pack or something online. Larger ones were available, but thankfully didn't need those!

 

[Looney]

MORE SCRIBBLING ALL OVER IT! Do you need me to get rid of that for you?!

You know I haven't been to enough conventions in my life, but I can tell you in recent years I've stayed away from them due to the expense. I know someone who is putting on a Con near me and I don't know what to do because the people I want to meet are going to be charging soooooooooooo much it just makes it difficult. I completely understand. Small Town, Small venue so naturally there won't be thousands of guests in attendance, so those celebrities who will be there have to charge more to make the trip worth their while. It just stinks. And I miss how Cons once were. Now they are just too expensive to be fun.

 

[Jan]

MORE SCRIBBLING ALL OVER IT! Do you need me to get rid of that for you?!

You know I haven't been to enough conventions in my life, but I can tell you in recent years I've stayed away from them due to the expense. I know someone who is putting on a Con near me and I don't know what to do because the people I want to meet are going to be charging soooooooooooo much it just makes it difficult. I completely understand. Small Town, Small venue so naturally there won't be thousands of guests in attendance, so those celebrities who will be there have to charge more to make the trip worth their while. It just stinks. And I miss how Cons once were. Now they are just too expensive to be fun.

FWIW, I've never seen or heard of a celeb taking offense at fans stopping by and letting them know one appreciated their work. That only costs admission and standing in line as needed. For me, the question is always-would I regret NOT having done something. Money makes lousy memories.

 

[Springer]

MORE SCRIBBLING ALL OVER IT! Do you need me to get rid of that for you?!

You know I haven't been to enough conventions in my life, but I can tell you in recent years I've stayed away from them due to the expense. I know someone who is putting on a Con near me and I don't know what to do because the people I want to meet are going to be charging soooooooooooo much it just makes it difficult. I completely understand. Small Town, Small venue so naturally there won't be thousands of guests in attendance, so those celebrities who will be there have to charge more to make the trip worth their while. It just stinks. And I miss how Cons once were. Now they are just too expensive to be fun.

To a point, I do understand why they sometimes charge so much, because there's a going rate for autographed stuff on the secondary market, and why should they charge so little just for people to then sell their autograph for so much on eBay or whatever? I think the most I've paid for an autograph at a con was £100 for Buzz Aldrin (and at the same con Alan Bean charged £40 and he personalised it – that's the difference between the 2nd and 4th person to walk on the Moon!) and £90 for William Shatner. These were all about 15 years ago.

Cons have always been a money-making thing, keeping some of these actors afloat financially. But I think that now SF&F has gone mainstream, it's big business with even more money to be made out of fans. Just look at SDCC.

 

[Jan]

Cons have always been a money-making thing, keeping some of these actors afloat financially. But I think that now SF&F has gone mainstream, it's big business with even more money to be made out of fans. Just look at SDCC.

Every con is different. You mentioned SDCC - a not-for-profit con - but there's little in the way of paid autograph signings and the professional photo ops simply don't happen here (yes, I'm at SDCC right now). Signings are usually studio-arranged here and there's no charge (but many hoops to jump through). A few actors rent (I believe) table space and have the traditional photos/autographs for sale but they also have to do their own promotion rather than there being major advertising by SDCC.

The opposite side of the coin is Creation con where if they could charge you for breathing, I'm sure they would. Premium line position-extra. Best seats-extra. Early entry-extra. and THEN there's charges for autographs and photo ops. All depends on what some things are worth to you. But just saying 'Hi - love your work', I've never seen anybody charge for and I've never seen any of the actors anything but appreciative.

 

[Springer]

Every con is different. You mentioned SDCC - a not-for-profit con - but there's little in the way of paid autograph signings and the professional photo ops simply don't happen here (yes, I'm at SDCC right now). Signings are usually studio-arranged here and there's no charge (but many hoops to jump through). A few actors rent (I believe) table space and have the traditional photos/autographs for sale but they also have to do their own promotion rather than there being major advertising by SDCC.

The opposite side of the coin is Creation con where if they could charge you for breathing, I'm sure they would. Premium line position-extra. Best seats-extra. Early entry-extra. and THEN there's charges for autographs and photo ops. All depends on what some things are worth to you. But just saying 'Hi - love your work', I've never seen anybody charge for and I've never seen any of the actors anything but appreciative.

What I meant about SDCC is that (from a distance as I've never been - wrong country) it seems very heavily commercialised, like it's there to allow Hollywood and Disney and toy companies to promote their products, rather than to create a fan community experience.

But I definitely agree about other cons charging for everything. I think the big Star Trek convention, Destination Star Trek, was a bit like that when I looked into prices one time. Lots of different attendee packages designed to fleece attendees.

And I definitely would agree that most actors are happy to say hello, though the bigger the name the tighter the security around them! When I got my William Shatner autograph he barely looked up at me (I think the only people in the line who he paid attention to were a young couple who'd brought their baby with them, and he made a fuss of the child). But Patrick Stewart, even though he had a crazy long queue, took time to look everyone in the eye, shake their hand and say hello. Class act.

B5 people have almost always been great when I've met them – except for Walter Koenig who seemed to be having an off day, which is fair enough, not rude, just not communicative – and the Battlestar Galactica actors, both from the old and new shows, were also all brilliant. The Apollo astronauts were also really nice, the only one who didn't really talk was Buzz Aldrin but he did have jet lag and food poisoning but still did a full days worth of autographs and photographs, so credit to him. Except he'd charge extra for writing things like 'Apollo 11' or 'Lunar Module Pilot' and if you wanted him to personalise the autograph, you couldn't afford it!

The funniest though was the photographs with Shatner. Another huge queue, and at the end of the day they bring out all the developed photos and put them on the table and you've got to find yours. The photos from earlier in the afternoon he looks a bit grumpy in, but in the later ones his smile gets bigger and bigger as you can see he's working out how much money he's making out of this!

 

[Jan]

What I meant about SDCC is that (from a distance as I've never been - wrong country) it seems very heavily commercialised, like it's there to allow Hollywood and Disney and toy companies to promote their products, rather than to create a fan community experience.

I can see that impression from a distance and the studios DO pump all sorts of promotion into the con (which made for a very different feel last year during the strikes!). But it's also what you make of it. There really is a huge comics, gaming, anime, cosplay...well, you name it aspect. It would be difficult for folks to not find a sense of community. People are pretty much always talk about their fandoms and listen to you talk about yours. The energy is really great because there's pretty much nobody who doesn't want to be there-majorly. And much of the town gets in on the fun from hotels changing music selections to geeky themes or letting their desk staff dress in comic-related shirts to giving out swag bags with energy bars, water and superhero straws. Buildings and trolleys get wrapped. So, yes, a lot of commercialism but the community sense is definitely there - on a large scale!

Koenig can be moody, agreed. Only B5 person I ever saw being a major ass on more than one occasion was Doyle, though. But also sometimes very gracious. Guess they must just be human, huh?

 

[Springer]

Koenig can be moody, agreed. Only B5 person I ever saw being a major ass on more than one occasion was Doyle, though. But also sometimes very gracious. Guess they must just be human, huh?

I saw Jerry Doyle use a great deal of restraint once at a Wolf 359 con at Heathrow. During a signing everybody was using flash photography to take pictures, which began to cause him a problem, so he asked the organiser to put out an announcement asking if people could refrain from using their flashes. And the whole room seemed to promptly ignore this request. Doyle would have been well within his rights to call an end to the signing, but he just knuckled down to grin and bear it, probably while thinking how rude we Brits were. I felt really embarrassed that everyone ignored his request, but admired how he just got on with it.

 

[Looney]

HAHAHA I have a Koenig experience too.

SO when I started this I should have clarified that I didn't just mean the expense of one person signing. I meant the expense of the whole experience. COUPLE that with not just individual expense, but amount of guests the event has to bring in to try to make a profit. Space City Con 2014 was one of the best experiences of my life, BUT I also have a lot of regrets on the financial side because there were so many guests I couldn't get everyone. I mean Jason Momoa and 6 other people from Game of Thrones were there and I had to ignore them and I still couldn't afford everyone from B5 - and they weren't even that ridiculously priced. (I've actually had to ignore Momoa three times at events and each time I did the next time he was a slightly bigger star and the price went up. Now I'm guessing he is big enough he doesn't do them anymore.)

But another example would be two other Space City Cons I attended in Houston. One of them had like 40 guests and I wanted at least 30 of their signatures. I had to settle for what I could afford, which was about ten.

Jan is correct, but Looney didn't drive sixteen hours to Houston just to try to yell over a line of a hundred people to Danny Trejo that I appreciate him. And Looney certainly didn't have time to wait in that line and then deal with the awkwardness of just trying to say "I love your work" and move on. There were WAY too many awesome panels on the schedule and WAY too many other lines to stand in. (For cleariication, I not only got Trejo's signature I also paid for the photo op because I mean he is Danny Trejo. You don't pass that up. ) Yes there were a few with no lines and you could just go talk to them, but those are the people who need the money from an autograph signing the most.

I should also clarify that many of my favorite people to see at these events are the people who are just the hard workers. They aren't the stars, but they have been in everything because they work hard at it and are able to get the job and do it well. They are the everyday actors or writers or artists who've made a career with a lot of hustle and hard work. The Marshall Teague-s of the World - and really most of the Babylon 5 cast of stars and guest stars fall into this category. Actually Danny Trejo for that matter. He has practically become a household name just by working. Those Space City Cons had a lot of people like this as well as more recognizable names as well. This Con I am supposed to attend at the end of next month is loaded with them, which makes it very difficult since they will be asking bonkers money for a signature because I know their financial guarantee for this small town Convention isn't much.

Eric Roberts - is on the top of my list, but I'm pretty sure he'll cancel - look at his IMDB it is crazy. He is in like 50 things a year. My guess is his agent doesn't know the word "No".

Cynthia Rothrock - I mean come on how do I pass on basically the first Queen of Low Budget Martial Arts films. At least the first Queen born in the U.S.

Lorenzo Lamas - Yeah his success comes from nepotism and being handsome, but I've still enjoyed his work over the decades.

Branscombe Richmond - If you watched any television in the U.S. during the 1980s or 1990s you know this face. He was a guest star on many shows. (He and Lamas were the stars of a show called RENEGADE that ran from 1992-1997)

Those are my 4 must haves and each of them will likely want $70 to $120 per signature because it will be such a poorly attended show. I know most of the names don't mean much to most of you, but they do to me. (What truly sucks is I know the promoters and they expect me to spend a lot to help insure the guests might want to come back in the future, but you have to have it to spend it.)

Oh and there are six other guests. AMAZINGLY NONE OF THE GUESTS HAVE B5 TIES, other than six degrees like working with people from B5.

Here is a link to one of an event page in case any of you will be near Quincy, Illinois at the end of August.

FALL-CON 2024

I would love to hear that all of you plan to attend.

 

[Springer]

@Looney you didn't say what your Koenig experience was!

From the guest list for Fall-Con, the only three that I am familiar with are Rebecca Holden from Knight Rider, Eric Roberts obviously and Cynthia Rothrock, and I've never actually seen any of her films, not even China O'Brien.

 

[Looney]

@Looney you didn't say what your Koenig experience was!

From the guest list for Fall-Con, the only three that I am familiar with are Rebecca Holden from Knight Rider, Eric Roberts obviously and Cynthia Rothrock, and I've never actually seen any of her films, not even China O'Brien.

Oh I'm certain I've told my Koenig experience here before. Hmmm it is actually kind of a long story that involves the entire Fab-4. Koenig was just the start of the line. LOL I'll try to remember to lay it out when I have time. (I think I've made it pretty clear that the few times I've gone to conventions there is always something crazy or what one would call out of the ordinary that happens.)

Rebecca Holden is my #5 if I have any money left.

Rothrock has done many films, but never really broken out in a big studio production. She has lived in the "B" world for a long time.

 

[Jan]

Let me start this with a small disclaimer: I'm FINE! There's no reason for what I'm doing other than I've decided it's time.

That said - I'm starting the process of selling off my B5 collection; probably all except the script collection. LOONEY: I'm sorry, you may want to NOT click the link or look at the pictures, okay?

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fss=1&_saslop=1&_sasl=janmschroeder&LH_SpecificSeller=1&_sop=1&fbclid=IwY2xjawFANZpleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHYsB4N93_-6VoDQHRuRk1ko6msOT4NgMvBP2SmCaRwF6dMOcRLSQKI8lFw_aem_gT9DJUTbn8qMq1U-_S036g

There will be much, much more!