digging in for the bad news about nice and beautiful and higher grade

well, I found myself in another eBay auction aiming to land some nice books for my coupon this year. 4 issues of Tales To Astonish. 47, 64, 59, 101. I had come across a seller with tons of books auctioning off weekly and landed these before finding a conversation about the seller on the forum. A string of unhappy buyers with low grade books, touch up jobs and a strange pressing method. My heart grew heavy as I figured its too late now.

The books arrived, I looked them over and they appeared to be ok in the flesh. Still a little strange from an obvious pressing, the spine mainly, but I sent them in.

Well, they shipped today and the 101 graded 9.2, just as advertised, so I am quite happy with this one. Now, this particular seller uses terms like nice, beautiful and higher grade instead of grading terms good fine very fine etc. So, for anyone who has sat in this boat, and knows what I am talking about, it appears higher grade means 5.5 to 6.0. Beautiful means 5.0. This leads me to believe a nice copy must be even worse.

I guess I have to accept eBay is not the best place to buy ungraded books from untested sellers. Though high feedback would lead you to believe.... but the lamest part is a 59 is missing page 13, which was listed as complete and uncut. I sent the seller a note to let him know, but I doubt there will be a response.

ok, last rant. I have had 3 orders this month on eBay arrive in poorer condition than described, 2 orders of modern 9.8 candidates that were crushed on one side simply because the seller packaged that. He advertised as 9.8 but then crushed them with his tape job on the packaging.... wtf

I quite enjoy finding raw books and sending them in for grading, but it's just not worth it on eBay. Unless you've found a great seller...

TTA47 - 5.5 - list as higher grade

TTA59 - 5.0 - list as beautiful - note, page 13 missing...

TTA64 - 6.0 - described as higher grade

TTA101 - 9.2 - as described

To remove the taste from my mouth I think I will just sell them all and buy myself something pre-graded. rinse and repeat. anyway, please stay away from this seller and don't be fooled from 100% feedback.

BTW - should we list names of sellers like this somewhere?

Save the community some heartache?

I totally wish I'd have know before getting into these auctions.

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