TempusFugitivus

I don't know if anyone remembers this: But a year or so ago, there was a 9.2 JIM 18 for sale on e-bay. Pretty sure it was white pages, just a beautiful copy. It was a 10 day auction but the book was quickly delisted. I sent an e-mail to the seller to see if it was still available. He told me that someone had called him and bought it for: $2500. Said the guy kept telling him that he should jump on this great offer. That it would never sell for that much on ebay. Guy just kept at the it until the Seller agreed. Seller said that as soon as he agreed to sell it... He got another guy calling him and offering $3500. I told him I thought it would have gone for way north of 5K.... if he just let it ride. Pretty sure he thought I was nuts.

I don't think there was a reserve. The book sold for sure at 4K. I have noticed that recycled pressers [books that come back to auction immediately after being pressed up] often do not do well. But considering the grade bump (it had been a 9.2 or 9.4, I think), the seller/presser still did very well.

The biggest I recall is a 9.0 TOS #1 that sold for a little over $10k. The highest graded ST 97 sold for $8k or so and there's been one 9.8 copy of a different issue that sold for over $5k but I don't recall the exact price. The result on the ST 68 exceeded my expectations. The ST 97 was 7200 the 9.8 was TTA30 IIRC. I think that went around 10k? It was the TTA #30, but I seem to remember more like $4K and being quite surprised. Maybe I misremembered. It was exactly 4K and not a penny more. It had a date stamp on the front cover and had been in a previous auction a year earlier at a much lower grade.

Tom, I get the same impression. There seems to be a steady trickle of new HG copies. Be interesting to see that update. Never even realized that there were no high grade copies of Strange Tales 73 or 83. I've got nice copies that I figured someday I would improve upon. Didn't even realize that both were just one good press from the top.

Hi James, I'm always lurking in the Pre-Hero Marvel section. I've never understood why the Marvel Chipping gets such a pass. If I get time, I'll post two Pre-Heroes with extensive chipping..... but decent grades anyway. John PS: Happy Easter to you too.

Quick look at the back cover of the ST 68 shows basically no flaws at all. Evidently, the book has no stains as CGC will hammer even a virtually invisible one. There is "Marvel Chipping" all along the top and right edge, some bottom too. [Marvel books were supposedly cut with dull blades at the end of the day.] But CGC is very lax on this type of defect, evidently as a production flaw. There is spine wear with 4 large color breaking creases and some smaller ones. These should have knocked it down to a 7.5 by themselves. If this is your undercopy, I'd like to see your overcopy.

PGX books: Send them to Matt Nelson. Have them cracked out and checked for restoration. If restored, curse the seller and PGX, if not..... Have Matt tell you if they can be pressed up. If you don't like pressing, get them back unpressed. If pressing is your thing, have it squashed. But at least you will know the book's potential profit. One thing to note about PGX: The company has evidently gotten more crooked as time goes by. So check the date it was graded. [The MMC above is June 2007 which is early enough.]

mjacobs8 (added 1/24/09) Mike Jacobs has squared himself with me. If no one else has an issue with him, he could be removed from the list. It was 3 years but it speaks well of him that he made it good when he could. Most people would have simply walked away from it. Renews your faith in humanity a little.

Kind of an ugly book IMHO. Somebody's definitely buying the label. Buy the label...not the book! Seeing this made my night. Thank God, I bought my JIMs way back in the day. The day, of course, being before they brought Thor back from being canceled and decided to make a movie about old Goldilocks. When I bought my 83 years ago off Comiclink, I wasn't even a member of the Boards but remember later, after I joined, reading posts about whether it was a crazy price or not [The consensus was definitely yes]. Looking at these prices, it turns out that it was an awesome purchase. Doesn't make up for some truly retardo purchases that I've made but certainly lessens the pain.

Sold this one to John Russell earlier this year... And I give you many many thanks. Even though, it didn't get much love in Korvac's fantastic pre-hero showdowns, I flat-out love this cover.

Every transaction I've done with Tom, both as buyer and seller, has been nothing short of excellent. Of course, the proof of the pudding is when things go bad. Although I've never had any problems with him over numerous transactions (which speaks well all by itself), Tom is exactly the type of person you would want to deal with if there is a problem. He's considerate, easy to communicate with, concerned that everything goes well and both people are satisfied, and an all-around good person. I wouldn't give a higher recommendation for anyone on the Board.

Despite your protestations that you had nothing to do with it the Dispute was a direct result of YOUR previous actions. The Probation thread allows for less than 30 day scenarios, having someone file an "Items Not Received" claim against me when that wasn't accurate is grounds enough to potentially expedite the process. I don't need an apology, but take ownership of your responsibility and quit trying to lame blame on others. I didn't send you money back, it was taken via YOUR account. Why should I have wait any time to get it back? As I already said, I did not do the chargeback. I'm not going to take responsibility or apologize for anything that I am not responsible for. You don't believe me? I don't care. I think the fact that you didn't even bother to tell me you tried to put me on the probation list is quite rude. You don't want to give me any credit for immediately telling you that I would make sure that you got paid? Fine. You couldn't even wait to discuss anything with me? No problem. If you were not in such a yank, I would have sent you the money and you could have pocketed the paypal fees. As for this, we can simply agree to disagree and its over.

Skypinkblu- Lord, you must think I walk around so angry all the time that I'm just one maniacal rage from stroking out. But I am not an angry person at all. I don't walk around pissed off all the time. I'm actually quite happy and have a warped sense of humor. I try very hard to be considerate of others because I personally have been very blessed. And simply 'winning' is nowhere near the top of my agenda list (my kids and wife are at the top with nothing else near them). I admit that I have a temper. As I tried to work this out, I did lose my temper at various points (the lengths paypal and ebay go to make it hard to contact them is nothing short of remarkable). But I am able to be quite reasonable and I tried my hardest to do just that for one solid month. But no one from ebay/paypal ever had any interest in working anything out. In retrospect, the entire experience was like some Kafka nightmare. Everything I did seemed to simply make the situation worse. I always thought that, if I could simply talk to someone in charge, it could be worked out easily. But it became apparent that that was never going to happen. So I walked away from all this weeks ago with the assumption that it was over. It simply wasn't worth my time. All this came as a surprise. And I don't feel the need to apologize to anyone for the simple reason that I did nothing worth apologizing for. I personally did not inconvenience anyone. Two other things: 1. Making the feedback private was not some childish thing. My ebay accounts are limited (I can actually still bid, I just cannot pay by paypal). At that point (early September), I was simply testing what was still possible. I made the feedback private while seeing what I still could do. As the accounts are now basically dead and I have no interest in doing any business with ebay, I just did not bother to un-private them again. It's as simple as that. 2. In some ways, the whole ebay/paypal thing was a blessing. It's something I did with my son. But he's in love (will wonders never cease) and barely interested now. And my own collecting has moved to things not well served at all by ebay (Golden Age). So I thank you for your concern, but I'm good.

GA Collectibles: My point is simply this: 1) Before you ever got in contact [not just attempted to contact], you nominated me for the probation list (is there not a 30 day requirement?). 2) After you did contact me, you did not even bother to tell me that you had nominated me for the probation list. 3) I assured you that I had not caused the problem and I would make sure that you got paid. I immediately offered to pay you straight up. 4) While I communicated with you, you kept updating stuff in the probation thread without giving me any credit or telling me about the probation list. 5) At all times, your only concern was that you instantly got the money (once again, is there not a 30 day requirement?) because you needed it right now. And everyone accuses me of being rash? Excuse me if I took this personally but I've got no use for you.

Frankbearss: Are you in love with paypal or something? I would have had no problem verifying myself for paypal if they would have worked with me. But they froze my accounts and informed me that they needed to run a complete credit check on me that could take weeks (for the crime of selling 90k worth of books in one month). When I complained about the immense problems this would cause with the buyers, their reply was: "So what." Rather than hold the buyers' funds for what could have been over a month, I did what I felt was right. I informed everybody of what had happened, told them I would refund the money, and would be happy to work out a deal with them [quite a few took me up on it, some ignored the offer, and one clown - on the Boards here as Wampler - lost his small mind over it.] As soon as I refunded the money, I had a major problem. After I refunded the money, I was informed that this was proof that I was some sort of criminal and, because of this action and the two buyer complaints, my account was suspended. I called paypal and asked to talk to someone in charge. I got this ******* who was supposedly a supervisor. I told him the whole situation. His reply was basically: I could care less. I told him I wanted to talk to someone above him. He said there is no one above him. At this point, it was no longer about verification (which I would have done). Paypal's problem was with the refunds and buyer complaints I had not tried to hide anything from this ******* because I wasn't trying to do anything wrong. After I talked to him, every paypal and ebay account of mine and every person in my family was limited/suspended over a period of two weeks. My other auctions on ebay were canceled. I called up and tried to talk to someone else. I was simply told that there was no appeal and no one higher up I could talk to. Over the course of the month of August, I wasted hours and hours on the phone with this. At no point did anyone from ebay/paypal treat me with any respect or consideration. At no point did anyone from ebay/paypal even give a damn about my problems or my business. So I eventually, after one solid month of , said to hell with it. I closed everything and charge-backed the fees for the services they did not perform. I walked away. Would I have done things differently if I knew how it would turn out? Of course. But I am not some angry bull in a china shop. I tried for one straight month to work this out like a reasonable person. No one from ebay/paypal had any interest.

All I know is: My bank will only do a chargeback if I request it. I did not initiate this chargeback (simple to do on-line). The credit card the chargeback was on is canceled. The credit card was canceled over 2 weeks ago (9/3). I ran it through a shredder and haven't thought of it since. My bank told me paypal initiated the chargeback. The chargeback was done weeks after the card died. The chargeback says paypal right on it (not Andrew's id). I can only assume this was paypal's way of trying to, once again, trap money in my account. Each time (twice, total) paypal closed one of my accounts and informed me that the money in the accounts could not be withdrawn and would be held indefinitely, I simply refunded the buyers rather than make them wait for paypal to release the funds (which I was informed could possibly take months). I was informed by paypal that this action (refunding the money rather than letting them hold it hostage) was considered proof that I was doing something criminal and the very fact that I refunded would be held against me. In other words, they really disliked the fact that I was denying them an interest-free loan. Paypal, of course, is not regulated by Federal Banking Laws which would make this criminal for a bank to do. After my second round of refunds, paypal tried to actually reverse the refunds. They actually succeeded in trapping some poor guy's money ($182) in the account after I refunded him and he has had to file a claim to get it back. Mind you, the money is just sitting there in my dead account and paypal is making him file a claim for it. They also tried to hold up the largest of my final purchases (about 3k) by contacting the seller and informing him that the transaction was fraudulent. As I had already paid, he had already shipped. Despite proof of shipment and delivery, they refused to release the funds to him for well over a week anyways. Then they tried to cash e-checks on my account without my consent (the scam was to have the seller be paid and then write an e-check in the same amount which would be deposited in the paypal account that I could no longer withdraw from). Unfortunately for them, I was able with a simple phone call to have every one of these e-checks declared fraudulent and dishonored. I am quite aware that, if I did not have some clout with my bank, that this would have caused me immense problems. As far as the current situation goes, all I can say is WTF? If a total stranger walked up and hit me in the head with a hammer, I couldn't have been more surprised.

Got a whole bunch of e-mails saying I was being put on the probation list. When I was contacted by Andrew (GA Collectibles), this is what I wrote back: Basically, ebay/paypal decided, because I would not fork over my social security number and other information upon demand or complete a transaction were I am convinced they blocked bidders, that all my accounts were blocked/limited. I decided that I did not want to do business with people who treated me like a criminal without appeal. All my ebay accounts have been basically dead since August 31. [And yes I changed my ebay ids and made my feedback private when I screwed around with the accounts as much as possible before abandoning them. However, I'm not trying to hide anything, I was just pissed that I could not close them. If you really doubt this, I'll make the feedback visible again to prove it.] The reason I cannot close my accounts is that, on August 31, I charged back all the fees from ebay/paypal from the auctions they ended or forced me to refund. They have basically been trying to get this money back ever since. Because of this, every credit card that I had on file with ebay/paypal has been canceled. I e-mailed the situation over with Andrew and I offered to simply pay him for the books straight up (by check or money order) to avoid paypal (and he could pocket the paypal fees). He declined this offer and said he needed the money immediately. I went to paypal and, sure enough, there was an open case. I closed it and e-mailed back: The day after this e-mail (it was at night) I contacted my bank. My bank told that the chargeback was initiated by paypal. I had them cancel it on their end anyways. Then I got this e-mail from Andrew: Does this strike anyone else as odd? Paypal releasing the funds without the dispute being over? In any case................ 1) As soon as I knew there was a problem, I dealt with it as quickly and swiftly as I could and promised to make it right, but yet...... 2) Andrew (GA Collectibles) nominated me for the probation list before even getting in contact with me and then never even bothered to tell me that he did so. As far as that goes, I'll never have any use for him again, and... 3) I'm really disappointed on how everyone here passed judgment without even hearing my side (reminds me of a certain company), and also... 4) I don't know what I ever did to tick off the clown who calls himself Krytospidey but he always seems to have some sort of ax to grind against me. But I don't appreciate anyone calling my son a 'tool' in any context. Why don't you just go **** ********, *** ******** *******. Or is fill in the blanks beyond your mental capacity? 5) Put me on the bloody list if you all want, I don't care.

Why Divad, if its up to Divad he will never take him off and it's not up to divad. Divad has had something against russ fora long time. I've never gotten along with Divad but now have new found admiration, appreciation and respect for him. At this rate, I'll be praising Calamerica soon.

Comic Supply Customer Relations, take 1 My answer was an expletive. I don't care if I ever get my money or books back from this clown. I just want him to go out of business and to that other place that he so rightly belongs.

Why? Too embarrassing for you? Something you'd like to hide? Note that I haven't ordered anything from ComicSupply in a year (October or November of last year, I believe). Simply unbelievable. As for the 8.5s, I was told at one point by Comic Supply, in regard to a previous problem, that Diamond had denied them credit and refused to ship CS their orders. I was told that the orders were being filled by purchasing the books from other local stores. The last batch of books I received before getting nothing more fit that description exactly.

I don't what to say. The guy is unbelievable. PM: PM back:

PM to me from ComicSupply Let's resolve our issue. Can you point me in the direction of the order please? My reply: I already know from endlessly repeated past experience that I will get no satisfaction from this clown. But, God, it felt good to vent. Try to protect the newbies and keep this guy on the probation list forever.

ComicSupply........................... I don't want this clown off the probation list until he settles up with everybody (including me of course). In fact, I think that there should be an active thread asking everyone who has had problems with him and is owed money to come forward. The people who put him on the probation list are just the tip of the iceberg. In general, I've always found comic collectors to be more honest and better people than the average joe. On the other hand, this guy is one of the most incompetent and corrupt people I've had the displeasure to do business with. People, especially new people to the hobby, should be warned about him and protected from him, if at all possible. It should be a goal of the community to put him out of business.

I'm trying to take Cujobyte off of ignore. I thought I did it but it doesn't seem to have worked. Anyone here good at ignoring and then un-ignoring someone? What should I do?