F For Fake

This happened to me once on eBay, but it’s been so many years ago, I can’t recall what I was even selling. I’d had a listing up for a couple of days, and did a search on the time, likely checking to see if anyone had undercut my price. I saw a picture that looked familiar, and then recognized my desk and all of the stuff on it, and realized they’d just copied my pics to sell their item. I think I called eBay (this was back when you could actually get someone on the phone) and they apparently took my word for it, as the other listing was yanked. Even if there are no bad intentions, and it’s likely that the seller is just too lazy to take their own pics, it’s still...creepy.

One of the shops I frequent uses Overstreet to price their books, and usually go a bit lower than that price. Market being what it is these days, it's pretty much always to my advantage.

At least Neal Adams' bizarre hollow earth theories were finally proven correct by the recent documentary film "Godzilla vs Kong".

Ah well, carry on then. No idea. I refuse to acknowledge this book until they learn how to spell.

It's still a $100-$200 book raw, depending on condition, and 9.8's are more. I wish I still had my 9.8. That's a pretty cover.

Well, I guess it depends on what you'd consider "selling well" vs your investment. For instance, I had five or six issues that didn't move at $5 each, but sold as a set for $60-$70, and others that sold in groups of 2 for $15-$20. Not sure if I'd make a special trip, but I had been accumulating cheap copies for a couple of months at that point. So, $10-$20 sales aren't worth it to a lot of folks, but they're my bread and butter. Then again, I know you're a bargain box diver like me!

Sets worked better for me as well. A few weeks ago I listed several issues, started them all at $5, ran them for a week. The keys sold really well (especially the 110, as documented in this very thread!) but many of the filler issues didn't sell at all. So, I grouped them into lots, ran them again, and those did very well. I only had $1 a pop in all of them, so it was all gravy, but I was curious to see them sell better in sets vs not selling at all as singles.

I must have been in a bad mood three years ago...but I stand by the general sentiment.

So, I don’t do a ton of modern spec, but I do check out the CBSI thing every Friday so I’ll have an idea of what to look for when I’m out that weekend. I was surprised when this book popped up on Friday’s list, because I’m a HUGE fan and collector of the Hard Case Crime novels...but had completely forgotten that they also did comics! Anyway, I was already on MCS at the time, so on a lark I thought I’d see if they had these, and...they did! Two copies, at cover price! They arrived today (speedy!) and they’re lovely. Now I guess I have to go back and get all of the rest of the HCC comics. Luckily, they don’t seem to be worth much at the moment, this issues notwithstanding.

I had the exact same reaction!!!

Wooooooooooooow. Wow. Yeah. Hope you find lots of gems, and sounds like you got it cheap. But those boxes shouldn't get anywhere near the interior of your actual home. Good lord. Wear gloves. Biohazard city.

Wow! That is some Olympic level numbskullery. Like, you have to WORK pretty hard to do something that poorly, you know?

I guess it depends on your wife. If it was my wife, she'd say "Sell! Sell! Sell!" She's not sentimental about most possessions. She does love money, though!

Growing up, I didn't like any Wolverine stories where he wasn't in his X-men costume. Preferably the yellow/brown, but the yellow/blue was ok too. So when the Patch stuff started, I couldn't be bothered. I just thought it looked so dumb, with his big pointy dumb hair. Remember: Big pointy mask fins: Awesome Big pointy hair: Dumb Whenever he took his mask off in UXM, I was like "Ugh." And this is why, even though there have now been 47 movies with "Wolverine" in them, I still don't feel like I've really seen "Wolverine" on screen. Gimme the mask!

It's funny, I had no idea centering was even a THING until I started reading these boards, 15 years or whatever it was ago. Always thought of it as a baseball card term, had no idea people cared when it came to comics. And I still don't care. If the book is craaaaaaazy off kilter, I might notice, but otherwise, it doesn't really register with my brain. Page quality either. As long as they're not brown/brittle, I don't care. The difference in white and off-white isn't any difference at all, to me, especially if it's sealed in a slab. I'm never going to open it, so as long as it's not falling apart, I don't care. Like Oak, the defect I hate is spine dings. If the spine is pretty nice, I don't really care about much else, other than the obvious (book is complete, doesn't have bugs crawling out of it, isn't currently on fire, etc.) But if I have to pick between those too, I guess page quality, just because page quality seems to impact sales somewhat. Have we noticed a real bump for perfectly centered copies? Surely there are some of you who care enough to pay more for perfectly centered books, but is it as many as the folks who are sticklers for white pages?

It doesn't matter what the money was for. If you have more than 200 transactions as well as $20k in income, Paypal kicks out a 1099k. Doesn't matter what the money was for, or what venue it came from. Online payment processors have to kick out that tax form. Next year, that threshold will be $900 or $600 or whatever it is (I'm too lazy to scroll back.) And some states have already adopted it.

Wish I could say I was surprised, but nothing surprises me anymore!

Ha, yeah, I'm familiar with the shortcomings of my fellow man, but still, the gall? You know? This sort of thing never used to be an issue, but now it's all the time. The problem here is that with BIN, you can "require immediate payment with BIN", but I guess if you accept an offer, that particular checkbox doesn't trigger. There needs to be an option where if the buyer accepts the offer, they have to pay immediately. Or if that IS an option already, I've not found it. People!

Coming to vent here, because my wife is tired of hearing about it. I've been selling on eBay for 25 years, and there's no question that the average IQ of the buyer pool seems to be circling the drain even as the sense of entitlement is inflating dramatically. I've now had this happen a couple of times in the last couple of months: I have an item listed BIN w/ BO. Buyer makes a lowball, I decline. Buyer comes up a bit, I make a reasonable counter. Do this two more times, with the buyer making their final offer, saying "this really is the highest I can go." I mull it over, decide that I'm making a healthy profit regardless, and I could use the cash for something I'd like to buy, so I agree to the deal. Then...crickets. The most recent example was last week. I finally agreed to the offer, I send a combined invoice, and buyer thanks me for accepting the offer, and he can probably pay me in two weeks. So, that's an automatic cancelation, and block, on my end. I just don't get it. What kind of nerve do you have to have to beg and wheedle someone to sell you something that you can't even afford to buy in the first place? If I can't afford to pay for something right away, I sure as hell am not making an offer on it! Ok, thanks for the chance to gripe.

If anyone is interested, Target has randomly listed three Transformers at 50% off this morning, and one of them is the bizarre TF/X-Men mash-up! I was considering this one for a while, but at 1/2 off, it became a must purchase. https://www.target.com/p/transformers-generations-transformers-collaborative-marvel-comics-x-men-mash-up-ultimate-x-spanse/-/A-81262964 The other two on sale are Snapdragon and Doubledealer. Speaking which, Ollie’s put Leader Class Transformers for $20 in their ad this week. People are finding Optimus Prime and Doubledealer. I went to four stores yesterday and didn’t find anything at all, so YMMV. Happy hunting!

Spent a significant chunk of my day visiting every Ollie’s in town, looking for the $20 Leader Class Transformers in this week’s ad. Struck out completely. But one of the stores had gotten a refresh on their comic section, and I found a few things. $7 and $8 respectively for the Miracleman and John Byrne HC’s. It’s so odd to find Olympus on clearance for so little when I recall just how expensive those original MM hardcovers were for so long. Need to be on the lookout for Book Two now. I’ve had that Legionnaires trade in my Amazon cart for a couple of years now, so I jumped on it for $8. It’s a nice thick trade, $35 msrp. I reread Suicide Squad on Comixology a few years ago, but held off on the trades, as I was SURE that we’d eventually get an Omnibus when the first movie came out. Now the sequel is coming this summer, and there’s still nothing, so I figured I may as well buy these trades for $4 a pop. Tracking down the other four volumes may be a chore, but I’m no hurry. And with my luck, they’ll announce an Omni as soon as I finish the set. When I got home, my OHMU Omni was waiting for me, so I can join the cool kids club with @piper now!

God, I LOVED Stompers. They were my first favorite toy as a kid, before Star Wars, He-Man, and everything that followed. I’d love to pick some up, but man, they are PRICEY, for little battery operated cars! I remember vividly going to the local Consolidated and Airways department stores to look at Stompers. I can practically smell them, that rubbery smell when you opened up the bubble. Great stuff!

Devo is definitely an effective bribe when trying to get back into my good graces.

Righteous. They looked RIGHTEOUS!

The post was pretty clear to me: Stop sending comics via media mail, the receiver is going to get stuck with the bill. I've used Mike before, good dude. But I am curious about the question that was just posed: was it possible to refuse the package? Or would that just cause more of a headache? Hopefully the submitter will reimburse you. Otherwise, it'd be a shame if those books somehow got left in the press too long.