MatterEaterLad

AVENGERS #39 - CGC 9.0 OW - $125

AVENGERS #26 - CGC 9.0 WHITE - HARLAN ELLISON COLLECTION - $275

AVENGERS #1 - CGC 6.5 OW/W - According to GPA a 7.0 just sold for $18k and a 6.0 recently sold for $12k. Let's go $13,500

FANTASTIC FOUR #94 - CGC 7.5 WHITE - $275

FANTASTIC FOUR #48 - CGC 3.0 OW/W - $2000

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #15 - CGC 4.0 OW - $1400 - SOLD! via PM

WELCOME TO MATTER EATER LAD'S END OF SUMMER FEAST! I'll be adding more books all week, including SME15, SW1, JIMs and X-MEN galore First in thread gets the book. Priority Shipping is $15 for SLABS and $5 for UNGRADED and I'm always happy to combine shipping. I'll also ship via buyer's choice on BIG books. Foreign shipping at cost. Returns and refund okay within 7 days of purchase. Payment: PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, Check, MO, and wire transfer. PM with questions, more photos, offers, etc. Payment is expected within 72 hours, please and thank you! Thanks for checking out the books!

@DC# Thank you for aggregating all that info. Super helpful. I'm glad I didn't try to sell my ASM 129 9.6! That 40+% drop is

The whole "there's nothing to see here" argument would hold up better if Halperin didn't have a verifiable history of fraud. When you factor that into the mix along with WATA execs hiding the fact that they're WATA execs, it's really hard to just give everyone a blanket pass.

He must have a commodious lexicon.

On a side note, this is a great book if you're feeling nostalgic.

Another FTC investigation. Another settlement. The reputations of WATA and Heritage take a beating for a while. Then back to shilling as usual.

At this point, Dan, I'm starting to think nothing would ever seem amiss to you. I mean, you sold a game for $100k that a short while later could have made $1,000,000+. Does that not upset you? Or are you assuming those amounts were Halperin or someone shilling up the market? Maybe you know so.

The article claims that Haspel is having them graded through WATA and receiving very generous grades. He's an expert collector, with a big wallet, so he might just be buying really high grade stuff. But to your original question, it's wrong when the WATA President states that no employees are allowed to sell WATA games, period. He's stating that as company policy. The reason he makes that statement is because he knows it's a conflict of interest and hurts the integrity of WATA. .

I go in cycles. It gets to be such a headache that I sell a bunch. Then when I've cleared some space, I end up buying more. Rinse. Repeat. Ad infinitum.

For those who don't want to slog through the whole article, it's basically this: WATA CEO Deniz Kahn has stated on multiple occasions that WATA employees are not allowed to have games graded by WATA or sell games graded by WATA. Meanwhile Mark Haspel, a name well-known to most of us, and a guy currently on WATA's Executive Team, has a lucrative side-hustle selling WATA games. Basically he's doing what we all condemned PGX for doing. Self dealing.

Not unless you work for Heritage. Then you can send out press releases trumpeting your incredible purchase, without mentioning you bought it from yourself.

I miss the days when I was a kid and would take my allowance to Edna's Bookstore next to the Greyhound station and ask to see the "box of funny books" she kept behind the counter. It was all Silver Age goodness. I remember buying DD 7 and X-Men 6, and going around the corner and sitting in a donut shop reading these amazing old comics. Now I have to worry about hedge fund managers pumping up collectibles markets so they can take advantage of tax loopholes.

No. Misrepresentations in marketing tend to come in the form of half-truths, not lies. The FTC doesn't investigate subjective truths, like "WATA is the best grading company in the world!" That's subjective puffery. The FTC does investigate objective marketing claims, like "A WATA graded game just set an all-time sales record!" That's objective, but is it the whole truth? Part of it's true. When they bought your game it was an all-time sales record. But the part the FTC will inevitably investigate is why that claim is based on the sale of a game to a WATA founder, and why was that hidden in their promotions? Why are the founders of a grading company promoting this sale as if it happened naturally in the marketplace? And did that misrepresentation affect other people and businesses. In the end, if their misrepresentation causes people to lose money, or buy games that have precipitous drops in value, they may have a problem. But hey, if everyone made money and no one is complaining, there's no harm, so the FTC gives them a pass.

I can appreciate your willingness to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. It's kind and generous and reflects your desire to see the best in people. In this case, it appears their zeal for market promotion led them to lean into the half-truths that they were peddling, and keep peddling them, and this is where it becomes market manipulation. Because the announcements that mentioned Thrower as a co-founder of WATA also mention Lecce, but only as a renowned collector. Not a lie, but clearly not the truth and to mention both men in official announcements and only mention one as a founder, isn't an accident. They knew that to present the news of this record sale as being a sale to someone who owns part of the company that graded the game they're promoting, that would look...bad. So they left out--as Paul Harvey would say--the rest of the story.

That's a long hard battle. Wishing you health and joy and longevity. Hoping that if I'm ever in the same boat I can paddle as strongly and as eloquently as you.

I have an AF15 like that. Except my wonky trimming is on the bottom, back cover. Looks like a rough cut with a blade. I got a purple label. The generous grading of the Promise books is what happens when the people who "discover" the collection own the auction house and have a stake in the grading company.

The record sales in this case were not by dealers but by owners of the new grading company. Who then misrepresented themselves as collectors. Those are the facts. To say otherwise is "spin". -jamie (a friend of integrity, seeker of transparency, avoider of obfuscation)

Gotta run and shill up my Heritage auctions. I bid as WATA Halperinski. Have a great night guys. If Domo shows up, tell him to R-E-L-A-X...

Grading companies should grade. They shouldn't be trying to establish new values. And grading company founders shouldn't be posing as Joe Collector in the press talking about prices. That's not marketing, that's manipulation. They hid his WATA affiliation because it wasn't marketing.