Sam T

This doesn't make any sense to me. If a scammer found himself capable of swapping out the books in a slab without any sign of tampering and wanted to make money, sending books back in for reholdering is the slowest, most complicated and least likely to succeed scam you could possibly attempt. The easiest thing to do would be to just to sell 4.0s and 5.0s as 6.0s and 7.0s.. You'd spend a couple grand on books and then you'd start a cycle of buying lower grades, cracking them and then selling them in the higher grade slab and then sending in the higher grade book (now unslabbed) back to be regarded. The real issue here is very very very simple and doesn't require conspiracy theories and leaked DM's or easily faked Ebay sales data. Slabs are either tamper proof or they're not. Do you think slabs are tamper proof?

Has anyone actually shown a book that they bought from this guy or not? I've seen two comments from blank accounts saying they had 'em. Neither included photos, video or screenshots of their transaction with the guy. This looks like a fake market data scam more than a fake slab scam.

I don't understand why so much of the conversation is focused on variants and CGC's reholdering process. If someone was able to crack a slab open and then swap out the book without CGC's own graders being able to notice the tampering, then the average customer DEFINITELY wouldn't be able to spot it. A person could generate massive amounts of crooked profits by taking midgrade copies of the most popular bronze age keys (GSXMen, ASM129, Hulk181, etc...) and swapping in a book 2 points lower. Think about a GSX 6.0 and a GSX 8.0. After you swap in the lower grade, you sell it for about 3k and then original 8.0 (now out of the case) regraded. It's much easier to fudge the grade on a midgrade book than a 9.8. And CGC sees so many midgrade giant size x-mens that the scammer could just keep sending the book in under different names/locations and they'd have no reason to think they're seeing a suspicious number of that book at that grade. But if you do this with 9.8's then all of us a sudden you're blowing up the census and people might start lookin' more closely. The real problem people are describing is that fake that, if swagglehauses conspiracy theory is true, then slabs cannot be considered tamper proof and that would be a DISASTER for CGC as a company...however... I think all of this might be a moot point since as far as I can tell, no one has actually gotten one of these "fake slabs" in their hands. I think the questionable ebay dealer is just a guy dummying up fake sales data on ebay rather than a CGC surgeon who can actually swap out books without leaving any evidence of tampering. Seriously, until someone can actually demonstrate a process for cracking and replacing a book in a slab without leaving any indication, we have no reason to believe it's actually happening. There are two accounts claiming to have bought slabs from the dealer in question and both accounts had absolutely no posting history until this controversy. Can anyone point to any part of this scam definitively taking place in the real world?

The only accounts claiming to have gotten these "fake slabs" are completely anonymous throwaways with absolutely no post history before weighing in on this controversy. None of them have provided even the slightest bit of evidence to back up their claims. It's looking more like online market manipulation rather than fake slabs actually being sold to unsuspecting buyers. It's important to remember that a completed auction on ebay will show up under "sold listings" even if the buyer never pays. Ebay needs to start verifying account holder identity before an account can start bidding and they need to keep "sold listings" out of searches until payment has been processed.

Throw this guy on my stack!. Thanks

7 Books taken per PM. 1. Journey into Mystery 118 1st app. The Destroyer - $20 VG- spine stress, creasing fc, corner & edge wear, tanning along edges inside fc & bc 2. Journey into Mystery 115 (Loki Cover) - $10 Good+ heavy spine stress, corner & edge wear, corner piece missing LLC bc, pen writing LRC bc 3. Thor 148 1st app. The Wrecker, Origin of Black Bolt - $15 G/VG small corner piece missing LLC, corner piece missing URC bc 4. Thor 142 - $10 G/VG subscription crease fc, spine stress, corner & edge wear, cf detached at lower staple 5. Captain Marvel 1 Premiere Issue - $20 Good heavy creasing & tears along spine, heavy creasing LRC, manufactured with one staple (bottom) 6. Thor 127 - $15 1st app. Pluto, Hippolyta and Volla, 1st full app. the Midgard Serpent VG- spine stress, edge & corner wear, chip missing lower right edge, tear thru bottom of “S” in HOLOCAUST! bottom edge, tanning along edges of inside fc & bc 7. Thor 129 1st app. Ares and several others - $15 Good+ spine stress, corner & edge wear, large corner piece missing ULC bc

And 163 and 159. Thanks!

ASM 172 and ASM 157 if still available!

Not sure if this is related but I keep seeing weird, low effort engagement bait posts from old accounts (several years) with absolutely no post history. Here's the latest example I've seen: Doing this kind of thing only makes sense to me if the person running these weird accounts is planning to start spamming or ripping people off.

What you're describing is a label that covers up part of the back cover which makes isn't something any collector would want. The back cover is part of the book and its appearance is relevant to the grade.

The idea of a panel by panel remake just wouldn't work because the language of storytelling evolves. And that's a good thing. There would be concepts that it took the golden age writer/artist several panels and paragraphs to explain, that right now you can explain with a single wordless panel. Basically, if they maintained the panel layouts slavishly they'd also be stuck telling the story at a pace that's no longer enjoyable to readers. The idea is that they're have to update the structure of the story in order to modernize it. Think about the Avengers movie. It is a retelling of Avengers #1. Asgardian villain comes to Earth to sow dissent within the Avengers and turn them against each other. It worked in 1963 and, with updates, it also worked in 2012. Batman: Year One is a retelling of Batman's early story in a way that's updated. Also, publishers have actually done exactly what you're saying. I don't remember the name of it but when I was a kid Marvel put out an X-Men book that was issue by issue, modern retelling the first Uncanny X-Men issues. And I don't think it really worked all that well and no one seems to like those books today. Why don't they do remakes? Remakes are kinda most of what comics do. But the idea of a remake where you don't really change anything doesn't really work for the audience.

I couldn't agree more. I guess I'm trying to distill the shift to a single behavioral change and it seems to be "buy signals" are now "sell signals". That it seems the only way to make money from a comic being picked up for a TV show or movie is to already own before the project is announced.

There's an interesting thread on Reddit about Sandman's success on Netflix not seeming to translate into higher demand for the comic in the real world. (https://old.reddit.com/r/comicbookcollecting/comments/z8od4e/why_didnt_the_sandman_show_not_result_in_a_bump/) I sort of agree with the premise. When a comic movie coming out was less common, and the movies were more consistently enjoyed by comic fans, the release and success of the project would translate into a meaningful and long term increase in value. But now there are so many properties being optioned and so much content being produced, it feels like the old formula no longer applies. It feels like the moment you have to have a copy of an issue for the movie or tv show to actually help you is getting earlier and earlier. Iron Man #55 kept going up after his on screen debut. But Avengers #8 already seems to be falling in price. It seems like you need to already have an issue before its optioned to get a bump in value from a new TV/Movie adaptation in the current market.

Wandering what you think of this lil guy. Thanks!

https://gpa-sport.com/en/shop/ I just ordered a 9.8 Polo helmet...🤣🤣🤣

This isn't necessarily true. An auction is listed as "sold" under "completed auctions" as soon as the auction ends. It does not require the book to actually be paid for. And I don't think "final value fees" or whatever are charged to the seller until the payment is made so the seller doesn't really have a profit motive to cancel the unpaid transaction. I think we're at a point where eBay sold listing cannot be used as a reference point at all until eBay makes 2 change. 1) Require a payment method before bidding 2) Allow sellers to report to a buyer for "non-payment" as opposed to opening a separate kind of case for it. eBay used to feel like a place for buyers and sellers and now it just feels like the perfect market manipulation machine.

This is the best description of "engagement bait" I've ever heard.

Does anyone else think the seller might have made a CGC sock puppet account to promote his eBay store and instead of promoting his store, he probably burned his CGC account? It seems like bad form to cite two recently graded books as the reason he trusts the seller without actually posting pics of the books. The ebay store that OP promoted seems to break every convention of good dealing. Over-grading (saying anything is a 9.9 is ridiculous), filtering images, arguing with customers and (quite possibly) using fake accounts to promote himself. Honestly, the way he answered his negative feedback is more than enough to keep me away from ever purchasing from him.

It felt shallow. I think the showrunner tried to honor the source material but I don't think he really understood why the source material was so important to so many of us. Big visual effects made the big ideas feel smaller.

Ya'll are going off vibe for what feels like a straight up mathematical question. Low: 0-3.5 Mid: 3.5-6.5 High: 6.5-10 But isn't this sort of irrelevant? The only person who's interpretation matters is the seller. If a seller calls something low grade it really doesn't matter what I think low grade means. This isn't really an abstract question, the real answer isn't based on the community, its based entirely on the transaction before you. It feels misleading to try to argue that there's a subjective but agreed upon definition of these terms.

Based on a combination of my affection for the book and my affection for not getting thrown out of my apartment 🤣 I really didn't start selling books seriously until I started having problems paying my bills during the pandemic. But that's not really related to what I'm talking about. Because if I price my books too high, they don't sell and don't end up in the "sold listings" category. And if a buyer does not pay within a week it is canceled and relisted and is removed from "sold listings". Asking prices are NOT usable market data and no one on this forum is predatory enough to actually cite unmatched asking prices as the basis for their asking price. But a lot of folks here (and everywhere else) still cite eBay sold listings and GPA, which seems to include that large number of potentially fake data points.

got a link?

I'm sorry but I kinda have to disagree with you here. I'm trying to talk about PROVABLE market manipulation and it seems like we can see a ton of it on eBay. The idea that private auction houses are doing something even worse is entirely speculative. And this problem isn't abstract and it ain't happening somewhere else. People on the sales forum here still cite recent eBay sales in their threads to justify their pricing. If they're not using eBay directly, they're probably going to cite GPA which scrapes eBay and contains all those same fake data points. If some stoner w/ a few shortboxes and a year of actively selling on eBay can spot this major flaw in how they handle searches for sold listings, then a company with an army of genius programmers would also have to be aware of this problem. At this point it seems like eBay deliberately turned itself into a price-manipulation machine and that flim-flammery has spilled into our pristine boards. The best comic purchases I ever made were on this forum but that was probably 8 years ago. It really feels like things have changed and it might be time to ban the use of eBay and GPA pricing data from selling posts. It's a bummer but if folks can create fake data points for free then really we can't use that data at all.

It doesn't seem like you read the comment you quoted. I'm currently waiting for a payment on an $800 book. I have not been charged a dime by eBay because like I said, the fee seems to come out of the payment. eBay seems to understand that an item isn't actually sold till its been paid for, which is what made me wonder about unpaid auctions showing up when folks search for "sold listings".

I don't think so. I've never had a "selling fee" charged to my payment method. It seems like its taken out of the payment when its received. No payment received, no selling fee. Am I missing anything?