blazingbob

On 4/6/2023 at 7:38 PM, Robot Man said:

Is anyone else seeing a black box with a green bar where the name of the board member should be? Name is missing.

This is appearing randomly as I scroll through posts. 

Comicnet is slowing taking over.  The userterminators will slowing start deleting you one by one.  The bar is just the start.  

On 4/4/2023 at 8:34 AM, 1Cool said:

How did it go?  Setting up next year?

I did good based on resetting my sales expectations.  

I had so many great shows last year that it is VERY unlikely that I would repeat the numbers I was doing.  

Bought some great books,  sold some great books.  

Show was steady.  

On 4/4/2023 at 6:42 AM, Cman429 said:

I go to several cons and half dozen card shows a year, in my experience dealers selling raw vintage/“wall books” are always way overpriced. They don’t even want to negotiate like dealers on whatnot or IG do. That’s bc they’re not looking for serious longtime collectors at shows, they’re hoping to sell to impulse buyers or rubes with no idea of FMV. 

As for the “exclusives,” you ain’t kidding there. I can’t be the only one over this gimmick? Every online dealer had a table full of “exclusive” variants. Don’t get me started on the nude variants. The McDonald guys had a table full of them priced at like $75+. I am embarrassed how they perpetuate the fanboy “has never touched a female” stereotype I thought we grew out of as a community. Meanwhile Black Flag was still selling the same Crain variants people are always trying to scalp on here or feebay so I’m not getting the scarcity argument. Finally, I bought two 2023 C2E2 variants at the Unknown table which I guess they split between the cons.

I guess I have a different definition of “exclusive” than comic dealers…

I was at Megacon three days and didn’t walk the entire space but the comic sellers seem to be shrinking every year. Maybe it was C2E2 splitting the attention tho. I passed that Dale Roberts booth several times and was tempted to say hi to joeypost but didnt want to bother anyone when vintage comics aren’t my jam. I wish I couldve found custom Lego mini figs but all I saw was guys selling ones pulled from sets. I did bit a few hundred in toys tho bc toy dealers seem willing to price things in line with ebay and even negotiate better prices. Or maybe they just had a bad weekend and wanted to salvage Sunday. This was my 6th Megacon in a row and I’m sad to see the comic selling aspect eroding away. 

Well based on this type of review would collector's want to go to shows?  People seem to think that nobody reads these posts.  Word of mouth can destroy a show as quickly as actually going and experiencing it yourself.  

You compare a Whatnot or IG seller to a comic convention dealer?  A video stream with a quick look at the book versus you physically looking at the book in your hand?  Sorry but I think I would like to physically see the book,  see if I agree with the grade before I start negotiating it down if the price doesn't meet my expectation.  

And speaking of expectations it is very hard for comic dealers to know every buyers "Pricing/Grade wanted Expectations".  The GPA only guy,  the OSPG guy,  the 10% off GPA guy,  the dollar book guy,  the champagne taste/beer wallet guy,  etc.  I had two buyers at C2E2 turn a book down after I asked them what they wanted to pay.  I agreed to their price and they still had to think about it.  So while buyers may think that dealers are difficult to deal with try standing on my side of the table for awhile.  

Here is a honest assessment of what I think most and I say most buyers really feel.

The less travel they have to do the better.  

They don't want to pay a lot to get in.  If they can score a dealer badge even better.  

They don't want to pay a lot to park,  Free comes to mind for most

They don't want to pay a lot for a hotel

They don't want the show too crowded

They want good food at a good price.  Every dollar spent at dinner is one less available to buy something.

They want to see lots of books in the genres they collect at prices that they want to pay.

They want dealers to take their trade at their numbers,  save themselves the time and cost of selling it themselves so they can get the books they want at their numbers.     

The flippers want to find the collector selling his collection at OSPG prices in high grade before the dealers do.  They can then proudly show the purchases off to their friends while dollar signs dance in their eyes.  

They want a really nice venue for all of the above

On 3/20/2023 at 2:02 PM, VintageComics said:

All good points.

I still lean towards the side that too much specialization and tunnel vision short sights those people. 

It's generally people with a more broad view of the world that tend to see things coming that others don't, like the 2007-08 collapse where a few truly saw it coming, and this one, which I personally believe was inevitable and just another extension of the collapse of 2007-08 which was never fundamentally address and simply had the fallout prolonged. 

I'm not sure how the "collective" you can see it coming unless you are reading the security filings of the banks and their holdings.

Or following the changes in law which relaxed the stress test standards on the regionals.  SVB was right up there moaning about it and guess where they are now.  

One of the problems is that the federal reserve can't have it both ways.  If you want banks to buy those treasuries that the government is printing out you have to have a model of review when you decide to jack rates.  

The problem is that if a bank had stocks in their portfolio you have to mark to market those securities every quarter.  However treasuries etc that are held to maturity were not.  However,  the warning sign was the "unrealized losses" that are sitting on banks balance sheets if they "had to sell".  Create the run and the bank then has to sell.  Unrealized losses suddenly turn into real losses.  That supposedly "strong deposit base" panics and the momentum down escalates.  

While some of us think the financial system is "sound" it is all built on "Faith" and counter party risk.  

Whenever I read who profited off this mess Goldman Sachs is right there.  Made over $100 million on the SVB bond portfolio they bought and I'm sure they were shorting SVB stock the minute they got the Bond portfolio call.

And guess who is out there Selling claims against the Credit Suisse Tier 1 bonds that went to $0 - Goldman Sachs. 

This article also points out what happens when a bank communicates weakness.  You might as well as cut an artery and threw yourself in a shark infested pool - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/svb-failed-stock-offering-shows-140346893.html 

To me the real difference is the way the person is doing business.  The truest form of flipper is the guy clearly asking me what I'm looking for,  finding it on the floor and then trying to flip it to me so that he makes a quick profit.  There are a couple of guys I know who do that at shows.  To use a friends phrase they are solely turn em and burn em.  You are solely a ATM machine for them.      

Wanna be dealers to me are the people on another dealers badge buying books to clearly resell.     

They have no booth costs,  no cost of setting up except getting there and maybe a hotel day or 2,  no business costs like annual corporate tax,  filing sales tax forms when necessary,  no cost getting in and are basically competing for the same inventory that I spent up to $5000 getting in to see.  They also get to run around the show all day while I'm stuck at the booth.  Back in the day of when CGC did on-site grading some of them literally parked themselves at submission pickup to see what everybody just got.       

Now I would have more respect for that buyer if maybe they were buying to do local shows and possibly down the road started supporting the national shows and maybe even becoming national dealers.  I get that we all started somewhere but frankly the lack of new blood does concern me.  

On 2/25/2023 at 10:27 AM, shadroch said:

A friend runs a small auction business in Vegas.  He had a website that was in desperate need of updating and he finally committed to  it.  Months late and thousands of dollars over budget, it launched a few weeks ago and in my opinion looks worse than before, although it is slightly easier to navigate. 

Which happens when you let the programmer design it and not get input from users.  

Developers think like developers,  users take many paths to do essentially the same thing.  

Websites should all be about ease of use,  if you can't figure it out in 3 clicks or less they leave.

Appreciate the comments in this thread about my website.

Please note that if there is functionality that you want in my website I will see if it can be implemented.  Not everything can be implemented,  sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits.

PM's are welcome.

Bob (www.highgradecomics.com)  

This is how my inventory basically looks in 2 ml mylites.  Tape is always angular.  Price stickers are always in the upper left corner