blazingbob

A customer of mine bought an ASM 1 CGC 6.5 and X-men 1 CGC 1.8 from Comiclink and had them delivered yesterday, 8/28, by FedEx; the package required direct signature. The FedEx driver did not get a signature from anyone at the residence (no one was home) and instead just dropped the package off on the stoop. (I actually asked FedEx to reroute the package to a FedEx location to be held but the driver obviously didn't bring it there). My neighbor's video surveillance shows someone coming by 30 minutes later and tearing into the package to steal the comics. I am posting this for him from London. I will post the scans of the books he sent me by tomorrow. If anybody sees the books on eBay or a dealer is offered these books please let me know. 72nd Pct detective squad is investigating. If folks see anything, they should call 718 965 6336 Thank you, Bob

There really isn't a more "secure" system. Since the US has only implemented half of the chip system without a pin it still won't prevent security issues with the card. If the customer notifies the credit card company that they are in Chicago at a show the cc transactions they do will all show the Merchant's location. If he buys from you the transaction show FL, me NY, Richard TX. Security system will flag it since they think the card has been compromised and somebody is shopping away.

My best stuff is for sale opening day, Saturday is usually the slowest day for most cons so I'm not sure why anybody would save their best stuff for then.

I missed you to. I like doing Wizard Chicago because it is one of the few shows where you can actually hang out at the Hyatt with people. While Reed Chicago is a great show the fact that we are downtown causes everybody to disperse into the big city. The UK show this year was in the Islington part of London which had a lot of great restaurants, pubs, shops, pastry shops all within walking distance. Fall out the front door and choices and more choices covering all kinds of budgets.

John and John were there running my booth. I had almost all of my regular inventory at the show. A lot of my UK customers thought that I would not come to London. What that tells me is that it is important that you come to a show if you want long term relationships with your customers. That they are as important to you as you are to them. So what if I have a bad show. Conventions should not be one time selling events. They should be an opportunity for you to sell that customer books over the entire year until you see them again next year. And no I did not have a bad London show. Did very well over here.

You know what they say, money talks "fill in the blank"

Unfortunately a lot of these negative posts are what eventually does cause a show to fail. Does the fact the onsite grading impact Wizard Chicago, yes it does. Do local dealers get priced out of major shows. Yes, I've seen this happen with a lot of shows that are acquired by Informa. Wizard Chicago did lose a lot of local dealers years ago. The same can be said of some of the other major shows I've done not owned by Wizard. When I get reports that there were fewer people in the room I would ask if Wizard had Artists alley in the other part of the convention center like they did last year? From speaking to some artist alley guys this setup has not exactly been warmly welcomed. And since I believe Wizard kept the same floor plan as last year I'm sure there were the same issues. Sometimes I feel that even if the Wizard admission price was low, dealers were there in droves and had everything you ever wanted somebody would be complaining about it just because they hate Wizard. I'm also wondering if there are those out there that forget the for a long time the Best shows were San Diego/Chicago. Whichever show came first was the one that dealers did the best at. You sold a lot of books at the first one and restocked your inventory at the second. Now we are spoiled because for me they are both very good shows. Guardian comics shows a post of a nice batch of keys. Frankly as a dealer I would be pretty satisfied with buying books like that. Dale says his show was very good. October posts a very strong case for need to work hard, work fast or you lose it. Pretty much what every show is when I go. The harder you work the better you do. If Wizard does fail I'm sure there will be promoter willing to step up and buy it. We know what we have right now, we don't know what we could get. From doing the UK/London show and the grumblings about the date change/different venue I see a lot of inflexibility of people. I've experienced this when doing shows on the West coast. When I was a collector I traveled for hours to go to shows. I was excited to go. Today if the show location, show date, who is there, red carpet awaits my entrance and if they can get in for free needs aren't met they stay home. When you see posts that there aren't a lot of dealers setup ask or look around at the show and see how many guys are fighting to buy books yet don't have booths. I can name a lot of weekend warriors/eBay dealers/board dealers that never buy a booth. All those empty booths could be filled by those guys if they "paid their way" into getting into the show in the first place. There is a difference in giving a badge to a good customer versus giving a exhibitor badge to a guy who if he had a booth was operating on the same cost basis as you (Me). And if those weekend warriors feel that there is no need to buy a booth maybe they should be supporting the show by buying a badge from the dealer instead of getting one for free. I see a lot of "why do I have to pay for this" in order to do business. Listing fees, cc fees, PayPal fees, internet hosting fees. The boards provide a ZERO cost selling platform yet a lot of sellers can't even knock 10% off the price. Sellers want personal payments instead of regular PayPal because it costs them money yet PayPal is a business that has a cost of doing business and is entitled to make money. Promoters are entitled to make money doing a show. Unfortunately everybody just assumes that the convention centers and unions play fair with the promoters. From speaking with the UK promoters this weekend I was very surprised how the Excel center treated them. Competitors also use every tactic imaginable to put you out of business. This all costs money and frankly I can see why a lot of promoters fail.

Since I use a surface pro the only "hardware" is the USB connection for the magnetic strip swipe. I am not sure why the cc company would not see the transactions because you cannot swipe the card unless you are logged into the online cc processing application. Those declined transactions show up in your merchant account open batches for the day. The dealer would see the last 4 digits of the card and status of declined. If the dealer attempted to run the card again the application would flag it as a duplication transaction and would prompt you before running it again. Normally my connection is made via a jetpack. The Rosemont convention center does have a WiFi connection that you can buy for the show dates. There are actually two different bandwidth options, one only works for cc transactions, the other is more robust if you are pulling data and emails. It could be possible that the dealers laptop was infected with malware but not exactly sure how it is capturing the cc transaction from the Merchant's application software.

Sorry for not keeping pace with the posts. After the first 9.4 AF #15 9.4 sold in auction for a mere $55K I was consigned the Diamond Run AF #15 9.4. It was for sale at San Diego Comic con. Not sure of the year right this second. It was priced at $100K. Got a lot of comments on the price, Jay Perino was offered the book and turned it down. I also had a few other Diamond Run keys. Was sold for $86000 after the show. After that sale another 9.4 was sold for $80K by Metropolis. Years later and look at the prices now. I am off for the final day of the London show. Carry on :). And yes I did respond to Billy Parkers emails

Well if you were registered on my website - www.highgradecomics.com you would have seen it the night it was listed and you could have bought it.

Very honorable of you to give the dealer a finder's fee since others out there would feel that their badge cost covers "their" cost of setup. Of course very few "weekend warriors" who really are dealers would ever think of sharing those deals they buy at shows with the guy who got them in.

Kharma has a way to coming around if you don't treat somebody fairly. With any "multi-part" deals if it comes out that you lowballed the first buy you generally don't get the rest. Doesn't matter what the "seller" thinks. You are out. Now while I don't agree with what Joe is saying about paying for "Upgrades" I do see that treating somebody fairly will get you more deals in the long run.

Bob, as a dealer I would much rather gauge a dealer's grading ability with them putting a grade on the sticker versus a price. And no it does not take the argument of grade out of the equation because it requires you to look up the price and guess what he graded it. VG is $10, you have $50, did you grade it a VF? The onus of grading should never rest solely on the buyer. If you are behind a table with books for sale, signs, business cards, instagram account, website you are a dealer and should stand behind your grading ability. There is no "Weekend Warrior Dealer" free pass on this. You should be open to being asked who taught you how to grade.

I'm sure you will see it back up for sale in 3 months. who said that?

If I was a collector I would always assume to pay sales tax if a purchase is made in my home state. But because I'm a dealer I have a resale number and don't have to pay sales tax on comic purchases.

I'll do $50 off on my $64K copy

They are asking prices, my website allows offers.

Nothing exciting so far

You can always get excited about the two 6.0's I have for sale - https://www.highgradecomics.com/article.php?dynamic=search_results&title_starts_with=amazing+fantasy&title_contains=&issue_numbers=15&publisher_id=0&genre_id=0&age_id=0&pedigree_id=0&tp_grader_id=2&min_grade_index=6&max_grade_index=6&min_price=&max_price=&location_id=0&submit=Search

Per PM I'll take the Flash #127

I'll take the TOS #43 8.0

Golf clap

Nice whitewalls

Hmmm, do I have to pull my 3.5 All Star #8 off the market until the close? Or should I just pump up the price as the auction is going on?

While at San Diego I unfortunately heard that Mike Goldman had some books stolen at the Motor City show. Knowing that he doesn't post on the boards I offered to start a thread since I know that the boards have recovered books in the past. One of the books stolen was a Action #242 CGC 6.0 Serial number 099483001. I don't have a scan, sorry. If anybody happens to see the book on ebay or offered for sale please contact Mike at 248-426-8059, email michaelg@motorcitycomics.com