blazingbob

Actually I wasn't even aware of this being on the GPA site until now. Thank you. I have not provided GPA with any of my sales data so I guess I am guilty of self promotion. Ah, I must have touched a nerve since the infamous Mark tone comes out. Maybe you need to read a few more of my posts but I'll spell it out to you again. I am not against a person using GPAnalysis when negotiating with me on price. What bothers me is when they feel I should sell the book for the GPAnalysis price as if it's the End all/Be all price. Hence my many posts about the fact that I have sales data to back up my pricing.

Are you really a dealer or a hobbyist? What value do you put on your business? Your proprietary information? You feel very free on how much you sell your books for? How much do you pay for them? I am able to sell a lot of books over GPA. Why would I want that to become public knowledge? GPA prices go up, buying prices go up, margins get squeezed. I run a business and quite frankly am not in business to make other people money. Let them work as hard as I do to find the books, write the checks and sell them.

Well, let's see. I have a large number of dealers that I do a lot of business with that are very willing to give me a price to sell a book at. Just because I may not have sold a book before doesn't mean that I cannot make a phone call or partner with the dealer to buy and sell the book.

Hmm, very interesting statement "But the more data GPA possesses the more true to the actual market it reveals, and perhaps that is why some dealers are concerned" Maybe the seller of the Hollywood Hills books should have checked GPA before he sold them to you and Southern Cal?

Amazing that when it comes to Self promotion I can think of no better person than yourself. They're coming! They're Coming! They're here! They're here!

My venom is because I am tired of some posters who feel that 1). Books should be priced at their interpretation of "Fair". 2). The books should be priced at their buy it now price because it's not in their nature to negotiate. 3). High grade books should be sold at the minimum amount of profit. My time and my hard work isn't worth paying a profit for. The 75% of the collection that I'm never going to sell or schlep to shows for the next five years isn't their problem either.

Let's all be clear on this. I don't subscribe or use them regularly. I'll listen when a collector quotes GPA but remind them that I also have sales data to pull prices from. I did not use GPA to price my FF collection and no many of them were not the Highest graded copies. I priced them based on the fact that there wasn't a large collection of FF's offered to the market in a long time. I don't need GPA to gauge market trends. Besides it's historical in nature and could be out of date since the last reported sale. Did I need GPA to figure out AS #300's were hot? Or what I could price them for? No I did not. You can get a sense of the market when "Everybody" and I mean "everybody" starts asking for a book. Or want lists in your system start showing up with the same books. My database sales go back over 14 years. I've been around this business since 1973. Before GPA there was an Overstreet Price guide. I've already stated that "Useless" was too strong a word, it's another "source" of pricing information if you want to use it. And I have many sources to pull pricing information from.

Let's use my Personal FF Collection as an example. If I had used GPAnalysis as an assistant to my pricing these books I would have left THOUSANDS on the table. I went with my gut, my sales experience, my intimate knowledge of the FF market and the time and effort it took to find these issues. Than I priced my books. And with the exception of a very few I did very very well. I didn't need GPA to help me sell my books. Almost all are gone, I don't look back and go I sold that too cheap. Some people made some money and a lot of nice FF's are now in the marketplace. Maybe useless is too strong a word. Maybe not always applicable would be better. Yes it gives the buyer "information" and I'm all about the buyer having information. However, I am not going to sit back and be silent when a buyer quotes GPA numbers and thinks he is the only one WHO KNOWS what a book should sell for. Same goes with people who quote the overstreet price guide.

Oh there are preachers. It's comes across in posts with statements like "Fairly priced". The Subject of this thread is another example. Why won't dealers price to GPA numbers? Because everybody wants a deal and will still ask for their standard discount. Nobody wants to pay guide either but they all want the dealer to pay them guide/guide + for their collection. Buy for retail, sell for wholesale! I can see many of you graduated from Business school. I'll answer for Josh on your question. Why doesn't everybody post their sales to GPA? Hmmm, would business knowledge have something to do with it. Why would I communicate my pricing power to my competitors? Just because YOU won't pay the price doesn't mean someone else won't. And since I am in the business to make money why should I share that knowledge. So all you Part time "Collectors" can run around trying to buy the same stuff I am? Which many of you "Collectors" already are doing while claiming to be "Collectors". The CGC Selling thread is a perfect example of this. Throw a WTB post and watch the "Collectors" post.

Should I have on my Selling glasses or Buying ones? Selling glasses - What subscription crease? Buying glasses - Look at that crease, this is a VG+ at best!

Would you pay $250 for an Avengers #32 9.4? I don't know, my site allows bidding so feel free to make an offer. Very few of my customers pay full retail but of course to rocket scientists like yourself who are sellers you know all too well how business runs. Even if I list a book at GPA there are going to be people who bid lower. Once you allow discounting in your business you can't go back to be a full priced shop. I'd probably accept a price of $200 for the Avengers #32 which sort of contradicts your $70 over statement. But then again you know everything. Do me a favor, setup and become a dealer and keep good records. I have just as many recorded sales of books of certain issues to determine my prices. And quite frankly if I gave my numbers to GPA some of those "Averages" might move up. GPA provides insight to books that trade frequently, on some books they are completely USELESS.

Aren't you a troll? I didn't think Trolls collect comics.

Well, they would be better in my home

Thanks for that clarification.

Originally I thought that distributor spray was used to mark returns. Later on I learned that I Phil Seuling or maybe the other distributor company used distributor spray to mark what region of the country the books were going and that it speeded up the process. I seem to remember reading that certain colors marked what region of the country the books were going to. bob

Hmmm, Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

CGC id = Blazingbob, Ebay Id = Blazingbob

I was more impressed when you weren't in the photo. Now the illusion has been broken of what you look like

Well I hope he still stood up straight after he found out what you charged him for that piece of art.

I thought it was Mr. Fowlie

I think your wife survived much better than your comic collection.

Well, maybe someone should email Vincent zurzolo and ask how many Oakland Witching Hour 14's there were. In addition does everybody know that Michael Carbonaro also discovered the Oaklands? I know everybody has a field day on his web manners but he can occassionally turn up a killer collection or two. And for further trivia I was the other grader in the pool of three - Me, Vinny and Mike.

You are very welcome, I'd like to thank everyone that has ordered from the website since my relaunch and also the feedback provided. Some of the items mentioned have already been implemented. The Automatic want list notification feature has now been implemented so if you haven't already done so please register and enter what you are looking for.

I definitely like the Weird War Tales #25 also.

Horror tales Mags, I have some of these being graded and raw, great covers.