jaxcomics

Black Flag's Instagram page is still up for me, at least on desktop. All mention of the UF4 variant however is completely gone. 

On 8/9/2022 at 11:10 PM, Axelrod said:

I mean, Black Flag wouldn't even be in the wrong here, assuming they had an assurance from CGC (which, let's be real, is the only way they make this book.  You don't do something like that just hoping it's going to get a Blue Label).  You're saying essentially "well, CGC can do whatever they want and Black Flag is too small to do anything about it.  And if Black Flag tries to complain, well, CGC can just crush them like a bug." 

Which, eh.  Doesn't seem likely to me.  

 I believe that either CGC is going to die on this hill and remain firm in their position, or they're going to reverse course, refund Black Flag for grading, and remove the books from the census. I would be absolutely floored if there's any kind of agreement in place that would make CGC culpable for "lost potential profits" on the part of Black Flag. This whole thing may be a big deal to Black Flag, but the amount of books graded (and any future business from Black Flag)  is a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket compared to CGCs overall volume. That said...I'll concede that no one knows what kind of deal may have been hammered out. But I believe that Black Flag is far, far from the driver's seat in this, no matter what happens. 

On 8/9/2022 at 10:44 PM, Axelrod said:

Legal angle that may not have been brought up yet, for all the people saying why can't CGC just own up to a mistake and unlist these, and maybe refund Black Flag the grading fees, etc.  

There is approximately a 0% chance that Black Flag commissioned this variant without getting an assurance from CGC ahead of time that it would get a Blue Label.  I'm not suggesting grade-buying or specific guarantees of any particular grades like some are also speculating, just, Blue Labels.  Were CGC to back out now and say, "sorry, actually we won't count these as Blue Labels anymore even though we told you we would," they would then be liable to Black Flag.  They'd have to pony up, not just the cost Black Flag paid for the commissioning and the grading, but for Black Flagg's lost profits too (and, as we have seen, these things are selling).   CGC is not going to go that much in the hole on this.  They just won't.   

I doubt it. Let's leave out the fact that CGC has a multi-billion dollar company and its legal team behind it, and let's actually assume that there was some sort of tangible agreement upfront, and let's assume that it could actually be enforced... there's still the fact that any kind of threats or "demand" to CGC to make them whole in the situation would - even if they get paid - likely result in them being banned from using CGCs services at all in the future. Pretty sure that in itself would be a death sentence for Black Flag...if this entire situation doesn't do it for them.

On 8/1/2022 at 2:04 PM, Bo1983 said:

The fact the 9.6 Avengers 8 is going more then Hulk  181 by 12000 is interesting!So volume come into play plus 181 not a real first appearance!😁

Both are books that are obviously in demand; Avengers 8 is particularly hot right now obviously. Anyway if you were in the market for a 9.6 of either right now, you will be buying from a pool of 344 total census books for Hulk 181, or a pool of 15 on the census for the Avengers 8. That's the "supply" side of the equation and is just as important as demand. When either supply (there are very few copies of a 9.6 available) or demand (FOMO leading to people seeking high grade Kang book because of the movies) is way out of whack, you'll see extremes (as you noted) that may defy the rest of the market. You're also comparing 172 sales to 5 sales, so I'm not sure you could get much valid data to use in a comparison anyway.

On 7/25/2022 at 12:29 PM, KirbyTown said:

Curious why you chose to sell on that site instead of consigning with MCS? You wouldn't have to deal with any of this buyer nonsense.

I love MCS and regularly encourage people to use them, but no service is perfect in avoiding late paying/bad buyers. I'm still waiting on several payments from their Prime Auction. Obviously MCS gives 15 days and that's fine, but after a week I always consider it a toss-up as to whether the buyers will come through or not. 

On 6/24/2022 at 9:37 PM, dikran1 said:

Well Economy tier (pre 1975) just restarted grading and shipping, so if anything the glut of slabs will be in that age range. Modern slabs have been shipping quite regularly in the 2 month range for a while. 

That's because those modern books are easy/fast to grade and are an absolute cash cow, so it's very much in the interest of the grading companies to keep that line moving as quickly as possible. People submitting 25+ copies of every variant cover imaginable on a daily basis are the real "glut", and that's a pyramid that's going to eventually topple over. How many copies of bronze/silver/gold books get encased in plastic doesn't change the overall number of those books; natural attrition (floods/fires/angry ex-wives) lowers that amount every year. The actual amount of people who will continue to collect vintage titles over the coming years and decades is something no one knows for sure - and something that's sure to wax and wane like everything else - but it seems likely that there's going to be about as much demand for 12 different variants of the #1 issue of some current random title as there is for the Adventurers #1 "Skeleton Cover" that American Comics suckered me into paying $50 for back in 1986, shiny plastic casing or no. Maybe even less. 

On 6/19/2022 at 3:39 AM, Upgrayedd2 said:

Greetings Forum Members.

I need help determining if an eBay seller is genuine. I hope I am wrong and prepared to make amends via an apology to the individual who owns/runs the account. The seller is atticcomicz in the UK. They are currently selling some hot comics. Here are some things that are raising a red flag:

(1) All comics are rated VF+ of VF

(2) Repeated use of the terms "mark on rear", "no problems", "no real problems", and "main problem stress marks" under description details.

(3) Photos of the comics are a mixed bag of cover only, cropped so you cannot see all of the edges, or front and back cover for relatively modern comics.

(4) Out of over 100 sold transactions, they did not sell a single comic book for over $2.50, most sales were under $1.00. Current comics listed for sale range in price from $18 to $377.

(5) Some of the comics they have listed are screen grabs. Not going to point out which ones in case they are trying to scam. Any comic book fan will pick one of them out very quickly.

(6) "10 Day despatch time due to work committments"

 

Obviously the pictures are poor and the grading lazy/non-existent (one buyer referenced the grading being off). While they've been selling on Ebay for around 8 years and have positive feedback over that period, I completely agree that it's always odd when any seller suddenly goes from selling $1 books to listing nothing but keys. I suppose that they may very well just be unloading their collection at this point (for whatever reason) and continuing their pattern of being lazy on photos, but I would definitely insist on multiple scans/photos of an individual book from them before I even considered bidding. If it smells rotten, it often is. 

On 6/17/2022 at 2:17 PM, KirbyTown said:

I didn't mean to make a separate post on this, but regarding quick adjustment to market are you considering a way to more quickly update minimum consignment grades in the future? I understand that we can submit individual requests using comps, but seeking out those copypaste links for each book that hasn't yet been updated can be a slog.

Also, with raw consignment submissions, is there any reason the approvers would reject a book that already meets the minimum? I'm asking because the new system for auto-submitting slabs is brilliant and means I can put out a shipment to you same-day, but on raws I still have to wait for next morning's approval even when I do meet grade. I'm sure you have a good reason for this but I'm just mentioning it. Thanks

I would imagine that they run into inexperienced consignors who think that all of their books are 9.2, when in reality none of them are. Being able to manually look at each submission would help to identify this and avoid potentially upset consignors who realize after their books are graded by MCS that many of the books aren't eligible for consignment in their actual grade. There's also the possibility of individuals wanting to consign huge amounts of a single book - more than MCS would probably want to take on unless it was a valuable key - and a manual review allows them to read any notes included by the potential consignor before finalizing things. 

I'm sorry, did he just recommend investing in the Mona Lisa? 

On 6/4/2022 at 3:18 PM, Ryan. said:

That's usually the case. 

Yeah, I've never had to wait long for it to be listed as received, at least not in a couple of years. Hopefully yours just got stuck in a pile or something.

On 6/4/2022 at 6:56 AM, Ryan. said:

I have ten consignments that have been in setup since May 11th. 

I also have a recent mail submission that was delivered on May 27th but is still showing as Not Yet Received.  Looks like things have slowed down a bit on the intake and processing side of things.

That's weird; I had 2 delivered to them yesterday morning and listed as received just a few hours later 

On 5/17/2022 at 7:36 PM, mycomicshop said:

Appreciate it, but I'm willing to acknowledge some fair constructive criticism. Our site is better than Mile High's, but our last major design update was 2010 and our current site design isn't mobile friendly. I'd love for us to get an updated mobile-friendly design out there, and we will get to it at some point, but so far it just hasn't moved to the front of our priority list compared to other things we could be working on. Our site design is from 2010, but in lots of other areas we've grown and improved tremendously since 2010.

I think I've just gotten used to using it over the years, and have a certain level of comfort with the design. I gave up trying to use Mile High's with any type of efficiency long ago. Your site has still come quite a way from the days of your buying at that moment being color-coded by the age of the comics and all of that. The new function to see comparable books on Ebay is great also.

On 5/17/2022 at 7:18 PM, X4J3 said:

he's a CBCS troll.

Yes, you certainly are...a freshly banned one at that.

2 hours ago, davidpg said:

Give him the refund, block him from buying and submit him for the Blocked eBay Bidder thread.

I think the buyer is asking for a bit much on the amount of the refund, but we all know that he's going to win in the end; so I'd personally refund the half and block him. However, he appears to have been telling the truth about the water damage and since that makes it not as described, is within his rights to ask for a refund. While I would personally choose not to do business with him, I don't think he's done anything to warrant being put on a list filled with scammers and deadbeats.

13 hours ago, exitmusicblue said:

And, where it really gets funs is.. there are entire virtual worlds already made, others to come. The Wired article "Mirrorworld," written by the mag's founder, is a nice summary of what's ahead.  Virtual cities full of stores, games, stadiums, art galleries, conference rooms, hangouts, "homes," what have you, where AI and VR and AR and blockchain verticals and components will feature their respective use cases.  In such worlds, only the true owner of any "non-fungible token" (NFT) -- whether it be a work of art, or a game token, etc. can make use of the NFT.  So if someone just rights-clicks and saves a lower-quality version of NFT art, they don't and won't have access to it in the virtual world.

This is intriguing, but I'm always leery of tangible goods in virtual worlds. The game Entropia, owned by Mindark, was once the playground of a lot of well-heeled players who wanted to "invest" in virtual property. A player once purchased $2.5 million in "land deeds" in one shot, and another sold a space station for $300k+. Nowadays the game is largely a collection of sparsely populated planets, each containing large shopping malls and housing complexes...again, largely full of merchandise, but not customers. While not blockchain based, MindArk has always considered the objects in game to be the property of players (or companies, in some cases) that owned them, and allows players to cash out to their bank accounts whenever they choose (for a fee). But in order to cash out, you have to be able to sell your virtual items for Entropian dollars, which requires human customers. And as with most things...interest has simply waned over time, and the stores are full of unsold weapons, armor, and home furnishings; even custom paintings/drawings. Is there something in place in these new "worlds" to prevent the same thing happening? I understand that they are blockchain based, but you still run into the same problem of supply/demand; if interest wanes, or the next big thing comes along and draws away all of the inhabitants/customers, you can't sell what no one wants. 

I won't use USPS right now to send anything of value. While I haven't had anything lost - yet - I've endured some abysmally long delays also, and have two Ebay packages headed to me that are each a week+ late.

I know that people like to slam FedEx, here and elsewhere, but right now they seem to be the way to go. I sent a long box by GROUND on Friday afternoon from my location in Georgia to Lone Star, and it was within an hour or so of Arlington by yesterday evening. It likely wouldn't have left the post office yet if I'd gone with USPS (and it was only $27 to ship to boot, for a 29 pound partially-full long box). 

33 minutes ago, Galan of Taa said:

LOL, My first ebay comic sale and after 3 days I get this..

"Hello! I just realized this was in my purchase history.My wife placed the bid not realizing i already have this book.I apologize for not knowing this earlier.I would like to ask if i may cancel purchasing this book,since i already have that particular issue.I am so sorry for the mix up and i hope this won't cause any inconvenience in cancelling my purchase.Thank you so much for your understanding.Have a GREAT day"

Im pretty new here so I dont know if you this qualifies as a block candidate but this is them.  klynsdad 

Definitely buyer remorse; Ebay sends plenty of notifications when you win something, and his wife isn't going to "Buy a book for him" and not mention it for 3 days. Buyers like this are what the block list is for. 

That's either a miswrap or shrinkage from pressing; it isn't trimmed.

Also, that bindery defect is allowed at a 9.6 and wouldn't count across the grade. There are a zillion Spiderman 300's with similar ones. 

Top right...maybe shaken comic syndrome.