Darthdiesel

Not sure if he's a forumite, but You're my boy, BLUE, you're my boy...

Kudos to recent deals with forumites (just checking up on paypal records and going back): Awesome dealings with everyone here. I have not had ONE bad deal with these guys ever. And had multiple transactions with many. Thanks again! acgi_comics/cosmic bob BigMan Blazingbob Bob Bonds25 BronzeBruce13 Buena_vista Chrisco37 Chromium ( a repeat Darth junkie! ) Cicamen comicwiz dam60 Deathlok Delekkerste dolphinsrwj Dr_Neff dvdskelton dvdskelton el_Brujo FlyingDonut Frank Queripal (forgot forum name) Gman Greggy Havok Hobbes horkorp@alaska.net (forgot forum name?) Ideal88 jauito Joanna king-comics Lantern MikeS Murph0 mushroom OldGuy procrustean Realitytrip Rob_react Rubicon Scoobybrande (forum name?) scottish Smokinghawk Spartacus Speedjunkies spider9698 Spidermanbeyond Supapimp Susanville43 The_Beyonder C_A_N Ubiquiti araich Bob = hedgehog60 ChristopherH hogations jens25e JLA_all_the_way Jonnydouble lighthouse Odin88 Scottish Snizzenfixit The_Man_Of_Steel tkg2627 wolvergeek More to be edited in, if I forget you, I apologize, but I'll get you in there - just let me know. Some guys I've dealt with on eBay, I don't know their forum name

Ditto! Thanks for the good word, Bruce! To more smooth deals in the future!

True - these reprints have different covers = more Jim Lee artwork so fans go nuts to own it. THe 612 reprint is a sketch cover so it is riding the hype of the DF sketch cover success that they did with Marvel comics(remember Ultimate X-men 1 DF sketch with wovies claws tearing up the page?)

good point...how do you know that collectors nowadays aren't taking the same precautions or better care than church or the curator copies in regards to the preservation of their comics

BB - you are singlehandedly bringing down the hobby as we know it and highly accelerating the CGC market "adjustment" with your irresponsible use of "resubmissions". Now go think about that while you manicure your shrubbery...

The resubmission rate itself as it stands is not a huge factor in maintaining CGC's "mission"; it is the value and condition of the books that are being resubmitted that bring questions of impropriety into play. Honestly, I'm not going to send in an Origin 1 CGC 9.9 just because I think it looks EXACTLY like my CGC 10.0 - no matter how resolutely I feel about my grading opinion being correct. Exactly what I was alluding to above. It may be an unrealistic expectation, but this is the case due to the different values placed on books, driving folks to seek the higher grade whether it is because it is just for higher dollar potential or just to be right. My main problem with this is that CGC has deemed this resubmission 9.6 a lower grade at one point, if you sell this to me without letting me know that it used to be a 9.4, I would probably have qualms that I paid you more that I would have knowing that it was a 9.4 prior to resubmission. There is too much that can happen with resubmissions, but the question of whether there was some alteration or "friendly deal" to earn that higher grade on the resubmission will always be in the back of my mind. If you don't tell me, ignorance is bliss, but this would totally discount the idea of full disclosure. A misrepresented raw high grade will sell for more than an accurately graded mid or low grade any day...everyone loves that gamble - you see it on eBay every day - folks plopping down mega multiples of NM OS guide on an ASM 129 raw that some joker with 2 rating feedback with a blurry picture is calling NM/MT - all because folk think they'll get a bargain on the next CGC 9.8 ASM 129...HA! You are absolutely right...it's a gamble and the evaluation of your business savvy is based on the outcome of the deal. I get your point. Technically all resubmission is in the hopes of a higher grade, so there is "potential improvement" built into every resubmission. I just lump it all together, while you make the distinction where undetectable restoration is concerned. Bruce - in the end of your scenario above, did you resell the book? Eventually it all boils down to the $$$cha-ching$$$ It may have started out with you wanting validation that your grading was on par with or better than CGC's, but in the end, once you sell it off as part of your lower grade books when you upgrade, if you don't tell the person you sell it to, that the 9.4 181 used to be a 9.2, it may bother the collector who plans on holding onto it for a while, more than to a flipper who sells it when the next movie hype peak hits. I'm not saying there was anything wrong with what you intended: validation from a recognized authority builds confidence in your own capabilities. But to me, a $15 - $110 fee is way too much to pay for a "second opinion" When the book comes back at a higher grade, don't you feel cheated by CGC? Why didn't they grade it that higher grade in the first place? You had to pay 2x to get the same grade you thought it was from the start? Aren't CGC experts? Did they undercook it the first time, knowing I'm the type of person who would resubmit? Why do I have to bear the consequence (double payment) of their graders not getting it right the first time? If I was a big time submitter, would they have made extra sure that they graded it accurately first time around? All these questions would pop in my head before I "resubmitted" and at the end of the day, I'll always decide that it's just not worth it.... but that's just me. Well that's true...when all is said and done in this business, all morals - OUT THE WINDOW! So don't expect my scenario to ever happen. I can tell you that if I won't resubmit because I think paying twice to get the right grade is ridiculous, you can bet I won't be resubmitting to get the book downgraded to be fair to the buyer The backlash is primarily due to buying into the conspiracy that it is Heritage employees winning auctions in the end and not just loyal consignors/customers of Heritage doing the same thing that we forumites do on eBay on a daily basis: searching for undercooked items to flip for higher profit with a higher grade on the label.

Hey Rob, I think maybe you're overstating the point (level of the problem) a little and expecting too much from the CGC service. You certainly make good points about how the service was intended to reduce problems between sellers and buyers, but I feel it still does for the most part. I think many serious CGC buyers and sellers have just evolved through the benefit of experience. We've simply learned some of the nuances of the CGC game after handling, scrutinizing, owning, buying and selling hundreds of slabs. And... yes, I agree, some newer problems (as you mentioned) have arisen, but I don't see them as being overly problematic. To me, some of what you're describing is beyond CGC's control. In the beginning of the CGC craze, the majority, including myself, we're more apt to buy just by the label a little too much... without relying on our own grading and eye appeal preferences... this made life very easy for the sellers in particular. I feel, it was inevitable that we would become more selective as we experienced that CGC grading was not an exact science. As such, additional posturing between the buyer and seller was bound to occur even if we did not see it back a ways. The whole "undergraded", "overgraded", "eye appeal", "page quality", "supply & demand", "hype influence", etc. considerations have now become more prevalent in private sales discussions or in the minds of smarter online buyers considering an item at auction. I feel it's just evolution, not something that CGC could control. Even if somehow CGC's grading was met with even more overall approval/agreement, I feel the these same arguments would still have developed... its part of the game. I don't mean to imply that its all a game, its not. As stated, many of us have just learned the nuances of the CGC market and try to increase our rate of satisfaction with our purchases. Even with this evolution, and new considerations, the CGC buying and selling experience has not declined for me... it just changed a bit. Maybe for you it has, as you are a busy professional and the extra time needed on the details could be a nuisance for you... I can see that. By now, many of us have seen enough slabs to know there is some variation in the grades and that we may have to look at 2 or more before we find a book that is not only accurately graded "in our minds" (to our differing standards), but also meets our own personal "eye appeal" tastes. Sometime, we get books we feel got the nudge over the fence and we may try again. Other times we get a harshly graded book and we are very happy. Those "harshly graded" examples IMO... are the books that I sometimes consider for a resubmit... because I feel they are comparable to others that are a grade higher and may deserve it. I've only resubbed 3 books so far, so that tells you how often I feel very strongly about a book being more than a possible .2 off. Since other undergraded books (or strong examples) are keepers for me, I don't need to reslab them...for now. Maybe if I do upgrade and will sell the undercopy, then I may consider it for the higher payday IF I believe its really deserving of the next grade up. Other times I let it ride, knowing thr buyer will be thrilled with the book. I'm not sure about your personal rate of agreement with the CGC grade, but I'm pretty happy with it most of the time, all things considered. I think for a difficult task like grading comics, they are doing a very good job. Considering they have to grade on the spot and move on to another book all day, that makes it more impressive to me. I know sometimes I can stare at a book (mostly the "on the fence" examples) for a loooong while, and over the course of several days, a few more times, and still not feel strongly that the book really belongs one way or another by .2... and I'm very confident in my grading over 8.5. IMHO, some books are just "riding the line closer than others" between one grade or another and those are the tougher books where we'll see more disagreement and potential for a different grade on resubmit. How many times have you looked at a book and said "between a 9.2 and 9.4" or "9.4/9,6" ,etc.... well they have to make a hard decision... and that's NOT easy. If you ever get a chance, grade a stack of 20 HG books, record the grade.. put them out a sight for 6 months, come back and grade them again... the ones on the fence may change. This experiment may not work though if you have an incredible memory btw.. i should have scans Sunday some time, I've been promised. Actually I thought Rob was right on with his comments. The whole resubmitting thing does undermine what CGc set out to establish in the first place. It was for, IMO, a third party grading opinion, which was to be universally accepted by both buyer and seller. Resubmitting, as I see it, just takes that opinion you paid for an throws it out the window based on your own grading. Might as well have saved yourself the money and sold it raw in the first place. The only positive thing that can be said for resubmitting is the potential higher profit to be had in selling a resub with a notch-higher grade. This phenomena CGC has had no direct influence on and can be blamed on the pure capitalistic basis of the comic market. All sellers are out to make a buck, as much profit as they can so, on big money books, the potential gain outweighs the risks in resubbing a book. Honestly would anyone selling a book initially graded 9.8, notices that the looseness of the book in the well has caused sliding (blunting) damage to 2 corners and an edge, resubmit the book to get the label grade to match the now 9.2 in the case? I think not... Resubmitting is part of the game. If you can somehow clean and press your book in a way that CGC will bless it with a blue label and move the grade up from an 8.5 up to a 9.2 then more power to you. Everyone complains about Heritage doing it. What's the difference between that and a small time seller/dealer having a good eye for undergraded books posted on eBay and buying them to "fix up" (not inferring blatant resto here, maybe some pressing and removal of early spinal roll) and get reslabbed for a notch higher grade? There is none...before condemning Heritage for this practice, some folks should take a long hard look in the mirror...

Uh...huhhuh...huh

Lascivious ho-cake!

I never judged you. If you had told me in the first place that it slipped your mind, minus the personal shots about, "growing up", "being a man" and not "giving a f* about etiquette", I would have just let it go. You called down the thunder and I thought that, newbie or not, this forum was the place to air out beef with dealers, any dealer, new or established in the comic community. Thanks anyway for the Star Wars novels offer - but I have them all includng the new Jedi Order stuff. I'm out of this one... You just opened the can of whoop-arse on your own here... Stay excited about comics, but work on your business ethics and salesmanship some more if you want to continue selling comics successfully. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of Hell's Kitchen" - Daredevil After reading some of the greggy-khaos-bug-lighthouse group gropes about who gets to snowball who, we all vomit and curl up in a fetal position That's just a normal reflex... It has nothing to do with Newbies - all newbies are welcome. As for making you look like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person...sorry to say, but you seem to have done a bang up job of that yourself in this post and your ad hominem attcks emailed to my yahoo account. Money is not the issue here, davidking getting the books is not the issue either. It's all about keeping your word. If only davidking would back up your statement about him sending the money earlier than I did on 6/15/03, there would be no doubt to this story about "the deal slipping your mind" - otherwise, this thread has about as much relevance as lighthouse's ramblings of Diamond dealers belonging to an offshoot of the Rosicrucian brotherhood and how hte all worship the Goth Princess. Nice statement. No need to judge you now. You're winning everyone over with your adamant support of collecting SilverAge high grade here... nice job next on your must read list

More than aware of that, but I thought we were talking about protecting your reputation as a seller. So if he leaves a retaliatory neg, you may respond with a comment. If he leaves you a positive then it's a moot point. You can still respond to it if you feel the need to. As for informing the public, you've done your part either by word of mouth, sharing your experience on these forums, or leaving it in a comment in your own profile. If the guy pays on time, you should leave the positive feedback,because whose to say that since your personalities didn't mesh,other sellers who are more tolerant or coming from sililar vantage points may not have better success with this "problem buyer". You'd be doing the sellers a huge disservice by cutting off this potential revenue stream based on your failure to satisfy this particular prompt paying buyer. To me, on eBay, it's all about repeat deals and the money. But I have yet to see a prompt paying buyer who is such a huge pain that I feel the need to neg him. So what if they ask you to jump thru hoops to send an item. Do what you can and when that doesn't satisfy, then in your own conscience, you know you've done all you can. Let it go...no biggie...a neg is a neg. You can't please everyone. I have 3 negs - all retaliatory but even if that fact wasn't known, I have dealt with enough folks on and off eBay that I could actually give a darn if they return feedback or not. I'm not trying to be cardman or that other seller with over 400000 positive feedback rating, yet he's got more negatives than I have positives?

Isn't that the Witch on Voltron with the cat and always making up Robeasts? Pin it always on the other woman...although from another vantage point she was doing Sarah a favor? Such a foreboding statement when taken in context with current events in the Middle East. Prophetic even ...My one memorable publication was a 2 page layout in the high school newspaper advocating my stance on premarital sex.

I think that there is definitely more than one way to skin a dead cat ( and cook it). Sellers all do it differently, so whatever works, works. Maybe not disclosing your feedback policy would be the smart thing to do as it would offend others that subscribe to a different feedback philosophy. Nut going back to the original post, there should be no "putting of the buyer in his place" since the poster put his policy out there for everyone to pick apart.

Isn't this true of the seller as well? Yes it's true of the seller - leave it in the followup if you have already left a glowing positive feedback about their payment. But actually though I try to leave feedback once they have paid, it doesn't happen and people don't complain at all, so min my experience this is a moot point. WE, buyer and seller, both leave feedback when convenient. When I deal with trusted repeat customers or forum members I know, I leave positive feedback ASAP. On newbies, I just wait until they pay, and most of the time it even gets delayed to leaving it for them when I actually ship the item ( a day later in most cases). If a buyer pays you on time, and you ship the package with Del Conf and Insurance, and the post office runs over the box with a truck... And your buyer starts emailing you expletives over the fact that the box has shown up ruined and it's all your fault. And you tell him that's insured and the Post Office will provide a refund. And he tells you he doesn't care about the refund, you're the biggest [!@#%^&^] in the world and he's gonna tell everyone he meets that you planned the whole thing just to screw him and sends you 10 emails a day for the next week complaining about it... Then people would know about my feelings for him in my response to his negative feedback left for me. But he paid on time so the positive would probably be up there Are you honestly telling me that as a seller, you think you should leave this guy positive feedback because he paid on time? This seller does, brother. I can agree to disagree. I'm here for repeat business and customer service even if I go out of my way a bit now and then. I think it's karmic as well. I do this guy a solid now, it'll be returned down the road and it has already been a few times, in my view... Isn't the seller "obligated to the rest of the ebay community to express his honest opinion about the buyer and share that publicly with the rest of the eBay community?" I do so on these forums and in follow up comments. The reason I get heated over this so much is, your logical, and mild mannered thoughtful response makes sense and would sway me from my stance. While the initial post was definitely more inflammatory and in my opinion a full fledge ebay seller terrorist, who would hold feedback hostage...there is not need for that attitude at all.

I don't think it makes sense for a seller to leave feedback until the transaction is complete. So as soon as I hear from you that you got the book and it's looks great, then it's time for me to leave feedback. Before that, I can't really comment on the transaction, because it's not over yet... We may still spend six weeks sending books and cash back and forth until the transaction is completed... But then I don't believe in retaliatory negatives either... I have only had two transactions where we both left negatives for the other party. If I've been a crappy seller and the buyer has been great I have no problem with me getting a neg and them getting a positive... The idea of waiting to leave feedback so you can retaliate is asinine to me... And between my various id's I have left 5700 feedback comments, and received just 3300 in return... so there are a lot of people out there who just don't leave feedback at all... I think we disagree on the basic premise here. feedback is for payment IMO and anything else about the buyer can be added to the public record using response to feedback or post feedback comments immediately under initial feedback.

What are you smokin? Oh yeah..up in Oregon...right...just leave me my feedbacl already once you detach yourself from your fruit flavored hookah...

The buyer in my opinion is absolutely right. I just wouldn't have put it that way, nor would I really have bothered since this doesn't bug me anymore. You the seller should leave positive feedback once the buyer pays you and the money is in your hands. That is all he is obligated to do by bidding on your auction - just pay for it in a timely manner. He should not have his feedback held hostage or be potentially placed in that predicament based on the outcome of your service. If you are a bad packer or an overgrader or a shipping profiteer, you deserve to get hit with a negative right off the bat, whether or not you try to make amends for it or work it out that way with the buyer. The buyer is obligated to the rest of the ebay community to express his honest opinon about the seller and share that publicly with the rest of the eBay community. No point in being wishy washy on this topic. How should i respond? should I put him in his place? He's a fairly new ebayer...or does my policy stink? You should respond with "Yes my poilicy does stink. I don't know what I was smoking when I wrote it." Actually, you can maintain whatever policy you want however, there is no need to state it openly in your descriotions as it just adds to the possible things that you allow buyers to complain about you. Less is more...certainly in this instance.

Nice Frazetta! More Frazetta

More like Fraggle C*[!@#%^&^]!

This is Vaughn Bode !

In no particular order: Michael Turner J. Scott Campbell Todd MacFarlane Adam Hughes Alex Ross Starting to appreciate thanks to this board: Neal Adams Steranko Matt Baker Schomburg

Rui - always snipe the things you want. Bringing it on here will only drive prices up

It made me feel better when I came to these boards and found out that you were actually a nice guy and a very knowledgeable collector instead of just some goon with money buying books that he knew nothing about because cgc was the "in" thing. Unlike...greggy?

I'm still hoping someone can shed some light on the comic backerboard issue I raised... Just my input and maybe mr. highgrade can back me up on this. As late as 1989, my local store in Queens, NY did not use backerboards and charged a nickel a bag and 10 cents per board...talk about nickel and diming things. All their issues for people to thumb through had NO boards...even the precious SIlver Age commons...