VintageComics

My understanding has always been that the entire point of the declared value is for insurance purposes for both CGC and for the submitter should anything go wrong. How else would anyone determine the value of a missing item?

Never with you. 😉

I should have said short of finding the book. Obviously finding the book would have been best. You disagree? CGC could have told him he didn't ship the book and he was SOL. Would that have been better?

Well, (edited to say) short of finding the missing book, from my perspective this sounds like it's a win, win for everyone. Ghostzapper gets made whole, and everyone including he, CGC and the audience all learn valuable lessons. The lesson is more valuable than the comic, right? Hopefully they don't come down too hard on the employee who lost the book. Awesome stuff! 🤟

Thanks. I don't venture much into other forums anymore other than here and the Marketplace. I did not realize he'd done that. Great stuff. As I've mentioned before, I tend to think in terms of more comprehensive systems and I wish more people did. It would take a lot of volatility out of markets if they did. This graph is a terrific example of that thinking.

The discussion on this page confirms my assertion that AF #15 is THE BOOK to analyze as the canary in the coal mine (or at least one of the main canaries) for the Vintage market. I'd even team up with someone who is good at combining stats and illustrating them if they wanted to collaborate. Drop me a PM.

I picked up a raw AF #15 there once! Flew out from Toronto for it on St. Patrick's Day no less! What a pretty, pretty town.

I'd say at this point you have the best person on the job and I'd give @CGC Mike the benefit of the doubt and let him work. I think that feeding the rumor mill probably won't help your chances any so give it a bit of time and see what they come up with.

Honest question, why would they be harassed if they did nothing wrong? Privacy laws are meant to protect people from the lowest common denominator in society. Unfortunately, it used to be that in society the lowest common denominator was much higher than it seems to be today. Personally, I'd love to work on raising that lowest common denominator and make the world a better place for EVERYONE. But this is where we're at right now, and unfortunately I don't see a way of raising it anytime soon.

I don’t know if that’s the case or not. Only video can show the action of any employees and how they handled things. But It may have to come down to that. I tend to not believe theft but possible error on how it was separated and catalogued. Why should I or any submitter be at fault of their error. They make a very valid point about viewing the video as a non-employee. All sorts of privacy concerns. It's why Collector's Society have such strict limits on who is even allowed on the property. I've been there a few times. You basically just see one door and one room. That's it. They don't want people peering into the inner workings in much the same way TSA won't let you take pics once you're in a secure area. They don't want every detail being made public.

I'm not knocking their security. They may very well have. Blackstone is no dummy. The dude didn't become one of the wealthiest people in America being a dork. I would really be surprised if they didn't have more security than people realized. I've walked into restaurants for celebrities that hire their own private "militia" where every security guard (and there are several in one place) is 6.5 feet tall, 300+ lbs and are packing double heat, and I've been to some incredibly large auction houses that also have their own security to protect assets - we're talking the type of security that would protect a foreign national. I wouldn't even be surprised if at a certain level they're using near military level tech to protect their assets. People tend think kind of small unless they've been exposed to other realities. You can't cut it with just a motion sensor and a retired security guard over night anymore.

I'm betting it's more than just a few million books. More likely $100's of millions in books. Now talk to me about coins...and multiply by a factor of 100 for coins. Those are industries that handle BILLIONS in products each year. Millions of today are the $100,000's of 2019.

I had an buyer beat me down incessantly on a decent sized book and ask if he can do time payments. I said I'd do time with a 20% non-refundable deposit. He said he could only send 10% - I repeated that it was non-refundable. He agreed. He sent me the 10% and less than a day later asked for a refund because his wife wouldn't let him buy the book. I explained that the deposit was non-refundable (screw you, you wasted my entire day negotiating with me only to back out?) and because I sympathized I told him he could put the deposit toward a future purchase. He went on to talk smack about me and threatened to tell everyone how horrible I am. Never heard from them since which is fine by me. That is EXACTLY how it went down. You reward horrid behavior and they only come back to annoy you again. Every horrible human story has two sides, and I've got plenty just like that.

Wait. @Tbone911t Where in Canada are you? Daves in Montreal and I'm near Toronto!

Oh yeah. Rolls actually had a hydraulic system that was "designed to leak a little" They used aerospace technology to create an ultra high pressure pump that pumped 1000s of lbs of pressure and they put a pan under it to catch leaks. Wiping the pan down was a part of the service. I just can't get excited about American autos. They're just not what they used to be, although I can't really comment on the new C8 as I don't have any experience with it but I did comment that it looked cool when it came out and that moving the engine to the mid section was inevitable if they wanted to stay competitive. It's just physics. You can't have a heavy weight all the way at the front and still be competitive with a balanced, mid engine car. Yup. You know, you just brought up an INCREDIBLE point. Which comic would you have bought back in 2013 for $55K? And what would it be worth now? What would that 911t be worth now? Did that asset outstrip the AF #15 in 7.5 or fall behind?

A product of the majority of today's society.

This is called wisdom.

American cars give you a lot of power with their American muscle, but the chassis is not as refined to put that power down to the ground effectively because refinement and engineer cost lots of $ and that's not the target audience. People always complain about how expensive European cars are to buy, but there's a reason. You are paying for the engineering that makes it feel like a quality product and a lot of that engineering is a trickle down from racing. The English are famous for having great rides and handling (Colin Chapman from Lotus was considered a genius, as well as Jaguar and Rolls all had incredible handling and rides).

Disney delaying the FF and X-men franchises are MONSTER factors in the decline of anything related to those two titles. They were heavily speculated on before Disney bought FF and X-men from Fox for $97 Billion and now with the pandemic and the SAG-AFTRA strike delaying progress as well as Disney waiting for contracts to expire, I believe this collection of things is what is causing the #1 problem for demand. Just imagine a Surfer story line is released through film? That book goes right back to where it was at it's peak.

Dave calls me on the phone every time he takes one of these home from the shop.

You should also tell the story about the OO date stamp history, as well as the little stamp that was on some of your books. Cool stories!

You are such a great diagnostic technician!

A good solution is make sure they are somehow bound together and not dropped into a box separately.

To CGC's credit, I've on occasion sent an EXTRA book that wasn't invoiced and they've caught it. But in your case, I'm wondering how they were packaged? Where they all packaged in one stack? That's how I usually send all my books - even if they are all different sizes, I manage to wrap them safely together so that they have to go through EVERY BOOK before the package is disposed. I've long avoided dropping separate packages into a box for this specific reason.

Edited my post above.