VintageComics

If it wasn't Purdue, it would be someone else. The problem isn't solely Purdue. The problem is the philosophy of Western Medicine which is allopathic, solved using manufactured, chemical based solutions that are damaging to the body....and worst of all, highly profitable. One of the most profitable industries in the world, but ALSO the MOST CORRUPT. THAT is the deadly combination. Big Pharma spends MORE MONEY ON LOBBYING AND ADVERTISING THAN ALMOST ANY OTHER INDUSTRY IN THE US. So how can the average person resist? They can't as can be seen by the graph below (everyone likes charts, right? No other country allows this. And it is a fact that the more money is involved the more corruption is involved. The problem is not one company. The problem is terrible ideology and philosophy in Western culture. Tell me, which part of this chart would you say is related to Purdue Pharma?

Virgos are absolutely the most annoying astrology sign.

I too believe that there are no shenanigans at Clink. Can't speak for others.

Ah, my apologies. I thought you used their FMV values. No, those are accurate from what I can tell.

2025. I am into the scene. One of my shows I connected to which is great will be canceled. A lot of these Marvel Disney plus shows which I am not involved with won't make it to the finish line. I don't know if anyone noticed this but in the year 2024 DC only has one movie on schedule Joker 2. This is the death knell for writers. Even if they make an agreement it's just postponing the inevitable. I had a conversation with my son and step son. They're both really men, way smarter than me and they BOTH agree that AI is going to upend everything eventually. And fast. There is ZERO incentive for studios to cave and the longer they wait the better it is for them. Incidentally, this sort of plays well into Disney's plans since they are waiting on contracts to expire before rebooting the X-men / FF franchises that they purchased for $97BIL. Once these contracts expire, are cancelled etc they will reboot these franchises any way they see fit. Folks, we are watching the changing of an era in real time with the advent of AI. It's implications can't be overstated. Before the end of this decade, life will be entirely different than anything we've known. Mark my words.

While I use Go Collect and find them valuable, I find their algorithms to be of sometimes and the values they insert don't make sense to me. A far better indicator would be calculating actual past sales via GPA.

Come on, dork. Where you sell isn't important. Who is doing the shill bidding for you is.

It's already happening. Large submitters have changed their submission strategies because CGC is inconsistent, slow, lots of QC problems, etc. I've changed how I submit and refuse to submit the MAJORITY of books I used to submit. Can't be bothered. The grades are all over the place. It takes more than 3 days sometimes just to open a package on a Walkthrough invoice. They used to be IN AND OUT in 24-48 hours. QC? Don't get me started. I've had books go back 3 times for the same things sometimes. I'm sure many others are doing the same.

You smart. Me dumb.

Some people like the most beautiful thing they can attain, some just want the thing no matter the shape, and some want a piece of a thing. Picassos and Ferraris are silly too, I guess. Or not. Guess it all depends on your perspective.

I don't know. You tend to gravitate towards blondes so I find your judgements suspect in general.

In order to test this theory I'm going ask them to put one on your forehead the next time I see you.

You can often tell when it's shill bidding if a book gets pumped early and has more bids than other books . Like I said, my books always sit with minimal bids and low prices compared to other equal books in the same actions. Price fixing. Mods notified.

Is there a SINGLE person on these forums that has been correct in their forecasts over the last 20 years? Not one that I can remember. Except for me.

How much more popular can the Guardians of the Galaxy get? Marvel Super-Heroes #18 was toilet paper to everyone growing up in the 70s and 80s. Then it became a $15-20K book a decade ago. Last night a copy went for $76K on Clink. I know. Clink sucks.

Bronze runs were dead in the water when I got back in the hobby until CGC 9.8s made them desirable. Then they bounced, then dropped around 2010 when the "correction" happened (yes, there was a large correction around 2009-2010) and now they are skyrocketing again. Remember when Dan Greenslaugh of Showcase New England came on here about 14 or 15 years ago and started sharing stories and he stated that Copper books were going to be the BA of the future and the BA was going to be the SA of the future and so on? He got mocked and laughed at and left the forums...because comic nerds are such reasonable people. Oh yeah, we ran off Neal Adams, Carl Barks and I can't even remember who else. Oh yeah. Me. --------------------------------------------------- Well, here we are and he was right. CA books in grade fetch what BA books fetched 20 years ago. Time to stop forecasting. The forecasting and speculation is what is driving the bubbles in comics and in every market, and more importantly, it is what is causing the price volatility as the Lemmings realize that some of the people in front of them fall off a cliff and then run in the opposing direction....until they see enough people running against their direction and then they switch back again. I think society has lost it's patience, it's ability to say no, it's ability to be objective and it's courage to stand it's ground on something they believe in. And so we have everyone fighting like mad dogs to not lose the same small piece of meat. In fact, I'll bet if you add all your wins and losses, the stress of worrying was NOT worth the $ you saved or made from that worrying. I've always operated differently. I'd much rather operate from a position of power, know what I want to do, make good decisions, stand by them and continue to make positive progress. Progress > Victory.

To my knowledge. nobody has done a REAL analysis between auction sites. Just bits and pieces, anecdotes and theories. If I had to bet, I'd say that for unique items it's impossible to say but for common items it doesn't really matter. The internet is so broad that most people use it to find what they want and you generally have similar people bidding on similar items. I'd say it's pretty much either a wash across the board or am almost negligible difference. The only addendum would be that a NEW auction house is probably going to not do as well because they don't have the client base.

I guess for some of those situations it's like paying a 10% or 19.5% fee for the chance to have your book sold at auction for a price your comfortable with. Why not just pay for a reserve price fee at that point. So I wonder how it worked out for the Bobby Blue sellers. Did they pay the auction house and then the auction house paid them back minus the commission? If someone has a book that is going to lose more than the auction fee it's not uncommon for people to buy their own books back. I've never done it but I do know it happens. It's a shame because a REAL free market is a beautiful thing. Once you manipulate the market it causes all sorts of problems including bubbles and much larger price fluctuations than if it was just a true, honest, free market.

People CONSTANTLY shill bid their friends' auctions. I've always found it an abhorrent practice. I think shill bidding is as common as sniping as far as I'm concerned. The most common practice is just to ask your friends to do it for you up to the number just below you think it will sell for and then there is NO WAY to prove it. I've posted this many times but I always have people "offering" to bid up my books for me. I never accept their offers. I always say, just bid what you are willing to pay...so my auctions sit with low numbers and low bid counts until the very end and then they do well anyway. Personally, I don't think shill bidding does anything to the final price most of the time. All it does is give the appearance that a book may have vervent bidding, but buyers aren't dumb for the most part and now that we're almost 3 decades into the internet age the information playing field has been levelled and most people know what stuff should go for. One thing that NOBODY talks about is that it's usually "very reputable people" doing it but you'd never know it. I know this for a fact. It's one of the those "don't ask, dont' tell" scenarios where everyone is a "good guy" until they're caught. And since nobody is getting caught, MANY do it regularly. But they're all "good people" so it's OK.

The new logos are terrible. It's almost like it was designed by school kids...and I made better graphic art in grade school. Kind of hard to believe a Billion $ company would put out something so amateurish. It looks more like something a $5000 company would put out.

We had an extensive discussion on this very topic years ago and we had several doctors chime in. They would push the meds hard. "What? You have pain? Here take lots." was basically the feedback we had from Dr's during the discussion. That they literally destroyed millions of lives - MILLIONS over greed is so scandalous it can't be understated. Can't wait to see this.

There's a saying that you're not wealthy until you make your 1st million, lose it and then make it again. You have to learn lose to become a championship level winner. They're building tension.

"All of human behavior is comprised of two things. Run from pain. Run toward pleasure. Pain, pleasure. If we place ourselves right there, between pain and pleasure we will never have to worry about money again." I heard it was great. Has anyone watched it?

This reminds me of something but I'm not quire sure what.

Is there a peer reviewed study that supports this? Also, in before the edit. No can do, your reality requires an observer! So you're saying I must inflict myself on myself and have no choice but others have a choice on whether they're afflicted by me?