Tnexus

On 6/7/2024 at 5:37 AM, joeypost said:

We know it will never happen, but it would be nice to see the link between 10/9.9 books and who submitted them. I imagine a pattern would emerge. 

Rumor has it the submitter is named Benjamin Franklin.

He's definitely scum, but it's not worth the hate. That being said, perhaps letting all his relatives and friends know via social media what he did may help satiate the frustration?

Spouse's name perhaps?

On 6/1/2024 at 4:03 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Idk

It started off vibrant but then got a little bland. It was decent though. Nothing really to write home about I guess, missing panache, pizzazz or other, but it had its decent moments, if even they were bloody shockers.

Which makes this absolutely NO REASON to see this in imax, but it had its moments I guess.

Saw it yesterday. I agree it has its moments, but didn't really hit the mark for me. It felt a lot more CGI than Fury Road which bummed me out a bit. I think what also annoyed me is there's two major moments that happen in the movie that they just gloss over and say. "Oh yeah, that happened. Anyway..." There wasn't any standout moment for me either like the last one.

This may be a dumb question at this point, but did they officially announce a grading change? I remember reading about 9.9 prescreens but I couldn't find anything official about it.

I hope so, that's how I store mine.

Perfect time to post one of my long sought grails I finally acquired.

Reddit sleuths figured it out! Carlos D'Anda.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFmfI7bR_bd/

On 5/18/2024 at 9:33 PM, littledoom said:

Who is the cover artist?

That's a good question. I haven't been able to figure that out, and I also didn't see it mentioned inside the program. No artist mark on the cover that I can see either. I'll check more in depth tomorrow.

Took a better look tonight. One fullsize pic is with flash, the other isn't. On the Tomb Raider piece, it does feel more organic(?) and I was starting to believe it's legitimacy. The Zatanna piece though, I noticed some red flags. The wireframe pencil is clearly on top of the black as it's especially noticable on the bottom middle. You can also see it on her head. The gray tones also just look off to me, they look printed, but I'm not entirely sure.

Then I also realized that a lot of the pencil wireframe is mostly on the inside of the bodies. Like you'd think I'd see pencil outlining Zatannas head on the right side, but it's not there, and it's definitely not erased or hidden by ink.

The last observation is the eyes. Looking back at other sales, the eyes vary a lot. I feel like eye styles are a pretty consistent artist trademark.

There's a lot of spec in that series, one of my personal all time favorites. I think the sentiment goes for a lot of other people. I have some 9.8s from that series I think. Shoot me a PM which you're after if you pursue it.

On 5/14/2024 at 9:56 AM, PixelPusher said:

I'm glad to see this ebay seller called out because it is definitely fishy. I think collectors should know the process behind the art so they can make an informed decision. I'm guessing they are lightboxing or projecting the results from Midjourney prompts. I imagine they ink first, go back in with pencil "construction" lines and then add embellishments like white out. The end result looks handmade but is essentially traced from AI image generators.

@Tnexus Are you able to share high res scans of the pieces you received? I'd love to inspect the details.

I can take some photos tonight.

On 5/13/2024 at 12:38 PM, newshane said:

So, you're impatient and trying to pass responsibility from yourself to someone else. Generation Z or a young millennial would be my guess...

 

You uhh may wanna check OP's username.

On 5/11/2024 at 9:47 PM, grendel013 said:

 

TL;DR

Dude spent 9 minutes to say, CGC took care of him, but I can't give any details.

I frequently check the latest eBay comic art listings for any hidden gems that pop up. I also find it's a good spot to find some unknown artists for cheap. Two months ago I picked up a few pieces from an unknown seller named KeyskeKara on the cheap because the art was solid. They had a decently number of pieces and claimed they were unloading some backlogs of their work. At first I didn't think much of it, but over the past two months, they posted probably close to a 800 OA items on their eBay account. (You can see the past listings here.) And the more you look at the pieces, the more you notice small choices that seem weird. Like costumes aren't quite right, or weapons that don't fit the character. For instance there's a Spider-Gwen with a gun.

So I'm curious on opinions here. I finally took a closer look at the pieces I bought, but I don't have a magnifying glass to really look in depth. There is for sure some ink, some paint, and some pencil on each piece, but it seems like more of a remark. I don't really feel indents on the page around the character borders, but as I'm a casual collector, I'm not too sure. I'm not denying this could be a real artist, but I'm wondering, could someone train an AI on their art to pump it out, then just add some minor remarks? Also to this artist's credit, it seems like I'm seeing more color in the more recent postings which I would think would be harder to fake. I just can't imagine anyone drawing this many works and selling them for this cheap.

On 5/7/2024 at 10:08 AM, Sigur Ros said:

Pretty much exactly what I expected. Not bad, I like it.

On 5/5/2024 at 9:17 PM, Nschenks said:

Unfortunately it was a private listing, so I can’t check bid info or know how many times someone bid. But the time was the exact same, so figured it was likely a snipe (most big items end with sniped bids).

Guess we had the same math lol. Always funny when that happens. Appreciate the feedback though!

What's the GPA on it? Was your bid around the average?

On 5/6/2024 at 10:16 AM, newshane said:

Unfortunately. 

I firmly believe they are trained to move as slowly as possible. 

I've seen lines of over 20 people, and every clerk in the office is (barely) moving without a care in the world. Everyone in line could be huffing and puffing or threatening violence. It only makes them move even slower. 

I guess I wouldn't be cut out for the job. If I saw a line like that, I would pick up the pace to move them out of there. 

The clerks just look up with a blank stare with no concern whatsoever. 

***This is at EVERY post office. 

I miss living in a rural area. Your best customer service care can be found in the tiny offices manned by a single clerk. In small towns, you can actually form a relationship with the clerks and carriers, which makes it a wonderful experience. 

Big towns or cities? Forget about it. 

 

 

 

Having been a post office clerk years ago, I can guarantee you the problem with long lines is 70% the customers. The sheer amount of people who come in, expect a post office member to package their stuff, then argue at every step up is insane. It clogs up the lines quickly. You're also the closest representative to a government employee they know so a lot of that ire gets directed to you. I understood real quickly why post office works develop the attitude they do.

There's also times in the day when people come in mass, usually 3pm onward. You will be waiting longer these periods. I go before or after the lunch hours and it's usually dead.

On 5/3/2024 at 4:52 PM, flchris said:

I’ve been having “issues” with packages coming in and out going slower than what I’m normally seeing. Also noticing tracking for packages isn’t as precise as it had been and all I get now is “moving through network” vs the location where it was last scanned lately. My outgoing packages haven’t been getting scanned until it arrives to the destination branch. Thought it was just me or the region, but seems to be a broader thing. Whatever that thing may be. 

A lot of it is because it's coming in on trucks versus air. If a truck is going from PA to CA, you won't see a scan for 2-3 days at least. Priority is usually air so it's moving between distribution hubs where scanning is more frequent.

On 4/30/2024 at 6:55 PM, silent06 said:

Both GPA and GoCollect reference Ebay sales for their respective assessments of FMV, so I am not sure how you arrived at CGC providing and offering a valuation of 110% with taxes of current Ebay prices

Ah, I did not realize they were newsstands. I suspect they did not take that into account.

On 4/30/2024 at 5:54 PM, silent06 said:

Based on GPA, I would say the delta between their FMV estimate and CGC's is roughly 40% to 50%, which is still under what I paid for the books considering market value at the time, shipping costs, buyers premium, etc. However, I have attached a screenshot for you to make your own assessment. The books referenced by CGC in the screenshot were both purchased as holdered and believed to be a grade of 9.8

I mean that looks like CGC is offering 110% with taxes of current eBay prices. I think that's pretty fair. If you bought replacement books today you'd bet probably $250 of current prices.

On 4/30/2024 at 2:27 PM, silent06 said:

I, too, recently received emails for three of my four books affected by the tampering incident. It appears based on the offers provided by CGC that their analysis or assessment of "fair market value" is the actual or true grade of the book as part of this incident, not the grade as noted on the holder or as the consumer and original purchaser believed the book to be, which to me as someone impacted is unacceptable and in no way an attempt to make me whole. CGC seems to be playing with words such as "fair market value" to shroud their intent to make minimal disbursements for the claims in this incident.

What would you say the percentage is between your FMV and theirs?

My money is on a yellow label with a JSA logo or something of notable size to be easily visible. Perhaps replacing the CGC hologram.

They just keep reposting until it hits their internal reserve. Second account bids it up to X value. If it doesn't reach it at the end, they cancel the bid on accouht 2 and relist it. Tons and tons of sellers do this.