the blob

On 10/13/2023 at 12:52 AM, juniorMC said:

Sneezing in hands and wiping it on pants. I do it all the time, What's wrong with that

you're not really getting rid of it on your pants before you spread it on the handrail

On 10/3/2023 at 10:09 PM, southern cross said:

I'm retired and I help out at my lcs on Tuesdays getting new books for Wednesday. So Tuesdays all about comic books for me. Pulling books for subscriptions and selling comic books in between that, bagging boarding and pricing someone else's comic book stock.

I'm way behind in my reading and that is something I'll have to arrange.

Downside or upside to helping out at a lcs is I'm always buying books.

Just look what came into the store in the last four days.

OK, the one on the bottom would get me excited for sure

On 10/4/2023 at 9:32 PM, Pontoon said:

I don't think I have it in me to write such a considerate note, which I guess explains why you're a gentleman, Jon and I'm a D i c k. Pontoon, that is.

We native New Yorkers are very kind and considerate. 

On 10/6/2023 at 12:22 AM, wombat said:

What is wrong with you?

Seriously, I can't get a hold of my health insurance company on weekends but we expect the comic folks to be responding on saturday?

On 10/3/2023 at 8:47 PM, ExNihilo said:

No budgeting.  I have a stack of comics to read that I'm behind on.  I have fullbacks that have been inserted into mylar and I re-bag whenever I feel like doing it.  At present, I have 4 full boxes of mylar waiting to be used.  Some days I have time and then I just end up playing video games.  Or I'll go for a run, come back, shower, and plop into bed.  I could certainly use some organization and better time management, but I just don't have the discipline.  I've determined the best place to start is to get to bed earlier.  I go to bed late and just wind up lethargic the following day.  If I had a better nights sleep, maybe i'd feel more energized to be productive at home.

One problem is that my wife is an academic with 4 or 5 different jobs who is getting some sort of degree or certification in AI (beyond her STEM doctorate) who  also works out (outside the home) about 15 hours a week who also wants to attend school events for the kids so she works insane hours and functions on 4 hours of sleep half the time so if I want to get to bed at 12 she is pissed. Half the time I am feeding her dinner at 10:30. Tonight she teaches until 10! So my attempts to have a regimented schedule will no doubt be in conflict with her insane one. And I understand this is getting into a "general" conversation, but I do see people here with jobs, active family lives, devoting a lot of time to this hobby/side biz, and have varied other interests, so I figured someone has it together.

On 10/3/2023 at 7:18 PM, Dr. Balls said:

I have to cram hobby time in whenever I get a chance - some nights if it's slow at work, I get to leave early and I'll have an hour to watch Dueling Dealers on Wednesdays, but I may not be able to sit down and with my comics until Sunday or Monday. I've been trying to start a sales thread for two months now, but I only do that when I have two consecutive days that I don't have to be at work. The only time budget I have is for our business - everything else that comes after that just gets what it gets, hobbies or otherwise.

If you can put together a time budget, I say good for you - that means that your life is consistent enough to allow you to plan a schedule.

I am 51 and have never had a time budget, but there are a lot of things I want to do, but I am stuck with my job that will generally have me leaving at 7 am (when I get back to work next week after my disability is up) and probably ending at 4:30 if I am efficient and don't skrew around at work (I work from home 2 days a week thank the Lord). That is when my supervisor leaves, in theory, so it works out. My commute is 30-45 minutes. I want to start working out regularly, I want to get the comics biz back going again (I waited until the market tanked to do that...), I want to paint a few hours a week, learn another language... lots of stuff. Maybe it is a fantasy, I dunno, but it won't happen until I get control of my schedule. Was just curious if other folks here were regimented like this. I guess this is something I should have learned 30 years ago. Better late than never. I am a natural born procrastinator, so maybe this will help me in the 6 - 12 years I have left before I plan to retire.

On 10/3/2023 at 1:11 PM, Gambold Vintage said:

I'd like to head this one off, but of course you are free to contact Shortboxed for answers. In this situation, it was fairly clear from the get-go that the seller was bogus.  By that I mean they weren't responding to the sale nor were they going to ship the book. You get a good sense of these things after buying and selling for years. 

It wouldn't be proper of me to screenshot their emails, but Shortboxed evidently agreed after trying on their own to contact the seller and verify the sale.  They may have had other reasons they didn't share with me for the suspension decision. Frankly I was surprised about that - I wasn't gunning for the seller, I just needed a fast turnaround on the refund. So like I said - they may have had other reasons.  I think they are fair and if this was a legitimate sale, they would have counseled me to wait. 

I want to vouch for Shortboxed's response on this, which is why I changed the title and content of the original post, and removed all my ill-advised squabbling with fellow forum members. It was a learning experience for me too, and while many of the comments here were mean-spirited or just kinda stupid, I do appreciate the few that took a genuine, mature interest...which is why I have posted more details here at the end. 

Happy Collecting, Gambold Vintage

so long as it was legit scam-dar on your end, but those of us who are hobby sellers and a sale happens friday aren't always in a position to mail it out saturday. we're not amazon. I try to make that clear in my listings.

On 10/3/2023 at 5:17 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Did you retire? 

I work for the guvment now, i just need to say I worked the day

Did anyone ever subscribe to marvel comics in the early 80s? I did for a few titles and it was amazing that they managed to get to me in good shape. 

On 10/3/2023 at 12:45 PM, KingOfRulers said:

I haven't been drawing much lately. Here's my two most recent pieces. One is Robert Dinero from Taxi Driver and the other is my recreation of Secret Hearts #128.

good stuff

Is this a normal thing for people here? Like budgeting 9 hours a day for your "job" and commuting, an hour for family time/checking homework, an hour to make/eat dinner, an hour of exercise, and then 1.5 hours of comic time -- organizing, selling, shopping, BSing here, an hour for art/reading, etc? I know I should have a financial budget, but basically my wife will not play along, but in my old age I feel like if I am going to do things I should be doing with my time, I need to organize that time better and can't just constantly push my life past midnight because, frankly, the lack of sleep is probably killing me. Is a time budget how some of you manage to get a lot of things done while also being comic nerds? You'd think that someone who used to religiously bill in 6 minute increments should be better at this, but I am not.

They have been doing shows there forever if I remember correctly, different event folks. I am pretty sure I went to a show in 84-85 where I younger Carbo intimidated a 13 year old me into him looking at all my books I was carrying under the guise of maybe he'd make an offer on them (really I think he wanted to check to see if I had stolen any from him --- I had not), and quite possibly one in 1977 or so my dad took me and my brother to. It's weird, I was just down there in June at MSG to see the Cure and I didn't even notice it coming down, but I guess in the dark I am not looking up. 

On 10/3/2023 at 1:07 AM, kimik said:

Looking at the number of signings being announced every week, it looks like that is how they are working to keep the grading volumes up. If grading volumes dip further, they will likely let graders go. I am not sure how much they can lower grading fees due to input costs being higher now.

well, fees on pre 1976 books probably have some wiggle room, particularly your pretty standard marvels and DCs from the 60s - 70s. The substantial price bump is borderline arbitrary in my mind. I get the resto check and page counts starts getting really tricky on your GA books, giant sizes, etc.  They can let graders go and all the training they put into them or keep them busy.

On 10/2/2023 at 4:05 PM, Lightning55 said:

The prices for post 1974 comics are actually a good deal at $25 per, less with membership.  Before grading became a "thing", like 30 years ago, people were willing to pay $10-$20 for a snap-together plastic case for their best comics, DIY.  And that was the price then, with 30 years to inflate.  Now, you get someone to verify the page count, 2 people to check for restoration and also grade it, seal the comic into a capsule, then install it into a tamper-evident clear frame with identifying label.  And the comic is insured while it at the grading site.  All for as little as $22.50.  Not too bad.

The other side of this is that they want 4% of Fair Market Value ($150 minimum) for comics worth over $1000.  To do the exact same steps.

I dunno who was paying $10-20 for that snap together stuff. I know some terrible grading company was buying those things in bulk and grading in his basement for like $8-9? (I know this because he was a friend of a friend.... can't remember the name of that one, but he was lambasted here in the early 2000s). Wasn't CGC $15 when they started? I know, inflation, but also economies of scale and learning curve going the other way.

On 9/29/2023 at 2:21 PM, grapeape said:

you da*n right..... 

 

 

 

there were still 8 tracks when that album came out in 1985??

On 9/30/2023 at 8:26 AM, Tec-Tac-Toe said:

Lower CGC fees would be great but, perhaps like you and other posters, I am extremely doubtful that will occur but I hope to be proven wrong.

I don't think it is an ultra profitable business to there probably isn't much fat in their pricing despite what we think, but if volume is down they might need to lower fees to keep it up

On 10/2/2023 at 12:47 PM, PeterPark said:

Red Hulk 2?

There is no way I could afford the price to submit any books as low as $75. My bar is currently around $1,000...even then most sit years before being hand-picked for submission

No, Incredible Hulk 2 from 1960whatever

On 9/29/2023 at 12:08 PM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Take that thought to the next step. Considering that a certain amount of money has been spent on slabbing books that probably do not warrant it (if being slabbed for resale, anyway; I'm slabbing a bunch of books for my PC that wouldn't be worth slabbing if I was selling them), that activity was probably a signal to CGC that the industry is growing at a certain rate, and the usual expectations when you have one company buy out another one (as was the case here) that is growing at a certain rate, is that it will continue to grow at that rate, or at least show consistent growth. Now that the bubble has deflated or burst, I doubt they're seeing any growth, and more likely seeing some contraction. I have to wonder what that is going to mean for the company and for customers. Will they have layoffs? Will we see even more jumps in prices as they try to maintain the same income on lower volumes of submissions (which would only cause a further dropoff in submissions, as the bar for a book being worth slabbing is raised).

One of these days I will get around to slabbing my Hulk 2 type books and a few others that are arguably worth it (I sold most of the major keys years ago), but the amount of money I would spend slabbing a host of $75-200 books in my collection would basically be enough to create a whole new, pretty good, collection, yet the market seems to think those should be slabbed. CGC is a great product and if I am spending real money nowadays I want that slab, but criminey there should be a cheaper option for the mid tier books 9.4-6 and below that adds the requisite trust and liquidity. MCS basically creates that for a $7 fee on consignment, but they don't give you that tamper proof packaging. I get it though, if the goal is a 9.8 it probably needs all the bells and whistles. And my guess is that MCS is not doing the same level of resto check on a cheaper book. If some book winds up being restored from them do they accept returns? (But you still get burned on slabbing fees?)

As for CGC, if they lowered fees they'd keep everyone on salary pretty busy if there has been a slow down. They might need to splurge on a good espresso maker.

I know they provide this nice forum and a definite valuable service for the appropriate books, but it is hard to wrap my head around the amount of $ that has been spent on slabbing books that probably do not warrant it and the creation of artificial perceived rarity for some 9.8 books. 

On 9/29/2023 at 10:11 AM, KingOfRulers said:

The union labor there might be making more than $50/hour for a significant amount of the billing due to NYCC being held on Saturday/Sunday, where union labor probably makes 2x wages.

I remember when I ran San Francisco Comic Con, as we were on a weekend and a holiday (Labor Day weekend), the union goons were making 4x wage. We were being forced to pay each of those union meatheads $202/hour to move a dealer's inventory 100 feet, which was a service that neither us or the dealers wanted in the first place.

hey hey, we don't need to be calling folks goons, some of my best friends are goons

On 9/28/2023 at 8:12 PM, Pixx_L said:

Sure both SD and NYCC are high cost areas (though less so in San Diego). But when attendance for SDCC is pushing towards 150k the rationales of 'good for them for making as much as they can - they might be out of business' or 'these events shouldn't be for the poors' become absurd. The economy of scale allows for the event to both make money and be cheap to enter, especially since SDCC is in part subsidized as a de facto Hollywood red carpet event. Some may want to pretend otherwise but it's not an either or situation, and the example of Gamescom in Germany is a precedent for how SDCC or similarly large American conventions could function (and indeed did function for most of my childhood and teenage years). Having a low entry price also allows for more money to obviously be spent inside the walls of the convention rather than on the ticket price. Pretending a high entry price is a good filter to excluding people because they may not be the type to drop $500+ on a single grail comic book or w/e the rationale is self-defeatingly stupid. Vendors should aspire to have as much traffic and business as possible at various price points - not less.

Tokyo Game Show is another counter example to the status quo of American Convention pricing. Over 200k people attend (a little less recently due to Covid). Is Tokyo not one of the most expensive cities in the world? Their ticket price this past year was 2,300 Yen or about $15 bucks. A better world for attendees of large conventions is certainly possible - even if unimaginable within the US.

 

I don't think $15 is realistic. Small local cons in NYC were charging $15 a day 20 years ago. Tokyo is expensive, but I don't think union laborers at that convention center make $50 an hour like at Javitz, there are probably a huge number of volunteers working the show, Japanese baseball fans clean up the stadium after the game, it's a different world there in terms of communal actions (they also charge $14 extra for co-splay privileges). With that said, not that long ago NYCC was $35 a day. I am not sure why it has more than doubled. Javitz does exist to try to make revenue for the State of New York, so they're going to charge as much as they can to the convention who is going to pass along the cost. Pre-covid Javits made a modest profit. 

On 9/28/2023 at 1:12 PM, Nsschenks said:

I mean I'm pretty sure the reason was he shouldn't have been auctioning that book on eBay in the first place. People will do what they want, but that doesn't make it not a s**tty move. Long term that strategy is going to make people not want to buy from them-- A. for making a poor decision in posting it there; and B. for reneging on the sale because they realized their mistake too late. Weak stuff

Will be forgotten in 2 weeks

On 9/27/2023 at 5:42 PM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

I'm also in NYC. I know multiple people that regularly get inquiries about the sale of their home, whether they're selling it or not. I think there are just a lot of people with money looking to buy real estate to rent out.

Yeah, but that could be them hoping for a lowball. Remax calls me 3X a week on my primary residence. It is annoying. 

On 9/25/2023 at 8:20 PM, captainzombie said:

I think that you are right with regards to the market being oversaturated with slabbed books. People were encapsulating all kinds of garbage and pushing it out the door. Instead of people using their head knowing that these low tier books should not be bought, were buying them thinking that they now have gold that will take them to the moon.

My personal opinion, if people have books and slabs that will have no true value I'd be working to dump those as soon as you can. At least try to break even, because I think that things will get very ugly in the coming year alone with just the economy that will also affect these books.

 

I am selling a (small) NYC apartment right now. Multiple offers, cash. over ask. Of course, a card bro isn't buying it. Is the economy about to tank or take off. No idea.

On 9/27/2023 at 2:11 AM, davidking623 said:

I like the way I do things its worked out for me , I do get what your saying though but getting less fees would involve 30 day return policy and I am not interested in doing that . Your talking about items not as described and return it anyway has not ever been my problem , so the way I have been doing things has worked for me quite well if I may add .

They're just going to say not described and demand a free return anyway, so why bother?