Comics

On 3/1/2024 at 10:57 AM, Comics said:

I am an eBay seller pop-art have been selling since it was auctionweb! I am selling off all my personal cgc comics on Comiclink. Many ending today. Is it OK for me to post here?

Batman Adventures #12, CGC 9.8 NM/Mt

BATMAN ADVENTURES #12, CGC 9.6 NM+

Here is another, ending in 3 hours - LB Cole goodness!

ALL-FAMOUS POLICE CASES #11, CGC 5.5 FN-

I am an eBay seller pop-art have been selling since it was auctionweb! I am selling off all my personal cgc comics on Comiclink. Many ending today. Is it OK for me to post here?

Batman Adventures #12, CGC 9.8 NM/Mt

BATMAN ADVENTURES #12, CGC 9.6 NM+

Good luck!

Startling Terror #5 ending in 45 minutes. Don't miss your chance!!!

I honestly don't know what that means.... I'm old.

I wish Comiclink would post their Featured stuff here...

Startling Terror Tales #5, CGC 7.5 Vf-

Current bid $4,200 USD - Ends 2/29/2024

L B Cole classic demon cover. Highest graded copy, one of 2 in 7.5, none higher.

Highest graded copy ever to come to auction.

Crime Mysteries #12, CGC 8.0 VF

Current bid $802 USD - Ends 3/1/2024

Gruesome Hollingsworth strangulation cover

Highest single graded copy, none higher.

On 1/24/2024 at 8:50 AM, nearmint said:

You may have done better offering your books here on the boards.  

That's possible. I just had 150 slabs and we needed to move them pretty fast, they took 40 nice books and getting them pressed and CGC'ed then to auction as well. I'm in Canada so shipping is a bit of a pain... It just seemed / seems like the right move. And they took everything. So...

On 1/24/2024 at 8:08 AM, Patriot6 said:

Just a heads up you've posted this in the wrong forum and it will get pulled. You might ask a moderator to move it for you. 

Yikes thanks! I can't delete it but I'll delete the content.

On 1/24/2024 at 8:01 AM, Patriot6 said:

Thanks! They are beautiful and I have had them for 30+ years, but.... bills....

Silver Age DC JLA Plastic Man Adams Deadman Showcase Green Lantern 85 86 CGC 9.6 9.4 9.2 at ComicLink ending today

My personal collection of amazing high grade CGC Silver age DC is ending at ComicLink tonight...!

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #61, CGC 9.6 NM+

HOUSE OF MYSTERY #156, CGC 8.5 VF+

GREEN LANTERN #85, CGC 9.2 NM-

GREEN LANTERN #86, CGC 9.2 NM-

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #63, CGC 9.6 NM+

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #68, CGC 9.6 NM+

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #69, CGC 9.4 NM

PLASTIC MAN v1966 #2, CGC 9.4 NM

PLASTIC MAN v1966 #4, CGC 9.6 NM+

PLASTIC MAN v1966 #5, CGC 9.4 NM

SHOWCASE #66, CGC 9.0 VFNM

SHOWCASE #67, CGC 9.0 VFNM

SHOWCASE #71, CGC 9.4 NM

SHOWCASE #72, CGC 9.2 NM-

And ending tomorrow....

STRANGE ADVENTURES #211, CGC 9.4 NM

STRANGE ADVENTURES #213, CGC 9.4 NM

STRANGE ADVENTURES #214, CGC 8.5 VF+

SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE #106, CGC 8.5 VF+

SWAMP THING #1, CGC 9.0 VFNM

WINDY AND WILLY #2, CGC 9.4 NM

Silver Age DC JLA Plastic Man Adams Deadman Showcase Green Lantern 85 86 CGC 9.6 9.4 9.2 at ComicLink ending today

My personal collection of amazing high grade CGC Silver age DC is ending at ComicLink tonight...!

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #61, CGC 9.6 NM+

HOUSE OF MYSTERY #156, CGC 8.5 VF+

GREEN LANTERN #85, CGC 9.2 NM-

GREEN LANTERN #86, CGC 9.2 NM-

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #63, CGC 9.6 NM+

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #68, CGC 9.6 NM+

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #69, CGC 9.4 NM

PLASTIC MAN v1966 #2, CGC 9.4 NM

PLASTIC MAN v1966 #4, CGC 9.6 NM+

PLASTIC MAN v1966 #5, CGC 9.4 NM

SHOWCASE #66, CGC 9.0 VFNM

SHOWCASE #67, CGC 9.0 VFNM

SHOWCASE #71, CGC 9.4 NM

SHOWCASE #72, CGC 9.2 NM-

And ending tomorrow....

STRANGE ADVENTURES #211, CGC 9.4 NM

STRANGE ADVENTURES #213, CGC 9.4 NM

STRANGE ADVENTURES #214, CGC 8.5 VF+

SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE #106, CGC 8.5 VF+

SWAMP THING #1, CGC 9.0 VFNM

WINDY AND WILLY #2, CGC 9.4 NM

On 1/11/2024 at 10:53 PM, agamoto said:

If I could just point something out there...  

"The scandal started after a pair of online collectors began identifying and documenting cards that were allegedly improperly modified. They have identified 316 such cards, retouched by nearly a dozen “card doctors,” that sold for a combined $1.4 million. The four collectors who spoke with investigators say the FBI suspects thousands of additional cards with similar issues are still circulating through the hobby."

To all the folks here who bemoan my insistence the FBI and/or FTC need to be at the lead of this investigation, let the card scandal experience described in the article be exhibit A.

It only required a few hundred cards, a million plus in potentially fraudulent sales, and 4 complaints from collectors to get the feds involved. 

Oh, and as for dropping the Comic Station name... Folks, you gotta be careful here. Correlation != Causation... Innocent until proven guilty.

While there is plenty of photo evidence and even a smoking heat gun which appears to link the company to a lot of these books in question, it's all just a tangle of threads that need to be pulled and looked at by actual criminal investigators. No, not the PI's hired by CGC, those don't count.

It's totally fine to discuss the obvious connections which exist at face value between Comic Station, i.e. all the pictures of the books we've seen on their social media, all the ads we've seen on eBay for years now... The connections are apparent to anyone... However, it's a recipe for having your handed to you in defamation court if the company is able to demonstrate it lost reputation and business by anyone pegging them for being responsible for these scams before they are ever indicted, tried and convicted for such a crime.

It is still within the realm of possibility that this company, and it's owners/operators, are also being played like a fiddle by one of their consignors or something, we don't know.  

We will never really know unless an actual law enforcement investigation takes place.

It's funny - I was looking at those "316 cards" correlating to "350 slabs"... 

I am just dropping in and out of this thread but I have been thinking about the long term implications to the hobby. These two articles were part of a mountain of bad news the sports cards collectors rec'd in 20018-19-20. And yet 4-5 years later their hobby is booming. And their issue was completely widespread and affected EVERY CARD. Yes we have (yes, I said have and not had) micro-trimming as well but comics of all grades are a little harder to fix ('allegedly') than cards are. So what does this mean? I feel the industry will be fine. Bruised but fine. For us on this thread it will have lost a bit of lustre but...

A side note - art galleries and auction houses deal with a lot of these issues with provenance - that is essentially what @comicwiz @agamoto and the rest of the fine detectives here have been doing - establishing provenance. I suggest that CGC/CBCS/PGX give every submitter a random ID and make that part of the graders' notes so the public can see their submissions. Transparency. Also once a book is graded maybe there could be a spot for submitters notes where we could say something about a book and where it came from. Personally I know where I bought 95% of the books I have and I am sure the rest of you do too. That's the way our brains are built. Would it be anecdotal? Yes. Would it be perfect? No. Would it help? Yes.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1304673&fbclid=IwAR3lsWMEosKyKwWSMkebNGkhI4xgxzfg1iur2nEM7eQZcWv2d2eGmhgqoqM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/07/18/baseball-card-collectors-suspected-rampant-fraud-their-hobby-now-fbi-is-investigating/

On 1/10/2024 at 8:55 AM, MAR1979 said:

You comment is logical.

However Logic is not often employed in the modern world especially by the LIV's - which make up a high amount of Social Media followers (aka those influenced)

The following is plausible:

As word spreads and it will, those LIV's will interpret the situation wrong. Thus ALL Versions of ASM300, ASM194, Hulk 340, SW8 and others including possibly Hulk 181 will become varying degrees of toxic to them for an unknown amount of time.

Of course I may be wrong, as the numbers flow into GPA and GoCollect we shall see... who knows this may be good for other books that previously lacked attention like DC's We'll ok probably not DC's...

 

I watch a lot of ebay sales and I did notice there was a distinct lack of Hulk 181s being sold in the 2 weeks after this broke, and interestingly 180 had a resurgence... But it seems people are trickling back into the 181 market. So we will see!

On 1/7/2024 at 4:42 PM, mrd160 said:

I am a fan of thoro…he was stating his opinion and a lot of people agreed with him. I know him irl….good dude. He’s not the only person that looked at the book, some of which in person and believed with some certainty that the book was trimmed. What adds to this is the fact that the person selling the book was certainly involved in some shenanigans. If he’s going to swap cases it’s not unreasonable to think he would do other things as well. Extra scrutiny is warranted. Btw, this is why I avoid all social media/online like the plague. Lol

Plus it is YOUR BOOK - this is not hypothetical for you. Its Ironic that in December I sent all of my CGC books off to be auctioned in the next 2 Comiclink auctions... None of my books are on the list - my highlights are top census Startling Terror Tales #5 and some nice Cole romance - but damn was the timing off for me to sell my collection?!?!!! 

On 1/3/2024 at 1:12 PM, comicwiz said:

I've been looking at a lot of pics and scans. The one thing that the HA scans do is create less of an effect of over-saturation and glare, and those types of anomalies happen due to the two part holder design, and occur in problem areas, usually above the label, or at the bottom edge. You don't expect these in the area which I've pointed out, which is the inside of the U and between the C and R. The artifact of lighting probability, while higher with a photo, doesn't create the kind of dimming that would appear as evidenced by the ink loss that occurred. It would appear less subtle. What I'm saying is that the ink is gone in areas where it was present before. 

Man, I don't know about you - but I'm getting really sick of seeing that beige fibrous upholstery in the background... It's giving me PTSD...

On 1/2/2024 at 1:58 PM, drotto said:

It gives the scammer the legitimacy of the CGC census, since CGC has been rescanning covers after reholdering. So if you look it up, it is this book pictured. It covers any damage that may have occurred to the slab during the switch. Which is essential, because many collectors are very particular about cases, and may question if the book is legitimate if they notice even a hint of damage. 

 

That is the prevailing theory at this point.

It kind of 'closes the loop'

Hey - has anyone thanked the people who were paying such 'intriguing' prices for these books? Without them - nobody would have looked twice and we would still be in the dark!!!

Kudos!

:-)

On 1/1/2024 at 10:32 AM, comicwiz said:

Just wanted to provide an update. The dataset has expanded to 1483 listings, as two different accounts have been confirmed by myself, based on patterns I examined that connected the two. This dataset is sure to expand with the information shared thus far on 4 other possible accounts. I prefer to make that determination independently simply because the notion of doubling my efforts (previously only 778 listings tied to this seller) is one that needs to be measured, particularly in order to make the best use of time.

I quickly scanned through some of the comments, and I just wanted to show this graphic below to reveal one of the patterns I analyze to help with pinpointing potential matches. The colour coded items in the list show the repeating pattern of items which were triggering a recorded sale. While you don't see the dates of these sales, you can see the number of the record set, and that gap should give some indication of passage in time between each time the same item, with the same certification number reappeared for sale, and was recorded as a past sale comparable. The record numbered 196 is the parting point, where I have found 6 Hulk 181's that went from green to blue (records 16-166), and also signifies where the activities of the the second seller alias begins (166-1242). This is where I am focusing my attention, however I am also needing to verify these other aliases and whether I will need to expand the data set. It's a lot of information to sift through, but the patterning has been a help, and I wanted most to share this because this shouldn't be recognized as just any dealer activity, this is someone with motivations to subvert the variables, not only in how we assign value commensure to grade, but how the market determines value based on comparables. Something that as an appraiser concerns me greatly, and which I expanded on recently in another post where I describe "immitation bubbles." This seller not only exploited a number of the variables in the system, but took it to a whole new level.

Below is a Worthpoint screenshot of the very first item from 2016 (number 1242 from the record set), which ties into the above intermingled listings between two different eBay seller accounts, and the red outlined slogan he's used throughout.

 

Amazing work!!

On 12/30/2023 at 10:48 AM, Iconic1s said:

I honestly don’t understand what use the authentic patch is once it’s removed though.  How would that even be authenticated at that point?

i think they probably had a white patch then took a 4 color patch from a teammate's card, inserted the fancy patch then sent it in. A very similar scam to the one we are seeing. I could't find out how anyone spotted it but many people caught it right away.

I have been away since page 100, but wonder if anyone saw this? https://www.instagram.com/p/CvxqEyZJGxn/

Patch replaced in UD Cup rookie card...

On 12/25/2023 at 7:54 PM, WestcoastDAVEngers said:

Also, just to be transparent, last week from Sunday-friday I was live 4 times, and a 5th on my friends channel, I was live for a total of about 12-14 hours, I might have said "I'm Abraham Lincoln reincarnate" and I probably have no recollection of it.

I'm pretty sure you had said "reborn" not reincarnated. I'll go check the tape... ;-P