Naphtha

9 minutes ago, Sweet Lou 14 said:

I do tons of homework on the books I'm looking to buy, and I find GPA very useful.  Besides, all GPA is doing is collecting (some of) the data that you would otherwise have to go collect yourself.

If shill bids or other market manipulation results in misleading or even fraudulent sales figures for a particular book, what's the difference if you got that data from GPA or found it yourself through close observation of the various auctions and dealer sites?

The idea is that eventually sales become muddled between what is within reason and what isn't to the point where it just gets lost within the aggregate.. While I completely agree with the caveat emptor approach, times change.

On 9/14/2019 at 5:26 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

 

 

I used the phrase "Are Newton Rings 'normal and acceptable'?" for question #1 deliberately as that was the widely reported response that CGC were said to be giving out at the time. If you take the notion that two plastics touching produces the prism effect literally, then I can see why you would answer 'yes' to that question. Those people are just agreeing with CGC's stance and have the right to their opinion. I also indicated that members were free to state a different view if they had one that didn't fit the voting categories. Also, there will always be people that respond, shall we say, "against the grain", for a variety of reasons.

Maybe I could have phrased the opening question "are excessive Newton Rings....", but then you are into the debate about what is excessive and who determines that - company or customer?  

The questions overall, I feel, get to the nub of the matter: Are visual distortions acceptable, in any degree, on a product that exists to showcase a visual medium? 

The response percentages tell their own story. 

There's nothing more to say about it in my view. The ball is in CGC's court. As I said earlier, if you get your submission back ring free, you'll likely be delighted. They look great don't they! And you may well be in the vast majority. If you don't, you're gutted. If CGC dealt with the latter scenario adequately, and communicated more effectively, maybe these threads wouldn't exist. 

 

I completely agree with you and I'm also waiting to submit books until holders are fixed for more reasons than just the NR.

It also might have to do with material ordering although I have no idea how many books are encapsulated in any given time. When the new engineered slabs were introduced, they likely purchased on contract large quantities of preform material that can't just be canceled or returned. As they likely tried alternative methods, they couldn't find a solution in time, thus we are in this endless cycle of no fix...maybe.

Although as I think about it, preform plastics can't possibly hit their margins that much considering how much we pay for slabbing.

Regardless, I just want the old slabs back. I could care less about optics and whether they use fancy plastic.

All I want is the old holders back. The other competing company is limping into obscurity. You won. Please drop the fancy plastic and get back to encapsulating books the way it was done a decade prior to this issue.

6 minutes ago, Chillax23 said:

I am betting the Census will expand rapidly in the next little bit - prior to the announcement it was likely not a book many people went out of their way to slab ...... but who knows, it will be interesting to watch both books to see their trajectory. 

Exactly what I mean. Once there are enough slabbed grades to generate volume sales the book will climb. I assume your average ebay speculator doesn't consider the census when making "HOT" or "MCU" purchases, although I could be wrong.

On 9/12/2019 at 9:30 AM, comicwiz said:

There are so many things going on here that it's difficult to really pin down what's happening. It hasn't helped that the only post from @BerkbridgeFoundation has been to threaten as an attempt to quell discussion.

I see the main issues as i) being the nuanced aspect of allegedly using a charity to drive up prices, and ii) the impact these data points could have in a scenario where past sales data is lazily used, or absent of context. 

In this regard, @gpanalysis should hopefully be able to glean enough from the discussion happening in this thread to help them determine whether charitable listings should be either omitted or specially marked as outliers with some notation for context. Whichever approach, I think it should be a retroactive methodology.

I can't speak on the other allegations, and not that allegations of improperly using tax exempt status as a tax avoidance strategy aren't serious, but a part of me hopes that whatever regulatory oversights are in place to deter and prevent such abuses, that they are doing their jobs and will be able to take action if this is an instance of abuse.

I was informed that in such cases a buyer (like in your case) has to be given notice, and failure to do so carries a penalty. I'm just not sure how it is enforced or how much time the charity has to provide you this information, but I would imagine at the very least they would have to do so prior to filing your tax return.

 

I agree with both of these points and think that somewhere in the thread the legitimacy of the charity completely derailed any meaningful discussion on the legitimacy of their sales. I agree that this type of behavior should be rooted, but once the dust settles, we're still left with trying to figure out how to appropriate prices on books based on GPA's data. The market is moving into completely unknown territory in the next few years, and I for one want to make sure that any blatant price setting and/or manipulation in any way is controlled and hopefully removed completely. This is likely next to impossible, but all legitimate markets adapt. If we continue to let any and all sales from ebay create gospel FMV without any plan to regulate or validate those sales, then we are moving into very dangerous territory.

There were two types of price manipulation that I could see. One where the book was listed, sold, and then immediately relisted at the same price using the last sale as bait. The other used two books of the same grade, one BIN and the other auction. The BIN (usually less desirable) would sell ~4-7 days prior to auction end so that last sale would again bait higher bids. I for one think that charitable sales should immediately be cut from GPA. If we are assuming that these books are being sold with either no consequence from a seller's perspective or that the interested buyer's are generally willing to pay more for a good cause, then they should not be used to generate FMV. Any situation in which a higher sale benefits the seller in any other way other than simply validating the price they paid should be exempt. I also don't mean to include situations where the seller is motivated due to health issues or personal reasons. This type of sale doesn't motivate buyers with tax deductions.

While there is no way to read through every ebay sale of every CGC issue, we could at least start by monitoring sales at certain prices for certain vendors. For example, every sale of $1,000 or more sold on ebay should be validated before listing.

I'm not sure how smaller dealers validate their prices on GPA, but I assume they submit paid invoices and the numbers are added individually. For ebay, it seems like the description and listing info auto populates these numbers once a confirmed sale happens. By confirmed sale, it could be simply hitting the button and waiting to cancel the transaction.

I'm in no way passing judgement on GPA in this regard. I have submitted multiple shill bid sales and they have responded within the hour every time, but as the number of sold CGC issues skyrockets in the next few years, we have to find a reasonable solution before it escalates to a much bigger issue and we no longer have any context or legitimate reference to fairly claim FMV.

On 9/13/2019 at 4:56 PM, Chillax23 said:

Sure GOTG books have done well relative to when they were $1 bin fodder - but compared to peak prices they have not.  If you bought AV47 or AV48 as a dollar bin book - then yes have at it and sell sell sell.  Likewise if you can find a copy for pre-announcement pricing then yes buy it.

However, absent those two situations, the trajectory of this book is not good for a purchase.  So wait until after the movie (which will be in a year or two?  NOt sure when Eternals will release) - but I don't expect this book to sustain value - but happy if it does (as a rising tide etc.).

As to the question - as to which book to pick-up prior to the movie - if you want to make money on it then likely neither as it has popped (unless you find it for pre-pop price) and if you want to hold long-term because you are a big fan - then likely neither as well, as it will likely decrease substantially after the movie so you can pick it up then for cheaper.

The majority of high grade copies are still locked in personal collections (census for 47 is 459 and 48 is 496). Once the census catches up to demand I think it will be a sustainable book for the next few years...if the rumors are true. 

On 1/26/2012 at 7:56 AM, OveraboundingMint said:

I always feel that Man-Thing is a far more superior and much more sophisticated horror concept than Swamp Thing ever was, with or without consideration of Alan Moore's writing on the latter.

 

The Man-Thing has always been one of the most underrated character and title of the Bronze age. He is one of those dream characters i would like to see in the Defenders done 70s-80s style.

I always felt like Man-Thing was missing something special that Swamp Thing had...Adrienne Barbeau and Heather Locklear.

22 hours ago, carefulsum said:

But another way to think about this is that the outcome of this auction is actually a positive event for that guy because he gets the much needed funds to pay the medical bills.  Also by looking at the results of the auction, it seems like many of his X-Men books have sold at new record prices relative to their grades so hopefully he receives more than his exceptions. 

There were so many beautiful books in that collection. 9.8 x-men 12! It was also good to see the x-men 4 sell like it did. I'm glad his auction went well and hope he has enough to pay the bills and buy a lower grade run to keep it going. 

I would like to join in if a slot is available. It was fun watching this last year.

On 9/12/2019 at 11:40 AM, Catwomancomics said:

@Naphtha suggested it was $118,000. If that’s accurate, then there’s some esplaining to do.

edit $118,000 for last year in sales?  @icefires

No, $118,000 in the last 30 days. I counted all the sales including the relists. They are generating a massive amount of CGC sales.

19 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

But the Red Cross is a charity, corruption to one degree or another, if present, notwithstanding. Now, if the Red Cross stopped being a charity, yet continued to falsely represent themselves as a charity, then that's a problem in and of itself..

Imagine if the red cross was trading stocks and using that power to set prices.

Berkbridge sold the 8.0 181 for 5.3k in the summer of 2018. Last sale was 2200. This price was unheard of and set the stage for the bronze age spike of the last two years.

Real people losing real money because they think its a game. And small dealers will be hit hardest because they will be stuck with the inventory.

14 minutes ago, Mecha_Fantastic said:

A legitimate charity would jump at the chance to clear their name, and seize the opportunity to promote their good works amongst the community. The Berkbridge Foundation, lead by Robert S Jalali, is CLEARLY aware of this thread, so there's no ambiguity here. 

Robert, maybe you think by ignoring us it'll all go away. It won't. 

Well regardless of their response, their tracks are being covered as the original ebay listing thread was removed. That's 4 threads related to this issue that disappeared in less than 3 days...

1 hour ago, grebal said:

Yes, what CWC said.  A careless comment speculated that ENTITY A is same as ENTITY B with no real basis or nothing to substantiate it.  Sorta like you and I both grew up on LI so we're the same person.

And Torpedo might have been mentioned.

I explained my reasoning right before the old thread was deleted. For the sake of this thread im backing completely off this issue.

2 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

Based solely on the language of the listings, the Ebay seller using the handle, Berkbridge, is not the same entity as the Berkbridge Foundation. What's written is that all proceeds will be donated to the Berkbridge Foundation. If the seller and foundation were one and the same, there'd be no reason for it to be set up as a charity auction. The seller would simply state, "We are the Berkbridge Foundation and we will use this money to assist.... etc." At least, that's what would seem to make sense given the language of the listings.

If that is the case, who is the seller in San Diego? Would all sales be transferred to the account registered in NV?

8 minutes ago, kav said:

Didnt they address the 2 books mentioned as the buyer wanted a different payment option so they had to relist?  The thread was removed apparently.

I addressed 4 separate sales in the last two weeks. They claim all of them are "mistakes" or that the buyer didn't have a correct payment method. Do we seriously believe that a "charity" that has given not a single sentence of proof of their legitimacy and is selling ~one million in high value comics annually with record prices isn't manipulating the market?

4 minutes ago, kav said:

I feel confident Berkbridge will show up and clear this up like they did with the shilling accusations.

That was never cleared up more than just a response saying it was a "mistake". I just posted their 30 day sale total at $118,000. If this was legitimately being used for a charity they would have no problem addressing this by now. They have stated nothing. 

The fake sales were never cleared up, just redirected to a different issue before the thread was removed. I can tell someone that I accidentally forgot to correct myself on a record sale right before I relisted the issue to get the sale at the same price but I would likely be lying.

There has to be a trail.

1 hour ago, icefires said:

I am a retired fraud investigator, so I have some experience here. 20 minutes of internet research already has me SMH. Sad.

Their reported sales on ebay in the last 30 days is ~$118,000. Can you explain a little using your expertise what you are seeing?

The thread where I posted the ebay sales was also removed.

3 minutes ago, kimik said:

Seeing as I own a 7.0, I hope they get the higher price.  

When books are heating up most sellers will want to make sure they do not miss out on any of the run up hence the high prices. It did not take much foresight to figure that FF #4 would take off once the Fox/Disney deal was announced. I know someone who bought a CGC 9.4 of FF #4 for $25K as soon as the deal was approved to go through. That was the time to grab any FF or X-Men keys at low/more reasonable prices. 

Yeah, I was lucky enough to grab all my FF keys the summer before that announcement. I actually traded most of my bronze age collection for an FF1 in october 2016. I don't think the seller was happy two months later.

Just now, kav said:

@Buzzetta now is the time.

I wasn't the only one. Good.

5 minutes ago, bababooey said:

Also what conclusions do you want me to reach from a picture of a single auction where the only other support is your memory or opinion?  I'm just suggesting if you want feedback that you repost the pics and explain why I should be reaching the same conclusion you reached.

Jesus man, do you think I'm freaking out over a single ASM15 sale?

5 minutes ago, bababooey said:

Pictures of what and where did you post them? 
Also what conclusions do you want me to reach from a picture of a single auction where the only other support is your memory or opinion?  I'm just suggesting if you want feedback that you repost the pics and explain why I should be reaching the same conclusion you reached.