Naphtha

How is my argument not coherent. I literally posted pictures for you to follow.

In my opinion every sale from that seller should be taken down. There is a lot of accrued value based on those sales. However, the only way to maintain legitimacy of the market is to oust this person. Also, this is hardly my call. More people need to chime in.

There is a single person with royalties.

Previous sale was <4k. 3 weeks later it magically sells for 6k? The 12 month average was 3300. You can hang on lack of reasonable doubt but we all have common sense. I can go through every sale listed and show examples but I already posted 4-5 in the last three weeks.

Have you read the thread I posted? This is happening on almost every key they are selling. This dates back to the FF48 spike in 2018. Everytime this person pulls a 30-40% spike on a specific issue every dealer in the country takes note. And in another few weeks Berkbridge does it again. Before long we have 300% price hikes on issues in a matter of months.

it was not my intention to put any blame on any person or GPA as a company. If I came across that way I apologize. This is about fraud and I think we should stick to bigger picture. The listed sales from Berkbridge only date back to June but I can assure you the ASM15 9.0 that sold for 6k is not a legit sale.

Agreed, but I'm more concerned with the listed $115,000,000 worth of books this company is supposed to be indexing. If the legitimacy of GPA is flushed then what happens to our collections? How would we even attempt to justify value? Yes we're collectors first but I'll openly say that I've spent a lot on books in the last three years and now I'm questioning where those prices were coming from. The hottest books of the last 2 years may have just been this clown using tax havens to screw up everything.

Definitely. I hope they do for the sake of every collector who spent hard earned money on issues at prices that were based on their aggregate. I don't even know what to think at this point. This is fraud.

I've contacted them multiple times on this seller and they said they would not take the listings down if there are different cert numbers. This is obviously going much further down than one sale. This stretches back to the price hikes of the FF48 as I watched multiple sales happen that just didn't make sense.

Here's another example: Edit - not trying to derail the 181 discussion but I thought it needed to be shared.

Collectors have always gravitated towards a "#1". It just took longer for people to realize that it doesn't necessarily have to say "#1".

I think you underestimate the Chinese audience. This is long overdue and will be massive.

Last one I saw was on the FF4. Someone listed a 7.0 and tried to get a sale at $7500 on GPA only to relist it at a higher price two days later. The worst part was every dealer who had one in that grade immediately (within a day) upped their prices by $1000. Now the only way to get that respective grade from what is currently listed is to pay the fake price.

I'm seriously surprised grades below 9.0 are declining. It would take nothing more than two dealers with a stack of books and a willingness to postpone the transaction to get the prices back. I was always afraid that this scenario would eventually ruin the legitimacy of GPA. Maybe it already has in time. I should really just get back to finishing my runs...

True...I see this as nothing more than driving hype between phases. SDCC announcements were as expected, with one exception, and for once in 10 years we are going into the fall season without any marvel movies to keep us preoccupied. Marvel/Sony collusion at its best IMO.

This infuriates me. Anytime I catch this, I notify GPA even if its against my best interest. Blatant manipulation of the market is incredibly dangerous and it scares me how easily it can be done.

Take via pm!

Yes, but a taco truck thief probably nabbed a few hundred dollars cash. Thousands in comics is grand larceny. I think the police just view these kinds of cases as an insurance win. If they were really that valuable they should be insured and you will get compensation for it. There are 5-7 pin locks that can't be jimmied in a sensible amount of time and ones that can't be cut without a torch.

I live in the area and keep books in storage as well. The unit is indoors with code access only but this scares the out of me. Would expensive locks really add any security? The biggest fear I have is that it would be broken into and I wouldn't realize it for a couple weeks. I've heard insurance on collectibles sometimes carry clauses against reporting stolen items after a certain period of time.

Just noticed this listing. It's not clear, but definitely appears to have a popped staple with interior pages coming out of the inner well. The issue sits slanted as well. I would have thought based on overall condition the detached staple would have been noted on label. Am I wrong? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fantastic-Four-4-CGC-6-5-1962-Namor-Marvel/323857956975?hash=item4b6770406f:g:sRQAAOSwHcNdJ-Dx:sc:USPSPriority!06902!US!-1

I mean, you could cancel your subscription. I don't know whether your monthly pull box is worth the perceived $30-60. I would think a business like that would have the foresight of potentially ruining relationships with subscribed customers. Then again I've never ordered from them.

The new sales tax has to be considered. I wish posted prices included them, especially when you look at $5k+ sales.

Not necessarily convinced myself, I've just never spoken on it in detail with another person. Hence the purpose of the thread. Have you used the same presser for all your issues? Can you explain rearranging without physical changes?

Without quoting your entire post, thank you. This explains a lot that I didn't understand. I will still say that I have seen this accelerated in pressing. I have submitted multiple books with stark white covers, only to return with the "leech" described. I also note certain dealers on the market (none of which are discussing this issue here), who have a plethora of slabbed issues that visibly show serious "halo" to the same degree. It is therefore my theory that these dealers are using the same presser and using the same wrong technique. You can argue that an experienced presser would never cause this, and I might agree, although it would be easier to prove that pressing causes damage than to make a blanket statement that pressing does not. For every experienced presser, there are dozens of inexperienced ones. If your statement that the press causes a change in the physical structure of the pulp paper, than wouldn't it be possible that this change in physical structure might also cause a physical change in the aesthetic appearance?

I explained my definition of "tanning" as transfer staining. Youre just repeating what I said two pages ago. It might be common to you and your pressed issues. Every dealer might like everyone to think its common.