RockMyAmadeus

That was the most backhanded compliment I've ever seen. Hopefully, adding grader's notes won't make people's jaws fall off.

Probably lots, even here. Especially people who are ignorant about pretty much everything. Indeed.

Yes, as noted here in the original post: UNLESS, of course, the chromium variant of a regular book ALSO has a variant - like Darkness #11, which has multiple "regular" editions, a chromium edition, and TWO variants...the holofoil and holoplaid...of the chromium edition. Or, say, Vampirella Monthly #7, which has multiple variants, including a chromium AND a holofoil VARIANT of the chromium.

Yes, as noted here in the original post:

I wonder how many people are unaware of Greg Holland's "CGC Data" website...? http://www.cgcdata.com/cgc/

Nobody thinks that.

You are incorrect. You have misread whatever it was that led you to that conclusion. I would suggest reading it again. I wonder just how many times people read something incorrectly, come away with an entirely inaccurate perception, and it's never revealed or addressed...? I suspect that answer is "a lot." And that sucks.

That's the beauty...and price...of freedom: people are going to do things in ways you don't approve. I don't like wading through mounds of overpriced garbage, and have said as much, many times here. But forcing people to sell for prices they won't accept isn't the solution. The solution is to bother eBay until and if they do something to address the clutter, that doesn't involve forcing sellers to accept prices they don't want. A solution, albeit probably an entirely unworkable one, would be to limit sellers to the amount of times they can relist an item without a sale. This can be easily sidestepped, but it is an idea.

That's the one! Ghost image transfer during the stacking process, I assume (?) before the pages were cut and the book stapled....

Well, they'll have to weigh the one...time it takes to have grader's notes on 9.6s...over the other...time it takes to field questions and reviews on books that graded that or lower...and, hopefully, do the math. It may be that it takes less time to deal with reviews and customer service issues. But I think you may have misunderstood the thrust of my point: notes need not be exhaustive, nor am I asking for such. I am only asking for a note...like, I dunno "light scuff top of spine"...by which I can say "ok, sure, I know what they are referring to, I can compare when the book gets back, and I can accept their grade, rather than waste my time and money asking for this stack of books to be reviewed further down the line. As someone who has given detailed notes to many customers, I'm very much aware of how much time it takes...and such detail as I go into is wholly unnecessary...but it is invaluable to the customer. AND...you must also consider that for perhaps 99% of all the books they grade that don't get 9.8, they are already supplying notes. It's not as if they're being asked to do something they don't already do the vast majority of the time. Just tip it from 99% of the time to 100%. And, as you can see by the results of the poll...I am overwhelmingly not alone in that. That aside, CBCS' 9.8 books sell for less not because they have notes...which I daresay, 90% or more of the buying public doesn't even bother looking up...but because confidence in CBCS is low, for all sorts of reasons. And there need not be notes on a 9.8, the de facto highest grade available.

They must have been really fly-by-night to not even have phones!

I would allow any and all customers the right of inspection of the book outside the PGX slab, and even help them remove it from that slab, if they so desired. If they're ok with it in the slab, I'm ok with it. Otherwise, I agree completely.

Exactly. And very, very rarely, in the history of any tangible good, does the price drop like a rock. It would have to be an exceptional case to do so. Nearly all of the time, the price can shoot up rapidly, and then it descends back to earth in a gentle incline.

That's not how the market works. First, "calculated worth" is not a term that I would use to describe market value. These are actual sales, actual transactions; they represent what people were actually willing to pay for the item. Second, the market is obviously shaped by external events. If a comic "all of a sudden" begins "selling for $400" (what does that mean? 1 sale? 3 sales? 10 sales? You don't say), then there are obviously external factors that have to be considered. Barring external factors, a market value can be determined based on past sales, especially when there's a lot of data to draw from. A book sells 10 times for around $1,000, once for $600, and then another 10 times for around $1,000. All other things being as equal as they can be in a market like this, if the last sale when you list yours is the $600 one, and you price yours accordingly, you would not only have seriously undersold yourself, but you would have had a ripple effect down the line, and the next 4-6 copies may only have sold for $800-$900, because those buyers might have been hoping for another fire sale. Sure, there's a substantial amount of "what if?" going into these scenarios, but pricing items for less than the market will bear...as wonderful as that may be for the buyer...is often as much of a problem as pricing it for more.

Sure I can. We're not running a statistical analysis, after all. It's perfectly reasonable to extrapolate that, if a situation happens to one person, and that person is average, and that situation is average, it's bound to be true of others as well. No stats necessary in that case. I guarantee you, I am not the only person in the entire world with that type of general experience with eBay. We're quibbling over unimportant details. That's not the question. We're talking about sellers who DO NOT want to sell it, and forcing them to accept "the highest offer", whatever it may have been, to "clear out the clutter."

Come on, these aren't fair responses. No, I'm not the only buyer on eBay, but I'm also representative of at least a PORTION of people who buy on eBay. I am, just as you are, representative of "an" average group of people who use eBay. I don't disagree with you. And yes, changing the parameters changes behaviors...for sure. No doubt about it. But...forcing sellers to accept an offer that may not be the best they can get will drive sellers away in droves...and sellers...not buyers...are the ones paying the bills. And I say that as someone who sold a ton in 2016 and the first 2/3 of 2017, and hasn't sold anything since January, and as a buyer who used to buy nearly every day from eBay, and now only buys very occasionally.

Good question. How does the seller establish it? How does the buyer establish it? If I have a...I dunno, a Maxx #3 black ashcan, with only one recorded sale...which I know is very rare, and which I know is in demand...and I price it at $2,000...there may be interest at $1,000. But, those with interest think "I won't even bother; the seller probably won't even consider it" (there are established psychological reasons...fear of rejection, for one thing..that support this.) And we know the above happens, because sellers with Best Offers get "what will you take?" messages all the time. So, the only offer you have is from some Gambino at $50. Is it worth more than $50? Without a doubt. How MUCH more? No way to know. But I would have to sell it for $50, because that was the highest offer I got...? I don't think so. I haven't looked at eBay in a couple of months. In that time, I know there are listings which I have missed, and which I would have bought, at the prices they sold for. 30 days isn't that long in the grand scheme. Sure, but there's a captive audience here, for the most part. eBay does do the "price has dropped!" spam e-mails, but a class of categories for such items isn't a bad idea.

Dutch auctions are much more controlled, with the seller nearly always choosing a specific time and specific place, where he or she knows there are buyers around, so he/she doesn't end up giving the item away...or, if they do, they don't have anything invested in it, like an estate auction.

As I said before, there are all sorts of reasons, unrelated to the item itself, why no one would offer $1,000. Not everyone looks at eBay 24 hours a day, for example. Just because you have 16 buyers at $1,000...pretty firmly establishing the market...doesn't mean that 17th, who would pay $1,000, too...is around. Or, the seller has bad feedback. Or, the listing is buried under mounds of keyword spamming, making it hard to find. Alternately, it could be a rare item that may not HAVE an established market value. Forcing sellers to sell for the highest offer, whatever it may be, would be the nail in the coffin.

That's a fair question. Here's my answer: An average of the last several sales, with the $600 ending being an outlier which drags down, but does not establish, the value of the item. If there are 15 sales at $900-$1100, and one sale at $600, then the average established by that would be roughly $975...not $600.

Then if it was one silly lowball offer, people must not want it as bad as you think. Not relevant. If I, for example, think a book is worth $10,000, but the market thinks, through multiple established sales, that the book is really worth $1,000, but my only offer....for whatever reason....is $500...forcing me to sell it for $500 isn't going to fly with anyone. I think we're now getting into technicalities of "worth". If it's worth $1,000, someone should have hit the BIN for $1,000 (or sent a similar Best Offer). You can't "hit the BIN for $1,000" if it's priced at $10,000. As someone should have sent a best offer for $1,000, that's not necessarily the case at all. As I mentioned above, "the market thinks, through multiple established sales, that the book is really worth $1,000" eBay created that clutter by moving away from, and actively discouraging, their auction model, and trying to become "Amazon-lite" with their "Buy It Now" model. No one is forcing a seller to use eBay, but no one should be forcing a seller to sell at a price he/she doesn't set, either, in a non-auction (and sometimes even in an auction) format. Forcing sellers to take a price they don't want, to clear up "clutter", is a good way to drive eBay completely out of business for good. So, maybe it's NOT such a bad idea after all....

Blimey! Egads! Zoot!

Then if it was one silly lowball offer, people must not want it as bad as you think. Not relevant. If I, for example, think a book is worth $10,000, but the market thinks, through multiple established sales, that the book is really worth $1,000, but my only offer....for whatever reason....is $500...forcing me to sell it for $500 isn't going to fly with anyone.

I know, right? What's up with that? Ask them to note "John Byrne and Terry Austin in pen on first page", forget it. Sheesh!

Quite the run you're having, today. What, like jogging...?