Motor City Rob

On 12/14/2022 at 5:56 PM, DC# said:

A bit behind but here are select results from the December Clink auction.    This is all sessions but I kept all results in one recap per title so as you go down you may see repeat grades that were part of later sessions.  

Such a great summary. Thanks for continuing to do this. Seems to be more and more green showing up in the "vs last" column, albeit still mostly red. Maybe a sign that some books have already hit the bottom. 

charliera_38

Bought the item and then sent a message stating they wouldn't be able to pay for a few days. It's been 10 days...still no payment. Blocked!!!

On 12/1/2022 at 8:12 PM, zzutak said:

In 1978, it was raw or nothing! 

I submitted them all at one time and provided CGC with strong documentation.  The books also correlate well with Chuck's master list and have the characteristics of Church books from this period.  CGC was a lot smaller back then, and the few graders they had on staff were well-versed in the various pedigrees.  They are absolutely, positively, the Church copies. 

That's fantastic!!! Excellent books. 👏👏👏

On 12/1/2022 at 5:50 PM, zzutak said:

Live and let live, baby!  As long as you don't insist that I accept your reality, I won't insist that you accept mine!    And now, let's get back to comics!  

I first met Chuck and Nanette in 1978 (at a small con in Sacramento).  The Church books had not yet been elevated to a "named" collection.  I picked up several dozen books for $2~3 each, including these:

Many thanks, Chuck! 

Wow! Amazing books. Did you get them raw? How did CGC know to give them the Church designation? 

On 11/29/2022 at 9:39 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

So the buyer spent $114k over 6 months....and then sells the book for $63k?

Makes no sense. Maybe the buyer was in a desperate situation to raise some cash. That's all I can come up with. 

On 11/27/2022 at 9:57 AM, blazingbob said:

Blazing one would not report immediately.  Blazing one would only report when the item is paid for with a sale date of when it was ordered.  If it wasn't paid for it would never show up in GPA and wouldn't require a retraction.  

 

I believe this to be the most reasonable and logical solution. 

On 11/24/2022 at 6:02 PM, Bonlee said:

The mistakes are getting worse all the time. No quality control whatsoever. Look what they did to the top left of my book  also they made incorrect grader notes 

Can you be more specific about what happened to the top left of your book?

On 11/26/2022 at 10:22 AM, troy.division said:

Question for the brain trust from someone that does not have GPA.
My personal collection is over 75% Signature Series.
Is there a way to search by signature?

In GPA, yes you can filter for Signuture Series. The data is usually more scarce for SS so the prices could be more volatile. As far as outside GPA, I'm not sure if there's a good way to find SS values. 

On 11/26/2022 at 8:54 AM, Cat said:

Now any graphic novel will have to be checked page-by-page and manually approved before it's shelved at the school library. This happened after the parent sued the school after his teenaged child read Craig Thompson's Blankets. Said parent is thrilled with the outcome. 

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/g5vnqb/it-only-takes-one-parent-to-get-all-the-graphic-novels-removed-from-a-school-library?utm_source=reddit.com

Sounds like books were being put on school library shelves without being fully reviewed. If that results in creating a review process for the school library...sounds like a good thing to me. Now it all depends on who creates the criteria for determining what stays and what goes.....but in general, a review process seems like common sense. 

On 11/26/2022 at 1:03 AM, Domo Arigato said:

Nobody is saying things have to be worded perfectly, and nobody seems triggered or offended.  To put qualifiers on statements, and insinuate things just because you can, is being purposefully obtuse....especially after it's been pointed out to you by several people.  Most of your posts in this thread have been accusatory and misleading, and while we can point out the obvious to you, we can't make you understand it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's not what MCS said.  In their conversation about the best way to address situations like this in the future, MCS stated that GPA asked if MCS was ok with moving the sale back to May.  MCS said they were ok with this and gave GPA the date to use.  Only then did GPA move it.  For whatever reason, you seem intent on twisting things around and insinuating this could have been intentional, when it was obviously just an unforseen circumstance.

 

 

Yes, seems like we will just keep going in circles. I will continue to say that the way MCS reported was misleading, although there is no concrete proof that they were or were not intentionally trying to deceive, and you will keep quoting me saying you don't like how I word things. In the end, a problem was uncovered, and then fixed. Hopefully we can at least agree on the last part. 

On 11/25/2022 at 10:49 PM, Domo Arigato said:

I used that extreme because you seem to keep missing the point people are making.  As a side note regarding your objection.....there are currently more than 200,000 unsolved murders in the U.S.....and the FBI estimates there are 25 to 50 active serial killers in the U.S. at any given time.....so hide your Fruity Pebbles. 

The point is, there are other ways to state what you're saying without having an underlying tone of accusation to it.  

I can see why some people might be upset with the way it was being reported.  So, for example, you could simply state that you don't believe there was any intentional deception going on, but you think the way it's been reported is the wrong way to do it, and I think they should do it this way.

It's the additional "as far as we know" type of qualifiers being added to the "misleading" or "deceptive" parts that people are taking exception with.  There has been absolutely no indication at all that this particular scenario was intentional or even forseen when MCS first started reporting to GPA.....since they didn't offer time payments at that point.  They explained their current process in detail and it made perfect sense. 

 

Probably unlikely that anyone can word things perfectly to cater to every single person's sensitivity or triggers. If you're offended by something said to you, that's on you and nobody else. Your idea of proper communication isn't necessarily right for everyone either, and maybe you offend people as well. 

In addition, something that makes "perfect sense" to you doesn't mean you're correct and everyone else is wrong for possibly being a little more thoughtful and asking more questions. You're going down the path in dealing in absolutes.

On 11/25/2022 at 9:53 PM, Domo Arigato said:

This is the part people have a problem with.  You keep qualifying your statements.

We do know that MCS was not trying to intentionally mislead.  They've come in here and addressed it directly.  They explained exactly what happened and the reasons for it and it made perfect sense.  They've contacted George at GPS and had discussions on the best way to handle the issue.  We do know that as well as anyone could expect to know it.

What are you wanting?  Do we need to hook up everyone involved to a lie detector and threaten them with prison if they fail it?  Or should we just start throwing qualified statements like this out at everyone?  Nobody is saying you're a serial killer either.  Because we don't know that.  Do statements like that sound ok to you?

 

I don't think it's a matter of me or anyone else wanting anything other than the problem to be fixed, which is what GPA seemingly did. And I applaud them for that.

The serial killer comparison is slightly odd since there isn't a trail of dead bodies anywhere, as far as I know. Maybe a slightly less sinister comparison might foster better discussion? 

On 11/25/2022 at 7:16 PM, ThothAmon said:

 

 

Really?  Your use of the term misleading implies intent.  As a frequent customer of MCS and subscriber to GPA I for one don’t feel misled, intentionally or otherwise. 

Yes, really. When GPA subscribers see a sale from May that is being represented as a sale from November...that is a misleading piece of information and reporting. It doesn't mean MCS was intentionally trying to be misleading. We don't know that. I have stated this multiple times. Not trying to be condescending at all, but would like to understand which part of that is still confusing.

On 11/25/2022 at 12:08 AM, mycomicshop said:

@Motor City RobWhat exactly would we accomplish by "reporting sales in a misleading way", since "we don't know if it's intentional or not"? Sounds like you're still entertaining the idea that we're somehow dishonest or shady? I don't appreciate that.

A day or two ago when I first saw this thread I emailed George at GPA to discuss this. I explained the situation and proposed ways we could address time payment orders going forward. All options have pros and cons, and none of those pros and cons are unique to us--anybody who offers time payments and reports to GPA would face the same issues. He and I will be discussing more soon (off today for Thanksgiving). George asked if I was good with moving the AF 15 sale to the original purchase date, and I said yeah, told him the date to use, and he moved it. That's not GPA fixing "our" problem, it's two partners working together to address a simple issue when made aware of the problem's existence. 
 

We started reporting to GPA a long time ago, probably over 10 years ago. At the time we didn't sell as many big books as we do now, and we didn't offer time payments. Since we offered both BIN sales and auction sales, and we didn't want to report sales to GPA that didn't get paid for, it made sense to not report sales til they were shipped, when we knew the sale was 100% going through. That way no unpaid orders, and no canceled orders, would ever be reported to GPA. This was discussed with GPA at the time and was a normal decision, not some weird thing we did or kept secret from GPA. I assume they have similar conversations with every reporter they work with.
 

As time passed we developed more business selling bigger books, and also started allowing time payments for buyers to pay for those big books. Reporting to GPA is a very minor aspect of what we do, so when we started accepting time payments it did not occur to me or anyone here that we needed to re-examine anything about GPA reporting. It just silently runs and we never think about it. 
 

Some people are way too quick to cast aspersions on businesses when they run across something questionable or confusing. Occam's razor--the simplest explanation is often the truth. Most businesses aren't trying to rip you off, and most things are the way they are due to some well-intentioned combination of historical inertia and accident. Please cut us some slack and don't act like this is some sneaky misdeed we may have been doing intentionally. It's the guilty until proven innocent just asking questions attitude that the original video got wrong. 

@mycomicshop You don't appreciate what? I have never said MCS was guilty of breaking any laws.  I also stated that no one has any concrete evidence that proves MCS was intentionally being misleading...nor do we have any concrete evidence that proves the opposite. What's wrong with being open-minded of both scenarios?

I think @Phill the Governor stated it best when he said that MCS taking a sale price in May and representing it as a sale price in November was "irresponsible at best and nefarious at worst". 

I know you don't like my wording of saying GPA "fixed" the problem, but that's how I see it. From your post above, it sounds like GPA suggested to move the date back to May, and then they moved it, and you agreed. I think that was the right decision. 

Some people agree with my option. Some don't...and that's ok. I'm glad the boards are a place where all should feel welcome to state their opinions and participate in discussions. 

On 11/25/2022 at 12:23 PM, Prince Namor said:

It didn't sell for that 6 months ago. That's when a price was agreed upon. 
 

It sold when it was paid off and the book traded hands. 

On 11/25/2022 at 12:34 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

@THE_BEYONDER Perfectly stated!!!

On 11/24/2022 at 11:28 PM, Prince Namor said:

GPA didn't 'correct' anything. They CHOSE to move it based upon when the sale was AGREED to. The only reason they did that was because the sale was finally COMPLETE. 

 

I'm sorry but I think you might be really confused as to what GPA did or how GPA works. My belief is that GPA absolutely corrected this because MCS incorrectly reported this as a November sale. I'm hoping GPA is able to chime in to this thread as they've been asked by multiple people. 

On 11/24/2022 at 11:09 PM, Prince Namor said:

 

They moved it back to May AFTER it had become a completed sale. MCS didn't do anything wrong. 
 

Huh? Where are you getting your information? GPA posted the sale in November once MCS reported it as a completed sale. The only reason GPA has moved it back to May is because of the video and this discussion. GPA fixed something that was reported wrong. No one is saying MCS broke any laws, but the way this sale was originally reported (as a November sale) was misleading. 

On 11/24/2022 at 11:11 PM, VintageComics said:

Let's get a grip on reality. 

MCS is doing nothing wrong. They owe you nothing and their reporting is entirely voluntary. 

MCS is reporting a sale when a sale is completed and they don't owe anyone anything more than that. 

Some reported sales are never completed, some are completed well after the customer commits to the sale and some sales are never even reported. GPA is full of variables.

Your accusation of MCS doing something wrong is just as wrong as Detective Dave's video accusing them of collusion. 

I'm pretty sure that MOST subscribers to GPA would expect that sale to be shown in May and not November. That's why GPA has corrected it as of today. GPA has that expectation as well, or they wouldn't have corrected it. I'm not saying that MCS was being malicious (we dont know that yet). But I do believe this particular reporting was wrong and misleading. GPA seems to have agreed based on their action.

On 11/24/2022 at 10:10 PM, Prince Namor said:

Don't feel sorry for this guy, it's the exact same thing. He gets paid by reaching a certain amount of clicks or whatever. 
 

God knows how many he picked up since everyone started talking about it here. 
 

He doesn't care what he says, he just needs to get people to click on it and watch all of it. What he says, who he harms, how he says it, is all just incidental to the objective. 
 

If he was concerned about putting facts and information out there he'd do his frickin' homework before ran his mouth. 

I see it a little differently. He uncovered something that is extremely wrong. MCS is reporting some of their sales in a misleading way. We don't know if it's intentional or not. We also don't know if GPA is even aware that MCS is doing it. There's also a question out to MCS as to whether or not they pay their sellers in full on the day the contract is made for the payment plan. Still lots of questions to be answered. All we know is that the way MCS reports some of these sales needs to be fixed. 

Also, not sure if this has already been mentioned in the thread but GPA pulled the questionable sale from November and moved it back to May. Really glad GPA is stepping up to correct what MCS is doing. This may never have been caught if the video hadn't been made.

I'm guessing there is more we will learn from this whole fiasco in the near future.

On 11/24/2022 at 1:03 PM, Phill the Governor said:

 

The issue here is the lagged recorded sale of a volatile book six months after purchase. The vast majority of people looking at GPA will not be aware of the specifics of the sale, as detailed by mycomicshop. Therefore GPA and mycomicshop are both misleading most people looking at the numbers since people can point to this sale as happening now and say that's what it's worth all of a sudden. So FMV of AF15 just jumped up. But it really didn't - it just did according to this misleading recorded sale.

Completely agree. We now need to know if GPA was aware that MCS was reporting in this extremely misleading way.

His video exposed a big problem. MCS is reporting sales 6+ months after they actually occurred (due to payment plans) yet those sales are being reported as recent sales. They may not have been intentionally trying to deceive but it certainly is misleading. Really need GPA to speak up to explain if they were aware.

On 11/23/2022 at 5:43 PM, ThothAmon said:

Watched 20 minutes waiting for the apology to MCS. Didn’t happen. Nadsat. 

It's a good follow up video. Sounds like he had a discussion with MCS. He does admit he made a mistake by assuming it was an auction. Regardless, I agree with his conclusion that this uncovered a problem with how sales data from MCS is being reported (with payment plans). This definitely has to be fixed because it's extremely misleading when looking at sold prices. Hopefully GPA can chime in to let us know if they were aware that 6 month old prices are being reported as recent sales. 

On 11/23/2022 at 11:33 AM, mycomicshop said:

Watching the rest of the video, few other comments:

- He speculates that a book showing up multiple times as sold from HA means that the first sale didn't go through due to non-payment. I would not expect that HA is reporting to GPA based solely on an auction ending without requiring that the item actually be paid for.

- Similarly, he says he's getting set up to report to GPA. If so, I hope that HE will only report actual paid/complete sales to GPA, rather than reporting to GPA as soon as he receives a not-yet-paid order for something.

- Appreciate him including us in a big 4 with HA, CL, and CC!

-This sale was a BIN sale, not auction, so there's no way ComicLink could have "bid up" this item to $114K as he speculates. The results of all our recent auctions are publicly viewable at https://www.mycomicshop.com/auctions/list so if this AF15 had been an auction item it would be in one of those auctions there. Regular bidders in MCS auctions will know there has not been an AF 15 CGC 5.5 auctioned with us recently.

I understand the source of Detective Dave's confusion and no ill will for him getting this wrong, but next time I hope he and any other youtube sleuths will reach out to me directly if they're confused by something. I'm reachable here on the boards, conan@mycomicshop.com, and 512-808-7099.

Some fair points. Any thoughts on how to fix how you report through GPA? If this would have shown up on GPA as a May sale and not a November sale, I think that would eliminate all of the questions.

On 11/23/2022 at 11:04 AM, mycomicshop said:

Hahaha, think this is the first time we've been the subject of a Youtube sleuth.

This is all wrong in terms of there being a scam involved, or us being involved in anything other than selling an expensive comic.

First, basic facts are wrong. The guy says more than once that we take multiple weeks to ship, which makes me wonder if he actually orders from us, because our orders go out same or next business day the vast majority of the time. From an internal dashboard. This shows by month what percentage of orders shipped the same business day (if received by 11 am Central), next business day, or the day after that. The times reported here count from when an order has been paid for to when we ship it. So for credit card and Paypal orders, it's from when the order is placed. For offline payment methods like check or bank transfer, this doesn't start til we get that payment in and it has cleared.

 

We report sales to GPA when a book ships, not when it is ordered. And a book doesn't ship until it's fully paid for. The Nov 4 date showing in GPA means we shipped it Nov 4, it doesn't mean it was ordered Nov 4. Many buyers who purchase 5 and 6 figure books make use of time payments. Our standard window for time payments is 6 months, occasionally longer than that but to get longer than 6 months depends on the circumstances and requires approval from us before the purchase.

I can see how it could be confusing for a sale price to be reported at the end of the time payment period, rather than the beginning, when a book is both high profile and has seen big price movement. Prices have dropped over the past 6 months so this sale looks high.

I can check with GPA and see if they'd prefer we report the purchase date rather than the ship date for time payment orders. If we did so, we still wouldn't report the sale to GPA until the book actually shipped (because we don't report anything to GPA unless the sale is 100% paid and final and definitely went through), so then you'd have a different kind of confusion--a sale showing up for the first time in GPA 6+ months after the date listed on the sale.

If you look back at where prices were for AF 15 in 5.0, 5.5, and 7.0 around May 2022 rather than Nov 2022, a $114K sale price is not unreasonable. And we paid $103K for the book ourselves when we acquired it from a Goldin auction Feb 2022.

 

Other stuff... the guy wonders how a book could possibly be ordered from us Nov 4 and be in CLink's hands in time for their auction. Next day shipping--it's not that hard. We got our final payment Nov 3, book shipped Nov 4, in buyer's hands Nov 5. A buyer of a six figure book doesn't have to request expedited shipping, anything $2000-5000+ is pretty much always going next day shipping, much less a $114K sale.

 

I can't speak for anything after we shipped the book, how/how quickly the buyer got it to ComicLink, or what the buyer's motivations are for reselling it so soon after receiving it. There are a million reasons that would motivate a buyer to get out of a recently acquired expensive book even though it likely means losing money on it.

 

 

I think the explanation of this being a 6+ month payment plan makes perfect sense. Agree that it makes the GPA data look misleading though. I'm sure you and GPA can find find a way to input the sale price on the original date of sale, even if it doesn't get put in their system until 6 months later. Thanks for the quick reply.