Lightning55

Looks to have occurred during production, so will likely be considered a manufacturing defect, no grade hit.

Not saying Ebay Shipping is bad, but I find Pirate Ship to be better. They don't keep messing with the interface. There are no glitches, no interruptions of service. They have low Commercial Rates, and also Priority Cubic, which always beats Flat Rate. They charge 80 cents per $100 for insurance. Very friendly and fast CS - you actually get a human! By phone, email, or chat. It's always good to have a secondary shipping method, so you might want to set up Pirate Ship as that. It's free. I did that, and never went back. And I really like that eBay gets zero $$$ of my label money. I had coverage through PS labels on a claim for $600 in USPS-damaged raw comics. I was personally assigned a PS rep that coordinated with the underwriter. Paid in full. Nothing like that is going to happen with eBay, for sure.

I suspect you mean the eBay settings, especially shipping rules, always tricky. If you're not already making labels with Pirate Ship, I would suggest using that. Much better than EBay Shipping.

There's nothing you can do about it from a financial standpoint. He doesn't offer combined shipping, nor did he advertise combined shipping. By bidding, the buyer agreed to pay the stated shipping amount. His obligation is to get it to you, once paid. If he advertises Priority Shipping, and sends it Media or Ground Advantage, that's a violation of the auction process as set up. You could message that you want a refund for the difference in the shipping method. He'll probably refuse, or just not respond. Then you contact eBay to get them to make him do the right thing, whatever that is deemed to be. You could also refuse the shipment if you see it's not Priority. Then it goes back. And if it was Media, he might have to pay the return shipping as well. Media does not include paid return shipping like other services do. Then he would have to ship it again by Priority (3rd shipping charge paid), or refund your entire original payment includingshipping, and re-auction the books. An increased hassle for him, but also exposing your newly purchased books to multiple trips back and forth. And lastly, you can slam his feedback. Just don't include anything non-factual in the response. Don't say "wouldn't combine shipping", when he never said he would. That's probably how he got the earlier feedback removed. But you can point out the high shipping cost, or if sent by the wrong method, or if packing is poor. You have 500 characters to work with now. But the more you write, the chances increase that you will say something that gets the fb pulled, so be very careful. Or you can take him up on offer to cancel, and avoid all this.

Hey, if you CPR them through CCS, it'll only cost you $2600 more! And it might even make economic sense in this case (some chance).

A depiction of the very first PODS shipment.

Or maybe @mycomicshop could help you directly, as they probably monitor this board. Whoever might be in the rotation to respond.

Conan is the son of the principal owner, Buddy Saunders, and may be part owner by now. I would not recommend contacting him unless you got no response from MCS customer service over a few business days, and if your "issue" is of significant value, like in the thousands of dollars. The CS department is excellent. No need to overreact.

I like the PODS idea. You pack it like you wish to, and lock it. Nobody touches your stuff.

I don't see any sign of hacking. The buyer asked @fastballspecial to decline the offer his son made. Nothing nefarious that would require reporting, or even blocking. Unless the son is the hacker.

I can't give you any moving advice, but it might be time to cull the collection. Some comics, on a per book basis, may cost more to move than they are worth. If you sell off the more common stuff locally, you could take that money plus the money you saved on the mover to repurchase at your new location. It's similar to moving large appliances. Cheaper to dump what you have and buy new, rather than pay the cost of moving them great distances.

That's a tough one. You'll have to use your best judgment. How does one get 4.5k feedbacks from 1k sales? My feedback received is like 1/3 of actual transactions, people losing interest in leaving feedback.

Looks like it has been touched up. Can you see any telltale bleed-through on the inside of the cover?

The jury is still out on that. CGC indicated it was ok with them by giving it a Blue label. MCS said trimmed, but would take CGC's evaluation as ok if it came back Blue on a resubmission, which sounds like they are deferring to CGC's judgement, already made once. Sounds less and less likely that there is something wrong with that book.

Which comics did you find to be without centerfolds?

Sounds likely.

To each his own. I'm thinking the inside of a ratty $50 copy looks pretty much the same as the slabbed $500 copy. If you are going to crack a slab that has $40-$100 grading fees built into its value (besides the authenticity and restoration check), you might as well buy an additional crappy copy to be able to see the interior art. And then there's all the reasonably priced reprint material out there...

I got upcharged $93 once. I wanted to call to find out how they arrived at that number. But every scenario I could think of resulted in at least $150 more instead of $93. So I'm certain that whatever math they used, it was wrong. But I wasn't curious enough, or stupid enough, to call for an explanation, have them discover an error, and charge me even more. The whole accounting system there is wacked. There are no statements, no itemized charges, no transparency. There is 1 accountant for all of CGC, Jose. He's been the only accountant there for years. It's a stealth operation. Any other vendor I do business with provides itemized invoices, itemized revised invoices, and statements on demand.

I believe it's a 0.5 grade, incomplete.

They might. But they would also have the scan from the original grading to compare, and likely see no change.

You had a 6.0 Blue CGC and cracked it out to become a raw with questionable trimming? Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. A big part of the value of grading is that it passes a restoration check, especially an older book. It's like the Good Houskeeping Seal of Approval. You don't want to mess with that. I'd send it back in to CGC with its original label (if you kept it). You can't just get a reholder because it has been cracked out. You have to get it regraded. But sending it with the label might help it keep the blue label.

I would want the book back to see this alleged trimming for myself, physically measure it against comparables, and also gather other informed opinions from reputable dealers. You only have 1 opinion that it IS trimmed. Selling it on consignment with the trimming in the description is daunting at best. If your research proves that it is trimmed, you can weigh your options with more information. Not a lot to re-ship to MCS if you choose to go that route.

Apparently eBay is "working on it" https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/comments/2023/12/1701399839.html/1/0#1701720441

I used "5" figuratively to mean a small number. I know for each person taking the time and effort to post, there are dozens who share the thought, but don't post. And probably just as many on the opposite side. I don't want to put you on ignore...or anyone. Firstly, because I think you make some good points and offer some perspectives. I don't agree with them sometimes, maybe a lot, but I do want to know what people are thinking about various subjects. Secondly, I bet a thread makes little sense if you put a poster on ignore, choppy and hard to follow. The big problem here is that on a forum, you can't "agree to disagree". That works 1 on 1 (sometimes), but with so many voices, the topic can be beat to death from a hundred directions. It can wear on you, even as an observer, if people can't just "let it go".

Will do. Always a good idea to alienate potential buyers.