Nick Furious

The best thing the ultra-wealthy can do for society is to spend their money on things that have no intrinsic value. No one's life is diminished when a billionaire buys the only 9.8 copy of a comic book and we have to settle for 9.4 or even 8.0. It's when they put their money into something that consumes valuable resources, such as mining for bitcoin...then it's a problem for society.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. The filler, the stuff that doesn't capture our imagination or take the mediums to new places will be pretty easy to replace.

I suspect the graphic novel sold based on his previous reputation and fanbase. I don't mean to undermine the overall point, but that can barely be called a graphic novel. More like "pictures added to story". It reminds me of something I did in 8th grade where we had to write a report and find existing illustrations that went along with the narrative. In a good graphic novel such as DKR, the artwork is not just illustration, it is unspoken narrative. It shows, rather than tells, what an aging Batman looks like and how he outfits himself. It acts as both a second and third dimension to the overall story. At the moment AI is powerful but generally flat, depending on information that is already available. There may come a time soon where we get 3D AI, something that will not just recreate any song in the voice of Sinatra but can also recreate the song in the language of Sinatra. My biggest fear of AI is what happens when we get AI vs. AI? When one is charged with hacking a website at all costs and another is charged with defending it at all costs? Who knows what level they will take it to.

You are also the One! See above ^.

You are the One. The One that the Oracles prophesied will save us from this one day. Just give us a heads up on what you will be bidding on in the future please.

You need to look at the peak year on those for better clarity. They are thinly traded books, and the same grade comps can go back a long way.

I was more curious about Iceman entering through a fireman's pole of ice coming from who-knows-where.

Has this classic been mentioned before in this thread?

About 30 years ago, my much younger brother and sister came to visit me, and I was surprised that they wanted to go to Starbucks daily for a highly caffeinated, high sugar frozen drink. My era didn't really do those levels of caffeine at a young age. A few years later I noticed that the local high school had a Starbucks on one corner that had a line out the door after school, and a convenience store on the other corner that was selling cases of energy drinks daily. It dawned on me then that we had a generation that was being raised on stimulants. I kind of figured then that their needs would only escalate. The opioids crisis was not something that caught me by surprise. This generation was primed and ready for a Pharma company that would step in and fill their needs.

There's a writer's strike going on? I think it would take me 5-6 years to realize anything was missing. Hopefully football isn't scripted.

Hmm, so ahole's can't smell each other? Only a non-ahole can recognize an ahole? My experience is that most people tend to be pretty reasonable in individual one-on-one situations. It's when they come together as a group, or preen for an audience, that they will tribalize and become unreasonable aholes.

Yep, in social media the viewers are still playing checkers while the content makers have discovered 3D chess.

One thing I've thought about when a buyer doesn't pay is that it would be some consolation at least if the listing started over fresh, as if it were a new submission. No previous pricing or # of days listed working against the seller.

I appreciate everything you said, but there is a simple measuring stick for saying what is right or wrong. It's known in most every society and commonly referred to as "The Golden Rule" Treat others the way you would want to be treated. It's the filter we can use to evaluate all of our interactions with others. Presumably none of us here are at the top of the measuring stick and hopefully none of us are at the bottom. And our position on that measuring stick is not necessarily the same from one day to the next. They say that even an honest person is only as honest as they can afford to be. It does seem to me an impossible challenge to actually love our neighbor as ourselves. Fair enough. But where we typically place on that measuring stick does matter. Hopefully our position on the measuring stick raises the average rather than lower it.

Well, I hope it doesn't make me sound like a bad person, lol. There are some details that makes the situations unusual. The books tripled in value within months, not years. This inspired me to quickly "flip" them even though I had intended to keep them long term. One seller, I knew through secondhand information, was not in a great financial position. The other seller, based on the book and the location it shipped from, I had convinced myself might be a college student. It was a unique timing/situation where I felt compelled to do something gracious for the people I had benefited from. Not trying to sound overly magnanimous. But it feels strange to be offering a defense. I hope that random acts of kindness are not entirely frowned upon by the CGC community.

I would say that you handle it exactly right. Once they reopen negotiations with an offer, you have every right to take the original offer off the table. True in all business.

I guess his plan is to only sell to people who won't share a windfall with him. There will be people like that, people who's personality defects always trip them up and they live unhappy, resentful lives. In fact I would say that it's common enough int the collectibles industry to have become an accepted stereotype. But if you go out of your way to be fair and just, there will also be people who will see your example and it will make them want to be a better person for having seen it.

I have not had that specific opportunity but if you go out of your way to do something generous, how they respond is on them, not on you. I have pulled a book from a dealer's discount box and said that I would like to buy it, but it probably didn't belong in the discount box. He agreed and we worked out a price that was still well below FMV. In 2021 right before the boom I made a couple of purchases that quickly doubled or tripled in value. When I sold the books, I reached out to both of the small-time dealers and offered them an additional $100 to take the sting off. One was struggling personally and gratefully accepted. The other said he had to decline because he had used the money to upgrade the book and was doing quite well with his upgraded purchase. A more subtle way to return some of an extra-ordinary gain is just to make a point to give them more business...above and beyond what you otherwise would have purchased from them.

I wouldn't think on it too long because it couldn't be further from the truth. Be on the lookout for the next week and see how many people you spot giving away their expertise for free. Anyone from Doctors, Lawyers and Teachers to Plumbers, Electricians to Handymen to a Mechanic helping someone on the side of the road. Even a moral salesman will give away their expertise to point someone in the right direction rather than try to make money on something that's not a good solution for the problem. But it's a strawman argument. No one said the buyer had an obligation to surrender all profit by educating the seller on FMV. There's a big spread between $2 and FMV. You buy the book, do a full evaluation and research and then return to the store with additional money. Maybe it's 25% of retailers FMV, some amount that thrills them and leaves you with more than enough to compensate you for your efforts and expertise. Then, since you are now an asset to them, you give them your phone number and ask that you be their first contact when they get more comic books or other collectibles. But the less debatable point was really on the subject of potentially taking a payout for a lost book without informing the payer that a wrap was missing. You do have an obligation there to be honest about the condition of the book. Even to this day the book has a label on it that says the missing wrap does not affect the story, which is incorrect.

I would recommend you take a moment to consider who you are vs. who you should be. There is a level of inner peace and fulfillment that comes from striving to treat others as you would want to be treated. There is no lasting happiness to be derived from taking advantage of an information disparity.

Hey now, after consignment commission the family of the deceased got $1.70 for the ASM 1. That ain't bad, right? And the buyer was actually sad that it was acquired for only $2, so he must be a pretty good guy, right?

When your competition trips over their own feet, you don't have to run faster than the bear, you just have to trip less often than the other guys. I think that's how the saying goes.

F&F creates a really bad situation if something happens in transit as there is no buyer protection. G&S is basically insurance against this. If an item is being shipped, F&F is a risky choice even when buying from Friends and Family.

Please keep us posted.

I'm skeptical of some of the Collectors Comics auction results with its zero-fee structure. The consequences of shill bidding and winning your own auction are pretty much zero. At least with other auctions you have to pay a decent amount if you win your own auction. With the CC auction there is absolutely no financial reason not to shill-bid your books to a desired minimum or a desired outcome for the public to see.