Aman619

well, still plain vanilla, but the grey is better than empty white bkgnd... Overall -- black and white COULD have been an exciting color scheme (like Black Label branding!) for Pedigrees, which ought to stand out as more desirable than other copies... but, it seems that 20 years into slabbing, they already used the color combination that would have achieved that.

is this the new improved Pedigree label? grey background?

Yes... same thing happened in the 90s. The market was rising so fast (Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, etc) big ticket GA books stagnated... (Silver Age Keys weren’t worth more than 5-10K back then and were affected, but the GA 20-50K sales dried up. but since history never repeats itself the same way, this must be only part of the problem. I still see amazing prices for a lot of books happening, and haven’t done the research, but wouldn’t be surprised if there was an actual slowdown, especially for movie TV hot issues. Then again, sales stage a bit in December too.

no slight on your lovely wife, but she STILL won't know what to do with your stuff. Scary thing is we have accumulated so much arcane knowledge of our hobbies, that took years to amass. Like how we can look at a box of comics and know whether its a gold mine or just drek without a guide etc. Just by looking at the covers. The people around us just haven't got a clue. Imagine someone leaving you their collections of something you know little about (cards, stamps, plates, posters hummels!). And taking a crash course on coming up with which are the good pieces, which are drek, and how much they are worth, let alone how to best unload them. Guess this is why dealers etc loooove when heirs bring in the stuff they inherited from loved ones who collected it..

start with a spreadsheet, and graduate to a database! Lots more flexibility. but takes a lot of time and work to assemble, tweak, troubleshoot.... and maintain! When its done though, instant access to everything you own (or have managed to include...) prices paid, estimated value, images, personal notes, key status, where, Guide, recent sales, etc etc

Based on all that I’ve read and discussed, Back in the early days, magazines and comics had distribution deals set up. Either a sole distributor, or a wider arrangement with more than one. Similarly a newsstand or store would receive magazines including comics from one distributor, and would receive what the distrib selected for them, or work with more than one who also chose for them, or, in some cases could give feedback to personalize their order. It was all returnable for credit, so the sales outlets were more like profit partners with the distribs who paid for and owned the stuff! And had to take it back and deal with the piles of returned mags. The stores made money, but the distribs had coin in the game and made the decisions. over the past 90 years — wow, comics are close to 100 year anniversary! — this all got streamlined of course, but the further you go back the more arcane it was handled where any possible combination was going on somewhere in the large cities down to the smallest burgs in the boondocks.

...and why are the image boxes square? Comics and OA are not square... okay, your design wants square images frames, but don’t default enlarge to fit dimensions so EVERY image is distorted (squeezed or extended) to fit the square...

I don’t understand how someone can’t understand how to understand that comment? understand?

Too true

Yeah... feels like with their sites completely down for weeks, ther was pressure to get SOMETHING back up quickly, and were assured that elements could be added while live... forgetting that customers who visit early come away with a less than impressive experience with a handicapped unfinished site. dont know why the new site wasn’t worked and tested until finished in parallel — offline — to the old live site? Anyone in tech can give an answer to this that might help sites in the future avoud a disappointing rollout?

I don’t see any mention of auctions at all yet... and looks like COmicConnect is selling/listing comics for sale like Comiclink Exchange now, it used to be only auctions, wasnt it! ive noticed that the Sort buttons don’t do anything yet either. Before or after a search (adding filters)

Wait... it was cardboard?. The color TV thing was real, so were the monkeys!

Ah, that’s just a bit too cynical for me. Maybe, maybe if Matt were still on his own it might have played out like you suggest. But he was already at CGC at the time, and the Company has larger concerns for their grading reputation at stake. Yes he was helpful to them as CGC is with many people in efforts to get more slabbing. But what the Meyers were doing with the books was way far and beyond restoration methods.

send a pic of the back. Its either a faded cover or missing both Magenta and yellow inks. The back cover will show more info.

Most of these millions of raw (And even slabbed ) books on ebay and at conventions (and websites especially Mile High) mentioned are merely “for sale”. And far too many at ridiculous prices to be meaningful to this discussion. Of all the comics lugged to a convention, very few actually sell. And many of them ended up heavily discounted. And since they are graded and priced by whoever is selling them, their data doesn’t pertain to GPAs mission to track CGC graded sales. But sure there’s lots and lots of comics sitting in boxes out there... millions of them unsellable except in bulk.

I think that was a rhetorical question...

yeah, I agree. While Tony S points out some interesting facts about slabbed vs raw in the hobby at large... my comments referred solely to OUR world in discussing GPA. and GPA ONLY looks at GRADED books! Whatever goes on with raw books including what they sell for has no bearing on whether GPAs pricing data would be better with more sources of data. Of course it would be... assuming everyone contributing uploaded ALL their results, good and bad, and let the chips fall where they may. Which as we know, isnt a given as we saw in the early days with large players cherrypicking their data. As is, GPA is very useful --- assuming one recognizes what it knows and what it doesn't know about the market for slabbed comics.

cool. like i say it just occurred to me writing the reply to you. but we might be getting there. Personally I think it must feel like it makes sense not to give it away, the secret sales data I mean. However, (I think) you'd be surprised at how little it would affect your business negatively, and that seeing documented sales data (as GPA affords us) would make it easier for you to sell at higher prices. Im sure that your experience shows that most buyers "believe" in the latest high sales on GPA --- they just want to pay less and have amazing arguments to back up their assertions! Know you love that! But at least there'd be a public benchmark as to WHY your ask price is what it is. And all the loser low sales are what they are. The money is in the bigger sales and adds up faster...

the idea just came to me, but in reality, it could work. So many people -- here on the boards and elsewhere -- are already scraping sales data. GPA saves them the trouble. Heritage leaves everything up AND shares with GPA. CConnect hides it but send most to GPA. Im sure they'd all rather not do the grunt work or pay for special software if someone would make the data available for a reasonable price as GPA has done.. no? SO if you and Comiclink wont "give it away for free" , how much will it take?

so, how much do you think your sales data is worth? If you could charge $5/ month for it, and had 200 subscribers, would you make your data for sale? Maybe this is the way forward, like how streaming is going. Consumers now pay a la carte for "channels" of videos, how about "sources of Comics sales"?.. Dealers could offer their data on a fee basi for online access to their sales prices Or is monthly fee enough to compensate you for the lost income derived from buying books with the advantage of private retail values in your database? Maybe do it like CGC grading fees? "Say Bob, heres $8, please send me your sales data for AF15?" How many grades worth would we get for $8? 9.0 and above? 5.0 to 8.5?

I used Age of Data in the same sense and we can all search for the best deals on hotels, fights, cars, fridges, shoes, etc etc. Prices are out there and searchable. It has changed retail, and how we do nearly everything today. Some benefited. Others lost business. but theres no going backwards. Comics however are really small and clinging to the past is still a viable option. My other point was that like when slabbing took hold, on the whole dealers benefited from a loss of their "strategic advantages of the Knowledge" in that case "grading". But once it was taken over by a third party (Oh No!) it all worked out for them on balance. So would it be great for the hobby is somehow GPA could show us nearly every reputable sale of a comic in a certain grade? Yes. Can that ever happen? not yet.

another reason GPA isnt and can never be the ideal, universal hub/clearing house of all sales (like Wall St) was already proven to be illusory. There were dealers who realized they could cherrypick which sales to send and which to hold back. And as Bob attests to, its not just that their low sales that would make them look bad, but also their record setting and high priced sales that while kept private, gives the dealer an edge when buying. But that kinda smacks of the old school Overstreet way of thinking that flies in the face of current Age of Data of so many things -- a system n place in which dealers ("those in the know") have an advantage! Maybe Comics can move beyond that. there must be sales that even Bob and others would now be privy to that would boost their list prices too. It could be a wash, same as slabbing turned out to be for dealers: their overgraded raw books took a hit, but truly HG copies skyrocketed and (more than) made up the difference.

Funny, but if you compare the old layout and the new, all the same columns and data are there... practically in the same places. Except bigger, and more spaced out. George, how about just tightening things up so that we can see nearly the same amount of data as before? Instead of each row being 3/8” tall surrounded by luxurious white space, make them 1/8” or packed in tighter... and make it so that when we pop open a listing/grade section, graphs are hidden, (click to,open) .

Actually switching between issues of a title is easier now. You use the pop up issue number box. Going from say #12 to 67 is now far less scrolling! Of course assuming you don’t have to spend minutes scrolling within the popular! Entering the issue number would be good.if it’s not already a feature also, as I said before, you should be able to see an entire issue ALL GRADES with only one scroll down like before. Except for keys issues which of course could have 30-50’ sections...

Yes I agree that seeing how the zombies played out all around the world was something Id hoped wed see.... But FEAR told the LA story. not all that different was it? Mostly different characters to like, dislike, and say goodbye to.