Conspiracy Theory

[RedRaven]

Could it be that the entire Silver-age and bronze age pricing structure / market is really controlled by a handful of people who are sitting on enough copies of 99% of these books to reduce the entire market back to cover price ?? Some form of comic-collecting Illuminati They simply let issues trickle out at a pace designed to hold their profits high and higher

Will that explain the black VW minivans that have been following me lately ??

I keep finding Tofoya pots smashed on my doorstep also...

[chrisfuccione]

No It's the CIA that owns the VW minivans! Or was that the KGB? Trust me they have been following me for years. CHRIS

 

 

[dadaist]

Could it be that the entire Silver-age and bronze age pricing structure / market is really controlled by a handful of people who are sitting on enough copies of 99% of these books to reduce the entire market back to cover price ??

 

The illuminati's are far too occupied with staging blackouts, mass upheaval, and a host of other insidious activity to be concerned about the comic market. However, I have always wondered (mostly pre-eBay years) how a) Overstreet advisors were selected; and b) what checks Overstreet used to make sure the information advisors forwarded was not directly going to improve their short or long-term fortunes. Its obvious that at some point, to satisfy the qualifying pool of candidates while still keeping a healthy team of comic-minded people involved with the OPG, Overstreet had to abandon a view on conflict of interest, as most advisors these days are either shop owners or are somehow heavily involved and maintain very influential positions within the comic industries back-issue market.

[12c_Comic]

Could it be that the entire Silver-age and bronze age pricing structure / market is really controlled by a handful of people who are sitting on enough copies of 99% of these books to reduce the entire market back to cover price ??

 

The illuminati's are far too occupied with staging blackouts, mass upheaval, and a host of other insidious activity to be concerned about the comic market. However, I have always wondered (mostly pre-eBay years) how a) Overstreet advisors were selected; and b) what checks Overstreet used to make sure the information advisors forwarded was not directly going to improve their short or long-term fortunes. Its obvious that at some point, to satisfy the qualifying pool of candidates while still keeping a healthy team of comic-minded people involved with the OPG, Overstreet had to abandon a view on conflict of interest, as most advisors these days are either shop owners or are somehow heavily involved and maintain very influential positions within the comic industries back-issue market.

 

Don't forget the StoneCutters,The Knights Templars,Shadow People,Little Green Men,and The MIB.........

[Lantern]

the StoneCutters

 

I believe that they have changed their name to the No Homers Club.

[fantastic_four]

Don Jay Parrino and Don Steve Geppi all divided up the comics market up between each other back when CGC first started, and they pull the strings on all current grading standards and pricing trends. Geppi dictates the grading standard through his control of the Overstreet price publications, Scoop, and CBM, and Parrino does his part through his control of CGC, Heritage, and soon, GPA Analysis. Comgeek is the Silver Age caporegime, Bronzebruce is the Bronze age capo, and Darthdiesel is the Modern capo; I haven't figured out who the Gold capo is yet. The Overstreet Advisors and various dealers make up the bulk of the street enforcement of all grading and pricing policies handed down by the Dons. Parrino and Geppi both landed on Earth in Roswell back in the 1950s to execute this plan of comic book market domination, and their master plan has really come to fruition since E-Bay and CGC jumpstarted it!

 

If I suddenly stop posting here and a shill account posts a picture of a fish, a copy of Overstreet, and a copy of Fantastic Four #1 all wrapped in newspaper, then you'll know that I've revealed far too much in this post!

[RedRaven]

Don Jay Parrino and Don Steve Geppi all divided up the comics market up between each other back when CGC first started, and they pull the strings on all current grading standards and pricing trends. Geppi dictates the grading standard through his control of the Overstreet price publications, Scoop, and CBM, and Parrino does his part through his control of CGC, Heritage, and soon, GPA Analysis. Comgeek is the Silver Age caporegime, Bronzebruce is the Bronze age capo, and Darthdiesel is the Modern capo; I haven't figured out who the Gold capo is yet. The Overstreet Advisors and various dealers make up the bulk of the street enforcement of all grading and pricing policies handed down by the Dons. Parrino and Geppi both landed on Earth in Roswell back in the 1950s to execute this plan of comic book market domination, and their master plan has really come to fruition since E-Bay and CGC jumpstarted it!

 

 

as my father once observed ...

You just cant make sh*t like that up !

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

If I suddenly stop posting here and a shill account posts a picture of a fish, a copy of Overstreet, and a copy of Fantastic Four #1 all wrapped in newspaper, then you'll know that I've revealed far too much in this post!

 

Before this happens, can you leave your F.F. 52 and 17 to me in your will?

 

[shiverbones]

 

bravo bravo

[dadaist]

If I suddenly stop posting here and a shill account posts a picture of a fish, a copy of Overstreet, and a copy of Fantastic Four #1 all wrapped in newspaper, then you'll know that I've revealed far too much in this post!

 

[garthgantu]

As I've mentioned before, there are a bunch of paranoid people after me... but I'm glad to know I'm not alone!

[joe_collector]

Don Jay Parrino and Don Steve Geppi all divided up the comics market up between each other back when CGC first started, and they pull the strings on all current grading standards and pricing trends. Geppi dictates the grading standard through his control of the Overstreet price publications, Scoop, and CBM, and Parrino does his part through his control of CGC, Heritage, and soon, GPA Analysis.

 

Excellent post FF and very informative, but after this part you really go out there into fantasyland. Let's keep to the established facts, shall we.

[fantastic_four]

Excellent post FF and very informative, but after this part you really go out there into fantasyland. Let's keep to the established facts, shall we.

 

I thought you might like that first bit, most of which was lifted from comic-keys...but going by evidence and not pure conjecture and circumstance, it's almost all just as unverifiable as Roswell was.

[THE_BEYONDER]

Excellent post FF and very informative, but after this part you really go out there into fantasyland. Let's keep to the established facts, shall we.

 

I thought you might like that first bit, most of which was lifted from comic-keys...but going by evidence and not pure conjecture and circumstance, it's almost all just as unverifiable as Roswell was.

 

Just because one can't prove something.....doesn't necessarily mean that's it's untrue .

[fantastic_four]

Before this happens, can you leave your F.F. 52 and 17 to me in your will?

 

Heh NO! Go hover around Storms' and Hoodeedoo's wills...their FFs are a lot sweeter than mine!

[fantastic_four]

Just because one can't prove something.....doesn't necessarily mean that's it's untrue .

 

That's an excellent point, and I will never give up hounding them until the government turns over those damn bodies!!!

 

I've heard you sold a few thousand back issues of Secret Wars I and II to pay for a sex change operation. Is that true? There's no proof of it, but as you say, that doesn't mean it didn't happen...

[THE_BEYONDER]

Just because one can't prove something.....doesn't necessarily mean that's it's untrue .

 

That's an excellent point, and I will never give up hounding them until the government turns over those damn bodies!!!

 

I've heard you sold a few thousand back issues of Secret Wars I and II to pay for a sex change operation. Is that true? There's no proof of it, but as you say, that doesn't mean it didn't happen...

 

.....you are going to regret that comment........trust me.

[sckao]

 

Here's an interesting thread from Usenet from earlier this year:

 

Overstreet Guide FULL OF LIES -concocts comic prices

 

(Reprinted from Usenet)

=======================================================

From: RealityCheck (noemail@nodomain.com)

Subject: Overstreet Guide FULL OF LIES -concocts comic prices

View: Complete Thread (3 articles)

Original Format

Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc

Date: 2003-03-18 22:41:15 PST

 

 

Attention comicbook collectors and investors. Have you read the

Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide No. 32 yet?

 

If not, please read this article below first, before believing any of

the things stated in this and any future Guides. I have been a seasoned

comicbook collector since 1979, and I have watched all of this unfold

and evolve, and most certainly, without a doubt, major manipulation of

the market is being attempted by the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.

As a result of this, all of comicbook collecting faces great risk of

potential collapse as a result of the mistruth and propaganda being

spread within its pages. I maintain that since 1994 there has no longer

been a reliable guide to comicbook prices in America, and that likely,

there never again will be.

 

First of all, all collectors should be made aware that the Overstreet

Comic Book Price Guide, a publication long considered in the comics back

issue industry as the "Bible of the Industry", is now owned and produced

by Steve Geppi by Gemstone Publishing after it was "taken over" from its

creator and original publisher Mr. Bob Overstreet. This sale/take-over

of the Guide occurred on September 02, 1994, and an article appeared in

Guide 25 on page A-57, where it says: "Geppi acquired Overstreet

Publications, Inc. with all its copyrights and intellectual properties

including this Price Guide. ... The company relocated to Timonium MD

Gemstone headquarters and will continue to publish their products in

this location."

Shortly after the take over occurred, Bob Overstreet sold off his

private collection as well.

 

If it weren't bad enough that the greediest of all the comicbook dealers

is now in charge of the "Bible of Comicdom", something that gives him

intellectual license to spread whatever self serving mistruth he likes

in terms of comicbook price propaganda, Steve Geppi has vastly outdone

himself with Guide 32, (at what was already the immoral manipulating

conniving standard of mistruth that has become the mainstay of comicbook

collecting propaganda in recent years of the Overstreet Guide) -with a

lie so bold, so grand, and so obviously, blatantly untrue, that it

should be obvious and transparent to any relatively seasoned collector,

if for no other reason than the fact that it flies in the face of

collecting commonality, basic sanity, or just plain reason.

 

I am of course talking about the claim made in the Overstreet Comic Book

Price Guide No. 32 on page 50; "Steve Geppi's Marvel Comics #1 pay copy

goes for $350,000.00"

 

The enormous fallacy of this statement can be shown up if one considers

the following:

 

Firstly, the mainstay for the Golden Age Comics market from 1970 up

until the Sotheby's Auctions began in 1991, was gradual increases in the

prices of all the main Key books. I maintain that without the price

manipulation which occurred in subsequent editions of the Guide,

centered around these Auctions, that the prices of all the key golden

age books would have shown this same gradual level of increase, if not a

decline in this rate of increase, due to the sliding economy in general,

and the overall downturn of interest in comicbooks and comicbook

collecting that occurred with the rise in popularity of video and

computer games which began in the mid 1990s. As without the 'bread and

butter' of the industry to support comic fandom, and to spur on interest

in the back issue market, a decline in overall interest in comicbook

collecting logically has led to a drop overall for both new and back

issue sales.

 

This drop should equally affect the prices of golden age key books, as

the number of new collectors drops, and the market falls in general.

Instead however, "Auction Fever" was played up to the maximum extent by

the Guide, even though the majority of those in attendance and bidding

in all the Sotheby's Auctions were Comicbook Back Issue Dealers, and not

private collectors. For Christ's sake, a few years back, Christie's

Auction House, (the second big name auction house to pick up on

Comicbook Auctions after Sotheby's) dropped their comic and original art

auctions completely, as this area was simply not showing significant

enough profits. -That should tell all of us out there something......

Besides the fact that a few years ago Marvel Comics filed for

bankruptcy, and had to discontinue publication of several of their

flagship series that had run since the 1960s, and change their name from

Marvel Entertainment, to Marvel Characters to stay in business.

 

Secondly, Guide 24 states that this same "pay copy" of Marvel Comics 1

did not sell at Sotheby's Third Comicbook Auction in the Spring of 1993,

where this exact same book did not meet its Auction Reserve price of

$25,000.00 placed on the book by its owner Mr. Steve Geppi, (and I urge

the reader to realize that Mr. Geppi is probably STILL its owner...) on

account of the fact that his price was too steep for comicbook dealers,

(who at the time made up the majority of Sotheby's key book customers)

on account of the fact that the book sports a huge dark "X" written

across its entire front cover in pen in addition to the other pen

writing detailing prices paid to the contributing artists etc. (Whether

these can be proven to have been made by the artists that contributed to

the book, or by Mr. Steve Geppi himself of course remains unknown I

might add) These faults in fact permanently fix the condition of this

book in the "VG" or Very Good category, as an average defective copy,

worth only a fraction of the value of a proper high grade copy such as a

pedigree copy, or one of the few true unrestored Near Mint copies.

 

The Article which appeared on page A-93 of Guide 24 regarding this book

was entitled: "SOTHEBY'S 3RD COMIC AUCTION, SPRING 1993 (The Day Silver

Turned Into Gold)" by Jerry Weist & Roger Hill.

 

The quote to pay attention to was: "How could an auction that failed to

sell the "payout" copy of Marvel Comics #1, Action Comics #1, Detective

#27 and Superman #1 be regarded as highly successful?"

 

Remember though that this same guide states that a copy of Marvel Comics

1 in VF86 condition was reported in this guide to have been sold for

$40,000.00, and the cover artwork for Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1

was reportedly sold for $27,700.00, and Pacific Comics Exchange reported

the sale of the Marvel Comics 1 Carson City Copy VF 60 (3.5 pages) for

$55,000.00. This shows that had the "pay copy" of Marvel Comics 1 been

in good enough condition to rival either of the VF copies sold that

year, then SURELY it should have at least sold at the Sotheby's Auction

for its $25,000.00 reserve price!!!!!

 

It should be obvious to the scrutinizer of this article and the Guide

itself, that if the book could not sell at public auction for $25,000,

then almost certainly it could not in any imaginable way suddenly and

magically graduate to the status of one of the "Best copies in

existence", after so little time has passed and command a price of

$350,000.00. What happened to the better copies in existence, did Steve

Geppi forget about them?

 

The reader of the Article quoted above (The Day Silver Turned to Gold),

should also consider carefully whether or not the dealers all present at

the Auction didn't get together seeing that the Key Golden Age books

were not selling, or rather that none of them wished to purchase them,

and decide to concoct the huge Silver Age Key book prices quoted in

Guide 24......

 

Whether this highly suspicious and extraordinary claim of the "pay copy"

of Marvel Comics 1 selling for $350,000.00, or being one of the finest

in existence would be adhered to and upheld or outright defamed were an

opinion asked of any seasoned Dealer that attended the 1993 Sotheby's

Comic Art Auction and knew first hand that the book was merely a VG, and

could not possibly be worth more than a VG price to the collector, and

be thus sized up for the rip off it truly is, remains to be seen,

(probably sodium pentathol would be required) but you the discerning

collector/investor reading this article, and Overstreet Guide 32, should

be armed with this knowledge, and therefore alerted to the level of

manipulation of comicbook market conditions and prices that Steve Geppi

is blatantly trying to pull past what should be the wizened trained eye

of all comic collectors in comicdom assembled.

 

Furthermore, in Guide 32, a company called "Jay Parrino's The Mint"

sports ads throughout the Guide in full color full page size, telling of

not only the "pay copy" of Marvel Comics 1, but also the "pay copy" of

Motion Pictures Funnies Weekly having been sold for exorbitant

outlandish prices, but also makes the offer to buy an Action Comics 1 in

CGC NM 9.4 for One Million Dollars! This is ludicrous!

 

Ok, I would have swallowed even up to $40 to 65 G tops for the book on a

one time deal, on account of the provenance if it were at all

confirmable, to a really stupid and filthy rich foolish collecting

zealot, but $350,000.00? Everyone knows that grade far out weighs

provenance. Come on Steve Geppi, I know that many of us were real Marvel

Zombies years back, hey some of us even wanted Howard the Duck for

President in the mid to late seventies, but how many of even those that

really thought they might actually 'vote for Howard' would swallow this?

In your dreams.

 

Hey from where I sit, for all I know, you wrote that nasty huge "X" and

the words "Pay Copy" on the cover yourself a few years back. After all,

until a few years ago nobody had even heard of it, and we all should

really have known if it was for real around the time that Motion

Pictures Funnies Weekly was discovered. After all it would have been big

news. For that matter, why wasn't the Pay Copy of Motion Pictures

Funnies Weekly flashed for the collecting public to ogle over at the

same time? Could it be that both of these "provenances" are frauds? One

has to wonder why the words "Pay Copy" would be written on one of the

covers of this book when only 8 of them were ever even printed to be

shown to movie houses in the hopes of creating a market, and none of

them were ever sold to the public. If no profits were ever realized, why

would Martin Goodman sit down with the staff, and divvy up the profits

and mark the payments to the artists and writers on the front cover of

one of the 8 copies ever printed? Bet you forgot to think of that one

Mr. Geppi.....

 

In fact on their own merit, the words "Pay Copy" sound an awful lot like

a pure hoax aimed at collectordom assembled. A File Copy is one thing,

but why would Mr. Goodman have used these particular terms back in 1939?

Ok, so there is a slim chance that he might have pulled one off the

stack to write on, even though this is unlikely in light of the fact

that they were printed to be sold not to be used as stationary at a time

when 10¢ was a big deal, but there was no concept at that time that any

of them would ever be collectible, so reference to anyone identifying a

"copy" of any book in terms that seem to point to an appreciation of

collectorhood back in 1939 is absurd, let alone a "pay copy". Think that

one over.

 

Personally this latest world's record price tops it off for me. Every

year we hear of a new 100 grand plus expenditure for a key book, or a

mile high copy of such a book. When years ago, it was big and long

standing news for several years that the mile high Marvel 1 had sold for

82,000.00 cash and trade. Back then this never set the price for this

book in general into an uncontrolled skyrocket. In fact, all the earlier

guides posted the warning that "Prices Vary Widely on this Book" with

each Golden Age Key. (At least Bob Overstreet had a little integrity)

That was a hell of a lot more honest. So I say "collectors assemble",

lets not let "Steve Gippy" trick us into thinking such propaganda and

hard to confirm sales which probably never even happened set the market

prices for these keys. Just how badly do we want to be taken? (Hey did

we really want Howard for President? Com'on now, people......think

back,......don't be afraid to admit it.....then ask yourself would you

want Steve Geppi in that role?)

 

Please remember that Steve Geppi was a mere Postal Worker before he made

his fortune ripping off comicbook collectors, and that there is a 95%

probability that it is Mr. Geppi himself offering this money (through

Jay Parrino) to get this Action Comics 1 for his own collection out of

the hands of another greedy seasoned collector/dealer, who would not

part with it unless someone offered this kind of outlandish cash, and

maybe not then even. If Guide 33 sports the claim that such a sale was

made, one can rest assured that it was Steve Geppi who made the purchase

on the blood money he has over the years siphoned out of comicbook

collectors, or that he gave another of his books to Jay Parrino "on

consignment". Also please rest assured that Jay Parrino's The Mint does

not own, and did not pay $350,000.00 for the "pay copy" of Marvel Comics

1, and that Mr. Geppi still owns it, and cannot sell it, and has nothing

to lose by using Jay Parrino as his front man to see if he can find a

gullible enough sucker to pay in excess of $350,000.00 for the book so

he can plop this onto the Action Comics 1 he wants for his own

collection.

 

Probably Jay Parrino, a coin dealer who was not even into comicbooks a

year ago has worked out a deal with Mr. Geppi worth his while for making

these bold lies, and did not even pay for the ads placed in Guide 32.

Aside from that, had Mr. Parrino even been into comic collecting for any

significant period of time he could have easily have already owned a

Marvel Comics 1, and for that matter, even if he did not, certainly he

could have purchased a proper NM copy for far far less than the

$350,000.00 that his ad in Guide 32 states he did, which also points out

how ludicrous this claim is.

 

Such conniving and manipulative practices were well known in this market

and well documented as far back in the collecting world as 1975 as the

quote below from a book on Comic Collectibles and Toys published in '75

("A Celebration of Comic Art and Memorabilia" pages 75 to 76, available

at your local library boys and girls) illustrates:

 

------------------

"The new collector must understand that a few years ago the

comic-character toy was bought simply because it was high camp, a

conversation piece that generated laughs on the cocktail table, or

because it was just plain funky and cost only a few dollars. But today

many of these toys are approaching the thousand-dollar mark, and this

dramatic rise in prices, coupled with the general ignorance of the

values, has attracted the shrewd, money-oriented auction houses, and

their toy auctions are increasing in frequency and sharpness. They have

brought in with them many years of their manipulative experience, which

warrants a few words of caution.

 

"The Knocker Team" consists of two men who will work you over

separately. John Smith looks at your toys and asks the prices. Whatever

the prices are, he screams in outrage that they are too high, and then

"knocks" the merchandise as being inferior, points out the faded paint,

the scratches and dents, and states flatly that pieces are missing and

the toy is incomplete. He may then offer you half your asking price, and

you, believing him to be more expert than yourself, come down in price.

He then identifies himself as a dealer, and requests a dealer's price,

since he "must make a profit." You come down again, and he takes a

second look at the toys and in a dejected tone says, "No. These toys are

in such bad shape I don't think anyone will buy them at your high

prices, and I've just heard a rumor that a warehouse has just been taped

in Brooklyn where hundreds of these toys have been found in mint

condition in the original boxes, which is certainly going to collapse

the market price. Sorry, but I'm not in business to lose money." He

walks out. He has cracked your selling price and put you into a state of

panic. That's his job. Fifteen minutes later his buddy Jim Jones walks

in, knowing you are willing to sell for less than half. "I own a

discount store in Jersey and want to add a line of cheap toys for

Christmas. How much?" You quote a low price, then he flashes a roll of

bills and asks, "How much off for cash?" Down you go lower. He buys and

gets a receipt. You've been had, hustled, conned."

 

"The Knock-Out Ring" is another device that works well. You have

consigned your toys to an auction house for sale to the highest bidders.

A group of dealers approach the auctioneer and express interest in the

lot. He will listen because dealers account for as much as 80 percent

his total business. The goal is to "knock-out" the lot at very low

prices to the ring. The group agrees to a "kipper", not to bid against

each other in a sale, so that one of them can purchase the entire lot of

toys at a low price. After the sale, the members of the ring, using

sealed bids, reauction the toys among themselves in a "knock-out" sale

and divide the profits. The auctioneer gets his cut because he has made

certain that advertising of the auction appeared in the last page in

fine print in the Northeast Podunk Monthly Gazette, the direct mail

advertisements were all sent by mistake to Fairbanks, Alaska, and none

of the major toy collectors were notified of the auction, to eliminate

high retail bids. Should they inquire after the auction, "Where are the

toys now?" the helpful auctioneer will forward the names and addresses

of the friendly dealers and pick up a double commission after the retail

sale.

 

"Auction Fever" is just the reverse. The auction house buys your lot of

toys and will put into the catalog the slanted truth: "Property from the

estate of T.C. Collector, sold by the order of the Crooked Snake Auction

Company, Ltd., London, New York, and Zurich." They do not state that

they own it. They have a list of the major collectors and invite them

all to the auction, knowing that many are rich competitive enemies who

will pay any price to prevent the toy from ending up in the other guy's

collection. In the audience they place shills who help to bid up the

price and increase the "auction fever," and after the auction you find

out what the reserve prices were, now understand how you have been had,

and quietly but firmly compare the least painful ways of suicide.

 

What do they know that you don't know? More important, what do they know

that they don't want you to know? Simple: The most important toys, their

names, and what they look like. They know that the demand is intense and

that the price they could get is almost as high as the sky."

--------------------

 

What does Steve Geppi know that you don't know? That he figures that the

comic collecting public is so gullible and so naive, that he can take

liberty to publish whatever propaganda serves his never ending greed the

best, and put it past us all, effecting and manipulating the market to

serve his lust for wealth, and we will take it as gospel truth, and

invest our money for his sake and the sake of the other members of the

greedy boys club of the select high end dealers in cahoots, like blind

insufficiently_thoughtful_persons, paying record prices for books, particularly CGC slabbed books

-as if slabbing them makes them any better, only to discover that upon

resale, that we are unable to get back our money, because market

conditions simply do not in any way measure up to the B.S. the Guide

says that they do.

 

Please make no mistake about it, the name of the game is GET WHATEVER

YOU CAN GET. there are no morals whatsoever involved.

 

This example alone, the "pay copy" concoction should serve to convince

you at the very least, that serious and dangerous marketplace

manipulation is and has been taking place in the Guide, probably for

quite some time, and the fact that this market is more corrupt, and

unbalanced than ever before, with no checks or balances whatsoever to

the propaganda it is based upon for the investor (god help him...) to

rely upon.

 

The very essence in itself of the reason that the New York Stock Market

experienced the Great Depression of 1929 was on account of prices having

been manipulated, and investors expecting money, when the money had not

actually been generated and was not even present, and that huge

quantities of fabricated stocks had been bought up by the deceived

investing public. When Black Sunday hit in 1929, market panic resulted

in the fact that when everyone cashed in their stocks at once, the

entire stock market collapsed. It was a giant balloon full of hot air,

lies, and cons, that inevitably burst, but not without taking down the

entire economy in the process.

 

Now in comic marketplace terms the same thing is occurring, except that

only one man, (Mr. Steve Geppi) a man so rich and fat from single

handedly manipulating and steering the comicbook market for the last

several years is boldly attempting to sucker new investors into paying

even larger sums of money for key books based upon what are probable

concoctions.

 

Also with the same guide (and for a year or two now) Gemstone has also

been attempting to save the comicbook market place through a general

market shift towards the push for every collector to waste his money

having his collection CGC Certified, urging us to believe that condition

ripoffs were the sole reason behind the comicbook recession, and loss of

investor interest, rather than the real reason, which is unexpectedly

low resale turn arounds realized by collectors unloading their

collections to dealers and on eBay as they needed to cash their

investment in after they were suckered by the inflated values touted by

their bible, "The Guide". Something that was the result of the rip-off

philosophy of the comic back issue industry in the first place, and its

inflated "market estimates".

 

Surely such a vast and looming expanse as the gap between realities

marked by a market that can support the sale of a lowly VG copy of what

is actually a fairly common key book for the staggering price of

$350,000.00 touted as one of the finest in existence, is certainly not

the same market that is and has been having such a hard time surviving!

Certainly certification by the CGC has been undertaken in hopes of

boosting investor confidence in a disillusioned fan based marketplace,

which has already lost much of its "investment potential" and attraction

after these same collectors were all cheated out when they discovered

that to sell their collections they would have to accept low percentages

of Guide values from greedy dealers or on eBay, thus losing money,

rather than making it, when the reality of the comicbook recession began

to sink in.

 

The Guide (Geppi) believes that comicdom assembled is living in the

twilight zone, exactly where they sincerely want us. The brain dead, the

unquestioning, eager victims of a market thought of by all the larger

dealers in its early days as a complete and utter scam. They thought in

terms of crossing their fingers, wincing, wondering when it is going to

collapse, and come to an end, as the ceiling on values was reached.

Something I maintain has already occurred quite a while ago, and I

maintain that the market cannot support the ridiculous claims being

submitted by the publishers of the guide of unbelievably tremendous sums

of money changing hands for the best copies of key books in existence,

or even for that matter at rates that have not grown at an expectable

and understandable rate for these key books when compared to the very

market substrata conditions that would make such investments sound.

Namely the overall market stability, and fan interest and fan

expenditure that supports it.

 

One does not have to travel too far to visit a comicbook convention in

order to see that the majority of the sparse patrons are all kids and

teens with limited spending cash, and that the expensive comics are just

sitting on dealer's shelves. It certainly is not privileged information

that the majority of kids nowadays are interested in and busied with

video and computer games, and that the substrata of the comic market,

the bread and butter of the industry, the young collectors, have all but

disappeared, and that without this "bread and butter" of the industry,

the kids interested in and buying up and perpetuating comics and

comicbook collecting, any long term investment in the industry as a

whole is utter folly, because comicbook fanship is a truly dated fad.

 

I say much if not all of the comicbook marketplace propaganda is pure

unadulterated lies, and I challenge the "crooked snakes" at the head of

the industry to prove with bank statements and open record keeping

otherwise.

 

Until that day arrives, its buyer beware. Steve Geppi, and the cartel of

other top echelon dealers are scamming together conspiring to make

themselves rich on your back, and to swipe the best copies of the key

books for themselves in the process.

 

You have been warned.

 

By the way, having collected since '79, I have a Marvel Comics 1 in my

collection, as well as many other key books. But seeing as how the CGC

can grade Geppi's "pay copy" as a NM, I have severe reservations about

their integrity or letting them grade my books at all. Besides, having

them couped up in CGC holders prevents the paper from releasing off

gassing which occurs during the paper's aging process, leading to

browning of the pages.

 

Please copy and distribute this posting so that it is seen and read by

as many comicbook collectors as possible, and email it to all your comic

collecting friends. Let Steve Geppi know that collectordom assembled

knows what he's up to, and that we will stand for it no longer!

 

 

 

[supapimp]

how was the hayward show BTW?

[BachelorOfComix]

Can someone give me a 1 or 2 sentence recap of the Usenet thread?