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Fathers Vintage Collection! Give Me a Break!!!! Ebay Item # 2205188514

Started by eccomic,

241 posts in this topic

fantastic_four

fantastic_four

Posted
Posted
Actually, the guy might have decided to save on shipping costs and could have already driven down to make the auction close time in LA. If he was spending $15K, he might have decided to look the goods through beforehand and could have had a laptop on hand to handle a higher bid if needed (although his max bid might have been somewhat higher anyway). If that was the case, he could have loaded the books up, taken them home and had plenty of time to feedback.

 

I've never done one of these type deals before, but if I was going to, that would seem as reasonable a way to go as any.

 

He told the seller he wanted to come buy the books, but she didn't want some young guy coming to her house to rip her off, so she said she wanted to meet in a public place. He said fine, but bring some books to show me you're serious, and if he liked the books and she trusted him, they would go back to her house and finish the deal. He said they met in a CostCo parking lot--in the rain--and she had 20 comics, all Gold and Silver Age--all different than the ones he had seen in the auction picture. She also brought her two sons to make sure she didn't get ripped off! thumbsup2.gif He also said she lived out in the sticks--she told him that the population of Knight's Ferry was only 140 people. confused-smiley-013.gif

 

I was unclear what happened after that because he was talking so fast, but I think he said they went back to her house, he saw the rest of the books were nice, and then he paid and left. The drive time is sounding POSSIBLY fishy, but plausible until I can verify the geography. He actually gave me the address of the CostCo he met her at! I have it written down in my notes, I think...more to come later.

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fantastic_four

fantastic_four

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Posted
So far the books he has up for auction are fairly worn. The only value they would have is age value. Hopefully he has better looking books. Did he mention if he bought them in order to sell them individually, or did he buy them for his own collection and sell what he didn't want?

 

He said he was planning to keep the majority of them...I got the impression they would go into his brother's collection but I'm not sure.

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Red Hook

Red Hook

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This is turning out to be some story! Next, I'm gonna' hear that it turns out that "Daddy" was

Edgar Church, and his moldering, badly embalmed corpse was actually stuffed into the fourth long box! 893whatthe.gif

 

Actually ff, writing an article about this whole deal would be a great public service, very much a buyer beware type thing. It could actually be that both the buyer AND the seller were naive enough to cause this potential train wreck of a transaction!

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OldGuy

OldGuy

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Since I've already got a loose relationship with the Comics Buyer's Guide related to writing pedigree-related articles, I'm thinking about writing something up for them.

 

893applaud-thumb.gif

 

I only have 6 issues left on my sub and now I have a nother good reason to re-up.

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JohnBull

JohnBull

Posted
Posted
So far the books he has up for auction are fairly worn. The only value they would have is age value. Hopefully he has better looking books. Did he mention if he bought them in order to sell them individually, or did he buy them for his own collection and sell what he didn't want?

 

He said he was planning to keep the majority of them...I got the impression they would go into his brother's collection but I'm not sure.

 

Could be legit after all. The flip profit in the books might be close to zero, but if his brother just wanted to add to his collection in a big way, he might have beaten guide somewhat. They might figure that keeping what they want and selling a few bits to recoup expenses is a good deal. Your average comic fan is not a rabid follower of these boards, he's just some guy who doss things on a more casual level.

 

If the guy is a scam artist then he must be brilliant. To spend over an hour with you on the phone going into that much detail (the address of the Cost co !) would be beyond the ability of most crooks I feel.

 

It would be nice if it was genuine. If the seller made a tidy profit and was happy and the buyer got some good books in a deal that made him happy.

 

All very confusing.

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OldGuy

OldGuy

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Yes, recording it is a good idea if you're planning on writing about it. Let him know though.

 

I don't know where FF lives, but in NM only one party has to know they're being recorded to be legal. This may not be why you said that, but just FYI FWIW.

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garthgantu

garthgantu

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You guys are all nuts!! And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

 

The original buyer has listed some of the books from the collection (cough cough) on eBay. In those listings he claims he needs money for home remodeling. Who, who I ask you, goes out and drops $15k on a bunch of random books, if they need $ for remodeling. Something's not right here, period.

 

I'm still waiting for the guy to start posting much higher-value books, supposedly from the collection. If he doesn't, then I'm stumped - I just don't see how he's gonna recoup his 'investment' (maybe he's been reading the threads about shipping profiteering and has decided THAT's the way to make $).

 

And to the point about he and his brother setting aside 'the good stuff', how could we ever confirm that the 'good stuff' actually came from the original auction sale, when none of that 'good stuff' was shown in the pics?

 

Would you bid $15k (or $25k max bid, if the story is to be believed) based on 20 or so GA and SA 'examples' from the collection, unless they were truly high-value items? And if they were in that vein, wouldn't you be able to remember a couple of those and rattle off the titles and issue #s to FF while chatting on the phone?

 

And if the guy's brother is the real comic afficianado, wouldn't HE be the one to go look over the books and gauge the value of the collection?

 

Problem now is, the guy could easily read this thread and have all his answers lined up for his next correspondence or call with FF...

 

It's still completely fishy IMO... Something's wrong with this picture, and hopefully we'll eventually figure out exactly where the fish smell is coming from...

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143ksk

143ksk

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Maybe I missed it, but what about the underbidder? They were willing to bid $15K+, too! If not for them the auction would have closed around $5K. Are there 2 people out there dumb enough to pay $15K for this collection? Still seems fishy to me...

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garthgantu

garthgantu

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Good point! And welcome to the boards!

 

It's pretty easy to set up x shill accounts to make the bidding look more 'natural'... even if 12 people had supposedly bid serious $ on this, it wouldn't change my opinion that this is a SHAM of some kind...just need to figure out exactly what kind 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

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garthgantu

garthgantu

Posted
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Actually, I meant to acknowledge that the whole "my house needs remodeling" line was originally noted by you, Discount... that to me is the icing on the cake. The guy just 'won' this auction (supposedly), and already he appears to be lying in the descriptors of his auctions of books purchased (allegedly) from this "little old lady" ?

 

What about this hypothetical situation...the 'buyer' of the original auction had a bunch of low-grade books he wanted to sell. Knew he'd get only nominal interest, so he cooked up a 'little old lady auction' to get the attention of more comic book buyers. Then he posts stuff he already owned, and the traffic is 3x heavier than normal for those books in those grades. The original $15k auction is from some shill account, and he just bails on that account and never pays the fees...

 

Seems like a lotta work to sell some run-of-the-mill funnybooks, but if it nets you and extra $500 or $1,000 over a couple of weeks of auctions, it might be worth it...?

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towards2112

towards2112

Posted
Posted

Current auctions state : Make check payment

to Youngblood and Youngblood.

SOCAL????893scratchchin-thumb.gifthumbsup2.gif

OK all you web savvy individuals,

who or whom are Youngblood and Youngblood.

Believe it or not I'm down to 20 or so copies of

Youngblood, # 1 that is.......

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joe_collector

joe_collector

Posted
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I've got 25 copies of Youngblood #1 in untouched condition. None have ever been opened.

 

I don't think any of them have ever been opened.

 

There was a joke in an old OS, where a shop owner offered any customer trotting to the counter with Youngblood 2 a free copy, if only they could outline the story in Youngblood 1.

 

In his words, "Let's just say everyone paid for their comics that day"

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