Interesting Ethical Question from Baltimore

[THE_BEYONDER]

Any dealer that paid the bare minimum( $1 a book ) & bragged about their "score" is a ' person_who_is_obnoxiously_self-impressed. Hope Karma kicks them straight in the nuts.

[Ferdelance]

If you're talking about the wacko, human-loathing HSUS - Humane Society of the United States, then they deserve whatever they got, including counterfeit bills, stolen books and bounced checks.

 

If it was a local humane society organization, more likely to be engaged in non-political help to animals, then I see your point.

 

Couldn't agree more. (thumbs u

[Dale Roberts]

You asked for opinions, so here is mine.

And this is my problem with this whole thread....

 

You say it was dealers, yet you don't know who, or at least don't name who. That automatically casts aspersions on every dealer present. Giving those who are inclined to do such a thing another reason to blame all greedy unethical dealers for all of the world's problems. I would suppose that some early customers(you know, the guys who borrow badges from dealers to go around the room and buy the deals up in the room before the show starts while the dealers are setting up their booths) might have bought up some of these supposed great deals as well. (See how it feels?).

 

The problem with this is not a "dealer" problem, it is a "person" problem. Regardless of who it was, it probably should have been handled differently. Dealers get blamed for enough without piling on.

 

For the record, this is the first I have heard about it, and I didn't buy any of the books. I know for a fact that Ricky Evans did not buy any of them either.

 

I suspect you were not talking about me, Ted, Bob, Ricky, etc, but in the future, it would really be helpful not to lump us all in together.

 

Your overly sensitive friendly neighborhood comic book dealer,

Dale

[DrWatson]

You asked for opinions, so here is mine.

And this is my problem with this whole thread....

 

You say it was dealers, yet you don't know who, or at least don't name who. That automatically casts aspersions on every dealer present. Giving those who are inclined to do such a thing another reason to blame all greedy unethical dealers for all of the world's problems. I would suppose that some early customers(you know, the guys who borrow badges from dealers to go around the room and buy the deals up in the room before the show starts while the dealers are setting up their booths) might have bought up some of these supposed great deals as well. (See how it feels?).

 

The problem with this is not a "dealer" problem, it is a "person" problem. Regardless of who it was, it probably should have been handled differently. Dealers get blamed for enough without piling on.

 

For the record, this is the first I have heard about it, and I didn't buy any of the books. I know for a fact that Ricky Evans did not buy any of them either.

 

I suspect you were not talking about me, Ted, Bob, Ricky, etc, but in the future, it would really be helpful not to lump us all in together.

 

Your overly sensitive friendly neighborhood comic book dealer,

Dale

[blazingbob]

What's Dave Millers opinion on this?

 

That's what I want to know.

[toro]

Brian, I think it falls in a grey area. You feel it is unethical because the charity is losing out. The dealers and other buyers are making big scores. But I am willing to bet if you had gone over and talked to the humane society they would have said "yes there are probably some real good books here, but we don't really know anything about comics and we are just happy to get the dollar". Is it right if someone pulled a Spidey 300 in VF or better condition and only paid a dollar? Well I would hope the person would feel they should drop a donation to the humane society, but not everyone be it a dealer or just some everyday joe-shmoe has a conscious. You along with many others would have given more. You can't really force people to sell books for what they are truely worth (whether they are to high or in this case to low)

 

I once saw in the dollar bins at my LCS some Avatar Goons and remembered reading here that these were hot books, but had no idea how much they were worth. I figured probably $10 to $15. I asked the manager "are you really selling these for a dollar? He said "yes", I asked two more times and each time he said "yes" anything I put in there is $1 and he was getting pizzed so I just bought them. My LCS is not a charity so I did not feel guilty about it, but I gave the man three chances to say they weren't for sale. All he said was "guess you like the Goon, it's a good book"!

[the blob]

hey, at my last garage sale I KNOW I was selling a bunch of vintage records for $1 that some of the buyers were going to flip on ebay for 10-30X as much. I had fished them out of the trash in my old apartment building (which, with 600+ apartments, mainly occupied by 50 - 80 year olds, had some amazing garbage finds...it was literally a second income for me). i didn't know which ones exactly (as many of them were so obscure there is no ebay sales history), but i knew it when I saw the "professionals" picking them out. these guys were obviously buying to resell, but trying to pretend they were buying because they wanted to listen to the records. i kept on telling them "i know you're going to be making a huge profit on these, have fun." so long as i know someone is getting over on me it doesn't feel as bad.

 

funny thing is some russian lady was telling me "you know, some of these are very valuable, you should be selling them for more"...I invited her to buy the ones she thought were valuable and sell them for a profit. of course, she thought the least valuable stuff were the money makers like Billy Joel albums from the 80's, etc...basically stuff that really is only worth a buck because it's sitting in everyone's closet already.

 

why did i let this happen? well, selling records on ebay is a huge PITA for me so it just isn't worth it. i don't want to have to pack records 1000% better than any comic would need to get packed and I don't want someone b**tching at me because there's some scratch on side B...I don't even own a turntable, so I have no idea if they're warped or whatever.

 

much like the folks at the humane society don't have the knowledge (or desire) to sell comics except for $1 a pop. it would have been nice for a dealer to spot the 10 or 15 or 25 really good ones and assign them some quick sale prices at more than $1, but that didn't happen.

[followtheleader]

Man, this makes me explode with anger.

 

People need to have integrity. Makes me sick.

 

Pat

[the blob]

I once saw in the dollar bins at my LCS some Avatar Goons and remembered reading here that these were hot books, but had no idea how much they were worth. I figured probably $10 to $15. I asked the manager "are you really selling these for a dollar? He said "yes", I asked two more times and each time he said "yes" anything I put in there is $1 and he was getting pizzed so I just bought them. My LCS is not a charity so I did not feel guilty about it, but I gave the man three chances to say they weren't for sale. All he said was "guess you like the Goon, it's a good book"!

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

 

it also depends on the store's market. one shop i go to basically deep discounts or dollar boxes everything that isn't a mainstream super hero book. they can't sell disney or gold key or albedo or pre-unity valiant for whatever reason, so they dump them and I'm happy to buy them cheap. I'm not going to tell them "hey, you know this one could get $25 on ebay". but like in my previous post, if the owner gives me first dibs on a discount box that just walked in off the street at $1 or 3 for $2 or whatever and he obviously didn't look at it and I see an obvious big book like USM 2, ASM 300 or whatever in there, I pull it out and hand it to him because I know he can sell that. Plus, I don't want him to think I'm pulling a fast one trying to put those in my 3 for $2 stack. it's 50/50 he'd notice them anyway, so i don't want to ruin his good will.

[the blob]

You say it was dealers, yet you don't know who, or at least don't name who. That automatically casts aspersions on every dealer present. Giving those who are inclined to do such a thing another reason to blame all greedy unethical dealers for all of the world's problems. I would suppose that some early customers(you know, the guys who borrow badges from dealers to go around the room and buy the deals up in the room before the show starts while the dealers are setting up their booths) might have bought up some of these supposed great deals as well. (See how it feels?).

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

 

99.9% of dealers are just making a living off this business, they need these "freebies" (or cheapies) once in a while to make a living at this. i don't see these guys driving BMWs with ginat mcmansions and what not, this isn't 1992 when these guys were (briefly) making a killing off cards and comics at the same time. It is a much tougher business now. Sure, many of these guys are slime balls, but so are lots of people in other businesses and walks of life. Who the F leaves a frigging bag of garbage in your driveway? WHo lets their dog pis*s on your frigging garbage can cover the garbage man tossed on the sidewalk? It happens, because a lot of people are dirt bags. That's life.

[cujobyte]

My discomfort with how things broke was really more to do with the fact that this isn't your normal dealer set up. It's a charity -- and not a dealer. Normally I'd not care -- I'm not saying anyone was hosed, but I'm just less than comfortable with it -- if it was the American Cancer Society or whatever, would we still say, well, they got what they asked? I dunno, if it's someone who's an actual dealer fine, but to me, I guess I'm thinking of just what we should do, not a declaration of the technical merits. But this is a grey area and that's why I threw it out there.

 

As I said earlier, unethical behavior and tasteless behavior aren't synonomous. Technically, if you give someone their asking price for an item, you aren't "hosing" them, but to capitalize off of a charity, then to brag about it, is certainly in poor taste.

 

I have to wonder about someone who would derive pleasure, or feel the need to brag about nabbing some relatively inexpensive and common books off of a charity for pennies on the dollar.

 

Can't agree with this more. I'm actually sick to my stomach over some of the responses here.

[mica]

Is the dealer part of the equation the problem some of us are having? If we took out the word dealers and replaced it with "5 year olds from Miss Johnson's school field trip" would it soften the mood?

 

I'm currently undecided because of the vagueness of the original post. I did have a knee jerk reaction at first, but the vagueness kept me doubting.

[MR.COMICBOOK]

hey, at my last garage sale I KNOW I was selling a bunch of vintage records for $1 that some of the buyers were going to flip on ebay for 10-30X as much. I had fished them out of the trash in my old apartment building (which, with 600+ apartments, mainly occupied by 50 - 80 year olds, had some amazing garbage finds...it was literally a second income for me). i didn't know which ones exactly (as many of them were so obscure there is no ebay sales history), but i knew it when I saw the "professionals" picking them out. these guys were obviously buying to resell, but trying to pretend they were buying because they wanted to listen to the records. i kept on telling them "i know you're going to be making a huge profit on these, have fun." so long as i know someone is getting over on me it doesn't feel as bad.

 

funny thing is some russian lady was telling me "you know, some of these are very valuable, you should be selling them for more"...I invited her to buy the ones she thought were valuable and sell them for a profit. of course, she thought the least valuable stuff were the money makers like Billy Joel albums from the 80's, etc...basically stuff that really is only worth a buck because it's sitting in everyone's closet already.

 

why did i let this happen? well, selling records on ebay is a huge PITA for me so it just isn't worth it. i don't want to have to pack records 1000% better than any comic would need to get packed and I don't want someone b**tching at me because there's some scratch on side B...I don't even own a turntable, so I have no idea if they're warped or whatever.

much like the folks at the humane society don't have the knowledge (or desire) to sell comics except for $1 a pop. it would have been nice for a dealer to spot the 10 or 15 or 25 really good ones and assign them some quick sale prices at more than $1, but that didn't happen.

Selling records is a worst PITA than comics.

[Foolkiller]

You asked for opinions, so here is mine.

And this is my problem with this whole thread....

 

You say it was dealers, yet you don't know who, or at least don't name who. That automatically casts aspersions on every dealer present. Giving those who are inclined to do such a thing another reason to blame all greedy unethical dealers for all of the world's problems. I would suppose that some early customers(you know, the guys who borrow badges from dealers to go around the room and buy the deals up in the room before the show starts while the dealers are setting up their booths) might have bought up some of these supposed great deals as well. (See how it feels?).

 

The problem with this is not a "dealer" problem, it is a "person" problem. Regardless of who it was, it probably should have been handled differently. Dealers get blamed for enough without piling on.

 

For the record, this is the first I have heard about it, and I didn't buy any of the books. I know for a fact that Ricky Evans did not buy any of them either.

 

I suspect you were not talking about me, Ted, Bob, Ricky, etc, but in the future, it would really be helpful not to lump us all in together.

 

Your overly sensitive friendly neighborhood comic book dealer,

Dale

 

1) I do know who the dealers were who bought them (I just don't have it first hand, but ironically enough, it was another dealer who pointed it out to me -- all done by dollar book dealers)... no it wasn't any major dealer.

 

2) I agree, it is a "person" problem. If a knowledgeable collector did the same thing, I'd feel the same way, especially if they bragged about the score.

 

3) I didn't "lump you all together" -- you've done this in the past with reading my posts -- I try to be careful with my language -- I identified that the buyers were some of the "$1 book dealers" unless you, Bob or Ricky become $1 book dealers, you've again not read my post carefully enough but assumed based on other posts I was referring to any and all dealers.

 

4) For the record do you know how many books I bought at the show before the doors opened this time? 1. From Richie. I fully admit that there are times when I do get good deals before the show opens. I ask dealers for a badge if I have spent a lot of money with them in the past or intend to at that show. So if I also get a good deal before the show opens, that's part of it. Nothing unethical about it so the analogy of lumping we who get badges together isn't exactly the same.

 

5) I understand your points Dale, and the bottom line is, you basically agree with me, but want to "defend dealers" as a whole. If I had first hand knowledge, i.e. I saw the actual dealer do this right in front of me, and knew the whole story, then I'd name names. But I can't fill in all the blanks, so I'm throwing it out there. Next time, I won't just say "dealer" but any "dealer or collector" when making a point like this. Still, dealers have specialized knowledge and in this situation, I do and would hold them to a higher standard.

[Old Fashion PB and J]

Ohhh the poor children..

 

 

I agree Brian, people took advantage of a charity. Regardless of who, donating a few more bucks would have been kind. But to look at it as a "sweet score" is just low class.

 

 

Dealers are the Dale. Everyone knows this! They always get my money in exchange for comic books

[awe4one]

4) For the record do you know how many books I bought at the show before the doors opened this time? 1. From Richie. I fully admit that there are times when I do get good deals before the show opens. I ask dealers for a badge if I have spent a lot of money with them in the past or intend to at that show. So if I also get a good deal before the show opens, that's part of it. Nothing unethical about it so the analogy of lumping we who get badges together isn't exactly the same.

 

Actually I disagree. I think it's a valid point from his (i.e. dealer) perspective. Your analogy only works if they are the dealer you've dealt with in the past or the one who gave you the pass. If they weren't then you're encroaching on their early buying opportunity time...

 

I can see where it's very frustrating for a dealer to lose out on great deals due to collectors running the halls buying them up, before the doors open, while they're stuck making sure their selling stock is in order in booths and venues they paid pretty good money to be at...

 

Jim

[DrWatson]

Books were donated, books were priced, books were bought and money went to a charitable organization. I fail to see the great moral slide that everyone is sick to their stomachs over.

 

Next time, why don't some of guys that have your wicks lit donate your time and go through all the donated books, guide them out and then deal with all the hagglers who want you to discount $1 books to forty cents a piece then pay you in dimes.

 

And no, I didn't purchase any of them. I have three cats of my own to support.

[Sal]

I've heard this story second hand, but know for a fact it's true since it was later verified that the pickups were made by some of the dollar book dealers (who got some and then were sorry they missed out on getting the "big" scores) who saw the books first hand. Now that being said, I don't know what exactly the dollar book dealers did or didn't do to help the humane society, but from the sound of it, there was some bragging about the "scores" they made.

 

i'd think that by specifying "dollar book dealers" BK has effectively ruled out all the people whom Dale mentions above. anyone who thought of guys like Dale, Bob, Rich, Ted etc after reading the initial post would need their heads examined in any case.

 

 

the kind of person who would be bragging about - if that actually happened - getting a book out of a charity's box for less than market value is a guy i don't want to be buying from.

 

 

luckily they were "dollar box" dealers, so chances are i didn't even go in to their booth(s)

[MR.COMICBOOK]

Books were donated, books were priced, books were bought and money went to a charitable organization. I fail to see the great moral slide that everyone is sick to their stomachs over.

 

Next time, why don't some of guys that have your wicks lit donate your time and go through all the donated books, guide them out and then deal with all the hagglers who want you to discount $1 books to forty cents a piece then pay you in dimes.

 

And no, I didn't purchase any of them. I have three cats of my own to support.

there are a lot of angles to look at this.

I wonder if the people who donated the books did a tax write off and for how much? most people I know who run charities do drive bmw`s/nice cars.Believe it or not less then 50 percent of donations actually do go to the one`s in need. sad but true.

I am not taking sides. just looking at some of the angles. questions need to be answered.

[Old Fashion PB and J]

4) For the record do you know how many books I bought at the show before the doors opened this time? 1. From Richie. I fully admit that there are times when I do get good deals before the show opens. I ask dealers for a badge if I have spent a lot of money with them in the past or intend to at that show. So if I also get a good deal before the show opens, that's part of it. Nothing unethical about it so the analogy of lumping we who get badges together isn't exactly the same.

 

Actually I disagree. I think it's a valid point from his (i.e. dealer) perspective. Your analogy only works if they are the dealer you've dealt with in the past or the one who gave you the pass. If they weren't then you're encroaching on their early buying opportunity time...

 

I can see where it's very frustrating for a dealer to lose out on great deals due to collectors running the halls buying them up, before the doors open, while they're stuck making sure their selling stock is in order in booths and venues they paid pretty good money to be at...

 

Jim

I think it is more "special" treatment than it is ethics in this case. But at the same time I see everyones point. And have always thought the "preview buying" is BS.