Pedigree Auction Sales and Relistings. Legit?

[Dale Roberts]

I think we should set up a big mud pit at MegaCon and let all you dealer guys sling it out there.

 

Will you by my tag team partner? Mr NOD & Capn Trips vs Doc Watson and Stone Cold Dale Roberts

Only if you promise to do your Ric Flair impersonation.

 

paraphrased.....

 

“I'm a cargo van drivin, jet flyin', comic sellin', wheelin' dealin' son of a gun. WOOOO!!”

[hikeeba-migration]

In looking at Bob Storms thread, there was a discussion on ASM #6 CGC 9.4. Interestingly enough, I've been tracking that book (along with others) and it's sales price. One of the auctions I've been tracking is Pedigree Auctions.

 

Speaking of which, Pedigree sold the AS #6 9.4 for $7,500 in their last auction with CGC serial number: 0952657001.

 

The same book is up for sale in their inventory for $10,000.

 

The book has been removed from the auction results.

 

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/auction-detail.php?issue_id=29067

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/detail.php?issue_id=29067

 

This is the case with numerous other books including Avengers #4 CGC 9.4 serial number 0994473001 which sold for $15,666 and is back in inventory for sale at $25,000. The book has been removed from the auction results.

 

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/auction-detail.php?issue_id=29226

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/detail.php?issue_id=29226

 

The Avengers #4 9.4 has sold in more than 1 auction with no reserve and it is put back into his inventory at his ask price every time. It is my understanding that Doug owns this book and the AS #6 CGC 9.4 as well as other examples.

 

Here's another example. This time a Mound City purchase:

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/detail.php?issue_id=30211

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/auction-detail.php?issue_id=30211

 

This Flash #129 CGC 9.4 sold for $500 in the auction. Now it is listed back in his inventory for $2,500.

 

On a personal level, I like Doug and hold no ill will. I don't like what's happened in the past with the way he's handled a few things and I'll let the facts speak for themselves here.

 

Yes, a buyer could have backed out multiple times. Yes, I believe it's more likely that N.P. Gresham's twin brother is bidding on books at Pedigree.

 

 

I don't know what is what about this, but seems to me that a buyer could have picked up a deal on a book and listed the book for sale in the marketplace section right away. I have personally done this on comiclink, even using the scan from the auction.

Man, I wish I had enough time in my life to keep up with what everyone else is doing.

 

Dale,

 

That's not the problem. If you click on the direct link, the final price is $0.00. But the books actually sold at auction.

 

Brent

 

Brent,

Maybe the buyer told him he would relist the book back on the site if he would remove the previous sale(making it easier to sell the book). I don't know, and I don't honestly care. It isn't my business. I just don't understand the rush to assume the worst about people. But maybe thats just me.

Dale

 

Dale, if that's true, then it's data manipulation.

 

Ok, how is this data manipulation? I recently had someone buy a book privately from me that I had listed on ComicLink. He knew this and requested that the ComicLink listing be removed. His reasons were that he was a private individual and I respected that, however I also acknowledged that if the book changed hands, what would be the purpose of keeping a listing active. So I gladly remove the listing.

 

In the back of my mind, there certainly was some posturing that the person was going to likely relist it, improved or not, and didn't want the price/scan he paid for the book to appear anywhere online. As a seller, how can you possibly ever appease the manipulation argument if a considerable amount of time passes or the buyer decides a venue change might be all that's need for a value upturn?

 

People post books on these boards all the time that experience incremental and quantum jumps in sales within a few months of time from the time they made a previous appearance. It happens with board sales all the time, and if anything, this fuels some of the animosity that is manifested with member in-fighting.

 

We can speculate all we want about price manipulation, but there is a money-making component to this hobby that we dearly love, and while I understand there is a significant tone of greed associated to flipping books (especially in a manner that can be construed as egregious when it is multiples of what a book previously sold as), we need to reconcile this venture aspect in so far as recognizing that when altruism calls a need for incident grandstanding, there is a significant toll and requirement to lump and group-in a vast volume of activity in this hobby that can be showcased in a similar vain.

 

Simply because he is picking and choosing the data to be reported. I have worked with Data my entire career, and you can't just arbitrarily choose which prices to report, it manipulates the survey. IF his site is supposed to be reporting ALL sales, then it needs to report all sales. Sales from other venues wouldn't matter, since they are not part of the survey.

 

Personally, I don't collect high grade books, so I'm not really worried about how accurate GPA is, but I think George might be concerned with this information.

 

 

Every seller who reports to George other than an auction site (ebay and Heritage) CAN pick and choose which data he submits.

 

Would Clink be considered an auction site like Ebay or Heritage? Is that why George told Josh "all or nothing" when Josh offered to submit select sales?

[DrWatson]

All independent dealer reportings to GPA are based on the honor system. So, it's automatically handicapped before even leaving the gate, but like fantastic_four said, it is all we've got.

[paperheart]

In looking at Bob Storms thread, there was a discussion on ASM #6 CGC 9.4. Interestingly enough, I've been tracking that book (along with others) and it's sales price. One of the auctions I've been tracking is Pedigree Auctions.

 

Speaking of which, Pedigree sold the AS #6 9.4 for $7,500 in their last auction with CGC serial number: 0952657001.

 

The same book is up for sale in their inventory for $10,000.

 

The book has been removed from the auction results.

 

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/auction-detail.php?issue_id=29067

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/detail.php?issue_id=29067

 

This is the case with numerous other books including Avengers #4 CGC 9.4 serial number 0994473001 which sold for $15,666 and is back in inventory for sale at $25,000. The book has been removed from the auction results.

 

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/auction-detail.php?issue_id=29226

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/detail.php?issue_id=29226

 

The Avengers #4 9.4 has sold in more than 1 auction with no reserve and it is put back into his inventory at his ask price every time. It is my understanding that Doug owns this book and the AS #6 CGC 9.4 as well as other examples.

 

Here's another example. This time a Mound City purchase:

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/detail.php?issue_id=30211

http://www.pedigreecomics.com/auction-detail.php?issue_id=30211

 

This Flash #129 CGC 9.4 sold for $500 in the auction. Now it is listed back in his inventory for $2,500.

 

On a personal level, I like Doug and hold no ill will. I don't like what's happened in the past with the way he's handled a few things and I'll let the facts speak for themselves here.

 

Yes, a buyer could have backed out multiple times. Yes, I believe it's more likely that N.P. Gresham's twin brother is bidding on books at Pedigree.

 

 

I don't know what is what about this, but seems to me that a buyer could have picked up a deal on a book and listed the book for sale in the marketplace section right away. I have personally done this on comiclink, even using the scan from the auction.

Man, I wish I had enough time in my life to keep up with what everyone else is doing.

 

Dale,

 

That's not the problem. If you click on the direct link, the final price is $0.00. But the books actually sold at auction.

 

Brent

 

Brent,

Maybe the buyer told him he would relist the book back on the site if he would remove the previous sale(making it easier to sell the book). I don't know, and I don't honestly care. It isn't my business. I just don't understand the rush to assume the worst about people. But maybe thats just me.

Dale

 

Dale, if that's true, then it's data manipulation.

 

Ok, how is this data manipulation? I recently had someone buy a book privately from me that I had listed on ComicLink. He knew this and requested that the ComicLink listing be removed. His reasons were that he was a private individual and I respected that, however I also acknowledged that if the book changed hands, what would be the purpose of keeping a listing active. So I gladly remove the listing.

 

In the back of my mind, there certainly was some posturing that the person was going to likely relist it, improved or not, and didn't want the price/scan he paid for the book to appear anywhere online. As a seller, how can you possibly ever appease the manipulation argument if a considerable amount of time passes or the buyer decides a venue change might be all that's need for a value upturn?

 

People post books on these boards all the time that experience incremental and quantum jumps in sales within a few months of time from the time they made a previous appearance. It happens with board sales all the time, and if anything, this fuels some of the animosity that is manifested with member in-fighting.

 

We can speculate all we want about price manipulation, but there is a money-making component to this hobby that we dearly love, and while I understand there is a significant tone of greed associated to flipping books (especially in a manner that can be construed as egregious when it is multiples of what a book previously sold as), we need to reconcile this venture aspect in so far as recognizing that when altruism calls a need for incident grandstanding, there is a significant toll and requirement to lump and group-in a vast volume of activity in this hobby that can be showcased in a similar vain.

 

Simply because he is picking and choosing the data to be reported. I have worked with Data my entire career, and you can't just arbitrarily choose which prices to report, it manipulates the survey. IF his site is supposed to be reporting ALL sales, then it needs to report all sales. Sales from other venues wouldn't matter, since they are not part of the survey.

 

Personally, I don't collect high grade books, so I'm not really worried about how accurate GPA is, but I think George might be concerned with this information.

 

 

Every seller who reports to George other than an auction site(ebay and Heritage) CAN pick and choose which data he submits.

 

Then what is the point of GPA? It cannot be an accurate picture.

 

that's an easy one; it's a whole lot better than nothing.

[comicwiz]

But he already explained that when the book sells, it automatically alerts GPA. So regardless of whether or not the price says 0.00 on the site, that email went out with the hammer price. That is how I understood it. From my understanding, the emailing removes the need for GPA to scrape content from the site, so it could say 0.00 or SOLD and it wouldn't make a difference to the reporting.

 

I also work with data as part of my career and have done this pretty much out of school in a professional capacity. I want to pre-empt what I'm about to say by mentioning I am in no way taking sides on this matter. Data can be complex mainly because it is difficult to unlock gaps. The best you can do is report with a margin of error. In online environments, this is complicated by the very nature of the way information gets posted, syndicated, moved, archived, or lost due to catastrophic events associated to hardware attrition or power losses. Further complicating this are the practices used by sellers to maximize returns on comic book sales.

 

I understand your concerns in this example, but as a reporting mechanism on CGC sales, it is difficult to push the envelope on validity of data because there are so many uknowns with reporting from even the most public sites like eBay. Do we know for instance, if a seller shills and wins his own auctions in a fit of protectionism, and decides to relist the book at a different venue? How valid would the auction yield of the former auction be in such an instance. There are many, many more ways auction results can be manipulated for economic gain. Again, the best way to deal with this in any data collection or aggregation task is to recognize some tells, and devise a methodology that can improve validity. Even in such cases, the best you can ever hope to accomplish from the most well-thought out best practices is minimizing the margin of error in reporting.

 

The way I read it and the way we report it and the way George requested it is once the buyer pays, that triggers the sale to go into the GPA queue to be submitted.

 

100+ Auction sales were sold in Doug's last auction at no reserve with a sales price of $0.00 even though they sold for an actual amount. They have been removed from the auction results and are were immediately relisted on the site.

 

And there are previous auctions where the exact same thing happened.

 

So in my mind, there are 3 possibilities:

1) Data manipulation for the sake of the consignor or buyer/reseller

2) Immediate resale by the new buyer ( but then why the $0.00 sales prices?)

3) Doug bought his own books back because the results weren't what he wanted

 

I think #3 is more likely, but I'd like to see what Doug's explanation is specifically.

 

I'm not sure how GPA has procured its data reporting process (perhaps George can enlighten us), but an educated guess is that it would need to be different with each site because the programming logic would be different for each site. Again, this is an assumption, but one backed by professional understanding and experience in working with millions, upon millions of data sources in my every day job and know its impossible to bridge data commonality, so the best you can do is invent/create ways to parse the data in as close to a uniform manner as possible.

 

This brings us to the payment part, and I would say this needs to be the clincher. Ultimately, the only way we know a claim for a books sale can be made legitimate is when there is a trail to some form of commerce or monetary transaction. Again, each site will book its business in a different way (i.e. some accept PayPal, others strictly use credit card and money-order/draft). Ultimately, because of the sales of books at conventions (cash), and payment methods including money-orders or drafts, there would need to be some reliance on human trust, and participants would be agents of trust in reporting. There would be no way for any data aggregator to demand accounting slips or bank statements so again, this trust hand-off is a must, otherwise the only solution would be to exclude those sales altogether.

 

Now I won't comment on the activity on the Pedigree site because this is the site owners prerogative, however I think the freshness aspect in online auctioneering is vital to commanding premiums. Aside from the data/sales manipulation, perhaps Doug might want to rethink offering buyers the option of reselling on his site, to protect theirs (maximizing on returns) and his own (reputational) interests.

 

Again, I understand the optics of the situation Brent, but I've thought this through from the business and technical, and there are far too many layers to peel back, and to compile a chain of evidence that would be both concrete and compelling enough to prove the claims being advanced. To say nothing of the long list of dealer sites that would need to be grouped in on schemes which include immediately removing sales prices or delisting altogether.

 

In such cases, is it a dealer/consignors responsibility to host past auction results, given the expenses associated to hosting data purely for the purpose of satisfying a public service element which can sometimes unfairly use the information to twist and bend the facts? Is it fair to make derogatory statements when a dealer decides to purge those results to free up space on their servers, or to improve their consignment environment for repeat buyers who can't be bothered to hold on to an auction winning long enough to even take some time read the CGC label? For all the reasons brought up here and more, if I had an auction site I'd want to vet such buyers, but given the state of the economy, I think we need to reserve some recognition that even on these boards you get situations where members overextend themselves, lose their job, etc. and need to sell a book they just bought. I can understand this type of situation, and that is why I would reserve judgment unless there is enough proof to suggest the contrary, shedding light on the scenarios you (and others) are suggesting.

[qualitycomix]

 

Every seller who reports to George other than an auction site(ebay and Heritage) CAN pick and choose which data he submits.

 

The selective reporting to GPA is absolutely true. I have noticed this on some

significant purchases I have made at conventions, especially when the sale includes some trade.

 

Dale, just a comment on your remarks to Brent. If I am not mistaken, being a dealer is not a side job for you, like Brent this is your career. I would think you would want to see the integrity of this business maintained. Like Brent, you are one of the good guys, an honest dealer with a good reputation. IF (caps on purpose) Doug is doing anything shady it helps the community and your business to put a stop to it.

 

Bob,

I absolutely want the integrity of the business maintained. I do everything I can within my business to maintain that. But I also look at it like this. As a seller, your reputation is everything. I have worked hard to build mine and will work hard to maintain mine, but when I see someone (especially someone who is a competitor) throwing accusations without proof, it makes me uncomfortable, because it could happen to anyone, and I don't want it happening to me. And people are QUICK to assume the worst.

As I have already stated, I have no idea what Doug is doing. I am not making and judgment one way or another. I am simply saying, the very title of this thread seems sensationalistic to me and makes me uncomfortable. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt until there is proof.

 

Doug is welcome to respond to my specific questions. That's the benefit of the doubt I would like to be given. I doubt he will be able to.

 

And I will take the heat for being a competitor. MY business model is being affected as his is an auction model and so is mine.

[Bomber-Bob]

 

Every seller who reports to George other than an auction site(ebay and Heritage) CAN pick and choose which data he submits.

 

The selective reporting to GPA is absolutely true. I have noticed this on some

significant purchases I have made at conventions, especially when the sale includes some trade.

 

Dale, just a comment on your remarks to Brent. If I am not mistaken, being a dealer is not a side job for you, like Brent this is your career. I would think you would want to see the integrity of this business maintained. Like Brent, you are one of the good guys, an honest dealer with a good reputation. IF (caps on purpose) Doug is doing anything shady it helps the community and your business to put a stop to it.

This is Dale's only job. It is Brent's secondary job.

 

I did not know Brent has another job. My mistake.

Doug, if you are reading these posts I am so glad you responded.

You are asbolutely correct on the lynch mob reference and your explanations make sense. However, as a comment from a pure collector, the flipping of so many books on your site without taking possession makes it sound more like a commodity exchange rather than an auction house. It sounds like you need to decide whether you want an auction site for collectors or day traders.

[Sal]

 

But he already explained that when the book sells, it automatically alerts GPA. So regardless of whether or not the price says 0.00 on the site, that email went out with the hammer price. That is how I understood it. From my understanding, the emailing removes the need for GPA to scrape content from the site, so it could say 0.00 or SOLD and it wouldn't make a difference to the reporting.

 

 

 

Divad,

 

You can ask George yourself if you'd like. I do not actually have to manually send them any data, unless a book sells "off" of my site (like the TTA #27 9.4 last month). My web designer set it up so that when a book is paid for and shipped, I will click a "book shipped" email in the database to let the buyer know the book is on the way to him (or her). At the same time, an email is auto-generated to the consignor letting him know the item has been shipped and that payment for the book is forthcoming. And, a third email is auto-generated to George at GPA giving him all the book data so he can include it in the GPA report, etc. I believe it gives all the relevant info. he needs, including page quality and CGC cert. #.

 

 

with respect to the bolded portion, i would assume that Doug is being non-specific here, since if this is exactly how he meant to write it, it would mean that books bought by consignors for the purpose of immediate resale are not reported to GPA.

 

[qualitycomix]

But he already explained that when the book sells, it automatically alerts GPA. So regardless of whether or not the price says 0.00 on the site, that email went out with the hammer price. That is how I understood it. From my understanding, the emailing removes the need for GPA to scrape content from the site, so it could say 0.00 or SOLD and it wouldn't make a difference to the reporting.

 

I also work with data as part of my career and have done this pretty much out of school in a professional capacity. I want to pre-empt what I'm about to say by mentioning I am in no way taking sides on this matter. Data can be complex mainly because it is difficult to unlock gaps. The best you can do is report with a margin of error. In online environments, this is complicated by the very nature of the way information gets posted, syndicated, moved, archived, or lost due to catastrophic events associated to hardware attrition or power losses. Further complicating this are the practices used by sellers to maximize returns on comic book sales.

 

I understand your concerns in this example, but as a reporting mechanism on CGC sales, it is difficult to push the envelope on validity of data because there are so many uknowns with reporting from even the most public sites like eBay. Do we know for instance, if a seller shills and wins his own auctions in a fit of protectionism, and decides to relist the book at a different venue? How valid would the auction yield of the former auction be in such an instance. There are many, many more ways auction results can be manipulated for economic gain. Again, the best way to deal with this in any data collection or aggregation task is to recognize some tells, and devise a methodology that can improve validity. Even in such cases, the best you can ever hope to accomplish from the most well-thought out best practices is minimizing the margin of error in reporting.

 

The way I read it and the way we report it and the way George requested it is once the buyer pays, that triggers the sale to go into the GPA queue to be submitted.

 

100+ Auction sales were sold in Doug's last auction at no reserve with a sales price of $0.00 even though they sold for an actual amount. They have been removed from the auction results and are were immediately relisted on the site.

 

And there are previous auctions where the exact same thing happened.

 

So in my mind, there are 3 possibilities:

1) Data manipulation for the sake of the consignor or buyer/reseller

2) Immediate resale by the new buyer ( but then why the $0.00 sales prices?)

3) Doug bought his own books back because the results weren't what he wanted

 

I think #3 is more likely, but I'd like to see what Doug's explanation is specifically.

 

I'm not sure how GPA has procured its data reporting process (perhaps George can enlighten us), but an educated guess is that it would need to be different with each site because the programming logic would be different for each site. Again, this is an assumption, but one backed by professional understanding and experience in working with millions, upon millions of data sources in my every day job and know its impossible to bridge data commonality, so the best you can do is invent/create ways to parse the data in as close to a uniform manner as possible.

 

This brings us to the payment part, and I would say this needs to be the clincher. Ultimately, the only way we know a claim for a books sale can be made legitimate is when there is a trail to some form of commerce or monetary transaction. Again, each site will book its business in a different way (i.e. some accept PayPal, others strictly use credit card and money-order/draft). Ultimately, because of the sales of books at conventions (cash), and payment methods including money-orders or drafts, there would need to be some reliance on human trust, and participants would be agents of trust in reporting. There would be no way for any data aggregator to demand accounting slips or bank statements so again, this trust hand-off is a must, otherwise the only solution would be to exclude those sales altogether.

 

Now I won't comment on the activity on the Pedigree site because this is the site owners prerogative, however I think the freshness aspect in online auctioneering is vital to commanding premiums. Aside from the data/sales manipulation, perhaps Doug might want to rethink offering buyers the option of reselling on his site, to protect theirs (maximizing on returns) and his own (reputational) interests.

 

Again, I understand the optics of the situation Brent, but I've thought this through from the business and technical, and there are far too many layers to peel back, and to compile a chain of evidence that would be both concrete and compelling enough to prove the claims being advanced. To say nothing of the long list of dealer sites that would need to be grouped in on schemes which include immediately removing sales prices or delisting altogether.

 

In such cases, is it a dealer/consignors responsibility to host past auction results, given the expenses associated to hosting data purely for the purpose of satisfying a public service element which can sometimes unfairly pit and use the information to twist and bend the facts? Is it fair to make derogatory statements when a dealer decides to purge those results to free up space on their servers, or to improve their consignment environment for repeat buyers who can't be bothered to hold on to an auction winning long enough to even take some time read the CGC label?

 

If a 100+ books sell at auction with no reserve out of 490 books, and then are relisted on the site immediately, I call into question the legitimacy of the auction.

 

Changing the sales prices from whatever they were to $0.00 is a red flag. As is pulling those books from the auction results but no others.

[8milemax]

I think we should set up a big mud pit at MegaCon and let all you dealer guys sling it out there.

 

Will you by my tag team partner? Mr NOD & Capn Trips vs Doc Watson and Stone Cold Dale Roberts

Only if you promise to do your Ric Flair impersonation.

 

paraphrased.....

 

“I'm a cargo van drivin, jet flyin', comic sellin', wheelin' dealin' biscuit eaten' son of a gun. WOOOO!!”

Just joking Dale, my mom is from Kentucky

[blazingbob]

Brent/Dale:

I would be stunned if Doug got on this thread and stated "I bought my own books back because they did not hit the sales number I wanted".

 

No offense Brent but frankly "ALL" privately owned auction houses are open to "shill bidding" by owners who can open another email account and buy their own books back.

 

No offense but I like my business model better. What you see is what you get.

 

 

 

[DrWatson]

Brent/Dale:

I would be stunned if Doug got on this thread and stated "I bought my own books back because they did not hit the sales number I wanted".

 

No offense Brent but frankly "ALL" privately owned auction houses are open to "shill bidding" by owners who can open another email account and buy their own books back.

 

No offense but I like my business model better. What you see is what you get.

It's so unlike you to be so... non-offensive.

[Bomber-Bob]

 

Every seller who reports to George other than an auction site(ebay and Heritage) CAN pick and choose which data he submits.

 

The selective reporting to GPA is absolutely true. I have noticed this on some

significant purchases I have made at conventions, especially when the sale includes some trade.

 

Dale, just a comment on your remarks to Brent. If I am not mistaken, being a dealer is not a side job for you, like Brent this is your career. I would think you would want to see the integrity of this business maintained. Like Brent, you are one of the good guys, an honest dealer with a good reputation. IF (caps on purpose) Doug is doing anything shady it helps the community and your business to put a stop to it.

 

Bob,

I absolutely want the integrity of the business maintained. I do everything I can within my business to maintain that. But I also look at it like this. As a seller, your reputation is everything. I have worked hard to build mine and will work hard to maintain mine, but when I see someone (especially someone who is a competitor) throwing accusations without proof, it makes me uncomfortable, because it could happen to anyone, and I don't want it happening to me. And people are QUICK to assume the worst.

As I have already stated, I have no idea what Doug is doing. I am not making and judgment one way or another. I am simply saying, the very title of this thread seems sensationalistic to me and makes me uncomfortable. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt until there is proof.

 

Dale, thanks for the response. Good answer = I totally understand your perspective.

[fantastic_four]

No offense but I like my business model better. What you see is what you get.

 

What do you do with desirable books that top the CGC Census alone or with only one or two other copies? For example, Veryzl chose to sell that Spidey #5 CGC 9.8 recently via ComicLink. An auction format seems like the ideal platform for multiple players to bid a book like that into the stratosphere.

 

I'm guessing your answer will be you'd contact the guys directly you already know would be interested in the book...but with the number of deep pockets that Doug and Josh have drawn to their sites, it's tough to see that as the very best option.

[qualitycomix]

Brent/Dale:

I would be stunned if Doug got on this thread and stated "I bought my own books back because they did not hit the sales number I wanted".

 

No offense Brent but frankly "ALL" privately owned auction houses are open to "shill bidding" by owners who can open another email account and buy their own books back.

 

No offense but I like my business model better. What you see is what you get.

 

 

 

Where's the Rants and Raves Bob we've all come to know and love? I think you've mellowed in your old age.

[comicwiz]

But he already explained that when the book sells, it automatically alerts GPA. So regardless of whether or not the price says 0.00 on the site, that email went out with the hammer price. That is how I understood it. From my understanding, the emailing removes the need for GPA to scrape content from the site, so it could say 0.00 or SOLD and it wouldn't make a difference to the reporting.

 

I also work with data as part of my career and have done this pretty much out of school in a professional capacity. I want to pre-empt what I'm about to say by mentioning I am in no way taking sides on this matter. Data can be complex mainly because it is difficult to unlock gaps. The best you can do is report with a margin of error. In online environments, this is complicated by the very nature of the way information gets posted, syndicated, moved, archived, or lost due to catastrophic events associated to hardware attrition or power losses. Further complicating this are the practices used by sellers to maximize returns on comic book sales.

 

I understand your concerns in this example, but as a reporting mechanism on CGC sales, it is difficult to push the envelope on validity of data because there are so many uknowns with reporting from even the most public sites like eBay. Do we know for instance, if a seller shills and wins his own auctions in a fit of protectionism, and decides to relist the book at a different venue? How valid would the auction yield of the former auction be in such an instance. There are many, many more ways auction results can be manipulated for economic gain. Again, the best way to deal with this in any data collection or aggregation task is to recognize some tells, and devise a methodology that can improve validity. Even in such cases, the best you can ever hope to accomplish from the most well-thought out best practices is minimizing the margin of error in reporting.

 

The way I read it and the way we report it and the way George requested it is once the buyer pays, that triggers the sale to go into the GPA queue to be submitted.

 

100+ Auction sales were sold in Doug's last auction at no reserve with a sales price of $0.00 even though they sold for an actual amount. They have been removed from the auction results and are were immediately relisted on the site.

 

And there are previous auctions where the exact same thing happened.

 

So in my mind, there are 3 possibilities:

1) Data manipulation for the sake of the consignor or buyer/reseller

2) Immediate resale by the new buyer ( but then why the $0.00 sales prices?)

3) Doug bought his own books back because the results weren't what he wanted

 

I think #3 is more likely, but I'd like to see what Doug's explanation is specifically.

 

I'm not sure how GPA has procured its data reporting process (perhaps George can enlighten us), but an educated guess is that it would need to be different with each site because the programming logic would be different for each site. Again, this is an assumption, but one backed by professional understanding and experience in working with millions, upon millions of data sources in my every day job and know its impossible to bridge data commonality, so the best you can do is invent/create ways to parse the data in as close to a uniform manner as possible.

 

This brings us to the payment part, and I would say this needs to be the clincher. Ultimately, the only way we know a claim for a books sale can be made legitimate is when there is a trail to some form of commerce or monetary transaction. Again, each site will book its business in a different way (i.e. some accept PayPal, others strictly use credit card and money-order/draft). Ultimately, because of the sales of books at conventions (cash), and payment methods including money-orders or drafts, there would need to be some reliance on human trust, and participants would be agents of trust in reporting. There would be no way for any data aggregator to demand accounting slips or bank statements so again, this trust hand-off is a must, otherwise the only solution would be to exclude those sales altogether.

 

Now I won't comment on the activity on the Pedigree site because this is the site owners prerogative, however I think the freshness aspect in online auctioneering is vital to commanding premiums. Aside from the data/sales manipulation, perhaps Doug might want to rethink offering buyers the option of reselling on his site, to protect theirs (maximizing on returns) and his own (reputational) interests.

 

Again, I understand the optics of the situation Brent, but I've thought this through from the business and technical, and there are far too many layers to peel back, and to compile a chain of evidence that would be both concrete and compelling enough to prove the claims being advanced. To say nothing of the long list of dealer sites that would need to be grouped in on schemes which include immediately removing sales prices or delisting altogether.

 

In such cases, is it a dealer/consignors responsibility to host past auction results, given the expenses associated to hosting data purely for the purpose of satisfying a public service element which can sometimes unfairly pit and use the information to twist and bend the facts? Is it fair to make derogatory statements when a dealer decides to purge those results to free up space on their servers, or to improve their consignment environment for repeat buyers who can't be bothered to hold on to an auction winning long enough to even take some time read the CGC label?

 

If a 100+ books sell at auction with no reserve out of 490 books, and then are relisted on the site immediately, I call into question the legitimacy of the auction.

 

Changing the sales prices from whatever they were to $0.00 is a red flag. As is pulling those books from the auction results but no others.

 

But how about if the condition your describing (the reset on price to 0.00) is the brainchild of some developer, and which is trigged when a book gets relisted from the site? I've seen these kinds of things explained by coding/logic which could not possibly anticipate the applied business sense, much less the make or break reputation aspects.

[namisgr]

Brent/Dale:

I would be stunned if Doug got on this thread and stated "I bought my own books back because they did not hit the sales number I wanted".

 

No offense Brent but frankly "ALL" privately owned auction houses are open to "shill bidding" by owners who can open another email account and buy their own books back.

 

No offense but I like my business model better. What you see is what you get.

 

[blazingbob]

First - Verzyl has a website?

 

2nd - I sell them to good customers.

 

Why should I pay my competitors who use my commissions to to buy books I want to purchase? Comiclink is a dealer, they own inventory that is for sale on that website. Pedigree owns inventory. I could go on and on.

 

 

[Bomber-Bob]

In summary,

- Doug is cool .

- Dale and Brent are cool but maybe not with each other ().

- Blazing Bob is always cool (more PR for the Blazing One).

- GPA is skewed but the best we have.

- There are more day traders than collectors participating in auctions.

[Dale Roberts]

Brent/Dale:

I would be stunned if Doug got on this thread and stated "I bought my own books back because they did not hit the sales number I wanted".

 

No offense Brent but frankly "ALL" privately owned auction houses are open to "shill bidding" by owners who can open another email account and buy their own books back.

 

No offense but I like my business model better. What you see is what you get.

 

 

 

You don't need to qualify that as to only "owners". All auction houses are open to shill bidding. It is the nature of the beast and you can't stop it. What difference does it make if it is the owner or someone else? It affects the credibility of the auction just the same.

 

I wish someone would have shill bid some of my last comiclink auctions....