When does a "great deal" become "screwing over" someone?

[Hulksdaddy1]

I think it comes down to whether you believe in personal responsibility or not. I've had guys pull great books out of the 50 cent bins over the years. Some have told me about them, others try to hide them, make sure I don't see them, whatever. Either way, they get it for 50 cents. It was my responsibility to know what I have, and what it's worth, not theirs.

[CAHokie]

If I saw Action #1 at a yard sale for a $1 I would buy it.

I would consider I had just won the lotto.

I would not tell the seller hey you just won the lotto.

 

2 bucks says you wouldnt

 

Hes got you there Kav!!

[kav]

If I saw Action #1 at a yard sale for a $1 I would buy it.

I would consider I had just won the lotto.

I would not tell the seller hey you just won the lotto.

 

2 bucks says you wouldnt

I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Dealer told me he paid half value. He lied. Buying a book at a yard sale priced at a dollar does not entail fraud. Nice try though.

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=7422653#Post7422653

You owe me 2 bucks.

[Aweandlorder]

If I saw Action #1 at a yard sale for a $1 I would buy it.

I would consider I had just won the lotto.

I would not tell the seller hey you just won the lotto.

 

2 bucks says you wouldnt

I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Dealer told me he paid half value. He lied. Buying a book at a yard sale priced at a dollar does not entail fraud. Nice try though.

 

You owe me 2 bucks.

 

 

Was that your 1st appearance on this board man? Brilliant kavisms on that thread

[jcjames]

I guess karma can flow both ways.

 

As an example, I bought an X-Men 19 off ebay and was sent an ASM1 by mistake. I sent it back. A year later I found a BA12 at an antique store for $2 and I bought it with a "thank you" as I was handed the bag.

 

It FELT wrong for me to keep the ASM1 even though it was completely within my legal right to keep it. But it didn't FEEL wrong to buy a $200 book for $2 simply because the seller didn't know what they had. I don't know what the difference is though - but I sure know I FELT different about each of those two cases.

 

So the question becomes one of where do you draw the line?

 

IOW, am I morally obligated to inform every seller whenever I find a dollar-bin book that is worth more than $1?

 

 

 

I don't know that you have a legal right to keep something sent to you in error anymore than you have a legal right to money accidentally deposited in your account. That's way different than buying something cheap.

 

Here's the better ethical dilemma. You buy a vase at yard sale for $5 you know is worth a couple thousand at auction vs. you buy a vase at a yard sale for $5 because you like it, and when you get it home you find there is an antique diamond ring worth a couple thousand in the bottom.

1. Anything delivered to you by US mail is legally yours.

 

2. Your dilemma is very different. Buying what I believe to be a cheap vase only to find a diamond ring inside would make me very uncomfortable because I didn't know the ring was in it when I bought it. I would probably return it. But... me knowing the value of an expensive vase and seeing it on sale for $5 would probably lead me to buy the vase and consider it a "great deal" for me.

 

ymmv.

 

 

 

 

[kav]

If I saw Action #1 at a yard sale for a $1 I would buy it.

I would consider I had just won the lotto.

I would not tell the seller hey you just won the lotto.

 

2 bucks says you wouldnt

I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Dealer told me he paid half value. He lied. Buying a book at a yard sale priced at a dollar does not entail fraud. Nice try though.

 

You owe me 2 bucks.

 

 

Was that your 1st appearance on this board man? Brilliant kavisms on that thread

No my first app was wiped but this is a close 2nd

[Aweandlorder]

If I saw Action #1 at a yard sale for a $1 I would buy it.

I would consider I had just won the lotto.

I would not tell the seller hey you just won the lotto.

 

2 bucks says you wouldnt

I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Dealer told me he paid half value. He lied. Buying a book at a yard sale priced at a dollar does not entail fraud. Nice try though.

 

You owe me 2 bucks.

 

 

Was that your 1st appearance on this board man? Brilliant kavisms on that thread

No my first app was wiped but this is a close 2nd

 

Damn.. There is a rare recalled 1st appearance!!!

[kav]

Things got heated for some reason

[revat]

Remember that one store bought and sold all its inventory for exactly the same price?

 

It was the best. They also gave out free unicorn mustache rides

 

[God of War]

Remember that one store bought and sold all its inventory for exactly the same price?

 

It was the best. They also gave out free unicorn mustache rides

 

How could I have missed a mustache ride!?

[PovertyRow]

 

How could I have missed a mustache ride!?

 

 

[kimik]

Let's say you find a nice BA12 for $1 at a garage sale or at an antique store, would buying it from the antique store be "screwing over" the seller? How about if it was at a garage sale?

 

I bought a 9.4/9.6 copy of BA #12 in the summer of 2014 from a LCS for $4 from a fresh box of backstock that the employees did not pay attention to, and last summer I bought a VG copy for $4 while on vacation from a local kijiji ad. I had no regrets in either case.

 

 

[kimik]

If I saw Action #1 at a yard sale for a $1 I would buy it.

I would consider I had just won the lotto.

I would not tell the seller hey you just won the lotto.

 

+1

 

I caught a lot of flack over posting my friend's 4 books for $20 AF #15 find a year or two ago in the Garage Sale thread. A lot of people were arguing he should have paid more. If you offer a price and the seller accepts that is their fault, not yours.

[kav]

The should have paid more argument doesnt work. It's not like you can say hey this book is worth a lot-I'll give you $2,000. The seller will just snatch it back then look into the true value himself.

[CKB]

This thread disgusts me. I am not one to moralize but if you would take a thousand dollar score to the bank and not have some misgivings, what wouldn't you do? You would keep the thousand dollar book sent to you in the mail by mistake, maybe no delivery confirmation pretend it never came? You would spot a rare dime in a beggar's cup and swap it out for a new one?

 

Take a look in the mirror every so often. It's a dog eat dog world, I know, but you play those games in it by choice. We should all try to be better than that. Challenge yourself to be better than that.

 

Just because you know some sleazebag would do it to you in a heartbeat doesn't mean it's OK.

 

 

[thecopperagekids]

I look at it as the seller has the opportunity to research their books before they sell them.

 

That's how I see it. Now if someone comes to you looking for help on figuring a value, and you lowball them at pennies on the dollar, that's another story.

 

We all risk leaving considerable money on the table when selling something. Even an auction situation doesn't guarantee FMV, if the item is obscure or improperly labeled. It is not the buyer's job to educate the seller on how to maximize value.

 

Even those with knowledge of the field can't be on top of everything. If a dealer sells an obscure rare copper age book out of the dollar box that turns out to be worth a couple grand, is that any different from picking up a SA Marvel key at the same discount at a yard sale?

 

This x 1000%

 

I'll add that I screw up and pay too high for books quite often and have to work my balls off, just to break even.

 

I spend a lot of my time researching market trends, scouring shops and shows to buy books and *rarely*, I will buy books from a collector, when I get lucky enough to have someone come up to my table with books to sell, back at his house...

most of the time, when that happens, it is usually a bunch of drek or the collector/seller wants the moon for common books..... so when I do actually get a decent score, I consider it to be a pay off for the time and money invested, overall.

 

If a seller does not want to put in that kind of work, I am not going to give him the benefit of my work.

 

You get out what you put in.

[thecopperagekids]

This thread disgusts me. I am not one to moralize but if you would take a thousand dollar score to the bank and not have some misgivings, what wouldn't you do? You would keep the thousand dollar book sent to you in the mail by mistake, maybe no delivery confirmation pretend it never came? You would spot a rare dime in a beggar's cup and swap it out for a new one?

 

Take a look in the mirror every so often. It's a dog eat dog world, I know, but you play those games in it by choice. We should all try to be better than that. Challenge yourself to be better than that.

 

Just because you know some sleazebag would do it to you in a heartbeat doesn't mean it's OK.

 

 

Apples and oranges.

 

That is a gross over generalization, to the umpteenth degree.

 

There is a huge difference between stealing someone's property, which is outright despicable.......and applying the knowledge that you have obtained, by investing countless hours and days, understanding the market and making many costly errors in the process, to buy books from a seller that has not done their homework.

 

Your comments here are actually pretty insulting, to be honest.

 

But as the second post on the first page of this thread in this thread alluded to, there is no point in "butt hurt" so......

 

 

[miraclemet]

I can't believe Im going to quote them but I like something that Mike on American Pickers used to say..

 

 

"I cant buy it AND sell it"

 

which is what he would say to someone when he'd ask about buying something, and they'd ask him about the price/value or even just more info about the thing (cause they had no idea what they had)...

 

so when I see a book priced at a level that says about the seller "I don't know what I have here" I ask myself is it my job to explain to the guy what s/he has?

 

So we have two sellers

 

Seller A has a $100 book he's trying to sell for $5,000

Seller B has a $5000 book he's trying to sell for $100

 

Seller A may want $5k, but he's never going to get it. I help him understand the books value and/or the market so that he can at least get $100 if he chooses to hear my advice. As long as he sells nothing, he's unhappy. I can help him at least possibly sell it for something so he's at least a little happy (maybe, that's on him).

 

Seller B wants $100 for his book, and he'll certainly get it. He'll be happy cause he got what he asked for and what he wanted.

 

Again back to pickers, what I'd see happen when they did try to help someone out so they understood the books value, everything else then inflated too, as did the % asking. Suddenly they wanted to get 90% of market for the item (when the buyers typically try to buy at 1/2 market in order to make a living on it) and every other item started to get valued much higher..

 

Tell a seller he has one valuable comic and suddenly every comic they have is valuable, and they're useless as a seller now (welcome to the land of Craigslist)...

 

As others said before me, if you care enough to sell something, care enough to research the value.

 

I've sold books that got bought super quickly and I thought "dang if I knew the market was that hot I could have gotten more!" but oh well, it all evens out.

 

Its also interesting that we're critiquing behaviors in real life that would never be critiqued here. Throw a $1000 book in the Marketplace forum for $100 and you'll get an "I'll take it" in 3 seconds, followed by 100 "dang too slow" comments, no one is going to PM the seller to explain the value of the thing their selling (unless it's something in their own interests like "Hey Im sitting on 20 copies of that variant, it's worth way more than the $50 you're asking. You should be asking at least $100, and even then that's cheap! (protecting their own investment))... and yet people thumb their nose at someone saying they have no problem buying a yard sale copy of ASM252 for a dollar.

[nocutename]

I think it all depends on the situation. Sometimes the seller is just looking to get rid of books. I went to one garage sale many years ago and he had everything for a buck. Even his girlfriend/wife was like really. I pulled out a handful of bronze age books along with tons of moderns. (It was during a time that BA could still be found in dollar bins). I still have most of the books I purchased that day. If it wasn't a heat wave and in Long Island, I would have went back. Half way through the day, they reposted on CL and were selling short boxes for dirt cheap.

 

Another case, one of the LCS that went belly up several years ago, the part owner still dabbles in comics on the side. He does garage sales from time to time. I go to give him some business. One time, he definitely didn't go through the boxes at all. He had BoP 8 and handfuls of other great modern scores in one box. That was when I brought it to his attention that these are higher dollar books. I helped him riffle through the boxes and pulled out anything that was more than a $10 book. Why, because it is the right thing to do.

 

To answer the OP question, it is easy to snatch up those Walking Dead comics for a buck a piece. But he should also remember that it was probably a clueless Mom getting rid of her son's junk. She probably didn't have time to look up prices for everything while preparing for the garage sale.

 

Anyway, I think this comes with maturity of collecting and realizing how collections are brought and sold. I am not above getting that great deal either. However when I was actively collecting the prices were much, much lower. Now it is possible to profit in the hundreds vs a few dollars here and there. It has become a crazy hobby.

[miraclemet]

This thread disgusts me. I am not one to moralize but if you would take a thousand dollar score to the bank and not have some misgivings, what wouldn't you do?

 

Lots of things. Lots and lots of things I wouldn't do. We can go in the other direction. You would help the person who didn't know they were selling a book for less than what it was worth. So why not give them full value for it? In fact, why not give them MORE than they are asking? Do you drive a car? Could you take the bus instead? Give your monthly car payment to charity. Downsize your apartment or house and give the difference to the homeless shelter. I mean why ARENT you doing that? Do you ever go out to dinner? FOR SHAME! The point is, playing slippery slope on ethics questions is weaksauce and can go in either direction.

 

You would keep the thousand dollar book sent to you in the mail by mistake, maybe no delivery confirmation pretend it never came?

Well that's stealing, and that's different than buying something at the offered price, no? If you received a book by mistake how far would you go to return it? if the person who mailed it moved and gave no forwarding address would you spend your time trying to find them? Would you hire an investigator with your money to hunt them down? Why not? If you keep the book you are no better than a human trafficker! (oh wait I slid on that slippery slope you keep using)

 

You would spot a rare dime in a beggar's cup and swap it out for a new one?

Again we are talking degrees of action. I wouldn't take from someone if it wasn't offered. What if the beggar came into your diner and paid for that meal with the dime. What if you realized a week later that the dime was worth thousands. How would you repay it since according to your code any act where you profit is wrong and a slippery slope to a life of coke and hookers, so what do you do? Donate all the profits? Spend weeks trying to track down the guy that you thought might have given you the dime? Divide the proceeds among the hundreds of customers who come thru the door?

 

Take a look in the mirror every so often. It's a dog eat dog world, I know, but you play those games in it by choice. We should all try to be better than that. Challenge yourself to be better than that.

 

I think we all ARE being better than that.

 

Just because you know some sleazebag would do it to you in a heartbeat doesn't mean it's OK.

 

I don't make ethical decisions based on what someone else would do to me.

I make them based on reasonable thought.

 

Here's a fun paradox.

 

I'd buy the book at the asking price and make a profit

 

but

 

If that same person just came to me and asked me what a book was worth I'd tell them. And I might even follow that up with an offer.

 

see the difference?