Comiclink, Comic Connect, Heritage, etcetera... Wins... 33 33

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 2/5/2023 at 3:54 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Just noticed my last CL win didn't have a CL sticker on the back. 

Shh don't say anything!

And definitely don't turn out all the lights and stand in front of a mirror and say "ComicLink" three times, or Josh Nathanson will suddenly appear behind you with a giant man-sized sticker!!

[Stefan_W]

On 2/2/2023 at 5:52 PM, Black_Adam said:

I don't like shipping to cost more than 10% of the total transaction. With shipping to Canada from Comiclink $95 now, I basically don't bid on any comic where my starting bid would be less than $1k. 

It is $125 if you get 7-12 books so I usually do a dozen to lower the shipping per book as much as possible. 

I've tracked this over all of my transactions there, and after customs fees, shipping and exchange, the amount of the final hammer cost times 1.6 is what it comes to in CAD by the time everything is paid (e.g., a book that lands at $500 ends up costing $800 CAD when all is said and done). A couple of years ago it was typically about 1.4 to 1.5, so there has been an increase. As you point out, the lower the value of the books the higher the percent of cost goes to shipping, although it really isnt much of a factor in my CL purchases since shipping is only a shade over 10 USD per book. This is offset when you bargain hunt for cheaper books that typically go quite a bit under value. 

Sorry for the rambling but I am a data junkie so I track all sorts of stuff like this  

Edited February 5, 2023 by Stefan_W

[BlowUpTheMoon]

[Gaard]

I'm one of those weirdos who couldn't care less about a little ct. Got this for less than 40% of a blue.

 

[F For Fake]

Won a lot of drek from CLink, and they're not here yet, but here are a couple of favorites. I was very excited to land the Transformers the Movie book well below gpa. 9.8's don't come up often, and I now feel better about having sold my 9.6. Very happy to be getting this one.

The Magik is a funny story. Well maybe not funny, but a story: when I first started collecting slabs, this was one of the books I sought out, as I always loved the cover. Floating chick, sword, pentagram, it's pretty gnarly. I'm a big Bret Blevins fan, and I think it's one of his best. Anyway, at the time I think I spent like $50-$60 on a 9.8. Fast forward a year or so, and we were moving out of our condo into our house, so I let a lot of things go in order to finance some upgrades on the new home, including the Magik 4. I was new to shipping slabs, so I packed it in a single priority box, thinking I'd protected it well. I think it may have been the first slab I'd ever sold, really. Anyway, the new buyer received it and was PO'd, apparently it had been dropped and the case was cracked. I ended up paying for a reholder, and ultimately lost money on the deal. Always bugged me. Anyway, Happy to have a 9.8 back in the collection, even with that white spine overlap. It was a bit more than $60 this time, but I don't plan on selling it, so that's fine. 

[jimhopkins82]

 

[Black_Adam]

On 2/2/2023 at 2:52 PM, Black_Adam said:

I don't like shipping to cost more than 10% of the total transaction. With shipping to Canada from Comiclink $95 now, I basically don't bid on any comic where my starting bid would be less than $1k. 

And just so people don't get the impression that Comiclink is the only auction house with painfully high shipping rates, I just received two slabs from Heritage (total value $950) and the shipping charge was $110.73!

[F For Fake]

My last shipment from Comiclink was $99, but that was for about 30 books, so it didn't seem outrageous to me. Still working on the current sesssion, and am sitting at 16 books at the moment, so hopefully it's a bit cheaper. 

[Gaard]

On 2/8/2023 at 9:07 AM, Black_Adam said:

And just so people don't get the impression that Comiclink is the only auction house with painfully high shipping rates, I just received two slabs from Heritage (total value $950) and the shipping charge was $110.73!

wow

[Black_Adam]

On 2/8/2023 at 6:07 AM, Black_Adam said:

And just so people don't get the impression that Comiclink is the only auction house with painfully high shipping rates, I just received two slabs from Heritage (total value $950) and the shipping charge was $110.73!

And just so people don't get the impression all auction houses and/or comic dealers charge painfully high shipping rates, my last shipment of a slab and x3 raws from MCS to Canada was...$18.

[BlowUpTheMoon]

Only four out of twelve books I won from the most recent CL auction had CL stickers on the back.  

[silverseeker]

On 2/9/2023 at 10:15 AM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Only four out of twelve books I won from the most recent CL auction had CL stickers on the back.  

I wonder if they're giving up on the stickers as a cost-cutting measure?

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 2/9/2023 at 3:58 PM, silverseeker said:

I wonder if they're giving up on the stickers as a cost-cutting measure?

Honestly, in the past I've gotten a batch without stickers and got myself all excited that the sticker days are done but I turned out to be wrong. 

That said, let me add to the data:  I just got ten books today, and eight of them had no sticker.  The two with stickers were both the newer, smaller, black stickers (as opposed to the older, larger, MUCH-harder-to-remove white stickers), but to be clear it's quite possible that they got those stickers from a previous time through the ComicLink process.  These books do often get sold on the site multiple times in their lives.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Sweet Lou 14

[Microchip]

On 2/8/2023 at 6:34 PM, jimhopkins82 said:

 

There's a lot of love for this book going around at the moment, any particular reason why you picked it up?

[COI]

I will never understand the stickers, nor do I understand why there hasn't been enough of a backlash in the last 20+ years to get them to stop. I have slabs that have nasty residue on the back of them because of this stupid, inconsiderate practice. If I had my way, everyone would demand C-Link pay to re-holder all the slabs they've damaged over the years with their nonsense. No one buying the books wants the stickers there, and I fail to see how those stickers benefit C-Link in terms of marketing. To me, it's the equivalent of piszing on them to mark that they were once your territory. 

As long as I've been on this forum there have been complaints, and nothing changes. Maybe this bothers me more that should, but it's JUST. SO. DUMB. As if CGC didn't give us enough reasons with their lack of quality control to have to re-holder books, C-Link and others insist on damaging slabs so that you know 'they were here'.

Edited February 10, 2023 by COI

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 2/9/2023 at 8:16 PM, COI said:

I will never understand the stickers, nor do I understand why there hasn't been enough of a backlash in the last 20+ years to get them to stop. I have slabs that have nasty residue on the back of them because of this stupid, inconsiderate practice. If I had my way, everyone would demand C-Link pay to re-holder all the slabs they've damaged over the years with their nonsense. No one buying the books wants the stickers there, and I fail to see how those stickers benefit C-Link in terms of marketing. To me, it's the equivalent of piszing on them to mark that they were once your territory. 

As long as I've been on this forum there have been complaints, and nothing changes. Maybe this bothers me more that should, but it's JUST. SO. DUMB. As if CGC didn't give us enough reasons with their lack of quality control to have to re-holder books, C-Link and others insist on damaging slabs so that you know 'they were here'.

Someone tried to start a petition a decade ago....

https://www.change.org/p/comiclink-stop-affixing-logo-stickers-to-comic-book-slabs?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=share_petition

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 2/9/2023 at 8:16 PM, COI said:

I will never understand the stickers, nor do I understand why there hasn't been enough of a backlash in the last 20+ years to get them to stop. I have slabs that have nasty residue on the back of them because of this stupid, inconsiderate practice. If I had my way, everyone would demand C-Link pay to re-holder all the slabs they've damaged over the years with their nonsense. No one buying the books wants the stickers there, and I fail to see how those stickers benefit C-Link in terms of marketing. To me, it's the equivalent of piszing on them to mark that they were once your territory. 

As long as I've been on this forum there have been complaints, and nothing changes. Maybe this bothers me more that should, but it's JUST. SO. DUMB. As if CGC didn't give us enough reasons with their lack of quality control to have to re-holder books, C-Link and others insist on damaging slabs so that you know 'they were here'.

I agree with everything you're saying here, except for calling it "damage" ... I mean, I get whet you are saying but I have removed a couple hundred of these stickers from the slabs and while that is a complete pain in the @$$ that should not be necessary, it is a pretty straightforward (if time consuming) process.  Just get some Goo Gone and they will come off pretty clean.  Less than 20 seconds of work for a black sticker, or 1-2 minutes to remove one of the old white stickers.

[COI]

On 2/9/2023 at 9:21 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

I agree with everything you're saying here, except for calling it "damage" ... I mean, I get whet you are saying but I have removed a couple hundred of these stickers from the slabs and while that is a complete pain in the @$$ that should not be necessary, it is a pretty straightforward (if time consuming) process.  Just get some Goo Gone and they will come off pretty clean.  Less than 20 seconds of work for a black sticker, or 1-2 minutes to remove one of the old white stickers.

I'm exaggerating for sure, but that's because I find it baffling that this conversation is still happening after all these years. Those stickers serve no purpose and people have been complaining, but C-Link persists for God knows what reason. And I'm not saying they're a bad company, because they're not, which is what makes it all so dumb and unnecessary. Put the sticker on the bag if you MUST put a sticker on something. I shouldn't have to take a trips to a craft store or spend any time at all making goo "be gone". We can call it vandalism if you want, because graffiti can also be removed or covered up. 

Edited February 10, 2023 by COI

[skypinkblu]

On 2/9/2023 at 10:01 PM, COI said:

I'm exaggerating for sure, but that's because I find it baffling that this conversation is still happening after all these years. Those stickers serve no purpose and people have been complaining, but C-Link persists for God knows what reason. And I'm not saying they're a bad company, because they're not, which is what makes it all so dumb and unnecessary. Put the sticker on the bag if you MUST put a sticker on something. I shouldn't have to take a trips to a craft store or spend any time at all making goo "be gone". We can call it vandalism if you want, because graffiti can also be removed or covered up. 

Just put some olive oil on the sticker, let it soak in for a few minutes (use a paper towel so it stays in one place) and you can rub the sticker off. I have no idea what is in Goo Be Gone, but Olive Oil and a few others work well, baby oil especially....

Also Jojoba (Trader Joes has it) and Coconut oil...

Those are the ones I've tried that I have at home, stuff I had in closets. I have also put some olive oil on a q-tip swab put that in the microwave for 15 seconds and it seems to take the last streaks off better.

Bottom line...C-link, please get some nice bags and put your stickers ON the bags...I don't think too many people love having your advertising on their comics.

Edited February 10, 2023 by skypinkblu
added some oils.

[THE_BEYONDER]

Josh has been posting to the Borock/CL thread

Maybe he could pop in here & explain the continued use of the stickers..... @COMICLINK