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How do I feel?

Started by Mushroom,

51 posts in this topic

Mushroom

Mushroom

Posted
Posted

There was a famous beer ad in australia that was premised on the idea that when you have had a bad time that drinking a Toohey's would it make it alright.

 

Well it has been quite a while since I have been on these boards (as a matter of fact, I haven't been on the board in any form for over 2 months) but i wanted to come back and let you all know how I went with my solution to make me feel alright to the high grade greed and deceipt. I have spent a few hours researching for this post and also tried to catch up on the key threads and my first reaction to all of this is thank God I am not part of it anymore.

 

A few thoughts:

 

More than a year ago a few chicken little's were castigated for their stance on pressing. Even after ewart these same castigaters were saying that the issue still wasn't pressing. Well you were wrong, non disclosed pressing is a sympton of the same disease as trimming and that is greed. Pressers who don't disclose are no different in my book than comic keys or ewart.

 

Metropolis.....a little word of advice, just because a lot of other people were doing it as well does not make you naive it makes you greedy like the rest. Would you jump off a bridge because everybody else was doing it.

 

CGC.........admit that you are wrong and that the whole premise of your company is puffery. You won't disclose pressing because you can't be sure 100% but then you can't be sure of any form of resto 100% (and we have the facts to prove it). So give it up. Ewart was one of your buddies.....how many of your other buddies are doing the same thing or are we supposed to believe that this is a one off.

 

As for what I did:

 

I contacted all the people I bought a number of comics from (that I could, in total I received a response from 5 dealers. These dealers accounted for over 60% of my slabbed collection) and asked them if they pressed comics and if so were any that i owned pressed. I received some very interesting responses and one dealer openly admitted that he would press a book if the situation warranted it.

 

Those books that were suspect were sold to a dealer as pressed books and were sold for the amount that I had bought them for (funnily enough all this was carried out in March/April of this year and I did include the 4 books that I had bought from Ewart in that batch.

 

i had intended to keep the remaining 180 slabs but as things really started to get worse I figured that I would get out while I could. I consigned 70 slabs to key-comics (Robert Letscher) over a 3 month period. The end result (after taking into account postage and commissions) was that I achieved an average growth rate of 2.5% over the last 4 years on the total purchase amount (including exchange rates) certainly nothing to crow about but at the same time the books were never bought to be liquidated (up until i sold those suspect books I had never sold a comic book).

 

Of my books I had some great results....6 of my Spideys were GPA records, my Tec #359 Batgirl returned a handsome increase. Even with the downturn in the american economy the Northland Hulk #122 did quite well this month.

 

So how do I feel......I still feel disgusted with the comic market. I have kept all my slabbed Bats and B&B's but I no longer feel any pride in owning them. Don't be surprised if the whole lot goes over the next couple of months (except Harry's). I have no desire to have any part in the organised aspect of the hobby.

 

What is good.......I have gone back to buying funny books (especially disneys). I also now have the largest private collection of Adler hand coloured art (and for all those oa people who say otherwise I will back the likes of Adams, Kaluta, wrightson et al who say it is original art).

 

As for these boards....they helped me a great deal and I have participated in some wonderful discussions with some wonderful people and if I may be able to mention a few: Dave Matteini - you are a gentleman and I hope that your Bat collection continues to grow (especially the OA), Burntboy - I won't sell your books as they are true gems. How CGC can technically support their gradings has me gobsmacked and as for the insufficiently_thoughtful_person who questioned the price that some of them went for, well all I can say is that at least I know that they are not trimmed or pressed and I didn't have to have CGC tell me so, Andrew Knight - You also are a gentleman, I started off on the wrong foot with you but I have always found your views to be well though out and of value, Redhook - You were right (plus you are a funny [embarrassing lack of self control]), Joanne - Funniest story ever written on these boards, your involvement with the boards was of enormous value.

 

To the guys who were already here when I joined (January 2003), you made it a fun place to be and that includes Rickdogg, Gene, Araich (now I drive a chevy), Bronzebruce, Pimpy and even our very own doomsayer joe. The boards stopped being fun for me about 12 - 18 months ago.

 

Am I gone for good.......I don't know, I just don't have any major reason to be here anymore. The fun of the hobby left when companies like ewart and metropolis and others thought it was alright to move the goal posts.

 

For those HG collectors on the boards I truly hope that you don't get it in the arse. I hope the market stays firm but from my standpoint the risk was one that I wasn't willing to take.

 

Cheers.

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Mushroom

Mushroom

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Hey 14....do you remember that we joined for exactly the same reason "RUSTYSSTARWARS". When I look back at that I can laugh my head off, although at the time it didn't seem so funny. That is still the only neg I have got.

 

I spat my dummy over the continued ignorance to hand coloured art and the inferred accusation that I was talking it up because I had a vested financial interest. I acted like a baby.

 

The whole pressing and trimming and CGC thing was just motivation to liquidate my slabs.

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14 of spades

14 of spades

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Posted

yes, i absolutely remember u and i getting caught in that. it was an interesting aftermath with all us buyers communicating with one another. perhaps u remember it was tomega who contacted us from the boards. (look at our dates of registration...)

 

i still have rustysstarwars saved as a "favorite seller" (so that i wouldn't lose site of him). he's since completely deleted his account (a step further than NARU) to the point that his name appears as a string of non-sense characters.

 

in retrospect - i can't believe i fell for that. i was certainly too naive then - i WAS ready to send him the cash until i got the contact from the boards. funny thing is, (i was actually the main ebayer to contact the other buyers and organize ourselves) when i contacted some other ebayers, i actually had some of them tell me that they were going to send the money anyways (e.g. over $200 US) cause they didn't want to get negs. unbelievable.

 

sorry that things have come to this - but i don't feel you're making a mistake.

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Timulty

Timulty

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Do you feel that staying in this "Hobby" is not worth the trouble, due to the fact that you cannot find a seller that you can trust? Or is it because that in order to detect the restoration issues, you would need to invest a significant amount time to be able to expertly detect resto?

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Mushroom

Mushroom

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No...I still have a passion for the books. I buy one son the latest bat books and the elder one gets simpson's comics. I am getting stuff like the Duck books and old cartoon and tv show tie ins from my youth (rocky & bullwinkle, banana splits, deputy dawg etc etc) to read.

 

I felt good about the comics that I had in slabs but I have an absolute desire to buy things the way they were found. The manipulation of the hg market and the restoration through pressing and other means meant that there were a lot of people who did not have the best interest of the hobby at heart.

 

The other driver was purely money, when you are sitting on a large number of slabs you do not mind the normal collectors market fluctuation but I defy anybody to feel comfortable when potentially facing a 50% or greater loss (if you owned 1 of only 3 9.8's of a key book and the market size was 6 then competiton would drive that price up, if another 3 9.8's were pressed/trimmed up then the market price would plummet). My wife and family would really feel that my collecting passion was an indulgence if that happened.

 

I did not collect hg books for investment but at the same time I am not stupid and holding those books was a risk I wasn't willing to take.

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Timulty

Timulty

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Yeah, I can understand that. I look at CGC grading as more of a protective issue then anything(encapsulation, to me is the best storage solution). Though, I can't lie and say their actual grading of the comics isn't a factor in establishing the worth of my sets.

 

Yee Haw, I just noticed, I passed 200 posts.

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Mushroom

Mushroom

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Do you feel that staying in this "Hobby" is not worth the trouble, due to the fact that you cannot find a seller that you can trust? Or is it because that in order to detect the restoration issues, you would need to invest a significant amount time to be able to expertly detect resto?

 

A really interesting question.....I would think that one of the dealers that I bought a lot of books from and who I did trust implicity is now tainted in my eyes and that has certainly jaded me towards the hobby. I think I was also naive to think that CGC could protect my purchases from deception. When push comes to shove CGC are not collectors anymore, they are a business and therefore have shareholders to look after and will make decisions to protect their revenue stream. Ewart disasters will be isolated and treated as one offs and the root cause of the breakdown hidden behind a spin of sanctamonius and emotional tripe.

 

CGC do not gurantee anything and as such none of us really has the right to abrogate our responsibility for purchase onto a third party. I know my limitations in life and being an expert at detecting resto is not something that I will ever be good at, nor would I ever want to be, so I just won't play anymore.

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Mushroom

Mushroom

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Mushroon,

 

Have you considered moving to Original Comic Art ?,...JUST CURIOUS.

 

KK

 

You are an insufficiently_thoughtful_person.

 

By the way in the REAL artworld your little pencil and ink drawings are called preliminaries and not art at all.

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Samurai-Bill

Samurai-Bill

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John, did you lose your passion for the books, or just get out because you felt the market was unstable as a result of the pressing/trimming/CGC thing?

 

This is what makes it stink " the market " it's a hobby , fun pastime etc ...

 

When you care more about money and growth in value , you are not a hobbyist you are a dealer .

 

I buy books put a tick in my book and thats it .

 

I never note how much I bought it for , I don't follow GPA , I do not bid up to my own perceived market value other peoples auctions to protect my " investment " .

 

You guys suck the fun out of the hobby .

 

EG : this book sold for X dollars 6 months ago so mine must be worth at least that , NO ITS NOT !! it's worth what some one is willing to pay , so you shill bid it to what you " think " it's worth .

 

Even worse , other collectors / dealers join the shilling they have " investments " to protect as well .

 

I still love comics , but I am falling out of love with this board , I thought it was enlightened but its not , it's just full of people crowing about how much they got for some common overgraded comic in a blue slab guess what ? all slabs will now be blue a bonanza for all .

 

sign-rantpost.gif

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october

october

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I still love comics , but I am falling out of love with this board

 

Just do what I do. Take note of the latest controversy, then tune out the 10,000 retarded responses that add nothing to the discussion and do nothing about the problem. Focus on the threads that are actually about comics and not about what they are worth and not about what's being done to them.

 

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Tomega

Tomega

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yes, i absolutely remember u and i getting caught in that. it was an interesting aftermath with all us buyers communicating with one another. perhaps u remember it was tomega who contacted us from the boards. (look at our dates of registration...)

 

i still have rustysstarwars saved as a "favorite seller" (so that i wouldn't lose site of him). he's since completely deleted his account (a step further than NARU) to the point that his name appears as a string of non-sense characters.

 

hi.gif

 

I had forgotten about that rustystarwars jerk, ah memories.......

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nearmint

nearmint

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Posted

You guys suck the fun out of the hobby .

 

Since you quoted my post, I have to assume you're including me in the above statement. Which means, for the second day in a row, I have to tell you that you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

 

I collect Golden Age. The bulk of my collection is in the 4.0-8.0 range. Occasionally, I buy a higher grade if it's the only copy available, which is common with Nedors, the main focus of my GA collecting.

 

Lately, I've been picking up some Bronze Adams Batmans, as well, in the 8.5-9.2 range. I will ALWAYS take a nice 9.0-9.2 over a much higher priced 9.4+.

 

I do not base my decisions on what will do well in the market, or I wouldn't be buying Nedors, an out-of-business publisher with a stock of characters that are, for the most part, forgotten.

 

Bill, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I really wish you'd stop insulting people without having a clue who they are or what they're about.

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johnenock

johnenock

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Posted

Just do what I do. Take note of the latest controversy, then tune out the 10,000 retarded responses that add nothing to the discussion and do nothing about the problem. Focus on the threads that are actually about comics and not about what they are worth and not about what's being done to them.

 

A sane response. Although it is getting more difficult to filter through the posts and find ones actually about comics.

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