Dealers Aren’t Your Friends…! 9 9

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 8/31/2023 at 9:15 PM, Poutine said:

Chances are probably high you're an ahole, surrounded by aholes 

There are definitely more a holes than not, doesn't take much for a realist to know that

Strong disagree.

[Nick Furious]

On 8/31/2023 at 8:15 PM, Poutine said:

Chances are probably high you're an ahole, surrounded by aholes 

There are definitely more a holes than not, doesn't take much for a realist to know that

Hmm, so ahole's can't smell each other?  Only a non-ahole can recognize an ahole?  My experience is that most people tend to be pretty reasonable in individual one-on-one situations.  It's when they come together as a group, or preen for an audience, that they will tribalize and become unreasonable aholes.  

Edited September 1, 2023 by Nick Furious

[Kramerica]

Torpedo this thread now. What a waste of time.

[Cat]

 

*I should add this is not my photo, I got it courtesy of a poster on Reddit. 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Cat

[blazingbob]

On 9/6/2023 at 9:44 AM, Cat said:

 

This sign pretty much says please do our work for us and reward us for our laziness in not going through our inventory. 

Better yet invest in some LED price stickers that can change price as soon as you start looking at it.   

Edited September 6, 2023 by blazingbob

[Robot Man]

On 9/6/2023 at 6:44 AM, Cat said:

I reserve the right to spend my money elsewhere. After I loudly use my right to explain why I am leaving with my money. 

[EastEnd1]

On 9/6/2023 at 9:44 AM, Cat said:

Works for me... you're free to choose to buy from them or not.

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

On 9/6/2023 at 9:44 AM, Cat said:

So do I, downward.

[oldbsturgeon]

with regards to the back issue sign, there is a store near me that has covered their back issue boxes up and they are not for sale. Her reasoning is she feels she was losing out on too much money. Now here is the deal, she will never go through the inventory. I know for sure too as she had long boxes in the back not out for sale that hadn't been opened in like 30+ years. Best part they were part of a water leak and got damaged. There was a minty tomb of dracula 10 in one of them I know about. totally ruined.

If you aren't going to keep up with things, just move on or step up and do the hard work that needs done.

[blazingbob]

On 9/6/2023 at 11:48 AM, oldbsturgeon said:

with regards to the back issue sign, there is a store near me that has covered their back issue boxes up and they are not for sale. Her reasoning is she feels she was losing out on too much money. Now here is the deal, she will never go through the inventory. I know for sure too as she had long boxes in the back not out for sale that hadn't been opened in like 30+ years. Best part they were part of a water leak and got damaged. There was a minty tomb of dracula 10 in one of them I know about. totally ruined.

If you aren't going to keep up with things, just move on or step up and do the hard work that needs done.

Maybe she is hoping that they will dry out

[Krydel4]

On 9/6/2023 at 6:44 AM, Cat said:

 

*I should add this is not my photo, I got it courtesy of a poster on Reddit. 

Had a store that was similar (since closed, it was a "not how to run a retail business" 101 course) where they had no prices on ANY back issues (other than their 10-12 wall books that never sold as they were about 50% more than you would pay buyin off EBAY with shipping included). You would take your books up after spending an inordinate amount of time digging (there wasn't a rhyme or reason to their organization, for example, they organized Superman by just the character name, so you had Actions, Adventures of, MOS, One-Shots, minis, etc., varying from late bronze into 2023 mixed and mixed all together), bring them up to the front and then wait 15-20 minutes as they opened up their laptop (not sure what site they went to) and priced the issues. I only went there every few months when I was in the area (there is a great used book store near them) and I would also ask if they had any Silver or early Bronze age books. Always the same response everytime " Yes, but we haven't gotten around to putting them out yet." Come in a few months later, same question exact same answer. One of the last times I told my brother who was with me to ask and told him what they would say and they did😁. Horribly run shop. Hoping the other dealers in the area took all their inventory for a song.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Krydel4
Clarity

[Ken Aldred]

On 9/6/2023 at 2:44 PM, Cat said:

 

*I should add this is not my photo, I got it courtesy of a poster on Reddit. 

 

On 9/6/2023 at 3:35 PM, Robot Man said:

I reserve the right to spend my money elsewhere. After I loudly use my right to explain why I am leaving with my money. 

Seen a number of variations on this down the years.

Saddest one was late 90s, a dealer who’d just set up a tiny stall in the local market place, claiming that it was his first day and everything was 25p. His stuff was basically all drek: as an indication, the best item I could find was a copy of the Power Man and Iron Fist issue with the second appearance of Sabretooth, a comic that at the time was still something you could find dirt cheap in bargain boxes. More of a pity buy than anything, from my perspective. Took it up to the guy, an empowered look appeared on his face, suspecting he could monetise further, and despite having been informed that he was charging 25p across the board on his stock, quickly and excitedly whips out an Overstreet and demands £3 ($5) from me.

I told him I thought that was really pathetic, laughed, and walked away, drek free.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[october]

On 9/6/2023 at 10:48 AM, oldbsturgeon said:

If you aren't going to keep up with things, just move on or step up and do the hard work that needs done.

Also she needs to invent a time machine and go back three years. Good luck selling most of those movie spec "gems" now. 

[blazingbob]

On 9/6/2023 at 12:58 PM, october said:

Also she needs to invent a time machine and go back three years. Good luck selling most of those movie spec "gems" now. 

They will be hot again when they are relaunched

[southern cross]

I help out at a lcs and well if a book is brought up with a price tag already on it that is what I ring up. Even if it has suddenly gotten hot and is worth more. With the amount of back issues I'd have to say a small amount of books may not have a price on them and have to be looked up. Not priced they are probably going to be priced at a minimum basic amount as keys bought in collections are sorted and priced and go up on the wall, inside the counter all in the new acquisition box.

Now there are bargain boxes and I remember a young guy in his 20s digging through those boxes for over 2 hours. He'd came over with large stacks of books and was still digging through the $1 boxes. There were over a 130 or so and he was still digging. I went to the store room and found a old long box I was just going to give him because of the amount he had pulled out. I quickly went through the stacks and out of those books there were approximately 5 $2 books. Easily noticably as they were bagged and the $1 books aren't. And there's a large 2 written in pen on the front of the bag.

So I told him about the 5 $2 books in the stack and he just went off on a complete rant how all comic book stores do this. That he pulled those books out of the $1 box and it's not his job to sort shops stock out for them. Stating he wanted to talk to the owner to find out what is going to happen now and that he wasn't buying anything until it was sorted.

So I got his details and put the box behind the counter. As a collector who was only helping out the shop owner as he couldn't run his store that day I thought the whole situation was a complete laugh.

He had a lot of $1 books and here I was giving him a long box for free. He did say he flew in from out of state. And the 5 $2 books I was just going to charge him either $1 each or just let him have them as he was buying a ton of this stuff. But I never told him that as he just went off in a complete rant about all comic stores doing this.

Of course customers move books around and someone put the $2 books back in the $1 boxes by mistake. 

There's no need to make a scene because of that.

 

 

[Telegan]

On 9/6/2023 at 9:19 AM, blazingbob said:

This sign pretty much says please do our work for us and reward us for our laziness in not going through our inventory. 

Better yet invest in some LED price stickers that can change price as soon as you start looking at it.   

That's hilarious.  You find a book you want for $20, so you decide to buy it.  You take it up to the register and notice the price on the sticker going up.  You ask the cashier "WTH? The price was just $20 when I picked it up and it's $45 now!"  The cashier responds with "Yeah, that was like... 20 feet ago.  We have realtime pricing."  Disgusted, you take it back to the box it came from and you notice the price going down as you walk toward the box. lol.

[southern cross]

I remember one shop a short ferry ride away prior to 2020 where there was a couple of bronze age books inside the glass counter case. I asked to look at them as I was currently hunting those issues. I asked if I can see them out of their mylars and the shop clerk,:not the comic shop owner said that they couldn't as there was a sticker on the back holding the flap securely. The sticker said ' please don't remove, the owner has thoroughly checked the condition of the book'.

I replied I suppose I could keep the receipt and if I found like missing coupons or pages, loose center folds or bleed through color touch to the cover I could always return it.

I was told no because how would they know if I replaced their book for one I already own.

I promptly left and found those two bronze minor keys at the next convention and I've never returned to that store again.

[Ken Aldred]

I was in one shop here, back in the very early 80s, and I asked about the condition they'd graded a Bronze Age book at.

The smug, sarcastic response was ...

"Well, that's for you to ascertain".

Listening to that attitude, I gave up and left.

At least he knew a big word, I suppose.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Dave2739]

On 9/7/2023 at 5:57 PM, Ken Aldred said:

I was in one shop here, back in the very early 80s, and I asked about the condition they'd graded a Bronze Age book at.

The smug, sarcastic response was ...

"Well, that's for you to ascertain".

Listening to that attitude, I gave up and left.

At least he knew a big word, I suppose.

I guess that dealer wasn't your friend. 

[the blob]

There was a huge store in NYC that had no prices. Cosmic comics? I forget. I don't know why I even bothered. I brought my stuff up to the register and they started quoting me the highest ebay prices they could find. Needless to say, they closed, though likely for other reasons. On the other hand, Roger's Time Machine usually didn't have prices either. He would price them at the register, but he wouldn't look them up online (maybe look at guide on some expensive books and discount accordingly), he'd just go by his gut. I don't have an issue with that. I'm not finding his treasure for him.