When You Unexpectedly Find a Grail or Other Book You've Always Wanted in a Shop 3 3

[Gonzimodo]

On 8/28/2023 at 4:52 PM, Flanders82 said:

I'm all for finding deals, but not turning those deals into an even bigger deal by marrying the cover in hopes of getting a universal label, getting fmv of a complete ASM #1, for an incomplete book, after it was misplaced by someone trying to facilitate a Stan Lee signature, or even having the book encapsulated by CGC with incorrect infromation regarding the condition of the book and having no urge to send it back to them to correct the issue. It sounds like the owner of the ASM has been on the board for awhile and you're just refraining from any criticism because of this. Any other time restoration or things of this nature aren't disclosed it's a huge deal and everyone is on the same page. I know in this case, he's only revealed an intention to capitalize off of a married book rather than actually doing it, but looking at his post as a whole, he comes across as someone that I don't care to interact with or do business with.  I don't consider being against these things to be on a high horse. It's a bit ridiculous that so many people here are getting on the case of those of us that are against the idea of profiting at someone else's expense by not disclosing substantial flaws with a book. 

If somehow you bs your way through all of this and still think I'm on my high horse, how do you explain the fact that he still hasn't resubmitted the book to CGC to have the error of the missing wraps corrected?  CGC would likely still do this at their expense. 

 

I totally agree with you on the shady restoration and nondisclosure stuff you mention, but I can give him a pass for being only tempted to do it without actually going through with it.  I know I'd be pretty angry if I sent a book like that to a store for a signing and they lost it, but ultimately it was no harm, no foul.  I'm not going to get on the guy's case for thought crimes, though.

I was just surprised by the seeming support for the idea that you need to try to pay FMV for everything under all circumstances and possibly even throw extra money at a dealer after a deal is done if you feel it wasn't fair to them.  That was just weird.   (And also, yes, obviously, please don't be a scumbag and take advantage of ignorant non-dealers... well, unless they also prove to be scumbags...  )

And I don't think you're unjustly on your high horse, I think we're just focusing on different aspects of his story.  

[Dave2739]

On 8/28/2023 at 1:39 PM, Gonzimodo said:

I always thought it was a staple/feature of the hobby and a dream of collectors to find ridiculously underpriced items and bask in the warm glow of their unbelievable luck, but apparently that now means you're a selfish, evil person or something. 

Don't get me wrong, I understand how people can and will take advantage of ignorant widows and orphans and whatnot, but finding something like that in an antique store or comic store is one of the unique thrills of the hobby.

Besides, I hear that dealers aren't your friends, right...? 

Did your mom give you permission to post this?

 

 

 

[Azkaban]

Got this at my LCS that I go to, my guy Mike is very good to me  sold it to me for 120 sent it off and got it graded. No press or clean 

 

[Lazyboy]

On 8/28/2023 at 2:31 PM, FlyingDonut said:

Stuff is everywhere and I know more about said stuff than 99.99% of stores in the world. I know what the FMV value of it is, and I know what my profit margin and spread requirements are. If a store is selling something far below FMV, that's not my problem, that's theirs. I will happily buy it and make my profit margin and spread thank you very much. Don't rip off an uniformed seller. A store is not an uniformed seller.

Good point. They're usually very casual, never matching.

[troydivision1]

On 8/28/2023 at 4:52 PM, Flanders82 said:

I'm all for finding deals, but not turning those deals into an even bigger deal by marrying the cover in hopes of getting a universal label, getting fmv of a complete ASM #1, for an incomplete book, after it was misplaced by someone trying to facilitate a Stan Lee signature, or even having the book encapsulated by CGC with incorrect infromation regarding the condition of the book and having no urge to send it back to them to correct the issue. It sounds like the owner of the ASM has been on the board for awhile and you're just refraining from any criticism because of this. Any other time restoration or things of this nature aren't disclosed it's a huge deal and everyone is on the same page. I know in this case, he's only revealed an intention to capitalize off of a married book rather than actually doing it, but looking at his post as a whole, he comes across as someone that I don't care to interact with or do business with.  I don't consider being against these things to be on a high horse. It's a bit ridiculous that so many people here are getting on the case of those of us that are against the idea of profiting at someone else's expense by not disclosing substantial flaws with a book. 

If somehow you bs your way through all of this and still think I'm on my high horse, how do you explain the fact that he still hasn't resubmitted the book to CGC to have the error of the missing wraps corrected?  CGC would likely still do this at their expense. 

I don't think anyone here is defending me because of how long I've been on the boards...
Neither are they defending me writing out my thought process on increasing the fair market value of the book.
What I gather is that some board members are calling bologna about how I should have paid monies back to a consignment shop.

[FlyingDonut]

If you buy something at the store that turns out to be worth far LESS than what you paid for it, will the store give you more money back? No. No it will not.

[All-Star Squadman]

Not sure if Art counts, but a dozen years ago I found my holiest collectible grail in the back of small comic shop 100 or so miles outside of my home range.

To this day I still can't believe it occurred and consider myself truly blessed to have found it even if I did pay above market price at the time to pry it free. 

My first purchased childhood comic book! Now known as "Demon in Bottle" part 1

 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by All-Star Squadman

[shadroch]

On 8/28/2023 at 7:28 PM, FlyingDonut said:

If you buy something at the store that turns out to be worth far LESS than what you paid for it, will the store give you more money back? No. No it will not.

That isn't always the case. Many people buy stuff at retail, hoping to flip it and return it when they can't.

[shadroch]

There is nothing wrong with marrying books to improve their appearance. It is selling it without disclosing that is wrong.

[FlyingDonut]

On 8/29/2023 at 9:37 PM, shadroch said:

That isn't always the case. Many people buy stuff at retail, hoping to flip it and return it when they can't.

Not comics from a comic store.

[Nick Furious]

On 8/28/2023 at 8:28 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

At the end of the day, it gets dark, and all you can do is recognise how you feel having done something. If you feel good, chances are you did right. If you feel bad, chances are that you didn't. It's a personal thing, I think, and everyone will have their own take on it. Who is to say what is right or wrong? 

I appreciate everything you said, but there is a simple measuring stick for saying what is right or wrong.  It's known in most every society and commonly referred to as "The Golden Rule"   Treat others the way you would want to be treated.  It's the filter we can use to evaluate all of our interactions with others.  Presumably none of us here are at the top of the measuring stick and hopefully none of us are at the bottom.  And our position on that measuring stick is not necessarily the same from one day to the next.  They say that even an honest person is only as honest as they can afford to be.  It does seem to me an impossible challenge to actually love our neighbor as ourselves.  Fair enough.  But where we typically place on that measuring stick does matter.  Hopefully our position on the measuring stick raises the average rather than lower it.  

[shadroch]

On 8/29/2023 at 7:24 PM, FlyingDonut said:

Not comics from a comic store.

Tell that to MCS

[southern cross]

About 6 months before the first Avengers movie was released my lcs back in Australia had got in a copy of Avengers 1.

I've always wanted a copy back when I was buying Avengers 277 upwards off the new stands and I'd see those Ross ads of early Marvels including prices for Avengers 1.

Anyway I bought the copy that came into my lcs that same day and a few months later had it sent off to the states to be graded as is.

[AJD]

I grew up reading Australian reprints of the classic Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge stories, which remain my favourite comics to this day. The first time I was in the US I went to Lee's Comics in Palo Alto for a browse around. That's where I saw my first ever Dells. In a bargains box I found copies of Uncle Scrooge #12 and #13 and a WDC&S #142. They were all low grade, but they were a thing of beauty to me and I couldn't buy them fast enough. #12 has the story 'The Golden Fleecing' and #13 'Land beneath the ground' - two classic Barks tales. I felt like Scrooge when he found his first gold nugget in the Klondike! These days I have all of the Dell/Gold Key Scrooge run and most of the WDCS in much better shape, but I still wish I'd held onto those copies - without them I doubt I'd be on these boards. The other thing I bought that day was the latest Thor, because the cover looked interesting: it was #337

[Get Marwood & I]

On 8/30/2023 at 4:24 AM, Nick Furious said:

I appreciate everything you said, but there is a simple measuring stick for saying what is right or wrong.  It's known in most every society and commonly referred to as "The Golden Rule"   Treat others the way you would want to be treated.  It's the filter we can use to evaluate all of our interactions with others.  Presumably none of us here are at the top of the measuring stick and hopefully none of us are at the bottom.  And our position on that measuring stick is not necessarily the same from one day to the next.  They say that even an honest person is only as honest as they can afford to be.  It does seem to me an impossible challenge to actually love our neighbor as ourselves.  Fair enough.  But where we typically place on that measuring stick does matter.  Hopefully our position on the measuring stick raises the average rather than lower it.  

The other year, at the London Fair, a dealer that I'm friendly with had an Alan Class book up for about £70. It reprints AF15 and was selling online for ten times that having escalated over night, as these things now seem to do. Rather than buy it, I told him the score and he gratefully put it to one side to reassess but not before having first offered to sell it at the price he'd put on it. I could have bought it, and took the money with or without bringing the increase to his attention. I like him though. He's decent and has done me many favours over the years. I'm not going to rob him of his profit. I don't need the money and it's his living.

I could name another dealer however who I would have bought it from had he priced it the same. He's a mercenary type, who wants to squeeze every penny out of every sale. In an online dealing of several thousand, he got the hump when I suggested free postage. So I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle on the stick. I do routinely treat others as I'd want to be treated, but feel less inclined to do so if they're towering arseholes. 

Part of the fun of the hobby, as others have pointed out, is finding the rare or cherished book. Even better, if it's a steal. For me, if you apply some nuance, and only take the money and run if you feel it is justified, then you can feel a sense of fairness. Does anyone remember that episode of American Pickers where they gave the guy trying to set up the circus a few bucks for his posters and then, having found out they were worth much more, returned with some extra cash? That feeling is worth more than money.

There is clearly an onus on those who make their living from selling collectibles to keep abreast of developments and price things right. But it's hard to keep track of all these moderns and such which take off for one reason or another. Things can fall through the gaps. I don't want to 'rip off' people who I like or judge to be decent by taking advantage of an unidentified pricing discrepancy. I'll happily do it to those in the hobby who lord it over people though, and to those who display the kind or arrogance and lack of empathy the absence of which might otherwise drive them a little further up the stick. All that said, I completely understand why some would call me a mug for not taking advantage of my long, hard fought for comic knowledge.

[Get Marwood & I]

This likely wouldn't be a 'grail' to anyone but me but I found this comic sitting in a box in Mega City Comics whilst in London one day with the wife. She was meeting a friend near Camden, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to drop her off and to spend the day browsing. MCC never have any Charltons, incidentally. Never. At least not when I go there, which is once in a blue moon. But there it was. The only one in the title that I needed and a book that I was close to mentally recording as not existing.

I'm a 55 year old man and I never - never lose that buzz of excitement when finding a book that I'm after, especially if there is a story to it (which there is with this particular issue, in addition to it being the last one I was after).

It's not always about high grade, keys and value, nice though those things are. Sometimes it's about crappy little comics like Atomic Mouse with 6d UK prices on them 

 

[ADAMANTIUM]

I don't know everything, I do try to analyze a situation to see what the intent is in situations. I know places where it's a used store and most comics, if not all, are cover price or at most $2.99-3.99. That's just the way they price them, and every once in a while you'll see something like Bane breaking Batmans back at $5.99, while Howard the Duck #1 1st gwenpool is still $2.99-3.99. I'm not sure tye relevance in price distribution here or the ends and outs, I just trust they have a process. Some they seem to price more generously than others.

That said I don't feel a sense of duty per se, but I do understand others willingness to allow for corrections. I'm not so much hitting the garage sales and or antiquities with any kind of regular desirable books to know what "I'd do for their lack of effort"; although I do know my impulse on places I've found stuff is to talk to management to find out how they acquire and price or OTHER!

In my case the stores of antiquities or other are known for giving pennies on the dollar when these type come in, and are passing those cheap costs onto any potential buyer. Those places often have the comics in a random box in the corner. One place at least has a bin, another has them bagged and boarded, which I think is old dealer stock that they've acquired to keep the bins fresh or in rotation. Most places it seems would rather have a person come in for comics and wind up buying other stuff or becoming a regular as well. Not many care about "comics" as opposed to regular books, which has long been the case.

Comic con and LCS are different, but deals and steals aren't usually the case, one more than the other. I would say most of us have a relationship with our LCS to be friendly for future deals though.