ASM #252 CGC 9.8 Record Sale - something fishy going on? - Holder Tampering Incident confirmed by CGC 50 50

[paqart]

On 4/27/2024 at 9:14 PM, newshane said:

People these days are soft. Debate is squelched. Honesty abandoned. 

I admire the few straight shooters left in the world. I wish there were more of them. 

If you mean RMA, and my apologies if you don't, he is not a "straight-shooter." He too often assumes facts not in evidence for the sake of gotcha moments designed to make people look like insufficiently_thoughtful_persons because they were unaware of the information he withheld.

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 4/27/2024 at 4:47 PM, paqart said:

snarky comment by RMA that implied I didn't understand Geometry

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 4/27/2024 at 11:52 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 4/27/2024 at 6:21 PM, paqart said:

Sugar coating and leaving out essential information are different things. If a mechanic tells me I can't count and I am a certified CPA, I'll be inclined to argue. If he means I don't know how many pistons are in my engine, he's making a totally different claim outside my expertise that I might agree with. Doing things like that is a way for a person with expertise in one field to feel superior to people in other fields who may have less knowledge of the field in question. It is annoying more than clever.

On 4/27/2024 at 8:44 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

On 4/27/2024 at 9:08 AM, paqart said:

It fits, but thanks for the lame gotcha attempt, it was tepidly amusing. I wasn't drawing to scale. There is only so much time to make things like this when there is real work to be done elsewhere. 

 

[Domo Arigato]

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 4/27/2024 at 6:23 PM, paqart said:

On 4/27/2024 at 6:14 PM, newshane said:

People these days are soft. Debate is squelched. Honesty abandoned. 

I admire the few straight shooters left in the world. I wish there were more of them. 

If you mean RMA, and my apologies if you don't, he is not a "straight-shooter." He too often assumes facts not in evidence for the sake of gotcha moments designed to make people look like insufficiently_thoughtful_persons because they were unaware of the information he withheld.

On 4/27/2024 at 6:30 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

On 4/27/2024 at 6:23 PM, paqart said:

gotcha moments designed to make people look like insufficiently_thoughtful_persons because they were unaware of the information he withheld.

 

 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 4/27/2024 at 8:35 PM, Domo Arigato said:

 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 4/27/2024 at 11:52 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

Doesn't Vintage still have more points?

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 4/27/2024 at 6:42 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Doesn't Vintage still have more points?

 

 

Edited April 28 by RockMyAmadeus

[newshane]

On 4/27/2024 at 8:23 PM, paqart said:

they were unaware of the information he withheld.

So…someone else is responsible for your…lack of information? I’m trying to understand your angle here…

The problem was that you didn’t realize the inner well had separate compartments for the label and the comic? Have you never cracked a slab before? 

[newshane]

In the end…facts are facts. Feelings are secondary. 

[Ccccccccccccc]

I'm just glad this thread is capable of getting worse 👍

[paqart]

On 4/27/2024 at 9:36 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

 

Namely, that the holder for the comic inside the main holder is connected to the label holder. I didn't know they were the same tray. You adding that black line looked like a mistake to me, not information. This is because you didn't write anything, you just made a crude adjustment to an excellent illustration, and assumed I'd know what you intended to communicate. And speaking of which, I'm still not completely convinced because I didn't see anything to prevent lifting the comic out of the inner tray and moving it separately. The label had slipped over the edge into the area reserved for the comic, and it looked like the comic was moving enough to pull it out if I used a thin piece of metal, like a palette knife, to scoop it out.

[paqart]

On 4/27/2024 at 9:51 PM, newshane said:

So…someone else is responsible for your…lack of information? I’m trying to understand your angle here…

The problem was that you didn’t realize the inner well had separate compartments for the label and the comic? Have you never cracked a slab before? 

No I haven't. Should I? Is there some reason why a collector, not a dealer, should busy himself cracking perfectly good slabs he paid thousands of dollars for? Good grief. I feel like I stepped into a world where the height of moral virtue is to know the exact location of every lemon peel in an alley, and where fights will take place to establish dominance. These conversations are much easier when there are no efforts to try and score points by making mystery posts understood only by the chosen few.

It was a conversation like this around 2018 or 2019 about newsstands that decided me to stop buying comics for about two years. That conversation involved RMA also, if I recall correctly. It's as if he wants to shoo people away from the hobby. This conversation is heading in the same direction, and I actually work in the industry off and on. I feel like an auto designer who meets a customer and decides, "that's it, I'm going to be a statistician."

[paqart]

On 4/27/2024 at 10:03 PM, Ccccccccccccc said:

I'm just glad this thread is capable of getting worse 👍

 

[paqart]

On 4/27/2024 at 9:25 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

[paqart]

Anyway, this is totally off-track now. My apologies, it wasn't my intent. RMA has a fantastic but risable talent for tweaking me (and others, apparently). Not a skill I'd be proud of, but it is undeniable.
In other news, anything happening in the Zaneglor cases? I'm glad to hear owners of tampered slabs will finally be getting compensation, though now I wonder how that will be determined. From CGC's perspective, it would be very easy to lowball collectors, and from the collector's perspective, almost any offer could be construed as lowball. This would recommend a higher settlement from CGC where there is no requirement to do it. Hence, the dramatic tension created by the situation. It seems to me that the individuals who bought from Zaneglor could have actions against Zaneglor even if compensated by CGC because they were inconvenienced, placed in jeopardy (if they had sold tampered holders), and may have lost opportunities to sell at higher than the settlement price.

In some cases where a buyer is duped, they can be attacked as incautious for buying something at a price so good that they didn't look carefully at what they were buying. That doesn't seem to be the case here, because the comics were won at auction, meaning, highest possible price. They weren't overlooking defects to save money here.

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 4/27/2024 at 7:45 PM, paqart said:

It's as if he wants to shoo people away from the hobby.

On 4/27/2024 at 7:45 PM, paqart said:

conversation

[paqart]

On 4/27/2024 at 11:01 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

"As if". It's an important conditional expression. I didn't say it was your intent, but I was inspired to stop buying comics altogether for about 24 months or so. I was making up for lost time, but am feeling inspired again.

You don't get all the credit though. Getting back to this thread, what do you think of the situation with Zaneglor? It's beginning to look like this incident won't have any long-lasting impact on the hobby at all, and any losses suffered by collectors will be minimal.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Andrew. Allow me to break my "vow of silence", as it were, for a second, because you're taking some very aggressive shots at me, none of which are justified. When I first responded to your drawing, I had no idea that you had no idea how the mechanics of Gen 2 cases (which is what you have) worked, so I was reminding you...yes, with my "crude" drawing...that what you had drawn was physically impossible without A. popping another corner post, or B. (and infinitely less likely) warping and damaging the inner well and comic inside. Most people I know who spend $$$ on slabs have seen one or two cracked out, or have done it themselves, or at least watched a crackout video on the internet, to familiarize themselves with how the product they're putting so much trust in works. You don't need to crack a 4 or 5 figure slab to do that.

And now, you're angry...again...because you didn't understand what you were dealing with, and when someone gently corrected you, reminding you of the properties of the inner well (and not knowing you didn't know those properties)...with a picture, no less, which is about as non-confrontational as it gets...you immediately assumed bad faith, immediately assumed someone was "making a joke at your expense." But nothing could be further from the truth. I don't need to be "right" at the expense of others. No, I want everyone to be correct, so that everyone works from a position of knowledge.

I am a buyer AND seller of slabs. It is not only in my nature to want to be factually correct about the things that interest me, as a matter of personal pride, but it is in my business interests to make sure that misinformation about slabs doesn't proliferate. While everyone was praising your admittedly excellent drawing, they had missed the fact that there was a glaring error in it: the idea that a comic is not sealed into the inner well, and can simply be "tilted" and "pulled out" if one corner post is broken. That is not correct, for ANY generation of slab.

My goal wasn't to make you feel stupid. My goal was not to anger you. My goal was not to belittle you. My goal was not to "tweak" you. My meme about geometry was a very gentle poke about the physical impossibility of your drawing. My goal isn't...and I cannot emphasize this enough...to "shoo anyone away", but to make sure everyone goes into comics with KNOWLEDGE, because knowledge is power. People who know what they're doing are much, much less likely to be scammed, taken advantage of, or, as in your case, assume they're being taken advantage of when they're not.

My goal was to bring you to understanding, and prevent MISunderstanding in others who, like you, don't know the mechanics of these cases, how they're designed, and how they function, and might look at your drawing and internalize it, thinking what you drew is possible. It is not. It never has been. And it's important that that idea was corrected.

So, just so you know: for Gen 2 (which is what your slab was) slabs, the inner well is nearly the entire length and width of the case, and it is divided into two parts: the bottom part where the comic sits is completely sealed by a sonic weld on all four sides and cannot, outside of QC issues, be opened without cutting on the inside of that weld. The top part contains the label, and is lightly welded into the label on both sides, while the top is unsealed and open. 

I get it. You're a very educated and talented man. You spent a lot of time and energy getting to where you are. And no one likes to be corrected, especially in public. But there are a lot of people who know a lot more than you AND me about many subjects here. And there's nothing wrong with that. Instead of assuming bad faith, perhaps just asking "what do you mean by that?" would smooth out the rough spots that may not actually even exist. Everyone has something they know that others don't, and learning is a lifelong process.

I hope my explanation brings clarity, if not reconciliation.

Edited April 28 by RockMyAmadeus