A Prime Example of CGC's inconsistent grading

[fantastic_four]

This asinine infatuation with meaningless degrees of refinement is being

driven by investors, not collectors. Many collectors however seem to

be coming along.

 

You're ignoring the extremely prevalent role of ego in collecting anything, whether it be cars, homes, diamonds, military medals, beautiful girlfriends, art, money, titles, or whatever. It makes a lot of people feel self-assured to be able to say they have the biggest and the best of something. Here's a prime example:

 

http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/scoop_article.asp?ai=565&si=127

 

I absolutely would not call this guy only an investor; he's definitely a collector. But he likes having the best comics available to be had. These generalizations about who's a collector and who's a speculator or investor are usually oversimplistic and inaccurate. Most of us are mixtures of multiple stereotypes; I'd say the typical reader of these forums is a mixture of them all, including reader, collector, investor, and speculator.

[COI]

absolutely would not call this guy only an investor; he's definitely a collector. But he likes having the best comics available to be had. These generalizations about who's a collector and who's a speculator or investor are usually oversimplistic and inaccurate. Most of us are mixtures of multiple stereotypes; I'd say the typical reader of these forums is a mixture of them all, including reader, collector, investor, and speculator.

 

In one of my very first posts on here, I made a very similar comment, and I think this is the first time I've seen someone else say it.

 

Why should collectors like Brulato be content with VF's, when he obviously has the resources and the desire to go further? We all like a challenge, and those of us who love to collect will usually set goals that are as challenging(but realistic) as possible.

 

Everyone should just collect for their own reasons, and not worry so much about other people's motivations. Who cares about whether or not someone is buying to collect or to invest. The investor crowd is very small, much smaller than most people probably think. I don't know why there is this assumption that the buyer who paid multiples for a book **must** be an investor. But even if they are, why is everyone so bothered by it? If you are so sure that these "investors" are going to lose their shirts, then let them lose. Or if you're upset because "investors" are taking books off of the market, you shouldn't be, because that book is more likely to surface again if it's in the hands of an "investor" then if a "collector" got it. And again, that's assuming that the motivations of the buyer are clear cut, which they usually aren't.

 

I would say most of us high grade collectors are somewhat investment minded, unless they have unlimited capital to pour in the hobby.

 

 

 

 

[fantastic_four]

Like about 1 in 4 of my posts these days, I said something similar to the above about a year ago when I tried to define the terms reader, collector, investor, and speculator. I wish the messages on this forum weren't deleted after only 7-8 months; I hate having to repost the same stuff just because it got deleted due to age.

[supapimp]

have you just tried using the "search" key for all your userID posts?

[fantastic_four]

The only old ones that show up are the ones in threads where somebody posted much later. There are a bunch of things I've had to repost that are gone...most if not all of your posts from the first few months are gone too if you take a look.

[Architecht]

We used to remove posts on a rotating basis based on age. At the moment, we've turned that off and all posts are kept in perpetuity. This may or may not change depending on whether we hit a wall on disk space or performance of the boards.