miraclemet

I know what I want for christmas.... 

I cancelled my Netflix subscription and just read this thread. 

Please dont stop.

3 hours ago, shadroch said:

Nice book. Do people really factor in registry points when considering if a book is a good deal?

I did back when I used to play "Registry Steroids!" (finding low dollar books with high registry points)

22 minutes ago, uchiha101 said:

 Yes, that's correct. Over the course of my lifetime, I've had about 50 doctors try and they either said that they can't figure out what I have. The closest that I've gotten is that I had a professional come and test me when I was in college and diagnosed it as a learning disorder but being that she didn't specify what I had and only gave the symptoms I couldn't apply for disability. 

I've spoken to my case worker about this quite a few times and they said they have a doctor come in a few times a year so he'll be testing the people on his file. I did a self-diagnosis and I'm almost 100% sure I had ADHD and dyslexia. 

Hm. The ironly is ADHD and Dyslexia is far easier to diagnose in school-aged kids than in adults, so if they couldnt nail it down when you were younger Im not sure how they would as an adult. What were the symptoms the doctor recognized?  

Gabe, I think you have mentioned some learning disabilities in the past? (Am I remembering that right?) And these issues affect your ability to find/hold appropriate employment? 

Did you ever have a diagnosis (maybe when you were in public school)? 

I ask because in the US (so hopefully also in Canada) there are organizations/programs for placing young adults with disabilities into the workforce. But it would mean you would have needed to be clinically diagnosed. Do you know if you have a clinical diagnosis? 

On 1/4/2019 at 4:11 PM, uchiha101 said:

All items sold have already had all fees deducted from them

 

Sold items

Poke walker 

Paid $0.33 USD Sold $22.38 USD

Def Jam 2 

Paid $7 USD  Sold: $28.71 USD

NCAA 14 Football Xbox 360

Paid: $6.70 USD  Sold: $86.81 USD

Pokemon soul silver game case and manual

Paid: 4.52 USD   Sold: $11 USD

Aquaman #11 

Paid $52 USD   Sold:$83.75

11 minutes ago, mattn792 said:

I’m just failing to see where these activities are generating any profits.

The above is what Gabe sees as profit, and he's right in the simplest sense. 

57 minutes ago, mattn792 said:

Before multiple streams of expletives start flying around, please define "the money I earned" and where exactly it is originating from.  

I assume it meant the money he got from government assistance did not go into comic books, video games or bitcoin. 

I assume it meant that them money he put into comic books, video games and bitcoin came from "profits" made on flipping comic books and video games 

I dont know where the credit card debt fits in (were comic book, video game or bitcoin purchases made using credit card?)

10 minutes ago, uchiha101 said:

I have asked in the past what the LCS's slow months are just that I forgot what they've told me. Social assistance is welfare and as for why I justify buying stuff while being on it is simply because the money I invest is the money I earned so I can do as I like with it. I've already explained the plans I have for this year so if you've forgotten just go back a few pages and read it.

Gabe I think the issue you are running into and are missing (based on the "I can do as I like with it" comment) is this:

(Im gonna use random generic round numbers for simplicity, I dont think these numbers are actual) 

First let's say you need $500 a month to get by (rent, food, medicine). If you are getting $500 from the government in assistance to help you survive (food, rent) that $500 comes from taxes collected by the Gov't from people who are paying taxes on their income. 

If you make $100 (profit) then that money should go back into paying for your basic needs (meaning you take $400 in assistance + the $100 profit to still reach the $500 needed to get by each month. 

If you dont, you are essentially using the tax payers (who fund government assistance) to fund your attempts at making money, which is not the point of social assistance. 

17 minutes ago, uchiha101 said:

Updates

Video game losses

$301.72 USD

Thrift shop purchase losses

$400 USD

The inventory will be calculated later but it will be nowhere near enough to recover my costs. Everything has nearly been thrown out due to renovations and I can't in good conscience sell something with drywall dust on it even if I had been able to clean it I still wouldn't sell it. That's all I wish to say about this.

Wow dude, sorry

 That's a big hit.

Were the renovations not communicated to you? (remind me are you at home or in your own apartment?) 

1 hour ago, uchiha101 said:

 

2. I didn't consider adding the time spent that didn't result in a purchase but only about 4 hours have been added to that. Since I'm using my money only I don't spend very long anymore going through things.

 

 

Ah so your profit came at the cost of 11 hours. So that puts you at $14.45/hour or just barely over minimum wage. 

So why not get a job with the other hours in the day if you are only putting 11 hours into your hobby/business venture? 

Oh and good on you for reporting the income. I happily stand corrected. I actually thought there was a chance you didnt meet some threshold for reporting, but had trouble converting that into maple syrup and antlers. 

11 minutes ago, mattn792 said:

Doesn't this seem like a contradiction?  If he's avoiding a job but building a "career", wouldn't that DQ him from further social assistance?  Makes me wonder if any of that flipping income is being reported.

Oh I 100% assume that the flipping income is not being reported. And (to a degree) I understand why, since it's no where close to a steady revenue stream. 

On 1/8/2019 at 7:20 PM, uchiha101 said:

The thing you're talking about is in the past. I've sold my hulk 180 a long time ago and it was one of the first things I've sold. But I do know when they separated eBay into the Canadian and US one I've been getting fewer views and sales.  I've been looking into and trying different selling platforms, adding OBO's to things I wanted to sell quicker, made shipping a bit cheaper. I'm not the only one having problems with sales though. Though like I said that's in the past as most of all the big ticket items have been sold and that I'm on social assistance. 

1. If you are expecting to rely on buying and selling things to make a living, then you have to have a business model that can weather the occasional down period. Some industries have natural slow periods, collectibles is not quite as predictable, so you have to always be ahead, in preparation for the possibility of having a "behind" month. 

2. You made $159 profit (or in other words your salary) in 7 hours. Im not sure how spot on your timing is (did you include time spent searching that didnt result in a purchase?) That return breaks down to a pay rate of $22/hr. Now if you spent more time than that... you're salary is less. 

3. Also remember you are picking the "cream of the crop" best ROI stuff, so if you invest more time, the ROI starts to decrease as you have to start buying less profitable stuff (since you already bought the more profitable stuff) so your rate of pay decreases with the more time you spend doing it, unless you have an infinite number of places to flip from (and granted the internet is pretty vast, but even it is finite). 

Remind me, are you not working an actual job so that you can continue to collect social assistance? (in other words if you get a job, the assistance stops)

If this is your intended career, why only spend 7 hours on it (I assume this was over a week, but maybe it was less? more?) . You also run into the problem of transport once you've gone through all of the local places for flipable items (I assume you dont have a car?), and if you are relying on picking up items online and then having them shipped (rather than local pickup) you eat into your profit, and your timeline for flipping... 

15 minutes ago, october said:

Hulk 180 is a $300 to $400 book in 5.0. 

Aw , I read it as 181... OK proceed with your downward spiral!

i know i might regret asking this...

if you have a milestone of:

Get my first four figure sale

and you own a:

IH 180 CGC 5.0

Which is worth well over 2k in the market, why are you acruing credit debt, when you could sell the book (while simultaneously accomplishing one of your goals and milestones)?

On 1/5/2019 at 1:04 PM, uchiha101 said:

Well, it's usually from Kijiji and thrift shops and where I sell them I use letgo, ebay, kijiji, and recently I've started testing out the FB marketplace. 

$159 in profit between purchase price and sale price, what's your estimated time invested in in searching Kijiji and the thrift shops and then the listings/sales and shipping?  

3 hours ago, uchiha101 said:

All items sold have already had all fees deducted from them

 

Sold items

Poke walker 

Paid $0.33 USD Sold $22.38 USD

Def Jam 2 

Paid $7 USD  Sold: $28.71 USD

NCAA 14 Football Xbox 360

Paid: $6.70 USD  Sold: $86.81 USD

Pokemon soul silver game case and manual

Paid: 4.52 USD   Sold: $11 USD

Aquaman #11 

Paid $52 USD   Sold:$83.75

well done! Where'd you flip them from and to?  (ie Garage sales to ebay?)

On 12/15/2018 at 2:37 AM, uchiha101 said:

I still do and also the banks. The banks as far as I'm concerned can  off. I tried my best to pay off that credit card debt, I called, I tried to negotiate and work out terms. They didn't listen and they kept piling on 100 bucks, 75 bucks every few days so I gave up and I'm not paying it off until I AM ready to do so. They did me this disfavor so now it will be their turn to wait and yes I'm aware of what will happen to my credit score.

But really... Are you clear on the fact that you not paying doesn't hurt them at all (they are huge insured billion dollar Corp), but it does hurt you right?

And it sounds like you looked on line to figure out these big charges, but did you talk to someone about them? They can see more info than you and could tell you where the charges were coming from. Did you call or go to a branch?

Also remember when you talk about "breaking even" to factor in the time lost, and salary lost when spending time in cryptocurrency or comics. If you spent 6 months and "broke even" you really lost cause you have to factor in whatever you could have earned during that time.... 

19 hours ago, uchiha101 said:

I said what I can AFFORD to lose and no not zero dollars

Has your situation changes drastically from what it was on the old boards? Cause my recollection was you couldnt afford much... (I do hope it has changed for the better, but didnt really have any expectations that it was going to change significantly enough to be able to afford to lose money on crypto currency. 

Well it's time to bring this thread back from the old forum grave yard!

Golden Age (or Atomic Age if you wanna be a stickler) Sci-Fi has been shooting up in value in the last year. One book that I bought in 2015, sold for double in 2016, and by 2017 it had doubled again, and now in 2018 a CGC 2.5 copy is selling for more than I paid (at the time in 2015) for my CGC 6.5 copy. To make matters worse, even just finding copies for sale/auction is tough. Typically in a give CLINK/HA auction there are just a couple of books on my radar that might sell for my budget.... 

After some tough negotiations back in April I picked up this lovely book.

LB Cole. Alien landscape. Actual Aliens. Space Ships. Planets. This comic has it all!

Plus all those colors and the design that comes with a Blue Bolt comic!

Don Rosa. Never has a creator so exceptionally picked up the mantle from a predecessor. Carl Barks wrote amazing stories in the pages of Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck comics  in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Will Eisner called him "the Hans Christian Andersen of comic books" and that seems on the nose. Don Rosa somehow captured the same spirit in his revitilization of Donald and Uncle Scrooge for Gladstone and then Edgmont publishing. Gemstone published paperback versions of the stores in 2 volumes and a later companion (around 2007-08) and then Boom Studios published hardcover versions a few years later (2010-11 I think). I had the hardcover versions and thought they were amazing. Around the time of the hardcovers Rosa retired from creating new works, and went head to head with his publishers on the printing and reprinting rights for his stories. 

As a result the books fell out of print, and have become tough finds. Some copies for a couple hundred have sat on eBay, and actual auctions were rare. I was able to win two auctions that comprised the whole collection of hardbacks, and was happy to have them. 

Fantagraphics, who Rosa has been happier with has been publishing his Gladstone and Edgmont stories for the last few years in nice hardbacks, and I have quite a few (see a later post). Now "The Complete Life And Times Of Uncle Scrooge Volume 1" is schedule to come out in February of 2019 from Fantagraphics. So maybe I overpaid (Lets say I paid about $50/book for my 3 volumes), but I'll believe the new release when I see it (I've waited as much as 2 and a half years for books to get released after repeated delays), so until then (6 months from now) I'll enjoy my original hardcovers!
 

Lots of buying of late....

One recent pickup made me want to write about a subsection of Collected Editions... the "Ex-Library edition" 

When buying used copies on eBay or Amazon (or other places at times) you can find some used book stores selling and sometimes they have books that were previously in circulation at local libraries. Are these worth buying? Well, sometimes. 

The good news is with modern library systems, we've gone away from the library card and the pocket holder in books, and now we just have to deal with a adhesive barcode and a spine label. Also the adhesives have gone away from the serious glues they used to use to adhere paper to paper, and instead we have the gummy tape used to stick slick barcodes to slick hardback covers (or back covers). The gummy tape is easy enough to remove. 

I've bought a few books over the years that have this level of wear and have been very happy with them since their "lesser" condition status keeps prices down. Most of the tape glue can be removed, so at most the only evidence you have of a books "ex-library" status is the occasional stamp (and that's not frequent these days even). 

Ive got two sets that include ex-library copies. One was the Marvel re-issue of the Miracleman (Alan Moore) series of hardcovers. Years ago I lucked into a few sales and picked up the oop TPBs from Eclipse from the original editions, but once Marvel bought the rights I assumed the books would eventually go back to print so I sold my OOPs and waited (and man that was a long wait). Picked up the 4 volume HCs for about $30 earlier this year that were ex-library, with the only evidence being a small stamp on the inside cover of each book. Circulation wear was minuscule, and no different than most of my other books that had been read a few times. I still cant believe Marvel hasnt done an omnibus, but Im sure one will eventually come out. I also cant believe people are still trying to sell their 1st editions for prices that were market before the reprint. If you are a seller you have to have some awareness!

The other collection I pieced together was Kurt Busiek's Astro City title. The first 4 volumes are OOP but they have recently been reprinted, so I've been able to find the original editions. Was able to get original editions of V 1,3 and 4, but had to live with a 2nd edition of Vol 2. My Volume 1 is an ex-library (for $10 rather than the $50-100 that they're listed for new/like-new) and it fits in just fine with no extra wear.  This was a title I had previously and was happy to be able to pick it up again. 

On 12/19/2017 at 5:31 AM, n2wdw said:

Looking forward to read about your journey

 

do you plan to make more custom volumes?

I've started looking into local binders here in DC. I have a few old projects still in need of binding, but my raw comics are still,down in FL with my parents... So I'll need to plan a roadtrip first!

I totally forgot that I made those insert/flyers when I sold off the collection! Glad to see one still floating around 4 years later. I  wasn't trying to imply a pedigree, but just commerative the act of collecting the theme. (Plus it made it a little less bittersweet as I let them go)

Don't know what it was about 70s DC horror but the centering was always horrid,and finding even half way squared copies was a chore. All three of your new additions present very nicely!

@Ricksneatstuff arent you collecting red dresses? 

These are some good looking pickups! Nice condition and they present well.