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Yah I saw that, pretty crazy. I picked up a Snyder/Capullo experience package, which I think is very fairly priced. Also, great get with Mattina! Now if only Dell'Otto would start coming to cons this side of the pond...

Very true - if you use it just because it's a great "sale" and buy something you didn't really want means you just spent more. I've tried to stay disciplined as well and only use this to buy something that I would've eventually bought at a good enough deal price. I remember someone mentioned it on the last Ebay coupon thread, but these days, any time I see a book I want (grade, PQ, wrap, etc.), but price isn't quite right, I throw it in the Watch List. That way I already have a list of "want" books for the next time one of these Ebay deals come out. It really helped yesterday as I was quickly able to see a couple books I had already pre-screened (a few which had best offer options), and was able to buy something earlier in the day.

That's a sweet book - 9.6 WP keys are right up my alley and what I focus on, and nice wrap on that as well! Darkseid has gotten more hype again with his role in Tom King's Mister Miracle run right now. I could see Darkseid eventually becoming main villain of a DCEU movie, but as I think was mentioned on another thread, with Thanos being the main villain in current Avengers, I think DC will wait on bringing Darkseid to a movie for a few years, so it's a good time to pick this up.

Yes, I was lucky that the seller responded right away, but I have cancelled a best offer when seller didn't get back to me by coupon end (or if I found something else to spend the coupon on). No issues cancelling the offer with Ebay, and also don't think any ethical issue as it's just an offer, not an agreed deal.

Awesome, thanks for the heads up. Confirmed it works - was able to maximize the coupon ($500 gets you max % off / $ off). Seller had listed for $600 w/ BO, after 1 back and forth, agreed on $520, net price $420!

Agreed - human nature being what it is, once we have achieved / gotten something, we acclimatize to the "new normal" and now want the next thing. Not much we can do about that, other than constant reminders / perspective re-alignments to enjoy what we currently have (and remember there are those with less / much less who similarly would envy what we have). This is certainly true not just in comics, but with most things. To try and keep myself in check in terms of what I "collect", I try to focus on books that meant something to me growing up. As someone in my mid-30s, I grew up in the late 80s / early 90s and so I've generally focused my collecting efforts on key books from that era (bronze / copper). Primarily X-Men related keys, but also other books from that era.

Yes, there is that pressure (especially since seller is getting 20% bump over GPA pricing as part of the waffle). I've only dabbled a bit in these, and only for big key books, but it has gotten annoying that some sellers basically just constantly have a new waffle up as soon as the last one closes, and the books they sell are frequently drekky books that most people wouldn't care about (eg. a random copper / modern semi-key in 9.2 or 9.4). But then there's a "Thanks for the Support" subtle pressure just to help them fill it. In an ideal world, waffles would be a way for people to gamble a bit on key books they really want, but are too expensive to justify normally. Unfortunately, given the opportunity to sell at 20% above GPA (or even at GPA), a lot of sellers trying to capitalize and take advantage of selling everything they can. Eventually, I see that market correcting as buyers realize they could've just saved their 10/20 x $20 bids on stuff they don't really want, and bought a book for $400. Re: Instagram culture about just showing off - that's definitely not unique to the "comic book" sub-culture within IG. That's pretty much what all of IG has become - it's a place to curate photos of your life that show the top 1% of your experiences. Look at this great destination I'm traveling to, look at this great restaurant I'm eating at, look at all my friends and how popular I am. Lots of humble-bragging. That's fine, it is what it is, and there's some guilty pleasure in that too, the danger is for people who aren't as into the IG-world and don't have perspective that this isn't actual reality, it can lead to a lot of depression, especially for teens / young people who aren't yet that self-aware.

I haven't used IG, but have used Facebook Private Groups. Same idea, but there are admins that help protect the community by kicking out any deadbeat (sellers or buyers). Also a system of "kudos" when books are delivered properly, well packed, etc. Popular sellers develop a rep pretty quickly. Given that, most people buy with Paypal FnF. Re: Raffles (or Waffles), I agree with you that it can get crazy and sometimes doesn't make sense. I'm part of a few private Raffle groups on FB, and here's their policy: - You have to use 90-day GPA to price it, and can add a 20% bump for yourself - That bump is technically supposed to be then used to support other people's waffles (the group's admins try to generally enforce, to try and keep people from just selling books at 20% above GPA) - For higher priced books, where the "bump" gives you a couple hundred dollars, most people give deals (eg. $10 spots, but buy 3 for $25, or 5 for $40) - To ensure it isn't fixed, there's a procedure that's developed where essentially you use giveaways.random.org to run a randomized giveaway, and record your computer and what you're doing. There's a set procedure (involving posting when you're starting, showing the time on IG/FB, then showing a window on World Clock, etc.) and a bunch of other steps that make it reasonably hard to fake. Even with that, I generally stay away from the vast majority of those waffles. Some of the groups have evolved to the point where sellers are trying to raffle off non-key books (why not, you're able to sell these books essentially at 20% above GPA) that most people wouldn't want... But for keys, every now and then it can be worth a shot, but no doubt this is essentially gambling.

I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we won't be able to get anything graded. My hope now is that his package allows for 2 sigs - 1 has to be on a Star Trek book, and then 1 on any other book. Then of course the hard part will be picking 1 book to get signed!

I believe in the benefit of alternating covers to keep from any spine roll from spines all in same direction. My slight tweak is rather than alternating direction of covers, I alternate whether book is top-down or reversed down-top. This way, I can still tab through books easily (think that would be annoying if books were alternating direction, much harder to see what book it is if it’s facing opposite direction from where you are). And spine direction still alternates so you get the benefit of preventing spine roll. It’s not perfect tabbing through books (half the books you can only see the bottom, but still easier than constantly flipping viewing direction). Otherwise, agree with everyone above. Couple boards on either end, and don’t overpack.

Haha, that’s pretty aggressive marketing. I see what you mean, it’s a bit sneaky and maybe a little too blatantly obvious “they’re trying to get you to buy or bid more” that it’s offensive, but unfortunately I feel that’s the new world order online... like the Facebooks of the world, everyone trying to increase profits and get us to spend more by using our personal data. This has become the “cost” to all the free online services we use (FB, Gmail, etc.)

I used GoCollect quite a bit before switching to GPA a few months ago. What I miss the most about GoConnect is being able to click on the individual transactions and see the actual finished sale listing. It really helped to see whether certain outliers (high or low) were due to certain characteristics (ie. high price being Newsstand, lower price being bad wrap / date stamp / writing on front or something else). I get that that may not be possible for all venues, but at least for EBay, it was a great feature that I wish GPA had. I just looked at GoCollect again in a few months and I see the full site overhaul they've done. It also looks like they're getting data from ComicLink, ComicConnect and Heritage now? Given GoConnect is half the price, I may give them a shot in the future, especially during times when I don't need it as much (eg. long time between cons)

For what it's worth, I bought a cheap slab off eBay last week using a Best Offer price that seller accepted (listed for $85, offered / accepted $70). When you go to the auction listing itself, it erroneously shows that it sold for $85. If you do Advanced Search for Sold items, it does show the $85 crossed out (and Best Offer Accepted). Most importantly though, GPA is correctly showing that it sold for $70. Listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/God-Country-1-CGC-9-8-SS-Donny-Cates-Image-25th-Blind-Box-Virgin-Color-Variant/263652210284 Sold / Closed Search: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=god+country+1+cgc+9.8+ss&_in_kw=1&_ex_kw=&_sacat=0&LH_Sold=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=10025&_sargn=-1%26saslc%3D1&_salic=1&_sop=12&_dmd=1&_ipg=50&LH_Complete=1 If you search GPA for the God Country #1 9.8 25th Anniversary "Virgin" Edition signed by Donny Cates, it shows correctly the $70 transaction on May 24, 2018. So appears that GPA has corrected the API pull to get the right Best Offer price?

Totally agree, I think this is the best policy. The pull-list customers should really be the most valued customers for a shop as it's regular, consistent business. For every 1 book that may have potential $10-15 potential profit flipping, there are 100s of drek titles that customers buy for $3.99/$2.99 cover price that couldn't be sold in $0.50 bins at a con. A store needs its pull list customers who are buying the regular titles at cover price to sustain itself. them off (and potentially losing some) to try and get a couple bucks extra profit on the rare title that gets hot is penny-wise pound-foolish.

I hit Nickel City on Sat, and can confirm there were just 5 or 6 total dealers. Was there from 10-1 and it was never that busy (lots of room on show floor and at most 4-5 people looking through a booth at a time). Dave & Adams were the title sponsor and had a huge booth - they had tons of longs with good runs all at 50%-off right off the bat, which brought the books into reasonable price territory. I looked through some boxes of the other dealers, but wasn’t a ton of what I was looking for personally (high grade silver / bronze primarily). Brought a lot of cash but only ended up spending about $100 on 5 high-grade Uncanny X-Mens in the 100s. Wall books were ok, a couple interesting, but nothing I pulled the trigger on. Dropped a large sub off at CGC booth which was fairly busy (2 girls working + 1 witness, including Melissa who I’ve met a few times at cons who was great and very pleasant as usual). Were about 10 people scattered around the booth waiting - I was able to get in and out quickly as I had all my paperwork done with, but could see some people getting antsy. Feel like CGC should come up with a “take-a-number” system at cons to keep things orderly and efficient and no one feeling like it’s unfair. Overall, if my main purpose wasn’t to sub books at CGC, this would’ve been a disappointing experience. As a newer con, agree with someone else eho mentioned in the thread that it makes sense that regional dealers would go more to established cons like Motor City - think Nickel City needs to schedule on a different weekend next year to have a real chance of making it.

The 9.8 isn't that crazy, given there were 2 $1k+ sales in Jan/Feb 2018, but the $1.8k paid for the 9.6 Canadian price variant is huge! GPA shows just 1 sale of a 9.6 C$ in each of 2016, 2017 and 2018, but it goes $275, $713 and $1,827. Yowzahs!

Agree - I really hope that 1) Byrne allows for witnessing, and 2) some package is worked out for a private signing so we can pay to guarantee sigs and not have to play the public-line lottery game!

I've got a bunch of books I want to drop off at CGC to save some shipping fees (I usually buy books already slabbed so my subbing is typically once or twice a year at cons). I'm in Toronto for the next while (I split time between Toronto / NY), and given it's a short drive from Toronto, planning on going on the Sat and bringing cash! Given this is a newer con, guess they're not quite established yet. Hopefully there are some nice books around, and dealers willing to sell at fair prices.

Wow, no kidding, that is HUGE!

While I totally empathize with your situation, I think you may be going about the answer the wrong way given the audience. You're giving them the deep-down, "meaning-of-life" type insight and truth (bolded above) that's appropriate for us who love comics as a medium. I would say something like: - Look, unfortunately the reality is that the vast majority of even old comic books are "worthless" (monetarily) - The only books that tend to have (monetary) value are key issues (usually first appearances of characters - yes, there's more to it than this but this is the easiest to explain to a newbie) - A book's value is tied hugely to its condition - the higher grade books can be multiples of lower-grade / mid-grade books - If you want a quick and easy gauge, take a look at Ebay sold listings (and show them how to use it), noting that just searching Ebay will bring up tons of books for sale that are at unreasonable prices (I usually will note that any book that's priced fairly typically gets snatched up quickly. If it's still available, it's because it's priced higher than FMV) Even after all that, they still might not like it, because they only want to believe their books are worth thousands as you say. But hopefully if they're somewhat reasonable / rationale, this can start them down the path of getting out of their fantasy

I was just going to say that too, that I recall CGC gives green qualified label if tattooz are missing... but that maybe CGC giving you a blue label but noting that the tattooz were missing from the insert, was CGC's way of saying it was a "manufacturing error"?

Good to hear that you found another buyer, and cheers for keeping the 50% donation Brittany!

It's still 6 months... I don't think they'll cut it much shorter than that, as it gets closer and closer to cannibalizing their new issue sales.

Well, Comixology is really the de-facto deliverer of online comics (moreso than Marvel or DC's own platforms), and you can definitely buy new issues through them, same day as they're released in stores (Wednesdays), and for the same price. I know quite a few people (myself included) who have shifted much of their weekly comic reading to online. If I recall (this was before I read any comics digitally), there was a time when digital comics on Comixology were cheaper than buying the physical, but comic stores were up in arms saying that it would destroy their business. And so they lobbied to get digital comics kept at the same price point as physical. I do think if new weekly digital comics were priced cheaper than physical, a lot more people would switch their reading to digital (myself probably included). I want to support my LCS, and I enjoy the LCS experience, but at some point, the savings would take over. Yes, Marvel and DC don't allow it, but Image (and many other indie publishers) does. You can do it on your computer via Comixology website.

Also took the survey. I'm one who buys both physical and digital. I typically buy indie titles physically at my LCS (and just a few big-2 titles), and mostly by trades digitally (via Comixology, especially during their many sales). Some points on each below: Physical: - Collecting value (for books that become valuable, obviously only the physical ones does) - Nostalgia of childhood / enjoyment of the LCS experience - Space concerns are real Digital: - Much easier to read and convenient. I have a 10.5" iPad Pro, and books look amazing, and it's great to be able to take my entire collection with me when traveling - Cheaper (Comixology sales have been great, have been able to pick up a ton of trades / collections at a fraction of price it would to buy physical) - Some concern around ownership if Comixology ever goes under. I do feel better that Amazon owns Comixology, and that it isn't going anywhere anytime soon. That being said, 20/30/40 years from now, there is some small non-zero risk that my various digital books could disappear (especially the ones from Marvel / DC that have DRM). I would hope that if Comixology goes under, they would provide a way for customers to keep a copy of their previous purchases forever.