Moderns that are heating up on ebay! 70 70

[fastballspecial]

9 hours ago, ygogolak said:

On 4/20/2019 at 11:24 AM, fastballspecial said:

Whats the misinformation? Those sites have a financial stake in the investment of the site and to monotonize it. 
I am not talking about small Facebook groups I belong to several of those as well.

Does the site charge money for services? Do they promote books
that sellers are selling that advertise within their site? Do they charge those sellers or will they in the future? Do
they charge for their services? Those are pretty basic questions. And before your say sure CGC is one of them.

I don't hate the sites I use them just like you. The difference is I harbor no disbelief that the sites don't have a conflict
of interest when listing or discussing some books. There have been repeated examples. To think otherwise is just naïve.  
We can continue to discuss this, but if you are looking from some ax that I have to grind there isn't one. I just don't
believe for one minute they are there to benefit me as the user as their business plan.

 

If you are talking about Key Collect then say that. If you are talking about the former G+ groups or Facebook, no, they do not have any financial interest. If they have a website they have to put out good information to get the clicks they want to monetize it. If they don't put out good info. people will stop visiting them.

How are you supposed to discuss market changes without being accused of impropriety?

Easy you don't have a vested interest in the outcome. How hard is that to understand? You are a smart
guy you must understand this.

Market changes with hard data are completely accepted. Wild accusations using sketchy auctions are not.
Posting a wild sale and then saying a book is hot falls under the later I think. Listing several sales from 
different sellers is not. (I agree there is a slight change still for issues, but the more data the better.)

If a site/group/FB is just discussing market changes no big deal. When a site does the same using the
above comments concerning a financial stake then yeah it is a problem. Whether you can see it or not,
is not my issue to prove to you. I apologize if I have offended some unnamed site. You have been after me
for weeks on this, isn't it time to give it up?

 

 

[paul747]

On 4/20/2019 at 12:24 PM, fastballspecial said:

Whats the misinformation? Those sites have a financial stake in the investment of the site and to monotonize it. 
I am not talking about small Facebook groups I belong to several of those as well.

Does the site charge money for services? Do they promote books
that sellers are selling that advertise within their site? Do they charge those sellers or will they in the future? Do
they charge for their services? Those are pretty basic questions. And before your say sure CGC is one of them.

I don't hate the sites I use them just like you. The difference is I harbor no disbelief that the sites don't have a conflict
of interest when listing or discussing some books. There have been repeated examples. To think otherwise is just naïve.  
We can continue to discuss this, but if you are looking from some ax that I have to grind there isn't one. I just don't
believe for one minute they are there to benefit me as the user as their business plan.

 

You have legit points. Many of these sites, I enjoy, do some pumping ! They post an article about a hot book right after every copy was purchased on eBay, and then relisted (obviously not in hand) for triple the price. I still look at the sites and participate, but this happens all the time! The shade in the comic business has always been present.

[fastballspecial]

6 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

6 hours ago, Nico Esq said:

I was buying comics from Capital City and then Diamond in the 90s

Wait, how old are you? That picture that 1Cool posted of you, you didn't look older than 30...

6 hours ago, Nico Esq said:

I think almost all retailers are comic book speculators.  Some are essentially Diamond franchisees (whether they know it or not) that basically distribute what's in the Diamond catalog and I don't know how they stay open.  I assume "not so long" and that they evolve or they don't.  The remainder of comic book retailers are speculators.  Retailers that bad mouth "flipping" and "speculators" are (a) , because those are the customers that actually spend the most money; (b) cry babies, who are butthurt that they can't keep up with their inventory; (c) don't really want to sell comics, they want to have museums to their own collection and call it a retail store; (d) self loathing; and/or (e) jealous that consumers are doing what they do and sometimes doing it better.  That being said, I think the vast, vast majority of seasoned speculators go out of there way to support their local comic shop, appreciate that the LCS is the heart of the comic book industry, would rather spend money at a LCS than get their own Diamond account, DCBS account, etc., will even sometimes over pay to help out a struggling LCS.  I support two local comic shops.  I have pull lists for trash books at each, I buy my supplies there, I sometimes overpay on books because I know I can move them and recoup my money to help one of the owners who who is not that good at what he does (he borders on the kind of insanity I described above about the LCS owner who hates "speculators", but he does the best he can with what he has.  I think some of us are just a lot better at this (because of experience and various other factors). 

I don't disagree with much of this, in principle, and it's a good insight into the retailer perspective...but I'm talking about the entire industry as a whole, which we've discussed at length before. It's the readership that keeps the industry alive at all; without readers, publication ends (regardless of format.) It's why pulp magazines aren't published any more: people stopped reading them. Readers have to have access to books, and if it become difficult because of the presence of speculators, hovering over the rack and sucking up copies that could go to readers....that's where you run into the problem. 

And just so we're all clear, it's new issues I'm referring to, not back issues. I think people should speculate the hell out of back issues. By then, everyone's had their fair shot at obtaining the material. But new issues are the lifeblood of the entire industry, and without the new...the old can't hang on (see: stamps, Beanie Babies, Hummel figurines, everything made by the Franklin Mint.) It's vital to preserve, nurture, and grow the new issue market. 

And local stores that can't compete have no business hogging space in the retail market.

 

This is pretty good right here. I would add in the love for the art and so on, but without readership our hobby just wont survive. 

[fastballspecial]

6 hours ago, FlyingDonut said:

9 hours ago, ygogolak said:

I understand that was probably what his post was about, but it was not mentioned. Why not call it out if that was it?

Yes, I've made some great friends from other sites/groups. It's more of a community and people don't hide behind an avatar. In all my years on here I've only ever met one person from this board.

That's 100% on you. I've met 50 or so people from this board. If you think this is not a community, I don't know what to tell you.

I run into them by accident at shows, flea markets, or selling them books. I am not at 50 maybe 25 or so, but it grows every year.

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by fastballspecial

[fastballspecial]

4 hours ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

To be fair, it wasn't entirely speculation that nearly killed the industry, but a particular type of speculation, or speculation paired with other things. 

• Speculating by ordering multiple copies in advance didn't prevent potential readers from buying a book. But the go-out-and-grab-them-all type of speculator may have

• Speculation paired with Extremely late books (pun intended) was a problem. Many retailers tied up their capital in Image books that were solicited and took forever to ship, if they shipped at all, preventing retailers from recouping their costs, because they had no product to move, or from ordering more books that did ship on time

• When the speculator market fell apart, many retailers were left with books that customer requested but never bothered to come back for. Less of a problem if a store took deposits, but in my area, I don't think any did that. They just ordered what they were expecting to sell based on customer pull lists and previous sales but then the books sat on the shelves

You leave out a lot here. Sure the above did hurt the industry. Card Collectors hurt the industy, Variant covers hurt the industry, but Ron Perelman just about ended it by himself.

[fastballspecial]

3 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

The impact of Superman #75 cannot be overstated. Sure, there was a little hype beforehand. But if the pre-release hype is, say, a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10...the actual release was 56,283 on that scale. There had never been anything like it, and there's never been anything since. It is not an overstatement to say that this book was selling for $100 by Christmas...a month later...for a book with a reported 4 million copy print run. 

It was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

DC's "ha-ha, just kidding! Did you really think we would kill off our flagship character? Suckers!" several months later was a kick in the cajones, but the event itself? Madness.

 

Just to add to that my friend bought 100 copies just so he could get the Platinum it was the only way the retailer would agree to give it to him. I am sure others 
did something similar at the time. I didn't find out about until he picked up his Platinum.

 

 

[boomtown]

21 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

Just to add to that my friend bought 100 copies just so he could get the Platinum it was the only way the retailer would agree to give it to him. I am sure others 
did something similar at the time. I didn't find out about until he picked up his Platinum.

 

 

I bought a 100 copies of the Cerebus 0 just to get the Gold copy .

To make matters worse when shipped the Gold copy was mangled. When I call Aardvark Vanheim Dave answered the phone and he told me to speak with Diamond. I explained I was just a fanboy & had ordered them directly from him. He seemed to be somewhat shocked that a collector would order that many copies for the gold edition

[Bird]

6 minutes ago, boomtown said:

I bought a 100 copies of the Cerebus 0 just to get the Gold copy .

To make matters worse when shipped the Gold copy was mangled. When I call Aardvark Vanheim Dave answered the phone and he told me to speak with Diamond. I explained I was just a fanboy & had ordered them directly from him. He seemed to be somewhat shocked that a collector would order that many copies for the gold edition

It is funny to call and have Dave answer. I know it caught me by surprise as well, and I was calling to talk to him!

[WolverineX]

1 hour ago, boomtown said:

I bought a 100 copies of the Cerebus 0 just to get the Gold copy .

To make matters worse when shipped the Gold copy was mangled. When I call Aardvark Vanheim Dave answered the phone and he told me to speak with Diamond. I explained I was just a fanboy & had ordered them directly from him. He seemed to be somewhat shocked that a collector would order that many copies for the gold edition

How was Dave ? 

[boomtown]

1 minute ago, Wolverinex said:

How was Dave ? 

I've heard he is an acquired taste, but the one time I met him he was great to my wife, talked and posed for pictures with my young son and did his best McFleagle Brothers Yosemite Sam imitation for me. What's not to like?

[Red_Hood]

8 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

He knew nothing about comics, but he knew enough to ORDER a case...two months before publication, before Man of Steel #18 was out, before there was any mainstream press about it...of Superman #75...from a shop...even though he knew nothing about comics?

You can see the huge, gaping hole in this story, right...?

I have a case of Superman #75, too. Guess when I bought them? (Hint...a longgggg time after they were published.)

I remember the Death of Superman being the biggest thing going, so much so because it was on the 6 o'clock news on ABC, NBC and CBS almost every night on at least one of the stations the week the book was released.  Some of those news stories were interviews with people saying how this was going to be their kid's college fund etc.  

So I could see laments running out thinking they were loading up on a "sure thing" 

I just remember that I didn't like the new look mullet Superman and had no interest in him, come to think of it... I still don't.  I quit Superman at issue #423.

[wolverine180]

I bought a sup 75 bagged edition years ago out of a dollar bin that i will probably never part with. It  was cut open, inside had a bunch of newspaper articles from around the area the collector lived. It was a bunch of articles that had to do with the book. It was such a cool find. Reading these past couple pages made me want to go grab it and share the articles. 

[1Cool]

16 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

The impact of Superman #75 cannot be overstated. Sure, there was a little hype beforehand. But if the pre-release hype is, say, a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10...the actual release was 56,283 on that scale. There had never been anything like it, and there's never been anything since. It is not an overstatement to say that this book was selling for $100 by Christmas...a month later...for a book with a reported 4 million copy print run. 

It was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

DC's "ha-ha, just kidding! Did you really think we would kill off our flagship character? Suckers!" several months later was a kick in the cajones, but the event itself? Madness.

 

The Superman 75 info is interesting since I think I was out of the game from 1991 - 1997 (college led to getting married) and I remember reading about the hype but I don't remember even buying a copy.  But if we use the 90s as a comparison - is there any reason to fear the current market?  The 90s collapse was so specific in terms of how it ran up and how it crashed that I don't see the same signs this time around.  The store owners seem more guarded.  The collectors seem more in control and if the modern variant market collapses is it really going to hurt more than a few of the biggest collectors since it doesn't seem like people are going whole hog like they did in the 90s.  I definitely see a crash coming but if people are smart and not go crazy there is a ton of cash which can be made leading up to the cash (as long as you are not holding the greedy horde of comics at the end).

[ygogolak]

11 hours ago, Red_Hood said:

I remember the Death of Superman being the biggest thing going, so much so because it was on the 6 o'clock news on ABC, NBC and CBS almost every night on at least one of the stations the week the book was released.  Some of those news stories were interviews with people saying how this was going to be their kid's college fund etc.  

So I could see laments running out thinking they were loading up on a "sure thing" 

I just remember that I didn't like the new look mullet Superman and had no interest in him, come to think of it... I still don't.  I quit Superman at issue #423.

"He was a super...man..."

 

[Aweandlorder]

23 hours ago, ygogolak said:

I understand that was probably what his post was about, but it was not mentioned. Why not call it out if that was it?

Yes, I've made some great friends from other sites/groups. It's more of a community and people don't hide behind an avatar. In all my years on here I've only ever met one person from this board.

There's someone else??

and I thought I was the only one 

[ygogolak]

6 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

There's someone else??

and I thought I was the only one 

[Aweandlorder]

Luckily I was in the service (desert storm) between 91-94 and missed on the whole market implosion

[maidenmate91]

3 hours ago, Aweandlorder said:

Luckily I was in the service (desert storm) between 91-94 and missed on the whole market implosion

Thank you for your service. 

[ygogolak]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/173875145011?var=0&ul_noapp=true

[divad]

1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/173875145011?var=0&ul_noapp=true

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