message from Romain SOMEONE IS SELLING MY ART ON CAF !! 1 1

[vodou]

2 minutes ago, jaykza said:

generally accepted social behavior

As noted by Eric, it's all artificial construct until food or water is scarce

Or "ethics".

5 minutes ago, jaykza said:

higher than usual concentration of sociopaths

No doubt. According to DSM-V criteria just about anybody could be a sociopath depending on interpretation but most definitely obsessive goal oriented folks...like...collectors?

Anyway it's the outliers that make that innovate and (are eventually understood to have) set the pace for everyone else. Always. The herd can only turn slowly and much later follow, to much shallower success. Usually after killing or otherwise marginalizing the highly successful outlier

[ESeffinga]

2 minutes ago, vodou said:

Usually after killing or otherwise marginalizing the highly successful outlier

Well, that sounds like an option...

 

WHAT?!?!

^ He said it, not me!^^

Edited June 7, 2019 by ESeffinga

[jaykza]

3 minutes ago, vodou said:

Anyway it's the outliers that make that innovate and (are eventually understood to have) set the pace for everyone else. Always. The herd can only turn slowly and much later follow, to much shallower success. Usually after killing or otherwise marginalizing the highly successful outlier

Definitely not advocating mob attacks on anyone, for which the Internet is exquisite for facilitating.  As you say, many times, the herd is incorrect and can easily get out of control. But...it's understandable that there are those on the board that want to try and check bad behavior and they seem to be doing it in good faith. What is bad behavior? I guess that's the debate, but for me, the issues brought up on this thread are clearly good examples of poor social form due purely to deception/dishonesty/withholding of relevant information. On the other hand, a group check like the "Flip of the day" thread (which nobody appears to enjoy ending up on) would fall into what you describe as could just be "innovative" category.

[vodou]

4 minutes ago, jaykza said:

On the other hand, a group check like the "Flip of the day" thread (which nobody appears to enjoy ending up on) would fall into what you describe as could just be "innovative" category. 

Not innovative, "flip of the day", just basic arbitrage. But talking market terms reminds me of short-selling, a concept well understood and accepted in the securities world while generally misunderstood and maligned by the rest of the world. If nothing else, in an otherwise free-falling market, prior shorts guarantee that at least some buying will occur as those shorts are covered. In their absence, the market may only rely on weak-willed and likely underfunded catchers of falling knives to stop it all from going to zero. Everybody will have their own opinion on all of that but it could be argued as a parallel to this conversation. These devils we've been talking about do create transaction activity, liquidity, where otherwise willing buyer and willing seller were not meeting. The exception would be the stories of art that's not for sale but is being shopped anyway. That's something different!

By innovation I meant the sort of results that come from thinking outside the box. If everybody colored inside the lines...there would be no Bill Sienkiewicz

[BCarter27]

23 minutes ago, vodou said:

These devils we've been talking about do create transaction activity, liquidity, where otherwise willing buyer and willing seller were not meeting.

It's a harsh truth, but I was thinking the same thing. Hurt feelings aside, if I were the end buyer and I didn't know about the original source, that's my own fault. (How about a $50M flip and hurt feelings? See Salvator Mundi and Rybolovlev v. Bouvier.)

This whole thread hinges on the middleman not wanting to accept the risk or the debt. And nobody likes seeing someone getting cake and eating it too. Hence pitchforks.

Advice to would-be dealers... Be patient and wait a few days until you get the art in hand. You'll be saving yourself a lot of grief. And if you can't cover it right then, don't buy it!

[vodou]

1 minute ago, BCarter27 said:

Advice to would-be dealers... Be patient and wait a few days until you get the art in hand. You'll be saving yourself a lot of grief. And if you can't cover it right then, don't buy it!

Rock on!

All collector communities hate flippers. During the music on phase they dance with the rest of us tru-fans but when it stops, they have the seat and one of us doesn't. Unless we want to buy it for an upcharge (grail squatters they be?)

1/1 art is a little different than baseball cards, Air Jordans, etc but not that much different. The underlying collector attitude of entitlement and tru-fan status being assumed higher on the moral food chain than "innit fer the money" scalping has rather negative consequences for those that plan on hanging around for a while.

I play in other areas as a flipper, but a long range flipper. Because I plan to be around for a while. That's where all my weird rules about ROI performance come from, I don't buy for x unless I can clearly see x+15% annualized out at least three years (and really x*2 in three years or less!) All this work is to avoid being branded a flipper, along with forcing discipline on myself, and avoiding paying any social credit bill that comes with the branding. This doesn't work in every market, that the insta fat profit remains for that long, but when it does...what's the difference? Just wait it out, be patient, and make your same or better* money later.

Now if you are underfunded to begin with...you can't do that. Every monthly credit card bill puts the whole house of cards at risk if you can't get liquid fast enough. DUMB. Unless your intention is to run that fledgling business into the ground. Your potential customer-base will sniff that desperation on you and walk. Better to take the time, patience again, put a war chest together first and then build out the inventory and as rich sales occur, lever up the gains upon gains over time. It really is all a perception is reality thing, yet again.

 

*Perhaps unique to "art" on the whole, holding longer often returns better than quick day-trade type flips. At least that's been my experience...admittedly during a phenomenal bull market in all all (perceived to be) scarce asset classes.

[Rick2you2]

3 hours ago, Comic Art Factory said:

Let's get a few things straight. 

 

1. If you sell original art, you're never gonna pick the slowest shipping option as you want the buyer to get the art as soon as possible. A DHL shipping (7 days) or even classic international shippng (10-12 days) can be done from Europe to the USA for less than 70 USD usually. So holding on a few bucks to pick the slowest shipping option is not very careful, and we all know that the longest the art is on the way, the more it gets a chance to be damaged, especially if the package is not bulletproof. Getting rid of the tracking number before it safely arrives, especially when picking the slowest shipping option, shows no consideration at all for the buyer, IMHO. 

2. Yes Visarspike put 9 pages on CAF for sale at the time of Romain's first post in this topic. One of them he just purchased, but the remaining  8 were from Romain's personal collection. And he had no agreement at all to proceed with these sales. He stole scans from the owner's collection and of course selected major pieces. He just thought he was gonna be able to get customers confirm a sale, and then he would have got back to the real owner of the pages. Is it dishonest ? What do you think... 

Is there a reason why he changed his ID a few times on comicartfans and other websites  ? I'll let you guess.  

And if I recall these events so precisely, it's because, I saw those pages for sale the day they were added on CAF and immediately contacted Romain, and a few other colelctores acted the same way. Of course, you can impagine the real owner of the pages was of course really pissed and contacted Comicartrfans's manager in the next few minutes.  I know that a few american collectors/dealers are more and more offering for sale pieces they don't own and have been in the business for years. But they're never gonna post it on CAf, they're just gonna send you stolen scans.  So here we have the french equivalent of these gentlemen. 

 

 

 

These facts are not the ones I had intended by my comments. I had assumed the art was listed for sale by someone (eg, access). If not, and if the “flipper” had no private knowledge they were actually going to be for sale, then as to his potential buyers who sent him an “acceptance”, that would be a breach of contract if he did not somehow get them. If he actually took deposits, and was not able to get the art, it might be fraud if a court decided the facts showed no true intent to get the art (proof of intent is usually by facts going outside what someone claims they intended).

[Bird]

[comicdonna]

This thread has delivered.

[SquareChaos]

4 hours ago, BCarter27 said:

This whole thread hinges on the middleman not wanting to accept the risk or the debt. And nobody likes seeing someone getting cake and eating it too. Hence pitchforks.

The crux of the thread - the ends justify the means people on one side, and those that see offering something that you don't own up for sell as a form of lying.

[Rick2you2]

9 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

The crux of the thread - the ends justify the means people on one side, and those that see offering something that you don't own up for sell as a form of lying.

What about consignors to dealers?

Or in a different field, Futures markets, with short selling? Or a stock market’s put? Or selling stock options?

Those are just formal or institutionalized ways of selling what you don’t own. In each case, the seller has a right of access to a thing, and sells it without ownership. But “the owner” side would consider them to be a form of lying. I think they are just forms of risk allocation. In the case of the flipper, he is assuming he will get the art at less than he will pay for it and make a profit.

Let me add that in intellectual property law, the Supreme Court has said you can’t impose limitations on sale of remote buyers because it is a restraint of trade. So a seller cannot condition the sale of art on it being kept by the buyer. That, incidentally, is why software is leased instead of sold. You remain the owner of the leased product and future use can be limited.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Rick2you2

[vodou]

24 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

What about consignors to dealers?

Or in a different field, Futures markets, with short selling? Or a stock market’s put? Or selling stock options?

Those are just formal or institutionalized ways of selling what you don’t own.

Great points, bringing to my mind the greatest irony and hypocrisy too for those among us that have a significant lying/fraud-type problem* on the subject.

You don't like somebody selling something they don't own? What do you think about paying for something with money you don't have?

In banking circles that's called unsecured** credit. Anybody falling into the above fraud-y opinion category using unsecured credit to pay for art (or anything actually ) yet not paying that bill off in full every month is...a hypocrite

Now before you folks all knee-jerk it out try  a bit first. Unsecured credit is by definition shorting "money" to long "art". In my mind, no different than shorting "art" to long "money"; two sides of the same coin. The End.

Let's now hear from the (my guess here...) very, very short list of folks who Venn into both categories:

1. do not carry their unsecured art-debt (or anything actually) for even 32 days...EVER, and
2. think this "short art" matter is fraudy

The only wholly consistent clean-hands on the subject are those meeting criteria 1. I am one of those btw.

 

*as opposed to not the best way to conduct your business position others are taking

**secured lines of credit are a different matter; there is an asset of present value to match up against the liability

[comix4fun]

11 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

The crux of the thread - the ends justify the means people on one side, and those that see offering something that you don't own up for sell as a form of lying.

 

I am sure someone will come along shortly and try to twist "offering something you don't own" as you mean it (which is selling someone else's property without their consent, permission, or knowledge and assent,) and compare those apples to the oranges of specifically regulated non-congruous-to-art business and governmentally regulated arrangements where non-owners are given EXPLICIT rights to sell things they don't own. 

It would be a horrible analogy on their part. It would be wholly disingenuous given that they, from the context of the conversation to date, know EXACTLY what you're talking about and instead of recognizing a clear and unassailable point, instead compare it to something entirely unrelated which creates a false equivalency towards the topic at hand. 

Your point is clear. 

[Rick2you2]

21 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

 

I am sure someone will come along shortly and try to twist "offering something you don't own" as you mean it (which is selling someone else's property without their consent, permission, or knowledge and assent,) and compare those apples to the oranges of specifically regulated non-congruous-to-art business and governmentally regulated arrangements where non-owners are given EXPLICIT rights to sell things they don't own. 

It would be a horrible analogy on their part. It would be wholly disingenuous given that they, from the context of the conversation to date, know EXACTLY what you're talking about and instead of recognizing a clear and unassailable point, instead compare it to something entirely unrelated which creates a false equivalency towards the topic at hand. 

Your point is clear. 

So, in your view, if the government regulated sellers of art who don't own it, that would be okay? I guess that means a lot of art dealers who sell on consignment should be hung out to dry.

The real problem here is no one likes to "leave money on the table". That is, the original seller is upset someone made a profit on the flipper's arbitrage of his art instead of it going to the original seller. No one made the original seller's decision for him, you know. And besides, arbitrage is one reason the price of comic art has sometimes gotten so high--it provides price protection to the market by keeping the prices up. In a broader context, owners who aren't sellers but treat their art as an investment make out well by that approach.

[comix4fun]

15 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

So, in your view, if the government regulated sellers of art who don't own it, that would be okay? I guess that means a lot of art dealers who sell on consignment should be hung out to dry.

 

You're talking about highly regulated and specifically granted rights to buy and sell commodities, stocks, and options and comparing them to a guy trolling another guy's CAF gallery and listing the guy's collection on his own website to sell without his knowledge. They aren't the same. You should know they aren't the same. If you don't know they aren't the same it's not worth discussing with you. If you do know they are not the same and are still continuing down this path then it's REALLY not worth discussing with you.

So, I'm not playing your game. You've shown you're not interested in genuine discussion of the subject matter at hand. 

[BCarter27]

I would like to close this thread by offering a 15% discount on any piece on any dealer's website or CAF shop. Drop me a PM and let me know what you're looking for! (My markup may vary.)

[Rick2you2]

1 hour ago, comix4fun said:

You're talking about highly regulated and specifically granted rights to buy and sell commodities, stocks, and options and comparing them to a guy trolling another guy's CAF gallery and listing the guy's collection on his own website to sell without his knowledge. They aren't the same. You should know they aren't the same. If you don't know they aren't the same it's not worth discussing with you. If you do know they are not the same and are still continuing down this path then it's REALLY not worth discussing with you.

So, I'm not playing your game. You've shown you're not interested in genuine discussion of the subject matter at hand. 

As I wrote once before, I was referring to situations where someone was offering an item for sale, the flipper then listed it themselves elsewhere, buys the piece and then sold it without taking possession. That is not an activity which this hobby likes, nor would any hobby, I expect, and I consider a bad business practice. But, I don’t consider it a violation of law. Stop trying to change what I said to turn it into something different. 

[ESeffinga]

[dirtymartini1]

[T Shen]

Since I resurrected this thread, I wanted to give an update. Most of the discussion has been outside of my situation, thankfully (as mine was self-inflicted - using F&F on PayPal). I finally received my art today, after Visar said he shipped on April 30. 

As I mentioned, my main gripe was the 41 days in transit, wrong tracking provided - which could have been an honest mistake, but one that was never remedied - and going radio silent for over two weeks until I posted on this board. He's not a thief but this was not a pleasant transaction and I'll not likely do business with him in the future.