Comics4less 2 2

[Gaard]

1 hour ago, lizards2 said:

I sometimes get p.o.'d at the people who want stuff more than me, so I run up their bids and leave the books to them.  I probably looked like a js-shill to the other customers.

This calls for a :thumbs down:

 

[jharvey]

1 hour ago, 1Cool said:

Very strange.  With that business model they could buy GCC 8.0, crack them out and sell them for 9.2/9.4 prices. 

Who knows, maybe that's exactly what they do? Haha.

[electricprune]

1 hour ago, 1Cool said:

Oh snap - Zillaf4 set up at Motor City?  Anyone have a picture of him so I can tell if I bought from him.

Lange's Sports and Comic Books. They had the biggest set up there. You likely bought a lot from them. Tons of $2 books and 25% off books, and a lot of unbagged books I didn't look though.

[1Cool]

11 minutes ago, electricprune said:

Lange's Sports and Comic Books. They had the biggest set up there. You likely bought a lot from them. Tons of $2 books and 25% off books, and a lot of unbagged books I didn't look though.

Yea - I spent quite a few hours digging thru his stuff.  Very reasonable and his high grade stuff was destined for 9.8 slabs with a press.  I bought from them at the Great Lakes Comic Con and they had a great selection there also.

I grabbed a mid grade Thor 337 and a Iron Man 128 from their $2 boxes and i heard rumors people were pulling SW 8s from his boxes earlier.   talked to him about the quality in the boxes and it sounded like he got in a huge collection that was picked over so he just tossed all of it up for grabs.  He didn't like to cherry pick unless it was big key books which we were all happy to hear.

Edited May 21, 2018 by 1Cool

[electricprune]

1 minute ago, 1Cool said:

Yea - I spent quite a few hours digging thru his stuff.  Very reasonable and his high grade stuff was destined for 9.8 slabs with a press.  I bought from them at the Great Lakes Comic Con and they had a great selection there also.

He gets a lot of good stuff. Even sometimes at our small local show. He has a very good store in Muskegon too, if anyone ever gets the gumption to go there.

[1Cool]

Just now, electricprune said:

He gets a lot of good stuff. Even sometimes at our small local show. He has a very good store in Muskegon too, if anyone ever gets the gumption to go there.

Ugh - I've already been to Michigan twice this year.  if i go again i may not be able to get that smell out of my clothes

[electricprune]

2 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Ugh - I've already been to Michigan twice this year.  if i go again i may not be able to get that smell out of my clothes

greggy left Sunday morning. You won't need to worry about that.

[bc]

As others have said, bought several books in prior years from comcs4less and had a great experience.

Think that great experience helped him to get his followers and hence, a bump in the prices. With all the horror stories posted about bad eBay experiences, there is a value to dealing with legitimate sellers that people are willing to pay for. I do agree that Sunday nights are perfect times for auctions to end as it's usually a slow time at many households.

Also agree, that we are on the far edge of the spectrum as far as our passion, knowledge and tools used in determining prices - how many average people would spend a hundred dollars or more on a comic book based on a picture and some words on a web site?

-bc

[RockMyAmadeus]

Zillaf4 aka Todd Lange is the first booth I hit each year at Motor City. Usually have no problem finding quality books with him at great prices. He’s also one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet.

Re comics4less, another factor for me when bidding on his auctions is his low shipping rates to Canada. I can focus on the books rather than worrying that I’m racking up an insane amount of shipping charges.

I did several thousand dollars worth of business with Lange's from the late 90s to the mid 00s. They are a good reason why I have the collection I have. But something happened around 2005-2006. I bought a long box from him, and it never showed up. I got no response from them, and had to file a dispute. This was in the era of Delivery Confirmation, and it's hard to lose a long box.

Anyways, I got my money back, and they blocked me.

After years and years and years of good, solid, happy business.

It was most bizarre. To this day, I wonder if someone died, or there was some other crisis. 

[BlowUpTheMoon]

12 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I did several thousand dollars worth of business with Lange's from the late 90s to the mid 00s.

I regret not buying more from Lange's in the mid 00s.  

[RockMyAmadeus]

3 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

I regret not buying more from Lange's in the mid 00s.  

It's funny....they auctioned off long boxes of Starlin Warlocks and the like...all their "NM-" books ended up being 9.6 and 9.8. And they sold for $3-$5, UNLESS they were graded "NM/M", and then a certain Canadian from Vancouver would bid them up to $30-$50.

I bought maybe 20-30 copies of every Starlin Warlock they had. They must have paid 10 cents each for them. I wish I'd been muccccch more aggressive. 

[BlowUpTheMoon]

27 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

33 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

I regret not buying more from Lange's in the mid 00s.  

It's funny....they auctioned off long boxes of Starlin Warlocks and the like...all their "NM-" books ended up being 9.6 and 9.8. And they sold for $3-$5, UNLESS they were graded "NM/M", and then a certain Canadian from Vancouver would bid them up to $30-$50.

I bought maybe 20-30 copies of every Starlin Warlock they had. They must have paid 10 cents each for them. I wish I'd been muccccch more aggressive. 

Ha!  I must have a dozen copies of this via Lange.  Also Howard the Duck from 14 - 18 or so. 

[letsgrumble]

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I did several thousand dollars worth of business with Lange's from the late 90s to the mid 00s. They are a good reason why I have the collection I have. But something happened around 2005-2006. I bought a long box from him, and it never showed up. I got no response from them, and had to file a dispute. This was in the era of Delivery Confirmation, and it's hard to lose a long box.

Anyways, I got my money back, and they blocked me.

After years and years and years of good, solid, happy business.

It was most bizarre. To this day, I wonder if someone died, or there was some other crisis. 

Others have also indicated that he can be temperamental to deal with online. Weird because, in person, he is totally reasonable and professional. It just leads me to think there must be someone else running the eBay sales who is not shy in using the block feature. 

[letsgrumble]

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

It's funny....they auctioned off long boxes of Starlin Warlocks and the like...all their "NM-" books ended up being 9.6 and 9.8. And they sold for $3-$5, UNLESS they were graded "NM/M", and then a certain Canadian from Vancouver would bid them up to $30-$50.

I bought maybe 20-30 copies of every Starlin Warlock they had. They must have paid 10 cents each for them. I wish I'd been muccccch more aggressive. 

I admit I got to the party later than most when it came to buying his high-grade bronze books. In the mid-2000s, at the tail end of selling off his “warehouse find,” he still had tons of Strange Tales/Warlock issues, which appeared to be the slow-movers. I always think back to all those high-grade Strange Tales 178s and 180s he had at $3 a book and me picking out just one copy each. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

3 hours ago, letsgrumble said:

Others have also indicated that he can be temperamental to deal with online. Weird because, in person, he is totally reasonable and professional. It just leads me to think there must be someone else running the eBay sales who is not shy in using the block feature. 

But I never got an explanation, or even an indication that they even knew about the issue. Everything just...stopped.

So I go back later to bid, and...blocked.

It makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever, especially have been, at that point, a steady eBay customer of theirs for half a decade or more.

[RockMyAmadeus]

It would be funny to find out that EVERY person bidding against each other at Lange's in the early 00s is posting in this thread.

[jimjum12]

7 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

But I never got an explanation, or even an indication that they even knew about the issue. Everything just...stopped.

So I go back later to bid, and...blocked.

It makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever, especially have been, at that point, a steady eBay customer of theirs for half a decade or more.

Have you considered approaching them at a show or calling their store..... sometimes face-to-face works miracles .... I'm sure it was policy driven, but, yeah, a long time preferred customer should get the benefit of the doubt. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[letsgrumble]

7 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

But I never got an explanation, or even an indication that they even knew about the issue. Everything just...stopped.

So I go back later to bid, and...blocked.

It makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever, especially have been, at that point, a steady eBay customer of theirs for half a decade or more.

it doesn’t make sense and it would cheese me off too.

Soup Nazi syndrome.

[Brock]

On 5/21/2018 at 2:56 AM, Tony S said:

Peter (Comics4less) is a great example of how one can build a solid business on eBay. Low starting bid, no reserve auctions. Every single week. Conservative grading. cheap but secure and quick shipping, easy returns. 

I discovered him early on and nabbed a good number of bargains. But as time went on Peter amassed more and more followers. It is RARE that anything goes cheap now. I still purchase a few books from them every once in a while. But it tends to be the more obscure stuff that I like (say Charlton or Tower Superhero) where I'm not competing with as many buyers. 

It's a solid business model that if someone wanted to put in the work, time and money could be duplicated. 

 

This is my story, too... early follower getting great deals, and cheap shipping, but later swamped by the crowds, so I don't buy much from him anymore. My problem is his success, though, so good on him...

The other tactic of Peter's I would note is he offers small groups of similar titles in each auction. He doesn't list a single copy of Superman for sale, and he doesn't list 400 issues of Superman for sale... it's consistently 25-30 books with great combined shipping offers, so he never cannibalizes his own market.

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 hours ago, jimjum12 said:

Have you considered approaching them at a show or calling their store..... sometimes face-to-face works miracles .... I'm sure it was policy driven, but, yeah, a long time preferred customer should get the benefit of the doubt. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

It was well over a decade ago, so no. Like I said, what was most puzzling is that communication just completely ceased. I figured something catastrophic had happened and moved on. Besides, I completely lack the ability to express myself...like at all...in the moment.

The last time I tried calling a store, I ended up speaking to a "Beth Abbott" at Lonestar, and that didn't turn out so well.