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was I unethical...
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89 posts in this topic

1 hour ago, ThothAmon said:

It seems to me you already know the answer. 

This IS true. 

If you have to ask in the first place if a decision was ethical, there is a heavy chance that it wasn't. 

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19 minutes ago, Sal said:

are you keeping the book? if you sell it, you could consider passing some of the windfall back to the guy, either in additional sales, or as a "make-good."

 

you can always contact the guy and tell him that you discovered that the book was in fact complete and that you feel that you want to make it up to him.  see what kind of response you get.  i would think that a dealer with whom i would want to do more business with would say to just forget about it and enjoy the book.  i know that's what i would tell you if i had sold it to you but i'm not a dealer and plus ymmv

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A problem with living life according to the 'do unto others …' rule is that we share a planet with many a-holes. 

Still, if you're a Golden Rule kind of guy, the morality of others doesn't really come into play.

To be clear, I'm not saying that everyone who would just buy the comic and remain silent is an a-hole.  Many just and ethical people live their lives according to a more Caveat Emptor philosophy (it's the buyer's job to find defects, and similarly the seller's responsibility if they didn't know a movie announcement tripled the price of that comic). 

You be you bud.

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16 minutes ago, newshane said:

It sounds like contacting the guy would be good closure for you. Call him up. 

I second this ... it doesn't seem your 'intent' ((shrug)) was to buy a GA book for cheaper than what it may have been worth.  If it was, then there are other factors involved.  A big component of ethics (but certainly not the only one) is intent.

I believe the seller would probably be okay with having the book turn out to be a complete copy, and simply accept the fact that he needs to be a little more attentive to these types of things when selling.  I hope your conversation with the seller is one in which both buyer and seller are satisfied with their choices.  I think many of us could share similar stories of buying collections in which a few hidden gems are there unknown to the seller ...

What I believe to be important is the discerning you seem to think is necessary.  What will help that is the conversation ... if you follow through with that option, please let us know how it turned out, as we all could learn lessons from this ...

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It's not your job to do the dealer's due diligence. But if your conscience bothers you, like someone said, if he believed it was missing then he likely bought it for a discounted price anyways. He had a chance to research it himself and that's his business.

 

I sold a book Turtles book on ebay that I believed wasn't an error edition (not Tales of TMNT #1/#4 2nd print). The buyer came back to me later and said "Thanks! that WAS the error edition!" No effort to give me extra $, nor did I even ask. I had the chance to research it, did, and was wrong. My mistake and I chalk it up to next time paying more attention.

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12 minutes ago, Chazgee said:

Should Rozanski have told Church he was sitting on over $1M worth of books?

 

He wasn't, and Chuck was operating under the impression Church was dead.

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14 minutes ago, Chazgee said:

Should Rozanski have told Church he was sitting on over $1M worth of books?

 

The comics world was a vastly different place in 1977. 

I don't think Chuck met Church until after the deal was done. Church was no longer living at the house at the time.

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33 minutes ago, grebal said:

Many just and ethical people live their lives according to a more Caveat Emptor philosophy (it's the buyer's job to find defects, and similarly the seller's responsibility if they didn't know a movie announcement tripled the price of that comic). 

No doubt ... 'Caveat Emptor' must be intimately linked with 'Caveat Venditor' ...

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@Raze

Maybe this will make you feel better or give you perspective:

I went by a LCS, and there was a Journey into Mystery #89(classic cover) that was raw. I asked to look at it, I usually trust this owner, but asked anyway if he'd look through it in front of me to make sure that it was complete, it was priced at like $130 or $140...

He flipped through the pages, (this will be hard to picture but try) there was a tear and one piece sticking up between pages... so I asked if that page was missing? the LCS thought it was at quick glance, I guess embarrassed he said, "This is a $15 book and do you want it?" I did, but said that I would continue looking around and come back for it, unless I found something better.

While I'm looking and this is the important part for you, the owner exclaimed from across the store, "You should have bought it for $15!"

I came back, what had happened was that since the tear was at the bottom of "a page", it had got wrapped or unwrapped around the spine and was appearing in a "different page making it 'appear' that it was missing", and he showed me that he carefully took the torn piece still attached and moved it around the spine to the corresponding page that it belonged to!

It is complete to my knowledge and I'll have it graded this next comic con.

Did the owner "want" me to take "advantage of him?" NO but he was willing to let it go at first for $15 at a $120 discount, so much so he laughed and said non-sarcastically that I "should have taken it!"...... what he meant to say was, I "could' have taken it and he wouldn't have sweated it at all....

I told him that I was glad it seemed complete and that I wouldn't want to have stiffed him, he said, "oh, i know but i'll go ahead and charge you only $115 instead of the $130-$140 it was priced at!" so I still ended up getting it for cheaper.....

 

You asked the seller to check, if he didn't "get it", than he has no regrets to your knowledge..... maybe there are other things to gleam from my story :foryou: 

Edited by ADAMANTIUM
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56 minutes ago, Cliff R. said:

Raze, you won't be at peace with this by polling board members to see what they would do.  This 'deal' obviously bothers you, and it will continue to bother you regardless of what anyone says.

This book is soiled and needs a good cleaning. 

But this is a good post, if you have doubts and the motivation, tell the seller! If you feel the need to "make it right", then try! Do the best you can!

If your asking if your obligated that might be a grey area, when I find deals at a used bookstore, i dont feel the "Need" to offer them more...$$

You asked the dealer to double check, but if you feel there is more that you can do, maybe conciouslly or spiritually there is a reason. Sometimes people are caused to do certain things, and hopefully for the better, wouldn't want to get in the way of that!

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5 hours ago, Raze said:

 

this has been eating away at me for awhile

 

I dunno why you feel that you have to ask anyone else.  Call the dealer up, and first ask if he got the book at a discount because of the missing CF.  If so, that should allay your guilt feelings.  If not, tell him you've done some extensive research and determined that the book is in fact complete, and would he want additional money for it.  One way or the other, you'll sleep better at night afterward.

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