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was I unethical...
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89 posts in this topic

3 hours ago, thunsicker said:

I’m positive he had just been shuffled off to a nursing home.

I recall Chuck mentioning something about going to see him, or trying to go to see him, after the deal was done. I don't recall if he succeeded. But no, Edgar was out of the house by that time, and his children were trying to get rid of all the trash. 

So, no, I don't have any sad feelings for the Church family...like I said, 1977 was an entirely different world in comics, with tiny, tiny amounts of collectors....maybe less than 10,000 worldwide....with very few ways of getting in touch with each other. It all could have gone the way of the stamp collector, and then where would Chuck have been? And...yes, they were trying to get rid of it, and, according to Chuck, had already contacted other dealers who said they weren't interested. 

For 1977, and not knowing anything about it...? I think being paid cover price was quite fair to them. Most people would have hauled it off as recycling, maybe free of "charge." MAYBE.

Had they been complete runs of Life and Time and Reader's Digest and Saturday Evening Post....well, into the trash they would have gone.

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59 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Had they been complete runs of Life and Time and Reader's Digest and Saturday Evening Post....well, into the trash they would have gone.

I have no hard feelings for chuck and his score.  If he hadn’t shown up those comics probably would have gone into the trash.

And as you say, it was a different time.  First of all it wasn’t millions of dollars of comics at the time.  And even in the late ‘80’s when I had my store no shop payed more than 10% of value.  To tie up that much money for the length of time it would take to sell them would have been unheard of.  Maybe with a busy convention schedule and a robust mail order business you could make it work, but mostly you would buy comics to have them sit on your wall or in your boxes for years.

Edited by thunsicker
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On 4/7/2019 at 10:31 AM, Raze said:

I was at a show a while back and came across a book that caught my eye. I asked the dealer if i could see the book. it was a golden age book and on the back was a note "missing centerfold".

9 times out of 10 i walk away, but this time i asked if the missing centerfold interrupted the story and he opened the book and he looked through it and said "it does look like it is missing the centerfold". so he handed me the book and the first thing i did was count the pages, and to my surprise it had 36 pages. so i put the book down and was talking with him and checking mycomicshop.com for a page count and they said it had 36 pages. IVE never seen mycomicshop.com to be wrong on page count so i bought the book WITHOUT telling the dealer that i was 90% sure this was complete. when i got home i used digitalcomicmuseum.com and went page for page and it is complete.

so my question is was this unethical of me NOT to tell the dealer? I've told dealers before that their book was missing pages, cutouts that they missed, and ive also told dealers that their book WAS complete when they had it marked "missing centerfold or pages".

this has been eating away at me for awhile and ive asked a few friends and dealers and ive got their opinion (mostly one sided) but id like to get a sense of what this community has to say.

was i wrong? should i find the dealer and make it right? or let it go as a great find?

At the end of the day only you can answer that question

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On 4/7/2019 at 11:01 AM, october said:

It's not the OP's job to tell a dealer how to properly research and sell his books. The dealer had ample opportunity to look up information on his own and he didn't bother. It would have been nice to let the dealer know what he suspected, but definitely not required, especially since he wasn't 100% sure. 

this. 

This isnt taking advantage of someone not knowing better. It's not finding an Xmen 1 (60s) slipped into an Xmen 1 (90s) bag and taking it up to the dealers wife who is covering the booth for 5 minutes while the dealer goes to the bathroom (and you'd been waiting around for that moment) so you take the opportunity to slip it past the wife who doesnt know better (I know many wives/girlfriends would know better, but lets just use this for this case). 

How often do dealer mistakes get caught at checkout and the dealer jacks up the price? "Oh how'd that get in the $5 bin" or "Oh that price is old, the actual price is (pulls out phone and GPA/eBay sales)..." and you're stuck watching your "find" turn into nothing more than you helping the dealer update the values on some hot books... 

As the Pickers say.. "I cant do the buying AND the selling" 

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39 minutes ago, miraclemet said:

this. 

This isnt taking advantage of someone not knowing better. It's not finding an Xmen 1 (60s) slipped into an Xmen 1 (90s) bag and taking it up to the dealers wife who is covering the booth for 5 minutes while the dealer goes to the bathroom (and you'd been waiting around for that moment) so you take the opportunity to slip it past the wife who doesnt know better (I know many wives/girlfriends would know better, but lets just use this for this case). 

How often do dealer mistakes get caught at checkout and the dealer jacks up the price? "Oh how'd that get in the $5 bin" or "Oh that price is old, the actual price is (pulls out phone and GPA/eBay sales)..." and you're stuck watching your "find" turn into nothing more than you helping the dealer update the values on some hot books... 

As the Pickers say.. "I cant do the buying AND the selling" 

If I miss something or something goes up in value from the time I price it and someone pulls it out of the box I honor that price.   You either know how to spell honor or you don't.

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15 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I recall Chuck mentioning something about going to see him, or trying to go to see him, after the deal was done. I don't recall if he succeeded. But no, Edgar was out of the house by that time, and his children were trying to get rid of all the trash. 

So, no, I don't have any sad feelings for the Church family...like I said, 1977 was an entirely different world in comics, with tiny, tiny amounts of collectors....maybe less than 10,000 worldwide....with very few ways of getting in touch with each other. It all could have gone the way of the stamp collector, and then where would Chuck have been? And...yes, they were trying to get rid of it, and, according to Chuck, had already contacted other dealers who said they weren't interested. 

For 1977, and not knowing anything about it...? I think being paid cover price was quite fair to them. Most people would have hauled it off as recycling, maybe free of "charge." MAYBE.

Had they been complete runs of Life and Time and Reader's Digest and Saturday Evening Post....well, into the trash they would have gone.

Do you really think there were only 10,000 collectors? My brother was 10 then and ALL of his male friends collected comics. All of them were buying silver age books too (not just new stuff), from the local shops (admittedl, I lived in Manhattan, so there were a couple) and even at local shows. Sure, the # of folks buying GA keys was likely well below 10,000, but heck, in 1977 I had gone to my first show and already had a growing SA and GA collection. You could do a lot with $20 back then.

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1 hour ago, thehumantorch said:

If I miss something or something goes up in value from the time I price it and someone pulls it out of the box I honor that price.   You either know how to spell honor or you don't.

unless your in the UK, in which case "honour" 

And HT you're a better man than many!

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On 4/7/2019 at 10:31 AM, Raze said:

I was at a show a while back and came across a book that caught my eye. I asked the dealer if i could see the book. it was a golden age book and on the back was a note "missing centerfold".

9 times out of 10 i walk away, but this time i asked if the missing centerfold interrupted the story and he opened the book and he looked through it and said "it does look like it is missing the centerfold". so he handed me the book and the first thing i did was count the pages, and to my surprise it had 36 pages. so i put the book down and was talking with him and checking mycomicshop.com for a page count and they said it had 36 pages. IVE never seen mycomicshop.com to be wrong on page count so i bought the book WITHOUT telling the dealer that i was 90% sure this was complete. when i got home i used digitalcomicmuseum.com and went page for page and it is complete.

so my question is was this unethical of me NOT to tell the dealer? I've told dealers before that their book was missing pages, cutouts that they missed, and ive also told dealers that their book WAS complete when they had it marked "missing centerfold or pages".

this has been eating away at me for awhile and ive asked a few friends and dealers and ive got their opinion (mostly one sided) but id like to get a sense of what this community has to say.

was i wrong? should i find the dealer and make it right? or let it go as a great find?

I had an irate customer return a really nice GA book to me because it was 'missing a page'.

I ended up refunding his money and it turns out the book wasn't missing a page and the customer was wrong.

The book ended up selling for MUCH more than he had paid for it.

Did I owe him the book back?

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1 hour ago, VintageComics said:

I had an irate customer return a really nice GA book to me because it was 'missing a page'.

I ended up refunding his money and it turns out the book wasn't missing a page and the customer was wrong.

The book ended up selling for MUCH more than he had paid for it.

Did I owe him the book back?

Yes.

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