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Purchase of the year!
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148 posts in this topic

1 minute ago, mister_not_so_nice said:

The focus is on the one piece that was sold for pennies on the dollar. 

The seller had a BOOTH.

Was this the only piece of OA? Were they elated they sold everything in the first half of the day? If they think a cover is $800, how much is a panel page, $25?  (shrug) 

I suspect the booth is mostly comics and that was the only piece of art

Malvin 

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4 hours ago, delekkerste said:

I can only imagine the outcry if a dealer or quasi-dealer/flipper had bought it...much gnashing of teeth and cries of stealing food out of the seller's children's mouths, I'm sure.

That said, I wonder what anyone else who was interested in the piece would really have done differently. I mean, OK, if you had no interest in the piece, you could just have told the guy that the piece is easily worth more than 50x his asking price, if not 75x. Or, if you have more money than you know what to do with, you could have offered him, say, $50K+ on the spot and probably both sides walk away very happy in what most would consider to be a very good deal for the seller. 

But, if you're most people, and you tell the guy that he's pricing the piece at literally pennies on the dollar, there's a good chance that you won't be the one who ultimately ends up with it, after the seller does his homework and then decides to consign it to Heritage, or prices it at $100K because some crazy friend told him it was worth that much. So, your good deed goes unrewarded, and the seller goes from being an unwary cluebag to greedy, ungrateful a-hole. 

If I had been the one to see it, realistically, I don't know that I'm doing anything different than the buyer, except not telling anyone so that someone doesn't start a thread like this on the CGC Boards... :whistle: 

If you're implying the buyer did anything wrong by talking about this purchase, I can't agree.  I think we DO agree we would have made the same purchase given the circumstances.  But the fact that it is one of those once in a lifetime scores that was not kept secret and it's now being talked about on a message board, where's the harm?  I know that some collectors like to keep certain aspects of their holdings and prices kept private, but I heard about this from multiple sources, and I don't even know the buyer (or even who the buyer is!).  The only person that made a mistake, and who I DO feel bad for is the seller.  To buy a booth at a major convention and be that uninformed about what they themselves are selling is sad, but he has to own his mistake and it's certainly not beholden on the buyer to tell him what he has. 

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This is what collectors dream about. Paying $800 for an item that I agree probably would hammer for at least $50k is a phenomenal financial gain.

It’s the finding of such an item and the successful  acquiring of said item that thrills the collector: what a story to share over and over again for the rest of their life.

Good guys? Bad guys? A Winner definitely. A Loser? Well.........

Five minutes of that sellers time to call HA and say “What have a I got?” would have served him well. 

Many years ago two collectors found a painting in a used book store: recognized it from a sixties-seventies horror show. How much? $500

oh and I have another in the back.$500

The collectors paid up and drove the items over to Profiles in History selling them for $16500. 

Comics in the attic.

baseball cards in coffee cans.

It’s the heartbeat of collectors.

The buyer found the item, assessed its genuineness and paid the asking price. To the victor the spoils.

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The guy had a booth, what nobody is thinking here is the Mr Booth might well have taken it in for $50 and trade credit toward some new books next week or something, a month ago from a true sucker. Let's not assume Mr Booth was the original owner from 1985, unless we hear something to that effect.

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3 hours ago, zhamlau said:

Ive had this happen to me before, my rule is simple I treat it all like playing at a poker table. If you sit down at a table and buy in for 5000 dollars after watching rounders 2x and maybe playing a few hands on you Iphone....its not my fault of the others at the table when you get taken to the woodshed. You knowingly put yourself in a situation and asked to engage with people who clearly know more than you about whats going on. Buying and selling high end items with greater value experts than you comes with risks, he knew that and choose to engage anyway.

If you dont know how to play poker, Dont go to the cage and ask for a stack of purples cause you have a "vague idea" of what you are doing. If you dont know the price of something obviously special,dont pay for a table to a sales gathering and put it up for a sale cause you have a "vague idea" of what you are doing.

https://images.app.goo.gl/xZz3RqDftPQGnbFp6

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5 hours ago, J.Sid said:

One of the "nice guys" got it?

We've all been in a situation where a seller has something 25% underpriced and we snatch it up. That sounds closer to financial elder abuse though.

If the Elder is a collectibles dealer, in business to buy and sell, who sets up a booth at a major national/international show and prices each and every one of his items without undue influence or manipulation and decides what he wants to get for everything he sells....then sure it is. 

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I've been collecting comic art for 20 years now and continue to buy comics each week from several local shops. The truth of the matter is that most comic dealers don't have a clue what comic art is. They don't even understand how the process works and they think everything I bring in is either a print or that it really needs to be colored.

I can take pages and covers into shops where I shop and I show them to the dealers and they generally think the art is a print. A limited edition print.

They always ask "Wouldn't you rather have it colored?"

"What number is it? 1-of-20 or 1-of-5?"

"Would it have cost you more to have gotten a color print?" 

"I'd like to have a print like that."

So, it's not surprising that this happened. I'm sure that dealers all over the country have original art that they have been given or bought that they dig out and sell all the time. I was in a comic shop in Pikeville, Ky., buying comics at the counter when I looked over at the wall and found the cover to Creepy #44, which I bought for a reasonable price.

It had been brought in in a stack of prints and sold as one lot to the shop. It was the real deal, though.

Locally, last year, a high school girl found five pieces of original art at a flea market for $5 a page. Turns out they were all Mike Gustovich splashes and a cover and they all ended up on a dealer's web site for $700-$1400 each and I believe they all sold.

 

 

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4 hours ago, stinkininkin said:

If you're implying the buyer did anything wrong by talking about this purchase, I can't agree.  I think we DO agree we would have made the same purchase given the circumstances.  But the fact that it is one of those once in a lifetime scores that was not kept secret and it's now being talked about on a message board, where's the harm?  I know that some collectors like to keep certain aspects of their holdings and prices kept private, but I heard about this from multiple sources, and I don't even know the buyer (or even who the buyer is!). 

I think the harm is that the buyer was probably planning to unveil the cover at a later date, while being more selective about the details of the transaction so that it didn't overshadow finding the art itself.  I'm not saying that you did anything wrong, as you heard it second-hand, it's a great story, nobody told you not to say anything, etc., but, I would imagine that the buyer is pretty unhappy about the story and all the details getting out right now, which is why I think, for his sake, he absolutely should have kept it under wraps. 

When I first heard the story last week, the first thought that ran through my head was, "if this happened to me, nobody would know that I even had the cover for at least a few years, and, then, no one would ever, ever, ever learn the details of how I got it", as no good could come of it (e.g., people thinking I ripped the seller off, people feeling envious toward me and maybe acting passive-aggressively towards me, people stupidly trying to use the information against me in a future sale or trade situation, etc.) 

Edited by delekkerste
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4 hours ago, delekkerste said:

When I first heard the story last week, the first thought that ran through my head was, "if this happened to me, nobody would know that I even had the cover for at least a few years, and, then, no one would ever, ever, ever learn the details of how I got it", as no good could come of it (e.g., people thinking I ripped the seller off, people feeling envious toward me and maybe acting passive-aggressively towards me, people stupidly trying to use the information against me in a future sale or trade situation, etc.) 

I would have done the same, but since the cat is out of the bag,  I would put it up for auction and split the profits with the seller. 

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13 minutes ago, Matches_Malone said:

I would have done the same, but since the cat is out of the bag,  I would put it up for auction and split the profits with the seller. 

I have to say that would be a wonderful gesture.

Also, the sale is done, there is a new owner. So the discussion about offering 50k and then not getting it is a mood point.

Easy way of dealing with it now would be to give the seller some extra money. Case closed and all are happy.

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That’s not how these things work.    

Let’s say you give the seller extra money.   How does that go down?    The seller takes the money and is happy for a minute.    And then they learn, or already know that it’s worth say 50k+.     In fact since a few people have told them aggressive estimates and since the ears only hear the high numbers , they think it’s 100k++.  Is the 5 or 10 or 25k you give them going to make them happy?    Or is it going to prove they made perhaps the biggest pricing blunder of their lives?    What are they going to fixate on?    The money they received?    Or the value you kept?    The fact that you were kind or the idea that you ripped them off?

This is a small version of the Chuck / Mile High situation.    There is no walking out of this with the seller thinking you’re a wonderful guy virtually no matter what you.    For those reasons the less the seller knows the better.

Edited by Bronty
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I disagree, or let me say I am of a different opinion. I have bought art directly from an artist at a very low price.

Shortly after I was offered money for the piece that I had bought, more money and I gave half of the profits back to the artist I originally bought the piece from.

Easy. Not sure why you say that is not how it works.

Artist was appreciative and thankful and not disappointed that he could have pocketed everything himself if he would have known.

For me this helped to establish a great communication with the artist and over the years and I was give the chance to buy more stuff from him.

You paint it very negative, but it is all positive. Seller was happy with 800, now he gets what do i know 5k out of nowhere because the buyer found out it is worth much more.

The big difference is, that the seller had a price on the piece !

That is not ripping the seller off !

If he would have been offered 800 from the buyer, and the buyer would have known it is worth much much more, that would have been ripping him of or taking advantage of the seller.

But I guess everyone has their own opinion about it and that is fine. All good.

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1 hour ago, Bronty said:

This is a small version of the Chuck / Mile High situation.    There is no walking out of this with the seller thinking you’re a wonderful guy virtually no matter what you.    For those reasons the less the seller knows the better.

The only way the seller is happy is if he receives at least 50% than whatever the highest number anybody talks. Anything even close to 100%, he'll smell a rat and talk of bidder collusion etc. But that's some unnecessary detail work right there, nobody should waste any time on that: there is no solution except: what's done is done and I think we're all certain the buyer (and any of us that don't already know this) will never, ever, ever make the mistake of bragging. Not even to one single 'quiet' friend.

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57 minutes ago, wurstisart said:

Easy. Not sure why you say that is not how it works.

The scale here is enormous compared to anything you've ever participated in. And...what if the new owner doesn't want to sell.Ever. How then to establish fmv and...the buyer should just magically fork over $$$$$$$$$? What if he doesn't have it? And that's just tip of the iceberg for the problems with such a scenario. Quite the fantasy world people live in, you'd think a millenial 'fairness' comics writer was scripting it all, makes you wonder how people function in daylight.

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Fascinating thread.  About 10 years back, a boardie hit the BIN of  $200 for  an ebay listing.  It was an Action #10.  Multiple  people notified the seller, it was worth way more  He honored the deal without hesitation.   The book graded a 3.0 and sold for 20K on Comiclink.  

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1 hour ago, wurstisart said:

I disagree, or let me say I am of a different opinion. I have bought art directly from an artist at a very low price.

Shortly after I was offered money for the piece that I had bought, more money and I gave half of the profits back to the artist I originally bought the piece from.

Easy. Not sure why you say that is not how it works.

Artist was appreciative and thankful and not disappointed that he could have pocketed everything himself if he would have known.

For me this helped to establish a great communication with the artist and over the years and I was give the chance to buy more stuff from him.

You paint it very negative, but it is all positive. Seller was happy with 800, now he gets what do i know 5k out of nowhere because the buyer found out it is worth much more.

The big difference is, that the seller had a price on the piece !

That is not ripping the seller off !

If he would have been offered 800 from the buyer, and the buyer would have known it is worth much much more, that would have been ripping him of or taking advantage of the seller.

But I guess everyone has their own opinion about it and that is fine. All good.

The difference between our opinions is that you’re presumably batting this sort of thing at this scale around as a mental exercise and I’ve lived it and know others that have.    You’d think the sellers would be grateful, but that’s not what happens typically.   Nobody wants to know they’ve made a mistake of that magnitude and if you throw them 5k it’s a bandaid on a gunshot wound:  it’s not helping.

Edited by Bronty
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12 minutes ago, comicdonna said:

Multiple  people notified the seller, it was worth way more

Jealousy and/or hoping to skate in for higher but still lower than $20k, a thinner flip that's profitable is still...profitable.

Scumbags. One and all.

Nice close to the story that the seller honored the deal. Clearly the seller's honor/reputation is worth more than $19,800 ;)

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