IN THE ERA OF COVID19...BUYER'S MARKET? 9 9

[Bird]

14 minutes ago, JJ-4 said:

I have not heard anything about smokers having any immunity, they are probably more as risk if anything.  Older people, people will immune issues and obese people are most at risk and the numbers from China are completely unreliable.

cannot argue with this.

Pot smokers have been identified as an at-risk group so I wouldn't expect ciggie smokers to be any different.

[the blob]

18 hours ago, the blob said:

Deaths in NYC are likely undercounted by 20-30%. If paramedics pick up a body of someone who had not previously tested positive it is not counted. The # of random dead bodies picked up is up 800%. Like an extra 150 a day. They are not testing dead people.

Apparently starting yesterday or so they started taking steps to try and count these properly, which led to deaths seemingly going up for a bit, when, in fact, some had just not been getting counted

 

[the blob]

1 hour ago, lizards2 said:

One odd thing I heard last night on the "news" was that smoker's had some type of immunity.  If that is truly the case, that might be why China's case reporting is so low.

I bought some Winstons today, just in case...., 

Did you see that on the Marlborough Man News Network?

 

[trmoore54]

9 hours ago, NP_Gresham said:

Agree 100%

This thing was going around California earlier than China was reporting the outbreak.

I believe the virus was officially first announced Dec 31 2019 (my birthday...ha).  Not sure if the number is people from China specifically or from all the Far East but on average 8,000 people arrived in California daily by airplane.  So that number prior to any real airline/foreign travel shutdown.  Before and after that date...

[trmoore54]

5 hours ago, lizards2 said:

I think the reference to Heritage is that shilling is legal in Texas, but I might be wrong.

That is correct.  Shill bidding is legal in Texas.  Let the bidder/buyer beware... 

[trmoore54]

I've heard from reputable people about shenanigans on CLINK as well.  When you get into, in this case, comic books worth thousands and tens of thousands of dollars that can attract some shenanigans... 

Edited April 15, 2020 by trmoore54

[thehumantorch]

2 minutes ago, trmoore54 said:

I've heard from reputable people about shenanigans on CLINK as well.  When you get into, in this case, comic books worth thousands and tens of thousands of dollars that can attract some shenanigans... 

Absolutely Tom, when there's money to be made they'll be shenanigans.  Hell, it's been going on for many years.  There are a lot of color touched comics and trimmed comics from the 70s and 80s

[Bird]

24 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

Absolutely Tom, when there's money to be made they'll be shenanigans.  Hell, it's been going on for many years.  There are a lot of color touched comics and trimmed comics from the 70s and 80s

I was not in the hobby then as I was in comic art but not comic collecting (yes I went the opposite route of most) until about 10 years ago but it is my understanding that CT and such were generally thought of positively until cgc came along and the focus became pristine and unaltered condition. Am I wrong in that belief? was CT always shenanigans?

[VintageComics]

40 minutes ago, trmoore54 said:

I believe the virus was officially first announced Dec 31 2019 (my birthday...ha).  Not sure if the number is people from China specifically or from all the Far East but on average 8,000 people arrived in California daily by airplane.  So that number prior to any real airline/foreign travel shutdown.  Before and after that date...

Paperheart pointed to a NYT article that did the math.

430,000 arrived in the US from China since China announced the outbreak

40,000 arrived in the US since the 'ban' that was imposed which was actually more of a restriction and not a ban

 

[VintageComics]

42 minutes ago, trmoore54 said:

I've heard from reputable people about shenanigans on CLINK as well.  When you get into, in this case, comic books worth thousands and tens of thousands of dollars that can attract some shenanigans... 

There's nothing to stop someone getting their 'friend' to bid a comic up on any auction site and there is no way for an auction house to prevent it.

[lizards2]

20 minutes ago, Bird said:

I was not in the hobby then as I was in comic art but not comic collecting (yes I went the opposite route of most) until about 10 years ago but it is my understanding that CT and such were generally thought of positively until cgc came along and the focus became pristine and unaltered condition. Am I wrong in that belief? was CT always shenanigans?

I would say yes and yes.  It was always bad in my world, and in the 80's and 90's I remember that I was rigorously inspecting potential purchases to avoid it.

[trmoore54]

43 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

I would say yes and yes.  It was always bad in my world, and in the 80's and 90's I remember that I was rigorously inspecting potential purchases to avoid it.

To be fair you had 2 types of "restoration"...amateur and professional.  The amateur most logically was just owner/collector's of the book and thought they'd spruce it up a bit so it looked better.  As professional restorers surfaced (perhaps some or many of them from the comic book industry who knew all the physical properties of the books) they provided the service to collectors who thought probably in most cases a really nice book could look minty with the spruce up.  All of that turned dark or darker when the internet came along and unscrupulous (or also to be fair, unknowledgeable) sellers set out to sell books without the restoration disclosed.  That could all fall into the same category as a coupon or something missing etc etc...

[Bird]

4 minutes ago, trmoore54 said:

To be fair you had 2 types of "restoration"...amateur and professional.  The amateur most logically was just owner/collector's of the book and thought they'd spruce it up a bit so it looked better.  As professional restorers surfaced (perhaps some or many of them from the comic book industry who knew all the physical properties of the books) they provided the service to collectors who thought probably in most cases a really nice book could look minty with the spruce up.  All of that turned dark or darker when the internet came along and unscrupulous (or also to be fair, unknowledgeable) sellers set out to sell books without the restoration disclosed.  That could all fall into the same category as a coupon or something missing etc etc...

this was more like what I believed but could not express clearly! (I started to type more but again cannot express what I want, so I'll stop here.) I am mostly talking 70s and earlier, that it was more accepted. 

[Silentbob]

Everyone, stay on topic. I started following this thread trying to find an angle to make some money on buying comics for profit. Then I realized the joy comics have brought me. Buy what you like has never made so much sense untill now.

[lizards2]

22 minutes ago, Bird said:

28 minutes ago, trmoore54 said:

To be fair you had 2 types of "restoration"...amateur and professional.  The amateur most logically was just owner/collector's of the book and thought they'd spruce it up a bit so it looked better.  As professional restorers surfaced (perhaps some or many of them from the comic book industry who knew all the physical properties of the books) they provided the service to collectors who thought probably in most cases a really nice book could look minty with the spruce up.  All of that turned dark or darker when the internet came along and unscrupulous (or also to be fair, unknowledgeable) sellers set out to sell books without the restoration disclosed.  That could all fall into the same category as a coupon or something missing etc etc...

this was more like what I believed but could not express clearly! (I started to type more but again cannot express what I want, so I'll stop here.) I am mostly talking 70s and earlier, that it was more accepted. 

So, I should say I was focused on SA, not GA.

[lou_fine]

16 hours ago, NP_Gresham said:

16 hours ago, bb8 said:

I don’t believe for one second that China has been at all forthcoming about their statistics.

Agree 100%

Well, one contributing factor to this is that it appears the official Covid-19 stats that everybody is using from the WHO has a start date of January 22nd.   

By then, the virus was already percolating in the epicenter city of Wuhan and its surrounding region for about 2 whole months.  Definitely not much of a secret though since apparently 5 million of the city's 11 million citizens had apparently already left Wuhan by the time the lockdown was announced on January 23rd.  Seems that the U.S.Military was also aware of the virus as far back as November, although the powers that be didn't want to pay attention to them or to the scientists and medical experts. To the point that some people would even continue to praise China for weeks on end about their apparent transparency on this whole issue.      

As a result, although some nations took immediate pre-emptive action once they heard rumours of the virus back in November and December and managed to minimize the Covid-19 cases and associated deaths while avoiding the massive lockdowns, other nations decided to largely ignore the issue until it was way too late by using what I would call the deadly 5-D approach to the problem, namely:

1)  Deflect / divert / distract;

2)  Downplay;

3)  Dismiss;

4)  Delay; and

5)  Deaths

Sadly, it now looks like the nations that used this so-called 5-D approach will now be faced with a sixth D, namely Depression from an economic point of view.  

Hopefully, it doesn't work out this way and we are lucky enough to find a vaccine sooner rather than later so we can return to near normal, but then I guess it's only a matter of time before we see what happens.   

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

5 hours ago, lizards2 said:

6 hours ago, Bird said:

I was not in the hobby then as I was in comic art but not comic collecting (yes I went the opposite route of most) until about 10 years ago but it is my understanding that CT and such were generally thought of positively until cgc came along and the focus became pristine and unaltered condition. Am I wrong in that belief? was CT always shenanigans?

I would say yes and yes.  It was always bad in my world, and in the 80's and 90's I remember that I was rigorously inspecting potential purchases to avoid it.

Yes, restoration was already definitely seen as a bad thing in the hobby by the late 80's and 90's.  

If you go back a bit further into the late 70's and early 80's though, professional restoration was seen as a positive and something which actually ADDED value to your unrestored book and even stated as such in the Overstreet guide at the time.  Similar to what's been happening in today's marketplace, whereby certain activities such as artifical pressing, dry cleaning, etc., of a book in order to maximize its potential is seen by many as a positive that also ADDS value to a book.  

Since sentiment always change in the comic book hobby and marketplace, it almost makes me wonder what collectors will think about all of these "fully potentialized" books another 30 years from now if technology allows a cheap, easy, and effective method to detect these kinds of artifical improvements made on a book?  

Edited April 15, 2020 by lou_fine

[Buzzetta]

17 hours ago, NoMan said:

yeah, i wonder what the auction houses know and don't know and/or pretend they don't know. someone posted that in this thread about not trusting some auction house. i guess it would be illegal if an auction house manipulated an auction and when things are not legal I trust my fellow humans not to engage in that activity. See, I believe.

Anywho....I put in a large bid on some comic I wanted at an auction house and walked away and did something else and just let it ride. I won. For somewhat less than my bid, so if there was some shilling or other tomfollery wouldn't it have ridden up to my bid top $?

What do I know? I'm thinking about selling my comic collection and buying more TVs. One for every room.  I really like all that I'm seeing now that I'm watching a bit more of it. Well, a lot more of it. On Maury today there was a woman who didn't know who her baby's father was, you see. This was the 17th time she had been on the show to test the DNA of who she thought was the father - this time. This guy wasn't the father either so she has to figure out  who he is. The next woman that came on the show to figure out the father of her child, well, the DNA tests proved her theory to be correct. The father promised to be a good dad and I feel things are ok now. 

 

16 hours ago, lizards2 said:

I think the reference to Heritage is that shilling is legal in Texas, but I might be wrong.

It think it all started from here with comics.    The coin fiasco was another thing all together. 

 

There is a board member though who goes by the Heritage-Shill-Bidder Nickname which I find quite amusing.  But, I cannot remember what that name is at this moment. 

 

[namisgr]

10 hours ago, VintageComics said:

There's nothing to stop someone getting their 'friend' to bid a comic up on any auction site and there is no way for an auction house to prevent it.

Trust me, you don't need shill bidders to crush GPA records at the major auction houses.  I'm just one of many sellers able to do it for the past ten years now.  I think that certain genres of scarce and sought after material are still selling well.  I just went through selling 71 Marvel early bronze age ultra high grade books at auction in March (not via Heritage), and the results once again exceeded expectations based on GPA and other market sources.  With everyone at home with little to do, auctions are getting a lot of attention and eyeballs these days.

And for genres with falling prices, what better time to buy?

Edited April 15, 2020 by namisgr

[lizards2]

1 hour ago, Buzzetta said:

 

It think it all started from here with comics.    The coin fiasco was another thing all together. 

 

There is a board member though who goes by the Heritage-Shill-Bidder Nickname which I find quite amusing.  But, I cannot remember what that name is at this moment. 

 

NP_Gresham?

Edited April 15, 2020 by lizards2
Which is short for Non-Paying Gresham???