Foolkiller is no Fool

[Red Hook]

Great post buried in the Comic Events section......

 

"....With all this nonsense going on in the FF 3 thread, it's just cemented the following: I'm leaving high grade for good, and leaving buying slabs behind except for when I want to resell a book.

 

Tonight I cracked out my Avengers 4, JIM 112, GL 76, Burntboy's Bats 156 and Aquaman 18, and another stray Aquaman slab. I'm going for nice eye appeal books only from now on. Will buy a slab if I can crack it and it's got a nice book that I don't want to leave in the holder, but for the most part, targeting mid grade raw.

 

The more I thought about it, the more I want to start enjoying comics and stop worrying about investment, money, high grade, and what very corrupt dealers are doing to our hobby."

[Wally's Comics]

A fool is a twin of the wise...

[arexcrooke]

Great post buried in the Comic Events section......

 

"....With all this nonsense going on in the FF 3 thread, it's just cemented the following: I'm leaving high grade for good, and leaving buying slabs behind except for when I want to resell a book.

 

Tonight I cracked out my Avengers 4, JIM 112, GL 76, Burntboy's Bats 156 and Aquaman 18, and another stray Aquaman slab. I'm going for nice eye appeal books only from now on. Will buy a slab if I can crack it and it's got a nice book that I don't want to leave in the holder, but for the most part, targeting mid grade raw.

 

The more I thought about it, the more I want to start enjoying comics and stop worrying about investment, money, high grade, and what very corrupt dealers are doing to our hobby."

I think he is expressing sentiments that more and more collectors are feeling and acting upon.

[Wally's Comics]

 

That is pretty much why I stay at the 8.0 - 9.2 range.

 

It is still High Grade, but not as ridiculious when trying to obtain them.

 

When a small crease (whether caught or not) means the difference in a couple of hundred / thousand bucks...

 

it's time to change your thinking.

 

 

 

[awe4one]

Great post buried in the Comic Events section......

 

"....With all this nonsense going on in the FF 3 thread, it's just cemented the following: I'm leaving high grade for good, and leaving buying slabs behind except for when I want to resell a book.

 

Tonight I cracked out my Avengers 4, JIM 112, GL 76, Burntboy's Bats 156 and Aquaman 18, and another stray Aquaman slab. I'm going for nice eye appeal books only from now on. Will buy a slab if I can crack it and it's got a nice book that I don't want to leave in the holder, but for the most part, targeting mid grade raw.

 

The more I thought about it, the more I want to start enjoying comics and stop worrying about investment, money, high grade, and what very corrupt dealers are doing to our hobby."

 

Should of done this last December when all the CGC resto nonsense started...

 

Jim

[nik]

I can understand his frustration, but why crack out books from the slab? if there is no SCS involved? especially one from Harry where there was no pressing involved?

 

I think searching for HG Raw books is more of a challenge (heck of alot more fun) than buying HG slabbed copies and not knowing if its been cracked, pressed and resubmitted. Thats enough to turn any HG collectors stomach away from "the game".

 

Dont get caught up in the "grading game" and this hobby (for me) still rocks.

[Crackandpresstoan11]

Why leave them in a slab if you're not selling?

[nik]

Why not?

 

Why spend the money in the first place to put them there?

 

They look great in mylars, but they look great in slabs (for me anyways) whether I hold on to them or sell them.

[Mr. Zipper]

Great post buried in the Comic Events section......

 

"....With all this nonsense going on in the FF 3 thread, it's just cemented the following: I'm leaving high grade for good, and leaving buying slabs behind except for when I want to resell a book.

 

Tonight I cracked out my Avengers 4, JIM 112, GL 76, Burntboy's Bats 156 and Aquaman 18, and another stray Aquaman slab. I'm going for nice eye appeal books only from now on. Will buy a slab if I can crack it and it's got a nice book that I don't want to leave in the holder, but for the most part, targeting mid grade raw.

 

The more I thought about it, the more I want to start enjoying comics and stop worrying about investment, money, high grade, and what very corrupt dealers are doing to our hobby."

 

While I agree 100% with FK... if it took the FF3/10 debacle to feel this way, you're on the wrong side of the curve.

 

Plenty of folks saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, but back then they were know as "conspiracy nuts."

[awe4one]

Plenty of folks saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, but back then they were know as "conspiracy nuts."

 

Should we now think of it as a badge of honor?

 

Jim

[Kermit the frog]

That is pretty much why I stay at the 8.0 - 9.2 range.

 

It is still High Grade, but not as ridiculious when trying to obtain them.

 

When a small crease (whether caught or not) means the difference in a couple of hundred / thousand bucks...

 

it's time to change your thinking.

 

 

 

 

very well said...and it allow us to enjoy more easly this medium and hunt down more pieces.

 

regards

[nik]

 

Plenty of folks saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, but back then they were know as "conspiracy nuts."

 

Not to be naive, but what are you implying with this statement.

 

[Fan4Fan]

"conspiracy nuts."

 

[Crackandpresstoan11]

Why not?

 

Storage issues, books look 100x better in mylar, I'm not convinced the slab is archivally sound... I hate when I buy a book I need for a run and can't store them together because some are slabbed and some are raw. Never selling, so who cares if it's slabbed. Can't see the interior of the book to see if it's accurately graded, easier to carry a box of 100 raw books than 100 slabs, I'm sure there are many more reasons.... There is no advantage to leaving a book in a slab other than liquidity.

 

Why spend the money in the first place to put them there?

 

Who says he paid to have them slabbed? I think he bought them that way.

[skybolt]

That is pretty much why I stay at the 8.0 - 9.2 range.

 

It is still High Grade, but not as ridiculious when trying to obtain them.

 

When a small crease (whether caught or not) means the difference in a couple of hundred / thousand bucks...

 

it's time to change your thinking.

 

 

 

 

I'm with you on that one.

[BassGMan]

Seems to me that alot of eyes have been opened due to what we have read in this forum. And some of us are even changing our collecting ways because of it. But my question is the "outside" world. Those who buy high grade slabs but don't spend time in forums like this. Do THEY know about all this stuff? Do they care? If anyone believes the market will change because of all this, it will certainly take more than just us to do it. Anyone have an idea how the rest of the comics community feels about this, or if they are even aware?

[nik]

I guess it just comes down to a choice of preference. I can appreciate your point of view.

 

As for me I am not trying to coplete runs, not true, the only one I am trying to complete is Surfer run in 9.0 or better.

 

I personally love covers that stand out, keys and semi-keys. As for storage, I have no intention of slabbing every HG book I have, and yes they do look great in Mylar, but I also like the slabbed books I have and have no intention of selling while I'm alive, or cracking out if there is no proof of harm to the book while its incased.

 

For me, the hobby thus far has been self-funding, and enjoyable. I wont get caught up in the HG madness/shadyness because bottom line (once again speaking for myself) I am a hobbyist not an investor.

 

I enjoy finding HG Raw books, from low key people, and not worry about all this horsecrap thats going on in our hobby today.

[Foolkiller]

I had a long post written and then it got deleted by my computer -- so I'm just not retyping the whole thing again:

 

I already owned non-high grade slabs, so I'm only cracking 8.0s and 8.5s to be put in mylars. TomMurane makes a good point when he says a) books look better in mylars and b) to be sure about the archival quality, put it in a mylar.

 

The FF3 thread pushed me over the wall though to just dump all my slabs for now. I love Steve Borock and Mark Haspel and Paul Litch and I will use their service if I want to sell a book in the current market. But I have to be honest, I've lost a lot of confidence. The person repsonsible for the FF 3 isn't trimming this one book and sliding it by, it's probably happened on a lot more books yet to be exposed. Really, what makes this guy any better than Danny Dupcak? Nothing. We've all here and everywhere in our hobby villified Dupcak/Hammer... now it appears there's someone else out there who's letting greed get to them first and ethics be damned. That person should be exposed similarly, and CGC should, if they can investigate and know, pursue them with the same vigor they chased hammer/comickeys/dupcak. Failure to do that is a HUGE mistake. Because someone is sliding work by them.

 

I've been a defender of CGC for a long time in that human error is going to happen. I agree with that. But this goes beyond that. This is lessening confidence in the principle thing that drives the silver/gold/bronze part in that you can have confidence that the book is unrestored and is the grade stated, a universal norm if you will. But if you can see the book and agree/disagree with the grade, you can't detect the resto on your own. And I have lessened confidence in what they are detecting and not, since this dealer on the FF 3 has obviously figured something out.

 

At any rate, there's such a short list of dealers I trust these days, Storms, VanLiew, Platt and Vinny Z at Metro (only because Metro just has no need to lie, and I don't see Vinny as that kind of person) but for the most part I've known and dealt with those guys for years. They're honest stand up guys. If you do dozens of transactions with somebody, talk to them for hours and known them for years and years, you know about their character beyond comics.

 

There's other honest dealers, but I can't say much about them because I haven't dealt as much with them. But there's too many questionable guys like Muchin, Ewert, Greenhalgh, DTA and others out there.

 

I love comics and I love this hobby. FF 3 isn't what made me think all of this, it's the straw that broke the camels back. I don't want to leave the hobby, I want to love it again, but there are some signs of real, real problems here. The writing is all over the wall when you compare it to graded coins and cards. So for me, with the opportunity to grow more wealth over the next few years, it's time to turn away from comics -- it's not a good place to put money. I enjoy the hobby for what it is now, and enjoy comics purely for the love of the books.

 

It's sad to say it, but I'm just very turned off about the hobby right now.

[*paull*]

How about Al Stoltz and Jeff Weaver?

[Foolkiller]

I do put Al Stoltz on my short list. That's because I've known Al for a long time. But really, I need to talk to Al again soon... which I will do in Baltimore. As for Jeff Weaver, don't know him that well at all. Seems like a decent guy.