Yeah, like that.
Anyway, 2012 was a busy year for me. I'm going to make the attempt to get back into the swing of things here this year. I've got a new job, so hopefully I can find a couple of hours a week to work on comics again. I've been buying comics and am still watching the auctions, I just haven't had time to write about it.
I'm also going to try to redesign the site. Should be fun.
To tide you over until I start writing about the next Heritage auction, here's an anecdote:
Back when I was selling a lot on eBay (as opposed to now, when I've got auctions running for the first time in over two years), I had a bunch of junk books I merged into a group lot in order to just get rid of them. The books ranged from the 1970s to the 1980s and included secondary DC horror books, common Marvel superhero stuff from the 1970s (Marvel Team Up maybe), etc. The books were all worth maybe $2-5 dollars. Everything in the lot was listed and graded. It included a terrible copy of one of the early "new" X-Men. Maybe 101 or something in the 90s. I had it listed as FR and had language in the auction along the lines of "take these books off my hands"
Anyway, some guy wins the lot. I probably got $1 a book or something. I was happy to just get rid of the books. I ship it off and about a week later I get this furious email from the guy saying that the X-Men 101 was in "terrible condition" and that the only reason he bought the lot was for that book. I asked him what he expected since everything was graded. He said, angrily, "it's listed as FR, I don't know what that is." I explained to him what F(ai)R condition was and pointed him to some online resources about grading comics, etc.
What I love about that is what happened behind the scenes. This guy:
- Thought he had scored a winner and that I was a sap, listing a $100 book without knowing what I had. This is ignoring the fact that the rest of the lot was also graded and I was, at the time, selling dozens of other comic book lots- including CGC graded material. His eyes got big and he did zero research and he just laid down a bid for his "prize."
- If he really didn't know what FR is (and to be honest, how many bronze age collectors deal with books below 6.0 ever?) why didn't he ask? Oh yeah, because he didn't want to alert the sucker (me) that I had made a "mistake" and listed a Fine book (maybe?) with the wrong grade? Again, his eyes got big
- And finally, he had the nerve to email a seller he was trying to sneak a bargain out of and complain when his perceived bargain actually turned out to be a lot bought at fair value. Really? You try to score a deal, pulling money out off someone's pocket because "they don't know what they have" and then you get mad at them when they do know what they have? Seriously? That's hilarious.