5/29/2013

I'm something in an expert in dealing with those with antisocial disorders. I mean Christ, I'm Darth Vader - you think I haven't come across my fair share of Star Wars geeks and Trekkies? You think I haven't run across socially inept munchkins? You think I haven't intentionally started Wars vs. Trek battle royales so I could sneak off with some hot cosplayed lady? Think again.



When it comes to comic book shoppes, I give a lot - I mean a LOT of leeway to the personality traits of the owners who are also invariably the cashiers of such establishments. I understand a certain amount of brusque behaviour is generally the rule. I even acknowledge that not even showing up in full regalia and with a fully functioning iLightsabre is always enough to melt the ice on that front. But these people....sheesh.



I understand why it is - both the owner and his wife are apparently former lawyers, which explains why collectively between them they have about as much charm as a Tatooine Sandworm. But they are so condescending, so utterly dismissive - of people such as myself looking to spend potentially thousands of dollars on nothing more than a single comic book that it crosses over into a level of actively wanting to see them cleaved in two.



This place has 2 full glass cases of vintage comics - including a lot of highly sought after titles. We're talking first appearances of Thor, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, the first X-Men, etc. The issue is, 95% of them are in poor-to-fair condition, which makes their potential grade hard to judge, as it becomes subjective and largely dependent on the insides of the comics themselves. Here's the tangle with that: None of his shit is graded. He has allllllll of these Silver Age comic books potentially worth a chunk of change, and he refuses to send ANY of them in to CGC in order to have them evaluated and graded. Anything obviously high grade, he wants well above book. As a matter of fact, if you even ask him why his stuff isn't graded, you'll be treated to a 25 minute diatribe about why it is he hates the CGC and how the whole thing is a sham.



OK, to each their own on that front. I mean hell, I understand the path to hate and suffering better than anyone, right? So what you've got here are a lot of raw comic books. Nothing inherently wrong with that. The issue there is, a raw comic book is worth significantly less than a graded comic book. That's because you don't know if a raw comic has had restoration work done to it, or if there's a flaw in the pages you can't see, or if there's been some colour touch, etc. But this guy? Apparently the rules don't apply to him. He'll have an X-Men 1 in there that he thinks is a 4.0....and you know what, maybe it is, but maybe it's not. Further, maybe there's colour touch inside that, when you send the thing in to be graded, will net the comic a purple label instead of a blue one, meaning it's almost worthless. You don't know, and he won't let you actually go through the comics to even look for yourself. What's worse is, he prices the comic as though it's a GRADED 4.0 when it's not. His prices on back issues are completely out of whack, and he doesn't wiggle at all on this. On the contrary, if you dare suggest that he bring his price on an issue more in line with its actual raw value and suggest a more reasonable counter-price, he simply puts the comic back in his little glass case and walks away like a petulant child who's just been told he's not the most powerful master of The Force in the universe, so he's going to take his training ball and go home. This jackass actually expects you to pay full graded price for a comic book that might very well come back with the taint of "restored" on its label and a value of roughly 10% what you paid for it. Yeah, lemme just hand over my 4 grand now and roll the dice, eh?



So. There's that. Beyond that, he and his wife just spend all day scouring eBay trying to snipe books on the cheap for resale. He admits as much. He doesn't have any sort of distribution pipeline to acquire comics. He isn't an active local collection buyer. Again, nothing wrong with that....but if you want a certain issue, why don't you just set up your own alerts on eBay and find them at that point rather than paying this guy obscene vig to do it for you? It's just as easy to remove him from the equation, frankly.



I'll not bother trekking over to his store again. His prices are too high, his customer service skills are too low, you're rolling the dice with what you're purchasing, and most of his shit is low grade, anyways - and the collectibles market is all about condition. Nobody wants a 4.5 1st appearance of Hobgoblin - they want a 9.6. I'd Force Choke them and be done with it, but I don't want the taint of lawyer on me.



2nd point for the large selection of toys and video games, though that's of no interest to me.



2 Deathstars.