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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Take a look at this copy of The TITANS #39, on sale via eBay from DTA COLLECTIBLES (as the Americans spell it). Here's the description: Titans #179. Condition: VG. Small piece out of back cover. Price: $54 (£42.64). Postage: $67.50 (£53.30). How can anyone justify putting such a high price on a British b&w reprint comic, which often had dismal reproduction and is not even that collectable in its country of publication? (And in such a battered condition?) They even got the number wrong in the description. Words fail me.
13 comments:
That Frosties ad brings back memories - but it wouldn't be allowed nowadays.
Charging 40-odd quid for this comic shouldn't be allowed nowadays either, CJ.
And with the postage it comes to £95.90 - for a tatty old Titans. But nobody is forced to pay it. By the way, Kid - the latest issue of SFX magazine says a live-action film of Captain Pugwash is being made !! They should include characters called Roger the cabin boy and Seaman Staines just for a laugh.
My ship has come in!
I have a big old bag of these things over in the corner.
Putting emotions aside what would be the reasons for it? I think you touched on one in the post. Being a bit lazy to check (wrong issue number) also a few checks on ebay might reveal a more reasonable price?
Having said that they are not the only seller on ebay or other places trying to get crazy prices.
To confirm the lazy point he has a Beano comic no 1372 from 1958 for sale for about $30us, 23 pounds approx which would make a whole year worth over 1000 pounds!!
But that is not all in one part of the description he says "This looks like underground comix art"
They do have over a hundred thousand items for sale so can you imagine trying to manage that! They also have quite a good feedback record.
What has caused people to live in fantasy land like our ebay sellers? Well of course the feds and their elites all around the world expanding their FIAT currencies, meddling in markets, low interest rates, creating a giant Alice in wonderland! Nothing is as it seems!
Terence
Listing it at that price is one thing....selling it at that price is something else altogether!
Nobody is forced to pay it true enough, CJ, but even asking for that price is impertinent and shows a contempt for potential buyers, don't you think? I doubt that the Estate of Captain Pugwash's creator would allow these names, as John Ryan always resented the myth that any of his characters had any 'sexually suggestive' names.
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Halfers, Baab, for alerting you to what they're worth.
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The reasons for it in my mind, T, is that they're money-grubbing opportunists, hoping against hope that there's someone out there who is stupid enough to pay it. That gives them zero credibility with me, especially when they don't even seem to know what they're selling.
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Oh, they'll never sell it at that price, LJ, but it's their asking for it that annoys me. It's just so insulting.
Listing the item at the price it is is one thing, but what about the postage?! Living as I do in Australia most of the items I order off eBay have to be sent from other countries and manys the good price I have had to pass up on something after seeing an outrageous postage rate at the end of the listing. WTF?! Particularly annoying when a scroll down the page of search results often reveals a variety of postage rates, many much less inflated than others. I get that some include tracking, signed delivery etc but I still consider a lot of them amazingly over-priced! Did the seller also list it as 'rare'?, adding that to the description also seems to grant them a licence to charge large, sometimes comical when the search has brought up a couple of pages of listings of said 'rare' item! Ah the fun of buying off eBay.
One of the items I see listed as 'rare' a lot, PC, is the Vulcan Annual 1977. I've still got my original, but it got damaged so I bought another 4 via eBay. It pops up quite regularly - so much for rare. And I'm astounded at the postage rates of some items; the sellers are surely charging as much as they can and sending it for a fraction of that. I've sometimes enquired if they can use a cheaper mailing method, but they're unwilling to budge.
John Ryan more than resented the 'dirty names' story, he won a libel action against a newspaper that printed it as fact.
Re Ebay, the other day I saw a seller of vinyl records whose auctions are all grossly overpriced and questionably described - for a nice example, a 1981 copy of David Bowie's Aladdin Sane listed as "rare original". Priced at £39.99, actually one of his cheaper items. There are other items that are genuine rarities (or at least hard to find) but I'm sure could be got for less. Evidently there's money to be made that way, somehow.
Nice to hear from you, JSW. Yeah, I knew about the libel action. That's just how bothered he was by the 'urban legend'. I've got a book, 'The Golden Age of Television', which has a sticker over a paragraph on one page, saying something to the effect that 'None of the naughty names under this label ever appeared in the Captain Pugwash books or TV series', so the myth was quite widely believed.
As for overpriced items, it only takes one person who wants something badly enough to hand over his dosh, and greedy sellers who ask for ridiculous prices are laughing all the way to the bank.
I recently saw a book on ebay that I'd like to read, cheapest copy was £4.95, I added it to my watch list as I was at work at the time. Got home, went to buy it and lo and behold, the seller had raised the price to £19.95. Within an hour of me removing it from my watch list, it was back to the original price again.
Didn't buy it though, the greed and cynicism of the seller had put me right off.
Good for you, DS - I'd have done the same. There's something I'd like to buy on eBay, and the price keeps changing by a pound or two either way every so often. However, the postage costs from America are shocking as the item has no weight to it. Who wants to pay postage three or four times the cost of the actual item, when there are less expensive postal options available to the seller? It's a disgrace.
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