I'm sorry.
i didn't mean to tread on the clubby atmosphere of dealers.
I have been a collector and sometimes seller all my life.
I have sold through auction houses (back in the day)
and on ebay.
I usually don't take part in most of the emails but from time to time
do so.
And of course dealers point out their auctions through MOPO.
There is nothing wrong with high prices.
But please don't try and tell me your high prices are bargains
when they are not.
I was not attacking anybody but just giving my point of view which
is just as valid.
I am tired of seeing $150 posters on ebay with "great" Buy It Now
prices of $2,500! And that fact that those posters have been repeatedly
posted for over a year with no buyer only validates my point.
If you look at almost all the pre-1930 posters on ebay now
they all have outrageous Buy It Now prices.
Yes, that bother me.
So you dealers have choices to make. Either sell the items for what
the market will pay
or keep asking the prices that no one wants to pay.
I have seen businesses die due to that later.
But I don't feel I was attacking
Just expressing my view.
Later I was asked to try and give an estimate on the items and I did.
no one refuted any of my arguments.
I kept it all on a business level.
I could give further business based assessments that further my
arguments
but I guess you dealers would just feel i was attacking again. So I
won't.
I really didn't intend to make any enemies.
So I've stated my feelings and again I'm sorry if anyone felt attacked.
I'll keep my mouth and wallet shut.
On Jul 29, 2009, at 4:01 PM, p...@cinemarts.com wrote:
In a nutshell. Thank you Fred.
Happy to sign my name to the bottom of your incisive post on all
counts.
Phil Edwards
-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Sliman [mai...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 06:30 PM
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Silent Lobby Cards: I guess my invitation got
lost in the mail...
...to the cocktail party installing MOPO's new appraiser laureate.
Mr. Cranston seems to fall into the angry consumer style of pricing,
so if he is indeed raking in 300 bucks an hour to tell most people
that their collections are full of crap, that doesn't sound like a
good deal to me.
As far as "auction fever" and auctions determining the market value,
just try a few .99 cent auctions of your own on ebay these days. I
don't sell much in the way of older, higher value items at the
moment, but I tried a couple of later Hitchcocks on a whim among a
few .99 cent openers on ebay in the last year, one of which went
for .99 (that sells frequently from 20 to up to 50) and one for 8.00
(which has regularly auctioned for 50-over 100 since). I don't
think the marketplace spoke very fairly and accurately in those
cases and auction fever must of taken a hell of a lot of Tylenol
that day.
Who can't relate as collectors or buyers to loving low openers?
That's where the bargains come in that make the hunt worth it and
offset the times that we've all paid more than we wanted just
because of gottahaveit syndrome. But to suggest that they're the
only true gauge of worth is just not the case. Even if you're of the
"if it's not in the top 5 percentile of rarity/desirability, it's
crap" mindset, I'd like to see what a seller with a solidly valued
10,000 dollar item would think if he .99 cent ebayed it on the wrong
day/week/month and had to sell it for a $500 or less high bid, then
turned around a few months later and saw it reauctioned and pulled
$13,500 on the right day/week/month.
Perhaps some of us lowly and delusional MOPOers would care to pool
our money to buy an hour or two to be summarily crushed and
dismissed and have our hopes dashed by Lamont as to the quality of
our holdings in the hard truth of the market. Upon second thought,
l think I'll continue to trust the will of the market at large, for
better or worse, and the relationships I've enjoyed as a buyer and
seller with so many great people on this list and hope that we all,
including the estimable Channing (singled out not as a slight to my
other friends but because he was an unfortunate target of the day),
do the same.
Late Breaking P.S.:
Always seeking new contact information and resources, I did a quick
search of this email address to save in my list of appraisers and
experts, finding that it didn't come up to a professional appraiser
outfit but a gentleman apparently in the film business. There are a
few here involved in the biz, maybe someone can shed some light. He
might just be loaning out the use of it to (or might not even know
its being used by) another party to lend credence to criticism and
bashing on here (sort of like an alleged professor of yore). Just a
thought; I could be way off base.
Yours truly,
Sliman, P.I.
(Fred)
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
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In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L
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