Dave is a dealer/youtuber who just started an auction house, a friend of the community not a CHU member 
1 Like
Ah thanks.
I send my books to him at every Quarterly Featured auction he has.
Why him and not others?
- 5% commission
- Most importantly - he will pay out by personal check. For reasons of which I will not state on here, payment by personal check is paramount to me.
2 Likes
Interesting to know.
1 Like
@Bill did you take advantage of the 0% commission promo Dave had when he was trying to get his auction house started. I thought that was really generous.
He was getting calls from people including Goldin Auctions wondering what the catch was and if he was scamming people
He had to pay all the visa/paypal fees, packing/shipping, paying employees and other expenses himself. If people were sending him and selling huge keys like cgc graded Hulk 181 and golden age keys the expenses would be astronomical.
1 Like
They wouldnāt have to be if they hadnāt **** the bed so many times. And then CBCS being too weak to capitalize on CGCās failuresā¦ talk about companies who shoot themselves in the foot.
Interesting times ahead.
2 Likes
I got in late to the game, but did have 1 of his Featured Auctions that still had the 0% commission.
It went so well and got prices for my books that were commensurate with FMV that I continued when his commission went to 5%.
The commensurate prices Iām getting that are equivalent or near equivalent to Ebay sold prices is what brings me back to him without question.
Ebay is what? about 12 - 13% which is bad enough, but worse than that is all ebay transactions are electronic and thereforeā¦ wellā¦ yāknow. I love the payout from Dave back to me via personal check
Thanks for the feedback @Bill, i will look into their auction. As someone whoās in my 40s approaching 50, Iāve also been thinking about an exit plan for my comics. Been collecting for a long time and i have enough to read in the form of omnibuses, hcs and tpbs, stuff i kept that i would enjoy.
I havenāt really been buying/speccing on new stuff lately just the facsimile here and there and USM to keep my pullbox at my LCS. Anything i pick up Iāll be flipping. Been thinking of what to do with my comics that i donāt need. Consigning them or giving them away sounds like a good idea.
1 Like
OK so this is probably not a good sign for PSA. Apparently Steve Borock was contacted by PSA for consultation. Steve posted this on the CBCS forum. For transparency Steve is with ComicLink currently and Iām not sure if heās still currently with CBCS.
This is not a good sign as Iāve listened through dozens and dozens of interviews that Steve has done over the years and heās one of the most amiable and soft spoken people in the industry. I have never seen him speak ill of anyone in the industry except PGX as he thinks they are a scam of a company. He even speaks glowingly of Mike Hudson president of CGC.
For PSA to contact Steve (the founder of CGC and CBCS) and leave a bad impression for him to speak publicly is a telling sign. Steve would have so much to offer PSA for them to brush him off like that for consultation. Not good.
2 Likes
Yep, not good. Treating Steve that way is concerning, especially if he gave them advice pro bono.
1 Like
Well, they burned that bridge pretty quick. Good luck!
1 Like
So the President of PSAās comicbook division (AKA head grader or āfinalizerā as they call it) is Mark Wilson, the father of Dave from āComic Book Investmentsā. Mark is a well known dealer from the 80s and 90s and was one of the early founders of CGC along with Steve Borrock. Mark previously worked as the head grader for CGC and has now moved to PSA.
With the intro out of the way, the video is over 2 hrs long but I do not recommend you watch it as it barely talks about PSA, maybe about 20 mins of info out of the 2 hrs. Thats because Dave wouldnāt stop yapping and going on a tangent interrupting his dad whoās trying to make a point. Makes the video way longer than it needs to be. Iāll do some cliffs.
Cliffs:
-the new case is sturdier and heavier than the current cgc and cbcs cases. Will be UV protected for your books (huge win!)
-appears they are keeping the label design for now. They will not have different color labels for books that have been restored, conserved or altered etc. They have some ideas in place that hasnāt been done in the industry yet but canāt comment on it.
-the case wonāt be a clamshell design, making it much harder to tamper with
-will have 2 case designs and sizes, a regular one (Silver and modern age) and a premium deluxe model (for Golden age and highly valuable books). Premium model will be shatter proof and suspension qualities that are different than the current model.
-pricing will be similar to the current industry standard except for the premium deluxe model case
-danced around the subject of 9.9 and 10.0. Mark just said theyāll grade the books āaccuratelyā.
-PSA bought the ebay vault now known as the PSA vault (this is huge, and I will comment on why a little later). You can send your books to get graded at PSA and have them stored in the vault and have them sold on ebay. It is free (for now) to use the vault to store your comics in a climate controlled vault and it saves you money from having a grading company ship your books back to you (and import taxes for international customers like Canada, UK, Europe etc). Even for domestic customers in the USA would find this service invaluable. You wonāt need a warehouse to store your comics and save money on the shipping. Sell/buy the books in the vault and keep them there if you wish, itās essentially like selling a stock.
4 Likes
Canāt seem to edit my post now but I meant to say Mark previously worked as a head grader for CBCS, not CGC. Just a correction.
1 Like
The UV protection should have been something CGC/CBCS incorporated into their designs many years ago. I donāt know why they havenāt. There are other display cases out there made of UV material that donāt seem to hinder visibility of the book in any way.
As for sturdier, at some point youāre paying for that extra materialā¦I think the current CBCS slab is about as well a balance in weight/robustness one could ask.
Terrible choice. I get the witnessed/verified being the same color, but conserved/restored is value added to the label. I donāt want to be at a convention with limited time, trying to get a dealers attention just to be handed a restored or āqualifiedā book. I want to be able to determine this from afar. That was a big point of CBCS making their grade font more like CGCā¦the grade was not always able to be seen without a closeup.
Thanks for the crib notes. I donāt have 2 hrs to waste these days. If I did Iād read a few comicsā¦ 
3 Likes
Today at SDCC, I spoke with Mark and man Iām excited for PSA grading comics.
The casing design is top notch. No clam style. They will have a small low piece that contains the comic and then the larger piece that goes over the whole comic and bottom casing. They will be using a laser to seal it and you wont be able to tamper with it u less you brake the casing. It will also be water resistant and it will gave the same grading scale as CGC and CBCS.
They will be taking orders in January 2025ā¦
Sign me upā¦
3 Likes
Sounds good but having a sturdier and tamper proof case isnāt going to swing the market to PSA imo. CBCS also has a better overall case. Itās the damn PSA label, itās just so ugly.
Say what you want about CGC, I feel a HUGE part of why they have the market in a chokehold is because their label is so aesthetically pleasing to look at and to display on the wall. Comic books are art pieces and the label really adds to the whole presentation. I feel the majority of the market wouldnāt care about how great a company like PSA is, how they treat customers, tamper proof cases. People care that their slabs command the most money in the market, and with that the labels play a big part of that.
My 2 cents.
3 Likes
Youāre spot on with CGC. But for me is whats the best way to protect my book? And I think PSA might be it. Could be wrong down the road though. Who knows. Only time will tell.
The PSA case is absolutely better for protecting your comics. Heck CGC is currently having a problem with the comics warping inside their cases. PSAās cases are UV protected, your comics wonāt move around inside the cases (canāt say the same with CGC), and are tamper evident.
I would be really interested to see the Premium Deluxe case but I imagine they wonāt have it ready at SDCC.
1 Like
Iāll stick with the devil I know, CGCā¦ not seeing anything earth shattering to make me move. With that said I think competition is good and will hopefully keep prices where they are, or maybe drive them down.
2 Likes
Iāll just continue to follow the money
Ultimately I could give a rats ass about encased comics, so even if itās all about type of polyethylene glycol H3T4 methyl paraben whatchamcallit that used in the resin that everyone goes nuts over, then thatās good enough for me to put my money with that company.
Itās not about what I like, but what the loony toons and OCD kooks like that Iāll be dumping my money into
4 Likes