I wonder if the staining could be cleaned or restored in some way?

(I love the - quite frankly terrifying - paperweight he is using to display the books!)

That's why I bought an old SW machine. No-one ever opens them up and you can pick up NM copies for $40 and earn 5-10 times the money back just by shrink wrapping them and reselling. Like most of the shrink wrapped items on eBay people just want to think they have something shiny and new from the 1980's. There is absolutely no evidence that anything these products are in  their original shrink wrapping. It's all in the imagination of the idiot buying them.

I worked in a shop selling this stuff for 5 years between '88 and 93'ish. Massive UK highstreet seller of RPGs. We would open stuff so customers could flick through, or rummage through a boxed set, and then shrinkwrap the stuff back up again and stick it back on the shelf. If something was brought back and refunded, it would be checked, shrink wrapped, and resold as new. It's really easy to fleece the muppets on eBay if you were so inclined. Most of the buyers don't ask any questions and don't care how much money they spend, so long as you press the right eye candy buttons. You can sell them used and played with products in shrinkwrap and it adds $100 or more onto the price co they think they're the first one ever to set eyes on the insides if they ever dared open it. So long as it passes the eye candy test, and the seller doesn't lie, the fault is entirely with the idiot who placed the bid.

That's why I'm surprised there are shrink-wrap junkies here on Acaeum. I do expect most of us to have been around long enough to know all this.
In ten years we'll be taking the piss out of the idiots who drop $500 of an 'vintage' PoD product from the 2010's

I was assuming that part of Ian's point was not merely the ridiculous prices paid for items in shrink wrap but the mere fact that being in "shrink" is considered a superior designation. The only advantage to me of shrink wrap is that if legitimate one can tell at a distance (say through the internet) that an item hasn't been written on. Other than that though, how does it make the module better? But beyond that some people buy an obviously damaged copy (with corner dings or stains) but are willing to pay a premium because of some shrink wrap around the outside of it. It makes no sense. To me.

stratochamp wrote in Interesting Items Currently on eBay:how does it make the module better?

For many collectors, it functions like a time machine. When you have something old that is still in new condition, it is something which should not exist. It is an anomaly in the modern world, taking you back to another time & place. It often starts with 'gateway' collectibles: unpunched sheets of counters, volumes with crisp, white pages, dice which look like they've never been rolled. But after a while, you have to go further & further to reach that sense of being a child in a toy store: complete print runs, entire product lines... Finally, you need the hard stuff, & you'll pay the pushers whatever is asked for the rush of nostalgia, ignoring jobs & loved ones, emptying bank accounts... When you start needing shrink, it isn't about the high anymore. It's just to get to normal.

stratochamp wrote in Interesting Items Currently on eBay:I'm not going to belabor the point but if an item is in shrinkwrap one can not determine if there is interior staple rust or possibly if there are moisture issues.

Exactly! There comes a time when you've got to pick yourself up from the gutter, ask yourself what you're doing with all these rusted staples & moist papers, & leave the whole mess behind to live a ordinary life of playing video games on your phone like a well-balanced & productive member of society.

stratochamp wrote in Interesting Items Currently on eBay:I was assuming that part of Ian's point was not merely the ridiculous prices paid for items in shrink wrap but the mere fact that being in "shrink" is considered a superior designation. The only advantage to me of shrink wrap is that if legitimate one can tell at a distance (say through the internet) that an item hasn't been written on. Other than that though, how does it make the module better? But beyond that some people buy an obviously damaged copy (with corner dings or stains) but are willing to pay a premium because of some shrink wrap around the outside of it. It makes no sense. To me.

A T1-4 in shrinkwrap is nothing more than a T1-4 in VGC or NM condition that the buyer is being deterred from opening and examining (due mostly to their own pride and ego.) I recall a copy of T1-4 that was opened by more than one person, read by more than one person, actually played with in gameplay, and then photocopied on two separate occasions in its entirety, as well as having been opened for customers to read, each time being reshrink-wrapped and stuck back on the shelf until the next time. It took like six months before of constant opening reading and discarding before it sold, and had I not personally known where than copy went, it could just as easily be sitting in someone's collection with them thinking they have a new unopened copy of T1-4.

I can, to a certain extent, see how the shrink with module hanger extends a little certainty. That was maybe 10 years prior to my experience and most stores would not have been able to afford shrinkwrap machines, nor would they have opened things for people just to flick through. I remember buying modules (L1 jumps to mind) based solely on the blurb on the back and a description I'd read in a mail order catalog.

When good thick comic bags are pretty damn cheap, a boarded comic bag is far better than shrink-wrap at preserving the product.

If a seller presents something is in NM condition but refuses to state whether there are any pencil marks or highlighting or tears in a book, and uses 'shrinkwrap' as a means of protecting themselves form having to take responsibility for condition, and can be pretty damn sure that the odds of discovery are stacked in his favour. That's a pretty sweet spot is using eye candy and the buyer's own biases and ego against themselves, all the while shifting the blame caveat emptor over to the buyer for being the fool.

How many Basic Sets or BCMIE sets have we seen shrinkwrapped? Are any of them genuine? Or are they all fakes created elsewhere in the marketplace? Does anyone have any genuine shrinkwrapped items? Or do they just think they are still in their original shrinkwrap because their investment dictates that they need to be so.

smarmy1 wrote in Interesting Items Currently on eBay:
Schrödinger's Staples.

 

** expired/removed eBay auction **

Contents in pristine conditions and a bonus as well:


** expired/removed eBay auction **