Crystalis88

1 hour ago, Gulag Joe said:

High road

Thats what I would say as well if I had no better response! Youve been checkmated son!

How about that 50% off sale at Goldin last night. No one talking about the drop on Mario 64?

Just now, LifeGame said:

Well he is certainly not hiding it so he wouldnt incriminate himself ? Would he ?

Those are some amazing high grades! Freshly graded too! What a “collector”!

29 minutes ago, LifeGame said:

So every bid for any sealed or graded games in the whole universe is a shill bid now ?

ive had one of my best 2 weeks selling my sealed (not graded) games so your conspiracy story just won’t change anything even if you really want it to… 

Not related to you or your post but since im posting :

as for Haspel selling his games on ebay, who gives a shit about his 500$ Atari games that he is selling, you really think WATA would jeopardize their integrity by giving him preferential grading on these silly cheap ass games nobody wants !!! Come the …. on !

So you believe he only graded Atari games?

2 hours ago, guillavoie said:

I love the 'we wish you well' overall tone of this, lol! That's crazy to send a message like that, let alone the fact he's just hoping to pump a game at $270.

BTW, no chance that it is rarebucky, not his style at all.

Low priced sealed games? Market manipulation? Any chance this eBay account name started with an m ended with an h and had an s in the middle lol?

10 minutes ago, Alder said:

I didn't get that impression from the image you shared, but I agree that Seth wasn't being respectful of his privacy when he posted the update to that article. Was it really necessary to post his full name and where he lived?

His name is pertinent to the story. If he posted his address then that’s definitely not cool.

11 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Who is he calling a clown? 

I believe he’s referring to Seth Abramson

There’s a similar thread on the cgc forums and bronty is (indirectly)requesting them to close the thread down. Why is everyone so in love with censorship these days?

2 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Based on the info revealed earlier today showing that Dain was still pimping for them and stating he was still on the Advisory Board well after he had financially divested himself from the company, it sounds like he let them do it to him.

I guess Bruce Willis showed up just in time or else he’d still be in the Wata office with the gimp and a ball gag.

57 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

I'd say this is the case and wager a guess that somebody got hog tied to a chair while someone else hid all their electronic devices after that "nope, just checked the back room and no corruption or collusion in there" statement/comment that got made immediately after the video hit.  I don't remember exactly where it came from, but I do recall someone griping about how they are able to muster the manpower to thoroughly investigate corruption in their own company within 20 minutes but hold peoples' games hostage, ungraded, for a year.

The ride up must have been fun for deniz and Jeff. People like that think they’re smarter than everyone else, and they pimped Dain like a 5 dollar hooker. Used his name for credibility and then dumped him like an OD’d crack whore with 0 compensation (as he stated above). I suppose this was known for the last couple of years but now it’s bigger news and I hope this goes deeper than it appears. Deniz looks like he’d make one helluva prison bitch and I’m sure he’d be racking up a high score emptying balls on the yard.

2 minutes ago, Dain said:

I've never owned a WATA-graded game, so no. The only graded games I owned were VGA-graded. 

That was my point. The person who bought your collection is an alleged opportunistic scumbag and I don’t doubt for a second that they may have had a hand in grading the collection.

3 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I mean, Dain was probably in a position to negotiate for what he considered a reasonable price for his own video game collection. I hear he's kind of an expert on them thar Nintendo tapes.

I’m aware lol. I wonder if he was in a position to negotiate the grades like someone else probably did.

Just now, Gulag Joe said:

Yea it was called PSA and it happened 20 years ago and made regular cards that were once worth $50 in Mint condition to instantly become $500-$1000.

Different time. We’re in the Information Age. Harder to get away with stuff hence why all of this is coming to light so quickly.

25 minutes ago, Dain said:

When I joined WATA, I was originally going to be the CTO, helping to get the tech side of things going, which is why I was listed as an executive on the first SEC filings in 2017. I was also going to be an equity stakeholder in the company and eventually would be receiving a salaried position. That all fell through, and my email leaving WATA was me leaving my equity stakeholder and CTO positions: I no longer had any skin in the game.

The advisory board position was basically Deniz asking a personal favor of me to stick around in that capacity to lend credibility to the WATA name. I did advise on two issues, however: I participated in the best test program, and made some suggestions to that process; I also sent an email with some constructive feedback on the new website. I was never in a paid position and never received compensation for anything.

Capitalism at its finest?! You were just a cog and they utilized you and spit you out. They even bought your collection, had a pedigree assigned to it and paid you a pittance in relation to what it sold for. This happens in business all of the time but rarely gets exposed like this. I’m sure you have some info that could bury Deniz and Jeff but I suppose you’re one of the nice guys. 

13 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

The point is its happening across all collectible arenas. But here on VGS, 100 some pages of comments later, only the video game hobby is subject to the big lie and we're not allowed to talk about it any other way because it's not fair because this forum is for video games only!

Is there another hobby where a new grading company hit the scene and immediately became the authority. And that same grading company is in bed with arguably the most prominent pop culture collective auction house. And that the owner of this auction house bought an item froM his own auction for a substantial sum and then did a press release on this sale like it was special? 
 

and is there an executive from a grading company that has a god damn eBay store selling all high grade items? If this same phenomenon is occurring in another hobby please let me know!

1 hour ago, AdamW said:

It's weird to me that people expect buyers to announce themselves. Why would they? What's in it for them, aside from a distinct likelihood of more break-in attempts in their future? The 100k SMB sale was obviously disclosed as a publicity stunt, but buyers who don't work for an auction house wouldn't seem to have an obvious reason to do it. Do you announce all your purchases on the internet?

Some people do post their high end buys on Instagram and Facebook, but not all of them. Especially quite a few of the higher end pokemon sales have been to known IG accounts, I think.

Many people post collectible purchases and achievements in various fb groups, myself included. I suppose someone wouldn’t want to fess up to paying 1.5 mil for Mario 64 and have everyone call you a complete dumbass. Totally understandable.

26 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

Alright bois, the rocket ship is back. We headed to the moon.

I love how the description even says “4 million sold” mind blown!

20 minutes ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

Totally agree. I find it hilarious that some people are already considering that winning the next auction at 200-500k would be a 'deal'. Even if these auctions fall short of 1.5m that sale will definitely influence these auctions and those in the near future even if it's all a relative downward trend from that sale. I'm not huge on sealed but am an avid collector and the thought of this game hitting 6 figures at any point in any condition still boggles my mind.

Where are the buyers of these high sale games? They had no problem announcing they bought the Mario for 100k but since then it’s all anonymous buyers? 

9 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

Until it’s picked up by much larger media outlets, law enforcement steps in, or the FTC launches a public investigation it will all just go unnoticed and it will be business as usual. 

Do you think the Mario 64’s at Goldin auctions will be propped up beyond 1.5 mil? With this type of market all it takes is one high profile sale to underperform expectations to cause an avalanche. 

3 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Er. What? I summarized the article because Hammerfestus asked. Is that not an accurate summary? It's not a defence nor intended as one. It has no commentary whatever. You can find my commentary on it in my reply to Karl above.

yea im not sure how he interprets that as a defense of wata lol

17 minutes ago, Alder said:

I mean, that's pretty damning evidence, but I don't consider the lack of a LinkedIn profile suspicious.

I believe it is suspicious because he most likely did not want people to search his name from ebay purchases and discover the affiliation. Ive often looked for people Ive bought from if they have multiple items listed so that I can buy from them off of ebay. Just a guess though.

9 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Care to link?

https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/video-game-grading-house-wata-told?justPublished=true

How does everyone feel about mark haspel running an eBay business selling Wata games ? Story dropped this morning