Batman Plays Chess with the Joker

I suppose it was inevitable. Earlier this year I cut back on blogging -- see How I Spent My Free Day (Warning! Contains chess960 content!) -- but my fingers invariably got itchy on my day off. I decided that I could at least use the day for a light post on an easy topic, something like Top eBay Chess Items by Price. The preparation here is algorithmic: (1) Look at all higher priced eBay items sold over the past two weeks. (2) Pick one. (3) Write about it. (4) Wait two weeks and repeat.

When I started this series, step (1) had a built-in control mechanism. The search on 'Completed Items' only returned items completed, whether sold or not, over the past two weeks. A few months ago I noticed that the search was displaying completed items from as long as two months earlier. Why the change? I turned to eBay's 'Community' for help, specifically its 'Discussion Boards'.

I'm not a big fan of forums because most posts are from people bitching and moaning about whatever disturbs them. They're sort of like blogs with multiple authors. Ebay has one of the biggest groups of bitchers and moaners that I've ever encountered, most of them on the selling side. Reading the comments, you would think that the main objective of the auction site was to make life miserable for people who want to sell stuff, the worst part of it being that there is nowhere else for them to go.

After wading through dozens of threads complaining about everything, I found one from October that explained the search on completed items, Attention Collectibles Sellers: More Completed Items History.

Attention Collectibles Sellers, Completed Items Search will now return more history for items that were listed in the Collectibles category.

• 90 days of history for completed sold items in Collectibles
• 45 days of history for completed unsold items in Collectibles
• 15 days of history for completed items listed outside the Collectibles category

This was immediately followed by several complaints, including this non-sequitur:-

ATTETION SELLERS. EBAY OFFERS 45 DAY MONEY BACK ON ALL SELLERS LISTINGS. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE SELLER CHOOSES THE 7 DAY OR THE NO RETURN POLICY. EBAY WILL GO INTO SELLERS PAYPAL AND GIVE REFUNDS 45 DAYS LATER. EBAY ALWAYS SIDES WITH THE BUYER. THIS IS A FACT. CALL EBAY AND ASK THEM. NO MORE EBAY FOR ME.

(sic) I don't know enough about eBay to say what constitutes the 'Collectibles category', but it apparently includes tons of chess sets. It doesn't include items like those I mentioned in DVDs as Cheap as Dirt, which have disappeared from the search on completed items.

This change makes the task of finding a suitable item a little more difficult, because I have to wade through more pages of completed items. Oops! Looks like I'm complaining about eBay now. I better stop before it takes complete control of my spirit...

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The most unusual item of the past two weeks is pictured on the left. Its title said, 'Batman #23 CGC 6.0 Classic Joker Cover. Robin. Alfred Story. Chess Board Cover'. It received one bid and sold for US $750.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I have no idea what 'CGC 6.0' means. At the top of the image you can see that it says 'CGC Universal Grade' over a large '6.0'. At the bottom of the image you can see that there is some kind of blurring, probably caused by a clear plastic cover protecting the comic. Wikipedia has a Comics Guaranty page explaining the concept. The top of that page warns, 'Editing of this article by new or unregistered users is currently disabled due to vandalism', which tells me that the grading procedure is not infallible.

Chess is a fairly common theme in the world of comic books. The artwork is often similar to that shown on the Batman cover, where a superhero battles a villain by manipulating 'real people' on a chess board. In this example, the real people include a miniature Joker and Batman, which must have something to do with the story. The description of the item added,

Cream to off-white pages. Joker cover and story!! Alfred backup story by Don Cameron. Dick Sprand artwork (story and cover). Sharp looking Fine copy from mid-1944. The 2011 Overstreet price in grade (6.0) is $820.00. The CGC case is clean.

Years ago I watched a late night talk show where one of the last guests was a comic book collector. At one point the host held up one of the guest's comics to the camera and asked him, 'How much is this worth?' The guest replied, 'Oh, it's priceless!' Without missing a beat the host shot back, 'The sticker on the back says "$50". I could give you ten bucks for it right now and that would be the end of the discussion.' The guest turned a deep shade of red and the show switched to a commercial. The $750 paid for the Batman comic doesn't render it priceless, but it's not pocket change either.