We try very hard to give accurate descriptions, to answer queries politely and informatively, and to ship items securely, and we spend a lot of time working at getting you good images (as a result, after thousands of transactions, we've maintained a 100% positive feedback rating on eBay). Between us (consignors as well as proprietor) we can call on several decades of experience collecting and selling, we have access to all of the same guides that any of our buyers can consult, and we put a lot of thought and experience into the prices we ask for "retail," but we also know that we'll inevitably end up way out of the zone from time to time, too high or too low. If you see us offering an item at some price way above what you think it's worth, and can show us where an equivalent item is being offered at a much better one, please feel free to let us know, and we'll take it into consideration when you ask for a discount.

On the other hand, the fact that some similar item sold on auction one time or another for much less, or that so-and-so's price guide says it's worth less than we're asking isn't likely to impress us very much. Many areas of the collectibles market are, for lack of a better word, irrational. The same item that sold or would have sold just a few years ago for $25 may be worth $250 today, and the opposite is true as well. A poster can sell for $3,000 one week, but only a short time later a virtually identical one may sell for $1,000 when someone tries to horn in on the market, and succeeds mainly in devaluing the prior acquisition and getting a lower than necessary price for the newly offered one. We know everyone wants to get the best possible price, and we'll definitely bargain, but we don't think it's in anyone's best interest to flood the market or to lowball aggressively.

You can look many items up in framework references - like The Poster Price Almanac or emovieposter.com's eBay Results - and see for yourself how widely retail and auction prices may vary for the same or apparently the same collectibles. For other items there may be virtually no relevant sales history at all, and the fact that somebody out there believes, on the basis of who-knows-what calculations and assessments, that it's worth a lot less than we're asking may not matter as much to us as our opinion that it's very cool and we'll probably never see it again after it's packed up.

So, in short, when we put a poster or record or button or anything else up in the store for $99.95, we mean it. We're quite willing to take sales histories and competitors' prices into account, but we can't make it a practice to give steep discounts just because someone sends us an e-mail asking for same.

There are two main exceptions to this rule. The most obvious would be on eBay listings where we're inviting eBay Best Offers, or ckmac.com items that are part of special sales, but inviting offers and giving discounts is not the same as saying "buy it for half off." The other main area of exception is package deals. We're not at all averse to offering discounts and other incentives to buyers ready to make our day or week or month or year.

A final word on auctions and auction prices: Most of the time, we and other auctioneers start items very low with no reserve. That means we'll often sell collectibles far below "fair" retail, though occasionally the market will discover prices much higher than we would have set (and isn't that fun!). Sometimes, we auction items because we happen to have them in quantity, or because they're not in good enough condition or just the right kinds of pieces for us to want to keep them on hand. At other times we know from experience or observation that they'll do very well - and that starting prices are virtually irrelevant. More generally, we see auctions at least in part as promotions, and we also see them as a way to generate "liquidity."

In other words, if you see the same item offered in our store at some earlier or later time at some higher price than it sold for (or is being sold for) on auction, that's how it should be. Anything else would be breaking faith with our consignors, whose patience means they get much better than "liquidation prices." Furthermore, there's a premium for getting the particular item you want, often in superior condition and on your schedule, rather than on an auctioneer's schedule - to get it today right now or whenever you happen to be ready rather than when some auction happens to close (if it's not already too late).