[Peteparker]

I was going to reply in my typical fashion, quoting the ones I wanted to speak to and replying to those, but I found that the quotes are all about the same thing, BBTS' preorder prices and if that makes them scalpers or not.

I can verify that you'll easily spend 2-3K traveling to the con, especially if you're bringing someone or making a vacation out of it. I went with my wife last year, and that's right about what we ended up spending.

My question, to further the discussion, is what if you sell the extra stuff you find in order to pay for the things other people don't have to trade?

Apparently it's okay to buy things to trade, or to flip them at regular price and let the market determine the price, but outside of those two situations, it's a scalper mentality?

I find scalping to be when someone or someones DOMINATE the local market. They're not cherry picking a store here and there, they're making the rounds on a routine basis to buy every single item of value from every store in the area. THAT'S scalping. You're not giving a chance to the local collectors and toyhunters still in the area. Sure, you may be making those things available to people who don't hunt your grounds, but you're hurting your own market in the process too.

I don't know, I still stick to my earlier stated belief that scalper-calling is purely based around the fact that some people have things we want at prices we can't afford and we can't find them elsewhere.

It's more of a problem with distribution and case-packing than anything else...