I had a vision for TIG to expand beyond it's normal functions and possibly look into offering services. This is nothing I expect to happen this week/month/year but possibly somewhere down the line.

Do you all see any value in offering services as a forum? I can't narrow to specifically one thing, but just general stuff like:

Authentication
Consignments / Storefront
COA's
Escrow services

All this would be surrounding vintage SW only and nothing else. I think AFA and CIB are wonderful services and I think having an alternative for people to use might have a place in the community. Some services would be free and others a charge. I really haven't thought that far down the line. Just to answer the easy question, no I would not rely solely on myself. I'd talk to experts in all respective fields for authentication and have it set up correctly.

FWIW , nothing would change in the forums or on the main ID site. It'll never be a charge and the information would always be there for people to see.

So the big question , any pro/con reasons for it? I'd really like some candid thoughts. It can be overall or even just one thing I mentioned.

hi john what a great idea allthough ukg and afa are a great sorce

there are allso many many seasoned collectors on here and like you said many collectors that have been collecting for years and have years of experance know when something is authentic or not so why not have a tig grading system i for one would trust it and so would many many others

so yes i would give it the thumbs up for shure

John,

Out of the four you mentioned, consignment/storefront and escrow services might be the most obtainable. Although there are plenty of seasoned collectors, authentication and COA's would be tricky.Personally, I am not sure anyone wants to see my name across a piece of paper anytime soon. We have plenty of resource threads here, I am sure someone can tell a person if an item is fake or not.

What about a online auction similar to RS last year? Just a thought.

Hey john i like the authentication idea, as well as an auction a semi
annual auction with a portion of the proceeds going to a charity. We could
keep it to a few items per member, also what about a TIG collectors convention
maybe in CT! Thanks for wanting input on trying to bring TIG to the next level.
ps how about putting model trems on the official TIG screen !

I think a better way to better the site would be to rebuild the classified from scratch.

It is time consuming to go thru all the ads and also annoying to go thru an ad only to find out that it is done but never was closed. I am not a big fan of this method of selling here and on rebelscum. People don't always answer their mail in time. don't always update their threads and that is why i rely on ebay since there is no real garage sales around here for star wars stuff.

I have no clue as to give you an idea as to do it in a different way but there must be one. I would gladly buy from people here if they had a active gunnery storefront page where they would sell the stuff they want to part with. That way i have an idea of what they have and how much they are asking for.

It would be nice if people could build a store front according to their needs and let people shop with them. I always found that you "do" get better deal here or on rebelscum than on ebay but the job of sifting thru the info is tedious.

it would be nice to have an auction site just dedicated to star wars stuff.

cheers

John,

My opinion would be two thumbs up for the escrow service and the storefronts for sellers.

As far as the Authentication goes, I think maybe offer the service but don't stop people from asking on the forum for free. I think its a learning experience even for the people that feel confident in identifying fakes. We gain much more knowledge as a community than by ourselves, so taking it away from the forum would hurt the community.

But like I said just my opinion and maybe you could start small and grow into something that no one could imagine.

Jaybird wrote:

John,

My opinion would be two thumbs up for the escrow service and the storefronts for sellers.

As far as the Authentication goes, I think maybe offer the service but don't stop people from asking on the forum for free. I think its a learning experience even for the people that feel confident in identifying fakes. We gain much more knowledge as a community than by ourselves, so taking it away from the forum would hurt the community.

But like I said just my opinion and maybe you could start small and grow into something that no one could imagine.

Just to be clear, we'd never remove anything that is here, including people giving their expertise in authenticating. I'm spitballing, but for high end rare items we could that them shipped, physically authenticated and documented.

If we did anything along those lines, it wouldn't be at the sacrificing of stuff we do here on the forum.

I will give it some thought of what type of things we could offer here I really do like the grading idea it's always good to have more options with just afa they can set how much they charge and you have no choise but with compitition and the knowledge we have here it would keep the cost down and give people a choise thats just my view on that.

I will think of other stuff we as a group can do

I tend to agree with Jason West about the grading/authentication services.

Also i think it's better for the forum to distinct itself from the rest on in other form, like an other kind off classifieds system or with more Active auctions or something like that for example.

Just my thoughts:

The members of this forum must have tons of figures / vehicles whatever SW vintage for sale.
I'd love to see a section where you can post your duplicates for sale or trade which is also properly maintained and a proper search engine
No auction style, just BIN and trade offers.

Fixed format like photo, description, price, whatever is required to fairly compare figures and prices.
I'd welcome a 'grading system - the TIG grade' with standard criteria for these sales.
Seller/buyer could pay x% extra for the service of buying (or trading) through this forum.

Advantages;
Since a lot of members will be checking the figures and photo's you can be sure of authenticity and quality grade (as far you can judge this from a photo).
It might serve as a reference guide so you can compare prices and quality with sites like Ebay.
Sales and trade frequency will go up since it's possible to search and compare etc.
It will generate additional revenue for the site.
The nicer stuff will remain on the forum instead of being sold to someone through another site?

Downside;
Liability for errors (Ebay / PayPal don't have a service desk for nothing).
etc.

I will give a thumbs up input here, this sounds like great ideas.
More reliable resourses are more than welcome i think and its just a plus that the autenication or what ever it will be comes from nice friendly people that dont do it for the money but to expand and improve the comunity.

starting to grade opens up a whole other can of worms.

for starters you already have 2 companies who are grading so who will be able to say that a 3rd company is even better than the other 2.

if there are errors then the gunnery is on the hook for it.

some people will grade their toys just to turn around and make big bucks because of the grade which really ticks me off. ok the toy is a certified c 9.5 or some other number for a grading system but i can have the same toy at same grade uncertified for someone 1000% less if i look around carefully. This is especially true for the last 17 wherein a lot or people are in the game of making money with them since they are considered rarer. But to wahat extent and at what cost? We already have 2 systems that people abuse.... do we really need a 3rd one?

most people here already know what the grades are and what to expect. It would be nice if TIG would facilitate the circulation of toys that people are willign to let go.

my 2 cents...

Sorry to be brief , but since a couple of people brought it up I wanted to explain "grading"

I didn't mean to imply 70 vs 80 vs 85.

I meant it more in terms of authentication. Now that I see the replies I realize I worded it terribly. Sorry about that.

I read wrong and saw escort services, I was a bit disappointed when it was something else

I might have gotten this wrong and sorry if it's already been said, but I don't think a paid authentication service is a good idea, many people join forums asking for free help. And it's from my view why forums grow.
I think that if there is a authentication service, the people being part of it(which most likely will be those with most knowledge) will not help unless you send it to them and pay. And that moves away from what a forum is all about.

AFA and UKG already got rep up and a serious front that many trust.

Sorry for being negative, if we need to gather money for the forum, then I think that we need to find other methods that don't affect the users. Authentication is a bit what this forum is based on as well, when I first came here it was because I needed help with repros.

As i see it, i would gladly send or let the seller send via som sort of autenication for a small sum of cash. Like for instans, i want to buy a dt Luke or darth and i feel insecure of it then i would be able to ask the seller to send it to John for his and the other one ivolved for a thumbs up or down. If the seller feels its ok i mean. Then you have something to refer to when you sell it later on in the future that can make it easier to get it sold and cheeper than Afa/ukg.

Just my 2.

I think its a fantastic idea, its great to be looking at different 'services' this sort of site could offer, the site seems to have a lot of credibility about it with a great depth of contacts and members all over the planet, i think it has the potential to get alot bigger with this sort of forward thinking.
A storefront seems like a great idea, actually all the ideas have some legs if done the right way.
It looks like there are interesting times ahead, happy days, cheers

Great feedback everyone, keep it coming!

Just to be crystal clear, TIG will never stop being a forum first. That also means the resources, photos, and tools to make sure people are informed and educated.

I was thinking more along the lines of helping out when that's not enough. It can take many forms. Authenticating an item in hand, escrowing payments, etc.. Again nothing at the compromise of the forum.

Just to throw a few other ideas:

Raffles

Live Auction in the Chat

TIG-Con (Virtual Toy Show)

Appraisal Services

Paypal dispute resolution

anything else?

DarthBerizing wrote:

Raffles

Live Auction in the Chat

TIG-Con (Virtual Toy Show)

I like these ideas, this was the kind off things i meant.