Fukuda Signing Personalization Flipper Trash

[null_user]

@fourthstartcg

- They DO NOT like the idea of people making money off their signature.   

So they must be upset at the middle men making $85 per signature then.

[gottaketchumall]

Here’s a solution I just thought of. Have them hole punch the card after they sign it. I mean it’s having ink put on it anyways. Why not have a personalized signature hole punch they use.

[kpod]

@gottaketchumall

Here’s a solution I just thought of. Have them hole punch the card after they sign it. I mean it’s having ink put on it anyways. Why not have a personalized signature hole punch they use.

What current dilemma would that solve?

[fourthstartcg]

@null_user

@fourthstartcg

They DO NOT like the idea of people making money off their signature. They are signing for true fans of their artwork and the cards (hence the prices being low), not so people can make money. Regardless of what we think, to the artists the people aiming to make money from their signatures are deceptive and disrespectful.  

Not to be disrespectful to the artists, but it’s really none of their business what people do with the autographs. The signers agreed to take a $15 per autograph fee (too low IMO) in addition to the appearance and accommodation fees. That’s where it starts and ends with them.

If there is an opportunity for someone to make money in a legal way, then that opportunity will always be taken. If you don’t want people selling your autographs, then the only option is to not do autographs.

This isn’t something unique to Pokemon. If I Ebay search “SDCC Autograph Game of Thrones”, I can find 8 different posters signed by the cast. That must be immoral too…

First, that’s not what the artist agreed to. In this case, Fukuda only agreed to do the signing if all autographs were personalized. The $15 fee (plus ancillary stuff) is for a personalized autograph. These are not personalized and are clearly breaking the spirit of those rules.

As I mentioned, regardless of what we think, this is how the artists view it. I agree with you somewhat, I think it is a losing battle the artists are fighting and it would be much better for everyone if they didn’t try to ignore the fact that a lot of people want their signatures and not everyone can get to these events. It is a culture difference between Japan and the US though. Here we are a very capitalistic society where people understand that everything that can possibly be made money off of will be. Japan has different views.

Nobody is arguing that selling autographs is immoral in and of itself, that comparison is just irrelevant.

[smpratte]

@null_user

@fourthstartcg

- They DO NOT like the idea of people making money off their signature.   

So they must be upset at the middle men making $85 per signature then.

If this is supposed to be a shot at the E4 service, my flight cost alone was $1600. I’m not even breaking even for middling the cards.
Monetarily the trip is at a significant loss.

[thane]

@fourthstartcg

@null_user

Not to be disrespectful to the artists, but it’s really none of their business what people do with the autographs. The signers agreed to take a $15 per autograph fee (too low IMO) in addition to the appearance and accommodation fees. That’s where it starts and ends with them.

If there is an opportunity for someone to make money in a legal way, then that opportunity will always be taken. If you don’t want people selling your autographs, then the only option is to not do autographs.

This isn’t something unique to Pokemon. If I Ebay search “SDCC Autograph Game of Thrones”, I can find 8 different posters signed by the cast. That must be immoral too…

First, that’s not what the artist agreed to. In this case, Fukuda only agreed to do the signing if all autographs were personalized. The $15 fee (plus ancillary stuff) is for a personalized autograph. These are not personalized and are clearly breaking the spirit of those rules.

As I mentioned, regardless of what we think, this is how the artists view it. I agree with you somewhat, I think it is a losing battle the artists are fighting and it would be much better for everyone if they didn’t try to ignore the fact that a lot of people want their signatures and not everyone can get to these events. It is a culture difference between Japan and the US though. Here we are a very capitalistic society where people understand that everything that can possibly be made money off of will be. Japan has different views.

Nobody is arguing that selling autographs is immoral in and of itself, that comparison is just irrelevant.

As if this whole signature event wasn’t completely motivated by money. You think Fukuda is gonna go back to his complementary hotel room and cry into his pile of signature money because some small percentage of his fans are gonna sell their cards for profit? Just because Pokemon artists aren’t your perceived view of dirty American capitalists doesn’t mean they’re not in it for their piece of the pie.

Objectively, there are now more happy owners of signatures on Pokemon cards that they like. What’s so wrong with that?

[azulryu]

Question: What do people here value more, the price of a dollar bill or an artist’s work?

[fourthstartcg]

@thane

@fourthstartcg

First, that’s not what the artist agreed to. In this case, Fukuda only agreed to do the signing if all autographs were personalized. The $15 fee (plus ancillary stuff) is for a personalized autograph. These are not personalized and are clearly breaking the spirit of those rules.

As I mentioned, regardless of what we think, this is how the artists view it. I agree with you somewhat, I think it is a losing battle the artists are fighting and it would be much better for everyone if they didn’t try to ignore the fact that a lot of people want their signatures and not everyone can get to these events. It is a culture difference between Japan and the US though. Here we are a very capitalistic society where people understand that everything that can possibly be made money off of will be. Japan has different views.

Nobody is arguing that selling autographs is immoral in and of itself, that comparison is just irrelevant.

As if this whole signature event wasn’t completely motivated by money. You think Fukuda is gonna go back to his complementary hotel room and cry into his pile of signature money because some small percentage of his fans are gonna sell their cards for profit? Just because Pokemon artists aren’t your perceived view of dirty American capitalists doesn’t mean they’re not in it for their piece of the pie.

Objectively, there are now more happy owners of signatures on Pokemon cards that they like. What’s so wrong with that?

First off, take a chill pill my friend. No need to go full keyboard warrior on this.

I’m not arguing that the artists are right or wrong in what they’re doing, I’m just trying to help you understand why they’re doing so and why the people who are trying to get around the restrictions are in the wrong. In fact, I lean much more towards the idea that this “only personalization” method is problematic because, as my post says, it completely ignores the secondary market. In my other posts, however, I clearly lay out why the artists are doing this method in the first place as opposed to something else.

Your assertion that the “signature event was completely motivated by money” is incorrect. Fukuda could charge a lot more than $15 per signature, but he doesn’t. Previous signature events with Fukuda and other artists have been torpedoed because of misinformation that there would be rampant profiting from the event. The artists care about this stuff enough to leave large amounts of money on the table to avoid it. Which is why if we aren’t respectful of the restrictions they put in place, whether we agree with the artists’ reasoning or not, we could lose signed cards altogether.

[azulryu]

Another thought: What are people’s thoughts on giving their signatures on cards at event meetups to other members of the community?

There’s a point that I think some people are forgetting here. A lot of this is to have the chance to share in a community in a special way - having a signature by a legend from something you love adds a lot of joy - the artists deserve compensation for the time and effort they put into that, but I’m sure many of them also enjoy the experience of seeing excitement, the variety, and pieces of history returned to their view. The smiles and the memories created are important here.

Then you have xXCharizardSephirothXx come over and say, “Hey, here’s this card thing. Can you sign it? I want to sell it.” There is no value stored, the time and effort and the moments of sharing stop at this interval. Someone is excited to make a profit. There is only one person in that scenario. The artist probably shares no joy in that. Sure, the card could go to someone who enjoys it and feels like they have something more, but they’re also coming from a privileged standpoint where they have access to that. There’s a skip in that connection.

Imagine any of the members here we’ve made connections with and share our signature cards with - only to find out that the person you thought you just made an interpersonal connection with, sold your card for profit. Your interaction feels fake. The moment feels fake. The connection is broken.

I’m not upset about the people who buy cards like this - they want something that they personally value - hopefully not because it’s rare, but because it’s just awesome to have. If the flippers actually cared about that, then I imagine there would be a considerable price drop. I’m more upset by the people who feel like that connections means nothing more than a potential bill in their pocket. If you need the money, sure, go ahead and do that, you have every right to do so, but if you’re upset that people are getting upset about your business practices, maybe you should relearn the meaning of “authenticity.”

[pfm]

I recommend burning this thread down and staring a new one for displaying the sigs people here got. Maybe we can turn this into a positive thing instead

[drazirahc]

@pfm

I recommend burning this thread down and staring a new one for displaying the sigs people here got. Maybe we can turn this into a positive thing instead

Couldnt agree more, why dont we spend our energy on showing off the great new autos we got, instead of having a «pissing contest» over flippers?

Any market needs liquidity, so flipping serves a purpose, that we all benefit from, like it or not!

And most of us flip cards/boxes to a certain degree to finance our collecting.

I know many of these so called flippers, and many of them are quite knowledgable of the Pokemon Tcg and are also vivid collectors with heavy collections.

So please stop being so damn arrogant.

[thane]

Here’s some of my autos

[null_user]

@smpratte

@null_user

So they must be upset at the middle men making $85 per signature then.

If this is supposed to be a shot at the E4 service, my flight cost alone was $1600. I’m not even breaking even for middling the cards.
Monetarily the trip is at a significant loss.

It wasn’t a shot, it was a comparison. The purpose of this thread is to demoralize people making money from convention autographs, almost like this was any new thing.

While I don’t participate in the practice, I can’t fault people that do. It’s a legitimate means of income. Same with middle man service. My point was that it’s hypocritical to be against one avenue of using convention autographs for profit while being fine with the other.

[smpratte]

I think people fail to understand the nuance. I totally agree these artists can be babies about the second hand market. The reality is the market activity does trigger/ruin events. The solution would be if the artists simply charged more for their signature. $100 minimum and all of this doesn’t matter.

Anyway let’s pivot to another thread showing some of the cards signed! I’m here at the event and saw a lot of unique cards; it’s been a great turn out.