Last year, the Supreme Court voted to remove the requirement that online retailers must have a physical presence in a given state in order for individual states to impose sales tax obligations on a retailer. Since then, states have begun to adopt and implement this legislation. While these laws are still relatively new and will continue to expand and evolve over time, COMC will comply with any states requiring us to collect state sales tax on incoming payments from customers that reside within that state.
Please review the updated list for current information regarding sales tax requirements for each state.
Tax-Exemptions
For tax-exempt and non-profit organizations with a sales tax exemption certificate, or businesses with a resellers permit, please contact staff@comc.com with documentation so that our team can ensure that your account is not charged sales tax going forward.
Make a Trade!
Sell Items to Earn COMC Credit to Buy the Cards You Want Without Additional Sales Tax
With this new Sales Tax Legislation, COMC is only required to collect sales tax on incoming payments from customers in states that have adopted these new laws. Store Credit earned through selling items on COMC is not taxed. Whether you’re selling items that you submit for consignment, or flipping items you bought on the COMC Marketplace, sales tax is not applied to purchases made with Store Credit you earned from the sale.
This is an enormous added benefit that you’ll only find on COMC to the already abundant reasons that you should be selling your trading cards and comic books through our service. By doing so, you’ll not only save the time and hassle of doing the work yourself, but you’ll now save by not paying sales tax for the items that are purchased on COMC.
If you have any questions or comments regarding these changes, our friendly Customer Service Team will be more than happy to assist! Thank you.
Earlier this year we put out the word that we were opening up the COMC Blog to allow guest bloggers, and many of you enthusiastically answered the call! Over the last few months we’ve featured many great guest writers covering a wide range of subjects from definitive parallel guides to in-depth non-sports editorials to your favorite cards of all-time. We’d like to continue that trend by continuing to offer a platform for the many voices of the hobby to be heard.
We want you to write for the COMC Blog! Here are just a few potential blog ideas that our readers love:
Personal Collections: Do you have a collection that features a specific player, team, set or theme? We want to hear about and see your collection! Share your story and pictures of your collection!
How Do you use COMC?: Our team absolutely loves Customer Testimonials. How do you use COMC for your collecting experience? Do you have any good tips for buying or selling that you wan to share with others? Do you want to talk about your ‘flips’ and steals? Sound off and let us know!
Your Favorite Sets & Cards: Can you tell us why a card or two stands out the most to you? Does a particular insert set have a place in your heart? We want to hear about it!
Top 10 lists: Everyone loves lists right? Share with us your ten favorite cards in your collection, or ten favorite cards of a particular player! You get the idea!
Expert Analysis: Do you know more about a particular set, theme, or niche in the hobby that anyone else does? Share you wealth of knowledge with us!
Your Hobby Experience: When did your journey into the trading card industry get started and where is it now? Share your history in the hobby with fellow collectors!
To Submit a Guest Blog: We ask that each guest blog be at least 500 words, and contain at least two photos and/or images of trading cards. Using images found on COMC is encouraged! Blogs can be submitted via email body, word document, or any other standard file format. Simply send your content to staff@comc.com In your email, please include a brief biography (1 paragraph or less) about yourself, so that our readers can have a little insight into who you are and what you collect! Please include your COMC username as well! We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
We are pleased to announce our attendance at the L’Anti-Expo, at Stade IGA, 285 Rue Gary-Carter in Montreal, Quebec on October 5th & 6th, 2019. Visit us at our booth for one or all of the following events.
Dice Roll
All registered COMC users can roll the COMC dice for a chance to win one of ten prizes. Limit one roll per. New participants can sign up for a free account at the show. Winners will be announced shortly afterwards on our blog and Facebook pages. All participants will also receive a COMC branded storage box and a COMC souvenir (while supplies last).
Games for the Kids
All kids accompanied by a COMC account-holding parent can roll the dice for instant prizes (while supplies last).
Consignment Drop-Offs
We will be accepting drop-off submissions at the show. Please read the instructions below to help facilitate a smooth hand-off.
1) All submissions must have complete and accurate paperwork by using our Submission Wizard. Use the L’Anti-Expo drop-off location option on step 5 of the submission wizard to expedite processing.
2) Ensure your submission is packed securely. We strongly recommend one row boxes instead of multi-row boxes (such as 1600ct or 3200ct). For large submissions, multiple single row boxes can be used, labelled 1 of X, 2 of X, etc.
3) The cut-off time for accepting submissions at the show will be Sunday, October 6th at 2:00PM EDT.
4) Please allow up to 10 calendar days for consignments submitted at the L’Anti-Expo to reach our Burnaby office. Your submission at the show will be entered into your account and begin processing on the week of October 14th to 18th.
As always we are more than happy to answer any questions you have about COMC. Our Customer Service Team is available at staff@comc.com to answer questions leading up to the L’Anti-Expo.
It’s been a little while since I penned one of these columns, so I spent the better part of the week wracking my brain how I would tie together the four talking points that I wanted to hit on in this blog. It’s been said among generations of country western singers that the key to a great song is “three chords and the truth”. That seemed like a pretty good format to work off of, so without delving any further, here are my three chords and a truth.
Chord #1: A Reunion 10 Years in the Making
One of the perks of working for COMC is that I talk to literally hundreds of collectors on a daily basis. One of the reoccurring points in those discussions is always of trading cards that we once owned but are no longer in our collection. Whether it be low numbered or short printed cards that were sentimental to us that we can no longer owned, or cards that are now worth 100x what we sold them for, everyone has at least one sad cardboard stories.
My story revolves around a beautiful red refractor rookie card of Tim Lincecum from the 2007 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects set. Numbered to just 5 copies, it is without question my favorite trading card of one of my favorite athletes of all time. it’s a card that I’ve talked about on this very blog many times in the past. The story goes that in 2009 I was a little tight on money and had to part with the card when I sold off part of my collection. Less than six months later, I was on the hunt to reacquire the card, but was unsuccessful. The collector I had sold the item to had also sold it themselves. Every pathway to a reunion proved a waste of time.
As the years went by and Lincecum’s career flourished and then floundered, I assumed that my opportunity to find one of the five cards was diminishing with each passing year. The push notifications that I had set up on my phone for COMC and eBay for ‘2007 Tim Lincecum Red’ only occasionally yielded false hope notifications that his Topps Turkey Red RC was now in-stock.
Earlier this past Spring, I received a text message from ProjectFiveFive, a fellow Lincecum collector who said that our friend and Lincecum collector TheFreakyFranchise55 was willing to part with his copy of the card I so coveted. Mine was an ungraded and number 3 in the print run, and his was PSA 9 numbered five in the print run, but I didn’t care. A price was quickly negotiated and within a matter of days, my white whale was now safely within the confines of my office at COMC, never to leave my collection again under no circumstances. The cloud that has been hanging over my personal collection has dissipated.
Chord #2: The Fred Hutchinson Award Luncheon
Speaking of emails, last year I received an email from a gentleman named Stan Opdyke, a local collector who is also a very passionate supporter and contributor to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Following an email exchange, he sent over an incredible blog that we published last year highlighting the life and times of Fred Hutchison. In the golden area of Pacific Coast League baseball in 1938, Hutchinson posted a 25-7 record with the Seattle Pilots before moving on to a 10 year career in the big leagues. Hutch would later manage both the Pilots and three major league teams before passing away at the young age 45 from lung cancer.
His legacy lives on to this day thanks in large part to his brother, Bill Hutchinson, a doctor who originally diagnosed him. Bill founded the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle in 1975. The Hutch Award was created a year after his death in 1965 to honor courageous and inspirational baseball players facing similar adversities. This year’s recipient was Stephen Piscotty of the Oakland Athletics, who’s mother passed away from ALS in May 2018.
Mr. Opdyke kindly invited myself and my fiancé to attend the 54th annual Hutch Award luncheon at T-Mobile Park (Formerly Safeco Field) this past July. The experience was as unique as it was emotionally powerful. Speeches from the employees of The Hutch spoke to the goals and the advancements made in medicine. Keynote speaker and 1995 Hutch Award recipient Jim Abbott spoke of the adversity he faced on and off the field as a pitcher born without a right hand. The event was capped off by powerful message from Stephen Piscotty’s father Mike, who has firmly vowed his life’s work towards finding a cure for ALS.
All-in-all the Luncheon raised more than $577,00, which will go towards accelerating research towards new treatments and cures. I’m a firm believer in utilizing the things that you love to make the world around you a better place, and the Hutch Award and Fred Hutchinson bridge that gap for me, uniting the amazing game of baseball with a meaningful and impactful humanitarian effort.
Chord 3: The National isn’t all about the Cards, it’s about the People
The 2019 National Collector’s Convention in Chicago marked the fourth year I’ve been fortunate enough to attend The National as a representative of COMC. While I’ll admit that my first National experience back in 2016 was five days of sensory overload being in the same room as thousands of revered landmark cards of our industry collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars, my National experience has taken on a different form in recent years.
I won’t lie, my COMC portfolio will prove me guilty of dollar box diving and ripping bad wax many times over. However the true enjoyment of The National for me is celebrating our hobby with the growing number of familiar faces and connections I’ve made over the years. Meeting thousands of COMC buyers and sellers each year offers us perspective on how collectors intertwine COMC with their collecting needs. We hear their successes and their frustrations, and from those conversations we are able to extract ways that we can improve our platform and re-prioritize desired features we would like to implement on COMC based on their needs.
To me, The National isn’t about finding a 2013 Topps Update Emerald Foil Christian Yelich RC in a dollar box (true story for fellow COMC representative James T.), it’s about my yearly selfie with Ivan (@WatchTheBreaks) of GoGTS Live and chatting about the Twitter-verse. It’s about eating deep-dish pizza with my partner in the Pokemon card world Jameel (Meelypops on COMC) and his team. Having recently opened his first shop in Florida, understanding how his position in the hobby has changed helps me gain the perspective of that of a new shop owner.
Speaking of new shop owners, Ryan (@CardCollector2) bought and re-imagined a shop in Grove City, Ohio just months before The National, amidst the planning of the fourth annual Instagram Trade Night. Having attended the prior three events which COMC has sponsored, Ryan took his event to a whole new level this year by renting out a ballroom blocks from the National. This allowed well over 1,000 attendees to comfortably gather, trade, and enjoy the four hour experience. The work Ryan has done breathing life into the Instagram trading card community and introducing young new collectors to the hobby is an effort that will reward the hobby for decades to come.
The Truth: August 17th, 2019
The truth is that I have been blessed with a life that allows me to live surrounded among the trading card hobby and all of it’s wonder. I live in a world occupied by cardboard, stat lines, and sports memes. I’m incredibly grateful for my better half, who has supported every single moment of it for the last four and a half years.
Less than two weeks after I returned home from The National,
I married the love of my life along the coast of Washington as 20 of our closest
family members and friends watched on. Nothing in my life will ever be as
special as the day we said, ‘I Do’. She is my true 1/1 in this world.
Happiness isn’t finding that pristine 52’ Mantle hiding within an old shoe box at a garage sale you’ve searched for all your life. Happiness is meeting and surrounding yourself with the people who will encourage and support you to never stop searching.
Since 2007, I have attended every National Sports Collectors Convention. It provides me with an opportunity to get a pulse on how the industry is evolving. This year more than ever I sensed a noticeable shift. The convention was more crowded than I have ever seen. I was frequently peering over someone’s shoulder just to get a look at a table. It was encouraging to see the hobby booming, and I couldn’t help but reflect on why the industry has seen such growth.
Sports are enjoyed in many ways. Some fans travel coast to coast to cheer on their team at the big game. This is done to share the special moments, in both success and defeat, with the players we love. But we don’t have to be there to feel that way. When we have a player’s cards, they become a part of us. When they fail, we do. When they succeed, we feel the triumph. That’s why sports card collecting is the ultimate celebration of sports. They help us feel closer to our players, living the special moments with them.
One of the most noticeable changes I saw at the convention this year was that both the attendees and the dealers were getting younger. There was a healthy representation of all age groups. This is particularly exciting because it indicates the hobby’s strength and increased prosperity for years to come.
Unfortunately, the growth of the market and the potential for individuals to make money within it has incentivized some people to find ways to cheat the system, especially through unethical card alteration in an attempt to turn a profit. Thanks to the efforts of several passionate people in our hobby, the extent of this practice of alteration is starting to be uncovered.
What is COMC doing about this? Recently it was brought to our attention that some cards that were for sale on COMC or that had been sold by COMC may have been altered. Within 24 hours, we began an internal investigation and locked items as well as user accounts related to this investigation. This investigation is ongoing, and we do not have an estimate for when it will be completed.
COMC will be offering a full refund on any item that is discovered to have been altered. We want to stress to our customers that we are actively auditing every product that has been sold or that is currently for sale in our known records for signs of alteration. If a product has been found to be altered, we will be directly contacting the affected customers to offer refunds if they would like to return the item.
Since our inception our brand promise has been to be the “The Safe and Easy Way to Buy and Sell Cards”. As part of this promise, we are continually investing in the improvement of our various technologies, procedures, and policies that will create the proper safeguards for our customers. We will be adjusting our policies and procedures to make it harder for altered items to get onto COMC. This starts with, but is not limited to, strict penalties for fraudulent activities on our platform.
How you can help? Report any fraudulent item in the hobby by sending an email to blacklist@comc.com with the information below.
Description of the item with a link to the listing if available
Description of the issue(s) with the item
Grading certification number, when applicable
Serial number, when applicable
If Altered: Before and after photos of the item showing clear evidence of alteration
If Counterfeit:
Photos of the item showing clear evidence of counterfeiting
Photos of authentic copy of the item, when possible
If the item is actively for sale on COMC please include the COMC Item Number in the subject so that we can be sure to investigate the item as quickly as possible.
Cards we can verify as fraudulent based on the details provided will be added to our database to help ensure that they are never allowed to be sold on COMC.
Cancellation of the Premier Event
To allow us to focus on our investigations and improving our systems, we will unfortunately be canceling the Premier Event that had been scheduled for this month. We were looking forward to this event to offer buyers a new way to shop for some of the best the COMC marketplace has to offer, but we feel it’s right to take a step back at this time so we can strengthen collector confidence in the hobby.
Summary
At the forefront of the industry, COMC is uniquely positioned to make the biggest impact in uplifting the hobby we know and love by being the Safe and Easy Way to Buy and Sell Cards. We are excited that we have an opportunity to make the hobby even safer and more enjoyable for our customers. These additions along with other new upcoming features are going to take our platform to the next level and create a secure and truly special experience for the entire hobby. The future is bright for collectors. We can’t wait!
Since 2007, I have attended every National Sports Collectors Convention. It provides me with an opportunity to get a pulse on how the industry is evolving. This year more than ever I sensed a noticeable shift. The convention was more crowded than I have ever seen. I was frequently peering over someone’s shoulder just to get a look at a table. It was encouraging to see the hobby booming, and I couldn’t help but reflect on why the industry has seen such growth.
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