Collectors trying to control what other 
collectors do is unusual? Ha! Visit 
www.speculatorssuck.com. Start collecting books 
or trading in comic book art. Action figure 
collectors -- they hate the people who hit the 
stores early and then strip a shipment of the 
short packed figures to resell and support their 
own collections. People have knifed people and 
punched other people in the face for speculating 
in comic books, and sad to say, I'm not joking 
about this. In comparison, this discussion about 
speculation is civilized. 

Sure, you have a right to make a profit off of 
something you collect. The problem is that not 
everything we collect is gold, or worth as much 
as we wish. Sometimes the price you paid is the 
price you paid. If you have a rare or good cel, 
sure I think you should make a huge profit off of 
it. If you have something that you can find on 
any other dealer's website -- then you should 
scale back on your ideas of world domination of 
the cel market a bit. :) 

Case in point about the price you paying being 
the price you pay: there was a story in An 
Ordinary Madness -- case history of books 
collectors and an interesting read on the 
mentality of collectors -- where a rare book did 
not sell. It was a first folio edition of 
Shakespeare's works. A man bought it for over two 
million dollars. A year or so later, he was later 
forced to auction off his entire collection 
because he couldn't afford to "keep" it. In the 
end, he couldn't sell the Shakespeare edition. 
Too high for most people, even though it was 
rare, so they passed on it.  

(If we're going to drag poor Lady Z into this 
discussion -- it should be noted that she has 
also sold cels at below costs. I hope the hits 
and the profits she makes on them manages to 
level out for her.) 

I'm not sure why anyone needs anyone else's 
approval to resell -- go ahead and do it. Hey, 
it's not as though we "sore losers" can actually 
do about it, except complain. Hey, if you're free 
to do what you want, why can't we? :)  

And thus, the debate between realists and 
idealists rages forever more. :)