Sketches sold on Auction

kizu · Post by **kizu** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:11 am

Just wondering if Mandarake has a habit of displaying the "best" sketch on the photos in their auction or do they just choose randomly? Do they count eyes/mouth/limbs in their sketch count? Thanks.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:38 am

My experience is that Mandarake tries to picture the best sketches in a set, but so often they fail, because they don't always know what's "best" as far as characters/scenes go. I've won some great sets for super-cheap because of this. But, don't expect that to always be the case.

Last I checked, yes, they DO count partials in the sketch set sheet count.

kizu · Post by **kizu** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 5:17 pm

Thank you. That answers my question perfectly.

Kata · Post by **Kata** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 8:28 pm

From experience on my own, they put up the best and rest isn't anything. I had sketches with just a line or a few nothing great at all. Best ones were up on the site scanned. I had times were rest was same as the ones online except not as good. From same sequence.

animeobsessed · Post by **animeobsessed** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:43 pm

My experience has been that the best is showing. Sometimes the other sheets are all from the same cut. You usually can tell this will happen by what is showing in the 3 pics. (same as Kata)

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 10:57 pm

Yeah, it's the same with me too. Usually the sketches I like the most are the ones they showed.

Sometimes there are sketches that I like almost as much as the sketches shown, but that's only happened about a third of the time.

star-phoenix · Post by **star-phoenix** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 11:28 pm

I had a HUGE tiff with Mandarake in the past regarding this, and that led me to never again deal with them.

My experience was they displayed 3 sketches from a show and said the sets consisted of 2 cm of sketches. I paid almost $1200 for the set.
When I received it, there were only those 3 sketches. The rest were paper scraps (about 1 cm of xerox scraps), all partial smoke or trees, and not a single character apart from those 3 sketches.

When I brought it to their attention, they practically mocked me as being a stupid person and I should have figured that when they start off an auction at 5000 yen and not 30,000 then the item is not worth that much (yes, the person ACTUALLY said that to me by e-mail).
They also admitted by e-mail to using that tactic (putting up the 3 sketches, advertising the auctions as those sets, then sending something that was not even close to as described).

I basically just shoved everything back in their faces and filed my CC claim in order to get my money back. My credit card company had no problem going after them especially since I had every e-mail of the person admitting to purposely misrepresenting the item.
This all happened about 7-8 years ago.

So, when it comes to buying from Mandarake, just pay what you think the sketches you see on display are worth and do not expect the set to be a complete set or to have any other full sketches.

kizu · Post by **kizu** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 9:29 pm

Thanks for the advise everyone. Well I'm not big on sketches but I have been bidding on a select few... Now that I hear this, maybe I will just bid as high as I'm willing to pay for the sketches that are showing instead.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 10:33 pm

You know, perhaps this is true for the super-popular shows that they know will make tons of $$, but I've won some lots of less-popular shows that had a lot more than what was shown in the 3 images.

Case-in-point: The entire Valkyria Chronicles section of my gallery was a single lot on Mandarake, most of which was not shown in the 3 images.

Also -- you CAN actually email them before the auction closes to see what else is in the set. They won't send you images, but they will describe characters, etc. I've done this in the past with plenty of success.

Sui Kune · Post by **Sui Kune** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 10:47 pm

Oh wow, really zerospace? I've emailed them about at least three auctions before, and they never responded. (I actually had a hell of a time even contacting them about the order mix-up I had, after the third email address it finally worked though.) I did specifically ask about certain characters, though, and linked to reference images of them. I always wondered if I was just too much of a bother or something.

animeobsessed · Post by **animeobsessed** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 12:38 am

I have emailed asking about number of full sheets and characters included and I have received a response, but I have to say it was vague. I will admit it was on more popular series.

star-phoenix · Post by **star-phoenix** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 2:54 am

The only times that I bid on an auction, I did ask prior to bidding.

1st Contact - One time I asked if a cel was original production, and they confirmed it was. It turned out being a reproduction, and it wasn't until a Beta member e-mailed me when she saw it in my gallery saying that it was in fact a repro.

2nd Contact - I e-mailed them about 2 times regarding the group of sketches I bought that I had the horrible experience on, and they did not respond at all.

So, I would advise to use extreme cauction. I have a feeling that whenever they DON'T respond or give a vague response, is when you need to be careful when bidding.

I used to think it was more of a Japanese / American cultural difference between the lack of descriptions, which it may very well be. If you ever compared the descriptions on the Yahoo Japan auctions and Ebay auctions, they tend to give a more detailed description on Ebay than Japan. But, I have done a lot of dealings with other sellers in Japan (ie Midori) who have always been more than helpful with answering questions about the sketch sets they are selling.

So, again, proceed with extreme caution and do not expect anything more than what you see in the photos even if they say there are thousands of sketches in the set, especially with Mandarake.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 9:40 am

animeobsessed wrote:I have emailed asking about number of full sheets and characters included and I have received a response, but I have to say it was vague. I will admit it was on more popular series.

Yep, this has been my experience, too -- I recall emailing them about FMA sets back when the original FMA series was in the height of popularity. I usually emailed early, too (like at least 4 days or more before the auction closed). There was a single person who always sent the replies, and I don't even know if she is still there--it has been several years since I've done this.

This isn't to say that you should throw caution to the wind and bid like crazy on Mandarake, as star-phoenix is saying. I'm sure they are more interested in making money than anything, but not everyone's experience with them is 100% negative. As I've said, I've had great luck with less-popular shows.

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 1:23 pm

I regards to sketches on Mandarake, I bid as much as I would pay for the sketches on display as I feel comfortable. I've bought a few sketch sets from them before, and there were lots of partials. I find I have better luck purchasing from Mandarake at their store than I do on the website. Sometimes they clear out artwork there that they don't think will sell, and sometimes you can find some nice stuff in the dollar bins. But, big emphasis on the 'sometimes' part. When I went to Japan in 2008, I also decided I would pick up a recent win at the store. After picking up the cel, for the next hour, they showed me other cels they had, but most of them were lower end cels. I don't know if they thought that I was out for cheap cels (not that the item I won was cheap) or if that's all they were allowed to show, but, since it seemed like a waste of everyone's time, I never asked them to show me anything again.

And...sadly, the neatest item I found on that trip in Mandarake was in the dollar bins...

On auction, Mandarake will typically start items low if they know that there's a greater likelihood that the item will end very high. This is especially true during the BWAs - how many times have you seen the really awesome item start at 5,000 yen when the more mediocre item starts at 30,000 yen?

rosesleep · Post by **rosesleep** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 2:10 pm

I e-mail them several times before but never got a response. My sole experience in asking about the quality of the sketches.