Mississippi Mudcats

I will admit I spend no time on these boards, but I have been a collector for 20 years or so and have been on the registry for over a decade. I was just browsing today and saw this topic and was frankly surprised with some of the content. I honestly did not know there was even any effort to correlate registry points to monetary value, because for the most part on the Silver Age books I collect, it isn’t even close. I would say that, on average, the registry points have not at all kept up with the rising prices, especially over the last two years, except for a few keys. So, if that is really a goal, it’s not happening. I never registered my books to win awards, but as an online inventory, which I could use to check what I have without going to the library shelves. I guess you could use some sort of Excel file to accomplish the same thing, but the registry has worked well for me. I personally think that, if you are going to have awards at all, they should be for collecting, not for having the money to buy one big book. Thus, I very much agree that there should be a sizable completion bonus. I also agree with bonuses for pedigrees and even page quality, as the market prices in both. Another thing I don’t care for is how the awards have become (they may have always been, I don’t know) some kind of participation trophy. Without pointing out any particular winner, the winning sets most years are not the best in terms of completion or difficulty to assemble, some don’t even top the registry in that title. I think you should employ bonuses so that one or two books cannot score highest in a category, but I don’t think any set that is not at least best in that title should win a bigger award. It is really not hard to compete most sets if you will accept any grade, but finding every book in a longer set in high grade takes not just money, but considerable time and effort. I do understand not wanting to give the awards to the same sets every year, as based purely on merit, among registered sets, Colorado Comic’s Spidey Collection, which he sold on Heritage last September, should have won every year. Perhaps one improvement would be to add a listing of the top ten or top twenty or top 100 sets, depending on how ambitious you want to be, based on registry points. Such a competition, if you call it that, might motivate more big collectors to register their sets, as it would be a good marketing point if you ever turn around and sell your books. A perfect scoring system would probably require much more effort than the awards are worth, but as is, the problems with the scoring system are almost too numerous to name. There is simply no way I know of currently to verify whether the registry member actually has the books listed in their registry. A person could go onto the Heritage database, grab the cert numbers of books not registered, which is time consuming, but not hard to do, register those books and top the registry. Now I cannot imagine why anyone would care enough to to do that, but as long as most books are not registered, which is certainly the case with respect to most early Silver Age Collections, we are not measuring the best collections, just those that someone took the time to input. There also are several sets still topping the registry where the owner has already sold all the books in question. Again, if the buyer does not register the books he buys, delisting the books by the seller takes some time and effort and there is zero motivation to do so. In short, the registry is a mess when viewed as a means of comparing various sets. And it gets back to the question, what exactly are we trying to measure here? I think that, if it’s a collecting award, you have to start by devaluing the keys, as those books just receive too many points, which is, of course, driven by the fact that the people who buy them are often investors and not collectors. Second, should the DC books receive more points than the relative values between DCs and Marvels? I understand that Marvels are far more popular and command higher prices, but finding High-grade DCs can be a Hell of a lot more challenging. Again, the question is what are we trying to measure? If it’s only how much money each collector has, well then publish their bank accounts rather than their registry points. It just seems like there should be more weight given to rarity in the census, if there are going to be awards at all. Let’s look at two iconic SA keys: AF #15 and Showcase #4. Now we all know that the AF #15 is a more coveted book, but it’s far from the rarer of the two. The Showcase #4 from 1956 has 552 registered copies in the census, 393 of which are unrestored. By contracts, the AF #15 from 1962 has 3,642 registered copies in the census, 2,349 of which are unrestored. So the Showcase #4 is roughly six times rarer than the AF #15. That rarity differential does go down as the grades go up, although it does still exist. There are 8 copies of Showcase #4 graded 9.0 or above (1 9.6, 2 9.4s, 2 9.2s and 3 9.0s) compared to 24 copies of AF #15 at those grades (4 9.6s, 6 9.4s, 3 9.2s and 11 9.0s). So the rarity index goes down to 3 to one. Presumably, the registry should reflect this by assigning more relative points to a high-grade AF versus a high-grade Showcase #4, does it? Not at all, the registry point system adopts no such refineries, the ratio of points assigned per grade stays constant between the two books. An AF #15 is worth 6.79 times what the same grade Showcase #4 is worth in terms of registry points. It’s a very crude system, as the points reflect neither value nor relative rarity. This discontinuity also exists between issues of the same title. Returning to the Flash Showcases, the #4 is actually the far most common Showcase Flash. There are roughly twice as many copies of Showcase #4 in the census as there are of copies of Showcase #8, #13 and #14. A 9.2 copy of Showcase #4 is worth 81,000 registry points, even though there are 5 copies that are as good or better. By contrast, a 9.2 #14 is worth just 13,650 points, even though it is the best copy of that issue available. Another interesting statistic, the last time a Showcase #4 in 9.0 or above sold was about 8 years ago. In that time, there have been over a dozen sales of AF #15s in 9.0 or above. If the registry points are meant to track value, how do we have any idea what a high-grade Showcase #4 is even worth today? The problem, of course, is a common one between Marvels and DCs. High grade Marvels, at least of key issues, tend to be in the hands of investor/speculators, while the comparable DCs are far rarer and tend to be owned by collectors. Collectors don’t sale nearly as often. If you have all the money in the world, you can accumulate a high grade Marvel Collection from the internet and auction houses fairly rapidly, while accumulating a similar DC Collection may cost far less, but could involve much more work and the patience of Job. As is, I don’t think the current registry point system measures anything of merit. I would prefer to see a better system or just junk it entirely. But implementing a better system requires first a determination of what you are trying to measure? I would argue for some form of point system that recognizes the difficulty of achieving a set in that grade. Ideally, it would reflect not just the grade of the books, but the rarity of such books, with bonuses for completion, page quality and pedigree. You might also consider a minimum number of books needed for a set to qualify for awards, maybe the lesser of half the books in a set or 100 books. It would also have to be frequently updated to reflect changes in the census. Perhaps the best answer would be some sort of scoring system based on percentages of what’s possible in the census multiplied by a level of difficulty, which could factor in cost. Again, it would probably entail more work than what it’s worth, but the current system reminds me of the old days of fantasy sports before desktop computers when we received a fax once a week with the league standings. It’s just so primitive, it really signifies nothing. If anything I said here offends anyone, I apologize, but I just don’t see any value in the current system. I do like the idea of having competitive sets, I would especially like a best set board on the site, which would direct a viewer immediately to the best sets out there. But as is, so few registry owners post scans or pics that I have pretty much quit looking at other owner’s sets. I do recognize that it would involve much more work to produce a more meaningful system. However, I like the idea of calculating a maximum number of points for each set and then scoring sets based on how close they are to real perfection, as reflected in the census. We don’t need to focus on scores for books that don’t currently exist. I think you also need some form of difficulty factor. Which reflects the overall number of books in the system for a title multiplied by some gauge of value, which presumably reflects the number of collectors chasing such books. You multiply the percentage of completion times the difficulty factor and you get a more meaningful score to compare sets that takes into account more than how much money someone has spent on a given book. You could then adopt bonuses for completion, pedigrees, page quality, etc…. You might also consider bonuses for pics and descriptions, although I guess there is a separate award for best presentation. You still have the problem of how few books are registered and collections that are still registered, but no longer exist. I have no idea how you get higher participation, I know many big collectors don’t register their books because they don’t want others to know what they need or lack. I guess you could have everyone who wants to be considered for the competition acknowledge that they still own the books in each set annually. Of course, they can always lie, but in most cases I think the sets our there that no longer exist are just a function of the owners not caring enough to remove them. Of well, I will end this treatise here. I would very much like to see a more meaningful registry point system for comparing collections, but I highly doubt we will ever see one, at least in the near future.

I was just browsing this topic and found this discussion. FWIW, I sent a scan of that book to Matt Nelson and he said it was an honest book and not one that would bother him. At any rate, it’s a beautiful book, if it were unrestored it’s probably at least a couple of million dollars in this market. Personally, I think that the market probably punishes restored books too much. Restoration is accepted in all antique furniture and rugs, even cars and paintings. If I had to guess, it’s CGC’s work. IMHO, the day will probably come when such books trade for 20-25% of unrestored ones of the same grade. There are just so many new collectors and so few high-grade keys that the law of supply and demand will drive them up. But what do I know LOL. It is an interesting subject for sure.

Chromium, you have a very good eye, your books present much better than their grades.

Hi, Old collector, new poster here. I think it’s evident that WP demand a premium, but here’s a debate I often have when deciding which book to keep. As most collectors know, Pacific Coast pedigrees are more often than not OW/W. When deciding which book to sell and which to keep, do you go with a PC pedigree with OW/W pages, or any major pedigree for that matter, or a non-pedigree WP copy? I am very interested to hear others’ thoughts. I have tended to stick with the pedigree copy, but I continue to struggle with that one. Thanks

Hi Lou, I think I sold you a few books a couple of years back if I remember correctly. Hope you are doing well? I honestly never even knew these boards existed, I was a CGC collector for over a decade before I even registered my books about 10 years ago. But for years, I used others’ accounts to submit books to CGC. It has only been the last 3-4 years where I have started doing a lot of private deals, as I have gotten tired of paying so many commissions and now the sales taxes on Heritage and E-Bay. Also, since I recently retired, I now have much more time, albeit with less money LOL, to spend on the hobby. I just thought I would check in on the boards as perhaps a means to buy and sell books privately. Also, in my 20+ years of collecting, I have never seen prices so crazy, just wondering to what other collectors attribute it? The DD phenomenon is a strange one to me. Quite frankly, it is far from my favorite Marvel, but I do have an almost a complete 9.6/9.8 run through Issue #157. I even have a couple of #1s that I bought off the newsstand as a kid, which I guess dates me LOL. Personally, I just don’t see the reason for this sudden surge in prices for DDs, especially #1 9.6s-I only have a 9.4, one of I think three. You have to wonder what the 9.8s would make if they ever surfaced? Of course, GS X-Men 9.8s may be even crazier. If anyone wants to pay me what that book made yesterday, I might be willing to part with my SS 9.8. I mean I like the book, but I am not sure these prices are sustainable with so many in the census. Personally, I am fairly certain these prices represent the emergence of speculators in the market. I have spoken to Josh and other dealers and lots of the recent buyers are new. It is pretty easy to see that it’s uneducated money when books at auction go for more than double the asking price of the same books in the same grade that have sat on E-Bay for months. Will they stay in the market or is this just a symptom of COVID boredom? I guess it’s great for the value of my collection, but I still buy more books than I sell and they have certainly priced me out of the market on many books I would like. Take Care

LOL, I wish. Have any of these $100k+ DD #1 9.6s been registered by anyone? I am guessing that DD #1 9.6 has become the comic equivalent of Game Stop, none of the buyers are comic collectors. it would be interesting to see whether the prices stay this high or it’s just a COVID bubble. All I know is that I am kicking myself that I did not just buy one at $40k last year instead of trying to get one down to $35k.