1Cool

Wait - isn't there a ASM 238 CGC with Tattooz up for sale right now on E-Bay for $1,850??

I've always thought of 15 cent books as Silver-Age but I guess this book could be just on the barrier between Silver and Bronze. 1971 books were definitely prior to the increase in print runs so I can believe 9.8s are not common (CGC 9.4 is the highest I see on E-Bay).

I didn't see the outcome of the auctions but I'm thinking they are saying hard to find and meaning Gold / SIlver-Age books. Even the ASM 238 CGC 9.8 is plentiful compared to some of the unicorns that they must be talking about. Bronze and Copper and Modern still are tanking pretty much across the board compared to the peaks in 2021 / 2022. A drop from $8,500 to $5,100 in 3 months is quite the haircut

In terms of the theatrical release I see this being a disaster. Who really is clambering for and willing to shell out $10 - $15 to see this in a theater? I liked the Depp version but even that one felt a bit pushed in terms of being must watch tv.

I hate to say it but I completely agree. I tried to watch the new special last night and I got about 10 minutes in and had to change it to something else. I was so excited to watch some new Dr Who but it just was so boring and just not what I expect from one of my favorite shows. I never got around to finishing the last season and with this absolute turd muffin I just feel like the entire franchise is coming to a close.

There seemed to have been quite a few of these late in 2023 but I'm setting up at this one after a late cancellation got me a table. There were quite a few new guys at the last one so hopefully we will see some new books that are being blown out at the end of the year. I'm bringing my e-bay stock with a 25% discount across the board and a handful of long boxes full of high grade Bronze / Copper books. Stop by and say hi! Jeff Harper Productions (harpercomics.com)

Always a fun event! I'll go with my typical mystery box which will be tailored to the taste of the picker.

Price?

Good points but selling here on the boards is probably your best bet since most buyers on E-Bay will not really care if the books at 9.0 / 9.2 or 9.4 / 9.6 when it comes to the prices they will pay. There is so much drek in that set of WoS that most dealers wouldn't touch a set for probably more than $150 even if they were absolute perfect. A high grade comic buyer on the boards could get closer to the full $300 - $400 value if they are 9.4 / 9.6 with mylites (if they need all 126 issues) but most e-bay buyers just are not that choosy and you have to account for the dealer typically wants to at least double the price they paid. It usually comes down to how much work you want to put into it before you blow out the common sets (especially if you are selling the keys separately).

Here is a good exercise in terms of setting your expectation to a reasonable level. You have a near complete set of Web of Spiderman which retail for about $300 for the set. Look at what price the app puts on the set to see how inflated the app is compared to real world. You will also have to take a big hair cut if you want to sell your collection to a dealer (especially the non key books). So if the Web of Spiderman set is $300 in retail then you will probably get offers of $150 for that set if they are very nice high grade books. If the app gave you a price of $1,000 for the set then you know you will have to divide the price by 6 (or about $7,000 for the collection) to come close to a realistic price. Based on your list you posted I don't see $7,000 worth of books in that type of collection but you may be able to generate that kind of money if you do a lot of the leg work and sell directly to people. Good luck with the sale and let us know how it goes since it's always eye opening when trying to sell books compared to buying them.

Sad news RIP Bird!

What constitutes a pickle lover?? Is there a scale we can use to weed out the pickle liker’s from the lovers?

True, true. We discussed this at lengths in 2020/2021 when prices were going crazy. This thread is about the crash after the explosion.

E-Bay sellers are crazy is what you are telling me? But if you bought the ASM 1 CGC 4.0 way back in 2019 you basically break even if you sell it now once you take out fees.

I think the data reflects your intuition since the number of books sold would also be way up if people were successful in making a sale (especially if the number of books available is up 75%). The fact that the number of books sold is holding steady means some people are finding books at the price point they want to buy at but there is a large jump in the number of books which are a priced too high to make a sale (either new to the market or hold overs from 2020 - 2021). The 1.5 million sold books probably are books that got a nice haircut in price and it will be interesting to see if people have to eventually drop their prices to push that sold number up or if people will just put their books back in the attic and wait things out (even if that takes a decade).

My data set is very limited but where are all the sellers coming from? If the same number of books sold then the extra 75% in E-Bay inventory would have to come from books that were bought at Cons or on other web sites. My gut is telling me people are hurting for cash because of inflation and extra expenses (ie possibly gearing up for retirement) and they saw all the high prices and now are flooding the market with all the books that were in the attic or basement. I'll check it again next August to see if the pattern holds up but it's just a pet project of mine to see how e-bay items fluctuate over time.

I've got a small tidbit of data that I find interesting. On 8/1/22 I checked and there was 2.9 million comic books available on e-bay with 1.52 million comics having been sold over the previous 3 months. Here we are almost 16 months later and there are currently 5.1 million comic books available on e-bay while the same 1.52 million comic books have sold in 3 months. So comics are still selling (no telling about the price of the 1.52 million books sold) while the number of books available has skyrocketed up by almost 76%. Not sure if this is due to brick on mortar stores having to post everything they have in stock due to less foot traffic or people are trying to clear out stuff from their basement but the numbers are kind of shocking.

I think the Japanese dominance in terms of cars was because they were perceived as being more dependable and a better bang for your buck. Anime can be seen as having the same benefits - low cost and great bang for your buck. The US big 3 have not really put much of a dent into taking back the dominance of Honda and Toyota after quite a long time table so is Marvel / DC destined to follow the same path where they just can't compete (other than in certain niche markets). I don't see a way for Marvel or DC to produce comics at the same price as anime and I just don't see a way for them to compete without paying artists nothing and using the poorest paper quality. Is there any way for Marvel or DC to complete for younger readers with the current prices? There sure seems to be demand when free comic day comes around but most don't come back.

Based on the current print runs it appears the gimmicks are not working I always thought the age of multiple variant covers was the beginning of the end of printed comics since it was just one big gimmick to get extra sales on a lagging product.

You seem to have laid out a pretty good route for avoiding pretty much every conflict on the boards. Ignoring people should be pretty easy considering the filtering options we have and the fact that it's very, very easy to just pass on by if you don't like a post of a series of posts. We all know Roy doesn't like to let slights go unanswered - especially if he is passionate about the topic. I hope he gets the ability to just ignore some people when they start picking at his every word.

You still talk to that board member that opened a store several years ago (I think it was Jason)? It didn't sound like it was working out pre-COVID so I hope he either turned it around of got out when the going was good.

I've not read a new comic since around the time Saga came out so it's good to hear what books people are actually reading (even if they are not super hero books).

Roy is attacked on this site. People can say it's not true but it's pretty plain if you have been here for awhile. People do not debate the ideas he has but instead attack the person. This has morphed into always dissecting that person's statement to always posting a certain emoji when the person writes something. Roy in my opinion does bring it on himself to some extent by the manner of writing and being borderline political way too often but maybe some people should ignore his post more like I was recommending he do. Attack mode shouldn't be the default on a comic book message boards.

Sounds like comics need to go back to fun stories on cheap paper (which are printed on the other side of the world) to get kids reading again. The only way I'd buy new comics was if they had them for $2 a piece and they were in spinner racks at the super market. Who am I kidding - even then I'd probably not bother if I missed a couple issues.

Based on these images I can see why young teens and kids like anime. It looks designed for kids whereas modern comics seem designed for grown adult (mostly males). But as Janet said - how can you change the look of comics without alienating all us older collectors which has been their bread and butter for decades. They seem to have painted themselves into a corner.