2004 Comic Book Crash

[Aman619]

yup. you nailed it again, Bob.

 

So now Im curious...You told the tale about the 9.4 Amazing Fantasy #15 very well, where one whale sale can be thrown out of the pricing equation when it is proved in the marketplace that it can't be duplicated (at that moment perhaps).

 

So if you had one of them back right now, what would you sticker it at? Is it $85000 book? Or stickered a bit above "market" at $100K expecting end up dealing with a "discountomaniac"? Or price it to sell "only to the right buyer" at $135000, whenever he comes along?

 

 

[blazingbob]

I think by offering time payments, or a cash/trade arrangement you could sell the book for $120,000 to the right buyer. First off "whales" don't like being called that, they already know it. Second, you better take a Long term "relationship" view of this customer in case he needs to sell it. Offering him half of what he paid isn't what I call a "long term relationship". Lastly, "burying" a collector in a book isn't what I call a "long term relationship", I call it being extremely stupid because if you continue to bury a buyer they eventually find out and move on leaving you wondering why did they stop buying from me?

[Aman619]

You are a very reasonable dealer.. nobody likes to be buried with a book, yet enough dealers do it nearly every chance they get. You'd have to make apretty huge one-time profit to outweigh a long-term customer's total buying potential. Thanx for the answer.And that Hulk#1 looks real nice, too. Ill be curious if it gets snapped up. Seems reasonably priced.

[blazingbob]

If it's reasonably priced I better raise it!

 

I'd rather hear "It will never sell" like I did with the AF #15 9.4.

[comicartfan]

When I graded my GL 76 , it came back a 9.4...which at the time there were none in that grade.- Boom goes the price ! - well, 6 months later there are 3 more copies....well, there goes the trend downward. I saw the book sell for as much as 2500.00 ...and as little as 1500....so that's a $1000 differance....Should I sell my copy now ?? or did i miss the "prime time".?

 

umm, if you wanted to get $2500 for it - - yeah, you did.

 

I think that more time needs to pass, there needs to be an oppurtunity for a 9.6 to surface ...is there is one out there....then the value can be fixed...give or take.....

 

..and now you have to pray a 9.6 never surfaces! because it will fix the price of your no longer "one of x in the highest grade" copies to one of the second best grade. I agree with most of what you said..but think you draw the wrong conclusions.As more and more HG copies come out and get graded, it swells the census and makes buyers realize that the comics are more common in each HG than was thought a few years ago. And this has brought prices down...and will continue to do so. This is exactly what I was saying...maybe I didn't articulate it as well as i shoudl have. The value of Highest Graded Copy status will drop. I was pointing out that when my GL 76 was the only 9.4, then I could have gotten top dollar...then more copies surfaced and my copy lost the status of the "ONLY 9.4" - I meant that the price could be fixed was that if a 9.6 pops up, then the huge flucatation that I allready stated could be stablized.

 

Its the word CRASH that is used for different meanings that confuses the (endless) argument here. I think it was originally used to refer to the rapid devaluation of HG CGC graded comics after the initial frenzy that resulted in 10x to 40x Guide prices. The crash would be just like the Tech/Nasdaq selloff and take EVERYTHING down with the overpriced garbage. (As in "What goes up fast must come down - - FAST!) Well. some modern comics HAVE crashed already, but by and large, it hasnt brought down the rest to this point.

 

CRASH is also used to describe the end of comics collecting as we know it...leading to a near-total devaluation of all collectible comics. When there are no more readers, there can be, ipso facto, no more collectors I think that readers have shifted into TPBs. Look at the increase in this market in just the past three years...It's gone from a small collection of maybe ten trades at the local Barnes and Noble , to hundreds..Someone is buying them. . I think 905 here agree with this statement, but disagree on just how soon it will occur.

 

yknow, I dont know why Im typing all this (again). We've been over this. I just wanted to tell you the first parts w/o [!@#%^&^] you off. There was some crazy money being spent on books that for one reason or another seemed like they were scarce and hot enough to warrant it at the time. Much of that has passed. When the census shows ONLY ONE in 9.4, it will goose higher prices. Trouble is, that situation (for a key book) is rarer and rarer as times goes by in CGC land.

That's what CT said and I agreed with allready. More time needs to pass.

[Aman619]

ypu.

..and, Id sure like a 9.4 GL#76 ! I read mine into a FVF long ago.

[duncan36]

What keeps comic prices high? The unwritten complicity on price between the giant big money dealers/wharehousers.

What will it take for a comic crash to occur? This complicity being shattered by a domino effect dumping of large stocks where the big boys slash each others throats to get out.

Personally I see no sign of this happening, but then again I dont see the balance sheets of the big boys.

[Aman619]

its fun to bash the dealers for price gouging and overgrading.... but warehousing HG comics? Nahhhhh. If they had em theyd be selling them. Only a handful can afford to NOT be selling as much as they can.

 

Blazing was here today saying he sent out feelers to collectors to buy their HG books. If he alreday has so many, why try so hard to buy more right now?

[duncan36]

its fun to bash the dealers for price gouging and overgrading.... but warehousing HG comics? Nahhhhh. If they had em theyd be selling them. Only a handful can afford to NOT be selling as much as they can.

 

Blazing was here today saying he sent out feelers to collectors to buy their HG books. If he alreday has so many, why try so hard to buy more right now?

 

I disagree, my local comic shop guy had a nice stash of fairly high grade GA/SA books stashed away, stuff he didnt sell because comics have increased in value by large %'s every year. The sentiment among these people is that comics will only keep going up and up in price, this notion is propped up by Overstreet and others, and its been the reality in comics.

The fact that CGC has had a fairly steady stream of submissions in all categories seems to bear out my analysis of the situation over yours.

An awful lot of people are sitting on an awful lot of books. If crash isnt in their vocabulary why not most comics have risen in 'value' every year for the past 20 years.