Is it just me, or is the market surging a bit?

[Illiterati-migration]

Don't you have anything better to do than troll me? And which one of the usual Rogues Gallery are you a shill account for?

 

Gene

 

Balki, I would like to offer you my free-of-charge Re-Troll service. In the Re-Troll service industry, we will troll your troll until he can troll no more. Basically, it will be asphyxiation by troll. Again, this is free-of-charge (with a $99.95 fee after the first thirteen seconds).

 

Let me know what you want to do. After all, we're talking about YOUR sanity here, right?

 

-Cousin Larry, President and CEO of Re-Troll America Inc. Ltd. LLC Co., Golden, Colorado.

[dam60]

For example I will never buy a Valiant book. I don't care for the characters, the art, or the stories. Just my personal view.

 

Sniff, sniff . . .

 

[deathlok]

For example I will never buy a Valiant book. I don't care for the characters, the art, or the stories. Just my personal view.

 

Sniff, sniff . . .

 

 

Sorry Dave...just more for those 3 Valiant collectors out there...

[OldGuy]

The point I was trying to make is that a crash would be good for collectors, not sure if it would be bad for the hobby in general.

 

A "correction" would be good for collectors, a "crash" will be good for no one.

 

I take a crash to mean that value of books would drop immensely low. Is that correct. I buy back issue books because of their value to me. For example I will never buy a Valiant book. I don't care for the characters, the art, or the stories. Just my personal view. Regardless if they have value or not. If my books were to drop in value, that wouldn't deter me from the hobby.

 

Yes, that's a crash. But if prices crash what makes you think dealers wont just stop selling many books? After the initial "dump" following a crash you will see the supply disappear, then what will you collect? While a drop in value may not mean anything to you, it will mean that dealers will simply hold on to books they can't sell for a profit. Then the demand will increase because of lack of product and prices will rise again.

 

So again I say a correction (moderate drop in price) would be better then a crash. A crash is bad for everyone no matter what "value" you place on your books.

[dam60]

For example I will never buy a Valiant book. I don't care for the characters, the art, or the stories. Just my personal view.

 

Sniff, sniff . . .

 

 

Sorry Dave...just more for those 3 Valiant collectors out there...

 

It's cool - at least we can agree on deathlok!

[fantastic_four]

What's important is to recognize that this is not a cyclical upturn in the comic market, but rather a blowoff bubble top to a multi-decade bull market. All the signs are there: worsening fundamentals in terms of demographic and economic factors, an unsustainable, parabolic rise in prices, declining breadth of the advance, scammers coming out of everywhere to take advantage of high prices (notice the parallels with the corporate/Wall Street research/mutual fund scandals), an industry starting up to service the bull market (GPAnalysis, Overstreet monthly, etc. - notice the parallels with mags like The Industry Standard and Red Herring coming and going with the tech bubble), etc.

 

Does this pattern remind you of any other longer-established collectibles markets besides comics? That's what interests me the most...how does the history of the comics market compare to the previous cultural artifact markets. I particularly wish I knew the evolution of the stamp market...although comics draw different demographics, I have to think there are things to learn from how that market changed over time.

[sfilosa]

Quick Hits:

 

1) It is very unlikely that there will be a CRASH per se, on CGC / HIgh-Grade Golden-Age and Silver-Age books. In general, there will never be enough supply to DUMP on the market at any one time. To have a true Crash, there needs to be an oversupply and dimishing demand. Could, a Crash occur on certain books that have hundreds to thousands of high-grade CGC books? YES. Most of those books would fall into the Bronze-Age and newer books.

 

2) Because mid-grade and lower books, have NEVER had huge price growth, and in general are purely bought for collectible reasons (as oppose to investments), there is very little chance theses books would CRASH or EXPLODE upward in price.

 

3) Lastly, realize that Overstreet's Guide has never been very accurate (even going back 25 years). It has almost always understated the value of true HIGH-GRADE books and overstated the value of mid-grade books. Today, it is quite possible to buy most (NOT ALL), Silver-Age and newer books in VF or less, for significantly below guide (25-50% off guide price) and good luck find most NM books for guide price.

 

Just my thoughts.

[Darthdiesel]

Most of the prices for slabbed books are ridiculously high, if you don't believe me ask Greggy about his ASM 101. Although right now people are willing to pay for them, and congratulation to people like Greggy who can cash in.

 

This is not the first, nor will it be the last, time that Greggy has been recognized for his unprecedented and extremely lucrative ability to mint money thanks to a keen eye and to CGC. In honor of Greggy, I would like to formally announce that from this day forward, GREGGY is the Forum Legend for achieving unprecedented greatness in the CGC market!!!

 

 

Bah! FOOLIO got lucky on his nutsac crease riddled "high grade" and miswrap mangled copies and dumped them onto suckers like me

[Darthdiesel]

Quick Hits:

 

1) It is very unlikely that there will be a CRASH per se, on CGC / HIgh-Grade Golden-Age and Silver-Age books. In general, there will never be enough supply to DUMP on the market at any one time. To have a true Crash, there needs to be an oversupply and dimishing demand. Could, a Crash occur on certain books that have hundreds to thousands of high-grade CGC books? YES. Most of those books would fall into the Bronze-Age and newer books.

 

 

$750K - $500K - $250K Pacific Golden Age Collection that won't sell ?

[aardvark88]

Darth,

I believe u are referring to the infamous Vancouver pedigree collection of Cgc gold. Hi-grade Atlas Westerns for everyone.

[sfilosa]

Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Quick Hits:

 

1) It is very unlikely that there will be a CRASH per se, on CGC / HIgh-Grade Golden-Age and Silver-Age books. In general, there will never be enough supply to DUMP on the market at any one time. To have a true Crash, there needs to be an oversupply and dimishing demand. Could, a Crash occur on certain books that have hundreds to thousands of high-grade CGC books? YES. Most of those books would fall into the Bronze-Age and newer books.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

$750K - $500K - $250K Pacific Golden Age Collection that won't sell ?

 

 

 

How to respond?

 

OK!!!!

 

At what point in time was this collection every worth $750K?

 

 

To have a CRASH, people must be paying one price at some period in time, and then at a future period in time, want to only pay significantly less.

 

 

 

 

 

[clobberintime]

I have seen some unexpectedly high prices on books lately and have personally partaken in some pretty good deals. Is $2600 for an Avengers 4 good? Someone paid over $600 for a 9.4 FF 43. There have been some good books on ebay - stuff you don't see all the time and the internet dealers like CL, Bob and Metro have had some great fairly rare stuff too. I think pre69 books are doing great in 9.2+. However books 1970 and on up are plentiful - even keys and even 9.4+ books. And I have a "what if" for you market mavens: What if, one single collector back in 1970 had bought 100s of several key issues published between 1969 and 73 and carefully stored them and was slowly sending them to cgc and selling them on ebay. What if these books were - Spidey 100,101, 102; Marvel Feature 1; Spotlight 5: Defenders 1? What if these books graded no lower than 9.2s but had many copies in the 9.6/9.8 range? What if this collector had 20 copies of spotlight 5 at cgc right now with most grading at 9.4/9.6 and a couple 9.8?

[supapimp]

[Rip]

I'd ask the "one single collector" where are your DC's??

[Mephisto]

Maybe people got their Christmas checks and have been spending them on comics. I know my mom got hers sometime last month.

[aardvark88]

There is some great orig. comic art showing up on eBay the last 10 days. Hi-end John Byrne X-men & 60s Kirby FF vs Dr. Doom/Thor art. Collectors seem to be liquidating some of their choice art to bid on even more hi-end art at the Heritage Nov/03 Signature Auction.

[COI]

1) It is very unlikely that there will be a CRASH per se, on CGC / HIgh-Grade Golden-Age and Silver-Age books. In general, there will never be enough supply to DUMP on the market at any one time. To have a true Crash, there needs to be an oversupply and dimishing demand. Could, a Crash occur on certain books that have hundreds to thousands of high-grade CGC books? YES. Most of those books would fall into the Bronze-Age and newer books.

 

I disagree. Supply dosen't just relate to the number of existing books, but also how many are on the market at any given time. When Italian treasure listed his ASM run, that was an over-supply of high grade ASM's on the market, even though there was only one of each issue. It was simply too much quality being offered at once, and the market was not able to fully absorb it. That's one of the reasons he lost his shirt.

 

There are some very prolific Silver and Gold collections out there(particularly Silver) and I don't think they will all be locked up forever. In the event that one of these major collections hits the market, there will have to be enough dealer and collector cashflow to fully absorb the books. Next year, the year after, or the year after that, that may be possible. But 10-20 years down the road, who knows? And if cashflow is limited, you're going to have a situation where even the nicest collections will be cherry-picked, and tons of non-key 9.4-9.8 books will crash to record lows. And if prices start falling, there will always be those collectors who will choose to cash in their books due to a fear of prices falling further, and that will create the domino effect which may lead to a crash. Again, things may not unfold this way for a while, but I think it will eventually happen.

[murph0]

It certainly has on any of the books I'm trying to buy. Got outbid on a bunch of books yesterday, that went for all-time high prices. Oh and a couple of them were common bronze books.

Probably going to wait until closer to Christmas to buy anything..

 

Brian

[delekkerste]

I'm amazed at how this is by far the most thoughtful and civilized "market/investment thread" that has ever been on the Boards (so far, knock wood). Can you feel the love?

 

Gene

[COI]

What if, one single collector back in 1970 had bought 100s of several key issues published between 1969 and 73 and carefully stored them and was slowly sending them to cgc and selling them on ebay. What if these books were - Spidey 100,101, 102; Marvel Feature 1; Spotlight 5: Defenders 1? What if these books graded no lower than 9.2s but had many copies in the 9.6/9.8 range? What if this collector had 20 copies of spotlight 5 at cgc right now with most grading at 9.4/9.6 and a couple 9.8?

 

I would say this scenario is more than likely, and not simply a "what if". If I were a gambling man, I would put my money on the fact that not only is this possible, but that it's a reality.

 

But you can't tell certain board members that, who are convinced that the supplies of Hulk 181, ASM #129 and MS #5 are drying up, and that demand will continue to rise until Hulk 181's are as hard to come by as early FF's in 9.2+.