The state of the Golden Age market 1 1

[sfilosa]

years ago I'd have totally agreed with you; however there's no guarantee you'll live long enough to retire. After watching a perfectly healthy woman get cancer and die from it at an early age (My Mom, 55) I've learned to live a bit more for the "now" than the "later"...just my .02.

 

I (and my wife and kid) spend plenty of money on TODAY.

 

Taking a week cruise starting Sunday.

 

Kinda hampering my bidding on a few books that I want, dangnambit.

 

[Mushroom]

I bid on almost 30 GA books at the heritage auction....at present I am winning on two. All my bids were above guide and were for books across all grades...here is my 2 cents worth on what I think is happening with GA.

 

Of the 29 books I bid on:

 

The two I am winning are both GG books at 6.5. My view is that the F/VF market is very soft.

 

25 of the books were hit by the dreaded Heritage bump. As an example of how way out GA sellers expectations are I site 4680 Thrilling #62 in 9.4 Cream pages. I was the highest bidder before the bump....and now it is at more than 35 % of my high price which was way above OS. I doubt that this book will sell.

 

2 of the books have very serious bidders. The first of these is 4259 The Comics #11 7.5 Mile High. It goes without saying why this book is bucking the trend. I still think it is a crazy price but those mile highs attract huge premiums. (Sweet book though). The other I won't talk about because I may still shoot for it.

 

It amazes me that a lot of the restored books have such high bumps on them.

 

I am not bullish about GA at this time.. no one will currently sell at what the market will bare because they do not want to lose their investment and so will not lower their reserves which makes it very hard to get your hands on the books that you want.

 

 

[sfilosa]

Good luck.

 

Of the 30 books that you bid on (and only winning 2), is the price too high already?

 

 

 

 

[Mushroom]

The reserves seem ludicrously high...as you know GA CGC'd books are not usually held to the multiple of guide syndromes of the SA and BA. The average man in the street looking at the heritage auctions probably thinks that the bulk of the books have been bid up that high, little realising that they are reserved prices that IMHO will not be met.

 

It will be interesting to see what is up for grabs after the auction is over.

[sfilosa]

The reserves seem ludicrously high...as you know GA CGC'd books are not usually held to the multiple of guide syndromes of the SA and BA. The average man in the street looking at the heritage auctions probably thinks that the bulk of the books have been bid up that high, little realising that they are reserved prices that IMHO will not be met.

 

It will be interesting to see what is up for grabs after the auction is over

 

 

I hear ya.

 

I bet a lot of books that don't sell will be in their February Signature Auction (usually at a slightl lowery, but still way over guide price).

[Forbush-Man]

The state of the Golden Age market?

[tth2]

We'll find out in May, after the Heritage auction. Lots of nice GA in there.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 11/19/2003 at 3:16 PM, garthgantu said:

 

I'm not exactly an expert, but I do actively pursue and purchase GA books. Your question(s) are pretty open-ended... but here's an attempt to answer:

- realizing guide prices on GA stuff in VF or below is a very mixed bag. Certainly the superhero titles tend to come closer to guide prices for the most part. Then there's a sort of 'sub-category' of titles that are of interest to broader audiences. Roy Rogers, I Love Lucy, Red Ryder, Little Beaver, Lone Ranger, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Annette Funicello, and many other people/characters, primarily from film and TV, tend to command prices closer to guide even when in lower grades. Many of the non-comic book collectors purchasing such items don't really care much about condition, they just want the memorabilia.

Overall, I'd say that getting 70% of guide for a VG book from the GA, if it's just an average, non-hero title, is about right. As you get into mid-grade, the % tends to come down, as the demand decreases. There simply seems to be less demand - and correspondingly lower %s of guide paid - for mid-grade than there is for low- and high-grade.

 

Your overall question about the current and future state of the GA market is one that I ponder from time to time, with varying results. I too worry that in another 20 years, the market for many GA titles may drop off significantly, with the further decline in awareness of those titles/characters. On the other hand, I'm an optimist, and I tend to think that comic books will always be viewed as an important category of Americana, and that in fact over time we may see the market broaden, as GA books increasingly are viewed as 'antiques' or even art by a broader portion of the consumer base. Let's face it, when you're talking about Mickey Mouse collectibles from the '30s and '40s, as just one example, comic books are one of the more accessible categories of items, because millions were printed.

 

I do think that in some ways Silver Age and Bronze Age books are 'safer' from an investment standpoint, simply because they're more pertinent to more people alive today, and that will hold true for the foreseeable future, I'd guess. But then you have the issues of condition and supply to offset the popularity factor...

The more things change, the more they stay the same

[MattTheDuck]

The smart play was to go "all in" on Golden Age keys when this thread was started.

[lou_fine]

On 10/11/2021 at 10:14 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Yeah, just the same old, same old some almost 20 years later..............boardies talking about the impending collapse of the GA comic book market, Heritage needing to apply the "bump" to get auction prices up under the reserve, and most GA books only able to sell for discounts to condition guide, like the following book here which just finished earlier tonight:  

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/science-fiction/science-comics-4-fox-1940-cgc-gd-18-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/122141-13681.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116

Sold for a measly $4,440 when compared to a CGC 2.0 Good condition price of a whopping $389. 

Yep, now that's what I call a discount to condition guide.  

[tth2]

On 10/12/2021 at 1:16 PM, MattTheDuck said:

The smart play was to go "all in" on Golden Age keys when this thread was started.

You could say that at literally every point in the history of collecting comics, not just 2003.  For those who think that prices felt like they were a screaming bargain in 2003, they were not.  Nor were they in 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993 or 2013.  They never are... at the time.  Books are always fully priced at the moment.  It's only in retrospect that they ever appear to be cheap.

So keep in mind that 20 years from now, today will be 20 years ago.

[buttock]

On 10/12/2021 at 1:06 AM, lou_fine said:

Yeah, just the same old, same old some almost 20 years later..............boardies talking about the impending collapse of the GA comic book market, Heritage needing to apply the "bump" to get auction prices up under the reserve, and most GA books only able to sell for discounts to condition guide, like the following book here which just finished earlier tonight:  

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/science-fiction/science-comics-4-fox-1940-cgc-gd-18-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/122141-13681.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116

Sold for a measly $4,440 when compared to a CGC 2.0 Good condition price of a whopping $389. 

Yep, now that's what I call a discount to condition guide.  

Yeesh.  I sold that copy for probably $250 several years ago.  Guess I should have held onto it.  

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 10/12/2021 at 9:00 AM, tth2 said:

So keep in mind that 20 years from now, today will be 20 years ago.

I’ll diary my calendar and give this thread another bump in 20 years. And I agree with your crystal ball reading 

[Cat-Man_America]

On 10/12/2021 at 11:25 AM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

I’ll diary my calendar and give this thread another bump in 20 years. And I agree with your crystal ball reading 

This entire thread should be placed in a time capsule and buried in the cornerstone of a building to be opened 100 years from now.  When the cornerstone is uncapped on the groundbreaking of the new site of Promise Collectibles Auctions and Insurance LLC, Inc., a dancing frog will be overlooked by the drooling media as the news story of the day will be 20th century GA comics revisited as a collectible curiosity in a paperless world.  

[Figment]

Given the popularity of the MCU, it's hard to imagine any of the Timely, Atlas or Marvel silver age superhero books ever declining in dollar value.  They may not keep up with other things you could invest in, but there's never going to be any more than there are now, and given that comics in general have become a mainstream investment vehicle it's easy to see why.  Just my 2c.  Our family will continue to invest in them!

Edited October 12, 2021 by Figment

[adamstrange]

On 5/6/2005 at 11:21 PM, tth2 said:

We'll find out in May, after the Heritage auction. Lots of nice GA in there.

What did we learn?

[Spyder!]

On 10/12/2021 at 12:06 AM, lou_fine said:

Yeah, just the same old, same old some almost 20 years later..............boardies talking about the impending collapse of the GA comic book market, Heritage needing to apply the "bump" to get auction prices up under the reserve, and most GA books only able to sell for discounts to condition guide, like the following book here which just finished earlier tonight:  

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/science-fiction/science-comics-4-fox-1940-cgc-gd-18-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/122141-13681.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116

Sold for a measly $4,440 when compared to a CGC 2.0 Good condition price of a whopping $389. 

Yep, now that's what I call a discount to condition guide.  

Definitely makes me think I’ll never own a Science 4, which is a huge bummer because it’s such an awesome cover!

[AJD]

On 10/12/2021 at 4:14 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

The more things change, the more they stay the same

The kvetching about the CGC 'gift grade' Tec 140 did seem oddly familiar.