2400 CGC books on ebay....

[thecomicsheet]

Interesting stuff! Any idea what the % of overall comic auctions getting bids is? And/or the % of NON-CGC auctions getting bids?

 

Sorry, I only track CGC auctions.....

Hmmmm...

Come to think of it, I might be able to use my software to count 'no-bid' auctions on the comics section in general. I'll check tonight to see if it is possible.

 

I did a quick calculation based on comics auctions from 16:00 to 16:30 on November 30th. (There are so many thousands of listings under comics I couldn't do it for a longer stretch.) That was a Sunday evening.

 

I pulled 1,564 auctions from Comics Modern, Bronze, Silver, and Golden Age.

There were a few CGC auctions in there plus a few misplaced statues and other stuff, but not enough to make much of a statistical difference.

 

I found 842 of the auctions did not receive bids (or about 55 percent). This is remarkably close to the 'first pass' percentage I get on CGC auctions at about 50 percent.

[thecomicsheet]

I'll probably have to sign off til this evening. We were snowed in this morning. Made me a couple of hours late for work. Have to work like a demon most of the rest of the day.

 

See, I always thought having incliment weather was the perfect excuse to goof off.

Here in Florida, we have no such luck....the best we can do is: "Sorry Boss, but traffic was murder; glare from all that sunshine caught many drivers by surprise on the Interstate, and slowed everything to a crawl."

 

Of course, it don't work too well.

 

Too much sunshine is a problem I could learn to live with.

On the other hand I get to go out this evening with my kids and kamikaze down our local version of the Calvin and Hobbes sledding hill. Woo-Hoo!!!

[thecomicsheet]

Obviously the scenario I've described sounds ridiculous, but aren't you likely to be pulling such exaggerated values into your DB on a less ridiculous, although still misleading, final "sales price"?

 

Now that scenario you envision is pretty out there, but check out that "Shilled Star Wars Variant" Reserve Auction that ended at $10K?

 

That's real-world, it passed reserve, and will go into GPA's database.

 

Just to set the record straight: Our subscribers know that this auction result was NOT included in our data - we do not capture single auctions with multiple comic book sales (unless it doesn't make any difference in the price, as in including a crappy reading copy, etc).

 

Same as I do it. There's just no way to split prices up reasonably with a multiple comic auction. I also include auctions in my database if there is a nominal value reader copy included with the auction.

 

Also, you would not be aware (although our subscribers are) that our system has the ability to show way out prices and sometimes these are flagged when there has been shill bidding, outrages BINs, etc.

 

Probably somewhat similar to what I do. I eliminate obvious fraudulent auctions and/or mark them as suspicious in my database.

 

Hi Darryl - not hijacking your interesting thread on RNM auction results, just wanted to set the record straight and clarify some things Joe Collector has mentioned here about our product - cheers.

 

No problem! Not really my thread to hijack anyway. I'm just enjoying the topic and will keep at it as long as I think I've got something to say and people keep expressing interest.

[thecomicsheet]

I don't think anyone raised this point: have you tried contacting sellers on items that do not meet reserve to see if there was a sale after the fact? Often times, the high bidder and seller will come to terms post auction at an amount greater then the highest recorded bid, but lower then Reserve. Wouldn't that more accurately impact the pricing data?

 

If the software GPA and Darryl have written is doing the type of HTML parsing I think it is, then it's partially or fully automated. Contacting sellers like you suggest would either be more time-consuming or more complex than it's probably worth.

 

It is partially automated with some filtering programs and scripts. But it does take a lot of manual eye-balling too. It is extremely difficult and time consuming to attempt to completely automate the process. There are so many variations in listing styles that it is nearly impossible to try to do the whole thing automatically.

 

I am a programmer in my 'day' job, so I do have the expertise and computer power to do all the scripting, filtering, etc. that I want to (and have time for). I've been refining and expanding these for a year and a half. I could go on for hours on the problems involved in automating this stuff. Start with eBay changing the html on their pages every month or two. Then go on to CGC listings that don't list the numeric grade in the title. And if you try to translate an alpha grade it seems they are just as likely to lie or get it wrong as to get it correct - a VF/NM or a NM- listed as NM for example. Throw in all the spelling, hyphenation, and abbreviation differences and that's not to mention that almost no-one mentions in the title that their book is restored or qualified. And then there is the bane of my existence: the CGC keyword spammers - MAY THEY ROT IN #&!!.

 

Plus, all this stuff has to be done on a deadline. I have to get it put together in time for my weekly column, plus I want to get it out to my subscribers in a timely fashion. There simply isn't time to contact sellers individually. I'll make an exception on some very high dollar stuff, but for the 25th listing of Batman #608 that I've seen today - who cares, just delete it or mark it suspicious and move on.