Overstreet Valuations

[AllTop8Me]

This question isn't unique to Golden Age books, but since that's what I collect I thought I'd post it here.

 

What do you think of Overstreet valuations generally? Does anyone know how they're arrived at, other than bumping up last years numbers a little for lower grades and a bit more for higher grades? Beyond that, I have a few specific questions:

 

1. Do you think that Overstreet, in 2003 (soon to be 2004) more often reports on prices or more often sets them? I mean, back in the day when there were a few dealers who did all the selling, and did it as a full-time job, Overstreet could gather price lists and report what dealers were asking, and what the Overstreet information represented was straightforward enough. The introduction to the Price Guide still says that the prices it contains reflect what dealers ask. But in a day when so much selling is done by non-dealers, or part-timers who don't always have their pulse on the market with respect to each book they handle, it seems that sellers are often looking to Overstreet to see what to charge (whether through starting bids, reserve prices, etc.) rather than Overstreet reporting on what they charge. Yes, there are other services out there (e.g. GP Analysis) but they are reporting on sales that reflect Overstreet's influence (not absolute influence, but influence nonetheless). True, there are other areas of investment (e.g. stocks) where market prices are quoted and widely available. But in those areas most sellers are independently evaluating, say, a company in order to decide whether the market has overpriced or underpriced the asset. The price is largely informational. Here, Overstreet is the only price in town and so, other than the Metropolises of the world who do a large enough volume to form their own impression of what the market will bear with respect to a given book in a given grade, it seems that most sellers are taking their cue from Overstreet. Is this good? Bad? Incorrect?

 

2. How do you explain that certain books (very high grade, those of a certain publisher) consistently trade at multiples of Guide. What does Overstreet mean when he says a Golden Age book in 9.4 is worth X, when almost every Golden Age book in 9.4 trades above Guide? What, then, is the Overstreet price indicative of? I know this observation seems to undermine what I said in 1 above, but in reality it doesn't: sellers look to the Overstreet value of, say, a Mile High book, and basi

 

3. With shades of grade making a meaningful difference in price, is even the six column formula sufficient? I mean, interpolating the value of a book between Fine and VF can mean hundreds, even thousands of dollars. And is 9.2 half-way between 9.0 and 9.4? A third of the way? That too can be a $64,000 question. (At least if it arose with respect to TEC 27). Assuming Overstreet has access to the wealth of information, shouldn't it present valuations for all subgrades? I know that there are space constraints on how many columns the book can have, but if Overstreet really could obtain information - through GP Analysis or otherwise - for books in almost all the CGC grades, might it not make more sense to have a system whereby a single value - say, the Good value - was quoted for each issue. There could then be a line or two that gave the percentages of the Good value applicable to 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, etc. That would require the user to apply a bit of math, but given the increased reliance placed upon Overstreet these days, wouldn't that be preferable?

 

Just a few thoughts.

[sfilosa]

There's a whole thread going on in the Silver forum regarding Overstreet's prices.

 

To answer one point.

 

Based on my analysis of Silver-Age books a VF+ book does tend to sell in the middle of the VF and VF/NM range.

 

But, a NM- DOES NOT sell in the middle of the VF/NM and NM range. It sells much closer to the VF/NM range.

 

If a VF/NM CGC book sells for 100% of the NM price in O/S Guide than a NM- would sell for 150% and a true NM would sell for 300-400%.

 

 

 

[FlComicFan]

high grade is so violatile since CGC that its not realistic to expect Overstreet to be even ballpark. They simply raise prices by a few percent each year and now and then will break out a few books. Whats really pathetic is that even after 30 plus guides so many runs are still grouped in large clusters When you start paying a few hundred or few thousand for one comic than certain #'s with better covers etc should be much more valuable. Golden Age they never raise prices on certain books that have been selling for way over or not selling because nobody in their right mind would sell them at current Overstreet Think runs like Catman, Hangman etc. Also since gerber put out the journals over a decade ago Overstreet has had their head in a whole with a ton of books then seemingly overnight the books go through the roof like maybe one dealer or maybe a few advisors bought a stack of one issue and has enough pull to suddenly jack up the price? Modern books Overstreet is usually a few years behind on prices but I think that may be as a result of the late 80's books that went skyhigh only to plummet to nothing (b/w glut and indie explosion) They hate to have to lower prices makes collectors skitish or so the thinking is I do give them a ton of credit for finally lowering prices on lower and mid grades and making the spreads wider.

[fantastic_four]

They hate to have to lower prices makes collectors skitish or so the thinking is

 

So what's it gonna do to the market when people see these peaks and valleys from semi-automated services like ComicSheet or GPAnalysis?

[Aman619]

Unless Overstreet craters and radically shift stheir pricing strategies, nothing. Thats is, we are all used to seeing good ol steady as she goes Bob do his thing year after year. Its only the official "guide" price. GPAnalysys is the REAL on-the-trading-floor price record: accurate and up-to-date.....but messy and volatile.

[FlComicFan]

well when true market prices arent dictated by a guide then it does get messy and sloppy Expect more till the furor over who owns the only 9.8 of such and such a title dies down If and when everyone stops playing big then prices will stabilise or when the books cant be flipped anymore. Sooner or later there has to be a temporary plateau for prices or a correction. Overstreet probably is doing the right thing for now. If the high prices stay up for a few years then they will inch their way up. Its just a guide but if you really compare with other collectibles it is a very good guide

[fantastic_four]

Unless Overstreet craters and radically shift stheir pricing strategies, nothing. Thats is, we are all used to seeing good ol steady as she goes Bob do his thing year after year. Its only the official "guide" price. GPAnalysys is the REAL on-the-trading-floor price record: accurate and up-to-date.....but messy and volatile.

 

It sounds like in your vision of the market, Overstreet is used by the masses and GPA by dealers and vintage collectors. What would happen to the market if GPA became popular with the mainstream and they were seeing the more realistic peaks and valleys?

[garthgantu]

It sounds like in your vision of the market, Overstreet is used by the masses and GPA by dealers and vintage collectors. What would happen to the market if GPA became popular with the mainstream and they were seeing the more realistic peaks and valleys?

 

More speculation by semi-informed newbies who don't have the time or inclination to study such numbers on a regular basis? More confusion about the fact that the "over guide" prices illustrated via these other "market tracking services" only reflect true high grade, slabbed books?

 

...or maybe a world in which everyone knows and loves old comics, understands the grading and scarcity implications implicitly, and world peace is finally attained?....NAAAAAAHHHHHH

[shiverbones]

i still buy the guide & love it as an annual event to look forward to, i still look up all my favorite books to see how they did, etc etc., BUT i don't pay much mind when pricing. In fact i am in the middle of starting up my horror comics website (info magazine style as well as comics for sale) and really don't even crack the guide open when pricing books. Some i have are half guide, some are 10 times guide, it all depends on reality of realized prices as well as what i paid for them. When buying, i pay what i am comfortable with.

[Timely]

I'll take the ones at 1/2 guide please!

Timely

[Rip]

This debate is has been going on since the 80's. Forget it. Overstreet doesn't really pay much attention to real sales. Its more about stablizing the mkt.

[fantastic_four]

these other "market tracking services" only reflect true high grade, slabbed books?

 

"True" high grade...that's the key problem with Overstreet NM pricing as a whole. By referring to slabbed books as "true" high grade, what you seem to be inferring is that slabbed books are a known quality, whereas the reported sales which Overstreet pricing is based on are unknown quantities because we don't really know whether when a dealer tells Overstreet they sold a NM vintage comic for XXX dollars that they really graded it right or whether they had any idea whether it was restored.

 

The uncertainty of plunking money down into high grade effectively waters down the NM column in Overstreet for Gold and Silver books where restoration is a risk and high grade is uncommon. So Overstreet NM prices aren't really "true"...they're for sales that maybe were high grade, or maybe not...maybe were unrestored, or maybe not. This is the absolute best reason for them to drop NM pricing on Gold and Silver comics--they have no reliable way of determining it by mixing in raw sales from ultimately unverifiable sources with regards to strictness.

[garthgantu]

So, FF, is dropping the NM columns (VF/NM and NM 9.4) the only solution, in your opinion? What about shifting the entire guide to an online dbase, that could

- incorporate fresh market data every month, or every week for that matter

- be modified be each 'subscriber' to reflect that subscriber's own collection

 

I still worry that for many, many books there would be no recent examples of high grade prices...

[fantastic_four]

So, FF, is dropping the NM columns (VF/NM and NM 9.4) the only solution, in your opinion? What about shifting the entire guide to an online dbase, that could

- incorporate fresh market data every month, or every week for that matter

- be modified be each 'subscriber' to reflect that subscriber's own collection

 

I still worry that for many, many books there would be no recent examples of high grade prices...

 

Where would the fresh market data come from? Also, who are the subscribers in that kind of system?

[Bronty]

Isn't that basically just the GPA? Besides I think it's pretty clear that overstreet has no intention of reflecting reality

 

Like someone on these boards said, the primary purpose of overstreet appears to be to protect comic prices, not to report them.

[garthgantu]

Well, to Bronty's point I was thinking of GPA as a possible source of such data... but the difference would be all data under one "roof." I'm just looking for ways to fix the problem, short of removing data from the OS Guide. If the data's bad, it should be fixable, not just removable...?

 

As for who the subscribers would be, it'd be anyone who wanted the "quarterly updated, searchable and customizable online" version of the OS Guide, rather than just the annual print edition.

I have a custom database of press contacts, it costs about $8,000 per year, and it's updated daily. When an editor from the Wall Street Journal jumps to Newsweek, his/her record is updated to reflect this (along with any customized info/notes I've entered re: that editor). I think a similar solution could be created for the OS Guide that could be sold for as little as $100 per subscriber.

 

I find it surprising that so many board regulars just want to slam the OS Guide out of hand, without so much as a suggestion re: how to make it better. We all buy it every year, and I don't see that changing anytime soon - at least not in my case. Wouldn't you rather it got better, since you're probably going to keep buying it regardless (and your insurance adjuster will keep gravitating to it, for the foreseeable future) ?

[fantastic_four]

I find it surprising that so many board regulars just want to slam the OS Guide out of hand, without so much as a suggestion re: how to make it better.

 

It should be obvious...raise the NM column on rare books to meet actual market prices. If you can pick out one of the Overstreet Advisors from the pictures in the back of the book who wouldn't pay double guide for most early Silver books in NM, please point them out...maybe their SELL prices are lower than market, too!

 

I've tried to stay away from mentioning the worst possibility for why the prices are off-market--the advisors want the NM column to be low so they can buy low and sell high. I don't have any direct evidence this plays a part in the pricing decisions, but then again, it's hard to totally discount that possibility.

[joe_collector]

Where would the fresh market data come from?

 

That's what I was thinking as well. The last time Fresh and Bob were used in the same sentence, was when he piched his secretary.

 

 

[joe_collector]

I've tried to stay away from mentioning the worst possibility for why the prices are off-market--the advisors want the NM column to be low so they can buy low and sell high.

 

That's the way it is, and that's the way it's always been.

 

Another facet is to keep low-grade book prices much higher than reality for sales, and depress NM values for purchases.