How to fix the Overstreet Guide...

[OldSchoolTerry]

Hey everyone, it's a slow day at work here, and I wanted to get a nice little debate going. I've seen it mentioned many times here about how the Overstreet Guide is out of touch with reality, as far as its' pricing on high grade books, Marvel price variants, etc, which have been selling for many multiples of guide. But, for the industry, it is still the standard guide, and the best thing we've got in my opinion.

The question is, how do the Overstreet people correct the guide to more accurately reflect reality?

[dam60]

Terry - the solution is really an easy one. The nice people at Gemstone should call up Chuck and let him work his "magic". After all, Chuck invented AND saved the back issue market many times over. Hey, don't take my word for it - just ask him!! In such capable hands I would expect the OS guide to jump prices across the board by at least 100%. How's that for a great overnight return on my books!!

 

DAM

[chrisco37]

I would expect the OS guide to jump prices across the board by at least 100%.

 

You're so right, Dave! But that begs this question:

 

Would Chuck then price AT GUIDE?

 

Chris

[dam60]

I would expect the OS guide to jump prices across the board by at least 100%.

 

You're so right, Dave! But that begs this question:

 

Would Chuck then price AT GUIDE?

 

Chris

 

[EwanUK]

I think the OS Guide is a great publication all round, and I look forward to it every year - but I do sense there seems to be a little reluctance to iron out all the remaining inaccuracies that the members of this board have so helpfully identified and collated.

 

Several people have said they've submitted updates year on year and they're never reflected in the final version... surely someone could sit down for a week and add them all to the database in one go? Job done!

 

It'd make it utterly indispensable rather than just moderately.

However, I still think it beats the CBG Catalogue hands down. Size isn't everything after all!

 

As for pricing, I don't really think it matters unless the pricing is way, way off. It's a conservative guide - it's the info that matters!

 

Then again, in my opinion all my 80s Charlton are worth at least ten times the listed price!

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

There is no reluctance, it's just a question of manpower and time. Contrary to popular belief, the Guide is not put together by vast unending rows of dedicated drones who sit all day every day and churn out pages of the Guide. We're a *very* small team with a limited amount of time, but rest assured that *everything* this board has collated in recent years, including a very lengthy list of extremely helpful errata, is in our hands and ready to go in when we can get to it.

 

And "database"...that's a good one .

 

Arnold

[OldSchoolTerry]

There is no reluctance, it's just a question of manpower and time. Contrary to popular belief, the Guide is not put together by vast unending rows of dedicated drones who sit all day every day and churn out pages of the Guide. We're a *very* small team with a limited amount of time, but rest assured that *everything* this board has collated in recent years, including a very lengthy list of extremely helpful errata, is in our hands and ready to go in when we can get to it.

 

And "database"...that's a good one .

 

Arnold

 

We all love the book, and realize it must be a great effort to get it updated every year. The conservative bias it has is not necessarily a bad thing, either, and I can see the reasoning behind it. With the CGC explosion in the past few years, it must be increasingly difficult to get in line with the new reality (madness?) that's occurring in the marketplace.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Well, I never get involved in the pricing side of things, and I'm very grateful that I'm not . But I do wonder that many people want to see the whole slabbing/eBay/etc. part of the market reflected in the annual Guide pricing when the Guide prices are clearly meant to reflect raw, unslabbed values. But like I said, just one of many reasons I'm glad I don't touch the pricing side of things. Whew.

 

Arnold

[AllTop8Me]

There is no reluctance, it's just a question of manpower and time.

 

I find this a bit hard to believe. Even with a staff of one individual, if the intent is for the OS Guide to reflect actual prices that dealers ask (as the introduction states) an instrument as blunt as doubling the values on Golden Age 9.4s would, in one fell swoop, make the Guide more accurate. That that hasn't been done even though the high values have been low in OS literally for decades must tell you that something is afoot.

 

No, I don't believe that manpower can explain the valuation inaccuracies in the Guide. As noted in other threads, the Guide appears to be inspired by a desire not to reflect current prices but to support the market through thick and thin. For this reason, values, as a general matter, do not go down, even when a given fad (e.g. L.B. Cole covers) has come and gone. In what honest description of any market do values not go down?

 

As further evidence I note the fact that OS values of 9.4s are treated, in the various tables in the introduction, as somehow indicative of the market as a whole, even though, at least in the case of Golden Age, they are so scarce as to be a very poor indicator of what price a book commands. Why would any honest description of the market list a table of the 9.4 values of the most valuable books, when few if any of them have ever been sighted in that grade? Who benefits from this speculative information about non-existent books, but the hypsters whose intentions do not include accurate reporting? An honest discussion of comic values in general would pick, say, 6.0 or maybe even 2.0 as a yardstick. To talk about 9.4s is like discussing how well the economy is doing by measuring, every year, the net worths of Bills Gates, Warren Buffet and a handful of other people - or more accurately, of fictional billionaires whose holdings are reported as always being on the rise. Makes the US look very good; has little to do with real economics or useful information.

 

As noted on other threads, what's going on here is that, by underestimating highest grade values ("9.4" in the current books, what was called "Mint" when I was a kid), OS is able to ratchet up an increase every year and do so with a straight face. Indeed, there's enough cushion in the 9.4 values that we can have seven lean years seven times in a row and the OS 9.4 values can still move up a bit each year while staying south of reality.

 

GP Analysis is a better indicator of reality, though it only reports CGC'ed books, and covers auction sales, not dealer asking prices. Of course, like everyone else I buy OS each year. And, yes, I often rely on it when buying or selling. But there's little doubt that it could be made a much better product if accuracy is the goal (which it may not be). In the age of websites and electronic info, if OS's goal is to reflect dealer asking prices as it maintains, the vast databases of companies such as Metropolis could likely be applied to a good computer program and a more accurate picture of reality produced. If the goal is to reflect actual sales, not dealer asking prices, that too could be achieved with the right computer program and oversight. I don't see this market supporting an alternative to the OS Guide, but to deny that it is seriously flawed, and for reasons other than manpower is, I think, naive.

[jduran1]

Arnold,

 

There are two things I read everyday. The wall street journal and the Overstreet Price Guide. I take it to the beach, soccer practices and when I lay by the pool. My wife wonders about my priorities.

 

Gemstone/You all have incredible integrity and a sound reputation that didn't come overnight. I look forward to your publication every year with great anticipation. I think given the explosion in comic collecting, change pricing dynamics, and the introduction of CGC into the mix your challenge is not make changes based on whims or pop trends, but provide a reliable market baseline based on objective feedback to help us make intelligent decisions in regards to comic prices.

 

If that is your goal you have suceeded.

 

Happy new year Joe.

[aardvark88]

Now that Ostreet Review is Monthly, I expect a bigger NM price jump in April/04 b/c it is actively tracking & publishing eBay/Heritage/mail order/comicon prices. Most raw vfnm gold/silver/bronze is being sent to Cgc to maximize the value of the collectors' assets.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

As always, it's easy in an online forum to take statements out of context. My "manpower and time" observation was referring to the kind of errata and factual inconsistencies that lots of people here have sent in either individually or in list form. That's what I thought we were talking about when the idea was brought up that a lot of things hadn't been corrected in the Guide. As for pricing, as I have said many times and again in this thread, I have no involvement in that aspect of the Guide.

 

Arnold

[OldSchoolTerry]

Can we get the pricing guy on here then, so we can slam him instead of you?

Seriously, I think we'd all like for a way to be devised that the prices more accurately reflect the current reality, with CGC, ebay, etc. having changed the hobby so much in the last few years.

I don't think anyone has any complaint with the other aspects of the guide, such as the market reports, feature articles, cover gallery, etc. My only complaint is 90% of the guide being ads (exaggeration intended), but you do run a business, so that's forgivable.

[AllTop8Me]

My only complaint is 90% of the guide being ads (exaggeration intended), but you do run a business, so that's forgivable.

 

Personally, I think the ads are a wonderful resource. Where else can you find a list of all major dealers between two covers? Put together a want list, send it to the dealers who advertise in Overstreet, subscribe to a good sniping service and inherit a lot of cash and you're well on your way to building a nice collection.

[garthgantu]

I don't mind the # of ads in the OS Guide at all. Not only do I end up at least glancing at each ad a few times, I understand that those ads are subsidizing the publishing costs and keeping the Guide from having a retail price of $50 or $60.

 

I do have a problem with this statement tho:

But I do wonder that many people want to see the whole slabbing/eBay/etc. part of the market reflected in the annual Guide pricing when the Guide prices are clearly meant to reflect raw, unslabbed values.

Since when did the Guide state that it only reflects RAW comic values? Doesn't guide state up front that the values are based on sales data from prices REALIZED (not asking prices, as previous posters have suggested/stated) of comics from dealers throughout N. America? If in fact the OS Guide claims not to reflect prices of slabbed books, this should be formally stated in the next edition.

 

There's no question that the high grade values of many, many comics is way off in the Guide, based on slabbed prices realized. I don't see why the guide couldn't further increase the 'spread' between low- and mid-grade values and high-grade values. This has been happening gradually for many years, and perhaps just needs to be accelerated somewhat. If prices for say, Green Lantern (SA) #40 in GD, VG and FN went up 10%, VF went up 15%, VF/NM went up 18% and NM 9.4 went up 25%, that would seem reasonable to me.

 

I think one concern with upping the NM 9.4 prices of many books by 50% or 100% 'overnight' would be that if three months later those prices dipped at all, the guide would be overvaluing those books for another 9 months, until the next edition came out.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Since the book was around for three decades before the whole slabbing thing began and those prices have always been for unslabbed comics, and since the prices didn't suddenly make a dramatic change when slabbing began, it always seemed obvious to me that the values in the Guide were always meant to be the values of the books themselves, not the values of the books plus plastic. We do report on slabbed pricing in the Overstreet Comic Price Review.

 

So where is Tom anyway?

[comicwiz]

There is no reluctance, it's just a question of manpower and time. Contrary to popular belief, the Guide is not put together by vast unending rows of dedicated drones who sit all day every day and churn out pages of the Guide. We're a *very* small team with a limited amount of time, but rest assured that *everything* this board has collated in recent years, including a very lengthy list of extremely helpful errata, is in our hands and ready to go in when we can get to it.

 

And "database"...that's a good one .

 

arnoldt

 

I'm just wondering what Overstreet intends to do to bridge the gap between the print-based format/data being used for the guide, while still being able to search on that same data with some sort of search engine/tool. One of the biggest let-downs of the e-guide was not being able to conduct searches on the titles or issues.

 

If this issue has not yet been dealt with, feel free to contact me. I have some insights that might help this particular effort, and quite frankly the reward in itself would be found in allowing everyone the searching capabilities in a digital version of the OS guide.

[garthgantu]

Terry - the solution is really an easy one. The nice people at Gemstone should call up Chuck and let him work his "magic". After all, Chuck invented AND saved the back issue market many times over. Hey, don't take my word for it - just ask him!! In such capable hands I would expect the OS guide to jump prices across the board by at least 100%. How's that for a great overnight return on my books!! DAM

 

I like it, Dave, but my concern is that once Chuck's done with it, the OS Guide itself will cost me $450 - of course, it will be in "Mint Plus" condition, but still...

[OldSchoolTerry]

Since the book was around for three decades before the whole slabbing thing began and those prices have always been for unslabbed comics, and since the prices didn't suddenly make a dramatic change when slabbing began, it always seemed obvious to me that the values in the Guide were always meant to be the values of the books themselves, not the values of the books plus plastic. We do report on slabbed pricing in the Overstreet Comic Price Review.

 

So where is Tom anyway?

 

C'mon, you know he's hiding under your desk, cowering with fear as we speak....

[OldSchoolTerry]

Terry - the solution is really an easy one. The nice people at Gemstone should call up Chuck and let him work his "magic". After all, Chuck invented AND saved the back issue market many times over. Hey, don't take my word for it - just ask him!! In such capable hands I would expect the OS guide to jump prices across the board by at least 100%. How's that for a great overnight return on my books!! DAM

 

I like it, Dave, but my concern is that once Chuck's done with it, the OS Guide itself will cost me $450 - of course, it will be in "Mint Plus" condition, but still...

 

Why must everyone always blast poor, defenseless Chuck? I just read through his entire "Tales from the Database" saga today (with a few trips to the bathroom in between to vomit, of course), and I think he's the ultimate feel good, American success story!! We should all be on our knees thanking him for what he's done for all of us!