Do today's high key comic price increases have a historical equivalent?

[Davenport]

My current hypothesis is that ALL of the titles increasing similarly over such a short period is generally a bad indicator--that something outside of the hobby is causing it.

Imho we're just witnessing a self-contained fanboy wetdream come to life. That's all.

 

It's the same phenomenon that produces Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwiches. By that I mean someone throwing stupid money can create 10 minutes worth of short-lived buzz and attention, gets others fantasizing.

 

Comics just has plenty of Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwiches to "discover" and have the BIG MONEY fantasy play itself out. And each time it stimulates more submissions, more consignments, and more profits. But at the end of the day collectors still have to decide for themselves if its another grilled cheese sandwhich or some extreme-value "part of pop culture".

 

____________________________________

 

"MIAMI - A woman who said her 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich bore the image of the Virgin Mary will be getting a lot more bread after the item sold for $28,000 on eBay.

GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, confirmed that it placed the winning bid, and company executives said they were willing to spend “as much as it took” to own the 10-year-old half-sandwich with a bite out of it. “It’s a part of pop culture that’s immediately and widely recognizable,” spokesman Monty Kerr told The Miami Herald. “We knew right away we wanted to have it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Aman619]

there are no "investor/speculators" coming into the hobby. Not enough to have caused the price increases talked about. Your argument makes some sense economically in the abstract, that smart money would flow to hobbies etc. But, in fact, Nasdaq has blown away comics in 2009 bouncing off lows. If anyone moved into comics they lost a better opportunity in the real markets you say they fled here from.

 

The fact is that comics are only viable investments for us comics fans who WANT them first and as a moneymaker second.

 

 

I believe Vinnie's Morgan Stanley adventure was as much his idea as his broker friend's to attempt to fire up a little business. No harm in that. But it didnt signal WALL ST hedging our way in any appreciable way. I have a friend invested at Morgan and who gets all of Morgans sales materials and he never heard of this investment summit for comics potential. Its not like MS called the WSJ and NYT and Barrons and they all ran with the big breaking news about a shift to comics.

 

What do you mean that there are no investors/speculators coming into the hobby? Do you have some sort of inside track on that intel? With the prices realized on a lot of books recently in the current economic condition, there has to be a few big wallets walking over to the funny books section of the carnival.

 

ask the dealers how many Wall St investors have ben kicking the tires lately. Iv ebeen reading and hearing people talk about the influx of new money for 20 years. Its all a dream Okay, maybe a handful of cool guys with play money have been attracted to buy HG comics here and there, But I am confident it is no more than a trickle here and there.

 

No Hollywood wave of money

No Japanese wave of money.

 

its just us and always has been. And we are spending more than ever and prices have risen I think due to the auction mentality. In the old days a dealer got a cool book, and priced it You either said yes or no. As word of sales spread, the next dealer picked a higher price.

 

But now, you bid in an auction and if youre unlucky, someone else wants it real bad too. You both bid 25% more thsn youd prefer to pay for fear that the other guy gets it too cheap, Voila! NEW WORLD RECORD SALE. rinse and repeat. The competition to win/but key books has accelerated the rising prices more than everything else, the more I think about it.

 

[Paratrooper]

I believe these prices are unsustainable simply because when you do the math, it will not add up.

 

Every single GA, SA, and BA book has a top census by definition. Sometimes multiple copies at the top census. For the often absurd prices that are being paid for these books, if you multiply it times every single decent GA, SA, or BA book of any interest out there, then I don't think the total amount of money coming into the market can hold up the total amount of money required to sustain these prices.

 

So it begs the question - how are prices holding up? I believe here is a constant rotation between books being acquired and sold. This gives the illusion of price appreciation. Witness many top census books now hitting all the auction sites, yet at the same time top census books are hitting top prices. There is a rotation going on. You can even call it musical chairs. When it stops nobody knows.

 

I've seen it before in all other markets. The people who argue that this can go on for a while will use the same arguments as they did in stocks, real estate, etc. The people who argue we are at the top will also use the same arguments as they did in stocks, real estate, etc. But the bottom line is, the music will stop. It always does when you deviate so far from the mean.

 

Don't get stuck with that Spiday #55 when the music does stop. You might just realize that it might have been better to use that money to take that vacation you always wanted rather than put it into something that "merely" sports a "9.8" in the corner and is "top census."

 

But what do I know!

 

So what you're saying is...it's a good thing that I spent $24k on my trip to Antarctica than buy that Action #2 I always wanted? And whew...... and thank god I don't collect keys.

 

 

This is my passive aggressive way of agreeing with you btw.

[Hedge Collector]

Is anyone familiar with coin collecting and baseball card collecting?

 

When "official" grading came out for coins and baseball cards, as it has now been of CGC for comics, was there a similar grading effect (ie. parabolic spikes in prices of the highest grade coins and especially those of the "keys")?

[Hedge Collector]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this but I also think a minor contribution has been the registry. It just feeds the completionist and competionist mentality of all the collectors.

 

And a major contribution I think is also the census. We now can guage with much more accurary the rarity of a grade within an issue, and the rarity of the issue itself. I believe proof of this is why high grades have seen price appreciation and low-mid grades have actually seen price depreciation. People now have a much better idea of the supply of an issue - the perceived value of books in short supply will go up while the perceived value of books in ample/large supply will go down.

[Aman619]

unless its Hulk 181. or other anomalies.

[Hedge Collector]

unless its Hulk 181. or other anomalies.

 

Do you mean that there are many issues still uncensused that keep arising? Didn't a board member mention that purchasing of multiple copies was actually prevalent for that issue?

 

But for sure as we get closer to the present, the risk of the census being less representative of the actuall number increases.

[tth2]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this but I also think a minor contribution has been the registry. It just feeds the completionist and competionist mentality of all the collectors.

This is true, except for the fact that many of the biggest players who are driving the headline prices don't participate in the registry.

[Aman619]

unless its Hulk 181. or other anomalies.

 

Do you mean that there are many issues still uncensused that keep arising? Didn't a board member mention that purchasing of multiple copies was actually prevalent for that issue?

 

But for sure as we get closer to the present, the risk of the census being less representative of the actuall number increases.

 

 

all I meant by bringing up 181 was that sure low census numbers have shown us some scarcer books to actually be scarce, driving up the prices paid.

 

Bur there are quite a few later BA books that continue to sell for huge numbers even though there are 100s in 9.4+ already on the census. 181 is the poster child for this.

 

Im sure there are still plenty of raw 181s out there. And 1000s already slabbed. It was in the MH2 warehouse so that might have been 10 - 20000 unread/uncirculated copies right there. (not every book was there in the same numbers, tho I have no detailed info on it).

[fantastic_four]

Does anyone recall a time similar to this

 

Yes. (thumbs u

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulipmania

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_sea_bubble

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_bubble

 

I don't see a lot of similarity between key comics and most of these bubbles with the fundamental difference being supply. Tulips, trade opportunities in the New World, viable Internet-based companies, and real estate are all in huge supply in comparison to the remaining copies of comic book keys.

 

However, I get your general point--you think we're in a bubble. All of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze keys have gone up sharply over a short time period in the past, yet they never experienced any sharp price decreases exhibited by the bubbles you linked to. The Tulip, South Sea, and dot-com bubbles saw goods experience a near-total loss in value; we just haven't seen that with key comics throughout their entire history. Real estate is more similar in that it just deflated slightly instead of losing all value, yet comics have never seen that level of deflation, I suspect again, due to their limited and shrinking supply. What makes you think the sharp increases on keys from the last 2-3 years will result in deflation when that hasn't happened during any of the previous sharp increases from the last 50 years of the comics market?

 

I'm also not clear on when the bubble you see begins and ends. I believe there has been a clear increase since 2007 that we did not see from 2001 to 2006. I recall you describing the CGC-and-ebay-inspired increases we were seeing from after 2000-2001 as a bubble. However, the pop on that one hasn't come yet. So I'm guessing you just see the entire post-CGC time period as one big bubble that's due to pop? Any ideas on why there's been a bubble within that larger bubble on keys since 2007?

 

I have a really hard time seeing CGC's introduction as the start of a rather lengthy bubble that just hasn't run its course yet. I'm just about dead certain people were saying the same thing after the increases following Overstreet's introduction of pricing back in the early 1970s, yet that bubble never popped. CGC has introduced a similar level value via market stability and confidence that Overstreet added. What reason is there to believe that CGC's contribution to the market will have a more disastrous effect than Overstreet's did, particularly when we acknowledge that the Internet's impact on the comics market and its synergy with making CGC-graded books so much easier to sell via the Internet really was a huge part of the increase we saw when CGC started up?

[Hedge Collector]

Is anyone familiar with coin collecting and baseball card collecting?

 

When "official" grading came out for coins and baseball cards, as it has now been of CGC for comics, was there a similar grading effect (ie. parabolic spikes in prices of the highest grade coins and especially those of the "keys")?

 

Any coin/card collectors out there familiar with this history?

[THE_BEYONDER]

What reason is there to believe that CGC's contribution to the market will have a more disastrous effect than Overstreet's did?

 

The DEFINING of .2 /.5 increments in grade is what seperates CGC from OS. The number on the label exhibits a Direct correlation to current Values. CGC is the Means of Production & will soon be dictating prices by including values in their census & registry.

 

IMO - The inclusion of CPG pricing will be the catalyst that causes the bubble to burst.

 

 

 

*Removes tinfoil hat & goes on about his day.....

[fantastic_four]

CGC is the Means of Production & will soon be dictating prices by including values in their census & registry.

 

Whoa, when did they announce this?

[THE_BEYONDER]

CGC is the Means of Production & will soon be dictating prices by including values in their census & registry.

 

Whoa, when did they announce this?

 

I think it's on the homepage. CGC joined forces with CPG

 

 

 

Or maybe it was just a bad dream......

[THE_BEYONDER]

4/7/2009

 

Companies create new information exchange to improve online resources available to collectors.

 

[indianapolis, Indiana] - ComicsPriceGuide.com, the premiere online comic book price guide, announced that it has partnered with CGC, the hobby’s only independent third party comic certification company. The two companies will be working together to educate and strengthen the hobby by making important collector resources available online.

 

For the first time, ComicsPriceGuide.com will display information from CGC’s comprehensive comic book research catalog on its website. Information to be available to collectors includes key comic notes, such as character appearances and origins, important story elements, and the presence of inserts in the original comic book. CGC will also provide creator credit information to ComicsPriceGuide.com, describing the artists and writers responsible for the story and art for over 80,000 comic books included in the datafile.

 

“ComicsPriceGuide.com is looking to best serve our extensive membership and the general public. By teaming up with CGC, we will be improving the information available to both advanced and novice collectors,” said ComicsPricesGuide.com’s President Tom Gordon III. “By giving collectors ready access to certified comic book data, we will be able to serve the needs of our hobby by way of the internet.”

 

CGC will also display valuable resources on its websites, ComicsPriceGuide.com will provide pricing information to CGC to include alongside CGC Census information and within the CGC Comics Registry. This will allow collectors to readily get an accurate ComicsPriceGuide.com valuation of the books they have listed within their CGC Registry Sets.

 

“Quality information resources are one thing really engaging about the hobby of comic book collecting. We’re very excited to work with ComicsPriceGuide.com to create great tools that definitely enrich the experience of devoted collectors,” comments Mark Haspel, President of CGC.

[fantastic_four]

You got it backwards--CGC isn't presenting pricing data, they're supply registry data to CPG. GPA has always been free to do this by screen-scraping it just like Greg Holland does; I'm surprised George still hasn't started doing that.

 

I hope CGC is creating some kind of standard interface to expose their data to CPG like a web service. It could be that CGC isn't doing anything at all, that CPG is scraping the data just like Greg Holland is and just wanted to get CGC's blessing for PR and legal reasons.

[THE_BEYONDER]

You got it backwards--CGC isn't presenting pricing data, they're supply registry data to CPG. GPA has always been free to do this by screen-scraping it just like Greg Holland does; I'm surprised George still hasn't started doing that.

 

I hope CGC is creating some kind of standard interface to expose their data to CPG like a web service. It could be that CGC isn't doing anything at all, that CPG is scraping the data just like Greg Holland is and just wanted to get CGC's blessing for PR and legal reasons.

 

Did you read the bolded part I posted? CGC will be including CPG pricing data in their census & registry.

 

 

[Bronty]

yeah but who cares. they already include pseudo values ("registry points") in the registry... this is just offloading the chore of updating the points values

[THE_BEYONDER]

yeah but who cares. they already include pseudo values ("registry points") in the registry... this is just offloading the chore of updating the points values

 

Never suggested I cared.

 

 

Just think it's odd that a third-party grading company has decided to assign values to the books they grade.

[Bronty]

What makes you think the sharp increases on keys from the last 2-3 years will result in deflation when that hasn't happened during any of the previous sharp increases from the last 50 years of the comics market?

 

hasn't some deflation already happened? From some threads on this board I was under the impression that AF15 and FF1 prices had cooled a bit in most grades.

 

Not as drastic a revaluation as tulips or internet stocks of course, but still a downward revaluation. If we're just talking about SA marvel keys clearly they will retain some value at least for many years yet.

 

I assume gene is talking more about asm 55 in 9.8 for 15k type bubbles. Those are more tulip-ish, one would think as I doubt most collectors would, in absence of resale opportunities, care to spend more than $100 on that particular issue.