OW-W has become the new C-OW

[dekeuk]

I see more of it every day ......... post 1980 books in OW-W getting treated like they were C-OW books from the 1970's.

 

The OW-W books have to be discounted more and more to move them, compared to their "bone white" cousins.

 

Look at the latest attempts to move OW-W books in these lots they assemble in

 

HERITAGE AUCTIONS like this.

 

 

You get 4 modern Spidey books in 9.8, and the first image that shows up is WHITE pages, but the rest of the books are OW-W. Obviously it is not worth it to Heritage to sell these OW-W books individually.

 

I found out the same thing when I tried to sell a lot of 5 late bronze Spidey books that were all OW-W on the boards. Even when I offered a 35% discount off 12 month average GPA, there was not even one single PM expressing any interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Shark]

Well, I am NOT one of those buyers who has to have white pages on everything that he buys. Nor do I have to have 9.8 copies. I like having a nice collection of 9.0 to 9.6 slabs that nobody else wants. I figure all of these people paying astronomical prices for 9.8's will probably end up crying later on when the values start to drop as more 9.8 copies come to market.

 

BTW, what were the Bronze Age Spideys you were trying to sell? Were they slabs and what were the issue numbers?

[KingOfRulers]

As long as the book is not "brittle", "brown" or "tan" I don't care. And in my opinion, CGC isn't that consistent on page quality anyway. I never did "get" the page quality nuts.

[dekeuk]

 

 

 

 

 

BTW, what were the Bronze Age Spideys you were trying to sell? Were they slabs and what were the issue numbers?

 

 

I listed them 3 separate times in the sales forum. Five ASM books 199, 203, 204, 228, 229

 

All 9.8 OW-W

 

12 month GPA was $444, I eventually offered them for 35% off GPA, nobody even sent me a PM, so I sold them on Comiclink

 

 

[Shark]

 

BTW, what were the Bronze Age Spideys you were trying to sell? Were they slabs and what were the issue numbers?

 

 

I listed them 3 separate times in the sales forum. Five ASM books 199, 203, 204, 228, 229

 

All 9.8 OW-W

 

12 month GPA was $444, I eventually offered them for 35% off GPA, nobody even sent me a PM, so I sold them on Comiclink

 

 

I normally would have jumped on a deal like that but I have other obligations currently so had to pass. I remember the sales thread though.

 

 

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

I have to agree with the basics of this thread....OW/W books are all but ignored by most Copper collectors, and consequently, they sell for good percentages less then their 9.8/White cousins.

 

Personally, I think its silly, but thats the market when someone wants "the best" and there is enough supply out there where they can afford to be choosy.

 

[Dale Roberts]

I would bet most collectors could not distinguish between white and off white/white pages. And I guarantee that CGC does not have a standard for white pages, as I have been told that it is mostly an arbitrary decision.

 

It doesn't make any sense for there to be a noticable price difference. Over time, page quality is going to change even in a slab, due to climate and storage conditions, or simply due to the paper quality. So a slab with white pages bought 4 years ago, but stored in a warm, humid climate, is likely to have off white to white pages now.

 

 

[Dale Roberts]

I see more of it every day ......... post 1980 books in OW-W getting treated like they were C-OW books from the 1970's.

 

The OW-W books have to be discounted more and more to move them, compared to their "bone white" cousins.

 

Look at the latest attempts to move OW-W books in these lots they assemble in

 

HERITAGE AUCTIONS like this.

 

 

You get 4 modern Spidey books in 9.8, and the first image that shows up is WHITE pages, but the rest of the books are OW-W. Obviously it is not worth it to Heritage to sell these OW-W books individually.

 

I found out the same thing when I tried to sell a lot of 5 late bronze Spidey books that were all OW-W on the boards. Even when I offered a 35% discount off 12 month average GPA, there was not even one single PM expressing any interest.

 

 

 

 

 

This is NOT why Heritage is doing this. Heritage is grouping these books together in an effort to not have an effect on GPA, which is smart on their part. It has nothing to do with page quality.

 

I suspect that your inability to sell those late bronze books relates more to selling to a finite market which has been offered these books over a hundred times, and also to the fact that there is a finite amount of money on the boards, and there are about as many sellers as buyers nowadays.

[dekeuk]

 

 

This is NOT why Heritage is doing this. Heritage is grouping these books together in an effort to not have an effect on GPA, which is smart on their part. It has nothing to do with page quality.

 

That is true BUT I notice all of their lots are loaded with OW-W books. They tend to sell the white page books individually and dump the OW-W books into lots (which is a smart idea).

 

Thus GPA does get skewed, because it tends to reflect only the Heritage white page sales, not all of the Heritage sales.

 

 

[VintageComics]

I would bet most collectors could not distinguish between white and off white/white pages. And I guarantee that CGC does not have a standard for white pages, as I have been told that it is mostly an arbitrary decision.

 

 

Right on.

 

(thumbs u

 

Crack some slabs and you'll see that even a c/ow book is not so bad. It's just another case of stigmatization due to the label.

 

I know I've said this story many times but it bears repeating. I cracked a GA book with light tan to off white pages and the majority if the pages were white. The book was 9.6 structure and got knocked down to an 8.5 because of PQ. There was just a tiny light tan strip (about 1-2 millimetres) on two edges that caused the designation.

 

In fact I was so sure that CGC were wrong that I cracked the book two times and resubbed it...even cracked it in front of a bunch of board members in Chicago '08 so we could discuss it...and although the book came back lt/ow every time I knew what the pages looked like inside.

 

The book ended up selling for a premium on a consignment site (over 8.5 price) because someone could fully appreciate what it was.

 

I don't get bothered by PQ much any more since that incident.

[Superman2006]

Please keep in mind that the 90 day GPA for the 5 books you were listing only adds up to $354, yet you seemed to have only quoted the higher 12 month average of $444. I don't follow most bronze that closely, but my impression is that prices have been falling over the past year, so that the 90 day average of $354 is the more realistic FMV for the books you were listing. Add in the fact that all of them were OWTWP, which is somewhat average to low PQ for the books that you were listing (there are a lot of WP copies of those books available when they appear for sale), and the fact that most people wouldn't need all 5 of the books you had listed, and I'm not at all surprised that nobody was jumping to purchase them for anywhere close to $444.

 

In short, I don't think that your listing of these 5 books as a lot is necessarily indicative of a wide-scale shunning of OWTWP bronze books by collectors, although I would agree that WP books might command a small premium, or move a bit faster...

 

 

[rjpb]

Given that collectors will pay multiples for minor subjective improvements in the numeric grade, it's unsurprising that they would feel the same about designated page quality as well. Considering that one would expect a discount far more than 35% from 9.8 value for a 9.6 book, I wouldn't be surprised to find picky collectors eventually deciding that ow/w copies of a high grade book should be worth half or less what a white page copy with the same numeric grade would sell for. If CGC ever comes up with a scale to evaluate QP things could get really fun.

[Shark]

Please keep in mind that the 90 day GPA for the 5 books you were listing only adds up to $354, yet you seemed to have only quoted the higher 12 month average of $444. I don't follow most bronze that closely, but my impression is that prices have been falling over the past year, so that the 90 day average of $354 is the more realistic FMV for the books you were listing. Add in the fact that all of them were OWTWP, which is somewhat average to low PQ for the books that you were listing (there are a lot of WP copies of those books available when they appear for sale), and the fact that most people wouldn't need all 5 of the books you had listed, and I'm not at all surprised that nobody was jumping to purchase them for anywhere close to $444.

 

In short, I don't think that your listing of these 5 books as a lot is necessarily indicative of a wide-scale shunning of OWTWP bronze books by collectors, although I would agree that WP books might command a small premium, or move a bit faster...

 

 

I'll agree that if dekeuk had listed the 5 books with individual prices instead of as a whole lot I might have gone ahead and purchased one or two of them.

[Superman2006]

I would bet most collectors could not distinguish between white and off white/white pages. And I guarantee that CGC does not have a standard for white pages, as I have been told that it is mostly an arbitrary decision.

 

 

Right on.

 

(thumbs u

 

Crack some slabs and you'll see that even a c/ow book is not so bad. It's just another case of stigmatization due to the label.

 

I know I've said this story many times but it bears repeating. I cracked a GA book with light tan to off white pages and the majority if the pages were white. The book was 9.6 structure and got knocked down to an 8.5 because of PQ. There was just a tiny light tan strip (about 1-2 millimetres) on two edges that caused the designation.

 

In fact I was so sure that CGC were wrong that I cracked the book two times and resubbed it...even cracked it in front of a bunch of board members in Chicago '08 so we could discuss it...and although the book came back lt/ow every time I knew what the pages looked like inside.

 

The book ended up selling for a premium on a consignment site (over 8.5 price) because someone could fully appreciate what it was.

 

I don't get bothered by PQ much any more since that incident.

 

My understanding / observations are that CGC notes the worst PQ present in a book, which is generally on the edges of the book (and in your case is the LT strip), and then looks at the best PQ present in the book, generally on the inside middle of the book, and then combines them, except limiting the top PQ notation on the label to off-white if the worst PQ notation is lower than off-white. For your book, this would translate to a LT to OW page quality notation on the label.

 

Although your LT-OW book only has a small strip of LT on it, many other books with this same designation might have a lot more LT on them, which is why I do continue to care about PQ, even if there are variances across books with a given PQ notation.

 

I've always thought that it would be helpful to add %'s to the PQ designation e.g. 1% LT 99% OW (or better) for your book, but that of course would open up even more complaints (e.g. CGC said my book was 5% LT 95% OW last time, and now they say it's 10% LT 90% OW), and increase the cost to slab, so I'm fine with the current slightly imperfect info provided re PQ.

[dekeuk]

Please keep in mind that the 90 day GPA for the 5 books you were listing only adds up to $354, yet you seemed to have only quoted the higher 12 month average of $444. I don't follow most bronze that closely, but my impression is that prices have been falling over the past year, so that the 90 day average of $354 is the more realistic FMV for the books you were listing. Add in the fact that all of them were OWTWP, which is somewhat average to low PQ for the books that you were listing (there are a lot of WP copies of those books available when they appear for sale), and the fact that most people wouldn't need all 5 of the books you had listed, and I'm not at all surprised that nobody was jumping to purchase them for anywhere close to $444.

 

In short, I don't think that your listing of these 5 books as a lot is necessarily indicative of a wide-scale shunning of OWTWP bronze books by collectors, although I would agree that WP books might command a small premium, or move a bit faster...

 

 

I'll agree that if dekeuk had listed the 5 books with individual prices instead of as a whole lot I might have gone ahead and purchased one or two of them.

 

 

I agree 90 days GPA was lower HOWEVER .......

 

those books were ignored on the boards like they had swine flu. Even when I had them priced at $295 there was not one single PM asking if I would take $275, or a PM to ask if I would split them up, etc.

 

That's fine ...... they sold on Comiclink within a couple days.

 

But I think we are approaching the point where post 1980 books with 20+ copies in 9.8 on the census, collectors of 9.8 can afford to very very picky, and they are going to ignore anything less than white pages.

 

It makes sense really ..... the whole point of paying big $$ for 9.8 is to get a "perfect" copy, and many collectors will consider anything less than white pages to be less than perfect ..... might as well buy the 9.6 instead.

 

The fact that PQ is so subjective does not matter, it is what is on the LABEL: that counts with many 9.8 collectors.

 

I am somewhat guilty of this because I despise 9.8 books with crooked covers, I will not touch a post 1980 book in 9.8 with a crooked cover.

 

 

 

 

[supapimp]

i can understand C-OW to OW, but not C-OW to OW-W. that's too much of a difference, and if that were true, that means better deals for buyers.

[tth2]

In fact I was so sure that CGC were wrong that I cracked the book two times and resubbed it...even cracked it in front of a bunch of board members in Chicago '08 so we could discuss it...and although the book came back lt/ow every time I knew what the pages looked like inside.

That's not exactly the evidence that I would present for CGC being arbitrary in their PQ designations!

 

In fact, what it seems to show is that whatever criteria it was that they based their PQ designation on, they seemed to be remarkably consistent in applying them, even if their criteria was apparently different from your criteria.

[Superman2006]

In fact I was so sure that CGC were wrong that I cracked the book two times and resubbed it...even cracked it in front of a bunch of board members in Chicago '08 so we could discuss it...and although the book came back lt/ow every time I knew what the pages looked like inside.

That's not exactly the evidence that I would present for CGC being arbitrary in their PQ designations!

 

In fact, what it seems to show is that whatever criteria it was that they based their PQ designation on, they seemed to be remarkably consistent in applying them, even if their criteria was apparently different from your criteria.

 

I agree that this supports the fact that CGC isn't totally arbitrary when designating PQ (where such criteria might be something like that which I described in my earlier post)...

[tth2]

I agree 90 days GPA was lower HOWEVER .......

 

those books were ignored on the boards like they had swine flu. Even when I had them priced at $295 there was not one single PM asking if I would take $275, or a PM to ask if I would split them up, etc.

Maybe the Boards are just a krappy place to sell comics?

[VintageComics]

In fact I was so sure that CGC were wrong that I cracked the book two times and resubbed it...even cracked it in front of a bunch of board members in Chicago '08 so we could discuss it...and although the book came back lt/ow every time I knew what the pages looked like inside.

That's not exactly the evidence that I would present for CGC being arbitrary in their PQ designations!

 

In fact, what it seems to show is that whatever criteria it was that they based their PQ designation on, they seemed to be remarkably consistent in applying them, even if their criteria was apparently different from your criteria.

 

 

My point in this discussion was not in relation to their consistancy but rather it was that a buyer's perception of what the inside of the book looks like may not be consistent with how it actually looks.

 

As far as their consistency is, I'll say they are mostly accurate but you can easily have books move one or two points in PQ in either direction at any given time.

 

I've seen it first hand.

 

That's why I tried resubbing the book because I felt the book itself was being done a dis-service with the 8.5 lt/ow designation.

 

The new owner obviously thought so as well as they paid well over 8.5 price for it.

 

R.