High Multiple for Mile Highs

[AllTop8Me]

Does anyone know what the record multiple for a Mile High is? This auction is currently bumped up so that the minimum bid is a mere 16 times Guide.

http://apps.heritagecomics.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=809&Lot_No=2183&sid=CDC159156BB81BF2C909B7B4D5923E17.

 

Do you think the book will sell? As I understand it, if for some reason it doesn't, the seller intends to give it to President Kucinich as an inauguration present.

[rob_react]

Does Dean Kamen buy his dad's comics as well as art? If he does, then there's at least one person who could pick this up for a huge guide multiple and not even blink.

[GoodyRickles]

Is that the Dean Kamen, "Inventor" Multi-Millionare??? He's Related to Kamen Golden-Age Artist???

[rob_react]

Yes, Dean Kamen, the inventor, is good girl artist Jack Kamen's son.

[FlyingDonut]

Does anyone know what the record multiple for a Mile High is? This auction is currently bumped up so that the minimum bid is a mere 16 times Guide.

http://apps.heritagecomics.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=809&Lot_No=2183&sid=CDC159156BB81BF2C909B7B4D5923E17.

 

Do you think the book will sell? As I understand it, if for some reason it doesn't, the seller intends to give it to President Kucinich as an inauguration present.

 

This book sold once before recently for about $9K, I'm guessing within the past two years.

[AllTop8Me]

 

This book sold once before recently for about $9K, I'm guessing within the past two years.

 

Wow, over 9 time the current Guide, closer to 10 times Guide if the sale was two years ago. Has anyone ever heard of a greater multiple for a Mile High? Or anything even close?

 

Also, I was surprised to hear that Jack Kamen's son is paying megabucks for his original art. I've seen Kamen pages go fairly cheap, and sometimes not meet a modest opening bid or reserve. Contrast the case with original Peanuts pieces, where the Schulz family has bid original pieces up ten-fold or more from the early 90s. (I was offered $15K recently for my Psychiatrist booth daily!) It strikes me as curious that after an artist spends a lifetime getting his work out to the wider world his descendants would make it their goal not merely to own a few nice pieces but to take it all back....

[Timely]

I've sold many, many DC MH's over 10 times guide. The record offer I received on a MH was 18.33 times guide for an Action MH a few years ago.

 

Timely

[lou_fine]

Does anyone know what the record multiple for a Mile High is? This auction is currently bumped up so that the minimum bid is a mere 16 times Guide.

http://apps.heritagecomics.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=809&Lot_No=2183&sid=CDC159156BB81BF2C909B7B4D5923E17.

 

This book sold a couple of years ago in the Heritage auction along with the other Brenda Starr books. The price was $8,750 or just over $10K including the buyer's premium.

 

I don't believe this book will sell for the latest price because the bidder was already bidding against Heritage's bump price two years ago. This means there was nobody else out there except the current seller who was willing to go this high.

 

This is why I feel that using Heritage's final prices as a guage of the market can be extremely misleading since a substantial number of books are not bid up in a true market fashion.

[Rip]

[Aman619]

This is why I feel that using Heritage's final prices as a guage of the market can be extremely misleading since a substantial number of books are not bid up in a true market fashion.

 

thats a great observation... You can also make a similar point that super high prices as a result of to guys bidding against each other relentlessly result in misleading final prices, too. But isnt the Heritage Bump just their way to get the bids up to the reserves? They see no point in letting a book sit there unbid way below reserve waiting for bids above $20 since it will not sell. I dont like the bump, but at least it tells you about what the book needs to sell for..

[joe_collector]

This is why I feel that using Heritage's final prices as a guage of the market can be extremely misleading since a substantial number of books are not bid up in a true market fashion.

 

Heritage prices have very little to do with "real market value", and are more like retail sales with a "set price" that is "bumped" to hit the magic sell point.

 

If only one insufficiently_thoughtful_person is willing to go to $10K for a book that opens at $1K on both EBay and Heritage, the end results could be totally different, with the "bump" assuring that this bozo pays through the teeth for the comic.

 

That's not "market forces at work", but a retail sale using a hidden fixed price.

[lou_fine]

This is why I feel that using Heritage's final prices as a guage of the market can be extremely misleading since a substantial number of books are not bid up in a true market fashion.

 

Heritage prices have very little to do with "real market value", and are more like retail sales with a "set price" that is "bumped" to hit the magic sell point.

 

If only one insufficiently_thoughtful_person is willing to go to $10K for a book that opens at $1K on both EBay and Heritage, the end results could be totally different, with the "bump" assuring that this bozo pays through the teeth for the comic.

 

That's not "market forces at work", but a retail sale using a hidden fixed price.

 

JC and Aman;

 

My point exactly! This is why collectors have to be very careful when they use pricing services such as GPA Analaysis. This is especially true in the case of GA books where transactions in a particular book may be few and far between.

 

These services will always incorporate the final prices and ignore the fact that the final 40%, 60%, or what have you was actually a foolhardy bidder bidding up the book to hit the set reserve price.

[FlComicFan]

in the end its worth what someone is willing to pay for it Obviously with most high end material there is always someone , sometimes more than one, who is/are willing to pay substantially more than the rest of the comic collecting community. Whew, glad I am ok with low to mid grades and dont have to butt heads with these high rolllers

[Aman619]

Its a shame that Heritage auction results cant be used as a true indicator of the price a book will sell for because of th eway they utilize th ebump. However, if a comics sells for a certain price, even if it ws "coerced" in som emanner, th edata is still valid: A sale DID take place at that price. The buyer KNEW he was paying it and agreed to it.

 

So even if we can argue that the buyer could or should have paid less, how is this different from all the occasions when a buyer pays (what others declare to be) too much to a dealer one-on-one when the dealer refuses to take less or give a substantial discount???

 

a certain bok has sold for a certain price. Why shouldnt it enter the database??

[joe_collector]

Its a shame that Heritage auction results cant be used as a true indicator of the price a book will sell for because of th eway they utilize th ebump. However, if a comics sells for a certain price, even if it ws "coerced" in som emanner, th edata is still valid: A sale DID take place at that price. The buyer KNEW he was paying it and agreed to it.

 

I agree, and it in no way invalidates the data.

 

The problem I see is that Heritage sales are viewed as true AUCTION data, leading the newbies to believe that prices are attained in wild bidding, when in reality, it was more likely to be one or two guys hit with the "bump".

 

If people understand how Heritages sales work, then that's fine, but to present them as "true auctions at current market prices" is a real joke, and highly deceptive.

[AllTop8Me]

in the end its worth what someone is willing to pay for it Obviously with most high end material there is always someone , sometimes more than one, who is/are willing to pay substantially more than the rest of the comic collecting community.

 

I question the validity of this reasoning. True, since Mile Highs are one-of-a-kind items, it only takes two well-heeled collectors who are very passionate about Brenda Star #14 to make this a $15K book. But the fact that the seller is flipping this after purchasing it only two years ago at Heritage's first auction - when many buyers paid absurd prices, thinking they were getting in at the bottom of the Heritage and CGC crazes - leads me to believe that this was purchased by a speculator. Speculating that a price, no matter how high relative to any rational justification, is low compared to what someone caught in the hype some time in the future will be willing to pay can send shares of Infospace to trade at $500. But such is not the true measure of "value" and eventually, when cooler heads prevail, the price invariably goes down. The moral of the story is that speculators cannot sustain a market, they merely provide liquidity. There has to be some underlying, instrinsic "worth". Yes, many speculators buy and sell pork bellies with no intent of eating them. But the day the whole world goes vegetarian is the day that pork belly futures become worthless, even to speculators. In collectibles, the "worth" is supplied by people who truly appreciate and enjoy the product. When the prices bid up by speculators outstips the true demand among collectors, a bubble has occurred. Bubbles generally don't burst over night, but tend to unwind over months or even years, as the market slowly comes to its senses. Sometimes, though, it's even quicker (e.g. the Southeast Asian crisis of the summer of 1997). The Mile Highs are an interesting case. If Timely's experience is indicative, there may be enough collectors of DC Mile Highs to sustain prices of 10 times Guide or more. But this is unlikely the case across the board. GGA books have a discrete audience that, with the exception of Suspense 3, has never launched a book into the stratosphere. In such an environment, I don't see how this book can command the $15K that is being sought and, eventually, that will become common knowledge.