Price guide values and slabbing costs... What's the balance?

[joe_collector]

So... what are we expecting the new Overstreet to help us with again?

 

It can't help, and the sooner we realize there are no "universal formulas" to apply X-times Guide values, across the board, the better off we'll be.

[RS]

The guide price should reflect the price of NM (9.4) book. Just because CGC agrees that a book is a 9.4, it doesn't mean it should be worth more.

There's little doubt that an ungraded "seller proclaimed" 9.4 sells for much less

than a CGC 9.4... and some of that higher price is due to the CGC slabbing...

both the cost of the slab and the confidence that it instills...

 

I'm interested in determining what we think the price guide should

say about the book itself, since it actually sells for $50 in CGC 9.4...

what should it "list for" in the price guide in ungraded NM?

Are you voting for $50 regardless of the slab?

 

YES. The cost of 9.4 SHOULD be the same whether raw or graded.

 

CGC does not see it that way

 

[valiantman]

It can't help, and the sooner we realize there are no "universal formulas" to apply X-times Guide values, across the board, the better off we'll be.

I agree, there's no "formula" to get it right across all grades...

but you have to admit... it could still be better than it is today.

How would you improve the price guide?

[deathlok]

It can't help, and the sooner we realize there are no "universal formulas" to apply X-times Guide values, across the board, the better off we'll be.

I agree, there's no "formula" to get it right across all grades...

but you have to admit... it could still be better than it is today.

How would you improve the price guide?

 

Right now the only way to do it. Maintain OS with raw numbers. A seperate listing for prices realized for CGC sales.

[Bullet123]

IMO The price guide should be for slabbed comics only because they are the industry standard. A Raw 9.4 comic is not a 9.4 comic; its just one persons opinion of what that comic might be. THAT is why slabbed sell for multiples of raw. I am not saying that people will not disagree with a slabbed grade but there will be much more of a concensus agreement with the slab than without.

[g-man]

IMO The price guide should be for slabbed comics only because they are the industry standard. A Raw 9.4 comic is not a 9.4 comic; its just one persons opinion of what that comic might be. THAT is why slabbed sell for multiples of raw. I am not saying that people will not disagree with a slabbed grade but there will be much more of a concensus agreement with the slab than without.

 

but a slabbed 9.4 consists of 3 people's opinions at cgc right? I agree that the slabbed books will almost always sell for higher than the raw copy but grading is just someone's or several people's opinion(s)......

[joe_collector]

IMO The price guide should be for slabbed comics only because they are the industry standard.

 

WTF? I think we need Donut to come in here and bring the CGC Acolytes back to reality. The CGC market is EXTREMELY SMALL compared to the Raw market, so basically you're advocating tossing out 99% of the pricing data points?

 

Good "industry standard" call, Einstein.

[Bullet123]

How can you call them pricing data points when the data is flawed? Again I make the point that a raw 9.4 is ONE persons opinion as to what the book is graded and can vary anywhere from a 5.0 to a 9.8 depending on the person's knowledge of grading. So how does that sale become a data pricing point? I realize that slabbed books are still vastly outnumbered out here but I do not think you can have data pricing points without having consistent data

[FlyingDonut]

Like CI said, 99% of all comic sales are for unslabbed books. I would argue strongly that the Overstreet is HIGH across the board on almost all books, especially those in lower grades. The percentage of Guide that raw, mid- to low-grade books sell for has remained constant, about 40% off of Guide, for 25 years. Rising yes, but still below Guide.

 

To say that the OPG should reflect slabbed prices only is remarkably insular. The slabbed price is completely out of line with what the vast majority of books actually sell for, and, as such, cannot be used as a true barometer of price. I'd like to see a true market valuation be put into the OPG anyway, but at least by keeping the prices in there for unslabbed comics, they are discussing what the real market is.

 

Just some raw statistics - currently (1148 EST), there are 114,402 auctions in platinum-gold-silver-bronze-modern. 3582 of them mention CGC in the title. That's 3%, and I would argue that eBay is the extreme outlier for percentages of CGC books sold. Go to a big, real comic shop, and see how many CGC books they have - I'd bet significantly less than 3%.

[valiantman]

Like CI said, 99% of all comic sales are for unslabbed books....

This is true for "all comic sales"... however...

 

"99% unslabbed" is not even close for sales of high grade keys.

Even though the majority of comic sales do not involve high grade keys,

a large portion of the hobby's focus and research is on the sales of such books.

I'd venture to guess that at least 90% of high grade key sales in the past year

WERE for CGC graded books. (Books in the Top 10 by Era, truly high grade)

 

So, if the hobby-leading, high-grade, key books are mostly sold this way...

what stock can anyone put in the "NM raw price" in the price guide for those books?

Is there such a thing as "true NM, raw" Fantastic Four #1?

If so, how many times a year is it sold?

 

Does the price guide "NM price" only refer to non-key, or under $1,000 books?

If so, then why do CGC 9.4 books ALWAYS sell for more than "NM raw" prices?

"NM price" should be the near mint price, right?

We can only agree that "near mint" is somewhere near CGC 9.4 estimates,

because we've all seen wide fluctuations in the definition of "near mint" otherwise.

 

Is the solution as simple as Overstreet changing 9.4 prices to 9.0 prices?

Most would agree that "raw NM" is usually closer to 9.0 on average anyway...

so whatever the price average is for "raw NM", that's probably a good value for 9.0?

[Bullet123]

I agree that the majority of comic sales are still of the raw variety. However you can not say that OPG reflects what books sell for. The only way to track sale prices of different books in different grades is to have consistent data. The reason that more low grade books sell for guide and high grade books sell for multiples of guide ( I am talking GA,SA,BA as that is all I collect and do not follow the other markets) is because people feel more comfortable paying higher prices for consistency in grading and resto checks. My statement about using cgc books for the price guide is because of the consistency factor in both buying/selling and then you can adjust your raw prices accordingly based on that but it is harder to go the other way because you can not base your cgc pricing on consistent data because everyone's opinion of a raw books grade tend to be different

[FFB]

That's not exactly right in terms of what my position is. The value of the book in the guide should be the value of the unslabbed book in NM 9.4. The value of the CGC 9.4 should be arrived at after beginning with the unslabbed price, not working in reverse as you have suggested. I do not think that the guide should list "slabbed vs. unslabbed" values. The premium that a collector is willing to pay for a given slabbed book on a given day is not something that the guides should try to catalog in my opinion, because the slabbing premium varies so much from book to book and from day to day.

 

So, if I am understanding the responses so far...

 

Given that some book sells regularly for $50 in CGC 9.4...

and you want to list the book accurately as NM 9.4 (ungraded) in a price guide...

 

deathlok says that the price guide should list the NM non-CGC book at $50.

fantasyfootballbono says that the price guide should list the NM book around $25.

ninanina says that the price guide should list the NM book around $10.

25centcomic says that you would need two price guides.

 

So... what are we expecting the new Overstreet to help us with again?