Top Overstreet grade now 9.2

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

I *have* seen strange lights and candles when I walk by that time of year, and the murmur of complex, arcane incantations.

 

 

Arnold

[lou_fine]

I was only here for a morning drive-by but I will get one more post in before I go. The reason to mess with the annual guide is that their advisors and customers asked them to. For the last five years, everyone has been telling Overstreet that their 9.4 prices on older books are out of touch with reality. That's not just because of CGC, multiples for high end books have been with us for a while.

 

When half the dealer ads in the Guide are bragging that they will pay 100% of NM Guide for NM books, clearly the Guide is wrong. We all knew it was wrong...

 

Overstreet had three choices:

[*]Continue to list data that was inaccurate for high grade material.[*]Start listing realized prices for true NM books[*]List prices only for those grades that are stable and accurate.

 

For several years, Overstreet went with the first choice. It was the safest, the most consistent. And also the most irresponsible. I doubt it felt good knowingly plugging in prices that were so out of touch with reality. And I doubt it felt good having dealers point and laugh about how out of touch your Guide is with the marketplace.

 

To do the second choice would have resulted in a Guide with HUGE price increases for tens of thousands of books. Serious questions would have been raised by collectors and dealers alike whether Overstreet was recklessly feeding the speculator mentality. Year-to-year comparisons become completely meaningless. And if the speculative bubble collapses, Overstreet would now have a responsibility to adjust down all those books. People don't like bad news, even if it doesn't apply to them. And the Guide 2, 3, 5, or 10 years from now that reflected those catastrophic drops might be a death knell for the hobby. Consumer confidence would be severely shaken and even guys like FlyingDonut would suffer. If people don't feel good about their hobby they don't spend as much money.

 

The third option is irritating. The transition is annoying. And relearning how to read the Guide takes a little time. But it allows the Guide to not be a joke. The Guide can now report real data without fueling a speculative bubble, and can more accurately reflect what is going on in the marketplace.

 

 

On the modern books, it really doesn't matter whether they are 9.2s, 9.4s, or 9.6s... It just doesn't matter. Yes, they are widely available in 9.4 to 9.6. But the prices paid by collectors aren't any different from what they will pay for 9.2s. So it doesn't matter which of those grades is listed at the top of the column. The prices would all be the same anyway. And the only books that wouldn't be the same are the EXACT books that see multiples in 9.4 and 9.6. So by listing the 9.2 price, all the books can be accurate. If the column said 9.4 or 9.6, there would still be books that would be wrong in the Guide. Every book can have an accurate 9.2 price. Not every book can have an accurate 9.4 or 9.6 price...

 

Just got back from vacation a few days ago. Took me a while to get to and go through this whole thread here. In general agreement with Lighthouse on most of his points from his two well thought-out posts back on page 10 of this thread.

 

As I was going through this thread, I had to constantly checked to ensure that I was still on the CGC forum boards. I can't believe all the criticism that Overstreet seems to be getting with respect to the proposed pricing format. Especially after all of the constant complaining from the majority of the board members over the years that the OS guide was out of touch with reality and not reflective of the CGC phenomenon. I guess this is proof that some collectors will never be happy no matter what OS does.

 

From my point of view, CGC has now been with us since 2000, and this is Bob's first true acknowledgement in the pricing portion of the guide with respect to the impact of CGC prices. If you have follow the guide over the years, you should be aware that Bob tends to be VERY CONSERVATIVE and waits for a trend (such as CGC) to be time tested and firmly established before he makes a significant change to the guide. I don't have a basic problem with this approach since it provides for a much more stable guide and helps to promote a positive influence on the market in the long run.

 

With the advent of CGC, I have never believed the official position that the OS guide was based ENTIRELY on raw prices only. I have always believed that this was stated only for political reasons, and unofficially the guide has always reflected a blending of BOTH raw and slabbed prices. If you look at some of the GA, SA, or key BA guide prices, it is obvious that they are too high for raw books and yet too low for slabbed books. This position would then allow OS to phase in slabbed prices over a period of time at a pace that he felt confident with.

 

There appears to be a lot of conspriacy theories that Bob is being forced to make this change by CGC and/or the big dealers. When it comes to the pricing guide, I strongly believe that Bob is the guy that makes the final decision on what goes into the guide. He may take some advice from some of the dealers, but I sincerely believes that he takes a look at the marketplace OVER A PERIOD OF TIME and then adjusts the guide accordingly. If you don't believe me, go and ask some of the major dealers and even his own advisors about their complaints over the years that Bob collects their advice, goes back to his office, produces a new guide on his own after filtering out most of their advice. On the other hand, could it be that Bob is filtering out some of the dealers' personal biases in the marketplace or short term temporary hot fads.

 

The annual price guide is primarily geared towards the GA, SA, and key BA market. In this respect, I feel that 9.2 is a valid top end for the guide since most GA books does not even exist in 9.4 and above. SA books in 9.4 and above may only be limited to a very small number. Key BA books do exist in 9.4, but prices tend to fluctuate irrationally due to the high demand. As a result, the supply side says that it is not realistic to use 9.4 as the ongoing standard for the pricing of books. The demand side clearly shows that when these books do show up in the marketplace, they tend to go for such outrageous multiples that it would be totally irresponsible to use them as a pricing standard.

 

In actual fact, as FF had mentioned in a previous post in this thread, 9.0 for GA, 9.2 for SA, 9.4 for BA, and 9.6 for Moderns might be a much more accurate reflection of where the normal high end of the market actually sits. Being that Bob is a pretty conservative guy when it comes to the guide, 9.2 was probably accepted in order to keep everything simple, acknowledge the impact of slabbed books, and at the same time not reflect the full impact of the high end market at this point in time.

 

For those of you who are arguing that the guide is dropping the NM standard, you have to remember that the guide has always changed over the years in an attempt to reflect what is happening in the marketplace. During my golden age period of the guide, I still remember that it was always Good, Fine, and Mint with the constant spreads of 1, 2, and 3 between the prices. I was really upset when this was eventually changed since it was so simple to work with. Looking back now, I realize that the guide was right since it's silly to stick with a standard format if it is no longer reflective of the real market. Virtually all slabbed 9.4 GA and SA books books have now reached silly multiples that it is best left for the market to determine the current prices similar to how it is currently done with 9.6 and up books.

 

From Bob's viewpoint, the annual guide is there to provide a stable picture of what the real market is over a period of time. In this sense, the guide has always taken a slow and conservative approach to pricing changes. As a result, the guide has officially removed itself from the super high-end of the market which is totally dominated by irrational prices and speculators or big money investors. Although the super high-end of the market always generates the headlines, it only represents a very very limited portion of the overall collectors market. By removing the 9.4 column, he no longer has to pretend that he is incorporating these "blue sky" prices and look silly at the same time. The other choice is to keep the NM prices and show books such as AF #15 at $150K in one year, dropping to $80K the next year, going to $120K the following year, etc. Imagine this pricing approach in the guide for all books and you can see that it clearly goes against Bob's vision of a nice steady healthy growth in the marketplace. This allows the big bullies to play in their tiny high end corner of the sandbox and at the same time, not disturb the rest of the sandbox where the majority of the kids are playing.

 

Bottom-line, for all those forum members who say that this change is not a reflection of the real market, I have a offer for them. I am more than willing to buy all of their CGC slabbed 9.4 books from them at the OS listed 9.4 guide prices before the new guide comes out and they no longer know what their books are worth.

[shadroch]

lou,

Excellant post.

I agree with 99% of this post.Very well thought out.

however:Do you really believe the Guide should reflect Mr Overstreets view of healthy robust growth or should it reflect true trends in the market.

[Timely]

Why is everyone so bent with the truth all the time on everything. Sometimes the truth is overrated.

 

The truth is...if you found an Action Comics #1 CGC 10.0 and took it to a 7-11 and offered it up the the highest bidder who walked into the store that day, odds are you'ld come away with no more that a nice, crisp clean Benjamin.

 

Sometimes the truth is not the truth.

 

Timely

[THE_BEYONDER]

Sometimes the truth is not the truth.

 

[fantastic_four]

The truth is...if you found an Action Comics #1 CGC 10.0 and took it to a 7-11 and offered it up the the highest bidder who walked into the store that day, odds are you'ld come away with no more that a nice, crisp clean Benjamin.

 

What a great suggestion for a selling venue. If you took a Van Gogh or a Dali original to a monster truck rally, you might have a hard time getting a $100 there, also...so what does THAT prove about their value? Not much.

 

Any item for sale needs the right venue to get its price, whether its an Action #1 or a bowl of rice.

[Timely]

My point is... who knows what the true trend is of this market is? It's all a krap shoot from day to day.

 

Timely

[Dr_Neff]