The Heritage / Pedigree Schmell Collection Auction has ended...

[tth2]

So predictable.

 

 

 

 

 

Congrats on the pick-ups, Peter!

[fantastic_four]

I think it's also worth mentioning that this was a unique auction. There's NEVER been an auction like this with so many hG big dollar books at once. If he had spread it out 1 title a month, I really think the results would have been better. I really don't think you can look at these results and make any assumptions about the market or a books value.

 

I can't imagine why he did it this way. Maybe he thought the hype would result in higher totals, but the reality of most collectors having budgetary constraints makes it seem risky. There were dozens of books I would have otherwise bid on if I didn't have to limit the total number of books I had to bid to prevent overspending.

[tth2]

The FF #4 9.6 went a little on the soft side as well. I sold a copy for $50K+ last year, this one went somewhere in the $30K range.

 

Someone got a steal on two very important, very tough books.

 

All the tough FFs have proven to be not nearly as tough anymore--the last 2-3 years have seen multiple 9.6 or 9.8 copies come to market of virtually every issue you saw zero copies of the previous decade.

There really are only 2 SA Marvels that are truly difficult in 9.4 and above: Hulk 1 and TTA 35.

 

For all of the other mythically difficult books--FF 3, FF 6, JIM 84, Sgt Fury 3, even TTA 27--multiple copies exist.

 

Remember the days when everyone thought DD 7 was an impossible book in NM?

[markseifert]

Does seem like a mixed bag so far. WM FF 1 got a good bump over its price from 2 years ago ($203k today, an increase of $60k over last time), but the WM FF 2 went from $87k this past Feb to $49k now.

 

I don't get it--how was that a sale? It wasn't--Doug bought the White Mountain FF 2 a long time ago when it was a 9.4. Looks like a sale that didn't go through yet is in GPA.

 

The previous GPA for the WM FF #1 is also from a pedigree sale, though it is from Jan 2010.

 

I can't find it just this second, but the #2 sale was discussed here at the time, which is why I remembered it.

[fantastic_four]

Does seem like a mixed bag so far. WM FF 1 got a good bump over its price from 2 years ago ($203k today, an increase of $60k over last time), but the WM FF 2 went from $87k this past Feb to $49k now.

 

I don't get it--how was that a sale? It wasn't--Doug bought the White Mountain FF 2 a long time ago when it was a 9.4. Looks like a sale that didn't go through yet is in GPA.

 

The previous GPA for the WM FF #1 is also from a pedigree sale, though it is from Jan 2010.

 

I can't find it just this second, but the #2 sale was discussed here at the time, which is why I remembered it.

 

All I see in GPA is a sale of the copy when it was a 9.6 from February 2012. I considered buying it back in 2002, so I'm a bit familiar with its history--it sold in 2002 as a 9.4 via MastroNet to Mark Wilson, who subsequently sold it to Schmell within a year or two. I noticed at some point he upgraded it to a 9.6, but I hadn't noticed the February sale of it. Apparently, it didn't sell if he just sold it again, so that $87K sale must be bogus. Not surprising--it's not worth that much anyway, so perhaps someone came to their senses.

 

I think Schmell bought the White Mountain copy of FF #1 from his own auction back in 2010 and sold his 9.4 copy at the same time.

[markseifert]

Are you sure it sold in 2010?

 

We might be confusing our issues numbers here, but about the #1, here's the announcement of the auction results in scoop:

 

http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/Home/4/1/73/1014?articleID=91631

 

I don't know anything in particular about the #2 before the sale mentioned earlier this year:

 

http://comics.gpanalysis.com/gpaforcomics_newsfeed_article.asp?id=4898

[linmoth]

I think it's also worth mentioning that this was a unique auction. There's NEVER been an auction like this with so many hG big dollar books at once. If he had spread it out 1 title a month, I really think the results would have been better. I really don't think you can look at these results and make any assumptions about the market or a books value.

 

I can't imagine why he did it this way. Maybe he thought the hype would result in higher totals, but the reality of most collectors having budgetary constraints makes it seem risky. There were dozens of books I would have otherwise bid on if I didn't have to limit the total number of books I had to bid to prevent overspending.

 

I don't know this for a fact but I assume Doug was able to negotiate a better deal with Heritage for the publicity it would bring to them.

 

If I was a betting man I would assume he paid no seller's premium and got as much as 5-10% of the buyers premium. IMHO!

 

Tom

[Drummy]

Tom --

 

I agree with that -- I'm sure Doug paid no seller's premium and got a cut of the buyer's premium as well. I would guess Heritage takes 12% of the entire auction or so ($444,000)? Maybe less (10%?), but still a good payout given the limited time frame...

 

Another factor that may have limited bids is Heritage's decision (at least I think this is correct) not to accept credit card payments for anything over $2500. That means people are either writing a check or using their 4-month payment plan; either way, it will limit the pool of bidders to some extent.

 

Dan

[ComicConnoisseur]

#1 goes for just a touch under 275K. What is the consensus of this price considering a non-ped copy (Cheetah's?) sold for 250K in Oct 11.

 

Avengers #4 goes for substantially under its high in 9.6.

 

$91,500 Feb 2011 Comiclink.

$69,500 this March

$50,787.50 today.

 

 

I had the auction in the corner of my screen while I work, glancing at it now and again and thinking "wow, those prices are insane." Then I check here and find they apparently aren't insane enough.

 

+1

 

Exactly what I was thinking also. (thumbs u

 

Cleatly the prices are starting to come back to reality as the number of potential buyers who play in this end of the pool are miniscule at best and have probably lost their interest in comics already.

The Avengers became the biggest grossing superhero movie of all time,and yet the prices were still lower! Looks like the bubble for Avengers run stuff has popped!

Now what will be the next bubble?

[cheetah]

#1 goes for just a touch under 275K. What is the consensus of this price considering a non-ped copy (Cheetah's?) sold for 250K in Oct 11.

 

Avengers #4 goes for substantially under its high in 9.6.

 

$91,500 Feb 2011 Comiclink.

$69,500 this March

$50,787.50 today.

 

 

I had the auction in the corner of my screen while I work, glancing at it now and again and thinking "wow, those prices are insane." Then I check here and find they apparently aren't insane enough.

 

+1

 

Exactly what I was thinking also. (thumbs u

 

Cleatly the prices are starting to come back to reality as the number of potential buyers who play in this end of the pool are miniscule at best and have probably lost their interest in comics already.

The Avengers became the biggest grossing superhero movie of all time,and yet the prices were still lower! Looks like the bubble for Avengers run stuff has popped!

Now what will be the next bubble?

 

Non-key Avengers have been on the decline for 2-3 years now. This is just a matter of the trend continuing. I don't think it had any bubble left to pop.

 

Even Avengers 4 continues to slide. #1 is the one that still has the pop but this makes two of the three 9.6 copies to change hands in a year. You have to wonder how much pop the third one would still have.

[VintageComics]

Non-key Avengers have been on the decline for 2-3 years now. This is just a matter of the trend continuing. I don't think it had any bubble left to pop.

 

Even Avengers 4 continues to slide. #1 is the one that still has the pop but this makes two of the three 9.6 copies to change hands in a year. You have to wonder how much pop the third one would still have.

 

It's a matter of perspective.

 

With GPA and people checking auctions looking for bargains, we've become very reactive to even the smallest price shifts for a given issue.

 

I've personally sold off a consignment of Avengers #1-100 in mostly higher grades over the past 7-8 months (they are in the 9.2-9.6 range from the late teens onward) and almost every issue went well over GPA.

 

There are some selling for less, and some selling for more than GPA.

 

I think it would be much easier to follow the market if we went back to annual price updates rather than one every time we click on the internet.

 

[Silver Surfer]

So predictable.

 

 

 

 

 

Congrats on the pick-ups, Peter!

 

[namisgr]

Looked a bit soft for the assigned grade, but still happy with it:

 

[Mark 1]

Nice book Bob!

[adamstrange]

I think it would be much easier to follow the market if we went back to annual price updates rather than one every time we click on the internet.

That would be boring

[trmoore54]

Non-key Avengers have been on the decline for 2-3 years now. This is just a matter of the trend continuing. I don't think it had any bubble left to pop.

 

Even Avengers 4 continues to slide. #1 is the one that still has the pop but this makes two of the three 9.6 copies to change hands in a year. You have to wonder how much pop the third one would still have.

 

It's a matter of perspective.

 

With GPA and people checking auctions looking for bargains, we've become very reactive to even the smallest price shifts for a given issue.

 

I've personally sold off a consignment of Avengers #1-100 in mostly higher grades over the past 7-8 months (they are in the 9.2-9.6 range from the late teens onward) and almost every issue went well over GPA.

 

There are some selling for less, and some selling for more than GPA.

 

I think it would be much easier to follow the market if we went back to annual price updates rather than one every time we click on the internet.

 

 

Roy has the seller's Amulet...

[VintageComics]

Roy has the seller's Amulet...

 

Naw, I just didn't auction them off. I listed them with reasonable prices and they got gobbled up.

 

Sometimes GPA is random and all over the place. Sometimes you have 9.4 copies selling for the same price as 9.2 copies but 9.6's are triple 9.2 prices - in cases like that, the 9.4 low price is an anomaly and so I price the book accordingly, meaning somewhere between 9.2 and 9.6.

 

You can't just look at one GPA sale and come up with a price. Most of the time it takes a little research to come up with a fair price (meaning fair to buyer and seller).

 

 

[namisgr]

Roy has the seller's Amulet...

 

Naw, I just didn't auction them off. I listed them with reasonable prices and they got gobbled up.

 

 

You're contradicting yourself. Above you claimed to have gotten well over GPA for most of an Avengers run.

 

I also sold a high grade Avengers run over the past two years, and my experience agrees with others from this thread that the value of the non-keys is much lower than before. Since my run was offered on several different venues over a substantial period of time, it wasn't a lack of exposure that made for slow sales, but rather a waning interest.

 

It seems extremely unlikely that you recently had significant sell-through on a run of Avengers priced above GPA. Even if somehow you inexplicably did, your experience would not be an accurate reflection of the current Avengers non-key market.

[sufunk]

I was wondering that also

 

I'm not saying Roy didn't. If he said he did, I gotta assume he did. But, in the 1st post you said they were WELL over gpa then you said they were REASONABLY priced. I don't know anyone who thinks prices WELL over gpa is reasonable for non key books

[sufunk]

On a side note, I did a sales thread with like 4 SA Avengers slabs from 9.2-9.8's like 6-8 weeks ago. All of them were UNDER gpa and not only did I not sell any, I didn't even get a single pm or offer!

 

And these were NICE copies! Granted, that's a SMALL sample size but again, not even a single pm or lowball offer. Not one!