Windex Scarcity Index?

[Et-Es-Go]

I saw this in another post and wanted to understand what this scarcity index is in reference to. Can someone elaborate?

 

You know, I really should be working right now, but you guys talked me into it. Here's the Windex Scarcity Index for the full run of Suspense Comics:

 

1.... 18

2.... 14

3.... 19

4.... 20

5.... 14

6.... 12

7.... 10

8.... 12

9.... 10

10.. 11

11.. 8

12.. 13

 

#4 is the toughest, and #1 and #3 are also tricky. Interestingly enough, issues #1 and #8 (the spider cover) qualify in the very tiny subset of comics that have quite a few slabbed but very few sold. Other comics in that subset include All-American #61, Action #13, Sub-Mariner #13, and Wonder Comics #1 (Fox). I find that subset to include some of the most highly collectible of all comics, because it implies people refuse to let their copies go no matter what the price.

[TheWatcher]

It's Win's (Centaurman's) index on the scarcity/rarity of Suspense 1-12. The higher the number, the more difficult it is to find. He's done a Windex for a few titles: Detective, Action, Sub-Mariner, Funny Pages, and Keen Detective Funnies

[lou_fine]

I saw this in another post and wanted to understand what this scarcity index is in reference to. Can someone elaborate?

 

 

Okay......I took bits and pieces of Win's comments from various posts and this is the gist of his index:

 

 

What do the numbers mean?

 

"Very simple. Zero is incredibly common, 30 is incredibly scarce. It's similar to Gerber's 1-10 rating system, but with more increments and (hopefully) better accuracy, as the results have been gained through observation of transactions on Heritage, Metro, ComicLink, eBay, plus other dealer catalogs, adjusted for other factors such as the value of the book, the CGC census, and the average grade seen.

 

The highest rating I've gotten on books I've run through the system is 28. However, a 30 is theoretically possible. Basically, the 28's I've seen have been low value books (esoteric Centaurs, for instance, that would maybe be worth $150 in Good). However, if I could prove that those books were worth 3x or 4x that amount, they'd bump up the scale to 30.

 

The way to get a 30 is to have a high value book that almost no one can find. Never comes to market, not in the CGC census, nothing. The reason why the system caps some of these books at 27 or 28 is because I suspect that if the marketplace knew the books were worth, say, $1000 in Good, we'd see a copy or two come to market.

 

An Action #8 is a high value book, and thus the system is biased to see more copies on Heritage, on ComicLink, in the CGC census, etc. Generally speaking, the more expensive books (think Batman #1 or Captain America #1) come to market with more velocity than similarly scarce lower price books. When those copies don't materialize in line with the market value, the scarcity index shoots upwards."

 

I hope the above makes sense to everybody since it's really a slice and dice and might not flow properly. In the meantime, it looks like Win was finally able to give the coveted rating of 30 to a really HTF book......namely New Adventure #27.

[Bookery]

Ah.

 

And here I thought Windex had something to do with why CGC labels are blue.

 

[CentaurMan]

I saw this in another post and wanted to understand what this scarcity index is in reference to. Can someone elaborate?

 

 

Okay......I took bits and pieces of Win's comments from various posts and this is the gist of his index:

 

 

What do the numbers mean?

 

"Very simple. Zero is incredibly common, 30 is incredibly scarce. It's similar to Gerber's 1-10 rating system, but with more increments and (hopefully) better accuracy, as the results have been gained through observation of transactions on Heritage, Metro, ComicLink, eBay, plus other dealer catalogs, adjusted for other factors such as the value of the book, the CGC census, and the average grade seen.

 

The highest rating I've gotten on books I've run through the system is 28. However, a 30 is theoretically possible. Basically, the 28's I've seen have been low value books (esoteric Centaurs, for instance, that would maybe be worth $150 in Good). However, if I could prove that those books were worth 3x or 4x that amount, they'd bump up the scale to 30.

 

The way to get a 30 is to have a high value book that almost no one can find. Never comes to market, not in the CGC census, nothing. The reason why the system caps some of these books at 27 or 28 is because I suspect that if the marketplace knew the books were worth, say, $1000 in Good, we'd see a copy or two come to market.

 

An Action #8 is a high value book, and thus the system is biased to see more copies on Heritage, on ComicLink, in the CGC census, etc. Generally speaking, the more expensive books (think Batman #1 or Captain America #1) come to market with more velocity than similarly scarce lower price books. When those copies don't materialize in line with the market value, the scarcity index shoots upwards."

 

I hope the above makes sense to everybody since it's really a slice and dice and might not flow properly. In the meantime, it looks like Win was finally able to give the coveted rating of 30 to a really HTF book......namely New Adventure #27.

 

That's pretty much it. I just opened my comic scarcity spreadsheet for the first time in years... It's a bummer what a busy job can do to your hobbies.

 

My theory was that anyone can determine accurate scarcity nowadays given the resources available to us online (Heritage & other archives, Metro & other catalogs, CGC's census, etc). Here are the key assumptions:

#1 Price drives sales (i.e., the more expensive a book is, the more likely it will be listed for sale in auctions and in catalogs)

#2 Sales potential drives slabbing (i.e., the most likely a book is to be listed for sale, the more likely someone would want to slab it)

#3 More low grade copies exist than high grade copies (i.e., if a low-price book has 3 copies slabbed and they're all high grade, a lot more exist than have been seen online)

 

So, using those assumptions, I put together a formula that has only 3 factors: estimated market price in unrestored 2.0 condition, number of discrete unrestored copies seen online, and census condition data. Those factors spat out scarcity rankings.

 

I tested them on runs that I knew cold (Centaurs, early Detectives) and loved the results they produced, so then I tried them on other runs (Suspense, Submariner) and collectors of those runs confirmed the intuitive accuracy of the rankings as well.

 

Unfortunately, more & more books kept appearing in auctions for which I didn't have time to go back and adjust rankings, and my real job got busier & busier, so I got somewhat demoralized and stopped doing it.

 

It makes me feel good to see people resurrecting the old threads and still referencing the project, though... I'm glad that the work struck a chord with a few of you guys.

[pmpknface]

Interesting scale. Of course, the 1 issue I want over all others is the highest index by far...

[Solar]

This is pretty interesting - missed it completely the first time around. Does anyone have a link to the Action and Detective 'windex' threads? I can't seem to find them in the search.

[CentaurMan]

This is pretty interesting - missed it completely the first time around. Does anyone have a link to the Action and Detective 'windex' threads? I can't seem to find them in the search.

 

Action

 

Detective

 

I was all over the map from a formatting standpoint... This was a work in progress.

[lou_fine]

This is pretty interesting - missed it completely the first time around. Does anyone have a link to the Action and Detective 'windex' threads? I can't seem to find them in the search.

 

Action

 

Detective

 

I was all over the map from a formatting standpoint... This was a work in progress.

 

Win;

 

It's great to see you back on the boards here, if only for little while! (thumbs u

 

I've got copies of you Windex for Funny Pages and KDF already, along with some of the other non-Centaurs. Did you have them compiled for any of the other Centaur runs which you can provide us with a link to, such as Funny Picture Stories and some of the Star titles? Also, I can't seem to find your Windex on the All-American run which you had done up a few years ago.

 

Thanks again;

 

Lou

[CentaurMan]

This is pretty interesting - missed it completely the first time around. Does anyone have a link to the Action and Detective 'windex' threads? I can't seem to find them in the search.

 

Action

 

Detective

 

I was all over the map from a formatting standpoint... This was a work in progress.

 

Win;

 

It's great to see you back on the boards here, if only for little while! (thumbs u

 

I've got copies of you Windex for Funny Pages and KDF already, along with some of the other non-Centaurs. Did you have them compiled for any of the other Centaur runs which you can provide us with a link to, such as Funny Picture Stories and some of the Star titles? Also, I can't seem to find your Windex on the All-American run which you had done up a few years ago.

 

Thanks again;

 

Lou

 

I've got them for many more runs than I ever posted here, as at the time I only wanted to post things that I thought were more broadly interesting. At this point, the data is stale and I'm less sure that they're precisely ranked the way they should be now, but I'm happy to show them. I'll put them in separate posts in this thread.

[lou_fine]

I've got them for many more runs than I ever posted here, as at the time I only wanted to post things that I thought were more broadly interesting. At this point, the data is stale and I'm less sure that they're precisely ranked the way they should be now, but I'm happy to show them. I'll put them in separate posts in this thread.

 

That sounds fantastic Win! (thumbs u

 

I guess I've always been sort of a numbers person and always find these types of indices to be rather interesting with valubale information if you use them properly. After all, any information is better than no information, even though it might be a bit outdated. For others who are bored with this type of information, I guess they can just skip this thread.

 

Look forward to seeing more of your Windex scarcity indices whenever you get a chance to load them up!

[CentaurMan]

Adventure Comics

 

Issue....Scarcity

#32......19

#33......21

#34......18

#35......21

#36......23

#37......19

#38......21

#39......20

#40......17

#41......15

#42......14

#43......11

#44......16

#45......11

#46......21

#47......17

#48......18

#49......11

#50......19

#51........9

#52......12

#53......10

#54......12

#55......12

#56........8

#57......10

#58........9

#59......12

#60......10

#61......16

#62......10

#63......19

#64......11

#65......14

#66......12

#67......10

#68......12

#69......10

#70......10

#71......12

#72......13

#73......15

#74........9

#75........9

#76......10

#77......17

#78......15

#79......11

#80........9

#81......10

#82........9

#83........7

#84......12

#85........7

#86........7

#87........8

#89........9

#90........8

#100......4

#103......9

#185....13

#195....12

#198....14

#204......7

#205......6

#210....12

#247......4

[Solar]

This is pretty interesting - missed it completely the first time around. Does anyone have a link to the Action and Detective 'windex' threads? I can't seem to find them in the search.

 

Action

 

Detective

 

I was all over the map from a formatting standpoint... This was a work in progress.

 

(thumbs u

[CentaurMan]

This is pretty interesting - missed it completely the first time around. Does anyone have a link to the Action and Detective 'windex' threads? I can't seem to find them in the search.

 

Action

 

Detective

 

I was all over the map from a formatting standpoint... This was a work in progress.

 

(thumbs u

 

That Detective Comics thread in particular is full of good discussion; I recommend a full read-through of it before just jumping to the rankings of other runs. Hell, I learned a lot from it just now; I don't even remember saying that stuff, but I must've.

 

It's funny when "in-the-past you" seems smarter than "right-now you"...

[Solar]

This is pretty interesting - missed it completely the first time around. Does anyone have a link to the Action and Detective 'windex' threads? I can't seem to find them in the search.

 

Action

 

Detective

 

I was all over the map from a formatting standpoint... This was a work in progress.

 

(thumbs u

 

That Detective Comics thread in particular is full of good discussion; I recommend a full read-through of it before just jumping to the rankings of other runs. Hell, I learned a lot from it just now; I don't even remember saying that stuff, but I must've.

 

It's funny when "in-the-past you" seems smarter than "right-now you"...

 

Thanks for the advice - I'll definitely give it a read. I don't buy many books these days, but I've always wanted some pre-Robin Tecs and the prices certainly aren't coming down to earth any time soon.

[Et-Es-Go]

Thanks very much for the background on the Windex rating.

[CentaurMan]

All Select Comics scarcity rating

 

Issue....Scarcity

#1........11

#2........12

#3........13

#4........12

#5........12

#6........10

#7........12

#8........10

#9........10

#10......10

#11......10

 

Nothing too tough there (not surprising for a 1943-45 Timely title). #3 is the hardest to find of the set, but not truly tricky.

[G.A.tor]

All Select Comics scarcity rating

 

Issue....Scarcity

#1........11

#2........12

#3........13

#4........12

#5........12

#6........10

#7........12

#8........10

#9........10

#10......10

#11......10

 

Nothing too tough there (not surprising for a 1943-45 Timely title). #3 is the hardest to find of the set, but not truly tricky.

Having put this set together several times over the past few years 2 & 7 prove tougher to find. Of late no less than 6 copies of #3 have been on market making it about the most accessible issue (apparently) But as win mentioned this model will change based on the variable of availability at any given time (thumbs u

[CentaurMan]

All Select Comics scarcity rating

 

Issue....Scarcity

#1........11

#2........12

#3........13

#4........12

#5........12

#6........10

#7........12

#8........10

#9........10

#10......10

#11......10

 

Nothing too tough there (not surprising for a 1943-45 Timely title). #3 is the hardest to find of the set, but not truly tricky.

Having put this set together several times over the past few years 2 & 7 prove tougher to find. Of late no less than 6 copies of #3 have been on market making it about the most accessible issue (apparently) But as win mentioned this model will change based on the variable of availability at any given time (thumbs u

 

Yup, and that's the risk to putting these numbers out there, when they were compiled 3 years ago. But I think the broader point to showing the All Select rankings is to put "scarcity" in context. The differences between a 11 ranking and a 13 ranking aren't large, but if you're an All Select collector who doesn't search for Adventure Comics, now you can better intuitively feel what a 19 or 21 means.

[showcase22gr1959]

Adventure Comics

 

Issue....Scarcity

#32......19

#33......21

#34......18

#35......21

#36......23

#37......19

#38......21

#39......20

#40......17

#41......15

#42......14

#43......11

#44......16

#45......11

#46......21

#47......17

#48......18

#49......11

#50......19

#51........9

#52......12

#53......10

#54......12

#55......12

#56........8

#57......10

#58........9

#59......12

#60......10

#61......16

#62......10

#63......19

#64......11

#65......14

#66......12

#67......10

#68......12

#69......10

#70......10

#71......12

#72......13

#73......15

#74........9

#75........9

#76......10

#77......17

#78......15

#79......11

#80........9

#81......10

#82........9

#83........7

#84......12

#85........7

#86........7

#87........8

#89........9

#90........8

#100......4

#103......9

#185....13

#195....12

#198....14

#204......7

#205......6

#210....12

#247......4

 

With Adventure 247 with a rating of 4 and would most of the late 50's and early 60's DC should be around that range? I'm guessing the early 60's Marvel will have a rating of 1.