Copper's Heating/Selling Well on Ebay 33 33

[fastballspecial]

I would imagine we could use old Overstreet market reports as well to zero in on pricing if someone really wanted too.

[thecopperagekids]

I would imagine we could use old Overstreet market reports as well to zero in on pricing if someone really wanted too.

 

Yes, that would work as a means of irrefutable data, for the sake of proving one's points.

 

I would do that, but my memory of that time period is pretty good and I remember what I sold my books for back then.My sales were not on the high end of the bell curve, either.I didn't price gouge hot books.At least not excessive, anyway as I knew it would come back and bite me hard, in the long run.

 

At the very least, I've got the ball rolling and I'm always interested in participating in thoughtful discussion on our hobby and the shifting marketplace......I think it's fun.

 

I've laid down what I sold the books for so I'm throwing the gauntlet down for someone else to challenge with Overstreet reports or their own anecdotes, as long as they back them with more than one line assertions that everything could be had for $5.

 

 

[kimik]

 

Right, but thats because at the time Magnus, Lady Death and Gen13 were going for 200-300$

 

No, you're mistaken. You're off by about 5-8 years.

 

If any issue of Magnus sold for more than $10 after the Fall of 1993 and until about 2005, I'd be very surprised.

 

Umm.......Magnus #12 was going for well over $10 in the 2002/2003 peak. You are off by a couple of years on Valiants. I posted my sales results a while back when we first debated the prices I was receiving for Valiants at that time.

 

 

Ok.

 

I'll just point out that the only sale of a Magnus #12 in 9.8 in 2002 was for $44.

 

And in early 2003, two 9.6 copies sold for $33 and $36.

 

And those are for slabs; raws, of course, sold for less.

 

I was a near-founding member of Valiantsfans.com (2002), and a founding member of the eBay comics board (1999), in which Valiant prices figured a big part, but hey, what do I know...?

 

 

I know some folks have talked about a "Valiant peak" in 2002/2003, but I was actively buying Valiants on a regular (daily, if I could) basis in that time period (as before and since), and I don't remember anything like that happening.

 

And all of that really isn't the point, is it...? Magnus #12 was a ONE HUNDRED dollar book in early 1993. It was NOT ever again (except in slabs.)

 

That's the point.

 

 

That was not your point. Your comment (see your quote above) was that no Magnus books were selling for more than $10 apiece between the Fall of 1993 until around 2005. In addition to #12, Magnus #0 was well over that price in 2002/03 as well. Whatever the last issue is was a $20+ book back then as well.

 

We already debated the 2002/03 peak a few years back and I posted actual sales data from eBay back then. FWIW, I was a member of Greg's original board well before 2002. When he started the new one in 2004 it had been a year or so since my last post on the old one........

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

ASM 238 was not $10 in grade. That was a fast seller at $30.

 

ASM 252 was closer to $8-15 in grade.

 

The rest I agree on.

 

Tell me what "in grade" meant on eBay in 1999......

 

 

I bought 10 copies of Spidey #252 in the spring of 1999...all NM...2-3 9.8s out of the batch since then...$30 shipped.

 

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

Right, but thats because at the time Magnus, Lady Death and Gen13 were going for 200-300$

 

No, you're mistaken. You're off by about 5-8 years.

 

If any issue of Magnus sold for more than $10 after the Fall of 1993 and until about 2005, I'd be very surprised.

 

Umm.......Magnus #12 was going for well over $10 in the 2002/2003 peak. You are off by a couple of years on Valiants. I posted my sales results a while back when we first debated the prices I was receiving for Valiants at that time.

 

 

Ok.

 

I'll just point out that the only sale of a Magnus #12 in 9.8 in 2002 was for $44.

 

And in early 2003, two 9.6 copies sold for $33 and $36.

 

And those are for slabs; raws, of course, sold for less.

 

I was a near-founding member of Valiantsfans.com (2002), and a founding member of the eBay comics board (1999), in which Valiant prices figured a big part, but hey, what do I know...?

 

 

I know some folks have talked about a "Valiant peak" in 2002/2003, but I was actively buying Valiants on a regular (daily, if I could) basis in that time period (as before and since), and I don't remember anything like that happening.

 

And all of that really isn't the point, is it...? Magnus #12 was a ONE HUNDRED dollar book in early 1993. It was NOT ever again (except in slabs.)

 

That's the point.

 

 

That was not your point. Your comment (see your quote above) was that no Magnus books were selling for more than $10 apiece between the Fall of 1993 until around 2005.

 

 

You quoted it twice, and still got it wrong. What I wrote was this:

 

"If any issue of Magnus sold for more than $10 after the Fall of 1993 and until about 2005, I'd be very surprised."

 

That's not at all the same thing as what you claim I said.

 

Come on, now.

 

In addition to #12, Magnus #0 was well over that price in 2002/03 as well. Whatever the last issue is was a $20+ book back then as well.

 

And yet, there's not a single CGC recorded sale of EITHER version of the book on GPA until 2004.

 

 

You're still missing the point: $10, $20, what is the vast difference, when ALL of these books were $100 and UP in the spring of 1993? Let's not make mountains out of molehills. The point is, they were CHEAP. You may have gotten outlier prices (and you've already reported many hundreds of such outlier prices that you seem to get where you are to this day!), but I have 30 copies of both of those books that shows that's not the case.

 

At the end of 1993, I owned ZERO copies of Magnus #0.

 

By 2004, I owned approximately 30 of them, and not a single one of them I paid more than $10 for, guaranteed. I had to force myself to pay $12 a copy for 40 copies of Harbinger #1 from Mile High in 2005.

 

In fact, I own one of the 40 that Shamdasani bought from Layton from Layton's original stash, from which came the first Valiant Comics fan project.

 

We already debated the 2002/03 peak a few years back and I posted actual sales data from eBay back then. FWIW, I was a member of Greg's original board well before 2002. When he started the new one in 2004 it had been a year or so since my last post on the old one........

 

Greg took over the Valiant Comics board from Petrilak in, I want to say, 2001. Petrilak started the Valiant Comics (not Valiantfans, as it is now) in 1999, which did NOT, as I understand, have a message board at first. I joined sometime in early 2002. The Great Board Reset of Feb 4, 2004, I had been around for about 2 years, and the message board was not much older. If I have my data incorrect, Greg is more than welcome to correct it, but I'm not far off.

 

But by all means, please post the link to the 2002/03 "peak" debate.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

I was just taking the really with those big numbers on those books, but Im sure that there were books that were quite lucrative at that time that arent now, some people mentioned Ultimate Spider-Man and Authority awhile back in a post I started about pre WD hot books

 

Yes, there were exceptions, as there always are. Authority was hot in 2000, Planetary was hot in 2000, Ultimate Spiderman was blazing hot in 2001...

 

None of which changes the fact that the vast majority of books you could buy for pennies.

 

I still have the check carbon somewhere (yes, I actually wrote a check) for $66 shipped for my Turtles #1 in the spring of 1999.

 

My high bid was $125, because I REALLLLY wanted it. Final bid was $61.

 

And that happened everywhere, all the time.

 

I have hundreds and hundreds of receipts, in and out, that shows how cheap virtually everything was.

 

I'm not quite understanding all the contrarian posting regarding this well established period of comics history....

 

[Aweandlorder]

Wait for it...

 

I'm not making numbers up.

 

My intention with sharing those numbers is to say that the copper market isn't a bubble,just as the bronze market wasn't a bubble back in 1999/2000. A fine example is by citing those numbers ....AND...comparing the sustained growth of the bronze age market to the copper age market.

 

I don't like the idea of the copper market being pigeonhled as a bubble market so I'm speaking up.This is the same kind of talk that was slung around back in the late 90's when formerly obscurre bronze age books ( gothic romance, horror and so on) were selling at prices which some thought were astronomical.

 

I distinctly remember how much House Of Mystery 179 (first horror format w/a classic Wrightson cover) going from a $20 book in NM to a $150 book in NM (raw) , after Overstreet's Comic Book Marketplace published a focus on 70's horror books.People protested bronze books like this as being a viable part of our hobby visrtually enmasse, mostly dudes I talked to at comic shows and in my shop (as I had a shop at that time)..... citing they were nothing more than a fad driven bubble and meanwhile, I was scouring for these types of books and selling them damn near immediately, at exponential percentages.

 

The market proved those naysayers to be wrong, just as the market will invariably show again with sustained growth on copper age key books, in 10-15 years from now.

 

Yes, the sales figured I cited above were sales that I made myself, some 15 years ago.I had those books multiple times and sold them for those prices when I brought them to shows or listed them on ebay.

 

At that time, I listed everything I sold on ebay with no minimum bids + no reserve (charged $3 for boxed priority shipping) and those books I mentioned sold strongly.

 

The "copper bubble"of that time period was the "bronze bubble".I mainly dealt in silver and gold books back then, because that is what I could buy on a steady basis and then sell on ebay without fail within 7 day auction time frame. Averaging a sale of $40-100 on each listing( 1 book), doubling my investment after fees, I shied away from listing books which wouldn't sell for at least $40 so most of my sales were silver,gold and a smattering of bronze as I dealt only in raw books and unslabbed coppers weren't $40 or more, except for keys in grade.

 

 

 

I invariably got what I wanted/expected 95% of the time as you could expect to put a GD copy of X-Men 5 or a Haunt of Fear 15 in GD and get around full guide for either one i.e. ebay wasn't over run with massive amounts of dreck so no reserve auctions got more attention from collectors.

Not the case now, that is why BIN is so polular with sellers because they know they will more than likely get screwed in auction style.....

 

Actually, one bronze age key I distinctly remember selling was a Hulk 181 ( a raw VF) which I bought from Mike Carbanaro at a show.I put it on eBay and it sold for $360.I still remember that sale today, strangely enough. I think I paid 1/2 Overstreet for it off of Mike.He had a stack of VF copies at that show) and Mike was a hell of a good salesman, and still is, I would have bought more but I simply didn't have the cash on me, at the time.

 

The highest bidder was Bob Storms, who paid me for the book in person.I brought it with me at an old Philly show I used to set up back then, at his request.I remember Bob being super impressed with my grading, he talked about how soft ebay sellers were on average.Pretty cool guy.

 

Anyway, this post is rife with digressions but I get a kick out of thinking what prices were like back then for bronze keys and what they're like now....after all of the comic movies came into being, as that is largely what has driven the prices of bronze keys up.This relates to copper books very succinctly.

 

We will see the same thing with copper keys, over the long term.I'd bet a testicle on it.

 

Especially slabbed newsstand copper keys in 9.8.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Some of you folks weren't in the comics market in the late 90's/early 2000's, huh...?

 

 

Imagine: any copper book, all of them, for $5 or less. Every. Single. One.

 

Except Turtles #1. That was a $50-$100 book, off it's 1990 highs of $300-$400.

 

Imagine, Spidey #252, $3 or so on eBay.

 

Primer #2? $20.

 

Spidey #238? $10, tops.

 

And forget the Johnny-come-lately "keys."

 

Dark Knight? #1-4, $20.

 

Watchmen? Drek.1-12, $12 shipped.

 

Oh, sure, there were the oddballs...Miracleman #15 was selling for $50-$60 or so...but that was the great exception.

 

Spidey #298? $10. #300? $25. New Mutants #87? $5. New Mutants #98? Sold in runs of #90-100 for $10.

 

Pick a key, any key...it was virtually worthless. The demand simply wasn't there.

 

That's what it was like in the late 90's/early 2000's.

 

Nonsense.....with all due respect.

 

 

Before you retroactively offer up an all encompassing market evaluation, you have to cite where you are getting your figures.

 

I already told you: eBay.

 

Copper keys were not "practically worthless" and not obtainable in the late 90's/early 2000's for $5.

 

Yes they were, because I bought them.

 

I was setting up at comic shows in the northeast and ebay regularly at that time.The demand was there.Right around 2000 is when I stopped doing shows and ebay, not resuming either intil 2009 so I am sure of my numbers, in the year 2000.

 

I live in the northeast, which is where pretty much all of the printing took place in that time period so regional convention prices tended to be higher in the west,specifically the midwest.That said, the prices noted below, are on the low end.

 

I don't doubt that you believe this. But eBay records contradict you.

 

A couple numbers which I sold some of the books at in raw are.....

 

ASM 252...solid $25 in NM.....Where are you getting $3 from?

 

From the multiple copies I purchased ON EBAY for that price.

 

ASM 300 $50-$100, raw VF to NM. Not $25.

 

You must not have been shopping ON EBAY.

 

Batman Dark Knight 1-4 set. This set sold for $50 in VF/NM, whenever I had it.

 

Ok. Not on eBay they weren't.

 

New Mutants 87 for $5? I routinely sold this book for $20 in NM.New Mutants 98 was going for around $25-50 in VF to NM.

 

 

On WHAT PLANET was New Mutants #98 selling for $25-$50 in 1999? Or 2002? Or 1997? Or 2004?

 

2002 GPA, New Mutants #98 9.6: 9 sales, HIGH $40, low $20.

 

2003 GPA NM #98 9.6: 12 sales, HIGH $43, low $10.

 

2004 GPA NM #98 9.6: 16 sales, HIGH $60, low $23.

 

2006 GPA NM #98 9.6 THIRTY THREE sales, HIGH $50, low $15!

 

2007 GPA NM #98 9.6 TWENTY FOUR sales, HIGH $85, low $11.

 

Yes, that's $11 for a 9.6, in 2007, New Mutants #98.

 

Are you seriously...seriously now...expecting people reading this to believe that a book that sold for $11 in a 9.6 SLAB in 2007 was selling for $25-$50 RAW in 2000?

 

You folks have GOT to do your homework before posting.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

Not a single copy did I pay more than $15 for. Not a one.

 

 

Not a single copy did I pay more than $10 for. This was a $50 book at one point in 1989.

 

 

Not a single copy...not ONE!...did I pay more than $5 for.

 

 

I owned ZERO copies of this book, after getting screwed out of one by Halley's Comics in Pleasanton, CA in 1992, until 1999, when I bought my first copy for 30 cents from Ed Kalb in Mesa, AZ.

 

 

Not a single copy...not one...did I pay more than $5 for. From out of this lot has came 20 9.8s, 98s, and 8 9.8 #87s.

 

How did I amass these books? I was a broke college student from 1993-1997. I had no money. Then, I was a waiter from 1997-2000. I still had no money. Then, I was a sales clerk for an expendable airline parts company from 2000-2001. Still had no money. Then, in 2001, I was fired, and tried to sell comics full time on eBay...that lasted until Sept of 2003, when I had to get another job, because I could barely pay my bills.

 

Don't make me pull out receipts, folks. You know I will.

 

Then you can see the silly low prices stuff sold for in those days.

 

Jim Valentino bought a VG copy of Jimmy Olsen #134 from me in 2002 for $7, and I thought I did pretty good with that sale (yes, THAT JO #134.)

[Aweandlorder]

I dont think anyone in their right mind thinks that comic books are a "bubble" anymore. If you do, I feel for you. Comic book titles, genres, styles and.. Gulp.. Variants, come in and out of style. So no point needs to be demonstrated about which age of comics is gonna stay or which will go. It's all in the realm of speculation.. Each one can speculate with the finest of resolution but at the end it's speculation.

I can tell you that titles like TrollLords, Red Fox, Thundermace and Fish Police were very sought after in the 80s but they're all going for single dollars and change nowadays..

Did that bubble burst.. Did that market crash? That's silly to say.. They just stopped selling and became less popular until they faded out.

If a comic company with a big budget bring all those titles in 20 years time and markets them well, they'll be back in demand but maybe not long enough to sustain and "burst" again. Who knows??

Did you think 2 years ago that Guardians of the galaxy will be a HUGE hit? Did you think 5 years ago that Harley Quinn would be quite possibly the start of a new popular trend in Comics today? Did you see the apocalypse coming with Walking Dead a decade ago? In Black & White? Again??

Nobody knows.

There is no bubble people. Comic books are bigger than life today and will remain to be so until the end of days..

Or until the global warming bubble burst

 

 

OK that last part was just a tease, no hard feelings

 

[Chip Cataldo]

Someone else cashed in:

 

Spectacular Spider-Man 90

That guy's a very good customer of mine. Good for him!

 

Peace,

 

Chip

[Lazyboy]

My intention with sharing those numbers is to say that the copper market isn't a bubble,just as the bronze market wasn't a bubble back in 1999/2000. A fine example is by citing those numbers ....AND...comparing the sustained growth of the bronze age market to the copper age market.

 

I don't like the idea of the copper market being pigeonhled as a bubble market so I'm speaking up.

Copper is not in its own bubble, it's in the same bubble as the rest of the market.

[Jaydogrules]

My intention with sharing those numbers is to say that the copper market isn't a bubble,just as the bronze market wasn't a bubble back in 1999/2000. A fine example is by citing those numbers ....AND...comparing the sustained growth of the bronze age market to the copper age market.

 

I don't like the idea of the copper market being pigeonhled as a bubble market so I'm speaking up.

Copper is not in its own bubble, it's in the same bubble as the rest of the market.

 

I agree the entire market is in a bubble. It just gets frothier the closer to the top you get, ie less bubbles at the bottom of the glass which would be GA, and most bubbly at the top, ie, CA and MA books. There are just far, far too many (high grade) copies out there and they are far, far too prone to ridiculous speculative activity, pumps, dumps and eBay shilling.

 

-J.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

I'm not making numbers up.

 

I'm sure you believe your numbers to be accurate. I don't.

 

Here's some of mine:

 

 

See the top one? A NM 9.4 Cap #11 for $24.50...SHIPPED?

 

The FF #50 doesn't have a grade, but it wasn't "falling apart Fair."

 

Same with the X-Men #35.

 

My intention with sharing those numbers is to say that the copper market isn't a bubble,just as the bronze market wasn't a bubble back in 1999/2000.

 

The Bronze market wasn't a bubble in 1999/2000. The comics market bubble had completely crashed from 1994-1996.

 

Are you aware that Marvel Comics came within one judge's decision of ceasing publication in December of 1997?

 

A fine example is by citing those numbers ....AND...comparing the sustained growth of the bronze age market to the copper age market.

 

Growth?? The Bronze market COMPLETELY COLLAPSED in the late 90's/early 2000's, along with the rest of the market!

 

I don't like the idea of the copper market being pigeonhled as a bubble market so I'm speaking up.This is the same kind of talk that was slung around back in the late 90's when formerly obscurre bronze age books ( gothic romance, horror and so on) were selling at prices which some thought were astronomical.

 

I distinctly remember how much House Of Mystery 179 (first horror format w/a classic Wrightson cover) going from a $20 book in NM to a $150 book in NM (raw) , after Overstreet's Comic Book Marketplace published a focus on 70's horror books.

 

Please provide month and year of this issue, along with the issue number, if possible, where this occurred. I'm not disputing you, I'd just like to zero in on what time period you're discussing.

 

People protested bronze books like this as being a viable part of our hobby visrtually enmasse, mostly dudes I talked to at comic shows and in my shop (as I had a shop at that time)..... citing they were nothing more than a fad driven bubble and meanwhile, I was scouring for these types of books and selling them damn near immediately, at exponential percentages.

 

The market proved those naysayers to be wrong, just as the market will invariably show again with sustained growth on copper age key books, in 10-15 years from now.

 

No, the market didn't show these "naysayers" to be wrong at all. It took nearly a decade for all but the most key of Bronze books to reach the heights they had in the mid 90's.

 

Yes, the sales figured I cited above were sales that I made myself, some 15 years ago.I had those books multiple times and sold them for those prices when I brought them to shows or listed them on ebay.

 

At that time, I listed everything I sold on ebay with no minimum bids + no reserve (charged $3 for boxed priority shipping) and those books I mentioned sold strongly.

 

You lost money, because Flat Rate Envelope shipping in 1999 went from $3 to $3.50. Boxed was more expensive. Not that you didn't charge $3, but if you did, you were losing money on every sale.

 

The only eBay sellers who routinely pulled in "better" prices were J&S Comics and Lange's Sports...and a few others...because they were consistent, week in and week out, eBay sellers, and developed a following, including many of the people on this board today.

 

The "copper bubble"of that time period was the "bronze bubble".I mainly dealt in silver and gold books back then,

 

I think this needs to be emphasized.

 

because that is what I could buy on a steady basis and then sell on ebay without fail within 7 day auction time frame. Averaging a sale of $40-100 on each listing( 1 book), doubling my investment after fees, I shied away from listing books which wouldn't sell for at least $40 so most of my sales were silver,gold and a smattering of bronze as I dealt only in raw books and unslabbed coppers weren't $40 or more, except for keys in grade.

 

 

 

I invariably got what I wanted/expected 95% of the time as you could expect to put a GD copy of X-Men 5 or a Haunt of Fear 15 in GD and get around full guide for either one i.e. ebay wasn't over run with massive amounts of dreck so no reserve auctions got more attention from collectors.

 

Sorry, but I don't believe you. Getting "full guide" for a GD copy of anything except the mega keys...? Not likely.

 

Not the case now, that is why BIN is so polular with sellers because they know they will more than likely get screwed in auction style.....

 

Actually, one bronze age key I distinctly remember selling was a Hulk 181 ( a raw VF) which I bought from Mike Carbanaro at a show.I put it on eBay and it sold for $360.I still remember that sale today, strangely enough. I think I paid 1/2 Overstreet for it off of Mike.He had a stack of VF copies at that show) and Mike was a hell of a good salesman, and still is, I would have bought more but I simply didn't have the cash on me, at the time.

 

I JUST saw Mike running around Terry's show today. He cracks me up.

 

The highest bidder was Bob Storms, who paid me for the book in person.I brought it with me at an old Philly show I used to set up back then, at his request.I remember Bob being super impressed with my grading, he talked about how soft ebay sellers were on average.Pretty cool guy.

 

Anyway, this post is rife with digressions but I get a kick out of thinking what prices were like back then for bronze keys and what they're like now....after all of the comic movies came into being, as that is largely what has driven the prices of bronze keys up.This relates to copper books very succinctly.

 

We will see the same thing with copper keys, over the long term.I'd bet a testicle on it.

 

Especially slabbed newsstand copper keys in 9.8.

 

Okey dokey, artichokey.

[RockMyAmadeus]

I would imagine we could use old Overstreet market reports as well to zero in on pricing if someone really wanted too.

 

Yes, that would work as a means of irrefutable data, for the sake of proving one's points.

 

I would do that, but my memory of that time period is pretty good and I remember what I sold my books for back then.My sales were not on the high end of the bell curve, either.I didn't price gouge hot books.At least not excessive, anyway as I knew it would come back and bite me hard, in the long run.

 

At the very least, I've got the ball rolling and I'm always interested in participating in thoughtful discussion on our hobby and the shifting marketplace......I think it's fun.

 

I've laid down what I sold the books for so I'm throwing the gauntlet down for someone else to challenge with Overstreet reports or their own anecdotes, as long as they back them with more than one line assertions that everything could be had for $5.

 

 

Overstreet had ceased publication of anything except the annual book with regards to "modern" (there was no such thing as "Copper" during this time period) back in 1995-ish.

 

In the 1999 OPG, New Mutants #98 is listed for $4.

 

In the 2000 OPG, New Mutants #98 was merged back IN with the rest of the books from #93-100, all listed for $4.

 

And the OPG had effectively ceased to be a reliable price guide by the early 90's. Very, very few books sold for "guide price" during this time period.

 

$25-$50 for VF to NM copies....?

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Did everyone in this thread take a hit off of Carbonaro's pipe...?

 

 

Where is Donut when I need him??

[slym2none]

Did everyone in this thread take a hit off of Carbonaro's pipe...?

 

I gave that stuff up a while back, man.

 

 

 

 

-slym

[Plantman]

Uh, so what's hot now?

 

I really don't care about memories.

 

I actually agree.

 

Guys, this is the "Coppers Cooling/Selling Poorly on eBay from 1998-2002" thread. How could this topic be discussed without memories?

 

Sleepwalker #1 remained hot throughout the weekend.

 

Fury of Firestorm #24 may be heating up, but no Smoak no fire? Is Blue Devil doing something in The New 52?

[Broke as a Joke]

Don't ruin it. It's fun to learn about broke college students and their ebay spending habits in the 1990's. Fascinating even...

[darkstar]

Did everyone in this thread take a hit off of Carbonaro's pipe...?

 

post more of your hoard of books