Criteria for becoming an Overstreet Advisor?

[comicwiz]

The speed of information has never been properly handled on the guide end of things nor has the historical data. I for one would love to see a day when this is properly handled by a party who is looking to make the marketplace as transparent and level as possible for both collectors and dealers.

 

I agree. Apart from the fact that you can never satisfy everyone's opinion on pricing, technology is really the no holds barred aspect that can make a dynamic reporting tool realistic.

 

However, where it all falls apart at the seems is the sourcing. As a hobbyist in other collecting categories, there is practically a thread each week about pricing manipulation on eBay or other online auction sites. Due to interest heating up with Star Wars licensed collectibles, there are literally threads popping-up every couple of days where people are dissecting and analyzing sales, tracking relists, and other online evidence that sellers are artificially driving-up values.

 

The transparency aspect is key, and quite frankly, very few people want to bother actually rolling-up the sleeves to do the requisite research to finding a "mean" or "average" price, or to dig deep enough to track the actual listing to determine the reliability of the data point. When you are using a sole source or service that aggregates this information at wholesale, there is always a flaw that no algorithm can easily detect without human intervention.

 

As much as I love the digital age, and all the opportunities it has presented me, I have always taken the approach that the technological "hand-off" needs to happen at some point for human judgement to pick up the inadequacies or limitations.

 

Unless an online service is going to capture a screenshot of every source, and/or a copy of the page for historical review, to me the analog and/or print source will readily win out in the areas of credibility, reliability and as far as qualitative data is concerned.

 

I agree that there is a human aspect needed and I can account for it in regards to my idea. We all know that data has to be objectively looked in regards to pricing.

 

In some cases the coin world has done a better job then the comic world. For example the gray sheet of coins notes a rare sale price for a piece sold they don't price examples and grades with non-sale values. We can easily price a 8.5 Spider-Man #1, but can we establish a price for a 9.2 Action #1? Why not only price a book up to a certain grade and above those only note actual sales prices..

 

I see where you are coming from as both a buyer and seller, and it's a tough situation to reconcile. When I'm wearing my buyers hat, I'd like to draw people to a source which gives them some indication what their item might be worth. Omitting data points simply because they have not come up for public sale at a specific grade also may lead to items from "black hole" collections never seeing the light of day. What I mean here is that all it takes sometimes is the public appearance of a rare or not regularly seen item to encourage others holding such goodies to sell.

[TomG]

The speed of information has never been properly handled on the guide end of things nor has the historical data. I for one would love to see a day when this is properly handled by a party who is looking to make the marketplace as transparent and level as possible for both collectors and dealers.

 

I agree. Apart from the fact that you can never satisfy everyone's opinion on pricing, technology is really the no holds barred aspect that can make a dynamic reporting tool realistic.

 

However, where it all falls apart at the seems is the sourcing. As a hobbyist in other collecting categories, there is practically a thread each week about pricing manipulation on eBay or other online auction sites. Due to interest heating up with Star Wars licensed collectibles, there are literally threads popping-up every couple of days where people are dissecting and analyzing sales, tracking relists, and other online evidence that sellers are artificially driving-up values.

 

The transparency aspect is key, and quite frankly, very few people want to bother actually rolling-up the sleeves to do the requisite research to finding a "mean" or "average" price, or to dig deep enough to track the actual listing to determine the reliability of the data point. When you are using a sole source or service that aggregates this information at wholesale, there is always a flaw that no algorithm can easily detect without human intervention.

 

As much as I love the digital age, and all the opportunities it has presented me, I have always taken the approach that the technological "hand-off" needs to happen at some point for human judgement to pick up the inadequacies or limitations.

 

Unless an online service is going to capture a screenshot of every source, and/or a copy of the page for historical review, to me the analog and/or print source will readily win out in the areas of credibility, reliability and as far as qualitative data is concerned.

 

I agree that there is a human aspect needed and I can account for it in regards to my idea. We all know that data has to be objectively looked in regards to pricing.

 

In some cases the coin world has done a better job then the comic world. For example the gray sheet of coins notes a rare sale price for a piece sold they don't price examples and grades with non-sale values. We can easily price a 8.5 Spider-Man #1, but can we establish a price for a 9.2 Action #1? Why not only price a book up to a certain grade and above those only note actual sales prices..

 

I see where you are coming from as both a buyer and seller, and it's a tough situation to reconcile. When I'm wearing my buyers hat, I'd like to draw people to a source which gives them some indication what their item might be worth. Omitting data points simply because they have not come up for public sale at a specific grade also may lead to items from "black hole" collections never seeing the light of day. What I mean here is that all it takes sometimes is the public appearance of a rare or not regularly seen item to encourage others holding such goodies to sell.

 

I hear what you are saying and I've been and continue to be on both sides of the fence as a buyer and a seller.

 

An interesting detail to look at in regards to pricing is that TMNT #1 is not a priced book, but only noted sales. Action Comics #1 on the other hand is a priced book in the guide. Detective Comics #1-3 in guide are not priced above 8.0. How is it that Action Comics #1 can be priced out in every grade yet TMNT #1 and Detective Comics #1-3 can't be?

 

I would hope that there could be some consistency in evaluating pricing. whether that be by era, key books, grade conditions, etc. This is something as an advisor that I've suggested.

[comicwiz]

The speed of information has never been properly handled on the guide end of things nor has the historical data. I for one would love to see a day when this is properly handled by a party who is looking to make the marketplace as transparent and level as possible for both collectors and dealers.

 

I agree. Apart from the fact that you can never satisfy everyone's opinion on pricing, technology is really the no holds barred aspect that can make a dynamic reporting tool realistic.

 

However, where it all falls apart at the seems is the sourcing. As a hobbyist in other collecting categories, there is practically a thread each week about pricing manipulation on eBay or other online auction sites. Due to interest heating up with Star Wars licensed collectibles, there are literally threads popping-up every couple of days where people are dissecting and analyzing sales, tracking relists, and other online evidence that sellers are artificially driving-up values.

 

The transparency aspect is key, and quite frankly, very few people want to bother actually rolling-up the sleeves to do the requisite research to finding a "mean" or "average" price, or to dig deep enough to track the actual listing to determine the reliability of the data point. When you are using a sole source or service that aggregates this information at wholesale, there is always a flaw that no algorithm can easily detect without human intervention.

 

As much as I love the digital age, and all the opportunities it has presented me, I have always taken the approach that the technological "hand-off" needs to happen at some point for human judgement to pick up the inadequacies or limitations.

 

Unless an online service is going to capture a screenshot of every source, and/or a copy of the page for historical review, to me the analog and/or print source will readily win out in the areas of credibility, reliability and as far as qualitative data is concerned.

 

I agree that there is a human aspect needed and I can account for it in regards to my idea. We all know that data has to be objectively looked in regards to pricing.

 

In some cases the coin world has done a better job then the comic world. For example the gray sheet of coins notes a rare sale price for a piece sold they don't price examples and grades with non-sale values. We can easily price a 8.5 Spider-Man #1, but can we establish a price for a 9.2 Action #1? Why not only price a book up to a certain grade and above those only note actual sales prices..

 

I see where you are coming from as both a buyer and seller, and it's a tough situation to reconcile. When I'm wearing my buyers hat, I'd like to draw people to a source which gives them some indication what their item might be worth. Omitting data points simply because they have not come up for public sale at a specific grade also may lead to items from "black hole" collections never seeing the light of day. What I mean here is that all it takes sometimes is the public appearance of a rare or not regularly seen item to encourage others holding such goodies to sell.

 

I hear what you are saying and I've been and continue to be on both sides of the fence as a buyer and a seller.

 

An interesting detail to look at in regards to pricing is that TMNT #1 is not a priced book, but only noted sales. Action Comics #1 on the other hand is a priced book in the guide. Detective Comics #1-3 in guide are not priced above 8.0. How is it that Action Comics #1 can be priced out in every grade yet TMNT #1 and Detective Comics #1-3 can't be?

 

I would hope that there could be some consistency in evaluating pricing. whether that be by era, key books, grade conditions, etc. This is something as an advisor that I've suggested.

 

TMNT 1 might be one of those few books where it makes sense to do this. It tends to be a book that is held (and sold) more by collectors than dealers, so it's possible that very few advisors have sales data points to submit. Also, while it is regarded as being a rare book, eBay is polluted with copies - many of them with optimistic BIN's. They also seem to take quite a hit in value as soon as they go any lower than 9.0 in grade. Perhaps a "pricing" approach with that book is one way to softly suggest using multiple sources to arrive at a value.

 

On the Action Comics 1 - there is no way the guide would be published without a complete array of values, especially with the outstanding past year performance that book experienced. The Tec's are worth looking into because while it may be impossible to source anything higher than an 8.0 (that's what you call a rare book), it might change should the sole Tec 1 8.5 and/or sole Tec 2 9.0 ever change hands (though I should say I do have my doubts that will happen).

[dgarthwaite-migration]

As follow-up to what I was saying earlier, I will concede that there is simply too much information and data to publish all prices accurately. There is too much market manipulation and hype to weed out real values vs. reported values. Some people flock to eBay, but even it is not accurate. I've been offline and discovered that comics I'd buy for $50 without blinking sold for much less on eBay because the right collectors weren't looking at the right moment. My local comic shops price well above eBay prices and they can't keep anything decent in stock.

 

The biggest value a guide offers is confirmation that something exists and accurate data with regards to first appearances of characters.

 

From my own experiences in researching publishers, I've discovered that even if you think you've listed everything from a publisher, their rarities will still pop up one year later or more. The rarities (including price variants) are often the comics that have the greatest demand and value. If a guide is unwilling to list the comics with the greatest demand, it isn't really helping me. A generic gripe with many published price guides is when they list things that don't even exist. They copied data from a solicitation and didn't take the time to realize that the publisher folded before the comics were published. Modern publishers are releasing endless variants. A text listing is no longer adequate. You must have an image to differentiate between the two. This is true for undergrounds or counterfeit comics also.

 

The prices need to be in the ballpark of what you'll pay. A comprehensive archive of scans need to be available to differentiate one from another. There should should be no discrimination against small publishers. There are many valuable comics from small publishers. The internet is the best place to access the info. From my observations, comicspriceguide.com is one of the few sites that attempt to list everything. The GCD is working on a database, but it doesn't provide any pricing info. Newer sites like comicbookrealm.com are even more ambitious, but no site has enough people actively updating the accuracy or the pricing. I've tried contributing to several sites and have succeeded, but it takes months to get results when my information is available at a much faster pace.

 

DG

[comicwiz]

If a guide is unwilling to list the comics with the greatest demand, it isn't really helping me. A generic gripe with many published price guides is when they list things that don't even exist.

 

If it's undocumented comics you are referring to, I believe them to be something many people would have great interest in. Over the many years I've poured over guides, I have seen advisors report these in the market reports. I have also seen some of these undocumented discoveries make their way into the guide, but to be honest unless it was something that I really thought I needed to have, I didn't bother tracking how long it took for them to appear. Absent mindedness might be another reason, and to be completely honest, a boardie here did provide me some information concerning an undocumented comic and it completely slipped my mind when I wrote up my market report. Now that you posted this, I will remember for the next one.

[dgarthwaite-migration]

If a guide is unwilling to list the comics with the greatest demand, it isn't really helping me. A generic gripe with many published price guides is when they list things that don't even exist.

 

If it's undocumented comics you are referring to, I believe them to be something many people would have great interest in. Over the many years I've poured over guides, I have seen advisors report these in the market reports. I have also seen some of these undocumented discoveries make their way into the guide, but to be honest unless it was something that I really thought I needed to have, I didn't bother tracking how long it took for them to appear. Absent mindedness might be another reason, and to be completely honest, a boardie here did provide me some information concerning an undocumented comic and it completely slipped my mind when I wrote up my market report. Now that you posted this, I will remember for the next one.

 

As an example, I've been collecting Charlton adult humor titles. The last time I checked, none were listed in Overstreet and even the Charlton experts had not seen some of the titles. I walked to every major dealer at Heroes Con and none had even heard of them except Robert Beerbohm. Since nailing down the series which lasted over 2 decades, I've uncovered some that are even more obscure.

 

 

 

Dell published similar content in comic format. Marvel had several tiles in magazine format without their imprint on them. I posted some titles out at comicspriceguide.com and they were listed within 2 months. To me that is a long wait, but it's better than Overstreet snubbing their nose at whole publishers for years with no intent on ever listing some comics.

 

This red foil variant is one of the rarest Continuity issues, and most sources were not acknowledging it existed until I let it be known it existed.

 

 

DG

 

 

 

[comicwiz]

Cool books (thumbs u

 

If you'd like, PM me the info on these books or any others you have. With your permission I'll include them in my next report and make sure to acknowledge them as your discoveries. I may also ask you to email me for high res scans in case they are requested for print at a later date.