Suggestions for Overstreet #35

[skybolt]

As someone who's consistently purchasing comic books on EBay, auction houses and from comic dealers, some improvements to the OS guide listed below can help:

 

1.) There's way too big a gap between the Fine and Very Fine guide prices. The FN/VF value should definitely be added in the next issue. Also, a greater effort should be put into varying the Good, Very Good and Fine values. For instance, not all books in Very Good condition sell for 2 times the Good value, and not all Fine books sell for 3 times the Good value. Same thing with the VF/NM guide value being exactly in the middle of NM- and VF.

 

2.) Since CGC has been in existence for 5 years, Overstreet should recognize its impacts on the market and create a mathematical formula for determining the value of certain graded books. For instance, a 2 or 3 page spread can analyze CGC graded books over the past 3 years based on different companies, genres and eras. For instance, saying that a book in 9.4 should command 1.5 times guide value, 3 times guide value for a 9.6, etc. is not entirely accurate. There is a big difference in what people would pay for a modern versus a GA book with a 9.4 grade. It also depends on whether the book is scarce or a key. I think the GPA analysis is a great site for determining CGC prices (I've used it on many occasions), but unfortunately some books (especially GA or SA DC) are almost non-existent in recent sales. The 3 page spread within the Overstreet Guide can state that all books CGC graded in VF and lower would be at guide value, at 8.5 the GA books would sell for 1.5 guide, at 9.0 the key marvel SA books would sell for 1.5 guide, while the SA DC books sell for 2 times guide, etc., etc.

 

3.) The last thing I would add to the Overstreet Price Guide (which is already a terrific tool for purchasing books) is an "Availability Factor". This factor would range from 0 to 10. 10 means that the book is very very common, while a zero would mean its non-existent. Since there are so many modern and bronze age books that are extremely common in any grade, a note can be added in the opening remarks stating that if no factor is shown then the book can be considered a '10' (this would save some space). The factors can be determined by the availability of books from all grades over the past 5 or 10 years. I'm sure that the Overstreet consultants would be very knowledgeable in knowing what was sold and how often. This factor would not include private collections that have not seen the light of day for 20 years. If some of these collectors all of a sudden sell 10 copies of a book we haven't seen in ages, the factor would go up the following year for that book. The factor would also take into consideration what condition the book is available in. For instance, if two different books had 100 sales each over the past five years, but one book was mostly in high grade while the other one was mostly in low grade, then the HG one would have a larger factor. What I mean is that since there are so many HG copies available for one book, the low LG ones are probably not moving at all. One book would have a '7' factor, while the other one would be a '5' factor.

 

An "Availability Factor" would really be beneficial if your trying to complete a GA run. For instance, let's just say I want to complete a Wonder Woman run from 11-20 in Fine grade. These books have the same value in the Overstreet price guide. Let's say that I bought issues 11, 15 and 17 for $250 each. All of a sudden I see issue 12 for $350 on Ebay, and I decide not to buy it thinking it's too expensive at that grade. However, maybe that book has only turned up once in the last 5 years and I missed my only chance to buy it. The availability factor for this book would be a 1 or a 2. Many SA DC books would also fall into this category. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that issue 12 should cost more than 11, but for a collector who's trying to complete a run, this would be valuable information. In another post, Ian Levine made a good statement. He stated that the Bradman/Superman book is listed at $3 in the OS guide, but there are only a handful of copies in existence. However, if you add a '0' factor next to the $3, the book would be worth much more to a few certain people. In closing, all I can say is that scarce and rare don't mean much if the book is never available.

 

What other improvements can be made to the OS guide?

[MutantKeys]

On the first point it was a good one thats what I kept on telling people...the gap between F and VF is Huge.....

[nearmint]

This is unrelated to your points, but was anyone else surprised at the inclusion of Big Little Books in this year's guide? I understand that some comics collectors also collect Big Little Books, but do they really belong in the OS?

[sterlingcomics]

I'll keep on harping on this:

 

Provide a e-Commerce service that will allow me to query book and grade and get the OS guide price returned to me--preferably in XML format. It can be offered via GPA subscription style and can be used with other on-line comic dealers who need to communicate this information with other books they are selling as a service to their customers.

 

BTW, I am an IT consultant and will be happy to help provide my services to aid in this...

[skybolt]

I'll keep on harping on this:

 

Provide a e-Commerce service that will allow me to query book and grade and get the OS guide price returned to me. It can be offered via GPA subscription style and can be used with other on-line comic dealers who need to communicate this information with other books they are selling as a service to their customers.

 

BTW, I am an IT consultant and will be happy to help provide my services to aid in this...

 

 

That's an interesting idea. It would certainly help.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

I'm always happy to see these kinds of threads turn up. As I've noted in a few other places, last year a thread like this was responsible for dozens of individual corrections to the book, so it helps a great deal.

 

One thing I can answer is that I'm afraid we won't be adding any more value columns to the book, so no FN/VF, sorry. But hey, if you can figure out how to cram another price column onto the page and still make everything else fit - something we barely managed the last time we went up to six columns - then I'll be happy to hear it!

 

Arnold

[aardvark88]

Ebay is the biggest fleamarket in the world linking an int'l base of collectors on a daily basis. It can be used to determine the fair market value of any comic to see if Bradman/Superman is a $3 or $300 book. This would essentially be the spot price for that week. If u want to test the top end, u could put Bradman on Heritage/ComicLink/Pedigree.com with a potentially high start price of $3,000.

[Darthdiesel]

can't one add the fn plus the VF prices and divide by 2? Whatever happend to extrapolation?

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

I hate to sound like a broken record, as many people have heard this already, but there are always those that haven't, so here we go:

 

I'm sorry to say there are no plans for any Internet-based service from Overstreet. This doesn't mean something couldn't happen one day, but it won't be happening now. Currently the e-rights to the book are held by Random House, and the only electronic version of the pricing that is authorized is the PDF version of the book available on through the Heritage website.

 

As for your offer of assistance, I don't mean to belittle your offer - far from it - but I can't even count the number of people who have offered to provide help in the area of website design, programming, IT, etc. etc. The list goes on and on. It's one of the most common questions/comments I receive every day.

 

And since I'm about to complete a doctorate in Communications Design with heavy emphasis on dynamic website design, multimedia, scripting, etc., we already have one guy who'd be happy to help out with that kind of stuff, and he's right here.

 

Arnold

[Ian_Levine]

Ebay is the biggest fleamarket in the world linking an int'l base of collectors on a daily basis. It can be used to determine the fair market value of any comic to see if Bradman/Superman is a $3 or $300 book. This would essentially be the spot price for that week. If u want to test the top end, u could put Bradman on Heritage/ComicLink/Pedigree.com with a potentially high start price of $3,000.

 

But you could offer three million for the Superman/Bradman comic, and you still wouldn't get one.

You've picked the ONE example that has NEVER come up for sale.

And it's listed in Overtreet at four dollars, not three. Sorry to correct you, but it IS a thirty three and a third price increase on last years Overstreet value of three dollars. Credit where credit's due.

 

The only known sale since 1988 is mine, and I persuaded Daniel Bradman to sell it to me for five hundred pounds (around nine hundred dollars), not based on any value, but based on how important it was to my collection.

[skybolt]

can't one add the fn plus the VF prices and divide by 2? Whatever happend to extrapolation?

 

I see your point, and if the FN/VF column will just be an average between the FN and VF then it's not worth it. However, in most cases the FN/VF sale does not equal that amount. For instance if a book guides at $200 in FN and $800 in VF, the FN/VF value is usually around $400-$450 and not $500. I could make the same argument about the VG and VF/NM values if they are just treated as in-between averages.

[Darthdiesel]

on modern and bronze books, this formula works for me. I'm not familiar of any book with such a huge discrepancy in fn and VF guide that averaging a price for fn/vf doesn't work. Maybe gold and silver age?

[Aman619]

And since I'm about to complete a doctorate in Communications Design with heavy emphasis on dynamic website design, multimedia, scripting, etc.,

 

a doctorate in what??? Is there such a thing? whats this world coming to/

[Silver Surfer]

I'll keep on harping on this:

 

Provide a e-Commerce service that will allow me to query book and grade and get the OS guide price returned to me. It can be offered via GPA subscription style and can be used with other on-line comic dealers who need to communicate this information with other books they are selling as a service to their customers.

 

BTW, I am an IT consultant and will be happy to help provide my services to aid in this...

 

Excellent idea but I take it that it would be an expensive and duanting task to complete given the amount of information that they would have to download. Also, would an online verison be harder to print in hardcopy? I'm think they would have to scrap the old format and again adjust to a more expensive version that mirrors and online format? I guess they could double the price of the new guide but if it was in this new format I probably would still buy it.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

There better be one after all the time and money I've devoted to it!

 

Arnold

[seank]

Since the subject came up, here's a design suggestion:

 

In the paperback OS, you have those great black index squares in the upper right corner of each odd-numbered page that show where you are in the alphabet. That's great if you're right-handed and flip through the book front to back. But I'm left-handed and flip through the book back to front. No index squares on the even-numbered pages. How about adding them in the next edition as a courtesy for the lefties out there?

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

You know, that's an excellent suggestion. I've never thought of that, it's just very standard when doing thumb tabs of any kind in a book to always place them on the right-side pages. I'll definitely keep this in mind.

 

Arnold

[deathlok]

Since the subject came up, here's a design suggestion:

 

In the paperback OS, you have those great black index squares in the upper right corner of each odd-numbered page that show where you are in the alphabet. That's great if you're right-handed and flip through the book front to back. But I'm left-handed and flip through the book back to front. No index squares on the even-numbered pages. How about adding them in the next edition as a courtesy for the lefties out there?

 

...or just put the OS in your left hand and flip through it from front to back.

[shadroch]

There is very little I found wrong with last years guide. THe ability of the hard-cover to lie open and flat is a great help. The inclusion of BLBs does nothing for me,but if it helps sell additional copies,I suppose it keeps the cost down.

My one pet peeve is-Why do you list the Power Records comics in the promo section? They were not giveaways nor promos as far as I can tell.

Oh...and could you please arrainge for 'House to get an advanced shipping date,so we might get our books in a semi-timely manner.

So whens the graduation party,Doc?

[Silver Surfer]

I'm always happy to see these kinds of threads turn up. As I've noted in a few other places, last year a thread like this was responsible for dozens of individual corrections to the book, so it helps a great deal.

 

One thing I can answer is that I'm afraid we won't be adding any more value columns to the book, so no FN/VF, sorry. But hey, if you can figure out how to cram another price column onto the page and still make everything else fit - something we barely managed the last time we went up to six columns - then I'll be happy to hear it!

 

Arnold

 

How about using bigger paper? Say 8.5 x 11 and keep it in ring format with tabs (as previously suggested). This should cut the thickness of the book by almost a half or at least allow for bigger pictures and make it easier to read?