The FF increasing reconaisance/price fever...

[Earl Davis]

Someone mentioned Kosh.

 

Now say I wanted to start an Modern Archie collection for the first time. I might start by ordering a couple of bulk boxes from Koch. So I get 500 books in bulk at only 10 cents each. How much are my books worth 10 cents or the $1.25 the guide says?

 

I then visit LCS and Conventions and pick up books at 25 and 50 cents a time to fill in some gaps in my new Archie collection. Are these worth the 10 cents I paid in bulk, the 25 cents I paid for them or the $1.25 the guide says they are worth.

 

After scouring the conventions I still have 40 gaps in my collection. I go to Mycomicshop or Mile High and order 35 of them at $2 a time. Are these worth the 10 cents I paid in bulk, the 25 cents at convetion prices, the $1.25 at guide or the $2 Mile High charged me?

 

So I finally have just 5 books left to find for my complete Modern Archie set. I can’t find them at my LCS, the local convention or on the main online retailers so over the next year I buy them one at a time of e-bay for $2 plus $5 shipping. These last 5 books are no rarer than the rest of the run they just happen to be out of stock at the outlets that are most easily accessible to me. So these last 5 I need cost me $7 each when shipping is taken into consideration.

 

So how much are my comics worth? I have paid $0.10, 0.25, 0.50, $2 and $7 for books which have the same rarity / guide value.

 

Cont..

[Earl Davis]

Answer:

 

“They are worth what someone is eventually prepared to pay for them in the timescale I am prepared to wait to sell them.”

 

I believe I can sell any comic I own for at least $1.25 IF I am prepared to wait long enough and I have plenty of ‘dogs’ in my collection believe me.

 

However I currently have about 500 duplicates in my collection that are worthless to me.

 

How can I believe they are worthless if I have said I believe I could eventually sell them for $1.25 each?

 

That’s because the time/effort I would have to invest in selling them would exceed the profit I would make from doing so. Tomorrow I could start trying to sell them. If each one took me an hours effort to sell averaged over a year. That would be $625 made and 500 hours worked. No thanks. And that’s why I said in the beginning I did not agree 100% with Khurst34.

 

So what price should a guide show. Zero because the cost in time to sell exceeds the value of the product or the 0.10, 0.25, 0.50, $2 and $7 it MIGHT cost me to get them.

 

In the Quasar #38 case $1.50 might seem a sensible guide price. It shows that you might have to pay more than 0.50 for some of the issues you need to fill at run and shows that a $2 you are paying more than you really should if you were prepared to travel around enough looking for a cheaper copy.

 

Cont...

[Earl Davis]

So on an individual issue basis I see nothing wrong or inappropriate with a price guide showing $1.50 as a guide price for my Quasar #38. It is after all a guide. I might be lucky and get one for $0.10 or I may be unlucky and it costs me $2. You might argue that $2 should be the guide as that is the most you might have to expect to pay or 0.75 should be the guide as there are probably more cheap copies for sale than expensive ones but at $1.50 the guide is not far off the mark.

 

Of course if the guide showed $4 than my confidence in the guide might fall as it would be showing a value double the maximum price that anyone would expect to have to pay.

 

Whilst this works OK for individual issues this approach does tend to break down when you fill entire sets of common moderns. Whilst I have not problem with the guide saying my Quasar $38 is worth $1.50 what happens when I complete a run of #1 to #50. If I had taken the same approach as with my Archie collection I would have brought most of the issues very cheaply and paid guide or just over for the few that were not readily accessible to me on the cheap. The guide says my collection is worth $75 (50 * $1.50) and that’s when the guides seem to be really overpriced.

 

So what should the guide do then? Say your comics are worth $1.50 each if you plan on selling them individually and are prepared to wait a very long time for the right buyer to come along but WAIT… now you have competed the FULL set, well done but as a set It’s only worth $15 to $25 if you are lucky?

 

I don’t know the answer to that. Just some food for thought.

 

Regards Earl.

[october]

well put, I agree

[sfilosa]

Can I get the CliffNotes addition to your diatribe?

[Earl Davis]

I don’t think they are out yet.

 

Regards Earl.

[Earl Davis]

They were supposed to be out last month but Liefeld’s doing the cover…..

 

Regards Earl.

[ninanina]

But my point still stands... any price guide that values Valiant and Image Comics at cover price 5 years after they crashed is a pipe dream.

 

...but you are leaving out ... and I quote...

 

"Many of the 1980's and 1990's books are listed at cover price; this indicates that these books have not established a collector's value as yet. When selling books of this type, the true market value could be 20% - 50% of cover price or less."

 

So, basically what's being said here is the comics listed at cover are worth a whole lot less. (Page 56 - last paragraph of last year's price guide)

 

....but everyone already knew that....right?

[deathlok]

I just noticed the title of this thread. Is it supposed to read.."The FF increasing renaissance/price fever?"

[ninanina]

I just noticed the title of this thread. Is it supposed to read.."The FF increasing renaissance/price fever?"

 

...yeah...what's that supposed to mean?

[Jeffreykli]

I don't think he meant "renaissance", but rather "reconnaissance."

 

You know, asking for price information?

 

Or maybe he did mean renaissance, meaning the dawn of a new era in which FF rises to prominence as the top Marvel title?