Total Existing Copies of AF #15 2 2

[roulette44]

According to Comichron.com average sales figures for TTA and TOS were around 185,000 copies an issue in 1961, in 1962 the sales figures for JIM, ST, TTA and TOS had dropped to 125-139K an issue on average, jumping back up to 188-189K for 1963. These are sales figures, presumably print runs would have been larger, but remainders mostly destroyed. I found no numbers for AAF and AF, but it's probably safe to assume that the sales of AF #15 were under 200K.

 

While there were no wartime paper drives or comic scares that would have increased attrition, comics were still largely a disposable medium at the time. The increased interest in collecting through the 1960s would have slowed down longer term attrition, but I imagine copies were still getting tossed on a regular basis into the 1970s. I started collecting ( saving) comics around 1969 when I was 10 years old, and even then it was a year or so before I made even a slight attempt to keep them in decent shape. Before that I read comics fairly often, but any of those my parents purchased for me eventually ended up getting tossed in the trash along with the newspapers and old magazines. In the early 70s I would check out yard and garage sales in the neighborhood looking for old comics. It was rare to find anything more than a few years old. I don't think I ever saw any with 10¢ covers at one of those, at least not superhero books.

 

The point of all this, is that I imagine attrition rates in the early 60s were quite high for comic books, and that at least 90% of what was purchased off the stands back then is long gone, and I would be shocked if there were 20 thousand copies still extant.

 

My original thought was there were less raw copies than those already slabbed.....I don't have any facts to back me up here, so I can't assert my point any stronger than just the speculation it is.......but I wanted to quote the attached earlier post, which seems reasonable to me (it's also conjecture, I get it)

 

For those that believe the real number is 10x or 20x the slabbed count, can we see some science behind it?

 

One point that I think supports less AF15s out there (versus more) is that the census run up hasn't been huge in the last 2 years with the price explosion.......while some people may hoard them, others would want to sell them, and in the internet age, it's easy to do research....those that do will probably consider slabbing the book (I agree people who don't want to sell may have never heard of CGC....but i'm talking about those who do)

 

The continued price rise (and publicity of the $1.1M sale a couple years ago) should have perpetuated an increase in sales from those wanting to cash out. It did, but if there were 10-20x raw copies out there, wouldn't that have been more marked?

 

Who has some concrete arguments to me (whatever their point of view might be).

Joey

[roulette44]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

 

+1 there is a lot of energy on here to believe what we want to be true to make an argument plausible. Not sure why so many people want AF 15s to be poised for a market price reset, but there isn't much evidence in the provided arguments. Mostly heresay and flawed logic.

 

Are there copies out there, yes. To the extent posited by some in this thread, it just doesn't make sense.

 

Hey buddy

[BarryAllen]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

 

+1 there is a lot of energy on here to believe what we want to be true to make an argument plausible. Not sure why so many people want AF 15s to be poised for a market price reset, but there isn't much evidence in the provided arguments. Mostly heresay and flawed logic.

 

Are there copies out there, yes. To the extent posited by some in this thread, it just doesn't make sense.

 

Hey buddy

 

Hola amigo!

[G.A.tor]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

 

My experience is just the opposite. Everyone (except 2) I know that owns more than 10 copies (at least a dozen folks , with two of them in the 50+ range)all own them raw. Two dealers I know that have 15-20 copies more than half are slabbed but At least some percentage is raw

[BarryAllen]

My experience is just the opposite. Everyone (except 2) I know that owns more than 10 copies (at least a dozen folks , with two of them in the 50+ range)all own them raw. Two dealers I know that have 15-20 copies more than half are slabbed but At least some percentage is raw

Great data, credible source!

 

So with someone who has been in the hobby for a number of years and is largely an expert on the buying and selling of AF 15s - he has come across around a dozen people with +10 copies and a few with +50 copies.

 

Regardless of whether or not they are entombed (FYI - I prefer my high value copies plastic covered) and if even you multiplied the number of hoarders by a completely unrealistic factor of 100 it brings us to 1,200 people with 10 copies each - making 12,000 copies out there "unaccounted for." There is hardly an argument for tens of thousands (or more by some speculation) of copies not in the census.

 

 

[bluechip]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

 

+1 there is a lot of energy on here to believe what we want to be true to make an argument plausible. Not sure why so many people want AF 15s to be poised for a market price reset, but there isn't much evidence in the provided arguments. Mostly heresay and flawed logic.

 

Are there copies out there, yes. To the extent posited by some in this thread, it just doesn't make sense.

 

I don't know if it's as much as "hearsay" as "hear see" -- meaning that lots of people can reasonably attest that they have seen many hundreds or even thousands of copies. I know I have. And if that sounds like "flawed logic" I would say just go to enough cons and/or save it as a search item on ebay and it won't take long for you to rack up four figures worth of unique views.

 

But I've also said that the number of people who know about this book and want this particular book are huge and vastly outnumber the potentially existing copies. So not everybody who points out the number of copies extant is trying to make a "market correction." And if people such as the poster you quote don't want people even pointing things like that out for fear of sparking such a correction, and want to point fingers that people are trying to do so, then they should refrain from trying to influence the values downward on items they want to suppress for one reason or another. (pointing out how many people would be inclined to want an item can spark a chorus of objections here if people want it to be cheap and/or if there aren't enough similar examples so that everybody can wet their beak on its value)

 

If you want people not to behave in ways that make you think they're looking for a "correction," then I'd say don't try to have it both ways, working to suppress values on some things and then objecting when people point out some things (such as potential existing copies or flawed logic in valuations or grading or whatever) that you'd rather not have people discussing.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2015 by bluechip

[BarryAllen]

If you want people not to behave in ways that make you think they're looking for a "correction," then I'd say don't try to have it both ways, working to suppress values on some things and then objecting when people point out some things (such as potential existing copies or flawed logic in valuations or grading or whatever) that you'd rather not have people discussing.

 

Is this towards me or JDog?

 

Personally, I don't really want people to behave in any way - this is purely a discussion to me. I am not looking in influence the market in any shape or form.

 

 

I don't know if it's as much as "hearsay" as "hear see" -- meaning that lots of people can reasonably attest that they have seen many hundreds or even thousands of copies. I know I have. And if that sounds like "flawed logic" I would say just go to enough cons and/or save it as a search item on ebay and it won't take long for you to rack up four figures worth of unique views.

 

My personal experience would say otherwise. I went to over a dozen conventions two years ago (the very largest had around 50 copies, most of them had less than 5 or so), I regularly check eBay (around 30-50 copies, most of which recirculate constantly), I monitor auction sites and comic dealers (both on the boards and those who have stores) and I can say I didn't see any more than a few hundred of copies on the high end. I can also say that the same books pop-up over and over again in market, particularly grades below 5.0. Now if I repeated that every year and only saw unique views each time, maybe after a decade I would start hitting meaningful numbers.

 

I challenge your point that you can see in the four figures in any given year without being omni-present in the marketplace (every show, every store, every site, every sale). Unless you can provide more concrete evidence, this isn't any more believable than there are hundreds of hoarders out there with long-boxes full of AF 15s and that Big-Foot herself (yes he is a she) has a short-box full. I call "shenanigans."

 

Edited March 8, 2015 by rfoiii

[Jaydogrules]

There are currently 1429 blue labels on the census. Of those, at least 10-15% have likely been CPR'd. It took 15 years for them to reach that number. That alone tends to dispute the notion that there are tens of thousands of these out there raw. In that time the book has exploded in value and even mainstream media reported on that 1.1 million dollar sale those years back. Even my 75 year old father who knows nothing of comics and little of pop culture knew he was looking at something of high value when I showed him my one copy.

 

I would be extremely surprised if there were even 3000 copies on the census in the next 15 years. I'm sure guys like Gator know guys who know guys who have a stash of them, many of them raw. That means little if they never come to market, since evidently these people are so rich that they can keep a box full of multiple copies of one extremely valuable comic in mylars in their attic (or wherever they keep them).

 

I have no doubt there are many copies still out there raw. As I said before I do believe many, many of those will be restored, or very low grade. Sure they still count as copies, and have value, but I think the vast majority of the cream of the crop of this book is already in a slab. And as rfoii said, I too see the same slabs for sale, over and over again.

 

-J.

[markseifert]

this is purely a discussion to me. I am not looking in influence the market in any shape or form.

 

All in good fun, I'd agree, and at the end of the day this is all just some guessing and theories which may or may not make any sense at all.

 

When every single person who owns a raw copy at this moment has died (implying every single copy left on earth will have changed ownership at least once), we'll (probably) have a much better idea...

 

... unfortunately, none of us will be left by then to say I told you so.

[NewWorldOrder]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

 

I agree in bold

[markseifert]

 

One point that I think supports less AF15s out there (versus more) is that the census run up hasn't been huge in the last 2 years with the price explosion.......while some people may hoard them, others would want to sell them, and in the internet age, it's easy to do research....those that do will probably consider slabbing the book (I agree people who don't want to sell may have never heard of CGC....but i'm talking about those who do)

 

There's a bunch of angles of attack on this overall issue (and again, keeping in mind that this is all just silly fun at the end of the day), but I also find this point pretty interesting.

 

Consider the run-up that Action 1 has had since 2010. There have been some incredibly well-publicised sales over the past 5 years (and... jeez, I guess we are at the 5th anniversary of crossing the million dollar mark!)...

 

... yet with prices shooting into an orbit that even most millionaires can't ignore, plus the best publicity imaginable, the "velocity" at which census entries are made has increased roughly ONE "issue" per year over the previous rate [as always, keep in mind that a census entry does not equal a comic]

 

That's completely fascinating, I think. With prices climbing to $1 million, $2 million, $3 million... would it have been a huge surprise to see the rate of slabbing double or triple for a few years? Maybe it would have been, but a question worth pondering.

 

Now, that of course implies rarity, but there's probably a bunch of psychological components there too -- fear of leaving money on the table if you slab and sell before you TRULY need to do so, emotional attachment, and other collector-based "reasons" that we all have for doing what we do, etc, etc, etc.

 

Also, of course, there's probably a pretty strong disincentive to slab before you need to sell in many cases, particularly in golden age that has low census numbers.

 

Anyway... we've barely scratched the surface of ways we could look at this, I think. Whether it actually means anything at all is another matter entirely.

[NewWorldOrder]

I will say with abolsute certainly there are not thousands of AF 15's laying around that have not yet been unearthed yet by collectors or dealers. Maybe at best 1k and I am being generous with that guess.

 

That is unrealistic and I won't hear such abolsute non-sense.

 

AF 15 is not a rare book, but they don't grow on trees either.

 

Unless some kind of warehouse unearths a couple thousand copies I won't hold my breath the CGC census will be x10 anytime soon.

Edited March 8, 2015 by SPECTRE_#SOT

[Lazyboy]

I will say with abolsute certainly there are not thousands of AF 15's laying around that have not yet been unearthed yet by collectors or dealers. Maybe at best 1k and I am being generous with that guess.

 

That is unrealistic and I won't hear such abolsute non-sense.

 

AF 15 is not a rare book, but they don't grow on trees either.

 

Unless some kind of warehouse unearths a couple thousand copies I won't hold my breath the CGC census will be x10 anytime soon.

What are you talking about? The copies that people haven't seen and don't know about are in the collections of collectors. Those copies won't be available until they need the money or they move on to a different stage in their life.

[NewWorldOrder]

I will say with abolsute certainly there are not thousands of AF 15's laying around that have not yet been unearthed yet by collectors or dealers. Maybe at best 1k and I am being generous with that guess.

 

That is unrealistic and I won't hear such abolsute non-sense.

 

AF 15 is not a rare book, but they don't grow on trees either.

 

Unless some kind of warehouse unearths a couple thousand copies I won't hold my breath the CGC census will be x10 anytime soon.

What are you talking about? The copies that people haven't seen and don't know about are in the collections of collectors. Those copies won't be available until they need the money or they move on to a different stage in their life.

 

Re-read what I wrote....I said unearthed.

 

There is not thousands of copies in that manner as well.

 

I don't know where some of you guys are pulling these numbers out of your arses but that is clearly what is going on here.

 

While it is clear their are probably hundreds of AF 15's in people personal collections that are not CGC graded yet, but no way are there thousands.

 

Stop the non-sense......

Edited March 8, 2015 by SPECTRE_#SOT

[bluechip]

If you want people not to behave in ways that make you think they're looking for a "correction," then I'd say don't try to have it both ways, working to suppress values on some things and then objecting when people point out some things (such as potential existing copies or flawed logic in valuations or grading or whatever) that you'd rather not have people discussing.

 

Is this towards me or JDog?

 

Personally, I don't really want people to behave in any way - this is purely a discussion to me. I am not looking in influence the market in any shape or form.

 

 

I don't know if it's as much as "hearsay" as "hear see" -- meaning that lots of people can reasonably attest that they have seen many hundreds or even thousands of copies. I know I have. And if that sounds like "flawed logic" I would say just go to enough cons and/or save it as a search item on ebay and it won't take long for you to rack up four figures worth of unique views.

 

My personal experience would say otherwise. I went to over a dozen conventions two years ago (the very largest had around 50 copies, most of them had less than 5 or so), I regularly check eBay (around 30-50 copies, most of which recirculate constantly), I monitor auction sites and comic dealers (both on the boards and those who have stores) and I can say I didn't see any more than a few hundred of copies on the high end. I can also say that the same books pop-up over and over again in market, particularly grades below 5.0. Now if I repeated that every year and only saw unique views each time, maybe after a decade I would start hitting meaningful numbers.

 

I challenge your point that you can see in the four figures in any given year without being omni-present in the marketplace (every show, every store, every site, every sale). Unless you can provide more concrete evidence, this isn't any more believable than there are hundreds of hoarders out there with long-boxes full of AF 15s and that Big-Foot herself (yes he is a she) has a short-box full. I call "shenanigans."

 

Don't know either of you by real name. And don't recognize your screen name enough to see any kind of pattern. But the poster you quoted I have seen before and noticed that he is often saying something with the purpose of influencing value.

 

I don't think anybody would have to be "everywhere" to count 1K worth of AF15s in a year. And it would obviously it would take some effort to do that even if every copy was within walking distance. But if one made an effort to ID unique copies out there one could do so pretty much by going to cons and talking with dealers and collectors, looking at web sites (including this one). It is not worth my time to prove or disprove it, and probably not worth yours. But some guys out there like numbers enough that somebody might someday do that exercise.

 

I find it odd that you "call shenanigans" and am not even sure what you're "calling" it on.

 

Are you saying that anyone who suggests there could be more copies of a post 1960 book than you believe exist is not just wrong but actually dishonest? That would be taking the conversation to a bizarre place.

 

 

 

 

[jimjum12]

I'd say an assumption of 100 copies per State would be on the conservative side.....that alone would equal 5000. I've also heard that raw collectors outnumber slab collectors by 10 to one.....that would suggest, proportionately, 15,000 copies. I'd say the true amount would be somewhere between those two figures. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[BarryAllen]

If you want people not to behave in ways that make you think they're looking for a "correction," then I'd say don't try to have it both ways, working to suppress values on some things and then objecting when people point out some things (such as potential existing copies or flawed logic in valuations or grading or whatever) that you'd rather not have people discussing.

 

Is this towards me or JDog?

 

Personally, I don't really want people to behave in any way - this is purely a discussion to me. I am not looking in influence the market in any shape or form.

 

 

I don't know if it's as much as "hearsay" as "hear see" -- meaning that lots of people can reasonably attest that they have seen many hundreds or even thousands of copies. I know I have. And if that sounds like "flawed logic" I would say just go to enough cons and/or save it as a search item on ebay and it won't take long for you to rack up four figures worth of unique views.

 

My personal experience would say otherwise. I went to over a dozen conventions two years ago (the very largest had around 50 copies, most of them had less than 5 or so), I regularly check eBay (around 30-50 copies, most of which recirculate constantly), I monitor auction sites and comic dealers (both on the boards and those who have stores) and I can say I didn't see any more than a few hundred of copies on the high end. I can also say that the same books pop-up over and over again in market, particularly grades below 5.0. Now if I repeated that every year and only saw unique views each time, maybe after a decade I would start hitting meaningful numbers.

 

I challenge your point that you can see in the four figures in any given year without being omni-present in the marketplace (every show, every store, every site, every sale). Unless you can provide more concrete evidence, this isn't any more believable than there are hundreds of hoarders out there with long-boxes full of AF 15s and that Big-Foot herself (yes he is a she) has a short-box full. I call "shenanigans."

 

Don't know either of you by real name. And don't recognize your screen name enough to see any kind of pattern. But the poster you quoted I have seen before and noticed that he is often saying something with the purpose of influencing value.

 

I don't think anybody would have to be "everywhere" to count 1K worth of AF15s in a year. And it would obviously it would take some effort to do that even if every copy was within walking distance. But if one made an effort to ID unique copies out there one could do so pretty much by going to cons and talking with dealers and collectors, looking at web sites (including this one). It is not worth my time to prove or disprove it, and probably not worth yours. But some guys out there like numbers enough that somebody might someday do that exercise.

 

I find it odd that you "call shenanigans" and am not even sure what you're "calling" it on.

 

Are you saying that anyone who suggests there could be more copies of a post 1960 book than you believe exist is not just wrong but actually dishonest? That would be taking the conversation to a bizarre place.

 

 

 

 

The "shenanigans" piece is an attempt at humor. :shrug:

 

You made a statement that one could view 4 figures of AF 15s in market with some effort, my experience says that number is too high. I pulled some quick numbers on eBay and looked at some major auction records and I can't find over 250 unique copies (I gave up when duplicates became by far the norm). This leads me to believe that your statement is a false observation or exaggeration on your part. If you don't have the ability or time to prove your assertion, that's fine but then I am dismissing it like many of the other claims on here to the existence of thousands of copies.

 

My main argument in this thread and across the majority of discussion in the boards is that people make speculative statements as if they are facts. Nothing against you, but without numbers or some form of data to back up your claim it is nothing but conjecture.

 

It really is nothing personal, but observational unsubstantiated claims are not adequate support as a part of a discussion or as a point in an argument.

[Jaydogrules]

If you want people not to behave in ways that make you think they're looking for a "correction," then I'd say don't try to have it both ways, working to suppress values on some things and then objecting when people point out some things (such as potential existing copies or flawed logic in valuations or grading or whatever) that you'd rather not have people discussing.

 

Is this towards me or JDog?

 

Personally, I don't really want people to behave in any way - this is purely a discussion to me. I am not looking in influence the market in any shape or form.

 

 

I don't know if it's as much as "hearsay" as "hear see" -- meaning that lots of people can reasonably attest that they have seen many hundreds or even thousands of copies. I know I have. And if that sounds like "flawed logic" I would say just go to enough cons and/or save it as a search item on ebay and it won't take long for you to rack up four figures worth of unique views.

 

My personal experience would say otherwise. I went to over a dozen conventions two years ago (the very largest had around 50 copies, most of them had less than 5 or so), I regularly check eBay (around 30-50 copies, most of which recirculate constantly), I monitor auction sites and comic dealers (both on the boards and those who have stores) and I can say I didn't see any more than a few hundred of copies on the high end. I can also say that the same books pop-up over and over again in market, particularly grades below 5.0. Now if I repeated that every year and only saw unique views each time, maybe after a decade I would start hitting meaningful numbers.

 

I challenge your point that you can see in the four figures in any given year without being omni-present in the marketplace (every show, every store, every site, every sale). Unless you can provide more concrete evidence, this isn't any more believable than there are hundreds of hoarders out there with long-boxes full of AF 15s and that Big-Foot herself (yes he is a she) has a short-box full. I call "shenanigans."

 

Don't know either of you by real name. And don't recognize your screen name enough to see any kind of pattern. But the poster you quoted I have seen before and noticed that he is often saying something with the purpose of influencing value.

 

I don't think anybody would have to be "everywhere" to count 1K worth of AF15s in a year. And it would obviously it would take some effort to do that even if every copy was within walking distance. But if one made an effort to ID unique copies out there one could do so pretty much by going to cons and talking with dealers and collectors, looking at web sites (including this one). It is not worth my time to prove or disprove it, and probably not worth yours. But some guys out there like numbers enough that somebody might someday do that exercise.

 

I find it odd that you "call shenanigans" and am not even sure what you're "calling" it on.

 

Are you saying that anyone who suggests there could be more copies of a post 1960 book than you believe exist is not just wrong but actually dishonest? That would be taking the conversation to a bizarre place.

 

 

 

 

The "shenanigans" piece is an attempt at humor. :shrug:

 

You made a statement that one could view 4 figures of AF 15s in market with some effort, my experience says that number is too high. I pulled some quick numbers on eBay and looked at some major auction records and I can't find over 250 unique copies (I gave up when duplicates became by far the norm). This leads me to believe that your statement is a false observation or exaggeration on your part. If you don't have the ability or time to prove your assertion, that's fine but then I am dismissing it like many of the other claims on here to the existence of thousands of copies.

 

My main argument in this thread and across the majority of discussion in the boards is that people make speculative statements as if they are facts. Nothing against you, but without numbers or some form of data to back up your claim it is nothing but conjecture.

 

It really is nothing personal, but observational unsubstantiated claims are not adequate support as a part of a discussion or as a point in an argument.

 

Considering that in 15 years less than 1450 blue labels have been unearthed (and probably closer to 1200 after factoring out the plethora of CPR's), I find your observations to be far more likely to be accurate than those who seem to believe these things are falling out of people's closets on a daily basis.

 

-J.

 

And PS: @ bluechip, I have never posted anything with the purpose of "influencing value". I'm not even sure how such a thing would be possible.

[roulette44]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

 

My experience is just the opposite. Everyone (except 2) I know that owns more than 10 copies (at least a dozen folks , with two of them in the 50+ range)all own them raw. Two dealers I know that have 15-20 copies more than half are slabbed but At least some percentage is raw

 

To say there are thousands of copies is to say Rick only knows a small pittance of the market. He knows a dozen guys with 10+ and 2 with 50+. That's 220++......heck call it 300 and say they're all raw. If there were 20,000++ copies, then Rick is nothing but a rounding error in the hobby.

 

I know no one here (least of all Rick ) believes that!!

 

 

[Sqeggs]

I'd say an assumption of 100 copies per State would be on the conservative side.....that alone would equal 5000. I've also heard that raw collectors outnumber slab collectors by 10 to one.....that would suggest, proportionately, 15,000 copies. I'd say the true amount would be somewhere between those two figures. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

Think of the page quality of the 100 copies in Alaska!