Future Value of CGC comics?

[october]

How about this....just collect whatever moderns you actually like and forget about "investment". That way, when you get stuck with a bunch of stuff worth 1/4 cover price, you won't give a [#@$%!!!]. Works for me.

[Warlord]

I would say that prices for 9.8 moderns are already dropping to below grading fees in most cases. CGC was a fad in terms of slabbing new comics because there are just too many in high grade and most new comics depreciate rapidly.

 

I've recently been wondering about this myself -- how are many sellers making any money when so many comics seem to sell on ebay below slabbing costs? Of course some sellers gouge on shipping... and others might consider selling some 9.4s and 9.6s at below cost the cost of doing enough slabbing to get the 9.8s and up that they make the real money on...

 

Anyway just to get a rough number I sorted roughly 13,500 CGC auctions from Nov '04 by selling price. I find that about 750 of those auctions realized a selling price of only $15 or less. That's about the cost of a modern slab isn't discounted... maybe factor in some shipping and insurance costs per slab... also some of those auctions might be from higher slab cost tiers. I'd say most of those sold for below their slab cost. If I went to the effort of dividing this up by tiers and comparing different slab costs to the selling price there are possibly even more slabs selling below cost.

 

It would take a lot of new datamining for me to factor in shipping costs to weed out the gougers who are selling for less because they're hiding some of the profit from ebay. If you imagine that this number is fairly representative though despite that then 5% of all CGC sales are roughly at or below cost. If we figured out precisely which sales were modern I'd imagine that those 750 sales are a much larger percentage of all modern CGC sales.

 

Anyone seen rough guidelines from ComicSheet or GPA that mention the average monthly breakdown of ebay CGC sales by age or tier?

[Warlord]

Not taking about the golden, and silver age comics, but more about todays comics.

 

I see all these sites, offering pre orders on comic graded 9.8 or better. Now you can order a years subscription of any current title at a guaranteed grade of 9.8.

 

I know alot of people (not me) CGCing everything that comes out these days looking to cash in big in 20-30 years.

 

My question is are they right, or do you guys think this CGC trend will do alot of harm the the value of these comics in the long run?

 

The Way i see it, this CGC craze will keep these titles at a lower cost, then a higher one. So instead of making the books more expensive, it may actually make them more affordable 25-30 years down the road.

 

What do you guys think?

 

I think that the values of 9.8 non-key moderns will stay pretty close to where they are right now for the foreseeable future. When you buy a slabbed modern for $30, you have to figure that the book has the following costs to the seller included in the price: $3 cover price (in other words, the amount he'd sell it for if it were raw, not his actual wholesale cost of the book), $12 modern slabbing fee ($15 - 20% discount), and shipping to and from CGC (figure a dollar to two dollars per book) -- so the slabbed 9.8 has a "value" of about $16-17, before you consider the cost of the labor involved in pre-grading a stack of books at the seller's shop in order to cull out the 9.8s, as well as an indeterminate number of $3 "reject" pre-screen fees for other books that the seller submitted that didn't make the cut, and the time value of money for the period that the books are at CGC waiting to be graded. If one out of four submitted books don't make the 9.8 cut, the dealer adds another dollar each to his cost for the three slabbed 9.8s out of each four he submits.

 

On a $30 sale, the dealer is making about a $10 profit per book. I think that there is room for the books to drop in "value" all the way down to the dealer's slabbing-associated costs plus cover price of the book (i.e., about $20), but not much below that unless the book is a very low demand book.

 

Unless the book becomes a key issue though, I do not believe that there is much room for significant upside on value.

 

If you figure the cost of slabbing is about $20, then there were about 1,300 ebay CGC sales in Nov '04 at or below the cost of slabbing. Almost 2,000 sales at or below $25.

[FFB]

Not taking about the golden, and silver age comics, but more about todays comics.

 

I see all these sites, offering pre orders on comic graded 9.8 or better. Now you can order a years subscription of any current title at a guaranteed grade of 9.8.

 

I know alot of people (not me) CGCing everything that comes out these days looking to cash in big in 20-30 years.

 

My question is are they right, or do you guys think this CGC trend will do alot of harm the the value of these comics in the long run?

 

The Way i see it, this CGC craze will keep these titles at a lower cost, then a higher one. So instead of making the books more expensive, it may actually make them more affordable 25-30 years down the road.

 

What do you guys think?

 

I think that the values of 9.8 non-key moderns will stay pretty close to where they are right now for the foreseeable future. When you buy a slabbed modern for $30, you have to figure that the book has the following costs to the seller included in the price: $3 cover price (in other words, the amount he'd sell it for if it were raw, not his actual wholesale cost of the book), $12 modern slabbing fee ($15 - 20% discount), and shipping to and from CGC (figure a dollar to two dollars per book) -- so the slabbed 9.8 has a "value" of about $16-17, before you consider the cost of the labor involved in pre-grading a stack of books at the seller's shop in order to cull out the 9.8s, as well as an indeterminate number of $3 "reject" pre-screen fees for other books that the seller submitted that didn't make the cut, and the time value of money for the period that the books are at CGC waiting to be graded. If one out of four submitted books don't make the 9.8 cut, the dealer adds another dollar each to his cost for the three slabbed 9.8s out of each four he submits.

 

On a $30 sale, the dealer is making about a $10 profit per book. I think that there is room for the books to drop in "value" all the way down to the dealer's slabbing-associated costs plus cover price of the book (i.e., about $20), but not much below that unless the book is a very low demand book.

 

Unless the book becomes a key issue though, I do not believe that there is much room for significant upside on value.

 

If you figure the cost of slabbing is about $20, then there were about 1,300 ebay CGC sales in Nov '04 at or below the cost of slabbing. Almost 2,000 sales at or below $25.

 

"Another beautiful theory murdered by a brutal gang of facts."

[Ron_Nasty]

modern CGC=No Value

 

So true.

[the blob]

maybe i shouldn't have spoken so quickly about bronze 9.4s when a 9.4 hero for hire gets bids at $500....

 

as for moderns, i just don't get the huge prices getting paid for these retailer variants. sure, they have tiny print runs, but they're all going to get slabbed and they're pretty much all going to be 9.4 - 10.0. you can blow $300-$1200 on a much "rarer" high grade book if you are so inclined--- one that wasn't mass produced yesterday

[Tango 'n Cash]

I agree with you guys. I think a lot of us have learned painful lessons from past speculations.

 

Some people think so but are actually just repeating the same ones.

[tilleycs]

I agree with you guys. I think a lot of us have learned painful lessons from past speculations.

 

Some people think so but are actually just repeating the same ones.

 

True. Maybe I should have said "a lot of us have had painful experiences with past speculations". Maybe some people are in the middle of what will be painful lessons when they're over? Or it's just a habit with them and they're addicted to the "rush" of the idea of making a fortune off a slew of $2.99 comics?

[Dr_Neff]

[comicdonna]

Modern comics are not going to be a good investment. The popular Silver age and Golden age are always going to be a good investment.

[rjpb]

Modern comics are not going to be a good investment. The popular Silver age and Golden age are always going to be a good investment.

 

 

 

yes, if by good investment you mean less likely to lose value. At the prices much HG Silver is selling at, I'm not so sure it's the investment it used to be.

[Aces]

And so begins 500 posts on the upcoming CGC crash.

 

Nah...

 

Only 300 without JC around.

[shrunkenhead]

Modern comics are not going to be a good investment. The popular Silver age and Golden age are always going to be a good investment.

 

 

 

yes, if by good investment you mean less likely to lose value. At the prices much HG Silver is selling at, I'm not so sure it's the investment it used to be.

 

I hear that lame cover GA DCs are a hot investment nowadays.

[Dr_Neff]

[comicdonna]

Your probably right. It is not going to be the investment it used to be, but, my feeling is that more collectors are going to be after the books that are not made anymore, and they are going to be hard to find.

[rjpb]

Modern comics are not going to be a good investment. The popular Silver age and Golden age are always going to be a good investment.

 

 

 

yes, if by good investment you mean less likely to lose value. At the prices much HG Silver is selling at, I'm not so sure it's the investment it used to be.

 

I hear that lame cover GA DCs are a hot investment nowadays.

 

 

Time to start buying up All-Americans with Hop Harrigan covers.