Questions about Golden Age Rarity and Pricing

[Loaded Dice]

Good Evening,

 

I am new to Golden Age collecting. I recently picked up a pair of books. Wonder Woman 6 & 7 from an original owner. Looking at the census on these books I only see 41 books graded for 6 and 31 graded for 7. Are these books that rare? In 20 years of grading that is all the copies people have submitted. I am use to the numbers of books being graded in the 1000s from silver to modern.

 

With DC movies releasing, will there be an upswing in pricing on Golden Age books. I know some Silver, Bronze, and Copper have doubled and tripled with big screen showings? Is Golden age the rock of comics and doesn't get the effects of these waves in pricing?

 

I appreciate all the insight this community has to offer. Looking forward to moving deeper into the awesomeness that is Golden Age collecting!

 

Here are the books as it is fun to share!

 

[mrmyst]

Outstanding acquisitions. While I wouldn't call them rare per se, they're quite hard to get in decent condition because they are extremely popular with collectors.

[Point Five]

Those look amazing. Welcome to the obsession!

 

 

[Primetime]

Nice WW books. The CGC census has been in place for 15+ years and not 20. It's not perfect but certainly can have some degree of accuracy with GA. I generally like to double the amount of CGC graded copies for a particular book to get an estimated number of raw books out there. With some books that I have tracked the past twenty years it seems roughly accurate. We will never know because there are plenty of old time collectors that refuse to slab their books until they are ready to sell. That said, I don't keep up with WW books but I would say they are not incredibly difficult to locate. Perhaps scarce in the open market because collectors are actively pursuing them but not scarce in general. I can think of a handful of books that are much tougher than those WWs.

[The-Collector]

I would say they are not rare. Many of the books I chase I would consider rare and in many cases the number of slabbed copies is below 10.

 

They are however great books, and the no 7 especially is a great piece of history.

 

I think in relation to GA prices are less susceptible to wild swings due to movie/tv, though there are noticeable exceptions such as More Fun 73.

[jimjum12]

The two volume set of the Gerber PhotoJournals that showcase the Golden Age segment have over 21000 cover images and also contain an index for them all with an estimated scarcity index (SI)...... these are worth their weight in gold if you plan on collecting Golden Age books. While some GA books are very scarce, especially those with SI's of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, buyers for them can sometimes be even more scarce..... so scarcity doesn't always equate to demand. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

.... Wonder Woman is a sought after title to a degree.... and the SI of #6 is a "4" while the #7 is a "6" ...... with an SI of "1" being very common graduating to an SI of "10", being possibly unique or at best only a few in existence.

[1950's war comics]

Fairly priced Wonder Woman comics issues 1-100 seldom last long on ebay from what I've seen over the last five years

[Knightsofold]

"Rare" means diferent things to different people.

 

If you compare their supply and availability to SA comics they're extremely rare.

Compared to other GA they could be considered "common".

 

IMO anything that has demand (which these do) and can't be found (with 1-3 choices) on the internet at any time is "rare".

 

The prices of Captain America GA comics have certainly gone up since the movies. As well as early batman detective comics.

 

Great looking books btw. They'll sell fast.

[jgallo]

I would call these books uncommon, they are certainly harder to get then the Batman and Superman issues from the same times period and they have an increased demand in recent years. That being said there may be a lot of old time collectors that do not know how much these books have gone up. Great books and key GA Wonder Womans.

 

 

James G

[Primetime]

I've always considered

Scarce : 25-100 copies exist

Rare: up to 25 copies exist

[Sqeggs]

I've always considered

Scarce : 25-100 copies exist

Rare: up to 25 copies exist

 

Similar to Overstreet except he uses (I think) 20 copies as the cutoff between scarce and rare. He's never been too consistent, though, in his usage in the guide entries. There are a lot of books he calls rare that I'm certain have way more than 20 copies known.

[lou_fine]

I've always considered

Scarce : 25-100 copies exist

Rare: up to 25 copies exist

 

Similar to Overstreet except he uses (I think) 20 copies as the cutoff between scarce and rare. He's never been too consistent, though, in his usage in the guide entries. There are a lot of books he calls rare that I'm certain have way more than 20 copies known.

 

Yes, this is probably something that he should really update as this definition is most likely from 40+ years ago.

 

With so much more collecting history behind us along with the increased ability to keep track of books, he should probably consider raising the threshold a bit for each of his scarcity definitions.

[lou_fine]

I am new to Golden Age collecting. I recently picked up a pair of books. Wonder Woman 6 & 7 from an original owner. Looking at the census on these books I only see 41 books graded for 6 and 31 graded for 7. Are these books that rare? In 20 years of grading that is all the copies people have submitted. I am use to the numbers of books being graded in the 1000s from silver to modern.

 

Here are the books as it is fun to share!

 

 

Thanks for sharing the books!

 

I would say the WW 7 is a definite keeper as it seems to sell for multiples to guide in all grades across the board. Must have something to do with a female presidency.

 

Yes, none of these DC books would be considered to be rare or even close to it. Unless you are talking about some of the early pre-hero DC books where you might have less than a handful of them even being graded at all.

 

I would say WTB, except I noticed that you have been posting here since 2013. At your pace, it's going to take you a long time to catch up to Greggy.

[atomised]

wrt the movies you mentioned, I think it depends on how or if Cheetah is utilized in the Wonder Woman film to see if there is a substantial leap beyond present movement, which is strong. Personally, I think the fiction of Cheetah (Priscilla RIch) in the GA may not suit modern audiences. Either way, still an iconic villain that has been rebooted many times over the years. I do think there is some speculative froth on Cheetah already built into prices given her status isn't yet known for the big screen.