Why is Overstreet so out of touch with reality?

[skybolt]

Just received my OS guide yesterday, and I must say that I'm a little disappointed with the price structure. The guide still hasn't separated out the classic good girl art and war covers for many GA titles. These books are consistently selling for twice the guide in semi-HG.

 

Also, why has Daredevil #1 gone up to over to $2,000 in VF condition if the data doesn't support that jump. Other than a questionable $2,550 purchase, all of the other sales (according to GPA) are around $1,500 to $1,600 (which was close to the OS #34 value). On the other hand, ASM #1 is still stuck at $8,750 in 8.0 condition, even though all of the sales within the past 1.5 years have averaged above $9,500. I wish I knew what data was being used to price these books.

[drbanner]

Just received my OS guide yesterday, and I must say that I'm a little disappointed with the price structure. The guide still hasn't separated out the classic good girl art and war covers for many GA titles. These books are consistently selling for twice the guide in semi-HG.

 

Also, why has Daredevil #1 gone up to over to $2,000 in VF condition if the data doesn't support that jump. Other than a questionable $2,550 purchase, all of the other sales (according to GPA) are around $1,500 to $1,600 (which was close to the OS #34 value). On the other hand, ASM #1 is still stuck at $8,750 in 8.0 condition, even though all of the sales within the past 1.5 years have averaged above $9,500. I wish I knew what data was being used to price these books.

 

Is OS supposed to be a slabbed guide, or a raw guide? I know most VF and better Daredevil 1's are sold slabbed, but what about DD 301's? Is the top guide grade for DD 301 still 9.2? I suppose the fundamental change in the guide last year by dropping the 9.4/NM column was supposed to address the fact that slabbed 9.4 copies were selling for extreme multiples, but it was a disaster.

 

The problem is they changed the name of the top-grade column to 9.2/NM-, but they didn't lower the prices accordingly. It appears OS followed the same old same old pattern of conservative 2/5/10% price increases for vintage stuff, and when they were done with the pricing changes they decided to call the last column 9.2/NM-. Does anyone think raw NM- copies for common, non-key post-1980 books sell anywhere near the 9.2 price in OS?

 

GPA is now the definitive "price guide" for slabbed books, and OS is now the definitive price guide for neither slabbed, nor raw...

[awe4one]

OS is now the definitive price guide for neither slabbed, nor raw...

 

So where do you think the next reliable raw price guide will come from?

 

Personally, I think the changes needed in the OSPG have gotten to the point where they are too extreme for the traditionally conservative publication. So unless OS decides on a massive reboot...I don't think they'll ever get back their gauge on the raw market...

 

Jim

[drbanner]

OS is now the definitive price guide for neither slabbed, nor raw...

 

So where do you think the next reliable raw price guide will come from?

 

Personally, I think the changes needed in the OSPG have gotten to the point where they are too extreme for the traditionally conservative publication. So unless OS decides on a massive reboot...I don't think they'll ever get back their gauge on the raw market...

 

Jim

 

Unfortunately, for raw books I believe OS is it. The types of changes that would need to be made to make it more accurate (and the things to keep in mind when selling raw books) include:

 

1) VF and lower non-key post-1965 books need to drop dramatically, and modern commons need to be listed at the $0.10/$0.25/$0.50 they actually sell for, not "cover price".

 

2) More breakout for classic covers for SA and BA books (and some GA). The gerber photoguides dramatically changed the way GA books were collected by providing pictures of all those great covers, and in essence the internet has done the same for SA and BA books. On top of the fact that more people are now aware of the better covers, the prices have risen dramatically for all ages over the last few years, so what might have been a small cover-influenced price difference between Hulk 152 and 153 a few years ago is now significant.

 

3) Some books need to rise dramatically (of the books I collect, things like the classic LB Cole covers are still underpriced in the guide even though market prices have gone down the last few years, and there are surely lots of other stuff severely underpriced that I'm not as familiar with like the price variants)

 

4) There needs to be some reckoning for the effect of CGC on high-grade, vintage books. One option would be to simply delete top-grade prices for books that sell for thousands of dollars in the 9.2 and up range. Does OS really need to include a price for a NM Action 1?

 

Like you said, the changes are too radical and will most likely never happen...so in the end, knowledge is power.

[garthgantu]

Here's my take on the rather "tame" prices: I'm not the only one reporting, but from my research, there are also plenty of "hidden" variants out on ebay that get sold every day for pennies, so it is ironically these legions of unitiateed largely responsible for keeping the prices on these variants down

 

Wouldn't this require that the 'hidden variants' selling for pennies somehow get reported to OS/Gemstone? You and I both know that's not happening. No one at OS is tracking eBay sales of anything, let alone mid-grade variants. And no one selling 'hidden' mid-grade variants is reporting their sales to OS. If it's 'hidden' that means the seller doesn't know what he's got, right?

[garthgantu]

Unfortunately, for raw books I believe OS is it. The types of changes that would need to be made to make it more accurate (and the things to keep in mind when selling raw books) include:

 

How about a pricing solution that factored in eBay sales of raw books? I realize there are several signficant problems with simpling culling the data and using it as-is. For one, few eBay sellers know how to grade, so how do you know the "VF" ASM 32 sold by NeatStuff was in fact anywhere near VF? But bear with me for a moment...

 

You could easily build a bot that searched eBay for sales by a specific set of sellers based on their IDs. That set of sellers could be modified on a daily or weekly basis, removing some sellers and adding others. The decision to remove or add a seller could be based partly on a set of criteria - has the seller rec'd X negatives in the past XX days? Or better yet, has the seller rec'd feedback that included the word/words "overgraded" "overgrades" "blind as a bat," etc. ? The add/remove decision could also be based partly on human oversight of the system...if a seller appears to be overgrading, either remove them from the dbase or modify their listed grades downward by some increment automatically, so the sale of an ASM 32 described by NeatStuff as "VF" is actually recorded in the dbase as a sale of an ASM 32 in "FN/VF" or whatever.

 

I realize some of these same sellers presumably report their sales of raw books to OS, but clearly that info, if it is being reported, is not being reflected in the guide. If a process was developed that tracked the sales of 100 of the most respected and trusted eBay sellers, I bet the average prices would work out.

 

The problem would lie with those books that rarely or never are sold via eBay. But that's probably 5% of the overall 'universe' of back issues...

[Rob]

I picked up the latest issue of COINage this week (not a coin collector, just been dabbling for fun recently). In it is an article about the Red Book price guide. It mentions that with the surge of other, more responsive and accurate guides such as Coin World Trends, greysheet, bluesheet, pcgs.com, etc, that the Red Book is no longer considered by collectors as the tool to use when making buy/sell decisions, but is still the best reference book on the hobby. I thought that was a good parallel to the OS guide. Whereas I use GPA and eBay to determine real time pricing, the OS guide is a great all-around reference guide, that provides tons of info, including a ballpark value for each issue. Great pooping material too!

[garthgantu]

Great pooping material too!

 

Which section do you tear out first to wipe with?

[FFB]

Great pooping material too!

 

Which section do you tear out first to wipe with?

 

With this year's guide, I'd start with the page showing the values of almost all of the Amazing Spider-Man in the 140s dropping in NM-. Thing is, I'd be afraid of clogging the county sewage pipe with all of the BS on that one page.

[awe4one]

With this year's guide, I'd start with the page showing the values of almost all of the Amazing Spider-Man in the 140s dropping in NM-.

 

Scott...where are you getting that they shouldn't have dropped? It's been my observation that HG raw ASMs after #137 bring nowhere near OSPG prices...and they aren't really scarce in NM except, maybe, #148?

 

Jim

[FlyingDonut]

With this year's guide, I'd start with the page showing the values of almost all of the Amazing Spider-Man in the 140s dropping in NM-.

 

Scott...where are you getting that they shouldn't have dropped? It's been my observation that HG raw ASMs after #137 bring nowhere near OSPG prices...and they aren't really scarce in NM except, maybe, #148?

 

Jim

 

I think the OSPG is actually right on ASMs. Prices for NON super high grade copies have dropped, as there are so many slabbed high grade Bronze Spideys floating around.

[Darthdiesel]

Here's my take on the rather "tame" prices: I'm not the only one reporting, but from my research, there are also plenty of "hidden" variants out on ebay that get sold every day for pennies, so it is ironically these legions of unitiateed largely responsible for keeping the prices on these variants down

 

Wouldn't this require that the 'hidden variants' selling for pennies somehow get reported to OS/Gemstone? You and I both know that's not happening. No one at OS is tracking eBay sales of anything, let alone mid-grade variants. And no one selling 'hidden' mid-grade variants is reporting their sales to OS. If it's 'hidden' that means the seller doesn't know what he's got, right?

 

I report ALL (that means "hidden" ones that I or the other multitude of regular variant bidders take a shot at) sales I track on ebay including my own, otherwise I would be guilty of rigging prices as an earlier post by a forumite had accused. Yes, I may miss a few hidden sales but there may be others who follow variant sales reproting to OS.

 

I'm not defending those prices in the guide, just offering a reason as to why the prices could be lower than what the CGC forum community expects on these variants.

[lou_fine]

With this year's guide, I'd start with the page showing the values of almost all of the Amazing Spider-Man in the 140s dropping in NM-.

 

Scott...where are you getting that they shouldn't have dropped? It's been my observation that HG raw ASMs after #137 bring nowhere near OSPG prices...and they aren't really scarce in NM except, maybe, #148?

 

Jim

 

I think the OSPG is actually right on ASMs. Prices for NON super high grade copies have dropped, as there are so many slabbed high grade Bronze Spideys floating around.

 

Isn't it amazing how we can have completely opposite opinions on the same books even between board members. No wonder why Overstreet is always in a lose lose situation whenever a new edition of the guide comes out. Didn't collectors make fun of Overstreet when the first guide came out by referring to it as the Overprice Guide since they didn't believe that anybody would actually pay the kind of money he had listed on the books.

 

Actually, the answer to FFB's question can only be answered if you define the meaning of reality. Board members here might have a jaded definition since their version of reality revolves around not only CGC graded books, but also around indicators such as CGC highest graded books, Doug's Pedigree Comics website, CGC Registry books, GPAnalysis, etc. After spending all this time here, no wonder why we think that OS is completely out of touch with reality. Or is it because the reality that we are used to on a daily basis is representative of only the top 2% echelon of the comic book market?

 

When I walked into my LCS's in the city or attend the local comic conventions, there isn't one sniff of a CGC graded book in sight. Sure, a couple of the dealers might have a few slabs sitting in a box, but these seem to be treated more as novelty items only. This crowd also thinks that OS is completely out of touch with reality since I can go around and pick up some pretty nice BA books at a nice discount to guide if I really wanted the books in the first place.

 

As a result, Overstreet seems to be out of touch with reality since it's impossible to please everybody all of the time. This has always been the case ever since his first price guide. You'll have one group of collectors and dealers calling for him to lower prices, and at the same time, another group of collectors and dealers calling for him to raise prices.

 

The correct strategy which he does appear to be following over the years is to keep increasing the spread between low grade and high grade, but probably at too slow of a pace.

[Kermit the frog]

"...After spending all this time here, no wonder why we think that OS is completely out of touch with reality. Or is it because the reality that we are used to on a daily basis is representative of only the top 2% echelon of the comic book market?

...Overstreet seems to be out of touch with reality since it's impossible to please everybody all of the time. This has always been the case ever since his first price guide. You'll have one group of collectors and dealers calling for him to lower prices, and at the same time, another group of collectors and dealers calling for him to raise prices..."

 

 

Nicely said...

[Aman619]

yeah, Lou, but while we may comprise 2% at the top, what we spend on books IS reality nonetheless. These are REAL prices, arent they?

[awe4one]

Actually, the answer to FFB's question can only be answered if you define the meaning of reality. Board members here might have a jaded definition since their version of reality revolves around not only CGC graded books, but also around indicators such as CGC highest graded books, Doug's Pedigree Comics website, CGC Registry books, GPAnalysis, etc.

 

That would be true if you considered OS a reflection of the slabbed market. They aren't. We are talking raw comics here. Looking at eBay, con sales, market reports, etc. can easily get you that info...

 

After spending all this time here, no wonder why we think that OS is completely out of touch with reality. Or is it because the reality that we are used to on a daily basis is representative of only the top 2% echelon of the comic book market?

 

True but we also are very keen on checking raw prices around the market overall looking for the best deals out there. The group of people here, and I agree we are a small segment of the overall hobby, are very active in this regard. In fact, I'd say even more than the typical collector but I have no way of proving it other than my impressions...

 

With this knowledge, a person can get a pretty good gauge on certain segments of the market they're interested in...or even have actual sales to back it up. ASM in the 140s is one such area I've followed and think OS is right on the money in dropping the raw price...

 

Jim

[ComicSupply]

This thread is a year old, why did it get bumped. Are the dates out of wack?