Gain/Loss trends for all comics now available on Nostomania

[Tommy Jasmin]

Hey Golden Age collectors - I thought some of you might like to know I now compute Gain/Loss trends for any comics you enter in My Lists on Nostomania. For example, if you were smart and lucky enough to have obtained an All Star Comics 8 years ago, that investment is now paying off big time, see pic.

 

 

Whatever collection tracking tools you currently use, it's never a bad idea to get a second assessment of value. If you haven't already, check it out.

[Aman619]

What are you using for your values?

[tabcom]

We here are collectors. We value the intrinsic artistic and historical significance of comic books. We would never look at our collections as an investment.

How vulgar.

[Tommy Jasmin]

Hi aman619 -

 

I wrote software that computes pricing data driven by actual sales. Pricing should represent what someone actually paid for that item. For example if you drill down to the pricing details for All Star 8 on the site, you'll see somebody paid $31,000.00 for a CGC VG 4.0 copy in September. This book is white hot as are most Wonder Woman keys right now.

[Tommy Jasmin]

We here are collectors. We value the intrinsic artistic and historical significance of comic books. We would never look at our collections as an investment.

How vulgar.

 

You are preaching to an old man who has valued the artistic and historical significance of comic books for well over 40 years.

[nearmint]

We here are collectors. We value the intrinsic artistic and historical significance of comic books. We would never look at our collections as an investment.

How vulgar.

 

You are preaching to an old man who has valued the artistic and historical significance of comic books for well over 40 years.

 

His post was a bit tongue in cheek. When a hobby becomes as expensive as this one, we all have an interest in value.

[adampasz]

Are you only using Heritage for your pricing data? (This is what I concluded after spend about 30 mins. checking out your site.)

[Tommy Jasmin]

Are you only using Heritage for your pricing data? (This is what I concluded after spend about 30 mins. checking out your site.)

 

Adam - it's definitely over 90% Heritage. IMO they are by far the best source of high-quality, diverse sales data. Some eBay and that will be increasing, but it's very hard to ensure the eBay data is accurate and does not pollute the database. I should offer Josh at ComicLink once more to publish his sales data. I asked him years ago and he had no interest. This baffles me - if he wanted, I could make each sale a link back to his site, to the original item. Why would any big auction house not want that free publicity?

[N e r V]

It's an interesting guide for sales but needs more data from other sources. There are a lot of books I searched on that I'd easily be willing to pay those prices but the market is much higher.

 

If it's drawing mostly from Heritage than that net as big as it might be is still losing a lot of books that they seldom have sold.

 

Hopefully you can round it out with more sources of data in the future.

 

Were any ComicConnect sales included?

[Cat-Man_America]

The lack of having one dependable source for auction sales data compiled from all major houses and sites (Heritage, ComicConnect, ComicLink and eBay) is a serious problem for the collecting community that may pose a risk as great as any market bubble.

 

I'm not suggesting that there's an impending disaster looming or anything like that. Markets fluctuate and trends are unpredictable, but that doesn't mean that we're immune from changing market dynamics.

 

What I'm more concerned about is the failure of our hobby to develop sophisticated investment tools that cover all the bases. It's sad that we still have auction houses within the hobby that consider their data proprietary when all pertinent public sales information is crucial to establishing baseline values that can be trusted.

 

Collectors and dealers deserve easier access to current sales data regardless of auction house, ...a one-stop site for reliable information. Recently I dropped my subscription to GPA because the service fails to provide some essential auction data. Like I said, we deserve better.

 

Until someone with enough capital to broker deals with hold-outs can pull together a more unified data base of dependable, easily accessible information that the collecting community can trust, we'll continue to play guessing games and reading tea leaves.

 

This Herculean task may be beyond the services currently available, but done right it could be a 21st century game changer for the collecting community much like the OSG and Buyer's Guide changed things back in the 70's. My (not adjusted for anyone's changing interest rate)

[Tommy Jasmin]

It's an interesting guide for sales but needs more data from other sources. There are a lot of books I searched on that I'd easily be willing to pay those prices but the market is much higher.

 

If it's drawing mostly from Heritage than that net as big as it might be is still losing a lot of books that they seldom have sold.

 

Hopefully you can round it out with more sources of data in the future.

 

Were any ComicConnect sales included?

 

Hi N e r V - thanks for chiming in, I am in complete agreement here, for this to work well I

must expand the data sources, while keeping the data clean and meaningful. As far

as ComicConnect, what are your thoughts there? So far, I have been only manually

punching in key sales, like the Action Comics 1 awhile back. Even that sale I was very

hesitant to include however. I don't like "Anonymous seller to anonymous buyer" sales -

they smack of electioneering and artificially hyping the market. Don't think this doesn't

happen for a second. I have seen books I purchased myself years ago, reported in

the Overstreet Advisors Market Report section for much more than I actually paid for

them. It's very important to me that all sales I capture for Nostomania are legitimate.

 

What would you consider the two most important datasources beyond Heritage to try and

semi-automate harvesting for?

[N e r V]

It's never going to be 100% accurate. Aside from someone possibly lying about a sale it's not that uncommon for a book to "over sell" at times. So if you have a book that's been regularly selling for $1000.00 dollars and people get "auction fever" and run the book up to say $3000.00 it's going to skew the going rates. Our little hobby is full of illogical pricing quirks.

 

For your part you can only make the best possible choices based on the data you receive. If it is questionable data maybe post a asterisk next to listings as possible or unconfirmed as a sale but leave it out of the data pool. You also need to be willing to adjust data if you find it to be false.

 

It's a lot of books you are trying to list there but for example if I look at a title I know has been hot in the market for some time and I see issue #4 is averaging $1000.00 in fine but I haven't been able to find a copy under $2000.00 I know the data is probably old or incomplete on that issue. This is true of many books that aren't often offered for sale. It would be great if you could somehow list how much activity in sales you are drawing on that actual issue. Not raw numbers maybe but rating it with stars or something. One star equals low data information where as four stars equal high data information on said issue. I'm also not sure what date range you are using for your averages. Does sales information drop off your averages over time? What if you have confirmed sales data from 2004, 2009 and 2013 only. All used or is there a cut off point?

 

 

I also think you cannot ignore ComicConnect sales as a whole regardless of what might be happening with certain sales. Use more caution, yes. But they sell enough in the market to have a place in sales data. You also need to include Comic Link regardless of what their stand is. Again big enough player that you need their sales data. I actually think eBay which also has a place could prove to be most challenging. Not finding data but using it accurately.

 

I'd also solicit as many of the larger dealers in the market as possible but use extreme caution as well in that data.

 

I like your concept but it really does need a more complete sales data picture if you want it to be the "go to" site of information.

 

 

[Tommy Jasmin]

Thanks for the feedback N e r V, much appreciated. A few comments below...

 

It would be great if you could somehow list how much activity in sales you are drawing on that actual issue. Not raw numbers maybe but rating it with stars or something. One star equals low data information where as four stars equal high data information on said issue.

 

I like this idea quite a bit, and may actually try to implement it after I finish the current pricing

data update. If so, let me know if it would be ok to credit you on the site for the idea.

 

I'm also not sure what date range you are using for your averages. Does sales information drop off your averages over time?

 

Yes, exactly. Each sale is weighted differently in the pricing algorithms based on age.

 

What if you have confirmed sales data from 2004, 2009 and 2013 only. All used or is there a cut off point?

 

I have been trying to tune this. At the moment I the weighting tails off so that nothing older than

two years factors in at all.

 

 

I also think you cannot ignore ComicConnect sales as a whole regardless of what might be happening with certain sales. Use more caution, yes. But they sell enough in the market to have a place in sales data. You also need to include Comic Link regardless of what their stand is. Again big enough player that you need their sales data. I actually think eBay which also has a place could prove to be most challenging. Not finding data but using it accurately.

 

Yeah, I should probably give Vinny and Josh a call one of these days and see if we can

get something going here. You can see there was actually a fair amount of eBay data

around 10 years ago, but they worked really hard to shake me. I think I know how to

legally grab some of that again but just haven't had enough spare time to implement.

 

I like your concept but it really does need a more complete sales data picture if you want it to be the "go to" site of information.

 

Agreed, thanks again! Take care.

[N e r V]

Good luck.

 

I'll bookmark your site to see how things progress.