Gerber Photo-Journal - comic survival rates (and 2018 CGC Census) 0

[valiantman]

Here's one that's worth reviewing... 1990 Gerber estimates, then the 2018 CGC Census with breakouts for Marvel/Timely and D.C.

[bc]

20 hours ago, valiantman said:

Here's one that's worth reviewing... 1990 Gerber estimates, then the 2018 CGC Census with breakouts for Marvel/Timely and D.C.

Looks like the Gerber estimates of remaining copies for the pre-48 era are significantly lower than actual census count.

If you slide the Gerber estimate for copies remaining peak in '67 back a few years, it lines up quite nicely with the reality observed in the CGC Census counts.

Cool stuff - thanks v-man!

-bc

[entalmighty1]

38 minutes ago, bc said:

Looks like the Gerber estimates of remaining copies for the pre-48 era are significantly lower than actual census count.

If you slide the Gerber estimate for copies remaining peak in '67 back a few years, it lines up quite nicely with the reality observed in the CGC Census counts.

Cool stuff - thanks v-man!

-bc

I still think a good portion of his scarcity index holds up if you look at the Gerber number as an indicator for "available for sale" instead of "left in existence."  Not all of the numbers, certainly, but at least a decent indication.

[bc]

3 minutes ago, entalmighty1 said:

I still think a good portion of his scarcity index holds up if you look at the Gerber number as an indicator for "available for sale" instead of "left in existence."  Not all of the numbers, certainly, but at least a decent indication.

 I agree with you - the overall Gerber "curve" holds up very well to the actual census data.

Still pretty darn impressive considering when the Journals were published !

-bc

[valiantman]

I've got those numbers, too. 

2018 CGC Census compared to Gerber Scarcity Index (1990)

Gerber Scarcity	Issues	CGC Submissions	CGC Submissions Per Issue
1	57	14,574	255.7
2	680	118,664	174.5
3	2,828	108,738	38.5
4	7,143	117,813	16.5
5	5,160	73,386	14.2
6	1,944	25,580	13.2
7	639	7,801	12.2
8	128	1,674	13.1
9	15	208	13.9
10	10	46	4.6

The highest number of CGC submissions for any of the Gerber Scarcity Index books are:

Gerber Scarcity	Most CGC Submissions for one issue	BookName
1	1,051	Journey Into Mystery 112
2	3,028	Avengers 4
3	3,809	X-Men 1
4	3,240	Amazing Spider-Man 1
5	1,345	Strange Tales 110
6	194	Batman 3
7	112	New York World's Fair 1940
8	65	All Winners Comics 21
9	31	Famous Funnies 1 (July 1934)
10	11	Famous Funnies Series 1 1 (February 1934)

Edited January 26, 2018 by valiantman

[pemart1966]

On 2018-01-24 at 3:29 PM, valiantman said:

I have corrected the vertical bars to make them standard, rather than "squished" with 2% on the bottom two bars and 25% on the top two bars in the Gerber original, now every orange bar is 10%, every gray bar is 5,000,000 comics.

Are my tired (and aged) eyes reading the bottom graph correctly?  For example, if we take (approx.) 1949 on the Overstreet chart, he estimated that (approx.) 5 million copies were still in existence.  this revised chart would seem to be less than a million. 

Edited January 26, 2018 by pemart1966

[entalmighty1]

1 hour ago, valiantman said:

I've got those numbers, too. 

2018 CGC Census compared to Gerber Scarcity Index (1990)

Gerber Scarcity	Issues	CGC Submissions	CGC Submissions Per Issue
1	57	14,574	255.7
2	680	118,664	174.5
3	2,828	108,738	38.5
4	7,143	117,813	16.5
5	5,160	73,386	14.2
6	1,944	25,580	13.2
7	639	7,801	12.2
8	128	1,674	13.1
9	15	208	13.9
10	10	46	4.6

The highest number of CGC submissions for any of the Gerber Scarcity Index books are:

Gerber Scarcity	Most CGC Submissions for one issue	BookName
1	1,051	Journey Into Mystery 112
2	3,028	Avengers 4
3	3,809	X-Men 1
4	3,240	Amazing Spider-Man 1
5	1,345	Strange Tales 110
6	194	Batman 3
7	112	New York World's Fair 1940
8	65	All Winners Comics 21
9	31	Famous Funnies 1 (July 1934)
10	11	Famous Funnies Series 1 1 (February 1934)

Your database skills are impressive.  

[valiantman]

2 hours ago, pemart1966 said:

On 1/24/2018 at 2:29 PM, valiantman said:

I have corrected the vertical bars to make them standard, rather than "squished" with 2% on the bottom two bars and 25% on the top two bars in the Gerber original, now every orange bar is 10%, every gray bar is 5,000,000 comics.

Are my tired (and aged) eyes reading the bottom graph correctly?  For example, if we take (approx.) 1949 on the Overstreet chart, he estimated that (approx.) 5 million copies were still in existence.  this revised chart would seem to be less than a million. 

Edited 2 hours ago by pemart1966

Gerber estimated 1% still existing from 1949 on the original chart... the orange info.  The 5 Million bar is only for the black-dotted-line; it doesn't mean anything for the orange.  When you're looking at his orange section, only the percentage matters (1% in 1949).  He has both the orange and the black information on the left in his chart, so it's possibly more confusing than my chart.  I separated the orange and the black on my re-creation of his chart... and I standardized the increasing amounts on both sides.

Edited January 26, 2018 by valiantman

[valiantman]

2 hours ago, entalmighty1 said:

Your database skills are impressive.  

I sat with the Gerber guides in front of me for many hours and copied the Gerber Scarcity Index (mostly by hand)... uh... 15,000+ of them.  I wish that one was point-and-click. 

[bc]

1 minute ago, valiantman said:

I sat with the Gerber guides in front of me for many hours and copied the Gerber Scarcity Index (mostly by hand)... uh... 15,000+ of them.  I wish that one was point-and-click. 

And I thank you for your effort ! Very cool stuff as usual !

-bc

[valiantman]

3 minutes ago, bc said:

8 minutes ago, valiantman said:

I sat with the Gerber guides in front of me for many hours and copied the Gerber Scarcity Index (mostly by hand)... uh... 15,000+ of them.  I wish that one was point-and-click. 

And I thank you for your effort ! Very cool stuff as usual !

-bc

It was probably 10+ years ago, so the pain of the tedium has just about worn off. 

[Spyder!]

On 1/25/2018 at 10:14 AM, valiantman said:

(same graphic as above, with the color coding explanation included on the graphic)

Note that we're looking at millions in blue and ten-thousands in light green... so the number of "slabbed copies" in 2018 is about 0.07% (for 1956) to 5.68% (for 1940) of the Gerber estimated surviving books in 1990.

Just found this thread, resurrecting it. 

First of all, awesome work valiantman, as usual!  I must say, I am very impressed by how close the Gerber estimates are to the CGC numbers. There are a whole lot of very sophisticated predictions on a lot of different markets these days that don’t hold up as well as this one after just a year or two and this one is about 30 years old. Remarkable.

[Spyder!]

On 1/26/2018 at 10:58 AM, valiantman said:

I've got those numbers, too. 

2018 CGC Census compared to Gerber Scarcity Index (1990)

Gerber Scarcity	Issues	CGC Submissions	CGC Submissions Per Issue
1	57	14,574	255.7
2	680	118,664	174.5
3	2,828	108,738	38.5
4	7,143	117,813	16.5
5	5,160	73,386	14.2
6	1,944	25,580	13.2
7	639	7,801	12.2
8	128	1,674	13.1
9	15	208	13.9
10	10	46	4.6

The highest number of CGC submissions for any of the Gerber Scarcity Index books are:

Gerber Scarcity	Most CGC Submissions for one issue	BookName
1	1,051	Journey Into Mystery 112
2	3,028	Avengers 4
3	3,809	X-Men 1
4	3,240	Amazing Spider-Man 1
5	1,345	Strange Tales 110
6	194	Batman 3
7	112	New York World's Fair 1940
8	65	All Winners Comics 21
9	31	Famous Funnies 1 (July 1934)
10	11	Famous Funnies Series 1 1 (February 1934)

The only thing I will point out (which everyone already knows) is that the Gerber scarcity is really an estimate of supply, while the number of CGC submissions per book is a combination of supply and demand. I believe that is why the index does not “rank order” the number of submissions perfectly (in other words, is not ordinal). The fairly flat number of CGC subs from index values of 5-9 is very likely demand driven and does not mean the index is incorrect.

Once again, impressive stuff from the photojournal and great work valiantman.

[Sqeggs]

 

2 hours ago, Spyder! said:

On 1/26/2018 at 11:58 AM, valiantman said:

I've got those numbers, too. 

2018 CGC Census compared to Gerber Scarcity Index (1990)

Gerber Scarcity	Issues	CGC Submissions	CGC Submissions Per Issue
1	57	14,574	255.7
2	680	118,664	174.5
3	2,828	108,738	38.5
4	7,143	117,813	16.5
5	5,160	73,386	14.2
6	1,944	25,580	13.2
7	639	7,801	12.2
8	128	1,674	13.1
9	15	208	13.9
10	10	46	4.6

The highest number of CGC submissions for any of the Gerber Scarcity Index books are:

Gerber Scarcity	Most CGC Submissions for one issue	BookName
1	1,051	Journey Into Mystery 112
2	3,028	Avengers 4
3	3,809	X-Men 1
4	3,240	Amazing Spider-Man 1
5	1,345	Strange Tales 110
6	194	Batman 3
7	112	New York World's Fair 1940
8	65	All Winners Comics 21
9	31	Famous Funnies 1 (July 1934)
10	11	Famous Funnies Series 1 1 (February 1934)

The only thing I will point out (which everyone already knows) is that the Gerber scarcity is really an estimate of supply, while the number of CGC submissions per book is a combination of supply and demand. I believe that is why the index does not “rank order” the number of submissions perfectly (in other words, is not ordinal). The fairly flat number of CGC subs from index values of 5-9 is very likely demand driven and does not mean the index is incorrect.

Once again, impressive stuff from the photojournal and great work valiantman.

It's a great thread.  @valiantman has done some terrific work here and elsewhere compiling and analyzing historical data.

Wrt to Gerber, I think he was more accurate than you might have expected given when he was doing it.  An indication, I guess, that he put a lot of thought in it and wasn't pulling numbers out of a hat.  Where he was off, I think he was largely reflecting the opinion of the hobby at the time.  All Winners 21, for instance, is clearly less scarce than was once thought.   

 

[valiantman]

On 10/28/2018 at 9:42 AM, Sqeggs said:

 

It's a great thread.  @valiantman has done some terrific work here and elsewhere compiling and analyzing historical data.

Wrt to Gerber, I think he was more accurate than you might have expected given when he was doing it.  An indication, I guess, that he put a lot of thought in it and wasn't pulling numbers out of a hat.  Where he was off, I think he was largely reflecting the opinion of the hobby at the time.  All Winners 21, for instance, is clearly less scarce than was once thought.   

 

I don't have any proof of this, but it seems that the higher the Gerber index (and having a high Gerber index as a primary selling point) could be a reason that books are graded, pressed, regraded, etc... and there's probably just as much chance that the 65 copies of All Winners #11 on the CGC census are just 55 copies with 10 regrades, or 45 with 20 regrades, or 63 with 2 regrades.  We don't know, but the lower the estimate for the number of copies in existence, the bigger the impact of (unreported) regrading.

[Sqeggs]

2 hours ago, valiantman said:

I don't have any proof of this, but it seems that the higher the Gerber index (and having a high Gerber index as a primary selling point) could be a reason that books are graded, pressed, regraded, etc... and there's probably just as much chance that the 65 copies of All Winners #11 on the CGC census are just 55 copies with 10 regrades, or 45 with 20 regrades, or 63 with 2 regrades.  We don't know, but the lower the estimate for the number of copies in existence, the bigger the impact of (unreported) regrading.

I think that’s right. Resubs without the label being sent in do contaminate census counts. It’s probably also true that the more desirable 8s and up are more likely to have been graded, throwing off relative census counts. 

Even taking all that into account, I think he was right about the scarcity of some of these books but off on some. All Winners 21 is probably a book that’s less scarce than EG thought. 

[Chicago Boy]

What are the GSI for Action 1 and Tec 27 ?  How does that compare to best guesstimates in 2018 ??