CGC census is high, but there aren't enough keys 5 5

[RockMyAmadeus]

30 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

42 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Nobody said they weren't. 

Here is what I said:

    Quote

       That doesn't mean a kid couldn't be a collector...but most kids were not.

You do realise my posts are up thread, right?  Why would you even try to make such an easily disproven assertion?

My comment was in response to the following statement by you - which I quoted:

Quote

 

To try and include the 12 year old kid whose comics were not organized, not cared for, and which were under constant threat of being tossed out by mom as a "collector" is ridiculous.

But at least you understand the broader point I'm making, whether you agree or not.

 

 

Read what I wrote, carefully. It's all there. And I wasn't replying to you. It might help if you took more effort to preserve quote strings.

[KPR Comics]

Tec 27 and Action 1 aside, there are plenty of keys to go around.  

[sfcityduck]

7 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

 And I wasn't replying to you. 

That's a strange assertion given that your "nobody said they weren't" was responding to my post.

How about you just answer my straightforward question in the post above:  Agree or disagree?

Edited August 21, 2018 by sfcityduck

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 minute ago, sfcityduck said:

That's a strange assertion given that your "nobody said they weren't" was responding to my post.

How about you just answer my straightforward question in the post above:  Agree or disagree?

 

8 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

It might help if you took more effort to preserve quote strings.

 

[Lazyboy]

42 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

3 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

 

And the definition of "collector" I use is simple:  Someone who seeks out, buys, and holds on to comic books because they love comic books.  No need to seek out other collectors, author fanzines, or attend conventions to be a "collector" or comic "fan."  And, yes, there were many many many comic collectors 12 and under - including those who kept collecting and are on this board.  

That's my point.  Agree or disagree?

You seem to disagree when you state:

Quote

I don't define a kid (12 and under) who buys comics and gathers them by virtue of not throwing them out to be a "collector."

My uncle still has a box that contains his childhood comics. He is not and never was a comic collector.

Your definition of "collector" is too loose and what RMA posted earlier is too strict.

[sfcityduck]

36 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

 

Your definition of "collector" is too loose and what RMA posted earlier is too strict.

How so? If it is not enough to seek out, buy and hold comics because you love comics, what else is needed?  Keep in mind there are different collecting goals, for many of which condition and resale is not relevant.  Heck, I thought folks on a CgC board might view my definition as too restrictive.

Edited August 21, 2018 by sfcityduck

[comicdonna]

As we get older, Arch should add an old man shaking a cane gremlin.  That's all I got for this thread today.  

[valiantman]

1 hour ago, comicdonna said:

As we get older, Arch should add an old man shaking a cane gremlin.  That's all I got for this thread today.  

[valiantman]

3 hours ago, KPR Comics said:

Tec 27 and Action 1 aside, there are plenty of keys to go around.  

For a price... and that price is skyrocketing on some keys.  Are you suggesting the prices will fall because there are plenty?

[sfcityduck]

1 hour ago, valiantman said:

For a price... and that price is skyrocketing on some keys.  Are you suggesting the prices will fall because there are plenty?

Supply and demand.  Here's what one very significant old time collector wrote me about an issue he's been searching for a high grade example of across a number of decades:

Quote

I have a decent copy but would like one comparable to the [references a CGC 9.4].  At the moment, I think the top of the Census is 8.0, but I'm sure there is a great copy out there in some old collector's set.  A lot of my age cohorts are quitting or dying, so I expect to see a lot of nice books appearing for the first time in the years ahead.

He's not alone in thinking that.  There are a lot of collections amassed in the 60s to mid-70s that are "black holes," but which are starting to come to market.  This will inevitably have some type of impact because it will represent an increase in supply.  Will demand stay strong?  Could be.  Or it could be that we'll see the values of some comics which are selling at a premium (especially top of census books or SA "pedigrees") lose some of their luster.

Edited August 21, 2018 by sfcityduck

[Lazyboy]

1 hour ago, sfcityduck said:

2 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

 

Your definition of "collector" is too loose and what RMA posted earlier is too strict.

How so? If it is not enough to seek out, buy and hold comics because you love comics, what else is needed?  Keep in mind there are different collecting goals, for many of which condition and resale is not relevant.  Heck, I thought folks on a CgC board might view my definition as too restrictive.

It's interesting that you intentionally cut "My uncle still has a box that contains his childhood comics. He is not and never was a comic collector." out of the quote...

[sfcityduck]

6 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

It's interesting that you intentionally cut "My uncle still has a box that contains his childhood comics. He is not and never was a comic collector." out of the quote...

Because that was not the part of your comment I was addressing.  I don't doubt your statement at all.  But, I also don't know anything about your Uncle and why he retained his childhood comics.  I do know the definition I proposed, and the objection you made to it.  And that's what I addressed by asking the question I did.  

[KPR Comics]

11 hours ago, valiantman said:

For a price... and that price is skyrocketing on some keys.  Are you suggesting the prices will fall because there are plenty?

Fall, or stagnate.  Sure for some.  I’m just not buying the scarcity argument.  I’m seeing more of a FOMO phenomenon, which the market will ultimately correct.

Edited August 22, 2018 by KPR Comics

[zosocane]

5 hours ago, KPR Comics said:

Fall, or stagnate.  Sure for some.  I’m just not buying the scarcity argument.  I’m seeing more of a FOMO phenomenon, which the market will ultimately correct.

All these Copper and Bronze books with recurring 10%+ annual price increases these last few years should correct at some point.  FOMO + tons of hoarding.  Correction will be less felt with Silver, and Gold should be stable or continue to increase because tough to hoard Gold books.

[RockMyAmadeus]

7 hours ago, KPR Comics said:

19 hours ago, valiantman said:

For a price... and that price is skyrocketing on some keys.  Are you suggesting the prices will fall because there are plenty?

Fall, or stagnate.  Sure for some.  I’m just not buying the scarcity argument.  I’m seeing more of a FOMO phenomenon, which the market will ultimately correct.

This...fear of missing out. It's what drove the early 90s run up, and what drives it now. "If I don't buy this today, tomorrow it'll be twice as much!!!" And...and this is an estimate, now...with a good 50% or more of the comics buying public having never lived through the early 90s boom and the mid to late 90s hard core crash...they don't have any direct experience with this.

The only books that survived the late 90s crash were the keys in high grade, and most of Golden Age, which has always operated as a different market. It's not reflected on GPA, because GPA didn't exist, but Showcase New England...hardly a fly by night operation...ran an auction in mid 2001 on eBay, which contained (almost) every Marvel SA key, some slabbed. The FF #1 was raw, graded VG...sold for $800 and change.

Also sold a CGC graded 4.5 AF #15...price?

$2700 or thereabouts.

Supply and demand can be an issue...there are more people than ever demanding comics right now...but the supply of almost all mainstream comics after 1960 is anything but scarce.

 

Edited August 22, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[RockMyAmadeus]

For a real eye opener as to the seriousness and extent of the late 90s crash, check out what Overstreet did with all the values...of almost everything....between the 1997 and 1998 OPGs, in grades below "NM." Part of that was a long overdue correction on the difference between really high grade and everything else...but mostly, it was because the speculators ran for the hills. 

Interestingly enough...for the first time in the history of comics, that gap in value between really high grade and "everything else"....which widened from the 30s until the 10s...is now CLOSING, which is one of the factors which has made this market unprecedented. See Hulk #181. What does that mean...? Part of it is what valiantman said: lots of people giving up on owning a high grade copy, and shunning the common low grade copies, to obtain ANY copy, just to own a copy. This signals that, at least for the really key material, condition no longer is the divider between sought after and ignored, as it was for all of comics history previous. 

Here are some numbers for Hulk #181:

2009 high sale 9.8 = $26,501, high sale 8.0 = $1,043, a price differential of 25.4:1

2009 high sale 9.8 = $26,501, high sale 4.0 = $250, a price differential of 106:1

2018 high sale 9.8 = $27,739 (so far), high sale 8.0 = $5,100, a price differential of 5.4

2018 high sale 9.8 = $27,739, high sale 4.0 = $3500, a price differential of 7.9

 

Those price differential differences are absolutely astonishing.

[valiantman]

33 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

For a real eye opener as to the seriousness and extent of the late 90s crash, check out what Overstreet did with all the values...of almost everything....between the 1997 and 1998 OPGs, in grades below "NM." Part of that was a long overdue correction on the difference between really high grade and everything else...but mostly, it was because the speculators ran for the hills. 

Interestingly enough...for the first time in the history of comics, that gap in value between really high grade and "everything else"....which widened from the 30s until the 10s...is now CLOSING, which is one of the factors which has made this market unprecedented. See Hulk #181. What does that mean...? Part of it is what valiantman said: lots of people giving up on owning a high grade copy, and shunning the common low grade copies, to obtain ANY copy, just to own a copy. This signals that, at least for the really key material, condition no longer is the divider between sought after and ignored, as it was for all of comics history previous. 

Here are some numbers for Hulk #181:

2009 high sale 9.8 = $26,501, high sale 8.0 = $1,043, a price differential of 25.4:1

2009 high sale 9.8 = $26,501, high sale 4.0 = $250, a price differential of 106:1

2018 high sale 9.8 = $27,739 (so far), high sale 8.0 = $5,100, a price differential of 5.4

2018 high sale 9.8 = $27,739, high sale 4.0 = $3500, a price differential of 7.9

 

Those price differential differences are absolutely astonishing.

I love numbers. 

Saying the same thing a different way... a CGC 4.0 Hulk #181 was only 1/100th of a CGC 9.8 Hulk #181 in 2009.  Today, it's 1/8th.

[RockMyAmadeus]

3 minutes ago, valiantman said:

I love numbers. 

Saying the same thing a different way... a CGC 4.0 Hulk #181 was only 1/100th of a CGC 9.8 Hulk #181 in 2009.  Today, it's 1/8th.

....and that difference is absolutely astonishing. 

Even when the Marvel SA keys were on their relentless march to the stratosphere, the gap between high grade and not high grade widened.

Now...for the first time in comics history...that gap is narrowing. And not just with isolated examples; lower grade prices for these books have narrowed the gap for many books...AF #15, FF #1, TOS #39....it's thoroughly unprecedented. The highest grades are no longer accessible to anyone but millionaires (whereas, in 1988, you could buy a high grade AF #15 for less than the price of a nice used car...$2000-$2500 or so, now they're the price of a decent house in NY, LA, or SF), and we've reached the tipping point between available supply and the demand we see....and there's enough supply to see these trends on a regular, and more importantly, data-rich basis.

This would have happened with Golden Age, had there been the supply available...but it never has been. GA keys have been done in by their own scarcity. 

But books like AF #15, Hulk #1, Hulk #181...regardless of their populations relative to each other, are in supply abundant enough to drive the market insane. 

There are EIGHTEEN copies of Hulk #1 for sale on eBay right now. RIGHT NOW. As of this very moment. You got the money, you can own a copy of Hulk #1, in grades between .5 and 6.0, right now, just a click away. A copy can be in your hands in literally a day or so, anywhere in the world. There are FORTY SEVEN copies of AF #15 for sale, right now on eBay alone.

Have there been 18 copies of Action #1 sold in the last 5 years, in any venue, in any format...? Have there been 47 sales in the last 20 years...? No matter how much I want to, now matter how much money I have, I probably couldn't buy five copies of Action #1 right now. Or Tec #27. Or Pep #22. Or Suspense Comics #3. 

AF #15? Piece of cake. All it takes is money, and I could probably have one in each grade from 8.5 to 9.6 in a week or so. Say I'm a billionaire, and offer $5,000,000 for a 9.6. Am I really going to have that hard a time obtaining one of the 4 that are on the census (always, of course, assuming that actually represents four unique copies.) Would I even have to offer $5M, or would $2M make it happen? You think the BSDs don't know where these slabs are, and how to find them? Of course they do.

So, the abundance of available copies keeps those books in front of people's eyes, and keeps the flame of desire burning brightly, no less than that Christmas train set in the dept. store window, running day and night, did when you walked by with your mom as a kid. Every time you see it, it lights those neurons in your brain, and you "gotta have it." And as the prices of high grade copies has long since left the "new car" range for the "new house" range...and not just anywhere, but in the wealthiest areas in the world...now people scramble just to get ANY copy, because the tipping point of demand vs. available supply has been passed.

And that is something that has never happened in comics history before. It COULD have happened...and WOULD have happened in the 90s...for Golden Age, if GA existed in any sort of real supply. 

By the way...the same thing is happening in coins, too. People, no longer able to afford a nice example, or even a decent example, are now spending $$$ for problem coins, just to own one. 

[valiantman]

22 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

And that is something that has never happened in comics history before. It COULD have happened...and WOULD have happened in the 90s...for Golden Age, if GA existed in any sort of real supply. 

By the way...the same thing is happening in coins, too. People, no longer able to afford a nice example, or even a decent example, are now spending $$$ for problem coins, just to own one. 

I was specifically about to ask if the same thing happened in coins.  We saw this happen in sportscards decades ago when the T209 Honus Wagner was making the news even if someone found half of one.  I assume any confirmed piece of a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle would be more than a used car.  Instead of saying, "Wow! That's beautiful!" (for high grade copies of comic book keys), people are switching to "Wow! Is that real?" for any copy.

I wonder if the recent increase in "True Believer" reprints has introduced the concept of "there's a real one from history, if you have the money" to collectors who may have had no idea which books are keys. 

Edited August 22, 2018 by valiantman

[RockMyAmadeus]

16 minutes ago, valiantman said:

I wonder if the recent increase in "True Believer" reprints has introduced the concept of "there's a real one from history, if you have the money" to collectors who may have had no idea which books are keys. 

That's a really good question.