Was scrolling through the Comiclink auction results today... 3 3

[RockMyAmadeus]

Perspective, perspective, perspective.

1. The price gains of the last ten years are nothing...nothing...compared to the price gains of the 70s. Showcase #4 was a $10 book in 1970. By 1980, it was $1,000. Action #1 was a $300 book in 1970. By 1980, it was $10,000. Fantastic Four #1 was a $25 book in 1970. By 1980, it was $1,000.

2. Lives are finite. It is certainly possible...and likely probable....that that copy of TOD #10 9.9 will not see the market again for 20-30-40 years. How long has Anderson owned the Church Action #1? 1982/83. We're coming up on FOUR DECADES that that book has been off the market and unable to be purchased by ANYONE, for ANY amount. And that's just one of the most famous. We have no clue what books were bought in the 60s, 70s, and 80s that are still stashed away in collections. 

For someone that has the money, what's $85,000? Who cares? Is another copy in 9.9 going to surface? Almost certainly not. After all...there's only been 1 in the 20 years CGC's been open.

It's possible that that copy will not see the light of day for 50 years. There are coins that disappeared into collections in the 19th CENTURY that haven't made their way to public sale. You want to own an 1822 $5, or 1870-S $3? Ha. Good luck. The 1870-S has been sold twice in the last 75 years, the last time in 1982. It likely won't see sale again for decades, if ever, as it is on "permanent loan" to the ANA museum in Boulder.

So...what's $85,000 to spend on something that you might not get another chance to own in this lifetime...?

Edited August 31, 2019 by RockMyAmadeus

[mrc]

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

The price gains of the last ten years are nothing...nothing...compared to the price gains of the 70s

The market I feel, is different now. There appears to be a feeding frenzy for modern / signature / variant slabbed books which has created a bubble. On the back of that bubble, sellers seem to think that any old back issue can be sold at an inflated price. The feeding frenzy has also pushed key book prices into the stratosphere. It's never felt (to me) more like the 90's all over again. There has to be a correction, but whether that's a crash or a soft landing is anybody's guess. Surely there were far fewer key/hot books in the 70's compared with now? 

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 hours ago, mrc said:

6 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

The price gains of the last ten years are nothing...nothing...compared to the price gains of the 70s

The market I feel, is different now. There appears to be a feeding frenzy for modern / signature / variant slabbed books which has created a bubble. On the back of that bubble, sellers seem to think that any old back issue can be sold at an inflated price. The feeding frenzy has also pushed key book prices into the stratosphere. It's never felt (to me) more like the 90's all over again. There has to be a correction, but whether that's a crash or a soft landing is anybody's guess. Surely there were far fewer key/hot books in the 70's compared with now? 

This market is like nothing the hobby has ever seen. There's never been anything like it, so it's nearly impossible to compare. It's nothing at all like the early 90s, where the focus was on buying multiple copies of everything that came out, in the hopes of landing "the next big thing." Even as Harbinger #1 and Superman #75 soared to be $100+ books, Silver and Gold...even major keys...languished in comparison.

My point, however, is that the price gains of the 10s, as a percentage, still don't even come close to the price gains of the 70s, and that's across the board. Iron Man #1, for example, was not even remotely a scarce book, by any measure. But by 1980....a mere 12 years after it came out....it was a $40 book. Mile High was offering "VG or better" copies for $25 in his first centerfold ad in the summer of 1980.

That's like a $2.99 book from 2007 being worth $1,000 today...as a raw book. Sure, the market was much, much smaller then...but it was also tightly controlled by dealers who could, and did, limit access to books. There was no "internet" to cut out the middle man....and that was true all the way through the 90s bubble. eBay, for example, didn't exist until 1995 (and then as "AuctionWeb"), and wouldn't become a force for a couple years after that.

[lou_fine]

On 8/30/2019 at 10:45 AM, Krishosein said:

when will TOS 39 drop in prices.. been wanting a copy for a while. 

With books that are truly more of a vintage collectible, I believe you might get a plateau in prices or a moderate slight drop, but I certainly wouldn't hold my breath expecting to see a big collapse like what you would expect when somebody pays an irrational exorbitant out of this world price on a book based upon short term temporary hype.  

I believe Domo here has the right answer to your question here:  

9 hours ago, Domo Arigato said:

21 hours ago, EastEnd1 said:

The underbidder bid $80,000 so there were at least TWO people that took it to this level!

Correct......but that's also where the problem lies.  

Suppose the underbidder is the second biggest Blade fan in the world.  But then suppose that the third biggest Blade fan in the world is only willing to spend $20,000 on a book like this.  What happens the next time one comes up for auction?  Obviously, we don't really know......but one can see the very real possibility that the next copy might not sell for anywhere close to $80,000.

As opposed to books like an Amazing Fantasy #15 in CGC 7.0 or a Tales of Suspense #39 in CGC 9.4.........these books will likely be much more stable in their prices.....and when they see increases, they are more likely to be consistent across the board as additional copies come up for sale.

 

[EastEnd1]

I'm not sure the 1970s, the period when the comic market really emerged and established itself, is a good comparison to what's happening today when the market has already matured.  You're usually going to have explosive growth when a new market successfully emerges because the base you're comparing too is so small.  Those types of growth rates only really happen once and taper off as the new market settles into a more normalized growth pattern.  I think a better comparison might be to the surge in prices that happened when CGC first came on the scene... the early/mid-2000s.  I definitely remember all the head-scratching when graded books started going for what at the time were considered "really crazy prices."  Would be interesting to compare today's growth, driven by all the comic media output, to that period.  And there may be some lessons to be learned there. 

[alexanderjk]

On 8/30/2019 at 6:45 AM, Krishosein said:

I have to agree the prices are constantly going up a lot in such a short span. 

I have been wondering where all this new collectors and large incomes are coming from. I was wondering if many of the people who were baseball or stamp collectors have shifted over to comics as their medium has declined? 

Has anyone else thought that the influx of buyers and new collectors could be from other hobbies?

I’m finally collecting again after a 20+ year hiatus. I’m now in my mid-40s, and while I have a teen son to single-handedly raise, I’m far enough along in my career that I can drop $50 on a high grade key to slab and flip, another $75 to add a raw low-numbered DD to my collection, another $100 to add a 9.8 of a childhood favorite to my collection, and another $1K on an investment purchase. (Achieved all four of those this past month alone.) 

And regarding the ridiculous prices of some of the aforementioned comics, it’s not unreasonable to think that these super-bidders are millionaire athletes, Silicon Valley execs, and lottery winners. There’s enough of each that collect comics, I’m guessing. Whomever dropped $90K on that book isn’t looking to flip it...they’re keen on adding it to their Rich Guy collection. With so much wealth around, the days of us upper middle class-types scoring a high grade GA, SA, or BA mega key are pretty much over. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, EastEnd1 said:

I'm not sure the 1970s, the period when the comic market really emerged and established itself, is a good comparison to what's happening today when the market has already matured.  You're usually going to have explosive growth when a new market successfully emerges because the base you're comparing too is so small.  Those types of growth rates only really happen once and taper off as the new market settles into a more normalized growth pattern.  I think a better comparison might be to the surge in prices that happened when CGC first came on the scene... the early/mid-2000s.  I definitely remember all the head-scratching when graded books started going for what at the time were considered "really crazy prices."  Would be interesting to compare today's growth, driven by all the comic media output, to that period.  And there may be some lessons to be learned there. 

The only thing being compared is the prices. People wondering "how much higher can these things go?" should understand that there was a time when prices, as a percentage, still blew away the greatest gains of the last ten years by a country mile.

Comparing the 00s to the 10s is not good, because the 00s were a time of filling out the census. Just like in the late 80s (though much faster, because of TWO major grading companies, not just one) with coins, the 00s were a time when you saw unrealistic prices because the census was not filled, and no one had any idea what was actually out there. 

We're only just NOW starting to see "real" prices for books like Hulk #181, X-Men #94, GSXM #1, House of Secrets #92, and the like. The "record prices" for Hulk #181 in the 00s weren't real. Yes, they were real in the sense that someone paid that much for them, but they weren't real in the sense that "ok, we have a fair handle on what exists, and in what condition, so this is the market." 

The prices you're seeing NOW...those are finally reaching "real" status. 

What would be a proper comparison, then, would be the 10s to the 20s.

See you in 11 years.

 

[mattn792]

15 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

The only thing being compared is the prices. People wondering "how much higher can these things go?" should understand that there was a time when prices, as a percentage, still blew away the greatest gains of the last ten years by a country mile.

Comparing the 00s to the 10s is not good, because the 00s were a time of filling out the census. Just like in the late 80s (though much faster, because of TWO major grading companies, not just one) with coins, the 00s were a time when you saw unrealistic prices because the census was not filled, and no one had any idea what was actually out there. 

We're only just NOW starting to see "real" prices for books like Hulk #181, X-Men #94, GSXM #1, House of Secrets #92, and the like. The "record prices" for Hulk #181 in the 00s weren't real. Yes, they were real in the sense that someone paid that much for them, but they weren't real in the sense that "ok, we have a fair handle on what exists, and in what condition, so this is the market." 

The prices you're seeing NOW...those are finally reaching "real" status. 

What would be a proper comparison, then, would be the 10s to the 20s.

See you in 11 years.

 

Think of what a ‘Tec 110 will be worth in 11 years...  

[vheflin]

22 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

The only thing being compared is the prices. People wondering "how much higher can these things go?" should understand that there was a time when prices, as a percentage, still blew away the greatest gains of the last ten years by a country mile.

Comparing the 00s to the 10s is not good, because the 00s were a time of filling out the census. Just like in the late 80s (though much faster, because of TWO major grading companies, not just one) with coins, the 00s were a time when you saw unrealistic prices because the census was not filled, and no one had any idea what was actually out there. 

We're only just NOW starting to see "real" prices for books like Hulk #181, X-Men #94, GSXM #1, House of Secrets #92, and the like. The "record prices" for Hulk #181 in the 00s weren't real. Yes, they were real in the sense that someone paid that much for them, but they weren't real in the sense that "ok, we have a fair handle on what exists, and in what condition, so this is the market." 

The prices you're seeing NOW...those are finally reaching "real" status. 

What would be a proper comparison, then, would be the 10s to the 20s.

See you in 11 years.

 

Are you saying that the folks running up the prices of BA comics aren't aware that they're common as dirt and exist in high grade by the truck load because they only consider the census?

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 minutes ago, vheflin said:

Are you saying that the folks running up the prices of BA comics aren't aware that they're common as dirt and exist in high grade by the truck load because they only consider the census?

I don't understand your question as it relates to my comment. Do you mean now? Do you mean in the 00s?

[vheflin]

12 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I don't understand your question as it relates to my comment. Do you mean now? Do you mean in the 00s?

I mean now and then.  There is still tons of Bronze Age out there that hasn't been slabbed.  You are saying that prices have settled and will continue to settle as the census fills for these books.  That would mean that buyers of BA are unaware of the true quantities available because they only look at census numbers which take years to reveal true availability.

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 minute ago, vheflin said:

I mean now and then.  There is still tons of Bronze Age out there that hasn't been slabbed.  You are saying that prices have settled and will continue to settle as the census fills for these books.  That would mean that buyers of BA are unaware of the true quantities available because they only look at census numbers which take years to reveal true availability.

Not at all. The prices for slabbed books only represent the prices...for slabbed books. I don't know what you mean by "prices have settled", because that's not what I've said. I said the census is settling, and we're getting a much, much clearer picture of what exists, which leads to more stability in prices, regardless of where they head or why.

The prices for slabbed copies of Amazing Spiderman #300, for example, are no longer dictated by census rarity, but rather the merits of the book itself.

The $30,000 sale of Green Lantern #76 in 9.6 in 2009...or the $11,000 sale of New Mutants #98 in 9.8...are great examples of census rarity being the driving factor in price. That's no longer the case, for either of those books. And you still see this all the time, in mini-bursts. Check out GPA for New Avengers #27, for example. Perfect example of the way census rarity artificially drives prices, even now.

And there IS a limit. There are not an infinite amount of copies of ASM #300 that exist to be slabbed. Once the census population reaches 50%+ of the total number of copies extant (roughly 100,000, give or take), then the number of submissions for the book will slow substantially.

There are billions of comic books that exist out there. CGC hasn't even slabbed the equivalent to the print run of X-Men #1 (1991), and won't for several years.

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

And there IS a limit. There are not an infinite amount of copies of ASM #300 that exist to be slabbed. Once the census population reaches 50%+ of the total number of copies extant (roughly 100,000, give or take), then the number of submissions for the book will slow substantially.

So, since the CGC census count for ASM 300 is starting to approach 20,000 graded copies out there, this means either:

1)  We've now slabbed about 40% of the copies in existence if the total number of extant copies is roughly 100,000; or 

2)  We've now slabbed about 20% of the copies in existence if 50% of the total number of extant copies is roughly 100,000.

Either way, it makes it sound almost silly that collectors would be paying ridiculous multiples for current highest graded copies of a particular book when the premiums being paid would have only short term transitory value as only a relatively small fraction of the extant copies of any book has been graded so far.    

[RockMyAmadeus]

33 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

So, since the CGC census count for ASM 300 is starting to approach 20,000 graded copies out there, this means either:

1)  We've now slabbed about 40% of the copies in existence if the total number of extant copies is roughly 100,000; or 

2)  We've now slabbed about 20% of the copies in existence if 50% of the total number of extant copies is roughly 100,000.

Either way, it makes it sound almost silly that collectors would be paying ridiculous multiples for current highest graded copies of a particular book when the premiums being paid would have only short term transitory value as only a relatively small fraction of the extant copies of any book has been graded so far.    

Your math is a little off.

We've slabbed about 10% of the extant population of ASM #300. These are rough, rough estimates, but the print run for ASM #300 was maybe 500,000 copies...? (This is based on the avg reported in ASM #315, which was 461k) Print runs, of course, have no bearing on extant copies; it is sales numbers that matter in SOOs (because the rest were "reported destroyed.") And reported sales were about 256,000 avg for te year....so, maybe since it was an anniversary issue, it had a little better sell through...?

And perhaps an attrition rate of 10-20% over the years...?

Keeping in mind that ASM #300 was NOT an "insta-hot book" like #252 was, and it likely wasn't saved in any special numbers straight off the newsstand.

So, with those figures, there are perhaps 200-250k copies extant? Meaning the 20,000 copies graded would represent 8-10% of the extant population. I believe that ASM currently holds the record for highest ratio of slabs to extant copies for anything printed after 1970, but there's no way to prove that.

[lou_fine]

11 hours ago, lou_fine said:

13 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

And there IS a limit. There are not an infinite amount of copies of ASM #300 that exist to be slabbed. Once the census population reaches 50%+ of the total number of copies extant (roughly 100,000, give or take), then the number of submissions for the book will slow substantially.

So, since the CGC census count for ASM 300 is starting to approach 20,000 graded copies out there, this means either:

1)  We've now slabbed about 40% of the copies in existence if the total number of extant copies is roughly 100,000; or 

2)  We've now slabbed about 20% of the copies in existence if 50% of the total number of extant copies is roughly 100,000.

Either way, it makes it sound almost silly that collectors would be paying ridiculous multiples for current highest graded copies of a particular book when the premiums being paid would have only short term transitory value as only a relatively small fraction of the extant copies of any book has been graded so far.    

 

11 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Your math is a little off.

We've slabbed about 10% of the extant population of ASM #300. These are rough, rough estimates, but the print run for ASM #300 was maybe 500,000 copies...? (This is based on the avg reported in ASM #315, which was 461k) Print runs, of course, have no bearing on extant copies; it is sales numbers that matter in SOOs (because the rest were "reported destroyed.") And reported sales were about 256,000 avg for te year....so, maybe since it was an anniversary issue, it had a little better sell through...?

And perhaps an attrition rate of 10-20% over the years...?

Keeping in mind that ASM #300 was NOT an "insta-hot book" like #252 was, and it likely wasn't saved in any special numbers straight off the newsstand.

So, with those figures, there are perhaps 200-250k copies extant? Meaning the 20,000 copies graded would represent 8-10% of the extant population. I believe that ASM currently holds the record for highest ratio of slabs to extant copies for anything printed after 1970, but there's no way to prove that.

RMA;

I was just applying my math to the original 100,000 extant copies that you was mentioning in your earlier post up above.  

In any case, this would make it even more absurb for collectors to be paying multiples more for a book that is only 1 grade increment higher since there are still so many more raw copies sitting out there in private collections.  

I was always under the impression that ASM 300 was a hoarded book.  Maybe just in my city since Todd was the local boy and was generally always at the local comic cons and available to sign his books for free for all of his fans.  I am sure that I have quite a few of the Spidey 300 book because that was a favorite for the fans to get him to sign with his glossy silver ink sprinkly pen.  

As for ASM 252, I remember one comic book broker who also dealt in coins before that.  Since coin collectors are used to dealing in rolls of 50 coins, he said that he brough a whole roll (i.e. 50 copies) of ASM 52 on the speculation that they would go up in value.  Unfortunately for him, I don't think they ever really did for years, if not for decades after that.    

[Hamlet]

5 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

 

RMA;

I was just applying my math to the original 100,000 extant copies that you was mentioning in your earlier post up above.  

In any case, this would make it even more absurb for collectors to be paying multiples more for a book that is only 1 grade increment higher since there are still so many more raw copies sitting out there in private collections.  

I was always under the impression that ASM 300 was a hoarded book.  Maybe just in my city since Todd was the local boy and was generally always at the local comic cons and available to sign his books for free for all of his fans.  I am sure that I have quite a few of the Spidey 300 book because that was a favorite for the fans to get him to sign with his glossy silver ink sprinkly pen.  

As for ASM 252, I remember one comic book broker who also dealt in coins before that.  Since coin collectors are used to dealing in rolls of 50 coins, he said that he brough a whole roll (i.e. 50 copies) of ASM 52 on the speculation that they would go up in value.  Unfortunately for him, I don't think they ever really did for years, if not for decades after that.    

My memory is that ASM 252 was commanding a pretty big premium ( for the time ) right from the start.  I started collecting on issue 260, and I remember having to pay $4.50 for my copy of 252.  I don’t think anyone did badly speculating on ASM 252.  

Of course, the market was much more local then.  If the LCS decided to price a book high, I didn’t have any easy alternatives.  Mail order was a pain.  You would send your order, and lists of alternates in case what you were ordering was sold out, and you hoped to get at least some of the books you wanted.

I would get to other stores on family trips and stuff, but it was hard for me to find what are really common books now that the internet puts everything at our fingertips.

[lou_fine]

16 minutes ago, Hamlet said:

32 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

As for ASM 252, I remember one comic book broker who also dealt in coins before that.  Since coin collectors are used to dealing in rolls of 50 coins, he said that he brough a whole roll (i.e. 50 copies) of ASM 52 on the speculation that they would go up in value.  Unfortunately for him, I don't think they ever really did for years, if not for decades after that.    

My memory is that ASM 252 was commanding a pretty big premium ( for the time ) right from the start.  I started collecting on issue 260, and I remember having to pay $4.50 for my copy of 252.  I don’t think anyone did badly speculating on ASM 252.  

Well, since this particular comic book broker was used to dealing in high dollar Church pedigree books as he was one of the lucky 10 who could buy directly from Chuck every year, I kind of doubt that $4.50 was anything for him to get too excited about.  

I somehow think that this was most likely his first and last foray into what for him would have been the MA comic book market at the time.  

[Ken Aldred]

48 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

I was always under the impression that ASM 300 was a hoarded book. 

When this was new in, a London store manager asked me how many copies I’d purchased, so clearly there were many customers buying quite noticeably large numbers of them and obvious speculation going on.

I ended up with three, one from each shop I went to.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Ken Aldred

[EastEnd1]

18 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

I was always under the impression that ASM 300 was a hoarded book. 

When this was new in, a London store manager asked me how many copies I’d purchased, so clearly there were many customers buying quite noticeably large numbers of them and obvious speculation going on.

I ended up with three, one from each shop I went to.

Edited 12 minutes ago by Ken Aldred

My recollection is that it was a hoarded book too... first and foremost because it was an anniversary issue and second because people were starting to take notice of McFarlane's take on Spider-man.  I remember rushing to Mike's Comic Hut in Flushing Queens around that time to buy up every #298 (1st McFarlane) I could find in the back issue bins. There were three left and I bought them all !

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, EastEnd1 said:

My recollection is that it was a hoarded book too... first and foremost because it was an anniversary issue and second because people were starting to take notice of McFarlane's take on Spider-man. 

Most definitely because it was a big centennial anniversary issue for sure and also McFarlane was definitely starting to be the latest new hot artist of the day.