GA 9.4 to 9.6 to 9.8... Observing a trend 3 3

[sfcityduck]

10 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

There is not a clear difference in value. There is a clear difference in liquidity. There are more potential buyers for a graded book because folks who are not comfortable with their or the seller's ability to grade may be more willing to purchase a third party graded comic. But the comic book itself is not worth more because it is third party graded.

The comic is only worth what buyers will pay.  So I am not seeing a difference between “worth” and “liquidity” in this context.  “Liquidity” as you put it is just “demand” and demand drives value.  

I have bought some very nice comics that did not sell in their raw state for months or years and which I was able to resell at much higher prices after Cgc grading.  So, yeah, I think reputation of the grader impacts value.

[Robot Man]

38 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

There is not a clear difference in value. There is a clear difference in liquidity. There are more potential buyers for a graded book because folks who are not comfortable with their or the seller's ability to grade may be more willing to purchase a third party graded comic. But the comic book itself is not worth more because it is third party graded.

That is true, but as has been said, third party books sell for more than raw, therefore worth more...

[MrBedrock]

Some of you sound like you are convinced that the only things of value in this hobby are the plastic slabs that surround the comics. If you are positive that is the case (har har...see what I did there) and you are still comfortable buying comics in the cases at whatever price you are paying then it is seems very counter-productive of you to complain about the grading standards of the case maker.

Oh, and please check out www.bedrockcity.com - where all of our slabbed comics are priced at the same price as we would sell them raw. Hell I will crack them out and sell you the empty case if you would like to buy them.

[sagii]

1 minute ago, MrBedrock said:

Some of you sound like you are convinced that the only things of value in this hobby are the plastic slabs that surround the comics. If you are positive that is the case (har har...see what I did there) and you are still comfortable buying comics in the cases at whatever price you are paying then it is seems very counter-productive of you to complain about the grading standards of the case maker.

Oh, and please check out www.bedrockcity.com - where all of our slabbed comics are priced at the same price as we would sell them raw. Hell I will crack them out and sell you the empty case if you would like to buy them.

Will you change the book data on the label so I can swap a beater in? 

[MrBedrock]

17 minutes ago, sagii said:

Will you change the book data on the label so I can swap a beater in? 

[sfcityduck]

 

41 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

Some of you sound like you are convinced that the only things of value in this hobby are the plastic slabs that surround the comics.

Oh, and please check out www.bedrockcity.com - where all of our slabbed comics are priced at the same price as we would sell them raw. Hell I will crack them out and sell you the empty case if you would like to buy them.

Does this mean you'll throw in a free slabbing for books you sell raw?  

Edited September 6, 2019 by sfcityduck

[N e r V]

46 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

Some of you sound like you are convinced that the only things of value in this hobby are the plastic slabs that surround the comics. If you are positive that is the case (har har...see what I did there) and you are still comfortable buying comics in the cases at whatever price you are paying then it is seems very counter-productive of you to complain about the grading standards of the case maker.

Oh, and please check out www.bedrockcity.com - where all of our slabbed comics are priced at the same price as we would sell them raw. Hell I will crack them out and sell you the empty case if you would like to buy them.

You ain’t perfect but for me you have been one of the closer graders to what CGC finally puts on the label...

[fifties]

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

The value of a slab rests entirely with the book. It is a mistake...quite a common one...to assume that the slab, itself, has any intrinsic value. It does not. If it did, it would have value apart from the book it contains. People pay higher prices for slabbed copies because of assurance...not because the slab adds anything of value to the book.

 

I never said that the plastic enclosure -by itself- has any value.  My point was that because a book is inside of one, with a blue or whatever color label residing above it with a numeric grade, it seems like that affair will sell for more, sometimes much more, than if the book were raw (raw; a term that did not exist before slabbing).  I see this all the time on eBay, where at least mid-grade books have two tiers of pricing.  Sorry, but you cannot convince me otherwise.

[fifties]

1 hour ago, MrBedrock said:

There is not a clear difference in value. There is a clear difference in liquidity. There are more potential buyers for a graded book because folks who are not comfortable with their or the seller's ability to grade may be more willing to purchase a third party graded comic. But the comic book itself is not worth more because it is third party graded.

There is a clear difference in asking and hammer prices between raw and slabbed books, of the same apparent condition.  Now whether you want to term that difference as value or liquidity or some other description, the fact is that the prices are yards apart.  My issue is, that with this slabbing situation, books are being removed from the affordable tier for collectors who actually read the books, and placed into plastic as "investment vehicles".  Ain't nothing I can do about it, of course, but I don't have to like it (and obviously I don't).

[october]

5 hours ago, MrBedrock said:

There is not a clear difference in value. There is a clear difference in liquidity. There are more potential buyers for a graded book because folks who are not comfortable with their or the seller's ability to grade may be more willing to purchase a third party graded comic. But the comic book itself is not worth more because it is third party graded.

I feel like this is especially true for Golden Age, which is why I crack my slabs. They of almost no value, especially if I keep the loose label.

The only exceptions I can think of are 9.9 and 10 slabs. Those grades, for the most part, exist only in the slabbed dimension. In those cases, pun intended,  the slab does determine the value, as the raw marketplace has no real analog.

[Dr. Love]

The differential value of a slabbed book to itself when raw is entirely attributable to the slab.  In part its very real tangible nature - that designed piece of plastic and all the engineering processes of tamper proof encapsulation are as real costs as it gets, ultimately passed along to the consumer.  In part, and maybe the larger part, its intangible nature, which while intangible, are still of real monetary value.  Intangible assets can consist of both intellectual property (grading system, resto checks, provenance continuity) and goodwill (the perception of CGC's expertise vs CBCS or PGX). 

An empty preformed slab has quite a bit of real worth.  That vendor account costs CGC how much on an annual basis?  The fact that a single empty broken slab is of no market value does not invalidate this argument. 

So there!

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

29 minutes ago, october said:

I feel like this is especially true for Golden Age, which is why I crack my slabs. They of almost no value, especially if I keep the loose label.

The only exceptions I can think of are 9.9 and 10 slabs. Those grades, for the most part, exist only in the slabbed dimension. In those cases, pun intended,  the slab does determine the value, as the raw marketplace has no real analog.

And even in those situations, the value of the slab is solely because of the book inside; the proof of that is that you can take a book out of a 9.9 or 10 slab, and the book immediately becomes "valueless" as you mention...until and unless the book ends up back in that same 9.9 or 10 slab, at which point, the slab "magically" gains all of that "value" back. The book itself didn't change a bit, and without that book, the product has no value.

And the inherent unlikeliness of resubbing a 9.9 or 10 and getting back a 9.9 or 10 has no bearing on that, either.  But practically speaking, your point is well taken.

 

3 hours ago, fifties said:

I never said that the plastic enclosure -by itself- has any value.  My point was that because a book is inside of one, with a blue or whatever color label residing above it with a numeric grade, it seems like that affair will sell for more, sometimes much more, than if the book were raw (raw; a term that did not exist before slabbing).  I see this all the time on eBay, where at least mid-grade books have two tiers of pricing.  Sorry, but you cannot convince me otherwise.

The practical application of saying that slabs "add value" is that the plastic enclosure -by itself- imparts some sort of value to a book. It does not. The reason that the book inside of one seems to sell for more, sometimes much more, than if the book were raw is because buyers are reasonably assured that the book inside the slab has been evaluated by an independent third party whose opinion and expertise they trust, and a raw book has not.

Go back and look at my example. There are all sorts of raw books that are advertised as being a specific grade, and the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, they are substantially overgraded, even when they appear to be in the same condition. Buyers know this, and therefore, a raw "VF/NM" is going to sell for a lot less than a CGC 9.0, precisely because buyers assume the raw VF/NM has been overgraded...and 9 times out of 10, if not more, they're correct. Because of that, comparing slabs and raws "in the same grade" produces an illusion in price difference that doesn't actually exist, because they're (almost always) not actually in the same grade.

It's an elegant and compelling illusion, this "slabs sell for more in the same grade as raws"....but it IS an illusion nonetheless.

Now...you find a book for sale by Mr. B, or Bob Storms, or one of the other national dealers who know how to grade, and whom the buying public knows can grade, and they are able to ask...and get..."slabbed prices" for raw books, because people trust that they're going to be very close to the "consensus" about any specific book's condition.

[RockMyAmadeus]

37 minutes ago, Dr. Love said:

The differential value of a slabbed book to itself when raw is entirely attributable to the slab.  In part its very real tangible nature - that designed piece of plastic and all the engineering processes of tamper proof encapsulation are as real costs as it gets, ultimately passed along to the consumer.  In part, and maybe the larger part, its intangible nature, which while intangible, are still of real monetary value.  Intangible assets can consist of both intellectual property (grading system, resto checks, provenance continuity) and goodwill (the perception of CGC's expertise vs CBCS or PGX). 

An empty preformed slab has quite a bit of real worth.  That vendor account costs CGC how much on an annual basis?  The fact that a single empty broken slab is of no market value does not invalidate this argument. 

So there!

 

This is a legitimate argument.

It's just that the intangible value of a slab is usually such a small percentage of the value of the book, it's typically considered a "sunk cost" to do business in this market.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 hours ago, fifties said:

There is a clear difference in asking and hammer prices between raw and slabbed books, of the same apparent condition.  Now whether you want to term that difference as value or liquidity or some other description, the fact is that the prices are yards apart.  My issue is, that with this slabbing situation, books are being removed from the affordable tier for collectors who actually read the books, and placed into plastic as "investment vehicles".  Ain't nothing I can do about it, of course, but I don't have to like it (and obviously I don't).

That's true of many things. I was in a very real position, last year, to buy a Detective Comics #27 for the very first time in my life.

Unfortunately, the barrier to entry was more than I could spend. I *could* have done it...but it would have wiped me out financially. Had that money come 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had a problem. For the 30 years I have been involved in comics, most everything I want that was far out of my reach in 1989 has kept pace, and still remains as far out of my reach today, if not farther. Detective #168? Could have bought a G/VG copy in 2009 for $600 at Carbo's Big Apple show at the Penn. Couldn't really afford it. Now? That book is $10,000. Still can't really afford it. 

Slabbing didn't create this market. Slabbing only facilitated the demand that was already there, giving assurance for buyers to be willing to spend ever higher prices, because they know what they are buying. Slabbing didn't "remove books from the affordable tier", because that's entirely relative to each individual. Pre-Robin 'Tecs have never, ever been in the "affordable tier" for me, long before slabbing existed. Neither have ECs. And I would love to own a complete collection of both.

Barring some unforeseen fortune coming my way, that's never going to happen for me. And that's always been true. But I'm grateful for what I have, and grateful for the books I could buy, and have acquired...many of which I couldn't replace if I had to. For everyone who complains about no longer being able to afford these things, there are many, many people who can afford far, far less. 

I notice your signature: "you can't read slabbed books." But you can...you simply open the slab.

[N e r V]

I’m waiting for someone to say inside every slab is a raw book waiting to come out...

raw, slab, prices have been jumping up in various degrees for years now.

CGC added a third party’s opinion of what a grade is to help confirm those that can grade correctly and deny those who tried to over grade their books. That and help out in identifying restored books. It’s another tool to be used in collecting not the apocalypse. It helped the market more than any flaws in it hurt the market.

 

 

[tth2]

9 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

9 hours ago, fifties said:

I'd have to disagree with that.  They may have not meant to develop another marketing tier, but they certainly did.  Just go to eBay and notice the difference in pricing -both asking and final sales- between raw and slabbed.  

The difference in price has nothing to do with the slab. It has to do with the assurance that the slab represents. Take the book out of the slab, and it sells for "the same" as the other raw copies in the same condition...and the "difference" doesn't remain with the now empty slab. Empty slabs have no value.

The cheaper price of raw books represents the discount that collectors demand for the uncertainty they're taking on as to whether the raw book has been restored and the accuracy of the seller's grade. 

Particularly for big ticket books, a raw book will generate lots of skepticism because the assumption is that a seller would want to slab it to maximize the price and therefore there must be something wrong with the book for it to remain unslabbed. 

[tth2]

45 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I notice your signature: "you can't read slabbed books." But you can...you simply open the slab.

Or read a beater copy or read a reprint.

Unless it's critically important to be able to read that particular copy for some reason.

[N e r V]

I think big books is where CGC can shine. Much less risk than buying raw.

Smaller books I just factor in a $50.00 premium over raw price due to cost to slab a book.

[fifties]

43 minutes ago, tth2 said:

Or read a beater copy or read a reprint.

Unless it's critically important to be able to read that particular copy for some reason.

Ahh, my old Marne Division buddy.  Yes my friend, it IS INDEED critically important to be able to read any particular copy of any book.  Why, you ask?  Well, when I relax in the evening at my desk with a drink, pull out my book holder and delve into a succession of my pre code horror or crime comics, with early '50's music playing from my PC, I'm in a zone.  It's an experience.  I don't buy beaters, nor upper grade books, but rather  mainly in the G to VG range, the condition they were largely in back then, after they had been read, passed around, traded, etc.   If you've never been there, I can't put it into words...  

[N e r V]

I think expecting to be able to read ANY comic at a affordable price is neither reasonable or realistic.

I can see it would be nice to be able to do so but so would having anything you wanted available to you at all times with little or no cost.

Either way I’m pretty sure if CGC never happened there would still be countless books that wouldn’t be affordable to the average person today.

Just sayin’...