How to Value Blue Label vs Green Label vs Purple Label 1 1

[Math Teacher]

I have three restored comics in my collection - Showcase #6, Fantastic Four #6, and Tales to Astonish #35. When I value them, I give them a 50% decrease compared to the corresponding blue label price.

Is this how everyone else does it, or do you use a higher/lower percentage? Although I don't have any green label books, I would imagine that the purple label decrease would be higher than the green label decrease.

So, how does everyone do this? I know the common saying is, "Buy the book, not the grade." And I get that. A blue label ASM #15 in CGC 8.0 has an approximate value of $2600, according to GPA, based on an October, 2020, sale. If I could purchase the same comic in the same grade with a green label (reinforced, cover reglossed), what would be an appropriate price be?

Thanks in advance. I always look forward to reading your advice!

[revat]

i'm not an expert, but for purple it often depends on the level/type of restoration, as well as the appearance of the comic.  It may also depending on if your talking about random books, old books in high grade, minor keys, keys, or megakeys

[csaag]

Sometimes you can catch purple/green sales on Ebay though admittedly it can take a lot of looking.  I have a purple X-Men 94 in 7.0 shape and saw a couple sales on Ebay which corresponded to what 5.5 Blues were going for

[Math Teacher]

Just now, revat said:

i'm not an expert, but for purple it often depends on the level/type of restoration, as well as the appearance of the comic.  It may also depending on if your talking about random books, old books in high grade, minor keys, keys, or megakeys

Well, the book I'm looking is definitely a key, but I wouldn't call it a major key. How do you price green labels? Yes, I know there is a big difference between "Page 16 missing, affects story" versus "Coupon cut out of page 18, does not affect story" versus "Cover reinforced" versus "Cover reglossed." But there has to be some kind of rule of thumb that people (at least) try to follow.

[silversurfer275]

14 minutes ago, Joe Ankenbauer said:

Well, the book I'm looking is definitely a key, but I wouldn't call it a major key. How do you price green labels? Yes, I know there is a big difference between "Page 16 missing, affects story" versus "Coupon cut out of page 18, does not affect story" versus "Cover reinforced" versus "Cover reglossed." But there has to be some kind of rule of thumb that people (at least) try to follow.

why is it a green label? thatll help out a lot

[Qalyar]

There's no magic formula. There's never a magic formula, not for purple labels, not for green labels, not for yellow labels. Not for newsstands or variant covers.

So, sure, if you just need napkin-math spitballing... maybe a "minor color touch" purple label is like a 3 or 4 grade effective deduction in value. That probably holds true for books where both blue and purple labels are fairly common, and in the grade range most likely to be encountered. Stuff gets weird for very high grade (let's say 9.2+) purple labels. And anything under, say, 6.0 in a purple is going to be so hard to move as to be meaningless to consider. Even with those restrictions, I bet that guideline gets a lot of values wrong. Past that, more extensive restoration comes down to whether there is a market for it. Personally, I would pay zero dollars for any but the most exceptional trimmed books. Some people out there care more about appearance than structural integrity, and probably don't view trimming as much worse than color touch or cover reinforcement (although fewer these days than there once were). I'm not even going to get into the nonsense of leaf casting or reglossed covers. Or, for that matter, married books, which I mostly think belong in the same bucket as trimmed copies, but which seem moderately more acceptable to some. Obviously, these sorts of copies do sell. Sometimes at huge discounts from blue label prices... and sometimes at smaller discounts from blue label than I think they deserve, because people buy the book's appearance in lieu of buying the book.

Green labels are maybe even harder to predict. If I had to guess, I'd bet the most common green labels are books with unauthenticated signatures. So then you have to decide... are you evaluating this as if it were a blue label where someone scribbled on the cover? Or are you evaluating it as a yellow label book but without the relative security of witnessed authentication? Obviously, a lot of creators passed away before the yellow label system. If the book has convincing provenance, maybe that's worth more than a blue label. On the other hand, unwitnessed Stan Lee's on rando mid-grade books should just about be assumed to be forgeries at this point, and so ought to be worth approximately nada. Outside of signatures, the whole point of green labels is books with something uniquely wrong; by their nature, they are going to be hard to set price trends for. You have to consider why the book is green, and then decide how much that hurts your -- and others' -- consideration of the copy.

[Math Teacher]

27 minutes ago, silversufer27 said:

why is it a green label? thatll help out a lot

Cover reinforced, cover reglossed.

[silversurfer275]

1 hour ago, Joe Ankenbauer said:

1 hour ago, Joe Ankenbauer said:

Cover reinforced, cover reglossed.

 

im not expert but itsnt that restoration? 

[Math Teacher]

48 minutes ago, silversufer27 said:

im not expert but itsnt that restoration? 

Yes, reglossing a cover is considered as restoration. I was not aware of that when I started this thread. I have decided to pass on the book because I thought it would have a green label, but instead it had a purple label.

[theCapraAegagrus]

Quality and quantity of restoration matters (to me).

[William-James88]

14 hours ago, Joe Ankenbauer said:

I have three restored comics in my collection - Showcase #6, Fantastic Four #6, and Tales to Astonish #35. When I value them, I give them a 50% decrease compared to the corresponding blue label price.

Is this how everyone else does it, or do you use a higher/lower percentage? Although I don't have any green label books, I would imagine that the purple label decrease would be higher than the green label decrease.

So, how does everyone do this? I know the common saying is, "Buy the book, not the grade." And I get that. A blue label ASM #15 in CGC 8.0 has an approximate value of $2600, according to GPA, based on an October, 2020, sale. If I could purchase the same comic in the same grade with a green label (reinforced, cover reglossed), what would be an appropriate price be?

Thanks in advance. I always look forward to reading your advice!

No, that's not how to do it since you may end up undervaluing or overvaluing books. The best you can do is look at the GPA for each individual book to see what others have sold for in different grades and then apply that ratio to the grade you have.