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My Bimonthly Review of the Values of My Collection
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108 posts in this topic

4 hours ago, pemart1966 said:

The value of your collection will be determined not by a website or a Mt Everest of statistics but by the amount realized when you sell.

I never said that this was the exact value of my collection, down to the last penny. I need to place approximate values of my books for insurance purposes. Auction houses places estimates on collectibles all the time. Sometimes the hammer price is lower than the estimate, and sometimes is higher. Why can't the price be pinpointed? Because it's an ESTIMATE. I just wanted to share this with other people, because I thought they may find it interesting.

 

On 1/3/2021 at 3:10 PM, fast eddie said:

Thank you Math Teacher,,,,,,,,, I like your analysis of the values,,,,facinating stuff,,although I am numerically handicapped,,,,,,I appreciate your effort! Cheers!

It seems other people are appreciative. Next time I post in this thread, and that will be at the end of February, please just skip over it.

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2 hours ago, Math Teacher said:

In case any of you are bored to tears, I will be working on my next report this weekend.

You know, I was just thinking about this. You and another boardie do these updates and with the market going crazy, I would be curious to see how your update goes. 

Plus this will be your first one since joining the AF15 club! 

 

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17 hours ago, KCOComics said:

You know, I was just thinking about this. You and another boardie do these updates and with the market going crazy, I would be curious to see how your update goes. 

Plus this will be your first one since joining the AF15 club! 

 

I will try, but I can't guarantee that I'll discuss the increase/decrease of the value of my entire collection. The composition of my collection has changed significantly since my last update. As you mentioned, I sold my AF15 0.5 to help fund the purchase of my AF 2.5. I also sold BatB #54, JiM #85, Flash #137, ST #101, and MGA #80. I am excited to review this information, as I know that several of my Marvel keys have had significant 4-figure increases.

Edited by Math Teacher
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3 hours ago, Math Teacher said:

 

If I were looking, books that I would be purchasing now would be ASM #1, BatB #28, FF #1, JiM #83, SC #22, and TtA #27.

This is what I find the most interesting. 

In a world were books are setting new records daily, where are the "soft spots" collectors should be looking? 

FF1 surprises me on this list. I feel like FF in general has been pretty hot and FF5 seems to be getting pretty out of hand pretty quickly. 

ASM1 surprises me a little as well.  SA Spidey keys don't seem to have benefited from this market as much as others. BA and CA spidey keys seem to be doing much better. 

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On 2/26/2021 at 11:32 PM, Math Teacher said:

I sold my AF15 0.5 to help fund the purchase of my AF 2.5. I also sold BatB #54, JiM #85, Flash #137, ST #101, and MGA #80. 

I would be interested to hear about your thoughts and experiences of the upgrade process. As you may have seen, I have several keys purchased in the '70s that are low grade and I would like to upgrade them.

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18 hours ago, KCOComics said:

This is what I find the most interesting. 

In a world were books are setting new records daily, where are the "soft spots" collectors should be looking? 

FF1 surprises me on this list. I feel like FF in general has been pretty hot and FF5 seems to be getting pretty out of hand pretty quickly. 

ASM1 surprises me a little as well.  SA Spidey keys don't seem to have benefited from this market as much as others. BA and CA spidey keys seem to be doing much better. 

Remember, I only provided information on books in a very specific grade. For example, a FF #1 CGC 2.5 has only increased 14.0% over the last 26 months. All other FF #1 grades may be on fire, but I'm not really concerned about other grades. I only look for information for my particular books.

I think ASM #1 doesn't do as well as the other Marvel keys in regard to growth because it's not a first appearance. It does retell Spider-Man's origin, but that's not the same as a first appearance. I think the same can be said for Avengers #1. Yes, it's the first appearance of the Avengers as a team, but all the characters made their first appearances in other books.

Edited by Math Teacher
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11 hours ago, Albert Thurgood said:

I would be interested to hear about your thoughts and experiences of the upgrade process. As you may have seen, I have several keys purchased in the '70s that are low grade and I would like to upgrade them.

This is my experience from upgrading.

I would face two different kinds of dilemmas. The first would sound something like this: "I really want that copy of AF 15, so I will sell my current copy to help fund that purchase." This thought would soon be followed by a different thought: "What happens if I sell my current copy of AF 15, and then I am unable to find an AF 15 that I like and can afford? I need an AF #15 in my collection." So, to sum up, I didn't want to sell my current AF 15 to then find out that I couldn't replace due to presentation and/or price.

The second would sound something like this: "I really want to buy that copy of AF 15, so I will purchase it now, and then sell books from my collection to pay for it." This thought would soon be followed by a different thought: "What if I purchase that AF 15, but then the books I plan to use to finance the purchase don't sell? Or equally worse, what if the books sell for considerably less than my expectations? If I plan to buy a $16,500 copy of AF 15, how can I fund this purchase if either the books don't sell or don't realize the prices I expect? How am I going to pay that $16,500 back?" So, to sum up, I didn't want to buy an AF because I feared that the books that I planned to sell either don't wouldn't sell or wouldn't earn as much money as I expected.

So, in my case, we have a HELO. I took out $15,700 to pay for the upgrade of AF #15. I had set aside the following books to sell so I could repay our HELO: AF 15 CGC 0.5, JiM 85 CGC 4.5, FF 13 CGC 7.5, BatB 54 CGC 4.5, ST 101 CGC 6.0, Flash 137 CGC 8.0, and a Batman 232, graded by another company at 9.4. So, the AF, JiM, and FF before I even listed them here (word got around and I got several PMs about those books), and the BatB, ST, and Flash sold within ten days. I'm still trying to sell the Batman 232, but I have repaid enough money into our HELO that my wife would not notice the difference. To be honest, my wife shows little to no interest about our finances, leaving all the decisions up to me. So, if I don't sell the Batman 232, it won't really won't make any difference. I still would like to sell it, as their are some other books I would like to purchase.

So, in my case, I chose option 2 and took a "leap of faith." Fortunately for me, it worked out fine for me. I'm not making guarantees for anybody else, however. lol

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On 2/28/2021 at 2:28 AM, KCOComics said:

This is what I find the most interesting. 

In a world were books are setting new records daily, where are the "soft spots" collectors should be looking? 

FF1 surprises me on this list. I feel like FF in general has been pretty hot and FF5 seems to be getting pretty out of hand pretty quickly. 

ASM1 surprises me a little as well.  SA Spidey keys don't seem to have benefited from this market as much as others. BA and CA spidey keys seem to be doing much better. 

Since I'm not really doing anything while I am subbing today (let's face it - most of the time I'm just a glorified babysitter), so I did a little more research.

FF #1 CGC 1.0: December 2018 - $4,701 and Today - $4,700; –0.02% decrease over a 26-month period.
FF #1 CGC 4.0: December 2018 - $13,800 and Today - $16,200. 17.4% increase over a 26-month period.
FF #1 CGC 5.5: December 2018 - $20,000 and Today - $22,500. 12.5% increase over a 26-month period.
FF #1 CGC 7.0: December 2018 - $28,055 and Today - $56,000. 99.6% increase over a 26-month period.

I wanted to check some higher grades, but high grade FF 1s just don't change hands that often. So, a healthy increase at 7.0, but only a modest increase at 4.0 and 5.5, and a minute decrease at 1.0. So, I don't see FF #1 being hot, unless you have a upper level mid-grade book or a high-grade book.

JiM #83 CGC 1.5: April 2019 - $2,650 and Today - $3,500. 32.1% increase over a 22-month period.
JiM #83 CGC 4.5: April 2019 - $5,400 and Today - $7,350. 36.1% increase over a 22-month period.
JiM #83 CGC 6.0: April 2019 - $9,900 and Today - $12,600. 27.3% increase over a 22-month period.

Again, I wanted to check higher grades, but I could find no recent sales on GPA. So there does seem to be some decent growth for JiM #83. Maybe my CGC 3.0 copy is just an outlier.

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On 2/28/2021 at 3:28 AM, KCOComics said:

This is what I find the most interesting. 

In a world were books are setting new records daily, where are the "soft spots" collectors should be looking? 

FF1 surprises me on this list. I feel like FF in general has been pretty hot and FF5 seems to be getting pretty out of hand pretty quickly. 

ASM1 surprises me a little as well.  SA Spidey keys don't seem to have benefited from this market as much as others. BA and CA spidey keys seem to be doing much better. 

I would pretty much wager a large sum that FF1 trades hands more often than most "off" the radar of GPA. Having seen CL sales and IG sales you are correct that most are selling at whatever the asking price is of the copy and with CL they are being bid up strong. The 4.0 on CL just sold for 20K, the 2.0 sold for $12,249. The 2.5 sold for less at $11,600 due to being in a dunking tank at some point. In another thread they mentioned FF1 was a 5k a point books, I would say unless eye quality is off this is correct now. Only reason I am watching that book so closely is I had intended on upgrading, probably have to sit out now.

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14 minutes ago, Math Teacher said:

At the end of next week, I will be doing my bimonthly review of my collection. I am anxious to see the new value of my collection. My guess is it will show a 25% increase.

i'm just doing this now- last time was december 2020 and the per cent increases are ridiculous! i'm starting to wonder why i don't sell almost everything and cash out. i suppose taxes are one reason not to do so...but they will exist no matter what happens to the values. 

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Thanks to becoming more active in the threads here, I set up a Go Collect account and made a list with my CGC graded comics and have been tracking that. Just started and will do a monthly or bi-monthly check in also. 

This is just for me as I'm still in collector vs. seller mode but will eventually start to whittle down the collection. 

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4 hours ago, alexgross.com said:

i'm just doing this now- last time was december 2020 and the per cent increases are ridiculous! i'm starting to wonder why i don't sell almost everything and cash out. i suppose taxes are one reason not to do so...but they will exist no matter what happens to the values. 

Local buyer of low grade stuff. :hi:

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22 hours ago, rexinnih said:

Thanks to becoming more active in the threads here, I set up a Go Collect account and made a list with my CGC graded comics and have been tracking that. Just started and will do a monthly or bi-monthly check in also. 

This is just for me as I'm still in collector vs. seller mode but will eventually start to whittle down the collection. 

I should do that as well; my collection is currently in two locations, but maybe once I consolidate it I'll do so. Again, purely for tracking purposes (and maybe to allow me to get rid of things I've randomly won at auction and no longer want but can unload on someone who actually wants it).

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Well, here's my semi-monthly report for the end of April, 2021, on the value of the CGC books in my collection. If you’re going to read this article, I suggest you get a snack and some water before you begin.

First, I have to acknowledge that I have changed the way I evaluate some of the CGC books in my collection. In the past, I have always used the last sale as the value of a CGC book. However, with prices increasing as quickly as they are in this era, I don’t think those prices are accurate.

Here’s my example: X-Men #2. My copy of X-Men #2 is graded 6.0. The last sale of XM 2 in this grade was in January, 2021, for a value of $850. That sale was over three months ago; thus, I don’t feel that this price is a good reflection on today’s FMV. I will illustrate what I did in the table below.

Grade

 

Cost

 

Price per Point

 

Date Sold

 

5.5

$1,199.00

$218.00

April, 2021

5.0

$1,700.00

$340.00

April, 2021

4.0

$998.00

$249.50

April, 2021

3.5

$1,136.00

$324.57

April, 2021

3.0

$775.00

$258.33

April, 2021

1.5

$646.00

$430.67

April, 2021

22.5

$6,454.00

$286.84

 


Since my copy was graded at 6.0, I took the Price per Point and multiplied it by 6.0, which resulted in a estimated FMV of $1,721.04, which I rounded to $1,721. Is this a guaranteed valuation of an XM 2 in CGC 6.0? Unlikely, but it is far better than an estimate of $850.

I only compared books that I owned at the end of February, 2021, with the same books that I owned at the end of April, 2021. According to GoCollect, the value of the CGC books in my collection increased 31.6%. According to GPAnalysis, the value of the CGC books in my collection increased 31.0%. My estimate of increase of 25% was a little low.

Now I am going to list books in alphabetical order that showed an increase of 70% or higher. I had to limit to this high percentage, or otherwise my list would be quite extensive. If you see ** next to the price of a book, I used the calculated value as I described above.

GPAnalysis
Amazing Spider-Man #1 CGC 3.0: $6,250 (Feb) to $11,500 (Apr): 84.0% increase.
Amazing Spider-Man #3 CGC 4.5: $2,675 (Feb) to $4,743** (Apr): 77.3% increase.
Amazing Spider-Man #4 CGC 3.5: $800 (Feb) to $1,380 (Apr): 72.5% increase.
Amazing Spider-Man #6 CGC 5.5: $1,260 (Feb) to $2,196** (Apr): 74.3% increase.
Amazing Spider-Man #194 CGC 9.4: $660 (Feb) to $1,200 (Apr): 72.2% increase.
Avengers #15 CGC 6.5: $91 (Feb) to $265 (Apr): 191.2% increase.
Daredevil #1 CGC 6.0: $4,500 (Feb) to $11,159** (Apr): 148.0% increase.
Daredevil #4 CGC 6.0: $318 (Feb) to $570 (Apr): 79.2% increase.
Fantastic Four #4 CGC 2.0: $1,330 (Feb) to $2,300** (Apr): 72.9% increase.
Fantastic Four #6 CGC 3.5 (C-1): $358 (Feb) to $876 (Apr): 144.7% increase.
Fantastic Four #10 CGC 7.0: $650** (Feb) to $1,106** (Apr): 70.2% increase.
Flash #123 CGC 4.5: $650 (Feb) to $1,188** (Apr): 82.8% increase.
Journey into Mystery #83: $4,427 (Feb) to $10,188** (Apr): 130.1% increase.
Sgt. Fury #1 CGC 4.5: $825 (Feb) to $2,379** (Apr): 188.4% increase.
Showcase #37 CGC 5.5: $281** (Feb) to $553** (Apr): 96.8% increase.
Tales of Suspense #57: $800 (Feb) to $1,440 (Apr): 80.0% increase.
X-Men #2 CGC 6.0: $850 (Feb) to $1,721** (Apr): 102.5% increase.
X-Men #4 CGC 6.0: $2,150 (Feb) to $5,000 (Apr): 132.6% increase.
X-Men #9 CGC 6.0: $380 (Feb) to $1,210** (Apr): 218.4% increase.
X-Men #12 CGC 6.5: $1,100 (Feb) to $2,860 (Apr): 160.0% increase.
X-Men #16 CGC 7.0: $169 (Feb) to $400 (Apr): 136.7% increase.

Why did I just highlight these books and grades? Because these are books that <I> own. I could do the same thing with GoCollect, but this post is already long enough as it is.

Now, here are some other books not listed above.

GPAnalysis
Amazing Fantasy #15 CGC 2.5: $19,000 (Feb) to $25,400 (Apr): 33.7% increase.
Amazing Spider-Man #129 CGC 6.5: $1,700 (Feb) to $2,300 (Apr): 35.3% increase.
Avengers #1 CGC 1.5: $1,597 (Feb) to $2,436** (Apr): 52.5% increase.
Avengers #4 CGC 2.5: $1,000 (Feb) to $1,551 (Apr): 55.1% increase.
Brave and the Bold #28 CGC 4.5: $3,212 (Feb) to $4,205 (Apr): 30.9% increase.
Fantastic Four #1 CGC 2.5: $9,701 (Feb) to $12,236** (Apr): 26.1% increase.
Fantastic Four #5 CGC 2.5: $4,400 (Feb) to $6,629** (Apr): 50.7% increase.
Fantastic Four #48 CGC 6.5: $2,600 (Feb) to $4,200 (Apr): 61.5% increase.
Fantastic Four #49 CGC 6.5: $1,800 (Feb) to $3,000 (Apr): 66.7% increase.
Giant-Size X-Men #1 CGC 7.5: $4,999 (Feb) to $6,300 (Apr): 26.0% increase.
Incredible Hulk #1 CGC 1.5: $9,000 (Feb) to $9,499 (Apr): 5.5% increase.
Incredible Hulk #181 CGC 8.5: $6,900 (Feb) to $10,997 (Apr): 59.4% increase.
Showcase #22 CGC 4.5: $3,925 (Feb) to $4,680 (Apr): 19.2% increase.
Strange Tales #110 CGC 3.0: $1,800 (Feb) to $3,015 (Apr): 67.5% increase.
Tales of Suspense #39 CGC 4.5: $9,500 (Feb) to $13,000 (Apr): 36.8% increase.
Tales to Astonish #27 CGC 3.5: $2,447 (Feb) to $3,250 (Apr): 32.8% increase.
X-Men #1 CGC 3.0: $9,500 (Feb) to $13,750 (Apr): 44.0% increase.

Again, I highlighted these books and grades because I own these books. I don’t have the time or inclination to go through this process for books that I don’t own.

I understand the increase of the keys, and even Avengers #15 (“Death” of original Baron Zemo). But I don’t understand the increase of Showcase #37 or X-Men #16. Those increases might be explained by my new valuation method.

Just so you know, it wasn’t all fun and games.

GPAnalysis
Atom #1 CGC 7.0: $495 (Feb) to $309** (Apr): –37.6% decrease.
Avengers #9 CGC 6.5: $700 (Feb) to $634** (Apr): –9.4% decrease.
Black Knight #1 CGC 4.5: $3,000 (Feb) to $2,640 (Apr): –12.0% decrease.
Fantastic Four #7 CGC 7.0: $749** (Feb) to $649** (Apr): –13.4% decrease.
Justice League of America #1 CGC 4.0: $1,850 (Feb) to $1,499 (Feb): –19.0% decrease.
Justice League of America #22 CGC 8.0: $389** (Feb) to $300** (Apr): –22.9% decrease.
Showcase #20 CGC 4.0: $381** (Feb) to $338** (Apr): –11.3% decrease.
Showcase #34 CGC 7.0: $875 (Feb) to $720 (Apr): –17.7% decrease.

Remember, I do this for my own benefit. I don't claim to be the price guide guru - I just report on what I see.

I hope you enjoyed this lengthy post. Yes, I do this for informational purposes, but I wish it would spark some discussion also.

Edited by Math Teacher
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