Are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit??? 43 43

[valiantman]

On 9/7/2022 at 6:53 PM, Microchip said:

No I don't imagine it is an easy process.  Though in terms of the hobby, with the ebb's and flows across all the ages, it wouldn't be worthwhile doing it on a regular basis.    

Quite a bit of work to run the numbers a few different ways, but the long story short is that if we use August 2021 as the baseline, prices across the board for books from CGCEMC.com (average copies of books with high total market value) were down about 10% to 11% (overall) in August 2022.

But... the numbers are very different depending on the decade:

1930s	-0.9%
1940s	1.2%
1950s	1.6%
1960s	-9.6%
1970s	-19.5%
1980s	-27.4%
1990s	-25.2%
2000s	-21.5%
2010s	-12.5%

Edited September 8, 2022 by valiantman

[Gregd]

On 9/8/2022 at 1:33 PM, valiantman said:

Quite a bit of work to run the numbers a few different ways, but the long story short is that if we use August 2021 as the baseline, prices across the board for books from CGCEMC.com (average copies of books with high total market value) were down about 10% to 11% (overall) in August 2022.

But... the numbers are very different depending on the decade:

1930s	-0.9%
1940s	1.2%
1950s	1.6%
1960s	-9.6%
1970s	-19.5%
1980s	-27.4%
1990s	-25.2%
2000s	-21.5%
2010s	-12.5%

Thank you! Helpful to see the year to year drop. Considering the rise of the past few years, still very content. Now let’s hope it levels off. 

[MGsimba77]

This market makes zero sense right about now. You got some rando issues matching or surpassing highs in auction while some high grade bronze keys remain in the tank! Hopefully it figures out where it wants to go soon.

[mjoeyoung]

Lots of great info here, so I thought I would add my two cents.

I'm expecting a significant downturn in SA and newer comic values for a variety of reasons:

Prices rose too far, too fast, for this not to be a boom followed by an inevitable bust. For example, IH #181 9.0 GPA went from 2020 avg of $5700 on 54 sales to 2021 avg $11400 on 35 sales.  90 day avg is already down to $9500. Seems like all the key books from this time frame are showing similar pullbacks.  There will definitely be a psychological component to this. When values are going up there is FOMO and people buy because STONKS GO UP,  as the price decreases start to seem real, people are going to keep waiting for their sweet spot forcing the values lower and lower.

Someone earlier mentioned the increasing number of AF #15s available in auctions.  This seems true for all books from this time frame.  People are viewing these huge price increases as the most opportune time to sell their books.  The latest ComicConnect auction has 7 AF #15s and 6 AS #1s.  How many more are stuck in the grading pipelines that will be up for auction in the next year?  My guess is a pretty significant number.  The increasing supply will only drive prices down.

As others have said, for most of the world, the pandemic is over.  No more stimulus money, and all the the programs like rent and school loan moratoriums are ending or have ended. Plus, people have been going out and spending their disposable income on things they were previously unable to do.

The US and world economy are facing significant headwinds that will probably last at least through the end of next year.  Inflation and higher energy prices are expected to continue and Gallup's recent poll claims that 56% of Americans are experiencing hardship due to price increases.  Bearish stock market, NFTs about to implode and bitcoin is on its way back to $10k.  I don't see any relief in sight.

I'm not sure about the GA market.  There are definitely more "rare" books coming to market but some of the prices seem to be unhinged from our currently reality.  A Chamber of Chills #19 8.5 sold for almost $53K today.  Last sale for an 8.5 was in January for $25K and before that only about $11K in 2018.  Some of these are probably investments, some are probably people who have been waiting for a long time for high grade books to come to auction and have FOMO.  Again, how many of these types of books are in the grading pipeline?  Probably still not enough to satisfy demand, especially the high grades.

I would not be surprised to see an even larger gap grow between 9.8s and lower grades.  It may be that enough moneyed people view these as serious collectible investments. I'll use IH #181 again, which has gone from $41k 2020 avg to a sale in June for $102K and a sale at Heritage today for $138K, while a 9.6 in the same auction sold for less than $23K.  Usually you want to buy low and sell high, but maybe buy high and sell higher??

One factor that is a wild card to me is the new collector.  Why has this individual been buying comics?  Are they long term collectors? Investors? Flippers?  Are the majority of them going to stop buying if the market takes a severe downturn and they see the value of their collection dive?

END stream of consciousness, I apologize

[zosocane]

Big MCU announcements coming up this weekend at D23 which will give FF and other books a boost.  Stay tuned.

[Gregd]

On 9/8/2022 at 7:35 PM, mjoeyoung said:

Lots of great info here, so I thought I would add my two cents.

I'm expecting a significant downturn in SA and newer comic values for a variety of reasons:

Prices rose too far, too fast, for this not to be a boom followed by an inevitable bust. For example, IH #181 9.0 GPA went from 2020 avg of $5700 on 54 sales to 2021 avg $11400 on 35 sales.  90 day avg is already down to $9500. Seems like all the key books from this time frame are showing similar pullbacks.  There will definitely be a psychological component to this. When values are going up there is FOMO and people buy because STONKS GO UP,  as the price decreases start to seem real, people are going to keep waiting for their sweet spot forcing the values lower and lower.

Someone earlier mentioned the increasing number of AF #15s available in auctions.  This seems true for all books from this time frame.  People are viewing these huge price increases as the most opportune time to sell their books.  The latest ComicConnect auction has 7 AF #15s and 6 AS #1s.  How many more are stuck in the grading pipelines that will be up for auction in the next year?  My guess is a pretty significant number.  The increasing supply will only drive prices down.

As others have said, for most of the world, the pandemic is over.  No more stimulus money, and all the the programs like rent and school loan moratoriums are ending or have ended. Plus, people have been going out and spending their disposable income on things they were previously unable to do.

The US and world economy are facing significant headwinds that will probably last at least through the end of next year.  Inflation and higher energy prices are expected to continue and Gallup's recent poll claims that 56% of Americans are experiencing hardship due to price increases.  Bearish stock market, NFTs about to implode and bitcoin is on its way back to $10k.  I don't see any relief in sight.

I'm not sure about the GA market.  There are definitely more "rare" books coming to market but some of the prices seem to be unhinged from our currently reality.  A Chamber of Chills #19 8.5 sold for almost $53K today.  Last sale for an 8.5 was in January for $25K and before that only about $11K in 2018.  Some of these are probably investments, some are probably people who have been waiting for a long time for high grade books to come to auction and have FOMO.  Again, how many of these types of books are in the grading pipeline?  Probably still not enough to satisfy demand, especially the high grades.

I would not be surprised to see an even larger gap grow between 9.8s and lower grades.  It may be that enough moneyed people view these as serious collectible investments. I'll use IH #181 again, which has gone from $41k 2020 avg to a sale in June for $102K and a sale at Heritage today for $138K, while a 9.6 in the same auction sold for less than $23K.  Usually you want to buy low and sell high, but maybe buy high and sell higher??

One factor that is a wild card to me is the new collector.  Why has this individual been buying comics?  Are they long term collectors? Investors? Flippers?  Are the majority of them going to stop buying if the market takes a severe downturn and they see the value of their collection dive?

END stream of consciousness, I apologize

I would just caution you that often the best time to invest is when fear hits the market. Lots of doom and gloom on the boards, which means tip toeing into investing here may be worthwhile. Ten or 20 years from now, will you look at the falling prices and ask “why didn’t I buy then”? 
 

Every big stock sell off I heard why the market was doomed to never hit a record…only to see it set records some time later. 

[Snowdon]

Keep buying the books you like! Gotten some great deals lately!

[drbanner]

On 9/8/2022 at 1:33 PM, valiantman said:

Quite a bit of work to run the numbers a few different ways, but the long story short is that if we use August 2021 as the baseline, prices across the board for books from CGCEMC.com (average copies of books with high total market value) were down about 10% to 11% (overall) in August 2022.

But... the numbers are very different depending on the decade:

1930s	-0.9%
1940s	1.2%
1950s	1.6%
1960s	-9.6%
1970s	-19.5%
1980s	-27.4%
1990s	-25.2%
2000s	-21.5%
2010s	-12.5%

Interesting, but not unexpected. I would be curious to see the corresponding % growth in the census for these decades over the last year for comparison. With CGC TATs plummeting for moderns over the last 6 months it makes me wonder if they're receiving fewer submissions as a result of lower prices, or are the prices dropping because the supply has amped up and the market can't absorb all the books CGC is churning out these days?

[alexgross.com]

this one ended on HA yesterday at 29k, slightly under the 12mo average of $31,418 but still not a steal by any means. seems that some key books, especially the ones with white pages, are still going fairly strong. asm1 with white pages is not rare, but it's a tough one to find with both no chipping and the white pages. some keys like xmen1 have certainly declined more significantly, i believe because they are far more common. asm1 is not a rare book either. but in this condition, it's uncommon. i still need one, so maybe that's why it's going so strong. 

[valiantman]

On 9/9/2022 at 5:47 AM, drbanner said:

On 9/8/2022 at 12:33 PM, valiantman said:

Quite a bit of work to run the numbers a few different ways, but the long story short is that if we use August 2021 as the baseline, prices across the board for books from CGCEMC.com (average copies of books with high total market value) were down about 10% to 11% (overall) in August 2022.

But... the numbers are very different depending on the decade:

1930s	-0.9%
1940s	1.2%
1950s	1.6%
1960s	-9.6%
1970s	-19.5%
1980s	-27.4%
1990s	-25.2%
2000s	-21.5%
2010s	-12.5%

Expand  

Interesting, but not unexpected. I would be curious to see the corresponding % growth in the census for these decades over the last year for comparison. With CGC TATs plummeting for moderns over the last 6 months it makes me wonder if they're receiving fewer submissions as a result of lower prices, or are the prices dropping because the supply has amped up and the market can't absorb all the books CGC is churning out these days?

Good question - since the price changes listed above specifically focus on the books with high total market value, I've checked the CGC Census for only those books to get a comparison in the census growth:

1930s	+2.5%
1940s	+3.7%
1950s	+5.7%
1960s	+10.6%
1970s	+13.6%
1980s	+19.5%
1990s	+22.9%
2000s	+7.4%
2010s	+27.3%

[Aman619]

darn moderns clogging the pipeline.  58% are books after 1990!

[GermanFan]

On 9/9/2022 at 4:13 AM, Gregd said:

I would just caution you that often the best time to invest is when fear hits the market. Lots of doom and gloom on the boards, which means tip toeing into investing here may be worthwhile. Ten or 20 years from now, will you look at the falling prices and ask “why didn’t I buy then”? 
 

Every big stock sell off I heard why the market was doomed to never hit a record…only to see it set records some time later. 

I compare with 2006-2009 prices, added inflation. A very nice EC for 120 bucks (would be today $160-180, not $ 500). C'mon man. 

[toro]

On 9/5/2022 at 10:57 AM, DC# said:

Here are Session 1 and Session 2 results from the Aug/Sept Clink Featured Auction.   A little different format this time as I included comparisons to Last, 90 Day, 12 Mos, and 2021 Avg.   Was really interested in where current sales are relative to 2021.   Was a bit surprised that for a large chunk of books here - the 12 mos average is higher than the 2021 average - would have guessed the opposite.       

I also put all issues of same title in same section - but left them in order of sale between Session 1 and Session 2.   So you will see a 9.8, 9.4, 9.2, 9.8, 9.6 sequence for example - the second 9.8 would be from Session 2.     And if you don't think page quality matters - a Werewolf by Night #32 9.4 WP sold for $9,050 in Session 1 while a 9.4 CR/OW sold for $5,090 in Session 2.   

 

I was the ASM 194 that sold in session 2 for $300 less than the session #1

[valiantman]

On 9/9/2022 at 9:29 AM, Aman619 said:

darn moderns clogging the pipeline.  58% are books after 1990!

Well, it's not that kind of percentage.  Each decade's census is being compared to the same decade's census a year earlier.  The 1930s could have a 20% increase if the census went from just 2,500 to 3,000, but 500 new slabs wouldn't be anything near 20% of anything besides the 1930s. 

So... unfortunately, it's probably worse than 58% of the books in the pipeline are 1990 and after.

[valiantman]

On 9/9/2022 at 9:59 AM, valiantman said:

On 9/9/2022 at 9:29 AM, Aman619 said:

darn moderns clogging the pipeline.  58% are books after 1990!

Well, it's not that kind of percentage.  Each decade's census is being compared to the same decade's census a year earlier.  The 1930s could have a 20% increase if the census went from just 2,500 to 3,000, but 500 new slabs wouldn't be anything near 20% of anything besides the 1930s. 

So... unfortunately, it's probably worse than 58% of the books in the pipeline are 1990 and after.

In 2022 (so far, just through early September), the CGC Census is up 20% overall vs. December 2021... and 66% of submissions during 2022 are books from 1990 or newer.

Edited September 9, 2022 by valiantman

[fastballspecial]

Its going to continue upward for now I think. I just finished my second show this year and 
I saw several people actively looking at Silver Age books that they could submit. Seems 
awful risky to me, but who am I to tell someone what to do with their money. 

I did watch some purchase a WWBN 32 at a reasonable price raw at slabbed 8.0 I think. 
Book came back 7.0 I believe when they re-submitted. 

It might have graded lower, but the point was the person thought they could upgrade it.

Edited September 9, 2022 by fastballspecial

[mjoeyoung]

On 9/5/2022 at 8:57 AM, DC# said:

Here are Session 1 and Session 2 results from the Aug/Sept Clink Featured Auction.   A little different format this time as I included comparisons to Last, 90 Day, 12 Mos, and 2021 Avg.   Was really interested in where current sales are relative to 2021.   Was a bit surprised that for a large chunk of books here - the 12 mos average is higher than the 2021 average - would have guessed the opposite.

Volume?  Lower volume may be propping up prices.

[FFB]

On 9/8/2022 at 7:13 PM, Gregd said:

I would just caution you that often the best time to invest is when fear hits the market. Lots of doom and gloom on the boards, which means tip toeing into investing here may be worthwhile. Ten or 20 years from now, will you look at the falling prices and ask “why didn’t I buy then”? 
 

Every big stock sell off I heard why the market was doomed to never hit a record…only to see it set records some time later. 

I completely agree with you.  The next couple of years should provide some excellent buying opportunities on books that will look cheap in 5 to 10 years.  

[mjoeyoung]

On 9/9/2022 at 1:12 PM, FFB said:

I completely agree with you.  The next couple of years should provide some excellent buying opportunities on books that will look cheap in 5 to 10 years.  

Examples? Please name a book or books that you think could be purchased now, or in the next few years, and what you think they could be worth in 5 to 10 years.

[FFB]

On 9/9/2022 at 12:26 PM, mjoeyoung said:

Examples? Please name a book or books that you think could be purchased now, or in the next few years, and what you think they could be worth in 5 to 10 years.

I don't think right now is a good time to be buying bigger books.  I believe we are in the middle of a general downturn that is going to accelerate as the global economy falls into a pretty deep recession, and no one knows how the Federal Reserve and other central banks will act or what will happen to inflation.  Late 2023 and early 2024 are my current guesstimate for when the market will come close to hitting the bottom, but it could be even later than that if there is more global instability from military conflicts in Ukraine, Taiwan, or elsewhere.  All of the sanctions and disruptions to global supply chains will make economic markets very unstable and unpredictable, but what I believe (i.e., my opinion) is that we are headed for a lousy couple/few years in the global economy.  That isn't going to be good for the comic book market in the short or even intermediate term.  

Also, I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't say that this book or that book will be worth X now and 2X or 3X in 5 to 10 years' time.  I've been collecting for almost 50 years, however, and have become pretty familiar with how the comic market behaves when there is an economic downturn.  When the economy is weak, people tend to spend less on comics.  When it is strong, people tend to spend more.  I've always gotten the most bang for my buck when I've bought books during economic downturns.  That's what I expect to happen again as we work through the present situation.