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

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 4/15/2023 at 2:27 PM, PopKulture said:

I was thinking the same thing...  

I should have used some smiley emojis or something.  I wasn't trying to be a jerk!

[JollyComics]

On 4/15/2023 at 4:34 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

I should have used some smiley emojis or something.  I wasn't trying to be a jerk!

[mjoeyoung]

On 4/15/2023 at 11:45 AM, DC# said:

 

Tough audience on a Saturday morning    

Without more context this pie chart is of very little use - but it does illustrate that a small percentage of overall transactions at the upper end can represent the majority of the dollars.    In this case books over $2.5k were 2% of transactions but 51% of revenue.  
Sort of aligns to wealth in US where top 1% HHs  hold over a third of total wealth.   Even if you were to isolate only CGC grades books I would imagine the distribution would look very similar.    
 

As an anecdotal observation - I did notice a lot more aggressive bidding in the first 12 hours for the session one books in this months ComicLink Focused Auction as compared to past several CL auctions    The later sessions with the vast numbers of copper and modern are starting with their typical slowness.   

I appreciate the data!  This corresponds well with another data point from the art market article. "In 2022, works that sold for more than $1 million represented 60% of the value of auctions sales, up from 55% in 2019 and 45% a decade ago.  These more expensive works are only a tiny share of what goes under the hammer - 1% of total lots." It would be interesting to compare comic data from the last decade to see if if mirrors the consolidation in the art world.

Here is more from the article:  "The industry's performance is becoming more closely tied to how a small group of around 2,600 billionaires are faring.  In 2020, this cluster increased their wealth by almost a third... This contributed to a surge in sales at the top of the market." 

So lets say something similar happened with comic book collecting.  How many unique people are buying the comics that are above $2.5K?  How much of the buying power is concentrated in a relatively small group of people?  How many are new investors that will now move on to more lucrative assets?  Have they already?

[MAR1979]

On 4/12/2023 at 5:59 PM, jcjames said:

Quite impressive.

In order to break Denny McLain's wins-in-a-season record, someone needs to win 32 games... when most starters don't even set foot on the mound for more than 25 games/season anymore. 

 

 

I do get the point but a Nitpick - Modern win per season records are:

AL Jack Chesbro 41
NL Christy Mathewson 37

 

[jcjames]

On 4/15/2023 at 3:48 PM, MAR1979 said:

I do get the point but a Nitpick - Modern win per season records are:

AL Jack Chesbro 41
NL Christy Mathewson 37

 

I also get your point, but another Nitpick - what years constitute the "Modern era" may be up for debate. Some point to 1900, some point to 1920, or even as late as the end of WWII, as the start of the "modern era". 

 

 

[Microchip]

On 4/11/2023 at 10:03 PM, EastEnd1 said:

Just to add a little "color" to your point which I agree with...

The 1980-82 recession saw the emergence of the direct market and rapid proliferation of comic book shops across the country.

The 1990-91 recession saw exploding comic book circulation figures.

The 2001 recession saw the emergence of standardized comic book grading (ie CGC) and a surging of back issue pricing.

The 2008-09 great recession saw no significant drop in back issue pricing (though graded comic pricing had retreated in the years prior as census figures grew)

The 2020 "Covid" recession saw a previously unheard of skyrocketing in back issue prices.

I'd also add that the comic book industry itself emerged during the ACTUAL DEPRESSION and ascended into its "golden age" during the most tragic war the world has ever seen.

 

Like the superheros it birthed, our "little" hobby has shown itself to be quite resilient and will be fine for some time to come 

 

Which one of these scenario impact's do you expect to playout over 2023-24, a repeat similar to 2008-09, or something different again?

For my money (excuse the pun), the emergence of global digital coins, as a paradigm shift, and threat to un-monitored conveyancing, will play heavily into the comics market, and any other easily transportable, transferable, non-digital, high value commodity.  

 

[EastEnd1]

On 4/15/2023 at 9:36 PM, Microchip said:

Which one of these scenario impact's do you expect to playout over 2023-24, a repeat similar to 2008-09, or something different again?

For my money (excuse the pun), the emergence of global digital coins, as a paradigm shift, and threat to un-monitored conveyancing, will play heavily into the comics market, and any other easily transportable, transferable, non-digital, high value commodity.  

 

For me, I think we're seeing something akin to 2001 when CGC emerged.  New investors (eg, coinees) came into the market, the true rarity of high grade material was nebulous, and back issue prices rose quickly and exponentially to unseen levels... sound familiar?  The biggest difference between then and now is that the price increases in the early 2000s were across the board, whereas the recent bubble was largely limited to keys and semi-keys (and because of that limitation, you saw the hyper-identification of a lot more keys and semi-keys!).  When the bubble burst in the mid-2000s after people started to realize that there was a lot more high grade than previously thought (exacerbated by the emerging pressing industry) and that with the burgeoning internet it was a lot easier to acquire it, you saw pretty much everything retreat.  But how much an item retreated depended on quality and rarity.  Run books retreated the most, and to a large extent have still not recovered.  Uber-keys retreated less, stabilized, and continued their march upward.  Semi-keys fell out somewhere in between.  I think we're going to see something similar over the next few years, except that in the near term, the main driver of recovery will be rarity rather than quality.  We're seeing that with Golden Age and PCH for instance.  For everything else, there's simply too much availability (ie, "supply") these days to allow for a quick recovery... Heritage is running THREE auctions a week now (in addition to Showcase auctions and more frequent Signature auctions), ComicLink monthly auctions are running 200+ pages, etc.  I've actually given up trying to stay on top of all the auctions, which I previously followed very closely.  Having said that, the ship will right itself... I'm seeing that the quality has declined in recent auctions for instance as collectors choose to hold on to their quality rather than risk selling in a "down" market.  And that will eventually have an effect on prices and demand.  Personally, I'm back to doing some selective buying these days... strikes me as a good time for it.  And I'm a "holder" and as such, have no fears at all of what my collection will be worth in five or ten years.  I am very confident that it will be more than today.  History says so.          

Edited April 16, 2023 by EastEnd1

[Brock]

On 4/16/2023 at 10:01 AM, EastEnd1 said:

For me, I think we're seeing something akin to 2001 when CGC emerged.  New investors (eg, coinees) came into the market, the true rarity of high grade material was nebulous, and back issue prices rose quickly and exponentially to unseen levels... sound familiar?  The biggest difference between then and now is that the price increases in the early 2000s were across the board, whereas the recent bubble was largely limited to keys and semi-keys (and because of that limitation, you saw the hyper-identification of a lot more keys and semi-keys!).  When the bubble burst in the mid-2000s after people started to realize that there was a lot more high grade than previously thought (exacerbated by the emerging pressing industry) and that with the burgeoning internet it was a lot easier to acquire it, you saw pretty much everything retreat.  But how much an item retreated depended on quality and rarity.  Run books retreated the most, and to a large extent have still not recovered.  Uber-keys retreated less, stabilized, and continued their march upward.  Semi-keys fell out somewhere in between.  I think we're going to see something similar over the next few years, except that in the near term, the main driver of recovery will be rarity rather than quality.  We're seeing that with Golden Age and PCH for instance.  For everything else, there's simply too much availability (ie, "supply") these days to allow for a quick recovery... Heritage is running THREE auctions a week now (in addition to Showcase auctions and more frequent Signature auctions), ComicLink monthly auctions are running 200+ pages, etc.  I've actually given up trying to follow all the auctions, which I previously followed very closely.  Having said that, the ship will right itself... I'm seeing that the quality has declined in recent auctions for instance as collectors choose to hold on to their quality rather than risk selling in a "down" market.  And that will eventually have an effect on prices and demand.  Personally, I'm back to doing some selective buying these days... strikes me as a good time for it.  And I'm a "holder" and as such, have no fears at all of what my collection will be worth in five or ten years.  I am very confident that it will be more than today.  History says so.          

This is a great post... well argued and reasonable. You definitely have me thinking!

[mjoeyoung]

On 4/16/2023 at 8:01 AM, EastEnd1 said:

For me, I think we're seeing something akin to 2001 when CGC emerged.  New investors (eg, coinees) came into the market, the true rarity of high grade material was nebulous, and back issue prices rose quickly and exponentially to unseen levels... sound familiar?  The biggest difference between then and now is that the price increases in the early 2000s were across the board, whereas the recent bubble was largely limited to keys and semi-keys (and because of that limitation, you saw the hyper-identification of a lot more keys and semi-keys!).  When the bubble burst in the mid-2000s after people started to realize that there was a lot more high grade than previously thought (exacerbated by the emerging pressing industry) and that with the burgeoning internet it was a lot easier to acquire it, you saw pretty much everything retreat.  But how much an item retreated depended on quality and rarity.  Run books retreated the most, and to a large extent have still not recovered.  Uber-keys retreated less, stabilized, and continued their march upward.  Semi-keys fell out somewhere in between.  I think we're going to see something similar over the next few years, except that in the near term, the main driver of recovery will be rarity rather than quality.  We're seeing that with Golden Age and PCH for instance.  For everything else, there's simply too much availability (ie, "supply") these days to allow for a quick recovery... Heritage is running THREE auctions a week now (in addition to Showcase auctions and more frequent Signature auctions), ComicLink monthly auctions are running 200+ pages, etc.  I've actually given up trying to stay on top of all the auctions, which I previously followed very closely.  Having said that, the ship will right itself... I'm seeing that the quality has declined in recent auctions for instance as collectors choose to hold on to their quality rather than risk selling in a "down" market.  And that will eventually have an effect on prices and demand.  Personally, I'm back to doing some selective buying these days... strikes me as a good time for it.  And I'm a "holder" and as such, have no fears at all of what my collection will be worth in five or ten years.  I am very confident that it will be more than today.  History says so.          

I don't know if we will see any kind of short term "recovery" to 2021 prices.  I think it needs to be viewed as the bubble that it was.

I believe I'm seeing some value slippage in GA and PCH, at least in the lower graded books where I make most of my purchases.  I have won a few books, over the last month or so, that I was not expecting.  Some of the seeming "frenzy" has disappeared.   I think people may be realizing that though these books are not common, low grade copies of non-key books are not impossible to find.

I don't think the market has completely shaken out all the speculating and "investing" yet.  There has to be a group of people that are "HODLing" their speculative bubble purchases in the hope that values will go back up.  Eventually these people will cut their losses.

If you are a long time collector looking to sell, this is still a great time!  Sale prices only look bad if you compare them to the bubble period.  I think if you told collectors in 2017 what the values would be in 2023 they would be ecstatic.  The low sale of Incredible Hulk #181 in 9.0 was $825 in 2002 and then $2678 in 2017.  Lowest sale this year is $8250.  So 300%+ growth in 15 years vs. 300%+ growth in 5 years.  If you can ignore 2021/22 then it is a time for 

[troydivision1]

Continued tracking of my 50 piece personal collection's value for insurance purposes.
I am utilizing eBay sold items (with auctions taking priority over buy-it-now) to determine FMV.

January to February          1.94% decrease
February to March             4.25% increase
March to April                    0.82% increase

[mjoeyoung]

Accidently posted this in another thread, meant to post it here. 

I've seen a few more articles like this one recently (though this one is a bit old, it is a bit more comprehensive):

Nearly half of young adults in the US are living at home with their parents, and all that saved rent is fueling a luxury boom

Since covid, it seems that about half of people aged 18-29, 26.6 million people, are living with their parents.  That is a level not seen since the Great Depression. Some are seeing it as a long term living situation.

This seems to be a continuation of a longer term trend.  Multi-generational households were once more common in the United States. Census data shows that almost 25 percent of households were multi-generational in 1940 and that the percentage decreased to a low of about 12 percent in 1980.  That number has since increased every census to 20% in 2018, with a big bump during the Great Recession.  It could be that all of these children that moved back home during covid will never move out. 

A survey of these parents stated that THEY, not their kids, are paying for rent, groceries and even vacations for their children.   So what are these children doing with their money?  They aren't saving it. According to Morgan Stanley they are purchasing luxury goods.  Another report said that Gen Y and Z accounted for all the growth of the luxury market in 2022.  Comic books aren't luxury goods, but collecting comics is definitely a discretionary expenditure.

It would be interesting to do a survey to see how many comic buyers are part of this trend, and if they are spending what would have been rent/mortgage/grocery money on comics instead.

[wolflad]

On 4/11/2023 at 7:03 AM, EastEnd1 said:

Just to add a little "color" to your point which I agree with...

The 1980-82 recession saw the emergence of the direct market and rapid proliferation of comic book shops across the country.

The 1990-91 recession saw exploding comic book circulation figures.

The 2001 recession saw the emergence of standardized comic book grading (ie CGC) and a surging of back issue pricing.

The 2008-09 great recession saw no significant drop in back issue pricing (though graded comic pricing had retreated in the years prior as census figures grew)

The 2020 "Covid" recession saw a previously unheard of skyrocketing in back issue prices.

I'd also add that the comic book industry itself emerged during the ACTUAL DEPRESSION and ascended into its "golden age" during the most tragic war the world has ever seen.

 

Like the superheros it birthed, our "little" hobby has shown itself to be quite resilient and will be fine for some time to come 

 

My thesis (I'll revisit this post in ~20 years ):

Bronze age books and prior will be the mainstay stores of value due to being harder to come by in better conditions. Copper/Modern age books will have more nostalgia factors going for them with future collectors (are many 75-90 year olds buying Golden age books based on nostalgia?), than say Golden/Silver age books, but we'll never really see anything like the ultra-high prices of the Golden/Silver age come about in Modern comic books. The scarcity just isn't going to be there for anything post-1980s. Print run numbers increased, direct sales, variant crazes, etc. On top that, at least to my understanding, it was around the Bronze age era that we saw the rise of common preservation techniques (bags, then boards) and collectors' really started thinking about future value. I surmise most Golden age, and to a large extent, Silver age books at the time of sale were seen as something to cram in a desk after reading, toss away or use to kindle the fireplace wood. That makes them scarce along with general loss d/t the passage of time. I don't see that happening with most Moderns, even in another 30 years. Too many are museum quality preserved from the start.

[Nick Furious]

On 4/23/2023 at 5:23 PM, mjoeyoung said:

A survey of these parents stated that THEY, not their kids, are paying for rent, groceries and even vacations for their children.   So what are these children doing with their money?

They spend it on Postmates and Uber Eats.  $12 coffees and $35 lunches.  

[jimhopkins82]

On 4/23/2023 at 5:23 PM, mjoeyoung said:

Accidently posted this in another thread, meant to post it here. 

I've seen a few more articles like this one recently (though this one is a bit old, it is a bit more comprehensive):

Nearly half of young adults in the US are living at home with their parents, and all that saved rent is fueling a luxury boom

Since covid, it seems that about half of people aged 18-29, 26.6 million people, are living with their parents.  That is a level not seen since the Great Depression. Some are seeing it as a long term living situation.

This seems to be a continuation of a longer term trend.  Multi-generational households were once more common in the United States. Census data shows that almost 25 percent of households were multi-generational in 1940 and that the percentage decreased to a low of about 12 percent in 1980.  That number has since increased every census to 20% in 2018, with a big bump during the Great Recession.  It could be that all of these children that moved back home during covid will never move out. 

A survey of these parents stated that THEY, not their kids, are paying for rent, groceries and even vacations for their children.   So what are these children doing with their money?  They aren't saving it. According to Morgan Stanley they are purchasing luxury goods.  Another report said that Gen Y and Z accounted for all the growth of the luxury market in 2022.  Comic books aren't luxury goods, but collecting comics is definitely a discretionary expenditure.

It would be interesting to do a survey to see how many comic buyers are part of this trend, and if they are spending what would have been rent/mortgage/grocery money on comics instead.

I think a large part of the younger generation has given up on being homeowners.  I live in a LCOL area, bought my first house in 2013 for 93,500, it’s currently worth 209,000.  The house I own now has gone up 50%+ in value in less than 3 years and I have an mortgage rate half of what it is now.  If I was 10 years younger I’d probably be in the same boat.  

[DC#]

On 4/10/2023 at 8:17 AM, DC# said:

This is a crazy sale.  +50% above current GPA and trounced all time high of $6k.    Some funky bidding there at the end.    
 

Heritage closed a 9.8 OW/W copy yesterday for $4000 less than the Ow/W EBay copy.    Much more in line with GPA trends.     Will likely do a small recap of this past weeks Heritage sales as a pulse check while awaiting ComicLink Session 1 to close.   I still can’t tell if Heritages new 3-day format is impacting results.

 

[Sweet Lou 14]

9.8 OW/W 

[BraveDave]

So much of this was predictable (and predicted) when you can step back and look at the market with a wider lens.

Many collectibles / assets skyrocketed. It wasn’t a “comics” thing but a macro, cash flow, activity-substitute thing.  That said, within the multiple “bubble” markets there were pockets that attracted hyper-speculative behavior. In comics it was all about Marvel and the MCU. The price unwinds we see today are in those same categories. The same folks that kept saying not to bet against “House of the Mouse” or that Marvel would keep putting out magic and somehow comic prices should follow each flash-in-pan character appearance.  Similarly, on the back-end, anyone worried about the demise of the asset class is overreacting. Coins as a collectible class has been “outdated” for decades. Record prices are still reached. Fine art - just try buying originals (truly unique, though often not nearly as culturally impactful as comic issues) or even limited prints (often in five or six figures, again with generally less durable cultural impact).

The key is to avoid over-extrapolating any short-term trend. Up or down. Short-term is relative but for most “long-term” investor/collectors is measured in years, not weeks or months.

 

[mjoeyoung]

On 4/26/2023 at 2:56 PM, BraveDave said:

So much of this was predictable (and predicted) when you can step back and look at the market with a wider lens.

Many collectibles / assets skyrocketed. It wasn’t a “comics” thing but a macro, cash flow, activity-substitute thing.  That said, within the multiple “bubble” markets there were pockets that attracted hyper-speculative behavior. In comics it was all about Marvel and the MCU. The price unwinds we see today are in those same categories. The same folks that kept saying not to bet against “House of the Mouse” or that Marvel would keep putting out magic and somehow comic prices should follow each flash-in-pan character appearance.  Similarly, on the back-end, anyone worried about the demise of the asset class is overreacting. Coins as a collectible class has been “outdated” for decades. Record prices are still reached. Fine art - just try buying originals (truly unique, though often not nearly as culturally impactful as comic issues) or even limited prints (often in five or six figures, again with generally less durable cultural impact).

The key is to avoid over-extrapolating any short-term trend. Up or down. Short-term is relative but for most “long-term” investor/collectors is measured in years, not weeks or months.

 

I don't think anyone here has argued that comic collecting is going the way of the dodo.  Or stamp collecting.  Or Lionel train collecting.  I do not see it happening in the foreseeable future, but it could happen.  A friend of mine had a stamp collection that was once appraised at $500K.  When everything was eventually sold in 2017 the proceeds were $35K.

That is the question: What is short-term?  My opinion is that the entire bubble from about 2019 to now is a short term trend that will revert back to the mean.  Some people seem to think only the current decrease in prices is the short term trend.  It all depends on where you draw the line on IH #181 9.0.  Choose your trend.

 

 

[BraveDave]

I may not be the right person to ask about IH181 but I think it is one of the most overvalued books out there. This is even after the recent decline of about 50% from peak.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2023 by BraveDave

[mjoeyoung]

I just picked that one as a popular example.  Just about every comic, in every grade on the GPA has a similar chart.