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

[MyNameIsLegion]

The market dipped a bit due to the Great Recession, which had a tremendous macro-economic impact on collecting, but pandemic buying and easy money fueled a whole other level of tulip-mania. These things never end well, and when they end, they end with greater finality than just a cyclical turn. this may not be 1982 stamp collecting level Armageddon, in part because the comics are the pop-culture engine. However, what CGC has done to the hobby has it parallels. The manufactured collectibility of a plastic case sporting a label and a number is backed only by the faith and interest of those willing to buy it. Little, if anything printed in the last 50 years is genuinely rare, including the subset that has been slabbed which only goes up, and suddenly your high census copy is average, and priced accordingly. 

We are also entering the twilight of the boomer impact on pop-culture, the WW2 generation has largely passed. Comics are an artifact of their era. They created it all. Gen-X is the last generation to remember spinner racks, and cheap plastic super-hero Halloween masks at the grocery store.  Just as Radio shows, comic strips, train-sets, pulps, westerns, have faded out, comics too have a finite lifespan. The MCU was the pinnacle of all our boyhood fantasies, to see what we could only dream of leap off the page of newsprint and onto a 4K high def screen. And then, like with most things, it became routine, repetitive, commonplace, and the last several years of movies, despite being cooped up during the pandemic, audience are largely...bored. The bulk of the population under 45 doesn't especially care about comics. They don't buy, read,slab and store them with the same fervor older generations would be inclined to. Sure, some here defy the odds, but you don't change the odds. They will never, ever match what previous generations felt, because their experience was very different growing up. They will gravitate towards those Pokemon cards, or some game system.

The majority of boomers are in their 70's, their stuff is going to flood all levels of resale and collecting. Much of it, stored away in their McMansions, garages, and storage units will not be absorbed by their children and grandchildren. They don't want it, can't store it, won't use it.  I know this from experience, having spent the last few years winding down my parents, grandparents, and now in-laws houses and estates.  Most of it went in the trash or was donated or given away. You need a set of wedding china? How about 4? The market will ultimately be awash in comics. Supply will exceed demand. that's just the way it is. It's just math, and math don't care about anyone's feelings or opinions or anecdotal experience.  

Edited August 14, 2023 by MyNameIsLegion

[wiparker824]

On 8/13/2023 at 9:04 AM, Stefan_W said:

I think ASM 300 is one of the books with a lot of room to drop. Prior to the pandemic I used to regularly buy 9.4 CGC graded copies for less than the hammer price on your 9.2. 

I see ASM 300 as a special case that does not necessarily represent other books from that era. When it came out everyone knew it was going to be an important book and people loaded up on copies. I remember my local comic book shop had order sheets out where people could request whatever number of copies they wanted. People were buying up 5, 10, 20, or whatever copies, and then they read one and put the rest away. There are gads of very high grade copies of this book as a result. 

The same book in the same grade just sold on eBay yesterday for $700, or $276 higher than I just paid. I don’t disagree it was cheaper in 2019 - as were pretty much every book from every era, and it very well will go down if the market as a whole continues to fall but I think this particular sale was more an anomaly of CL than a trend, at least from what I’ve seen in recent sales lately. 

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

On 8/13/2023 at 12:04 PM, Stefan_W said:

I think ASM 300 is one of the books with a lot of room to drop. Prior to the pandemic I used to regularly buy 9.4 CGC graded copies for less than the hammer price on your 9.2. 

I see ASM 300 as a special case that does not necessarily represent other books from that era. When it came out everyone knew it was going to be an important book and people loaded up on copies. I remember my local comic book shop had order sheets out where people could request whatever number of copies they wanted. People were buying up 5, 10, 20, or whatever copies, and then they read one and put the rest away. There are gads of very high grade copies of this book as a result. 

I also recall, for example, folks at Sunshine Comics and A&M Comics, both in Miami, FL, buying A S-M 300 by the proverbial truckload and 301 and on at lower numbers but still relatively huge amounts. Do those folks still have those copies? If they do, will they ever grade them and, if they do, what grade may they be? If any of them are like me, you, etc., these comic books were carefully stored since purchase and many (what may be considered many) are bound to be very high grade.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Oops, wrong forum. How many graded 9.8 or higher copies of A S-M 300 does it take for prices to "tank?" What is/will be considered a tanking price for it? Will it ever, per se, tank?

[mycomicshop]

ASM 300 for me is a good illustration of the difference between a seller's market book and a buyer's market book.

A buyer's market book = lots of available supply, multiple copies available for sale at any given time on eBay, MCS, etc. A buyer can afford to miss out on any given copy because there's another one available elsewhere, or at least another one is likely to be listed somewhere pretty soon if not right at this very moment. A buyer's market book can still be very popular, it's just that there's a lot of supply even when there's a lot of demand.

A seller's market book = relatively scarce. Doesn't come up for sale that often, either at all, or in higher grade. If an interested buyer misses out on a given listing, they might either need to wait a long time for the next one, or pay a relatively high asking price for one of the few/only available listings.

 

With buyer's market books, there will be a consistent trend when aggregating over multiple results:
- auction sales will tend to pull down the GPA average
- BIN sales will tend to pull up the GPA average

Any given single auction can certainly violate that--it's not that rare for an auction to end up above the GPA average, and auctions can sometimes end up going for more than an equivalent BIN listing that was just sitting out there available for purchase the whole time the auction was running. But those events are less common than the opposite case.

This is because with a buyer's market book
- The "market value" is pretty clearly understood by everybody since there's so much recent sales data.
- The cheapest available alternative is readily available and visible, tending to put a cap on how much auctions will go for.
- There's a greater chance that the top bid ends up coming from somebody who intends to flip the book for a profit rather than hold it in their collection. Those buyers will not go as high as full GPA market value.

In contrast, with a scarcer seller's market book
- Sales don't happen that often and not much density of recent sales results, so there's a broader range of what constitutes realistic market value.
- There is no readily available alternative to purchase, or if there is, it may be priced at the high end or well above what most buyers would consider realistic market value.
- The winning bidder is more likely to arise from among people who want the book for their collection rather than resale, and so are willing to pay what they consider full market value. Or, if dealers/flippers are in the running for those books, they're willing to pay "full market value" in auction knowing that they can turn around and sell it as BIN (online, at a convention, retail setting) for a further 10-20%+ more.

 

 

In my opinion, the rule of thumb that BIN sales tend to pull up the market average, and auction sales tend to pull down the market average, is true for both buyer's market books and seller's market books. But, it's much more pronounced, and more obviously visible, with buyer's market books like ASM 300. I'm not claiming it's a universal rule, just an average trend. And there are definitely cream of the crop books, very rare gotta jump on them when they appear, that will do great in auction when competitive juices start flowing and could end up going for more than if a single potential buyer were soberly debating pulling the trigger on a high asking price for a BIN listing.

[zzutak]

I think Conan's characterization is pretty spot on.    However, I'm not sure most of Lone Star's consignors (who own the yellow-block specimens shown below) have accepted the new reality of a non-0% interest rate environment.

Many of the folks looking to move the once extremely flippable Marvel mega-keys, keys, minor keys, and micro-keys apparently still think it's a "seller's market" -- even though GPA prices on this material are generally down 30~40% (or more) from the Spring 2022 highs.  No savvy buyer is biting on their ridiculous BIN listings, and they simply can't afford to risk losing their shirts by offering this material via no reserve auctions.

Hoping for an ill-informed, impatient, or money-is-no-object buyer has never been one of my personal selling strategies.  

[mycomicshop]

On 8/14/2023 at 1:07 PM, zzutak said:

I think Conan's characterization is pretty spot on.    However, I'm not sure most of Lone Star's consignors (who own the yellow-block specimens shown below) have accepted the new reality of a non-0% interest rate environment.

Many of the folks looking to move the once extremely flippable Marvel mega-keys, keys, minor keys, and micro-keys apparently still think it's a "seller's market" -- even though GPA prices on this material are generally down 30~40% (or more) from the Spring 2022 highs.  No savvy buyer is biting on their ridiculous BIN listings, and they simply can't afford to risk losing their shirts by offering this material via no reserve auctions.

Hoping for an ill-informed, impatient, or money-is-no-object buyer has never been one of my personal selling strategies.  

 

I agree you can find plenty of consigned books we're listing that are posted at prices that are too high. One thing I'd caution whenever anybody mentions overpriced consignment listings is to be aware of survivorship bias. BIN listings that are priced fairly to market tend to move quickly, and once they're purchased they're not there to be seen. What's left is the accumulated unsold overpriced listings that can give a distorted view making it look like EVERYTHING is priced too high. 

It's something we as a company can definitely improve on, and are working our way toward--adding mechanisms to encourage consignors to price more reasonably, and probably also worth making some changes so that items that are clearly overpriced and common are maybe not even visible on MCS or posted to eBay, since they are very unlikely to sell and create negative feelings in buyers.

[Ryan.]

On 8/14/2023 at 4:09 PM, mycomicshop said:

probably also worth making some changes so that items that are clearly overpriced and common are maybe not even visible on MCS or posted to eBay,

[zzutak]

Spot on, as usual.  I should note that I began buying mail order way back in the late-1970s, when the Comic Buyer's Guide (CBG) was a big deal.  Buddy Saunders / Lone Star was one of my very favorite sellers.  An amazing inventory, tight grading, and fair pricing -- I never hesitated to buy one of his/their books "sight unseen."    I don't do much buying anymore, but I still think MCS is one of the very best sources for vintage paper. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by zzutak

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 8/14/2023 at 12:24 PM, mycomicshop said:

ASM 300 for me is a good illustration of the difference between a seller's market book and a buyer's market book.

A buyer's market book = lots of available supply, multiple copies available for sale at any given time on eBay, MCS, etc. A buyer can afford to miss out on any given copy because there's another one available elsewhere, or at least another one is likely to be listed somewhere pretty soon if not right at this very moment. A buyer's market book can still be very popular, it's just that there's a lot of supply even when there's a lot of demand.

A seller's market book = relatively scarce. Doesn't come up for sale that often, either at all, or in higher grade. If an interested buyer misses out on a given listing, they might either need to wait a long time for the next one, or pay a relatively high asking price for one of the few/only available listings.

 

With buyer's market books, there will be a consistent trend when aggregating over multiple results:
- auction sales will tend to pull down the GPA average
- BIN sales will tend to pull up the GPA average

Any given single auction can certainly violate that--it's not that rare for an auction to end up above the GPA average, and auctions can sometimes end up going for more than an equivalent BIN listing that was just sitting out there available for purchase the whole time the auction was running. But those events are less common than the opposite case.

This is because with a buyer's market book
- The "market value" is pretty clearly understood by everybody since there's so much recent sales data.
- The cheapest available alternative is readily available and visible, tending to put a cap on how much auctions will go for.
- There's a greater chance that the top bid ends up coming from somebody who intends to flip the book for a profit rather than hold it in their collection. Those buyers will not go as high as full GPA market value.

In contrast, with a scarcer seller's market book
- Sales don't happen that often and not much density of recent sales results, so there's a broader range of what constitutes realistic market value.
- There is no readily available alternative to purchase, or if there is, it may be priced at the high end or well above what most buyers would consider realistic market value.
- The winning bidder is more likely to arise from among people who want the book for their collection rather than resale, and so are willing to pay what they consider full market value. Or, if dealers/flippers are in the running for those books, they're willing to pay "full market value" in auction knowing that they can turn around and sell it as BIN (online, at a convention, retail setting) for a further 10-20%+ more.

 

 

In my opinion, the rule of thumb that BIN sales tend to pull up the market average, and auction sales tend to pull down the market average, is true for both buyer's market books and seller's market books. But, it's much more pronounced, and more obviously visible, with buyer's market books like ASM 300. I'm not claiming it's a universal rule, just an average trend. And there are definitely cream of the crop books, very rare gotta jump on them when they appear, that will do great in auction when competitive juices start flowing and could end up going for more than if a single potential buyer were soberly debating pulling the trigger on a high asking price for a BIN listing.

This is a very helpful distinction and an excellent analysis.  Of course I know you have tons of data to back up the patterns you've observed.

In the case of my personal collection, I bought my 9.8 WP copy of ASM #300 at a time when the price was holding very steady at around $2,000.  I don't recall how long the price remained so stable, but I remember observing it and realizing that I could be super picky about finding a copy that was centered just so (there are people who obsess about the precise placement of all the "300s" on the cover, so I figured I might as well find a copy that would pass such scrutiny).

That said, my collection also includes a lot of what you're calling "seller's market" books -- in some cases, the copy I bought (or won at auction) is the only one in grade that came to market, to my knowledge, since I started looking for high-grade CGC books in 2017.  Here's just one example:

In my experience, books like this are most likely to surface on one of the big three auction sites, two of which (including the one where I got this book) have an auction format that's specifically designed to keep the bidding going until every last dollar is squeezed out.  All it takes is two motivated bidders for a book like this to blow away whatever "FMV" is quoted on GoCollect or GPA, and because of their scarcity in grade the published FMVs are based on very few data points and therefore all the more likely to be tossed out by the bidders.

All of this is to say, I think the auction format, particularly the back-and-forth auction format, usually pulls the market up for truly rare books.  In fact, it can even do so for much more common books -- though the higher the census figure for a book, the more commonly I see buyers treating those results as outliers and staying patient for more affordable copies.

[mycomicshop]

On 8/14/2023 at 5:31 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

This is a very helpful distinction and an excellent analysis.  Of course I know you have tons of data to back up the patterns you've observed.

In the case of my personal collection, I bought my 9.8 WP copy of ASM #300 at a time when the price was holding very steady at around $2,000.  I don't recall how long the price remained so stable, but I remember observing it and realizing that I could be super picky about finding a copy that was centered just so (there are people who obsess about the precise placement of all the "300s" on the cover, so I figured I might as well find a copy that would pass such scrutiny).

That said, my collection also includes a lot of what you're calling "seller's market" books -- in some cases, the copy I bought (or won at auction) is the only one in grade that came to market, to my knowledge, since I started looking for high-grade CGC books in 2017.  Here's just one example:

In my experience, books like this are most likely to surface on one of the big three auction sites, two of which (including the one where I got this book) have an auction format that's specifically designed to keep the bidding going until every last dollar is squeezed out.  All it takes is two motivated bidders for a book like this to blow away whatever "FMV" is quoted on GoCollect or GPA, and because of their scarcity in grade the published FMVs are based on very few data points and therefore all the more likely to be tossed out by the bidders.

All of this is to say, I think the auction format, particularly the back-and-forth auction format, usually pulls the market up for truly rare books.  In fact, it can even do so for much more common books -- though the higher the census figure for a book, the more commonly I see buyers treating those results as outliers and staying patient for more affordable copies.

 

To me, FMV is always a *current* value, not something anchored to the last time a sale happened, if that sale was long ago and/or the market has moved significantly since then. GoCollect may report an FMV, but I don't use GoCollect. GPA doesn't quote a FMV, it just reports sales that happened at specific dates. For high dollar books I look at the underlying GPA data and construct my own idea of current FMV, which is what I think most people do.

For example, if I was looking at this book in June of 2022,  before the Nov 2022 $26.4K sale in 9.4 happened, this is how I would estimate FMV for a 9.4:

- Prices for silver age Marvel keys and big books have gone up significantly from 2020 to 2022, so prices before 2020 are obviously not representative of current FMV

- The last sale I see for 9.4 is $9K in 2019, and before that $9560 and $12,250 both in 2015. All three of those sales are well before the run-up, so not great proxies for FMV as-is.

- What's the closest comparable book that does have recent sales? Looking one grade down to 9.2, I see a $9K sale in Jan 2022. That $9K amount is 2x to 2.5x what the previous sales were in the 2012-2015 timeframe, so as a rough estimate of current FMV for a 9.4 in summer 2022, I would multiply those $9K-12K sales from 2015 and 2019 by 2x to 2.5x to arrive at a general ballpark area of what I'd consider current FMV for a 9.4 in summer 2022, giving a range of around $18K to $30K. Big range, but still more accurate than assuming that current FMV is equal to the amount of the last 9.4 sale, the $9K sale in 2019.

My point is that, in my opinion, auction and BIN are both very capable of pulling the market up for truly rare books, as long as the person pricing the BIN prices intelligently and doesn't just stick to a poor conception of FMV based on sales results too old to be relevant. It's primarily the upward movement of the market itself doing the work, and the choice of listing format, auction or BIN, is secondary. Both are capable of reflecting the gains coming from higher demand for a scarce item and an upward moving market.

Edited August 15, 2023 by mycomicshop

[mycomicshop]

With

On 8/14/2023 at 5:31 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

This is a very helpful distinction and an excellent analysis.  Of course I know you have tons of data to back up the patterns you've observed.

In the case of my personal collection, I bought my 9.8 WP copy of ASM #300 at a time when the price was holding very steady at around $2,000.  I don't recall how long the price remained so stable, but I remember observing it and realizing that I could be super picky about finding a copy that was centered just so (there are people who obsess about the precise placement of all the "300s" on the cover, so I figured I might as well find a copy that would pass such scrutiny).

That said, my collection also includes a lot of what you're calling "seller's market" books -- in some cases, the copy I bought (or won at auction) is the only one in grade that came to market, to my knowledge, since I started looking for high-grade CGC books in 2017.  Here's just one example:

 

In my experience, books like this are most likely to surface on one of the big three auction sites, two of which (including the one where I got this book) have an auction format that's specifically designed to keep the bidding going until every last dollar is squeezed out.  All it takes is two motivated bidders for a book like this to blow away whatever "FMV" is quoted on GoCollect or GPA, and because of their scarcity in grade the published FMVs are based on very few data points and therefore all the more likely to be tossed out by the bidders.

All of this is to say, I think the auction format, particularly the back-and-forth auction format, usually pulls the market up for truly rare books.  In fact, it can even do so for much more common books -- though the higher the census figure for a book, the more commonly I see buyers treating those results as outliers and staying patient for more affordable copies.

With a little further thought, I get your point about the strengths of an auction for a book like JIM 89 CGC 9.4 and agree with it. Auction provides a nice incremental permission structure for the bidders to give each other confidence about each next step pushing the bid higher. In 2022, obviously the 9.4 should have sold for a lot more than the 2019 $9K sale, but how much more? My mental math FMV estimate range of $18K to $30K leaves a lot of wiggle room. I can see it being much easier for a bidder to feel comfortable taking the next step to bid $26K when somebody else has already bid it up to $25.5K, than it would be for one potential BIN purchaser in isolation to pull the trigger on a $26K purchase when the last previous sale was $9K, even with the market obviously moving up a lot since then.

[Mijael.Levy]

On 8/13/2023 at 10:16 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

The market dipped a bit due to the Great Recession, which had a tremendous macro-economic impact on collecting, but pandemic buying and easy money fueled a whole other level of tulip-mania. These things never end well, and when they end, they end with greater finality than just a cyclical turn. this may not be 1982 stamp collecting level Armageddon, in part because the comics are the pop-culture engine. However, what CGC has done to the hobby has it parallels. The manufactured collectibility of a plastic case sporting a label and a number is backed only by the faith and interest of those willing to buy it. Little, if anything printed in the last 50 years is genuinely rare, including the subset that has been slabbed which only goes up, and suddenly your high census copy is average, and priced accordingly. 

We are also entering the twilight of the boomer impact on pop-culture, the WW2 generation has largely passed. Comics are an artifact of their era. They created it all. Gen-X is the last generation to remember spinner racks, and cheap plastic super-hero Halloween masks at the grocery store.  Just as Radio shows, comic strips, train-sets, pulps, westerns, have faded out, comics too have a finite lifespan. The MCU was the pinnacle of all our boyhood fantasies, to see what we could only dream of leap off the page of newsprint and onto a 4K high def screen. And then, like with most things, it became routine, repetitive, commonplace, and the last several years of movies, despite being cooped up during the pandemic, audience are largely...bored. The bulk of the population under 45 doesn't especially care about comics. They don't buy, read,slab and store them with the same fervor older generations would be inclined to. Sure, some here defy the odds, but you don't change the odds. They will never, ever match what previous generations felt, because their experience was very different growing up. They will gravitate towards those Pokemon cards, or some game system.

The majority of boomers are in their 70's, their stuff is going to flood all levels of resale and collecting. Much of it, stored away in their McMansions, garages, and storage units will not be absorbed by their children and grandchildren. They don't want it, can't store it, won't use it.  I know this from experience, having spent the last few years winding down my parents, grandparents, and now in-laws houses and estates.  Most of it went in the trash or was donated or given away. You need a set of wedding china? How about 4? The market will ultimately be awash in comics. Supply will exceed demand. that's just the way it is. It's just math, and math don't care about anyone's feelings or opinions or anecdotal experience.  

Marvel totally ruined the super heroes movies . they paid expensive actors and they spent a lot of money on visual effects but they forgot to get good directors and good writers.

 

[JTLarsen]

On 8/14/2023 at 4:09 PM, mycomicshop said:

I agree you can find plenty of consigned books we're listing that are posted at prices that are too high. One thing I'd caution whenever anybody mentions overpriced consignment listings is to be aware of survivorship bias. BIN listings that are priced fairly to market tend to move quickly, and once they're purchased they're not there to be seen. What's left is the accumulated unsold overpriced listings that can give a distorted view making it look like EVERYTHING is priced too high. 

It's something we as a company can definitely improve on, and are working our way toward--adding mechanisms to encourage consignors to price more reasonably, and probably also worth making some changes so that items that are clearly overpriced and common are maybe not even visible on MCS or posted to eBay, since they are very unlikely to sell and create negative feelings in buyers.

Thanks for this. I think it would be a great benefit to everyone if you also added sales histories to your already amazing wealth of information about every book…

[southern cross]

I still get out bid at auctions.

Original romance comic art from early 70s. 5 pages all going for between $80-$170 with buyers premium. The page I wanted was out bid, I had $280 and it went for $10 over then add buyers premium. Then there are other books I end up losing too or get a FMV and they are 9.2 run books. Maybe it's just my luck

Price the pages are going for, the one page I actually bid on and lost to the next bid

That's how auction always work for me.

Bright side I got the seller more money

🤪

Edited August 16, 2023 by southern cross

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 8/15/2023 at 9:46 PM, southern cross said:

I still get out bid at auctions.

Original romance comic art from early 70s. 5 pages all going for between $80-$170 with buyers premium. The page I wanted was out bid, I had $280 and it went for $10 over then add buyers premium. Then there are other books I end up losing too or get a FMV and they are 9.2 run books. Maybe it's just my luck

 

Price the pages are going for, the one page I actually bid on and lost to the next bid

 

That's how auction always work for me.

Bright side I got the seller more money

🤪

OA is a different story. It's the ultimate one of a kind, truly unique collectible. Every page of comic art, from Action 1 to the books that came out last week (assuming they're not digitally penciled and/or inked) are equal in that regard. Granted, one may be harder to find relative to another, one may be more desirable than another and fetch a premium. last week a Nick Cardy B&B page went for over 20K, that probably the FMV was $1500 tops. But 2 guys felt otherwise for some esoteric reason that probably has to do with the current OA market manipulation of hyping birth pages and first appearances. Seasoned OA collectors scoff at this- but it's a direct result of the bleed-over of comic collector/speculators that have run out of ways to manufacture rarity and scarcity in the slabbing racket. Pedigree labels, registry sets, SS, old labels, new labels, event labels. You know what the difference is between a 9.8 Iron Man #1 Pedigree and a some other label contrivance? Not a thing. Nada. Zilch. Well that's not true, the difference is the price premium some sucker paid for it purely for that label, CGC started as a 3rd party grading service and morphed into selling labels with different colors and serial numbers and words to create the illusion of uniqueness for items printed in the hundreds of thousands, millions even.  Those intending to make money off that will argue this. Those that have spent money on it, they will argue this even more vociferously. Such is the nature of cognitive dissonance.

A this stage in my collecting/buying/selling journey, I've come to admire the market efficiency of the MCS system, and I'm content to send it all there, RAW and let the chips fall where they may. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by MyNameIsLegion

[rlextherobot]

One thing I noted at a show I was vending at this week - many dealers and hobbyist sellers have been very slow to adjust their prices post-pandemic. Several people made a point of telling me that they thought most prices on most books at the show were outrageous, and they had bought less than they expected simply because they knew they could get books cheaper online. Additionally, it was my .50, $1 and $3 bins that got the most action all show long, a trend I confirmed with a few other folks who were selling. Big books just weren't moving, either because they were overpriced, or people don't have the disposable income for them. 

I'm just breaking in as a hobbyist seller, but I think my focus for the foreseeable future is going to be bringing a lot of cheaper comics, sets and trade paperbacks. 

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 8/14/2023 at 2:07 PM, zzutak said:

Hoping for an ill-informed, impatient, or money-is-no-object buyer has never been one of my personal selling strategies.  

How about an extremely well-informed, impatient, money-is-no-object buyer?  Try as I might not to be that guy, sometimes I am.  

All kidding aside, the auction format is far more likely to get irrational behavior out of me, partly because of the intense time pressure but also because I'm not thinking about the unreasonable BIN price and reminding myself "I don't want to let that guy get away with this."  Instead, I'm only thinking about potential competing bids.

[Stefan_W]

On 8/16/2023 at 3:46 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

All kidding aside, the auction format is far more likely to get irrational behavior out of me, partly because of the intense time pressure but also because I'm not thinking about the unreasonable BIN price and reminding myself "I don't want to let that guy get away with this."  Instead, I'm only thinking about potential competing bids.

Thinking about this, I would add that there is sometimes a cumulative effect where if I lose a few books I really want in a row I get frustrated and end up over bidding for one later in the auction. This has happened a few times to me, but one that stands out is I was trying to nab a few books along with an X-Men 50 at a CL auction during the comic boom. I kept missing out on everything so right near the end of the auction I put in a crazy bid for a 9.2 copy and it ended up making Comic Tom's list that week (see attached image of the sale). That is definitely not a list I ever wanted to be on.

To add one more dimension to that story, I sold a ton of books that were previously very low value at that auction. For example, a couple of Star Wars books that I had in my bins priced at $5 each were spiking so I sent them in through CL and ended up with 9.8 on both, which represented $1500 in seed cash after CL took their 10%. I felt like money had no value at that auction because I fed books into it that I probably paid less than $200 in total for and ended up with thousands in credit to spend. The trouble was that everything was going high and I had a hard time spending it. Anyway, long story short even though I made Comic Ton's list with a crazy high buying price the context is I had very little actual cash invested in the purchase. When I kept striking out on books I wanted more it meant nothing to me at the time that I overpaid for this one. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Stefan_W

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 8/16/2023 at 4:00 PM, Stefan_W said:

Thinking about this, I would add that there is sometimes a cumulative effect where if I lose a few books I really want in a row I get frustrated and end up over bidding for one later in the auction. This has happened a few times to me, but one that stands out is I was trying to nab a few books along with an X-Men 50 at a CL auction during the comic boom. I kept missing out on everything so right near the end of the auction I put in a crazy bid for a 9.2 copy and it ended up making Comic Tom's list that week (see attached image of the sale). That is definitely not a list I ever wanted to be on.

To add one more dimension to that story, I sold a ton of books that were previously very low value at that auction. For example, a couple of Star Wars books that I had in my bins priced at $5 each were spiking so I sent them in through CL and ended up with 9.8 on both, which represented $1500 in seed cash after CL took their 10%. I felt like money had no value at that auction because I fed books into it that I probably paid less than $200 in total for and ended up with thousands in credit to spend. The trouble was that everything was going high and I had a hard time spending it. Anyway, long story short even though I made Comic Ton's list with a crazy high buying price the context is I had very little actual cash invested in the purchase. When I kept striking out on books I wanted more it meant nothing to me at the time that I overpaid for this one. 

Awesome story and I totally relate.  I've set a couple of records that look like overpays but actually look much smarter when considering that I sold undercopies of those same books in the same market, leaving me with a net investment in those upgraded copies that is still a good deal even at today's prices.

I've also made plenty of less impressive moves, don't get me wrong ... 

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 8/16/2023 at 9:53 AM, october said:

Not all comics are readily available. Not even close.

Try putting together a set of Centaurs, Fox, Ace, MLJ or Cheslers. Some come up every 3-4 years...if you are lucky. There are plenty of issues that likely exist as low double digit populations.

I think there is a distinction to be made of scarcity versus demand here, expanding on my earlier post about a flood of comics coming onto market as boomers age out. Iron Man #1 is common as dirt, as all late 60s and on books are. The number of Centaurs are genuinely rare, but the current owners of all known and unknown copies are also going to be part of the great flood. There may be some books that exit in the low double digits, but so too are the number of parties interested in them in 10-15 years.  Millennial's do not care about Centaurs, Fox, Ace, MLJ or Cheslers, hell as a Gen-Xer I don't really care either, and I would not sink money in them in ten years because I'd never break even on them. You can impart and influence a level of interest in the generation behind you, but not nostalgia, and that influence drops like a rock to the grandkids. They will like Centaurs, Fox, Ace, MLJ or Cheslers even less than you like Pokemon, Dragonball-Z, or Minecraft.