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

[kmfbaloo]

On 8/13/2023 at 1:27 PM, Pantodude said:

Sometimes you need to just stop and take a good look around, smell the roses.  Collectors are lucky to have a source of fun that is not a consumable, but rather a true asset (alternative or not!) that persists for unlimited enjoyment.  And to this day, at least over longer terms, true vintage comics remain a good investment vehicle to boot.  Even attributing a modest valuation to that enjoyment (presumably across many books and for however many years), I expect many books would have paid for themselves (or at least made having them well worth the venture in light of even current valuations).  I hope it's not about a particular book in a vacuum.  I hope most are experiencing the breadth and depth of the experience that is this hobby, and that has real value.  Although difficult to quantify, enjoyment of the hobby should put market volatility in its proper place.  Hopefully.  

Agree!

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 8/20/2023 at 2:48 PM, kmfbaloo said:

What does it mean "onto registry"? Are those graded and for sale?

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 8/20/2023 at 2:56 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

On 8/20/2023 at 2:48 PM, kmfbaloo said:

What does it mean "onto registry"? Are those graded and for sale?

and while I'm at it, and because it is a "useful tool", cgccomics.com home page can take you to the census, which will show approximately how many slabs of each particular issue there are  

[kmfbaloo]

On 8/14/2023 at 9:24 AM, 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.

Great post

[kmfbaloo]

On 8/20/2023 at 12:59 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

and while I'm at it, and because it is a "useful tool", cgccomics.com home page can take you to the census, which will show approximately how many slabs of each particular issue there are  

Thanks, appreciate in the info!

[kmfbaloo]

On 8/20/2023 at 12:59 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

and while I'm at it, and because it is a "useful tool", cgccomics.com home page can take you to the census, which will show approximately how many slabs of each particular issue there are  

Thanks, appreciate in the info!

[Microchip]

On 8/20/2023 at 10:43 PM, Ryan. said:

I have 3 books in this current auction. One ended Friday at pretty much exactly what I figured it would. I have to remind myself there are no fees so I'll come out a little ahead on the sale. Hoping for the same on the other two.

Of the books I bid on I feel like the hammer prices were fairly strong.

The 'ease' seems to be fairly specific so far.  The mid-grade super keys have slumped, but then they seem to be some of most fluctuating prices around.   It's just a matter of time before the rollercoaster start climbing again for them.

Looking at the latest Clink auction, bidders are coming in strong again from the get go.

 

[Nick Furious]

I'm skeptical of some of the Collectors Comics auction results with its zero-fee structure.  The consequences of shill bidding and winning your own auction are pretty much zero.  At least with other auctions you have to pay a decent amount if you win your own auction.  With the CC auction there is absolutely no financial reason not to shill-bid your books to a desired minimum or a desired outcome for the public to see.  

[Microchip]

On 8/21/2023 at 5:48 AM, kmfbaloo said:

What does it mean "onto registry"? Are those graded and for sale?

My bad, I loaded my set of Wolverine books on to the CGC registry.

People can reach out to members there and ask if their book(s) are for sale.   It's happened numerous times to me over the years.  

[kmfbaloo]

On 8/20/2023 at 2:17 PM, Microchip said:

My bad, I loaded my set of Wolverine books on to the CGC registry.

People can reach out to members there and ask if their book(s) are for sale.   It's happened numerous times to me over the years.  

Thanks for the reply!

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 8/20/2023 at 12:48 PM, Randall Dowling said:

100% this.  When it comes to actually scarce material that only shows up very rarely, the market for that book is extremely immature and erratic.  You'll see a massive sale followed by a crazy bargain.  It's the nature of such books because they often have relatively small, but dedicated, collector base.  They aren't looking at all venues at the same time.  And when one acquires a copy, they're usually out of the market when the next copy comes up.  So price instability is just a part of the deal.

When I see a book that I've identified as being cool and rare, and I've been looking for it for years, when I see a copy show up, more often than not, I'll put up, what is to me, a closeout bid.  And shockingly, about half the time, I still lose.  Obviously, my definition of what a "closeout bid" is, was wrong for that particular book. 

Such is life, regret usually follows.  But that's the nature of such books.  For me, it's part of the thrill of collecting them. 

No regrets!  Collect what you love and love what you collect!

[Lazyboy]

On 8/20/2023 at 10:09 AM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

CPV?

He means Canadian Newsstand editions.

[kmfbaloo]

On 8/20/2023 at 2:59 PM, valiantman said:

@Get Marwood & I already posted a video about it, but what age of comics are we talking about?

Before 1976, I believe only a Whitman logo could identify a direct edition (non-returnable) comic book. All other comics would have been newsstand, with or without a barcode. The is no need to identify "newsstand" on books that only had one method of distribution (only one edition/version).

I was just speaking generally by looking at comics across different ages and noticing a difference

[Ryan.]

On 8/20/2023 at 5:14 PM, Nick Furious said:

I'm skeptical of some of the Collectors Comics auction results with its zero-fee structure.  The consequences of shill bidding and winning your own auction are pretty much zero.  At least with other auctions you have to pay a decent amount if you win your own auction.  With the CC auction there is absolutely no financial reason not to shill-bid your books to a desired minimum or a desired outcome for the public to see.  

I wish someone shill bid one of my books, which just set a GPA low.

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

As is obvious to all (or most), and to state the very obvious (and has been stated on these boards countless times), some folks who can afford to spend relatively unlimited funds on comic books do so and some do not. Some folks who can't afford to do so, do so by perhaps using a credit card, while some of the latter stay strictly within their budget.

Arguably, the lower or higher the relative price of issue X, compared to it previous costs, makes a difference to both groups: they can purchase more or fewer books, but likely less so to the first.

[lou_fine]

On 8/19/2023 at 7:39 AM, DC# said:

It would be really interesting to see the market analysis Blackstone used in their purchase of CGC.   Granted, private equity rarely is concerned with the really long game but would still be interesting to see what their thesis of collecting and the comic market was.

Not sure if this is just a typo on your part here or if you are working on the incorrect assumption that many boardies seem to have here with regards to this Blackstone purchase?  

What Blackstone purchased at a value of some $500M was CCG which is made up of seven subsidary companies under their ownership umbrella, of which CGC is only one of these seven companies.  Anything to do with the CGC portion and the comic book market was probably nothing more than an afterthought to Blackstone as the CGC side of their operations is only a small fractional part of the whole CCG group operations.  Especially since the biggest part of their entire operations by far is really about the dreary and boring coins and numismatic side of their business.  If anything, with the entertainers like Jay Z and the sports personality linkages that were also invloved in the purchase, my bet is that they were more interested in the then still untapped potential for them of the card grading business.  Especially with all of the flashy buzz and hype at the time about NFT's and million dollar sports cards and as such, the purchase probably didn't really focus that much on the comic books per se.    

For us boardies here, we always think that it's always all about the comic books, but for big investment companies like Blackstone and their partners, probably not so much since the CGC comic book side was really only a fractional portion of the entire CCG purchase.  Heck, for comparison purposesand in perspective, although they brought a majority control of CCG which valued the company at over $500M, they followed this up a few short weeks later with a similar type of majority purchase in Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine media and production company which valued her company at about $900M or almost double the value of CCG.  

Edited August 21, 2023 by lou_fine

[DC#]

On 8/21/2023 at 7:35 AM, lou_fine said:

Not sure if this is just a typo on your part here or if you are working on the incorrect assumption that many boardies seem to have here with regards to this Blackstone purchase?  

What Blackstone purchased at a value of some $500M was CCG which is made up of seven subsidary companies under their ownership umbrella, of which CGC is only one of these seven companies.  Anything to do with the CGC portion and the comic book market was probably nothing more than an afterthought to Blackstone as the CGC side of their operations is only a small fractional part of the whole CCG group operations.  Especially since the biggest part of their entire operations by far is really about the dreary and boring coins and numismatic side of their business.  If anything, with the entertainers like Jay Z and the sports personality linkages that were also invloved in the purchase, my bet is that they were more interested in the then still untapped potential for them of the card grading business.  Especially with all of the flashy buzz and hype at the time about NFT's and million dollar sports cards and as such, the purchase probably didn't really focus that much on the comic books per se.    

For us boardies here, we always think that it's always all about the comic books, but for big investment companies like Blackstone and their partners, probably not so much since the CGC comic book side was really only a fractional portion of the entire CCG purchase.  Heck, for comparison purposes, although they brought a majority control of CCG which valued the company at over $500M, they followed this up a few short weeks later with a similar type of majority purchase in Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine which valued her company at about $900M or almost double the value of CCG.  

Not a typo and I am aware of the totality of their purchase.    My point, based on several friends that work in the world of private equity, is that Blackstone did some analysis of the markets in which CGC operates including comic books, cards, coins, etc.   I am sure that analysis went a little deeper by market based on revenue mix for CGC and likely also sized overall collectibles market both domestic and international.   They need to know where the growth is, what businesses they should push the operational teams to exit or revamp, and which portions of the business they could combine with other assets they own or could purchase at a later time.     Their analysis could have very well told them that they needed to exit comic books because it is too labor, cost, or resource intensive (lower margins) and/or that the market sizing revealed it was in a secular decline.    Doesn't seem to be the case but only they know.   

And Hello Sunshine purchase was part of Blackstone's on-going investment in Candle Media which has been acquiring multiple media assets including the widely successful CocoMelon franchise.     They way overpaid for Sunshine.    

[dikran]

So I ended up doing ok on Collector Comics. Didn't set any GPA records (high or low) but well within reason for the batch of ''not great'' books I had sent them to liquidate. Their site & search engine definitely needs some work though.

[Tom789]

I think these links are an interesting juxtaposition regarding raw vs. graded prices these days.  The first is a raw ASM #41 graded at F- (5.5) by Heritage. The second, in the very next auction, is of a CGC 5.5 ASM #41.  The raw book outsold the graded by $48.  The graded was more than $100 lower than my price guide (GoCollect) estimate.  The first book has a somewhat better eye appeal IMO, but I don't understand how a raw book, especially one not held in hand, can go for that much higher than a slab in the same grade.

The Amazing Spider-Man #41 (Marvel, 1966) Condition: FN-.... Silver | Lot #15246 | Heritage Auctions (ha.com)

The Amazing Spider-Man #41 (Marvel, 1966) CGC FN- 5.5 Off-white to | Lot #15247 | Heritage Auctions (ha.com)

 

[lizards2]

On 8/21/2023 at 5:07 PM, Tom789 said:

I think these links are an interesting juxtaposition regarding raw vs. graded prices these days.  The first is a raw ASM #41 graded at F- (5.5) by Heritage. The second, in the very next auction, is of a CGC 5.5 ASM #41.  The raw book outsold the graded by $48.  The graded was more than $100 lower than my price guide (GoCollect) estimate.  The first book has a somewhat better eye appeal IMO, but I don't understand how a raw book, especially one not held in hand, can go for that much higher than a slab in the same grade.

The Amazing Spider-Man #41 (Marvel, 1966) Condition: FN-.... Silver | Lot #15246 | Heritage Auctions (ha.com)

The Amazing Spider-Man #41 (Marvel, 1966) CGC FN- 5.5 Off-white to | Lot #15247 | Heritage Auctions (ha.com)

 

Because with the slabbed copy, there is little hope.