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

[KCOComics]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:23 PM, Telegan said:

Among things I've noticed is that if you take the numbers at face-value, you may be doing a disservice to the pricing (and yourself).  A lot of those massively-down comics are from the Silver Age or later, had speculative run-ups based upon movies, tv shows, etc. and had peak prices in 2021 or 2022.

When I try to come up with a good price for these, I almost always "disregard" 2021-2022 (and some of 2020, as well) pricing.  Again, that's just me.  It's like saying a stock was a $1000+ stock during the dotcom bubble and is now trading at $8, so now is the time to get in because... you just know it's got to go back up.  When I'm looking to buy something from that era, I'm looking to see what it was selling for pre-2020 and how close it is to the prices around then.

On that note, Golden Age seems to be a different beast (I'm speaking somewhat anecdotally).  GA comics seem to have either gone down a bit, held steady, or skyrocketed in some cases (again, generally speaking).  I think GA has been a bit of a refuge for some collectors trying to escape the sell-off in other eras and has also seen a taking-to by "new" collectors.

Even when you study the GA books in the green, they are being compared to peak prices from many years ago. 

Not to discount that some books, like the Mask 1 and 2 and early Superman are doing well. But I think the picture is pretty grim for all genres at this point.... 

The only saving grace seems to be, when I bid on a book.... those books are always in the green. 

[Telegan]

On 9/2/2023 at 10:35 PM, KCOComics said:

Even when you study the GA books in the green, they are being compared to peak prices from many years ago. 

Not to discount that some books, like the Mask 1 and 2 and early Superman are doing well. But I think the picture is pretty grim for all genres at this point.... 

The only saving grace seems to be, when I bid on a book.... those books are always in the green. 

In some cases you're probably right, and I agree, but I don't see the age-wide decimation of prices post-boom.  For example a GA book could go down 10-15% whereas I see keys, non-keys, etc. of SA books getting destroyed from their highs by 30-60%.  As with everything else, there are exceptions to all this.  Much of this has to do with most GA books not skyrocketing based upon the speculation so many SA and Modern books seem to have gone through.

That being said, I'm going to say that only the books I bid on don't tank.  I never win them and they never fall in price.  I've got proof!

[Nick Furious]

On 9/2/2023 at 10:35 PM, KCOComics said:

The only saving grace seems to be, when I bid on a book.... those books are always in the green.

You are the One.  The One that the Oracles prophesied will save us from this one day.  Just give us a heads up on what you will be bidding on in the future please.  

[Nick Furious]

On 9/2/2023 at 10:41 PM, Telegan said:

I'm going to say that only the books I bid on don't tank.  I never win them and they never fall in price.  I've got proof!

You are also the One!  See above ^.

[KCOComics]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:41 PM, Telegan said:

In some cases you're probably right, and I agree, but I don't see the age-wide decimation of prices post-boom.  For example a GA book could go down 10-15% whereas I see keys, non-keys, etc. of SA books getting destroyed from their highs by 30-60%.  As with everything else, there are exceptions to all this.  Much of this has to do with most GA books not skyrocketing based upon the speculation so many SA and Modern books seem to have gone through.

That being said, I'm going to say that only the books I bid on don't tank.  I never win them and they never fall in price.  I've got proof!

100% agree. 

There is more stability in GA and it seems high grade SA and BA.

[KCOComics]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:43 PM, Nick Furious said:

You are the One.  The One that the Oracles prophesied will save us from this one day.  Just give us a heads up on what you will be bidding on in the future please.  

The only books I really bid on at auction are high grade BA horror. And I haven't won an auction in some time.  For SA keys and GA I usually buy here, locally or through dealers.... not usually auctions. 

During the pandemic when superheros were getting all the hype, I felt like a lot of deals on BA Horror.   Now it seems like books that were $100 a few years ago are $200 - $400 today.  It really makes it hard to finish the run I've been working on for years. 

[COI]

On 9/1/2023 at 11:39 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

This is an honest request for someone to explain DD #131 to me.

 

 

So the market is apparently saying that a 9.8 is worth more than 6 times a 9.6?  I just don't get it.  There are 110 9.8 copies in the census, so it's not exactly rare, and while Bullseye is a good character he's not exactly A-list and he's already been used in the old Ben Affleck movie.  I'm really struggling to understand why this book is going for such high prices, which is why I've stayed on the sidelines and refused to upgrade my 9.6.

Basically I'm saying that if it were possible to "short" a comic, I'd be looking hard at this one.  I just cannot justify the going rate on this book and I can't see myself ever paying more than $3,000 max for a 9.8.

That is, unless someone can make a convincing case that I should.  What am I missing here?

You can take out DD 131 as a variable and replace it with many other keys or even non-keys, and you'll find the same spread between 9.6s and 9.8s. Sometimes it's $100 for a 9.6 and $600 in a 9.8 for run fillers, and sometimes it's $100K vs $20K for something like Hulk 181. 

So as egregious as sales like this might seem, they're consistent insofar as some portion of the market go HAM for 9.8s. In this hobby, 9.8 has become symbolic of "the best", even when it's not the best. And there's some number of people who value that symbolic representation enough to regularly pursue it to the tune of 3x-10x the 9.6 price, and for those people the 9.6 isn't even an option.

I think it's easier and more useful to apply this sort of generalization to sales like this, than it is to try to understand it book by book, sale by sale. 

[Telegan]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:13 PM, KCOComics said:

The only books I really bid on at auction are high grade BA horror. And I haven't won an auction in some time.  For SA keys and GA I usually buy here, locally or through dealers.... not usually auctions. 

During the pandemic when superheros were getting all the hype, I felt like a lot of deals on BA Horror.   Now it seems like books that were $100 a few years ago are $200 - $400 today.  It really makes it hard to finish the run I've been working on for years. 

Yeah, BA horror was something I wanted to get into, but prices on that stuff already went up by the time I noticed.  I had given up on Modern and been almost completely GA/PCH when I started dipping my toes back into SA and BA.  That's when I noticed the BA horror stuff and took a liking to them since I love PCH stuff.  By that time the prices had taken off.

[JTLarsen]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:56 AM, KCOComics said:

Not sure I understand the personal attack.  

Lou collects differently than I do. But I've read most of what he's written in this thread and in others.  

He's never come off like he lacks perspective and I've appreciated his perspective on the market and collecting in general.  

It seems unnecessary. 

This wasn’t a personal attack.

[toro]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:23 PM, Telegan said:

Among things I've noticed is that if you take the numbers at face-value, you may be doing a disservice to the pricing (and yourself).  A lot of those massively-down comics are from the Silver Age or later, had speculative run-ups based upon movies, tv shows, etc. and had peak prices in 2021 or 2022.

When I try to come up with a good price for these, I almost always "disregard" 2021-2022 (and some of 2020, as well) pricing.  Again, that's just me.  It's like saying a stock was a $1000+ stock during the dotcom bubble and is now trading at $8, so now is the time to get in because... you just know it's got to go back up.  When I'm looking to buy something from that era, I'm looking to see what it was selling for pre-2020 and how close it is to the prices around then.

On that note, Golden Age seems to be a different beast (I'm speaking somewhat anecdotally).  GA comics seem to have either gone down a bit, held steady, or skyrocketed in some cases (again, generally speaking).  I think GA has been a bit of a refuge for some collectors trying to escape the sell-off in other eras and has also seen a taking-to by "new" collectors.

I look at GA as more your Blue Chip stocks, Exon-Mobile, Microsoft, IBM.  They may not skyrocket, but they seem to hold steady with a little fluctuation up and down.

[lou_fine]

On 9/1/2023 at 8:39 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

So the market is apparently saying that a 9.8 is worth more than 6 times a 9.6?  I just don't get it. 

 

On 9/2/2023 at 10:07 PM, COI said:

You can take out DD 131 as a variable and replace it with many other keys or even non-keys, and you'll find the same spread between 9.6s and 9.8s. Sometimes it's $100 for a 9.6 and $600 in a 9.8 for run fillers, and sometimes it's $100K vs $20K for something like Hulk 181. 

So as egregious as sales like this might seem, they're consistent insofar as some portion of the market go HAM for 9.8s. In this hobby, 9.8 has become symbolic of "the best", even when it's not the best. And there's some number of people who value that symbolic representation enough to regularly pursue it to the tune of 3x-10x the 9.6 price, and for those people the 9.6 isn't even an option.

I think it's easier and more useful to apply this sort of generalization to sales like this, than it is to try to understand it book by book, sale by sale. 

So, if what you are saying is true, then we should have no problem at all to see this CGC 9.8 highest graded copy of this book here hit 6-figures (let alone getting anywhere even close to $200K), especially  considering that a CGC 9.6 second highest graded copy at the time had sold for a rather astounding $31,111 back in 2018:    

https://comics.ha.com/itm/silver-age-1956-1969-/superhero/marvel-super-heroes-13-marvel-1968-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/7341-92183.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

Must still be a steal at a current hammer of only $9,750 with still another 10 days to go and my thinking is that it might even have a tough time beating the $31K price point that the 9.6 copy hit back in 2018 and definitely worth watching.      

Edited September 3, 2023 by lou_fine

[VintageComics]

On 9/2/2023 at 10:03 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

On 9/2/2023 at 6:44 PM, DC# said:

Here is a recap of Session 1 of the ComicLink auction.    Given that so many of these books don't change hands that often - I altered my recap to look at comparison vs 12 Mos Avg (and still most books don't have sales) as well as peak sale.    As others have stated, might be hard to draw conclusions about overall state of market given the rarity of some of the items.     Anyway.....hope you find it interesting. 

 

Expand  

The ranges on these are astonishing.  So many deltas in the red to the tune of over 50%, even 70% ... and a surprising number in the green selling for 3, 5, 10+ times peak.  Thank you as always for putting in so much effort.

While I fully appreciate DC#'s work, these snap shots in time are very hard to put into perspective. 

A graph over a larger timeline would be much more valuable and insightful. 

People need to start looking at sales numbers historically for a given book rather than the last few data points. That will give people far more insight into what's happening. 

[COI]

On 9/3/2023 at 3:21 PM, lou_fine said:

 

So, if what you are saying is true, then we should have no problem at all to see this CGC 9.8 highest graded copy of this book here hit 6-figures (let alone getting anywhere even close to $200K), especially  considering that a CGC 9.6 second highest graded copy at the time had sold for a rather astounding $31,111 back in 2018:    

https://comics.ha.com/itm/silver-age-1956-1969-/superhero/marvel-super-heroes-13-marvel-1968-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/7341-92183.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

Must still be a steal at a current hammer of only $9,750 with still another 10 days to go and my thinking is that it might even have a tough time beating the $31K price point that the 9.6 copy hit back in 2018 and definitely worth watching.      

You can observe the spread between 9.6 and 9.8 frequently hit those multiples, but that doesn't mean every 9.8 hits it. Far from it. My point was that it happens frequently enough that it shouldn't be surprising. 

[DC#]

On 9/3/2023 at 12:22 PM, VintageComics said:

While I fully appreciate DC#'s work, these snap shots in time are very hard to put into perspective. 

A graph over a larger timeline would be much more valuable and insightful. 

People need to start looking at sales numbers historically for a given book rather than the last few data points. That will give people far more insight into what's happening. 

No doubt.  Looking at full picture in GPA is very helpful while pursuing specific books.   
 

Wondering aloud here without actually going back through the CL data I have compiled for nearly two years now - have the Clink auction results actually been a leading indicator?   Have they proceeded the declines that then show up in the month(s) that followed on EBay, etc?   Especially in the average silver, bronze, copper and modern books.   And if that is the case, will they continue as leading indicator if prices turn?    I wasn’t watching closely during the boom days to know how out in front Clink might have been vs other GPA contributors 

[Microchip]

On 9/4/2023 at 5:22 AM, VintageComics said:

While I fully appreciate DC#'s work, these snap shots in time are very hard to put into perspective. 

A graph over a larger timeline would be much more valuable and insightful. 

People need to start looking at sales numbers historically for a given book rather than the last few data points. That will give people far more insight into what's happening. 

Ditto, I appreciate DC's work immensely, but it's worth noting there are large number of books not included in his Clink auction result summations.   Books that need to be compared to results outside of the Clink.

Tracking results across platforms is large job, and even GPA only reflect a certain portion of the market.   

There are still a lot of books (non keys) that I've seen still consistently performing, and out performing 2021/2022.    But we do need to be looking from at least 2019 through to 2023 for some books, to really see what is happening.

 

 

[VintageComics]

On 9/3/2023 at 7:29 PM, Microchip said:

But we do need to be looking from at least 2019 through to 2023 for some books, to really see what is happening.

Yup. Prices are always rising and dropping. 

At this point, we all know 2021 was a bubble and comparing prices to the height of the bubble is kind of pointless in the context of this discussion. 

 

 

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 9/3/2023 at 4:48 PM, DC# said:

No doubt.  Looking at full picture in GPA is very helpful while pursuing specific books.   
 

Wondering aloud here without actually going back through the CL data I have compiled for nearly two years now - have the Clink auction results actually been a leading indicator?   Have they proceeded the declines that then show up in the month(s) that followed on EBay, etc?   Especially in the average silver, bronze, copper and modern books.   And if that is the case, will they continue as leading indicator if prices turn?    I wasn’t watching closely during the boom days to know how out in front Clink might have been vs other GPA contributors 

I suppose you might be able to set up some formulas that track to same book over time to see if successive Clink sales were above or below previous clink sales relative to the GPA, Peak etc. Would take a little work, but I think you have a lot of data here to mine, and I find it very fascinating to read. I appreciate you sharing it, and wanted to say so publicly to contrast some  less useful comments from dealers who'd rather ignore this data.  I have them on ignore, but when I see them quoted it reaffirms why I'm ignoring them. 

[jimjum12]

On 9/3/2023 at 3:22 PM, VintageComics said:

While I fully appreciate DC#'s work, these snap shots in time are very hard to put into perspective. 

A graph over a larger timeline would be much more valuable and insightful. 

People need to start looking at sales numbers historically for a given book rather than the last few data points. That will give people far more insight into what's happening. 

Yes ...looking at the high AND the low will tell a much more accurate story. There are often a LOT of both in recent spans. It's a shame we can't create a factor that can be applied that addresses the ABSENCE of data, i.e. Comiclink, private sales, etc. We're missing too much data to really be looking at absolutes. GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[comicartfan]

On 9/3/2023 at 1:22 AM, Telegan said:

Yeah, BA horror was something I wanted to get into, but prices on that stuff already went up by the time I noticed.  I had given up on Modern and been almost completely GA/PCH when I started dipping my toes back into SA and BA.  That's when I noticed the BA horror stuff and took a liking to them since I love PCH stuff.  By that time the prices had taken off.

I am in the same boat. I noticed how prices are rising on BA horror when I started getting bored with super hero titles. The Wrightson and Adams stuff was always on people's radar, but now it's having the ripple effect. 

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 9/4/2023 at 8:22 AM, comicartfan said:

I am in the same boat. I noticed how prices are rising on BA horror when I started getting bored with super hero titles. The Wrightson and Adams stuff was always on people's radar, but now it's having the ripple effect. 

I had an easier time finding the original art versus the actual Bronze age marvel horror mags at SDCC in the early 2000's. I mean seriously, scouring the entire convention to find issues of Vampire Tales and Tales of the Zombie etc.