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

[1Cool]

On 10/16/2023 at 9:35 PM, VintageComics said:

I don't hang out with billionaires. Like ever. I was speaking in a general sense. 

I don't disagree that the middle class is hurting. I actually think it's by design, frankly. 

But in every economy when someone is losing money, someone else is making money. Ying / yang. There were trillions pumped into the economy. It had to go somewhere. 

 

I agree with @CAHokie that some chose to use their funds wisely and some chose not to.

So where did all that money go?

It went into the Boomers pockets.  They had all the cool books initially that went up 3x and they sold to the flippers during the spike.  They had the boxes of old sports cards that went for a mint during the unpacking craze.  They had the houses that doubled in a few years.  The free cash was giving to the young and poor and got sucked right into the Boomers accounts.

[LOC Collectibles]

On 10/17/2023 at 5:53 AM, 1Cool said:

It went into the Boomers pockets.  They had all the cool books initially that went up 3x and they sold to the flippers during the spike.  They had the boxes of old sports cards that went for a mint during the unpacking craze.  They had the houses that doubled in a few years.  The free cash was giving to the young and poor and got sucked right into the Boomers accounts.

As they're calling Gen Z lazy and saying how they were able to afford some of the luxuries in life before their early 40's because of their hard work (which was working 9-5 Mon-Fri making $15+/hour in 1980 as their company gave them a 1:1 match for retirement). 🤦‍♂️

[VintageComics]

On 10/17/2023 at 6:53 AM, 1Cool said:

It went into the Boomers pockets.  They had all the cool books initially that went up 3x and they sold to the flippers during the spike.  They had the boxes of old sports cards that went for a mint during the unpacking craze.  They had the houses that doubled in a few years.  The free cash was giving to the young and poor and got sucked right into the Boomers accounts.

The conversation wasn't about where the old money went. It was about where the new money went that was printed over the last 3 years and caused the inflation we're experiencing. 

[atomised]

The problem has been Disney's disastrous handling of the MCU over the last 2-3 years.  The Marvels upcoming film will add to that heap of failure, as it's projected to severely underperform.  Until they right the ship at the cinema and with Disney Plus, we will continue to see softness with most keys.  The economy is always up and down.  This is about Disney failing in every way imaginable post Avengers.  No one cares about these projects, except the last Guardians film.

[Tnexus]

On 10/17/2023 at 8:55 AM, VintageComics said:

The conversation wasn't about where the old money went. It was about where the new money went that was printed over the last 3 years and caused the inflation we're experiencing. 

A lot of companies saw people getting free money and thought, "Great, I want some of that so I'm going to raise prices."

And that's why I'm spending 5k more in health insurance plus rent since pre-covid.

[VintageComics]

On 10/17/2023 at 12:08 PM, atomised said:

The problem has been Disney's disastrous handling of the MCU over the last 2-3 years.  The Marvels upcoming film will add to that heap of failure, as it's projected to severely underperform.  Until they right the ship at the cinema and with Disney Plus, we will continue to see softness with most keys.  The economy is always up and down.  This is about Disney failing in every way imaginable post Avengers.  No one cares about these projects, except the last Guardians film.

Pretty sure Disney is trying to stall while old contracts expire post purchase of FF and X-men franchises, and so they're just shovelling out garbage while waiting.

Unfortunately, they're doing a lot of harm to the industry. I think they thought people wouldn't notice, but people are noticing. 

[1Cool]

On 10/17/2023 at 11:55 AM, VintageComics said:

The conversation wasn't about where the old money went. It was about where the new money went that was printed over the last 3 years and caused the inflation we're experiencing. 

I think they both the same.  You gave people a ton of money that they may not have needed to survive.  They used said funds to drive up collectibles and other items in the hopes of generating more cash or just because they always wanted it.  Prices crash so they lose all the free cash and the older people who originally owned the collectibles are the ones who benefited.

[1Cool]

At least a portion of the money went to the people who sold during the spike.  Another bunch of the free cash went to help people basically work part time and avoid low paying jobs due to their savings.  Those savings appear to have been depleted and I’m see more and more of the part time workers going back to the work force.  Wage increases seem to be plateauing due to this.

[VintageComics]

On 10/17/2023 at 1:30 PM, 1Cool said:

On 10/17/2023 at 11:55 AM, VintageComics said:

The conversation wasn't about where the old money went. It was about where the new money went that was printed over the last 3 years and caused the inflation we're experiencing. 

I think they both the same.  You gave people a ton of money that they may not have needed to survive.  They used said funds to drive up collectibles and other items in the hopes of generating more cash or just because they always wanted it.  Prices crash so they lose all the free cash and the older people who originally owned the collectibles are the ones who benefited.

You're getting mixed up.

We were talking about INFLATION POST 2019 hurting the middle class, caused by the printing and giving away of excess money. Specifically, it was about how much more expensive everything got over the last 2 years. That's a macro discussion on global economics about what's been going on for 2 years..

You're talking about boomers selling their comic collections and affecting the market. That's a micro discussion on hobby economics and it's been going on for 20 years. 

The two are completely different things. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by VintageComics

[rsouxlja7]

If you want to see where a lot of that money went go to this site and put in your zip code: https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/

[darkstar]

On 10/14/2023 at 5:24 PM, VintageComics said:

You're only looking at it from one angle.

Some dealers (and even auction houses) tend to fetch very strong money for their raw grading because they've carved out reputations as being tight graders...and possibly even tighter than CGC. 

THOSE dealers don't need to slab books to sell them. The people buying from them know that they can trust them blindly most of the time.

Then, there are people like me who KNOW how to grade so whether a book is in a CGC holder or raw is irrelvant to me. I grade the book myself regardless of what CGC or the selling dealer sells. 

Finally, there are people who avoid slabbed books and they are a significant portion of the market. Those people will gladly buy a book like this. 

There are probably other perspectives. 

It's really hard to make a sweeping statement when there are so many variables. 

Including a label that at one time may or may not have belonged to the book in question has no impact on the price the book would command at the point of sale.

Ranting about dealers with great reputations getting more money for their raw books is basic knowledge that doesn't even merit one's time and is immaterial to a discussion about the inclusion of an outdated piece of provenance impacting a book's value.

Also it doesn't matter how great a dealer is at grading or how aligned they are with CGC's grading. If you are paying the graded price for a raw book, you overpaid. Grading a book is a value-added service and if it hasn't been done to the book in question, or if it's been negated by de-slabbing the book, you shouldn't be paying for it. 

[CAHokie]

On 10/17/2023 at 1:30 PM, 1Cool said:

I think they both the same.  You gave people a ton of money that they may not have needed to survive.  They used said funds to drive up collectibles and other items in the hopes of generating more cash or just because they always wanted it.  Prices crash so they lose all the free cash and the older people who originally owned the collectibles are the ones who benefited.

Why were people using free money on collectibles during a pandemic? Would have been a great time to save, invest, buy a house, or pay off any debt. 

[LOC Collectibles]

On 10/17/2023 at 3:37 PM, darkstar said:

Including a label that at one time may or may not have belonged to the book in question has no impact on the price the book would command at the point of sale.

Ranting about dealers with great reputations getting more money for their raw books is basic knowledge that doesn't even merit one's time and is immaterial to a discussion about the inclusion of an outdated piece of provenance impacting a book's value.

Also it doesn't matter how great a dealer is at grading or how aligned they are with CGC's grading. If you are paying the graded price for a raw book, you overpaid. Grading a book is a value-added service and if it hasn't been done to the book in question, or if it's been negated by de-slabbing the book, you shouldn't be paying for it. 

Have you ever met anyone that grades for CGC? 

[LOC Collectibles]

On 10/17/2023 at 4:53 PM, CAHokie said:

Why were people using free money on collectibles during a pandemic? Would have been a great time to save, invest, buy a house, or pay off any debt. 

Have you seen home prices recently? Also, have you tried to apply for a home loan lately? Hell, have you tried to apply for any loan lately? Good luck walking into a bank with $5-10k making $50-60k a year on a $416k home (median home cost in America). 

[1Cool]

On 10/17/2023 at 5:53 PM, CAHokie said:

Why were people using free money on collectibles during a pandemic? Would have been a great time to save, invest, buy a house, or pay off any debt.

That would have been smart but I saw way too many people who got into collectible flipping just because it was “hot”.  It was an easy way to avoid harder labor and for a time it was an easy way to make $100 in $300 really easy.  Unfortunately those days may be over for awhile and plenty of people got caught holding the hot potato.  The huge spike in prices came from new money into the hobby but I don’t think they stuck around long.

[CAHokie]

On 10/17/2023 at 7:52 PM, LOC Collectibles said:

Have you seen home prices recently? Also, have you tried to apply for a home loan lately? Hell, have you tried to apply for any loan lately? Good luck walking into a bank with $5-10k making $50-60k a year on a $416k home (median home cost in America). 

I didn’t say buy one now. We were discussing the crazy money spent on comics and cards when home interest rates were 2.5%

[DC#]

Bronze Age Spideys in 9.8 were on fire in tonight's Heritage Auction.     Was watching a few of these myself and the bidding was just non-stop on some - never even got to the time warning until someone finally gave up.    All the below were the 9.8 results.    Some 9.6 copies seemed to be doing well too.    

[AbsoluteCarnage]

On 10/17/2023 at 9:31 PM, DC# said:

Bronze Age Spideys in 9.8 were on fire in tonight's Heritage Auction.     Was watching a few of these myself and the bidding was just non-stop on some - never even got to the time warning until someone finally gave up.    All the below were the 9.8 results.    Some 9.6 copies seemed to be doing well too.    

[AbsoluteCarnage]

Crazy prices indeed ;-)

[DC#]

On 10/17/2023 at 7:58 PM, AbsoluteCarnage said:

I was shocked but actually that price is in line with GPA Last/12 month of 3200 and 2022 avg of 3750.    Had no idea it was selling for as much as a 9.8 #194, 238, or 300.

Edited October 18, 2023 by DC#