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

[COI]

On 12/5/2023 at 2:25 AM, kimik said:

If they are cashing out now they waited too long and missed the Covid/Crypto/Sportscardbros fueled peak, but they should still do very well if the books were purchased pre-2019.

If the owner is who I think it is, they've had it for 20+ years. 

[kimik]

On 12/3/2023 at 8:50 PM, COI said:

The market isn't some monolithic thing that you can encapsulate with some perfect set of books or data; it's heavily segmented. Just the fact that we're sticking to certified books here ignores probably 80% or more of comic sales. Sales data is best used to track the prices on individual books at specific grades, mostly certified to get some sort of consistency; collecting data on a range of books and trying to draw a conclusion about the market as a whole just doesn't work, because there are too many books and too many variables surrounding those books. Even when you're talking individual books at specific grades, there are other variables like the venue they're sold in, page quality/eye appeal, etc. And when you get books that trade only a few times a year or even less frequently than that, you can't really conclude much of anything about "the market". 

That said, I still like looking at data, and I appreciate everyone's efforts at compiling it here. 

Data I would love to have is how much of the market is buying for the long term vs the short term, but that would be impossible to gather. I tend to be less concerned with prices falling as I am with how often books trade hands. It's telling to me that there has already been enough turnover on the Promise Collection to track 1 million in losses. If you want long term health, you want to see as much 'buying for keeps' as possible. 

I am not concerned when you see short term spec buyers get hit by buying at the peak and then having to sell shortly after. We saw similar things happen in 2009-2010. I can't recall his name, but there was the one person that had bought a ton of beautiful GA pedigrees at top market value and had to liquidate them at a huge loss. Had he been able to hold for a couple of years he would have come out ahead, and if he had held until now would have come out way ahead. It happens. 

The other issue with the Promise Collection is that a bunch of the books look/are overgraded. That does not help with resale value.

[kimik]

On 12/5/2023 at 12:28 AM, COI said:

If the owner is who I think it is, they've had it for 20+ years. 

I thought he might have already sold some of them? If not, then he is laughing compared to his purchase price but likely a bit peeved at missing the post-Covid market top. Regardless, it will be a huge win.

[namisgr]

On 12/5/2023 at 2:36 AM, kimik said:

I thought he might have already sold some of them? If not, then he is laughing compared to his purchase price but likely a bit peeved at missing the post-Covid market top. Regardless, it will be a huge win.

It's a unicorn book, a pedigree 9.8 with white pages for a mega key issue with only one other copy having received that numerical grade.  I doubt the hammer price will suffer any from coming to auction after the overall market has peaked.  And I wouldn't use the hammer price as any meaningful indicator of the status of the overall market, either.  Heckuva copy.  Thanks to DC# for the heads-up about it.  The Newsboy copy of Showcase #4 is another unicorn in the auction that's not too shabby either.

A shame that the Curator Spidey has got that pedigree label design that clashes with the cover colors and, for me at least, detracts from the comic itself.  

Edited December 5, 2023 by namisgr

[VintageComics]

On 12/5/2023 at 12:56 AM, COI said:

On 12/5/2023 at 12:28 AM, DC# said:

This one will be a fun to watch.   Lots of amazing books coming up in the Jan Signature auction at Heritage    Superman 1 and Batman 1 in 7.0, Showcase 4 9.6, Hulk 1 9.2, even a House of Secrets 92 in 9.8

 

Expand  

Interesting. Especially considering who the current(former?) owner is(was?). Wonder if some big-timers are cashing out?

 

I was offering that book privately for the owner over the last couple of years with no takers. I can't talk openly about it's history, but that is one helluva book. 

I was also in talks with the long time owner of the Showcase #4 CGC 9.6 for a while. 

This auction is going to be very interesting. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/5/2023 at 2:28 AM, COI said:

If the owner is who I think it is, they've had it for 20+ years. 

It's not who you think it is. 

[kimik]

On 12/5/2023 at 4:02 AM, namisgr said:

It's a unicorn book, a pedigree 9.8 with white pages for a mega key issue with only one other copy having received that numerical grade.  I doubt the hammer price will suffer any from coming to auction after the overall market has peaked.  And I wouldn't use the hammer price as any meaningful indicator of the status of the overall market, either.  Heckuva copy.  Thanks to DC# for the heads-up about it.  The Newsboy copy of Showcase #4 is another unicorn in the auction that's not too shabby either.

A shame that the Curator Spidey has got that pedigree label design that clashes with the cover colors and, for me at least, detracts from the comic itself.  

Maybe, but they still would have fetched more in 2021 or early 2022 than they likely will now as the crypto and sportscard bros are out of the market. The prices a LCS owner friend was getting every week from his cryptobros was crazy - CGC 9.8 ASM 300s at $10K was the funniest to me . 

[EastEnd1]

On 12/5/2023 at 2:34 AM, kimik said:

I am not concerned when you see short term spec buyers get hit by buying at the peak and then having to sell shortly after. We saw similar things happen in 2009-2010. I can't recall his name, but there was the one person that had bought a ton of beautiful GA pedigrees at top market value and had to liquidate them at a huge loss. Had he been able to hold for a couple of years he would have come out ahead, and if he had held until now would have come out way ahead. It happens. 

You may be thinking of coin dealer Jay Parrino.  It might have been fellow coin dealer Jim Halperin of Heritage fame that talked him into it, but he bought a ton of key books not long after CGC opened its doors.  I was at a few of the Greg Manning auctions where Bill Hughes was buying for him and he just wouldn't be beat on anything Bill recommended he get.  When the fresh sparkle of graded books began to wear off in the mid-2000s and prices started to retreat, Parrino dumped everything at what must have been pretty big losses.  Not too different from what's happening with the Promise books now. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/5/2023 at 2:34 PM, EastEnd1 said:

You may be thinking of coin dealer Jay Parrino.  It might have been fellow coin dealer Jim Halperin of Heritage fame that talked him into it, but he bought a ton of key books not long after CGC opened its doors.  I was at a few of the Greg Manning auctions where Bill Hughes was buying for him and he just wouldn't be beat on anything Bill recommended he get.  When the fresh sparkle of graded books began to wear off in the mid-2000s and prices started to retreat, Parrino dumped everything at what must have been pretty big losses.  Not too different from what's happening with the Promise books now. 

Parrino dumped because he moved into another field that made itself available.

He was a huge coin dealer, made his money and then moved from coins to comics for a couple of years. He got fleeced pretty good by offering a blank checkbook and a lot of dealers took advantage of that. 

He ended up selling his comics to move into a huge Vintage photograph collection in 2006 (undisclosed sum). He ended up selling that collection just over a decade later for north of $30Million a few years ago.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rare-photo-collection-goes-on-sale-announces-artifact-brokerage-firm-llc-300738466.html

Edited December 5, 2023 by VintageComics

[namisgr]

On 12/5/2023 at 10:36 AM, kimik said:

Maybe, but they still would have fetched more in 2021 or early 2022 than they likely will now as the crypto and sportscard bros are out of the market. 

Bitcoin began the year at $16,000 and this morning is at $44,000.  So there's plenty of new crypto money to put to work.

[mjoeyoung]

On 12/4/2023 at 6:05 PM, VintageComics said:

You're basically saying you can extrapolate from a few books and determine the direction of the market but that's bad math and it's everything we've been speaking against in here.

How do you account for the swaths of people who keep paying more for their books this month than last? 

How do I account for why a certain individual decides to do something?  The reasons are legion, but it comes down to the fact that they were willing to pay that much for it.  The more pertinent question is what the MAJORITY of people are willing to pay for it.  Values don't go up or down in a vertical line.

On 12/4/2023 at 6:05 PM, VintageComics said:

Not peaked. Plateaued or corrected. You have no idea what the future holds. 

Peaked is my opinion.  I've been told they are free, and that like a certain anatomical feature, most everyone has one.

On 12/4/2023 at 6:05 PM, VintageComics said:

What would be more beneficial would be to try to divide the market into segments, and then figure out which segments are rising, which are falling and which haven't changed - something akin to a Meta-analysis of the data, but even that is tough to do without writing algorithms and using a statistician or something similar. It would take some real "know how" to do that. 

Was anyone calling for this type of analysis when prices were ballooning?  Were there sober discussions of the legitimacy of Werewolf by Night #32 in a 9.6 selling for $26K (last sale $9,600)?   I remember lots of FOMO and "prices are going to the moon" kind of talk.

On 12/4/2023 at 6:26 PM, VintageComics said:

That's why I stated earlier that filtering auction results in one auction, to say 9.8s and highest graded and capturing all sales from that segment would be a decent representation of the high grade market.

 What impact does the sale of a Ferrari have on the sale of a Ford Focus?  To me, this portion of the comic market is inconsequential to the broader market due to the limited supply, sales, and pool of individuals who are willing to spend the money.  If Bezos and Musk get in a bidding war over that 9.8  Amazing Spider-Man #1 and it sells for a billion dollars, I don't think people will be able to sell their 2.0s for $200 million.  Though I'm sure some people on eBay will try. 

On 12/4/2023 at 10:51 PM, COI said:

So you can see patterns and trends

Isn't that what this thread is all about?   Taking a look at the trends and making a guess as to whether prices are going to climb or ease?  What is the argument that values are going to plateau here or even climb?

Edited December 7, 2023 by mjoeyoung

[VintageComics]

On 12/6/2023 at 4:44 PM, mjoeyoung said:

On 12/4/2023 at 8:05 PM, VintageComics said:

You're basically saying you can extrapolate from a few books and determine the direction of the market but that's bad math and it's everything we've been speaking against in here.

How do you account for the swaths of people who keep paying more for their books this month than last? 

How do I account for why a certain individual decides to do something?  The reasons are legion, but it comes down to the fact that they were willing to pay that much for it.  The more pertinent question is what the MAJORITY of people are willing to pay for it.  Values don't go up or down in a vertical line.

What I meant was, how do we grab enough segments of the market to make the analysis reasonably representative of the market. 

On 12/6/2023 at 4:44 PM, mjoeyoung said:

Was anyone calling for this type of analysis when prices were ballooning?  Were there sober discussions of the legitimacy of Werewolf by Night #32 in a 9.6 selling for $26K (last sale $9,600)?   I remember lots of FOMO and "prices are going to the moon" kind of talk.

I wasn't on the boards much in 2021, but I can tell you that as dealers we were talking about how unrealistic everything was.

On 12/6/2023 at 4:44 PM, mjoeyoung said:

On 12/4/2023 at 8:26 PM, VintageComics said:

That's why I stated earlier that filtering auction results in one auction, to say 9.8s and highest graded and capturing all sales from that segment would be a decent representation of the high grade market.

 What impact does the sale of a Ferrari have on the sale of a Ford Focus?  To me, this portion of the comic market is inconsequential to the broader market due to the limited supply, sales, and pool of individuals who are willing to spend the money.  If Bezos and Musk get in a bidding war over that 9.8  Amazing Spider-Man #1 and it sells for a billion dollars, I don't think people will be able to sell their 2.0s for $200 million.  Though I'm sure some people on eBay will try. 

I was speaking of personal interest for myself. 

We had chatted about how I saw some sales in the last Clink action that went well over GPA and was still following that line of thought. 

But, if Ferrari sales are spiking, you know the wealthy are spending and if Ferrari sales are dropping, you know they're not spending, so that is still useful information in the grand scheme of a discussion on economics. 

Anyway, I personally was discussing how to build a spreadsheet with a broad cross section of data, with samples from various areas of the market but it was all theoretical. 

[universal soldier]

The information in this thread is great even if I don't play in the deep end of the pool. I do think the downward trend is continuing and has similar results for the some mid to upper grade keys. I am cautiously tracking a couple books and I'll probably continue to watch a bit longer before I pull the trigger on anything.

One of the books Iron Man 55 appears to be back to prices prior to the last two movies and in line with the 2014-2015 averages for the most part.

Grade    Sold     Last     %           12 Mo.    %

5.5         391       475    -17.5%      496        -21%
7.5         553       605     -7.5%       737        -25%
8.5         650       780    -17%         939        -31%

[mjoeyoung]

On 12/6/2023 at 5:36 PM, VintageComics said:

What I meant was, how do we grab enough segments of the market to make the analysis reasonably representative of the market. 

On 12/6/2023 at 5:36 PM, VintageComics said:

Anyway, I personally was discussing how to build a spreadsheet with a broad cross section of data, with samples from various areas of the market but it was all theoretical. 

I gotcha.  I think this is a good idea.  I'm not going to hold you to it, but how many comics do you think would need to be included in such an index?  How many per genre, or per age?

On 12/6/2023 at 5:36 PM, VintageComics said:

I wasn't on the boards much in 2021, but I can tell you that as dealers we were talking about how unrealistic everything was.

I think I was spending too much time on Instagram watching people overpaying for almost everything and then getting congratulated by everyone on the "deal" they just got.

[VintageComics]

On 12/6/2023 at 8:39 PM, mjoeyoung said:

On 12/6/2023 at 7:36 PM, VintageComics said:

I wasn't on the boards much in 2021, but I can tell you that as dealers we were talking about how unrealistic everything was.

I think I was spending too much time on Instagram watching people overpaying for almost everything and then getting congratulated by everyone on the "deal" they just got.

That was just ridiculous. 

I had some younger dealers calling me up and literally wanting to buy 9.8 bronze at full GPA to resell, and I couldn't get rid of it fast enough. 

On 12/6/2023 at 8:39 PM, mjoeyoung said:

On 12/6/2023 at 7:36 PM, VintageComics said:

What I meant was, how do we grab enough segments of the market to make the analysis reasonably representative of the market. 

On 12/6/2023 at 7:36 PM, VintageComics said:

Anyway, I personally was discussing how to build a spreadsheet with a broad cross section of data, with samples from various areas of the market but it was all theoretical. 

I gotcha.  I think this is a good idea.  I'm not going to hold you to it, but how many comics do you think would need to be included in such an index?  How many per genre, or per age?

I don't know. That would be a great crowdsource thread and an even better discussion. 

[Greengiant]

On 12/6/2023 at 3:56 AM, namisgr said:

Bitcoin began the year at $16,000 and this morning is at $44,000.  So there's plenty of new crypto money to put to work.

I hear there's a guy who has tons of Bitcoin and all you need an OnlyFans account.

https://www.unilad.com/news/sex-and-relationships/guy-meets-rubi-rose-after-spending-thousands-on-onlyfans-715801-20231202

[jimjum12]

On 12/5/2023 at 4:15 PM, VintageComics said:

Parrino dumped because he moved into another field that made itself available.

He was a huge coin dealer, made his money and then moved from coins to comics for a couple of years. He got fleeced pretty good by offering a blank checkbook and a lot of dealers took advantage of that. 

He ended up selling his comics to move into a huge Vintage photograph collection in 2006 (undisclosed sum). He ended up selling that collection just over a decade later for north of $30Million a few years ago.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rare-photo-collection-goes-on-sale-announces-artifact-brokerage-firm-llc-300738466.html

Parrino is no dummy. He's sold a 1933 St. Gaudens twenty dollar gold piece, arguably the rarest US coin. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[g-man]

only a one off....but in last night CC auction, ASM #112 cgc 9.8 went for just over $500 w the juice. Last sale I could find on heritage was over $1100 (2021) and last one on the bay for $825.  

[comicartfan]

On 12/7/2023 at 8:41 AM, g-man said:

only a one off....but in last night CC auction, ASM #112 cgc 9.8 went for just over $500 w the juice. Last sale I could find on heritage was over $1100 (2021) and last one on the bay for $825.  

Some of the reason for the low price is the December -Christmas drop. I just got my grades on an Iron Man 55 & ASM 129 that both came back 9.0. Looking at GPA just now, the last sold prices for these two are way down.....I won't be moving them until after the New Year. 

[g-man]

On 12/7/2023 at 10:21 AM, comicartfan said:

Some of the reason for the low price is the December -Christmas drop. I just got my grades on an Iron Man 55 & ASM 129 that both came back 9.0. Looking at GPA just now, the last sold prices for these two are way down.....I won't be moving them until after the New Year. 

yep....maybe after xmas, peeps will have $$ (unless they have massive CC bills).