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

[bc]

Funny how we are now discussing the financial prudence of purchasing books from the Promise collection based on a subset of data while discussing the price fluctuations of a subset of comic transactions in parallel.

-bc

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 12/8/2023 at 3:57 PM, buttock said:

290/5000 is 5.8%.  So 94.2% haven't been resold.  I know a bunch of people who bought Promise books, and none of them bought for a flip.  Anyone choosing not to sell for fear of loss is ignoring the whole concept of opportunity cost, but that's a really bold assumption when the more likely thing is that -- as is true for MOST purchases -- people bought the comics because they want them, not to resell them.  Do you really think that most people bought these for a flip?  Do you think that's true for most auction sales?  What's the evidence that that's the case?  

umm, most of the last few years was crack, press, sub and flip to buy more to do the same, movie hype, slab and flip buy more books to hold and flip on the next movie hype, etc etc. Some, likely many. did it to fund their own personal keepers, but that's pretty fluid too- upgrades, sell the lower copy, etc. SA Keys and Bronze Movie hype are taking a 65%-90% hit as a result. Whoever was left holding the bag and didn't get out was hosed. All that extra cash flipping Ms. Marvel and Eternals drove up prices for GA and Pedigrees and high Census too. It's all going down, the question is how much. Those holding Promise Books have lost 30-60% of their value. They may never live to see that break even, which means yes, they won't keep up with inflation.  3 GA Pedigree 6 figure Batman books just took a 60+% hit. The GA board is eerily silent on this, because they DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS.

[buttock]

On 12/8/2023 at 3:52 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

umm, most of the last few years was crack, press, sub and flip to buy more to do the same, movie hype, slab and flip buy more books to hold and flip on the next movie hype, etc etc. Some, likely many. did it to fund their own personal keepers, but that's pretty fluid too- upgrades, sell the lower copy, etc. SA Keys and Bronze Movie hype are taking a 65%-90% hit as a result. Whoever was left holding the bag and didn't get out was hosed. All that extra cash flipping Ms. Marvel and Eternals drove up prices for GA and Pedigrees and high Census too. It's all going down, the question is how much. Those holding Promise Books have lost 30-60% of their value. They may never live to see that break even, which means yes, they won't keep up with inflation.  3 GA Pedigree 6 figure Batman books just took a 60+% hit. The GA board is eerily silent on this, because they DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS.

So you think that everyone bought those books on speculation?  And you think that because the most overpaid books in the whole collection were turned around way too soon and lost, that every other book will have the same result?  You think that 5% is a good representative sample to make broad generalizations (what about the books that sold for more?)?  And you think the GA board is silent on this?  There were like 3 or 4 threads discussing it just last week.  

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 12/8/2023 at 5:02 PM, buttock said:

So you think that everyone bought those books on speculation?  And you think that because the most overpaid books in the whole collection were turned around way too soon and lost, that every other book will have the same result?  You think that 5% is a good representative sample to make broad generalizations (what about the books that sold for more?)?  And you think the GA board is silent on this?  There were like 3 or 4 threads discussing it just last week.  

no, I don't think EVERYONE bought them on spec. But I do believe a great many were, more than most given the perfect storm of timing and money in the market. I also believe those that don't regard themselves as speculators bought more and spent more than they would have otherwise, caught up in the hype.  That's just human nature.  290+ books is a pretty good sample size as a matter of fact.   Pollsters would kill to get those kinds of numbers. NOBODY bid on this blindly without thinking about the eventual ROI. I say eventual quite deliberately as opposed to potential. Eventually all of them will be resold, most in the next 20 years. (I'd wager the median age of the buyers skews to the mid 50's or older.) Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves and everyone else. Even if they don't sell it in their lifetime, their heirs will. But no one on the GA board is talking about it today now are they? And no one commented  on MaterChief's post from Dec. 1st that MJY linked above. Nope, nothing to see here, let's stop talking about it....

Even some recent Original Comic art has been flipped for a loss recently - and original art was considered far more blue chip than slabbed comics, almost immune to market forces.  The next 2 years are gonna be verrrrrry interesting.  The question is, where are we now in the chart below? (I find this guy marginally annoying but I do like to FFWD to the graphs he shows and turn the sound down.)

Edited December 8, 2023 by MyNameIsLegion

[mjoeyoung]

On 12/8/2023 at 2:20 PM, VintageComics said:

I wouldn't worry too much about the people losing money. It was their choice to spend it in the first place. 

I don't think anyone had a gun to their heads forcing them to bid.

Some people buy things to gamble, some to upgrade and some because they have lots of money don't know what to do with it (as I know for a fact some buyers have).

As a society, we try to shield too many people from the dumb things they do when they're worrying about it without our input. It's sad, but it's also important to remember that it's reality. You can't shield anyone from reality. 

I agree, ultimately it is up to the buyer to do the required due diligence, and the final decision is theirs. I just have some uneasiness about Heritage and the Promise Collection. From the wikipedia on Halperin:

In 1984, Halperin founded the coin grading agency Numismatic Certification Institute. NCI went out of business shortly after the FTC found in 1989 that Halperin was giving inflated grades to coins. The overvalued coins were marketed through a Heritage Auctions-backed company named Certified Rare Coin Galleries, which used infomercials to sell silver and gold U.S. coins for more than twice their actual value. Heritage Auctions agreed to pay $1.2 million in restitution, though Halperin continues to insist that most of the coin grades he gave during those times were valid and would still hold up today.

Hmmm.

 

[MatterEaterLad]

On 12/8/2023 at 1:29 PM, mjoeyoung said:

Interesting. Has the family of the original owner ever said anything publicly about the collection?  The story pulls at the heartstrings.  Supposedly, the OO died in combat when he was 21 and left over 5000 comics.  If he started collecting when he was 10, that would be purchasing about 450 to 500 a year?  Even if he started getting them at 5, that is over 300 a year!  When I first heard about this collection I thought it was going to be a few hundred books, tops.

I'm not certain the family of the original owner were even involved, aside from the story. Maybe they were given a piece of the action if they signed an NDA? This dealer who said he recognized some of the books made it sound like this was a collection that was in someone else's hands for decades.

[solm4st3r]

Collector's Comics says it's rough out there for dealers. Selling off PC.

 

 

[Telegan]

On 12/8/2023 at 5:38 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

no, I don't think EVERYONE bought them on spec. But I do believe a great many were, more than most given the perfect storm of timing and money in the market. I also believe those that don't regard themselves as speculators bought more and spent more than they would have otherwise, caught up in the hype.  That's just human nature.  290+ books is a pretty good sample size as a matter of fact.   Pollsters would kill to get those kinds of numbers. NOBODY bid on this blindly without thinking about the eventual ROI. I say eventual quite deliberately as opposed to potential. Eventually all of them will be resold, most in the next 20 years. (I'd wager the median age of the buyers skews to the mid 50's or older.) Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves and everyone else. Even if they don't sell it in their lifetime, their heirs will. But no one on the GA board is talking about it today now are they? And no one commented  on MaterChief's post from Dec. 1st that MJY linked above. Nope, nothing to see here, let's stop talking about it....

Even some recent Original Comic art has been flipped for a loss recently - and original art was considered far more blue chip than slabbed comics, almost immune to market forces.  The next 2 years are gonna be verrrrrry interesting.  The question is, where are we now in the chart below? (I find this guy marginally annoying but I do like to FFWD to the graphs he shows and turn the sound down.)

 

lol.  It cracks me up when I see that chart (or a similar chart) posted year after year, decade after decade, but it's always for a different subject matter... you see it posted in stocks, crypto, comics, coins, etc. forums.  It's somewhat a chart of the human psyche no matter what you "invest" in.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Telegan

[Gaard]

On 12/8/2023 at 4:20 PM, VintageComics said:

Some people buy things to gamble, some to upgrade and some because they have lots of money don't know what to do with it (as I know for a fact some buyers have).

I'm trying my best to be a member of group C. Nothing is working.

[namisgr]

Some people buy comic books with their discretionary money.  They do it because they love the comics, love to build, own, and peruse their collection of comics, and do all of those without looking for a return on investment, since they weren't acquired as an investment in the first place.  For investments, they buy and sell other assets, especially those traditionally and widely used for that purpose.

[comicwiz]

I've repeatedly entered into markets during cycles where things were really slow, and prices were stagnant. Never deliberately to take advantage of the entry because it was a buyers market. It was all timing-based, and wandering into them sometimes on impulse, or a rekindling of nostalgia. The most recent was trying to build the set of goalie gear I used when I first made the cut on a rep team in the MTHL. About 20 years back, I was playing in a Toronto league run by a great guy, that league convenor went around asking if anyone had any unwanted equipment which he was planning to take with him on a trip to the artic circle, to give to kids out there who didn't have much. So I invited him over to my place one afternoon, and he about cleaned out everything I had kept from my junior hockey days.

I am now at an age where I don't exactly regret it, but I maybe should have pulled aside a few things and kept them for memories sake. So in pursuit of trying to rebuild this set I once owned, I began to notice a similar pattern take shape and form with those I've seen in every collecting category I've been involved in.

Something gets posted, people are competing for the item, 90% of the time the person who gets it has zero reason to buy exept to resell, and while I understand that's how capitalism works, for someone like me who likes to just build on the things I collect, or in this case, to buy back the set I used to play with, it's all sorts of wrong when they start deliberately interfering with sales.

Case in point. Last Friday, a glove I've been after for approximately 15 years surfaces. This one looked like a new old stock catcher, I'd never seen one as nice, at least not since the days the old Cooper factory used to have summer sales, and I worked around the corner from the factory and would sometimes wander over during lunch to see what crazy cool stuff I could browse and dream about owning.

The seller of this new old stock glove was also someone in my general area, so I was able to make a swift offer - meet-up in person, and a cash in hand offer was what persuaded the seller, who had already received over a dozen offers since posting his listing. And he even showed me when we met-up, nearly all of them were people wanting the glove shipped, and he was happy to just be able to do an in-person on that end of week situation where a bump in cashflow rules the roost.

We meet-up, and as we are exchanging goods for cash, he showed me the other glove he was shipping out to BC, so I thought I'd jump back on the post to make sure the glove I was getting was the one I had requested. As I'm checking it out, I'm seeing comments from the usual suspects, only this time they are trying to tell the person they would have paid more, and to check his PM's. This was after the seller had already marked the listing SOLD, which he told me he was doing before I drove out to meet him.

What I paid was what I was willing to pay for the item, given the fact the seller posted a price, agreed to doing the deal, and I was taking time out of my day and making the deal seamless for both parties. These posts saying they would have paid more were trying to interfere with a deal in progress.

So while I am in it for reasons which aren't about trying to make a quick buck off the things I buy, it's sometimes impossible not to get caught up in the "investment" and "speculative" aspects, because you are in a constant collision course with people that are in it for all the wrong reasons, and are constantly trying to drive-up prices to ensure they can double their money, with zero passion or reason to be buying these things in the first place. And their tactics to try to steer a deal already in progress off course, deliberately intended to tempt the seller, and causing the buyer to pay more for something well after a deal had been already agreed upon. It didn't happen in this instance, but it has happened many times in my collecting journey.

Many of them believe they should have these things over someone that is not looking to resell, even though they sometimes clearly don't know what it is they're selling when you ask them about the item. They learn about something hastily, often by just seeing reactions or likes on a post, and decide this is the next get rich quick scheme for them to pursue. Simply because others see value in it, and I see them as being no different than scammers who gravitate to anything where money and people are involved.

And as the above post points out, this happens even in otherwise sleepy areas of "collecting" where you'd think there would be no one doing stuff like this - on the contrary, they seem to be everywhere, and they have the balls to get upset when a person who is buying it for the right reasons scores something the flippers only saw as a potential to feed their "doubler" or "tripler" flipping penchant. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by comicwiz

[Dick Pontoon]

On 12/9/2023 at 6:28 AM, namisgr said:

Some people buy comic books with their discretionary money.  They do it because they love the comics, love to build, own, and peruse their collection of comics, and do all of those without looking for a return on investment, since they weren't acquired as an investment in the first place.  For investments, they buy and sell other assets, especially those traditionally and widely used for that purpose.

To piggyback on this a little and thinking about the Promise Collection resale losses, I would imagine that the majority of folks who are buying $20K comic books have a *lot* of discretionary income as opposed to some fellow who has just $20,500 in the bank, and that buying a book at $20K and selling it months later for $15K doesn't feel to be as big a haircut as it would for the average collector.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Dick Pontoon

[Bookery]

Another factor to consider with buyers we deem to have "overpaid" is that in many cases they may be upgrading, so that in their mind they haven't really paid as much as it looks like.  If you pay $100k for a Promise Book, and turn around and sell your old under-copy for $50k, you may feel that even if the price drops, you still have a nicer copy and haven't put $100k of fresh money into it.  I have a lot of customers who do this, and it especially works out if the under-copy was bought years ago at a fraction of current value.

[VintageComics]

On 12/8/2023 at 5:30 PM, bc said:

Funny how we are now discussing the financial prudence of purchasing books from the Promise collection based on a subset of data while discussing the price fluctuations of a subset of comic transactions in parallel.

-bc

We're moving the goalposts a bit. Prices were crazy high, but I don't think Buttock is arguing that the Promise book purchases were prudent. All that's being discussed is that 5% came back to market and a some people lost money, but that's not representative of the entire market. If you go reading the GA forums, you'll see the GA guys have a very different view of the Promise books than Comics General does and many bought to keep regardless of how much they paid.

And I know at least a few of the buyers that sold early. Some just have too much money to know what to do with. Really.  

Not meant to be directed at you specifically, but as a society we tend to shift narratives slightly all the time to our advantage which

a) always only leads to a game of broken telephone and 

b) we tend to take the narrative of the few and try to make it the narrative of the many

 

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by VintageComics

[Stefan_W]

On 12/9/2023 at 8:39 AM, Bookery said:

Another factor to consider with buyers we deem to have "overpaid" is that in many cases they may be upgrading, so that in their mind they haven't really paid as much as it looks like.  If you pay $100k for a Promise Book, and turn around and sell your old under-copy for $50k, you may feel that even if the price drops, you still have a nicer copy and haven't put $100k of fresh money into it.  I have a lot of customers who do this, and it especially works out if the under-copy was bought years ago at a fraction of current value.

To build briefly on this point, some people roll books in auctions without adding tons of extra cash. I have heard of people who wanted a Promise Collection book and just sent in a bunch of other books to Heritage for auction to offset the cost. In terms of raw value those individuals may have done even worse given the exorbitant fees there, but if they did end up with the books they wanted they likely topped up with a bit of cash rather than putting large sums of cash on their card.

I did that a lot on Comic Link during the pandemic. Even though I badly "overpaid" on just about everything I bought I put very little hard cash into it. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/8/2023 at 5:52 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

umm, most of the last few years was crack, press, sub and flip to buy more to do the same, movie hype, slab and flip buy more books to hold and flip on the next movie hype, etc etc. Some,

Nothing has changed in the 20 years I've been here or the 48 years I've been collecting. This is the circle of life in the hobby and it's nothing new. 

What really drove the market (all markets) IMO was stimulus money and crypto money. FAR too many people were given money they didn't need, and a lot of people made out like bandits with crypto. There was $8Trillion printed and $2Trillion in crypto profits cashed in. That's planet changing money. It's changed the world's economy forever. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 7:42 AM, Pontoon said:

To piggyback on this a little and thinking about the Promise Collection resale losses, I would imagine that the majority of folks who are buying $20K comic books have a *lot* of discretionary income as opposed to some fellow who has just $20,500 in the bank, and that buying a book at $20K and selling it months later for $15K doesn't feel to be as big a haircut as it would for the average collector.

Yes. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 7:07 AM, comicwiz said:

We meet-up, and as we are exchanging goods for cash, he showed me the other glove he was shipping out to BC, so I thought I'd jump back on the post to make sure the glove I was getting was the one I had requested. As I'm checking it out, I'm seeing comments from the usual suspects, only this time they are trying to tell the person they would have paid more, and to check his PM's. This was after the seller had already marked the listing SOLD, which he told me he was doing before I drove out to meet him.

 This also happened when I was buying a house. We struck an agreement and people were literally calling the house and driving by it while we were in it making an agreement offering to outbid our deal if they broke it. 

It's just sleazy and unacceptable behavior IMO. 

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by VintageComics

[ThothAmon]

On 12/9/2023 at 12:00 AM, solm4st3r said:

Collector's Comics says it's rough out there for dealers. Selling off PC.

 

 

Yeah, the music definitely stopped on book flipping.  Selling his long box of IH 181s to fund his empire does not make me weepy. Apparently he wants to become the next Vince?  

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 9:31 AM, ThothAmon said:

On 12/9/2023 at 12:00 AM, solm4st3r said:

Collector's Comics says it's rough out there for dealers. Selling off PC.

 

 

Expand  

Yeah, the music definitely stopped on book flipping.  Selling his long box of IH 181s to fund his empire does not make me weepy. Apparently he wants to become the next Vince?  

Aren't these guys kids of Mark Wilson?

Their dad was a monster comic dealer for decades and their uncle was well known too.

These guys aren't amateurs. This is all just great fodder for video content. 

Here's the same guy interviewing his dad, who he introduces as one of the greatest comic book dealers of the 80's and 90's.