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

[ThothAmon]

On 12/9/2023 at 9:41 AM, VintageComics said:

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

He, David from the video, definitely knows what he’s doing. I watched another video of him sending 100 books back to CGC for regrading as he thought they were originally under graded. His upgrade results, while probably not worth the cost now of regrading, show he is an expert grader. 

[october]

On 12/8/2023 at 4:30 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

An N of 290 is more than sufficient for drawing conclusions about the whole data set. We don't need any more sales to reasonably think the majority of Promise books would be in the red if resold right now.

[ThothAmon]

On 12/8/2023 at 6:38 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

I don't think EVERYONE bought them on spec. But I do believe a great many were

I agree with the rest of your post but would someone introduce me to one or two of these “speculator” straw men who bought Promise books with the intention of selling them for a quick profit?  I agree that circumstances can change requiring a quick sale, losses be darned, but no one was dumb enough to do that.

[1Cool]

On 12/9/2023 at 11:39 AM, ThothAmon said:

I agree with the rest of your post but would someone introduce me to one or two of these “speculator” straw men who bought Promise books with the intention of selling them for a quick profit?  I agree that circumstances can change requiring a quick sale, losses be darned, but no one was dumb enough to do that.

I think he describes the typical habit over the last decade or so which makes me believe there was a lot of fairly quick flipping intended for even high end books like the Promise Collection.  It’s been pretty standard that you could post up a book for a decent profit and just wait 3-9 months for the market to catch up to your new price and cash out.  The quickness of the flip (for a big loss in this case) was because the owner was probably fearful of it going down further if they waited.  The scary thing is fear is a long way up compared to despair on the chart just posted.  

But a guy being forced to sell off personal collection books (and others closing up shop) could be seen as despair so maybe the bottom is near!  

Edited December 9, 2023 by 1Cool

[ThothAmon]

On 12/9/2023 at 11:56 AM, 1Cool said:

But a guy being forced to sell off personal collection books (and others closing up shop) could be seen as despair so maybe the bottom is near!  

Don’t think that the big losses suffered in the most recent HA auction of Promise Detectives were a forced sale. Not if Consignor is telling the truth. One question I had after watching the video is why, if the plan was always to divest at 50, was the Consignor still buying books so close to his planned sale date?  Only reasonable answers are either he was looking for some loss leaders and bought them as his collecting finale to draw more eyes to his future sale or the books were added to his auction by a third party. 

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by ThothAmon

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 12:19 PM, ThothAmon said:

Don’t think that the big losses suffered in the most recent HA auction of Promise Detectives were a forced sale. Not if Consignor is telling the truth. One question I had after watching the video is why, if the plan was always to divest at 50, was the Consignor still buying books so close to his planned sale date?  Only reasonable answers are either he was looking for some loss leaders and bought them as his collecting finale to draw more eyes to his future sale or the books were added to his auction by a third party.

Everyone keeps trying to find logic (why people buy things) in an illogical endeavor (collecting).

Why?

Collecting is about as illogical as consumerism gets. 

The only people who will be logical about it are the people who don't like or collect comics. 

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

This thread has gone off the rails. If it’s ok with you guys, I’m gonna go back to liking and respecting my Timely Promise book

[thehumantorch]

On 12/8/2023 at 10:00 PM, solm4st3r said:

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

 

 

It doesn't appear that he had any love for the hobby and he purchased comics primarily to make money.  

Now that he's underwater he's gonna sell everything and leave the hobby  alternative investment class.  And he needs to make a public video to  about it.  Poor baby.  Bet he made tons of videos about his business acumen and his fabulous books.

I've been collecting comics for 40 years.   I'm aware of what they worth but the true value is owning these pieces of history.  What I sell them for some day is immaterial.

 

 

[COI]

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.

I'm sure that's true sometimes, and other times I think dealers/collectors over-extend themselves and need to free up cash.

I've never understood trying to ascribe motives or specific rationales to the buyers behind the numbers, when we have no clue who they are most of the time. I understand the reasoning that someone in a position to spend five or six figures on comics MUST have some sort of 'bigger picture' plan in place, because for most of us average folk, the idea of casually throwing the average middle-class yearly salary on a book impulsively seems absurd. Yet, we see the evidence of people making horrible decisions with large sums of money all around us, including people who 'should know better'. *cough* NFTs *cough*

Being good with money isn't a necessary condition to having it; there are wealthy people who are also impulsive and wasteful, just as there are poor people who are frugal and resourceful. When I see someone lose $10K on a book, I have no idea whether they also made $15K on another book in the same auction, or if they're going to be using the proceeds from that book to stave off foreclosure. Neither would surprise me.

[valiantman]

At the 15:10 timestamp:

"Here's a good one, here's a good one... remember this one? I told everyone to go out and buy, thought it was going to be the next big thing. Turned out to be a massive dud."

... and that summarizes pretty much every YouTube expert on investing in brand new comics.

Edited December 9, 2023 by valiantman

[Pantodude]

On 12/9/2023 at 1:32 PM, thehumantorch said:

Now that he's underwater he's gonna sell everything and leave the hobby  alternative investment class.

[edit] Did you see the whole video?  [had to watch it again in case I missed something]  It's actually the complete opposite.  He's going all-in on his comic book business and selling his PC (turns out not all, just most) to fund the business during these leaner times.  

Edited December 9, 2023 by Pantodude

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 1:54 PM, COI said:

I'm sure that's true sometimes, and other times I think dealers/collectors over-extend themselves and need to free up cash.

I've never understood trying to ascribe motives or specific rationales to the buyers behind the numbers, when we have no clue who they are most of the time. I understand the reasoning that someone in a position to spend five or six figures on comics MUST have some sort of 'bigger picture' plan in place, because for most of us average folk, the idea of casually throwing the average middle-class yearly salary on a book impulsively seems absurd. Yet, we see the evidence of people making horrible decisions with large sums of money all around us, including people who 'should know better'. *cough* NFTs *cough*

Being good with money isn't a necessary condition to having it; there are wealthy people who are also impulsive and wasteful, just as there are poor people who are frugal and resourceful. When I see someone lose $10K on a book, I have no idea whether they also made $15K on another book in the same auction, or if they're going to be using the proceeds from that book to stave off foreclosure. Neither would surprise me.

Did I ever say that I love it when you post?

[COI]

You guys are being super cynical about that Youtube guy.

He's selling books to keep his business going, and he's far from the only person who 1) is suffering because of 2021 and 2) was wrong about stuff in 2021.

Half the video is him admitting mistakes, like losing money on an FF 4 or speculating on a modern. Cut him a break. 

[1Cool]

This is a thread discussing the current comic book market place and I think his video is basically spot on for 99% of people who are selling books.  Is there 100s of threads about how great a particular book or series or age is?  I think it’s perfectly ok to moan about the complete collapse in value in a lot of books if that is what is going especially since this thread was created specifically for that purpose.

Edited December 9, 2023 by 1Cool

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 3:21 PM, COI said:

You guys are being super cynical about that Youtube guy.

He's selling books to keep his business going, and he's far from the only person who 1) is suffering because of 2021 and 2) was wrong about stuff in 2021.

Half the video is him admitting mistakes, like losing money on an FF 4 or speculating on a modern. Cut him a break. 

I agree, but I'm also not sure how much stock I'd put into someone making a living off of comics and posting YouTube videos about it. 

It's like putting stock into reality television.

Very successful people don't tell you what they're really doing, because of they did everyone would be doing it and they'd be out of business. I also don't think their sole goal is to be popular on YouTube because that's not nearly as profitable as being successful in business, so this video is probably being used primarily as a vehicle to promote their business. If I was putting out videos this is exactly what I'd be doing. 

Fun to watch, and I feel for people who lose in a down market, but I wouldn't be starting a donation thread for them or anything. They guy's dad was a very successful dealer, remember. 

And we ALL liquidate assets to make life changes. I sold my Timely, Fawcett and Baker runs which were very precous to me, to expand my business. That's just real life for small to medium sized businesses. I don't think I complained once about it. 

The best story I ever heard was John Verzyl telling me about his first huge collection find when he was a newlywed. 

He came home after viewing the collection and told his wife "honey, we're selling the house to buy a comic book collection" and they did. They sold the house and bought the collection. 

And look where he ended up: One of the wealthiest comic book dealers on the circuit with one of the greatest collections in the hobby.

Big risk, big reward.

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by VintageComics

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 1:18 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

This thread has gone off the rails. If it’s ok with you guys, I’m gonna go back to liking and respecting my Timely Promise book

Post that fugly thing. 

[COI]

On 12/9/2023 at 3:54 PM, VintageComics said:

 

Very successful people don't tell you what they're really doing, because of they did everyone would be doing it and they'd be out of business. I also don't think their sole goal is to be popular on YouTube because that's not nearly as profitable as being successful in business, so this video is probably being used primarily as a vehicle to promote their business. If I was putting out videos this is exactly what I'd be doing. 

Fun to watch, and I feel for people who lose in a down market, but I wouldn't be starting a donation thread for them or anything. They guy's dad was a very successful dealer, remember. 

And we ALL liquidate assets to make life changes. I sold my Timely, Fawcett and Baker runs which were very precous to me, to expand my business. That's just real life for small to medium sized businesses. I don't think I complained once about it. 

 

 

A few things:

Saying it's not as profitable to be a youtuber as it is to be successful in business is weird on its own, because there are people who make ridiculous money on youtube and having a youtube channel IS a business, so I don't understand the distinction. Maybe there isn't as much money in being a comic book youtuber, but he's using youtube to market his business and I don't see an issue with that.

Apparently it's a bad thing that's he's trying to build an auction house...because reasons. He's not complaining in the video; he's explaining why he's selling stuff that in prior videos he said he was planning to hold. Considering how rare it is for anyone to ever admit to being wrong about anything, I think it's refreshing for him to come out and talk about losses. It's very clear that on the internet, you can never 1) admit you're wrong or 2) apologize because it will always be taken as cynically as possible.

So all I see here is either schadenfreude, or people jumping to judgment without watching the actual video. Or maybe people don't like him because of who his father is. I don't know, but I don't see people calling out Vincent Zurzolo quotes for all the carnival barking he does about investing in books. Of course you're going to believe in and push the thing you're investing all your time and money into.  

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 4:25 PM, COI said:

Saying it's not as profitable to be a youtuber as it is to be successful in business is weird on its own, because there are people who make ridiculous money on youtube and having a youtube channel IS a business, so I don't understand the distinction. Maybe there isn't as much money in being a comic book youtuber, but he's using youtube to market his business and I don't see an issue with that.

I've met a lot of influencers (and frankly, I was the forerunner of an influencer on here 15 years ago before there were influencers) so yes, you're correct, I meant, there isn't a whole lot of profit in being a comic book YouTuber. 

It was the same thing when people started their pressing businesses and some even people teaching others to press books. I never understood why someone would go through all that trouble when there's never as much money showing someone how to do something, or doing it for them as there is to just focus on doing it yourself.

On 12/9/2023 at 4:25 PM, COI said:

So all I see here is either schadenfreude, or people jumping to judgment without watching the actual video. Or maybe people don't like him because of who his father is. I don't know, but I don't see people calling out Vincent Zurzolo quotes for all the carnival barking he does about investing in books. Of course you're going to believe in and push the thing you're investing all your time and money into.  

Agreed. For the record, I didn't even watch the video, I just concluded that it's great advertising for his business, but I do agree that admitting you were wrong is a rare and commendable thing. 

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 12/9/2023 at 3:05 PM, VintageComics said:

Post that fugly thing. 

Thanks Vintage. But since I already posted it in the Post Your Promise Wins thread, it would feel like I’m just tarting the book out if I were to repeat myself. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/9/2023 at 4:41 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

Thanks Vintage. But since I already posted it in the Post Your Promise Wins thread, it would feel like I’m just tarting the book out if I were to repeat myself. 

It was cool to finally meet you last month! 

I'll check that thread out.