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

[VintageComics]

On 3/19/2023 at 3:38 AM, COI said:

Are you saying the most educated and smartest minds don't have half a brain or a high school diploma? I would've assumed that a high school diploma was a necessary condition for being in the "most educated" group. 

We don't know what we don't know, and expertise in anything 1) takes a lifetime to acquire and 2) doesn't come with psychic powers and 3) doesn't bestow anyone with the superhuman ability to either collect all the information there is, or to perfectly interpret the information that is available. 

And no amount of intelligence or expertise can completely liberate us from the bugs in our system; cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, perverse incentives, etc. And that includes the Monday morning quarterback mode of thinking you're employing here. 

So, here's the difference between the two groups.

One group thinks they know it all.

The other groups doesn't think they know it all. They know they know nothing. 

It's that simple. And the group that thinks they "know it all" is unaware of how little they know while the other group is totally aware of how much they don't know and proceed differently. 

I had an ex who was so brilliant in her field that she would manage 9 figure accounts and do the work in a fraction of the time that the rest of her people took. 

She'd get to the bottom of everything so quickly, innately and was always right. Her co-workers would go the long way around and get to the same answer. 

But the only REAL way to determine if both are right is to have the discussion and entangle ideas to prove them.

The know-it-alls never want to have the discussion..because they know best. 

On 3/19/2023 at 5:25 AM, GermanFan said:

There is street smart and there is book smart. If you got only one of these you are half smart. Winner is who has both. Sucker is who has none of the two.

It's not that simple because you can be book smart and still be unintelligent. 

The banker dude I spoke to was book smart but unaware of how logic and physics work. 

He was sure that everything would continue to go up and up. Well, even my kids in single digit grades know that's not possible. 

And so often "education" can make people belief illogical things like "everything will keep going up" because they are in a manufactured reality, insular and disconnected from REAL reality. Basically, in a bubble. And yet they don't realize they're in the bubble. 

Just like the banks that are failing. Run by some incredibly smart people - arguably the smartest, and yet often making errors a high school dropout may not make. 

Why? Because they lose sight of reality in their manufactured bubbles. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by VintageComics

[VintageComics]

On 3/19/2023 at 1:27 PM, MGsimba77 said:

Well if those multiples persist then I don't think it would be consistent with a market in correction or decline. In such case I'd imagine there would be eventual top down spillover on to other grades. Clearly enough people have concluded 9.8s to be in a league of their own for some time now but 10X seems excessive imo.

Generally If you're going to have an up market then some degree of increasing multiple between grades is almost inevitable. Maybe not 10X but it'll be some increase. I don't think a 10X multiple between 9.8 and 9.6 is sustainable but we saw very wide multiples persist in 2020 and 2021.

10 X (or whatever crazy figure you want to use) was the norm back in the 2000s for many books. Then the multiples dropped for most books and those staggering multiples were reserved for 9.9 + for a while but it seems they're back in vogue again. 

X-men #120 is an incredibly tough book key book. If there's an X-men movie in the works you KNOW Alpha Flight will be in the mix at some point and people may be trying to anticipate that as well. 

[MGsimba77]

On 3/19/2023 at 11:08 PM, VintageComics said:

10 X (or whatever crazy figure you want to use) was the norm back in the 2000s for many books. Then the multiples dropped for most books and those staggering multiples were reserved for 9.9 + for a while but it seems they're back in vogue again. 

X-men #120 is an incredibly tough book key book. If there's an X-men movie in the works you KNOW Alpha Flight will be in the mix at some point and people may be trying to anticipate that as well. 

Are you talking about certified? That was about the time census data was still being filled and top grades were a lower %?

[Danno616]

On 3/19/2023 at 11:01 AM, drbanner said:

One advantage of placing tracking bids vs. using a watch feature on ComicLink is that once you place a bid on a book, you have a permanent record of that sale. Otherwise, you can't look up previous auction results...just like on ebay, ComicConnect, and most auction sites (Heritage being the exception).

I doubt tracking bids affect the final sales price of very many books at all, they have so many books and such a deep bench of bidders that the effect is likely negligible.

I have 262 lots dating back to 2021 still available for viewing on my Comic Connect watch list. I only bid on a few of those lots.

I regularly track 150+ books across at least six different auction platforms, more than half of which do weekly auctions. Watch lists not only allow me to easily and quickly create a list of those lots I'm tracking, but they provide a quick lookup of the list that I can scroll through quickly and track the bidding, how much time is left, and possibly bid. With so many auctions lots that I track, I'm not going to put in tracking bids on lots that I likely don't want to bid on or that I may be undecided about.

With the volume of lots in Comic Link auctions and with no watch list option, to track all the lots that I normally track, I have to create browser folders and bookmark every lot. Then, when I want to go back to look up a lot, which I do a lot over CL's three-week auctions, I have go into a folder and double-click the bookmark for the lot. I have to do this for every single lot. Adding to the adventure is the default bookmark name is always "Comic Link :: The Online Vintage Comic Book and Comic Art Auction and Exchange" and not the book name and issue, like you get when you bookmark a lot on a My Comic Shop or Comic Connect auction. A watch list would make my tracking more efficient and a lot less time consuming.

[lou_fine]

On 3/16/2023 at 6:03 PM, mjoeyoung said:

Marvel Family #1 in a 6.5 sold for $9750 on Comic Connect tonight.  Same book sold for $9010 in Aug 2020. Since 2020 there have been sales of 6.0 for $36K, a 5.0 for $17K, a 4.5 for $20k, and a 4.0 for $10K. Last sale was a 2.5 that sold for $6500 in January. 

Isn't Marvel Family 1 one of those long dead slow as a snail Fawcett books and an absolutely typical snorefest of a Fawcett cover which had virtually zero demand except for that short term crazed crypto-like time period of 2021/22 when all of the speculators, flippers, and day traders had a big hard on for Black Adam before the Rock virtually single-handedly killed off the movie character all by himself.    

Just look at that.................far too many sales of a book that nobody cared about in such a short time period.  So many, in fact that you even seem to have missed a couple of them.  Namely, the 2.0 graded copy that Heritage was able to fetch only $2,880 for in January of this year and the CGC 1.8 graded Restored PLOD copy that CC was able to fetch a rather strong >$5K+ back in June of 2022:  

https://www.comicconnect.com/item/952653

So, from what I am seeing here, it would appear that based upon past movie hype pricing trajectory, as expected sanity has simply returned to the Marvel Family 1 marketplace and we are simply back to the pre-Black Adam movie hype trend line excluding the irrational exuberant crazy time period of 2021/2022.    

 

[lou_fine]

On 3/19/2023 at 12:33 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

although I have heard Heritage does it, they certainly don't make it easy to request in their standard checkout process). 

That's because you simply need to call them to request your profile be changed to a standing order that all of your winnings are to be placed on hold until you call in to request that they be shipped out to you.  

All I can say is that their shipping warehouse must be like that last scene in Indiana Jones where it's absolutely endless because you REALLY will never hear back from them about your books until you do get around to finally calling them, whether that be months later or even YEARS later.    

[KCOComics]

On 3/19/2023 at 10:44 PM, VintageComics said:

So, here's the difference between the two groups.

One group thinks they know it all.

The other groups doesn't think they know it all. They know they know nothing. 

It's that simple. And the group that thinks they "know it all" is unaware of how little they know while the other group is totally aware of how much they don't know and proceed differently. 

I had an ex who was so brilliant in her field that she would manage 9 figure accounts and do the work in a fraction of the time that the rest of her people took. 

She'd get to the bottom of everything so quickly, innately and was always right. Her co-workers would go the long way around and get to the same answer. 

But the only REAL way to determine if both are right is to have the discussion and entangle ideas to prove them.

The know-it-alls never want to have the discussion..because they know best. 

It's not that simple because you can be book smart and still be unintelligent. 

The banker dude I spoke to was book smart but unaware of how logic and physics work. 

He was sure that everything would continue to go up and up. Well, even my kids in single digit grades know that's not possible. 

And so often "education" can make people belief illogical things like "everything will keep going up" because they are in a manufactured reality, insular and disconnected from REAL reality. Basically, in a bubble. And yet they don't realize they're in the bubble. 

Just like the banks that are failing. Run by some incredibly smart people - arguably the smartest, and yet often making errors a high school dropout may not make. 

Why? Because they lose sight of reality in their manufactured bubbles. 

 

Without getting us down too much of a rabbit hole, I'll just say, usually those people at the top are not as short sighted as you might think.

You don't get to the top of fortune 500 companies just because you have a Harvard MBA. Does it help?  It can. But it takes allot of gut wrenching hard work, where you are differentiating yourself from a lot of smart, hard working, driven people.  

And mistakes get made. It's easy to look back at an organization's mistakes and think "how could they have missed that?" And often, that's a fair question to ask.... But usually there is a multitude of factors behind the scenes that lead a company down a certain path.

It's rarely one executive taking a shot in the dark... Though it's usually one (or a handful) of executives that bare the responsibility and go down for those mistakes. 

And none of this is specific to the banking situation we find ourselves in now.  Just some general commentary on corporate America. 

 

 

[drbanner]

On 3/20/2023 at 12:09 AM, Danno616 said:

With the volume of lots in Comic Link auctions and with no watch list option, to track all the lots that I normally track, I have to create browser folders and bookmark every lot. Then, when I want to go back to look up a lot, which I do a lot over CL's three-week auctions, I have go into a folder and double-click the bookmark for the lot. I have to do this for every single lot. Adding to the adventure is the default bookmark name is always "Comic Link :: The Online Vintage Comic Book and Comic Art Auction and Exchange" and not the book name and issue, like you get when you bookmark a lot on a My Comic Shop or Comic Connect auction. A watch list would make my tracking more efficient and a lot less time consuming.

Wow, that's a lot of tracking! The key to the ComicLink tracking bid trick is to get those bids in early before prices approach anywhere close to what the item might sell for. Usually I have plenty of time as most of the action happens at the end, but if prices get too high I do like you do and just bookmark the listing.

[buttock]

On 3/19/2023 at 7:32 PM, lou_fine said:

Try telling that now to the consignor who was able to get only $201K for his CGC 7.0 graded copy of Cap on CL when CC was able to fetch over $300K for their CGC 7.0 graded copy of Cap 1 the following week.      

I'm not sure why you chose to deliberately misquote me.  

[jimjum12]

On 3/19/2023 at 11:01 AM, drbanner said:

One advantage of placing tracking bids vs. using a watch feature on ComicLink is that once you place a bid on a book, you have a permanent record of that sale. Otherwise, you can't look up previous auction results...just like on ebay, ComicConnect, and most auction sites (Heritage being the exception).

I doubt tracking bids affect the final sales price of very many books at all, they have so many books and such a deep bench of bidders that the effect is likely negligible.

It may help with market analysis by weeding out and separating the gawkers and rubber neckers from those willing to "step up to the plate". GOD BLESS... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[musicmeta]

On 3/20/2023 at 5:44 AM, drbanner said:

Wow, that's a lot of tracking! The key to the ComicLink tracking bid trick is to get those bids in early before prices approach anywhere close to what the item might sell for. Usually I have plenty of time as most of the action happens at the end, but if prices get too high I do like you do and just bookmark the listing.

Yes, I bid early and cheaply to follow their listings.  

[VintageComics]

On 3/20/2023 at 5:53 AM, KCOComics said:

 

Without getting us down too much of a rabbit hole, I'll just say, usually those people at the top are not as short sighted as you might think.

You don't get to the top of fortune 500 companies just because you have a Harvard MBA. Does it help?  It can. But it takes allot of gut wrenching hard work, where you are differentiating yourself from a lot of smart, hard working, driven people.  

And mistakes get made. It's easy to look back at an organization's mistakes and think "how could they have missed that?" And often, that's a fair question to ask.... But usually there is a multitude of factors behind the scenes that lead a company down a certain path.

It's rarely one executive taking a shot in the dark... Though it's usually one (or a handful) of executives that bare the responsibility and go down for those mistakes. 

And none of this is specific to the banking situation we find ourselves in now.  Just some general commentary on corporate America. 

All good points.

I still lean towards the side that too much specialization and tunnel vision short sights those people. 

It's generally people with a more broad view of the world that tend to see things coming that others don't, like the 2007-08 collapse where a few truly saw it coming, and this one, which I personally believe was inevitable and just another extension of the collapse of 2007-08 which was never fundamentally address and simply had the fallout prolonged. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by VintageComics

[blazingbob]

On 3/20/2023 at 2:02 PM, VintageComics said:

All good points.

I still lean towards the side that too much specialization and tunnel vision short sights those people. 

It's generally people with a more broad view of the world that tend to see things coming that others don't, like the 2007-08 collapse where a few truly saw it coming, and this one, which I personally believe was inevitable and just another extension of the collapse of 2007-08 which was never fundamentally address and simply had the fallout prolonged. 

I'm not sure how the "collective" you can see it coming unless you are reading the security filings of the banks and their holdings.

Or following the changes in law which relaxed the stress test standards on the regionals.  SVB was right up there moaning about it and guess where they are now.  

One of the problems is that the federal reserve can't have it both ways.  If you want banks to buy those treasuries that the government is printing out you have to have a model of review when you decide to jack rates.  

The problem is that if a bank had stocks in their portfolio you have to mark to market those securities every quarter.  However treasuries etc that are held to maturity were not.  However,  the warning sign was the "unrealized losses" that are sitting on banks balance sheets if they "had to sell".  Create the run and the bank then has to sell.  Unrealized losses suddenly turn into real losses.  That supposedly "strong deposit base" panics and the momentum down escalates.  

While some of us think the financial system is "sound" it is all built on "Faith" and counter party risk.  

Whenever I read who profited off this mess Goldman Sachs is right there.  Made over $100 million on the SVB bond portfolio they bought and I'm sure they were shorting SVB stock the minute they got the Bond portfolio call.

And guess who is out there Selling claims against the Credit Suisse Tier 1 bonds that went to $0 - Goldman Sachs. 

This article also points out what happens when a bank communicates weakness.  You might as well as cut an artery and threw yourself in a shark infested pool - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/svb-failed-stock-offering-shows-140346893.html 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by blazingbob

[lou_fine]

On 3/20/2023 at 5:48 AM, buttock said:

On 3/19/2023 at 6:32 PM, lou_fine said:

Try telling that now to the consignor who was able to get only $201K for his CGC 7.0 graded copy of Cap on CL when CC was able to fetch over $300K for their CGC 7.0 graded copy of Cap 1 the following week.      

I'm not sure why you chose to deliberately misquote me.

Sorry, my bad as I had to go back and reread one of your previous posts and missed the part where you had excluded the mega keys:  

On 3/16/2023 at 6:31 PM, buttock said:

Comicconnect is probably the worst place to sell a book like this.  I have such a hard time taking their prices at face value.  I feel like if you put the same book on Heritage you can expect 10-75% more with the few exceptions of mega keys, where they do very well.

As for a former long stone cold dead book like Marvel Family 1 with a snorefest of a cover, I think it really has less to do about the auction house and so much more to do with speculators speculating on what other books speculators might be speculating on   when it comes to overblown movie related hype.  From my POV, it looks like the typical historical pricing pattern with these books after the movie has come out, and no doubt exacerbated by the fact that the studio and the Rock (albeit against his will) have pretty much nailed the coffin shut on the entire Black Adam franchise, at least for now.  

Clearly evident by the fact that although CC was able to auctioned off a CGC 1.8 graded Restored PLOD copy of Marvel Family 1 for over $5K last summer, Heritage was only able to fetch $2,880 for their 2.0 graded unrestored copy back in January of 2023.  

Edited March 20, 2023 by lou_fine

[MGsimba77]

On 3/19/2023 at 9:32 PM, lou_fine said:

Try telling that now to the consignor who was able to get only $201K for his CGC 7.0 graded copy of Cap on CL when CC was able to fetch over $300K for their CGC 7.0 graded copy of Cap 1 the following week.      

Should be noted that Clink has been charging sales tax (at least in Florida) since early in the year and CC hasn't as of yet. I assume if they're charging in Florida, the same would apply to other big states. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by MGsimba77

[the blob]

On 3/5/2023 at 7:38 AM, mstrange said:

Price drop for Solomon Grundy.

 

 

awesome cover and 1st, but DCs of that era in that condition are not all that hard to find, so I can understand prioce resistance at those levels

[F For Fake]

On 3/20/2023 at 6:44 AM, drbanner said:

Wow, that's a lot of tracking! The key to the ComicLink tracking bid trick is to get those bids in early before prices approach anywhere close to what the item might sell for. Usually I have plenty of time as most of the action happens at the end, but if prices get too high I do like you do and just bookmark the listing.

Same. I'm usually there the morning after the new listings start so I can throw $1 or whatever on each lot. It's fun, I get that same feeling I got as a kid when the new Sears Wish Book showed up in the mail, and I'd spend a day circling all the stuff that I hoped Santa might bring. Only now I'm Santa, down to the white beard and big belly!

[DC#]

Here are session 1 results from ComicLink March Focused auction.   This will be the only recap from this auction for me.   I think the auction is mislabeled - any auction that goes on for 3 weeks with hundreds of pages of listings is not very focused.   

 

[lou_fine]

On 3/21/2023 at 3:17 PM, DC# said:

Here are session 1 results from ComicLink March Focused auction.

Greatly appreciate all of the work and time it must take to compile this list for us here.  

Any idea where you got the last sale from for Famous Funnies 210 at $7,009 because I could not see it in either the HA or CC archives?  

Either way, that $7,009 would definitely appear to be an outlier by a long shot from what I am finding based upon relative pricing by grade.  

Edited March 21, 2023 by lou_fine

[DC#]

On 3/21/2023 at 3:28 PM, lou_fine said:

Greatly appreciate all of the work and time it must take to compile this list for us here.  

Any idea where you got the last sale from for Famous Funnies 210 at $7,009 because I could not see it in either the HA or CC archives?  

Either way, that $7,009 would definitely appear to be an outlier by a long shot from what I am finding based upon relative pricing by grade.  

 

https://www.hakes.com/Auction/ItemDetail/256987/FAMOUS-FUNNIES-210-FEBRUARY-1954-CGC-85-VF-BUCK-ROGERS