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

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

The "only" prices that keep climbing are for the "big" comic books I want to purchase.

[DC#]

On 4/11/2023 at 11:02 PM, lou_fine said:

Actually, since this is a comic book board here, all of these box office stats are meaningless, except for what is their impact going to be on the Super Mario comic book.  

Are these huge box office a possbile sign that the Super Mario related comic books might actually have some legs going forward longer term?  Or does it just mean the same old, same old when it comes to comic book related hyped movies which has a very short term spike, but then proceeds to a crash and burn now that the event (i.e. movie opening) has already taken place.    

I wonder if there is challenge with “lack of complexity” or childishness in books like Mario that will hold them back long term.   Golden age stuff like Four Color seem to be above this but true collectibility in bronze and newer seems to align with more modern sensibilities like elevation of anti-hero, darker stories, and more maturity overall.   

Only one of these covers clicks with me……probably a sad commentary on our modern society.   Then again Romans jammed into the Colosseum to watch death and dismemberment so maybe it is just human nature.

 

 

[PopKulture]

On 4/11/2023 at 8:41 PM, DC# said:

No record is unbreakable (except maybe Nolan Ryan’s career strikeouts).  

In order to break Fernando Tatis's record of two grand slams in one inning, someone would need to hit three or more...  

[jcjames]

On 4/12/2023 at 9:45 AM, PopKulture said:

In order to break Fernando Tatis's record of two grand slams in one inning, someone would need to hit three or more...  

Quite impressive.

In order to break Denny McLain's wins-in-a-season record, someone needs to win 32 games... when most starters don't even set foot on the mound for more than 25 games/season anymore. 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by jcjames

[GrasshopperFF]

On 4/11/2023 at 8:36 PM, JollyComics said:

I find it very interesting. Both Super Mario and Star Wars are classic cult.  First five Star Wars movies before Star Wars: The Force Awakens earned $247.2M total on 1st weekends only.  The Force Awakens earned $248M to beat all first five Star Wars Movies included Star Wars Special Edition on its first weekend. Just Amazing.  Super Mario's record is unbreakable.

Is it ok to admit I am gobbling up each new episode of The Mandalorian? Star Wars was incredible to a kid of the 1970’s. I lost track after the 5th film, but I really like the shows. Andor was amazing. So, yes, I picked up some 9.8 books. #1 and #42. Really like my 9.8 Jedi Yoda.
Mario was cool in a different way. Not sure the nostalgia and cool factor is as deep as Star Wars. it’s not. And totally surprised about Mario’s box office success. 

[Robot Man]

On 4/11/2023 at 9:02 PM, lou_fine said:

Actually, since this is a comic book board here, all of these box office stats are meaningless, except for what is their impact going to be on the Super Mario comic book.  

Are these huge box office a possbile sign that the Super Mario related comic books might actually have some legs going forward longer term?  Or does it just mean the same old, same old when it comes to comic book related hyped movies which has a very short term spike, but then proceeds to a crash and burn now that the event (i.e. movie opening) has already taken place.    

Hot Wheels cars are the hottest thing around right now. Boxes hit the pegs and they are literally cleaned out in hours. Flippers and resellers grab them all in multiples. Most of them want the cars especially anything Japanese. 

A real hot one is this Mario car. A current release. The HW flippers grab them fast. What they don’t know is how much more the video game and nostalgia crowd will pay for it. The same thing with this Godzilla Nissan.

I think Mario comics are probably a good investment. 

[Stefan_W]

On 4/7/2023 at 9:48 AM, Stefan_W said:

I was snapping up these books when they were less than half of what they are going for now, although it could just be that a couple of people got into a bidding war and just drove the prices last night. 

 

Same books less than a week later in the same CL auction and even more staggering.

 

[SeniorSurfer]

On 4/12/2023 at 5:59 PM, jcjames said:

Quite impressive.

In order to break Denny McLain's wins-in-a-season record, someone needs to win 32 games... when most starters don't even set foot on the mound for more than 25 games/season anymore. 

 

 

As impressive and probably unbreakable as McLain's modern single season win total is, even he (or anyone else trying) would have to pitch on 2-3 days rest to come close to the numbers racked up by some of those turn-of-the-century wild men and HOF players.  This list stops at those that had won 32 in a season, with 32+ being repetitive and numbers ranging past 40, 50 and all the way up to the single season leader, Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn with 60(!).  ("I just pitched the first game of the doubleheader."  "Yeah well, we need the second game too... just rub some dirt on your arm and get out there."  Probably).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_single-season_wins_leaders

[F For Fake]

On 4/12/2023 at 8:44 PM, Robot Man said:

Hot Wheels cars are the hottest thing around right now. Boxes hit the pegs and they are literally cleaned out in hours. Flippers and resellers grab them all in multiples. Most of them want the cars especially anything Japanese. 

A real hot one is this Mario car. A current release. The HW flippers grab them fast. What they don’t know is how much more the video game and nostalgia crowd will pay for it. The same thing with this Godzilla Nissan.

I think Mario comics are probably a good investment. 

Proving your point: I don't collect hot wheels, had no idea this existed, and now I'll be needing that Godzilla car! The hunt begins!

[ThothAmon]

Haven’t seen the movie yet but my son loved it. Pretty sure I have more hiding in the collection. 
 

[valiantman]

My favorite thing about the Valiant books for Nintendo (Mario, Zelda, Captain N, Game Boy) was always the Valiant logo. 

They're not part of the Valiant Universe, but they're definitely part of Valiant (and Nintendo) history.

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 4/11/2023 at 8:03 AM, EastEnd1 said:

Just to add a little "color" to your point which I agree with...

The 1980-82 recession saw the emergence of the direct market and rapid proliferation of comic book shops across the country.

The 1990-91 recession saw exploding comic book circulation figures.

The 2001 recession saw the emergence of standardized comic book grading (ie CGC) and a surging of back issue pricing.

The 2008-09 great recession saw no significant drop in back issue pricing (though graded comic pricing had retreated in the years prior as census figures grew)

The 2020 "Covid" recession saw a previously unheard of skyrocketing in back issue prices.

I'd also add that the comic book industry itself emerged during the ACTUAL DEPRESSION and ascended into its "golden age" during the most tragic war the world has ever seen.

 

Like the superheros it birthed, our "little" hobby has shown itself to be quite resilient and will be fine for some time to come 

 

[mjoeyoung]

On 4/11/2023 at 6:03 AM, EastEnd1 said:

Just to add a little "color" to your point which I agree with...

The 1980-82 recession saw the emergence of the direct market and rapid proliferation of comic book shops across the country.

The 1990-91 recession saw exploding comic book circulation figures.

The 2001 recession saw the emergence of standardized comic book grading (ie CGC) and a surging of back issue pricing.

The 2008-09 great recession saw no significant drop in back issue pricing (though graded comic pricing had retreated in the years prior as census figures grew)

The 2020 "Covid" recession saw a previously unheard of skyrocketing in back issue prices.

I'd also add that the comic book industry itself emerged during the ACTUAL DEPRESSION and ascended into its "golden age" during the most tragic war the world has ever seen.

 

Like the superheros it birthed, our "little" hobby has shown itself to be quite resilient and will be fine for some time to come 

 

Well, it looks like we are gonna see since the Federal Reserve is predicting another recession for this year. It is going to be interesting to see if values hold up.

There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the art market, and the gist of it was that a small group of billionaires was propping up the overall market.  "Last years sales of works valued at more than $10 million were 700% above 2009 levels, compared with a 10% increase for art price below $50,000."  It made me think of the crazy multiples people are paying for 9.8s vs.9.6s and less.

It also made me think about some of the larger purchases I made in 2018 and 2019, before valuations exploded, and how my wife would kill me if I tried to buy those same comics today, at these prices.  In a declining market, are there enough people swimming in the pool who can afford to pay $10K or more for a comic to keep these valuations?  Would these people even want to?

I sill think that after the upcoming recession, end of 2023 or early 2024, is going to be the best time to buy.  Overall market is going to continue deflating, with prices falling another 40% or so from here.  Here is a GPA chart for X-Men #1 in 4.5 with a circle to illustrate where I think prices are going.  This valuation still locks in the nice gains that were made pre-bubble.

[DC#]

On 4/14/2023 at 4:27 PM, mjoeyoung said:

Well, it looks like we are gonna see since the Federal Reserve is predicting another recession for this year. It is going to be interesting to see if values hold up.

There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the art market, and the gist of it was that a small group of billionaires was propping up the overall market.  "Last years sales of works valued at more than $10 million were 700% above 2009 levels, compared with a 10% increase for art price below $50,000."  It made me think of the crazy multiples people are paying for 9.8s vs.9.6s and less.

It also made me think about some of the larger purchases I made in 2018 and 2019, before valuations exploded, and how my wife would kill me if I tried to buy those same comics today, at these prices.  In a declining market, are there enough people swimming in the pool who can afford to pay $10K or more for a comic to keep these valuations?  Would these people even want to?

I sill think that after the upcoming recession, end of 2023 or early 2024, is going to be the best time to buy.  Overall market is going to continue deflating, with prices falling another 40% or so from here.  Here is a GPA chart for X-Men #1 in 4.5 with a circle to illustrate where I think prices are going.  This valuation still locks in the nice gains that were made pre-bubble.

In reference to the art market data being overweight in the high end - Short Box just had this analysis in their newsletter this week.   
 

Here is their description of the data:

”you'll see the overall historical breakdown of sales and total revenue data across all platforms we track. The top chart shows how many books were sold in a given price range, and the bottom chart shows the contribution to total revenue by price range. If we strip away all of the available book identifiers and look at the numbers, an encouraging picture emerges.”

This is not just their platform sales but they also don’t specify the time range on the data which makes it harder to absolutely proclaim that the current comic market is showing healthy participation across the ranges.   
 

Edited April 15, 2023 by DC#

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 4/15/2023 at 10:48 AM, DC# said:

In reference to the art market data being overweight in the high end - Short Box just had this analysis in their newsletter this week.   
 

Here is their description of the data:

”you'll see the overall historical breakdown of sales and total revenue data across all platforms we track. The top chart shows how many books were sold in a given price range, and the bottom chart shows the contribution to total revenue by price range. If we strip away all of the available book identifiers and look at the numbers, an encouraging picture emerges.”

This is not just their platform sales but they also don’t specify the time range on the data which makes it harder to absolutely proclaim that the current comic market is showing healthy participation across the ranges.   
 

These pie charts would be a lot more useful if we knew whether they include raw books as well as a more detailed look at the 64% in the under $150 category.  No insult intended to anyone, as I firmly believe all collecting is fun and worthwhile, but books under $100, especially if they're raw, don't really belong in the same category of analysis as graded books of significant value.  It's not even remotely the same market.

[Stefan_W]

Pie charts are to stats what 1990s Archie comics are to comic investing. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 4/11/2023 at 7:41 PM, DC# said:

Force Awakens was $248M domestic but $529M global opening weekend.  

Based on just traditional 3 day weekend Mario domestically was under $150

Another (rudimentary/ballpark) angle on domestic numbers:

2015 average ticket price $8.42 which means opening weekend for Force Awakens was 29,453,681 tickets.

2023 average ticket price $10.45 so for Mario opening weekend was 14,354,067 tickets.

I know movie people account for inflation, and that number can skew based on the amount of screens it’s on, IMAX tickets, etc - but there is also a variable there that should be considered: how many people are going to the movies. Or: how many people are engaged in your product?

In my business, I can show profit or loss and adjust for inflation, but the meaningful number is how many people am I selling my products to this year compared to previous years. If costs go up, or consumer sentiment around my product changes - raising the price to shore up my margin can hide a troubling statistic of reduced customer engagement.

it would be interesting to see if there are some overall effects and causes of people not going to the movies as much as they used to (I mean, that’s easy to guess as to why, but some hard data might be interesting to look at)

Edited April 15, 2023 by Dr. Balls

[DC#]

On 4/15/2023 at 8:26 AM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

These pie charts would be a lot more useful if we knew whether they include raw books as well as a more detailed look at the 64% in the under $150 category.  No insult intended to anyone, as I firmly believe all collecting is fun and worthwhile, but books under $100, especially if they're raw, don't really belong in the same category of analysis as graded books of significant value.  It's not even remotely the same market.

 

On 4/15/2023 at 8:44 AM, Stefan_W said:

Pie charts are to stats what 1990s Archie comics are to comic investing. 

Tough audience on a Saturday morning    

Without more context this pie chart is of very little use - but it does illustrate that a small percentage of overall transactions at the upper end can represent the majority of the dollars.    In this case books over $2.5k were 2% of transactions but 51% of revenue.  
Sort of aligns to wealth in US where top 1% HHs  hold over a third of total wealth.   Even if you were to isolate only CGC grades books I would imagine the distribution would look very similar.    
 

As an anecdotal observation - I did notice a lot more aggressive bidding in the first 12 hours for the session one books in this months ComicLink Focused Auction as compared to past several CL auctions    The later sessions with the vast numbers of copper and modern are starting with their typical slowness.   

[PopKulture]

On 4/15/2023 at 12:45 PM, DC# said:

Tough audience on a Saturday morning    

I was thinking the same thing...  

[DC#]

On 4/15/2023 at 10:14 AM, Dr. Balls said:

Another (rudimentary/ballpark) angle on domestic numbers:

2015 average ticket price $8.42 which means opening weekend for Force Awakens was 29,453,681 tickets.

2023 average ticket price $10.45 so for Mario opening weekend was 14,354,067 tickets.

I know movie people account for inflation, and that number can skew based on the amount of screens it’s on, IMAX tickets, etc - but there is also a variable there that should be considered: how many people are going to the movies. Or: how many people are engaged in your product?

In my business, I can show profit or loss and adjust for inflation, but the meaningful number is how many people am I selling my products to this year compared to previous years. If costs go up, or consumer sentiment around my product changes - raising the price to shore up my margin can hide a troubling statistic of reduced customer engagement.

it would be interesting to see if there are some overall effects and causes of people not going to the movies as much as they used to (I mean, that’s easy to guess as to why, but some hard data might be interesting to look at)

It depends greatly on the nature of the business and if there is additional value created by having broader engagement.    If you have the pricing power you might be fine with a smaller audience if you were getting sustained premiums (which is what movie theaters have been trying to do with the premium formats and enhanced food and bev offerings to drive higher per caps with declining overall attendance).   And fewer but higher value customers might also create operational or marketing efficiencies.    
 

For movies like Mario or Star Wars there is typically a lot of value created in consumer products that are best supported with broader engagement OR very high engagement with the core demos that will buy those consumer products.    One thing for sure - the 20th century metrics for success are rapidly changing for the media industry.   As is the way desired audiences are being targeted.
 

To pull this back to Mario comic books - I am dubious that even a successful series of movies will change the long term prospects for collectibility and value.   Just as I am dubious that the appearance of a secondary or tertiary comic character in a movie/show  will elevate them to blue chip status (I was more than happy to sell my Booster Gold #1 9.8)   Miles Morales was already a popular character before the 2018 movie and UF#4 didn’t spike with the movie itself.  It spiked with the rest of the comic boom in late 2020 and thereafter.    There is a dimensionality to Miles which makes ongoing storytelling both likely and likely compelling.   Not sure I would say the same about Mario.