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

[KCOComics]

On 1/12/2024 at 5:08 PM, Bookery said:

Ah.  I misunderstood the previous post.  If you're a golden-age collector, especially, I would never imagine you could fulfill your wants just by shopping at stores.  But I'm not sure why it has to be an either/or thing either.

I will quibble with your assertion that not putting comics on-line is "irresponsible" (responsible to whom?).  But I guess i'm irresponsible.  I used to do shows and mail order and eBay and the whole shebang.  But now my stock stays in the shop.  I don't do mail-order.  It's walk-in or not at all.  I have nearly 100% sell-thru on anything that's remotely decent.  Sometimes within hours, sometimes within weeks, occasionally within months.  But sooner or later it sells.  I don't have trouble selling comics in my shop, so why would I add the bother of setting up at shows or running to the post office all week?  Sure... I might get more in some online or auction venues.  But I'm at the point where I can retire whenever I choose to, so getting a few more dollars isn't worth the hassle to me.

But moreover, it's a very deliberate decision, partly for the reasons many have stated above.  It may be old-fashioned, but I want to have a brick-and-mortar location where customers can walk in and find an assortment that you don't find in other shops.  I don't want to have a boring shop because everything I get immediately goes on eBay or some big auction house.  Now stock is only as good as the collections that can be obtained, and that varies a lot from month to month and year to year.  But you can't have it both ways.  People on here are complaining that they don't go to shops because they never have anything other than moderns.  Then if a shop does carry vintage stuff, they're called irresponsible for not making it available online.  So... which is it?

It's like the other famous dilemma that occurs among many collectors.  They don't like a shop that doesn't have a lot of big hot books.  But if you do have them, they complain that prices are too high.  Because high prices are the only way they are going to stay on your walls.  I try to keep my prices reasonable which is why everything eventually sells.   And I have a variable but good mix of older stuff on any given day.  But I could have a great mix of stuff if I over-priced.  If all the stuff I bought in just the past couple of years were on the walls at one time, it would be a fascinating display indeed.  But customers wouldn't buy it, because the books would have to be well above market to maintain that display. 

In-store selling isn't for everyone.  It's a niche approach to selling.  But if I put everything good up for auction, I would disappoint most if not all of my existing customer base to favor customers-unknown across the country.  And that, in my mind, would be "irresponsible" to the folks that have supported me for 40 years, and to those that drive a few miles out of their way as they pass through from out-of-state.

 

Where is your shop? 

[GrasshopperFF]

On 1/12/2024 at 9:50 PM, KCOComics said:

Where is your shop? 

I was wondering the same!

[Bookery]

On 1/12/2024 at 9:50 PM, KCOComics said:

Where is your shop? 

near Dayton, Ohio.

This area, surprisingly, is quite shop-intensive.  There are 6 or 7 shops in the vicinity, and a number of others if you add Cincinnati and Columbus into the mix (less than an hour's drive away).  (The Dayton area was also once a hotbed of used and rare bookstores... over a dozen within 30 minutes of each other.  Sadly, all but one or two have fallen by the wayside, victims of big-box stores, Amazon, and a general indifference to the product).

[Bookery]

On 1/12/2024 at 9:05 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

We're in a thread that is all about the rising and falling of comic book prices -- that discussion isn't exclusively about the top of the market, but it's the top of the market that drives the overall trends.  And it so happens that my personal collecting interest tends to be at the top of the market. 

I agree with you then, you won't find that sort of thing in shops unless you just happen in shortly after a purchase.  And if you do, as you say, a lot of small shops are so impressed with what they've picked up, the book is usually over-priced, or worse, significantly over-graded.

A couple of years ago I purchased a nice near-complete mini-run of GA Batman #s 2-20.  They averaged a nice 5.0-6.0 in grade, and one even had a double-cover!  They sold to a walk-in customer the next day.  I also picked up an average but attractive copy of Hulk #1.  It sold to the next person who walked in the door 15 minutes later.  Now, those examples were at the height of the Covid collectibles-mania, and things have cooled down a bit since then.  It's nice to be able to move stuff quickly (and there's not a lot of margin in these big books), but it's a bit sad as well.  Most of my customers never saw them and never know this sort of stuff shows up from time to time.  Ideally, one would like books like that to sit around for about a month, as it's good advertising for future collections for folks to see them in the shop.  But that's rarely the case, and you can't have everything.

[KCOComics]

On 1/13/2024 at 8:53 AM, Bookery said:

near Dayton, Ohio.

This area, surprisingly, is quite shop-intensive.  There are 6 or 7 shops in the vicinity, and a number of others if you add Cincinnati and Columbus into the mix (less than an hour's drive away).  (The Dayton area was also once a hotbed of used and rare bookstores... over a dozen within 30 minutes of each other.  Sadly, all but one or two have fallen by the wayside, victims of big-box stores, Amazon, and a general indifference to the product).

I do alot of traveling for work. I haven't been to Dayton yet, but if I'm ever in the area I'll make it a point to drop in. 

I appreciate your posts and perspective as a comic shop owner. 

[Bookery]

On 1/13/2024 at 10:09 AM, KCOComics said:

I do alot of traveling for work. I haven't been to Dayton yet, but if I'm ever in the area I'll make it a point to drop in. 

I appreciate your posts and perspective as a comic shop owner. 

Thanks.  I love shop talk and it's unfortunate there are only a few shop owners on these boards, and they aren't typically inclined to discuss the details of their professions, which I understand.  I've been at this for over 40  years, and don't have anything to be close-to-the-vest about anymore.  I'm happy to discuss the ins and outs, anecdotes good and bad, etc.  It would be nice to have a separate thread for this, but it wouldn't be very useful just to have me post (there are as many approaches to shop-keeping as there are shops, and wildly different experiences).  Anyway... even here the thread is getting a bit derailed, so back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Yowza!  That issue dropped by how much!!??

 

[GrasshopperFF]

On 1/13/2024 at 9:05 AM, Bookery said:

I agree with you then, you won't find that sort of thing in shops unless you just happen in shortly after a purchase.  And if you do, as you say, a lot of small shops are so impressed with what they've picked up, the book is usually over-priced, or worse, significantly over-graded.

A couple of years ago I purchased a nice near-complete mini-run of GA Batman #s 2-20.  They averaged a nice 5.0-6.0 in grade, and one even had a double-cover!  They sold to a walk-in customer the next day.  I also picked up an average but attractive copy of Hulk #1.  It sold to the next person who walked in the door 15 minutes later.  Now, those examples were at the height of the Covid collectibles-mania, and things have cooled down a bit since then.  It's nice to be able to move stuff quickly (and there's not a lot of margin in these big books), but it's a bit sad as well.  Most of my customers never saw them and never know this sort of stuff shows up from time to time.  Ideally, one would like books like that to sit around for about a month, as it's good advertising for future collections for folks to see them in the shop.  But that's rarely the case, and you can't have everything.

Is it possible to have at least a hybrid mix of website and in-store offerings? My God, that Hulk 1!! Your source material is clearly rich beyond measure.

There is obvious value to moving things quickly, I’m sure. But there is minimal shelf-life and storage need for such hi-valued books. 
I’m not pretending to know one thing about the profession, mind you. I cannot touch 40 years of experience. Websites and payment processing, coupled with shipping woes — can be difficult to maintain. But such processing is getting easier and less costly by the day. I think I’ve seen some of your books on FB?

My wife went to Dayton University. Our trips there are rare, but I’ll certainly stop in if we get there again! Edit: Hopefully just after you receive another Hulk 1!!

Edited January 13 by GrasshopperFF

[Bookery]

On 1/13/2024 at 10:44 AM, GrasshopperFF said:

Is it possible to have at least a hybrid mix of website and in-store offerings? My God, that Hulk 1!! Your source material is clearly rich beyond measure.

There is obvious value to moving things quickly, I’m sure. But there is minimal shelf-life and storage need for such hi-valued books. 
I’m not pretending to know one thing about the profession, mind you. I cannot touch 40 years of experience. Websites and payment processing, coupled with shipping woes — can be difficult to maintain. But such processing is getting easier and less costly by the day. I think I’ve seen some of your books on FB?

My wife went to Dayton University. Our trips there are rare, but I’ll certainly stop in if we get there again! Edit: Hopefully just after you receive another Hulk 1!!

I don't want to give the wrong impression.  In the "old days" I'd get most of the SA mega-keys in about once each every year.  I once had 3 Showcase #4s in the shop at one time (not a big deal for someone like Bedrock, but not bad for here in the Mid-West), and another time 2 Batman #1s.  But these have become pretty far-between in recent years.  Usually it's an existing customer who has up-graded and sells off his lesser copy.  Now the shop has a good mix at any given time of SA-up in the under-$1,000 range, and an eclectic mix of scattered golden-age that changes over the months.  I still buy the big books (after 40 years, I have more buying power than ever, so it's not an issue in buying them when they are offered), but these usually sell to existing want-lists, or the several big-$ local collectors that scoop them up as I detailed earlier.  I  have a lot  of dealers who come here, and they can often buy quality books here in the Mid-West and sell them for considerably more when they set up at San Diego or Chicago.  The "Big Books" are fun to get in, but there's not that much comparative profit in them (another dirty little dealer secret).  Unless you specialize in them (eg Metropolis, Bedrock, others) you get better mark-up on books under $1000, and certainly have a wider range of potential buyers.

[Happy Noodle Boy]

On 12/12/2023 at 9:23 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

Well, Matt pressed books for us before submitting them to CGC in 2006. If that was your first incorrect assumption I’d let it slide. Your Roy-splaining about the printing process is comical, as I’ve forgotten more about the printing process in the last 30 years than you presume to know by several orders of magnitude. Again, not your fault that because you’re into comics you’re not the SME on the methods of production you think you are. Lots of that on message boards and you’re hardly unique. But to compare printing on virgin paper on a printing press to the application of heat and moisture and pressure to a printed comic with the cover and staples and glue where applicable already assembled years or decades after its original production with little knowledge of the conditions the book was subject to in the intervening years is naive at best. The simple fact that some press-able defects are only temporarily ameliorated and need to be graded and slabbed in a timely manner before they revert to their original state of imperfection proves that pressing is indeed an artificial treatment of the comic that is pure trickery that is hardly benign. How many times are you willing to repress that book if it’s so benign? Its not Botox. Its wood pulp, it’s not going to get better with time, and you might have just shortened that time to pass it off as a higher grade. Assuming most of the Promise Books went through a cursory pressing, even as we speak some of those 9.4 and 9.6s are shrinking back to the 9.0 and 9.2s they always were. I’m hardly bitter though, I’ve never lost money on a slab. Nothing printed in the last 55 years was ever worth slabbing to begin with. What a colossal waste of money better spent on genuinely rare artifacts like comic art. 

I've always believed pressing is restoration. CGC can't always detect it, so they decided it isn't restoration. But I think it is.

As for slabbing -- it's never been my thing. I like being able to look at my books. It has always surprised me that CGC has been so successful with slabbing comics -- I had assumed that it just wouldn't catch on because comics aren't like stamps or baseball cards or coins. Who would want to slab a comic book when that meant the inside pages couldn't ever be viewed? I was wrong.

[KCOComics]

On 1/13/2024 at 11:16 AM, Bookery said:

I don't want to give the wrong impression.  In the "old days" I'd get most of the SA mega-keys in about once each every year.  I once had 3 Showcase #4s in the shop at one time (not a big deal for someone like Bedrock, but not bad for here in the Mid-West), and another time 2 Batman #1s.  But these have become pretty far-between in recent years.  Usually it's an existing customer who has up-graded and sells off his lesser copy.  Now the shop has a good mix at any given time of SA-up in the under-$1,000 range, and an eclectic mix of scattered golden-age that changes over the months.  I still buy the big books (after 40 years, I have more buying power than ever, so it's not an issue in buying them when they are offered), but these usually sell to existing want-lists, or the several big-$ local collectors that scoop them up as I detailed earlier.  I  have a lot  of dealers who come here, and they can often buy quality books here in the Mid-West and sell them for considerably more when they set up at San Diego or Chicago.  The "Big Books" are fun to get in, but there's not that much comparative profit in them (another dirty little dealer secret).  Unless you specialize in them (eg Metropolis, Bedrock, others) you get better mark-up on books under $1000, and certainly have a wider range of potential buyers.

I'm loving these stories. Maybe we should start a new thread.  Or you could do a journal perhaps? 

 

[GrasshopperFF]

On 1/14/2024 at 7:05 AM, KCOComics said:

I'm loving these stories. Maybe we should start a new thread.  Or you could do a journal perhaps? 

 

Maybe a tastefully done podcast — without pimping any particular comics? Methodically securing oral histories of the hobby from a business and timepiece perspective. Bookery and his ilk (many on these boards??) have a tremendous amount of knowledge and cool stories that should be told and documented. 
I would help support that effort! 

[DC#]

Good times are back!  Over 3x GPA. 
 

[jeffreyk]

Prices seem to rebounding based on the last Heritage auction on many books.  Hope it continues!

[mjoeyoung]

On 1/14/2024 at 9:18 AM, DC# said:

Good times are back!  Over 3x GPA. 

X-Men #98, 9.8 White Pages for $10,20.

Why do I always get the feeling that that Heritage has to have the largest percentage of ill-informed comic buyers?  If feels like every auction has some kind of just plain insane bidding.  It wasn't that long ago that a 6.5 ASM #1 GRR sold for regular ASM #1 price, but It looks like somebody wised up because the sale doesn't appear in their history.  People with more money than sense.  $10,200 is a 16.5X premium over the last 9.6 sale of $616.  It is also twice as much the previous high sale of $5K.  In what world does this sale make sense?

I would really appreciate it if these people would go back to buying NFTs.

[mjoeyoung]

That X-Men #98 reminds me of this one:

Aliens #1 (Dark Horse, 1988) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages.... that sold for $7500, and people attempting to legitimize it.

Well here are the GPA sales from last year:

They both look like an attempt at market manipulation.  They think we are all suckers.

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 1/14/2024 at 1:57 PM, mjoeyoung said:

X-Men #98, 9.8 White Pages for $10,20.

Why do I always get the feeling that that Heritage has to have the largest percentage of ill-informed comic buyers?  If feels like every auction has some kind of just plain insane bidding.  It wasn't that long ago that a 6.5 ASM #1 GRR sold for regular ASM #1 price, but It looks like somebody wised up because the sale doesn't appear in their history.  People with more money than sense.  $10,200 is a 16.5X premium over the last 9.6 sale of $616.  It is also twice as much the previous high sale of $5K.  In what world does this sale make sense?

I would really appreciate it if these people would go back to buying NFTs.

How many x-men 98s in 9.8 on the census?  

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 1/14/2024 at 3:22 AM, Happy Noodle Boy said:

I've always believed pressing is restoration. CGC can't always detect it, so they decided it isn't restoration. But I think it is.

As for slabbing -- it's never been my thing. I like being able to look at my books. It has always surprised me that CGC has been so successful with slabbing comics -- I had assumed that it just wouldn't catch on because comics aren't like stamps or baseball cards or coins. Who would want to slab a comic book when that meant the inside pages couldn't ever be viewed? I was wrong.

I resisted slabbing for quite a while, then went in with both feet in 2017.  It started as essentially an audit of my (99%+ raw) collection, which included at least a dozen or two books I'd cracked out of CGC slabs.  And then it became a quest to upgrade after I realized what a large percentage of my books had been overgraded by the dealers (and to be fair, by me).

I have reprints of all the classic Marvel Silver Age books I treasure the most, in some cases multiple reprints.  Plus just about all the comics I have are online.  So the ability to read the stories through other means certainly made me more comfortable.

And yes, there's nothing quite like flipping through an old comic, seeing the ads, feeling the paper, even enjoying the smell.  But as much as I'd like to do it with the high-grade, high-value stuff, I can be content doing it with the handful of raw books I've kept around.

[DC#]

On 1/14/2024 at 11:10 AM, mjoeyoung said:

That X-Men #98 reminds me of this one:

Aliens #1 (Dark Horse, 1988) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages.... that sold for $7500, and people attempting to legitimize it.

Well here are the GPA sales from last year:

They both look like an attempt at market manipulation.  They think we are all suckers.

Funny you bring this one up - they had another Aliens #1 in this auction and the listing even touted the “incredible sale” of that $7.5k copy.   
 

Swagglehaus has new YT video talking about a drastic overpay on a TEC issue this auction as well 

Here is the TEC 47 7.0 that went for $19k.  Most recent sale was a 6.5 Promise Collection in 2021 that was $2400.    Even 7.0 sales have never cracked $2k.  
 

Edited January 14 by DC#

[badback83]

@Kramerica @jimjum12 @KCOComics @GrasshopperFF 

I just went to @Bookery this past Friday.  Its been my favorite shop to go to for a long time.  We should all get together, eat and buy some books!

[jimjum12]

On 1/14/2024 at 5:09 PM, badback83 said:

@Kramerica @jimjum12 @KCOComics @GrasshopperFF 

I just went to @Bookery this past Friday.  Its been my favorite shop to go to for a long time.  We should all get together, eat and buy some books!

I wish I could, my friend. It will be a year before I can drive, if at all. Ohio is supposed to be a Pizza hotspot, rivalling even some of the Northeast legendary shops. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)