Are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit??? 41 41

[1Cool]

I only see a small imbalance between reds and greens and some of the greens are significant.  The big dogs are definetely not holding back from grabbing books they need!

[VintageComics]

On 9/12/2024 at 10:27 PM, pickycollector said:

Two Startling Comics #49 in CGC 5.5 recently sold in auctions:

First sold for $13,050 on Comiclink: Comiclink book

Second sold for $36,000 on Heritage: Heritage link 

I just do not understand such a huge difference in price between both 

I mentioned this in another thread, but in Dec 2023 a Batman #251 CGC 9.8 went for $11K on Clink, then an identical looking copy went for $38K 2 months ago on the same site, and then yesterday a CGC 9.8 Mass Ped copy went for $28K on Heritage, $10K less than the last non-Ped copy. 

No rhyme or reason. That's just luck of the draw at auctions. 

[VintageComics]

On 9/13/2024 at 8:59 AM, EastEnd1 said:

No question Heritage is at the top of the food chain.  The results in the first day of their signature auctions are predominantly in key golden age and high grade key silver.  The former never really experienced a significant post-covid drop... (Promise books aside), while the latter seem to have shown recent signs of rebounding.  So I'd agree you can't read too much into it.  The material coming tomorrow will be more "normal" and maybe a better indicator of what's happening in the overall market.  I think their weekly auctions are useful also.

I do think you see more volatility for bigger books, where the buying pool is much more shallow.

There was a Tec #27 4.5 that sold for $1.14MIL in 2022 and then resold for $675K 2 years later. It's more rare to see such a haircut on such an important, rare book but it does happen. I think if we all knew it was going to go that cheap many more people would have thrown in a bid. I don't think anyone expected it.

Regarding 2nd and 3rd days in large auctions, you may get a little fatigue from people who have spent a lot of dough in the 1st round, but that's not always the case. Auctions really are often luck of the draw. 

We also tend to forget that the proliferation of auction houses in the hobby is a relatively recent thing. The big 3 have 'only' been around for a couple of decades, since the standardization of grading through CGC. Before that, most were buying at fixed prices.

Heritage has been around what, 23 years now? But Comiclink and Comic Connect are much more recent - about 15 or 16 years. 

Their proliferation are certainly cash grabs, in an attempt to compete for people's money in a more aggressive way, and that money gets spread around thinner than when everything had a fixed price.

Having said that, it also increased a lot of interest in the hobby, expanded the market greatly and sped up the movement of books and money within the hobby. 

I remember comics being pretty stagnant for the most part except for eBay, which was really the best place to buy books until the other auction houses came around. 

My point being that a wider market shallows the buying pool and increases volatility. 

Edited Friday at 11:13 PM by VintageComics

[VintageComics]

On 9/13/2024 at 2:14 PM, LordRahl said:

Even if you take another 5-10% off the 90 day average, you would still be well above 2019 average. Definitely not quite the GCC that everyone is on about. If the Covid boom had not been so dramatic, we'd be talking about how much the market has gained in the last 3-4 years. Context, context, context.

This is a great point. Zooming out puts it into a great perspective. 

Even the Tec #27 4.5 that sold for $675K this year is still ahead of what higher grade copies would have sold for just pre pandemic. 

 

Edited Friday at 11:19 PM by VintageComics

[justafan]

On 8/27/2024 at 9:15 PM, Stefan_W said:

This is an interesting one. Apparently only 10 copies at 9.8 exist and the cover was done by a deceased beloved artist. Last sale in GPA was $8850 (2021), but the one before that was $200 (2020). Given the high sale was in the middle of the comic boom I am inclined to think the seller did very well with this one, but that person may disagree with me. 

 

Well if you thought this seller did well, then theHeritage seller for their copy did even better see below

On 8/27/2024 at 9:23 PM, Buzzetta said:

I personally believe there are many more copies of this book sitting around somewhere.  Seriously.  It was a promo giveaway.  The artist was a clothing designer and offered the book in coordination with sales of his T Shirt. 

The copy that sold tonight was originally offered for $16,000 on eBay earlier this year.

Link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/126573734648

There was at least 1 more for sale less than a month after the CLink auction that just sold for $10,200 on Heritage!  I wonder if we'll see a few more 9.8's come out now that the latest price data point has hit $10k.

 

[godzilla43]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/226345033936

I have not been checking ASM121 and 122 prices but 260$ for both in pretty nice condition seems cheap.

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 9/13/2024 at 3:07 PM, DC# said:

Here are some results from yesterday's Heritage auction - slightly different format given the nature of the books.    Apologies in advance to GA Subby and some of the EC titles - there were so many I really didn't recap them very well.  

 

 

 

70% of the books are off their peak. there's no bottoming out. How do I know this? less than 10% of the books have gone up or down less than 10%.  There's no deceleration or soft landing. Furthermore, of the 28% that have gone up, 75% of those are examples of books that don't have recent sales data from the last few year, just last sale data.  If a book in that grade sold in 2012, then yes, that book will appear green. all the holes in the data were books have gone up reflect that.  MSH #20 is a good example of this. It's an extreme outlier for reasons that are easily explained. Other books like Cap #6- just not a lot of recent comp data.  I'd consider not even including books that don't fit the time frame of the analysis, they just muddy the data and mislead and misinform less discerning individuals who never had stats or know how to read a spreadsheet.  

but @DC# you've done a great service to all these discussions with your auction sales data. It's probably the single best thing in this thread or any thread you've shared them in while most are pontificating flatulent ideas.

 

[1Cool]

Went to a very small comic con yesterday and it wasn't pretty in terms of people through the door and the number of dealers that set up.  I don't see that Con surviving so I won't put too much stock in the low attendance and irritate dealers for wasting a Sunday.  I didn't find one book and left empty handed for the first time ever even though there was a bunch of 50% off deals going on.  I instead spent my hour just talking to the dealers and trying to get their opinions about their year and what they are planning.  I'm hoping next week in Baltimore will be a much better Con and my general mood about the industry will be much better after next weekend.

[Microchip]

On 9/14/2024 at 6:42 AM, 1Cool said:

I only see a small imbalance between reds and greens and some of the greens are significant.  The big dogs are definetely not holding back from grabbing books they need!

The bar was set over covid as to where the price points are at.   The fact that prices have subsided for the bulk of books, the big keys are still very much in demand, and pricing hasn't slowed.  

The distinction seems to be around the 5 to 6 figure books in mid-grade.  The fluctuations are in, and expected.

Established SA/BA/CA keys that were in 3K to 15K pre-covid, are firmly in the 10k to 30k bracket now for high grade copies.    

 

 

[VintageComics]

On 9/16/2024 at 8:25 AM, 1Cool said:

Went to a very small comic con yesterday and it wasn't pretty in terms of people through the door and the number of dealers that set up.  I don't see that Con surviving so I won't put too much stock in the low attendance and irritate dealers for wasting a Sunday.  I didn't find one book and left empty handed for the first time ever even though there was a bunch of 50% off deals going on.  I instead spent my hour just talking to the dealers and trying to get their opinions about their year and what they are planning.  I'm hoping next week in Baltimore will be a much better Con and my general mood about the industry will be much better after next weekend.

You have primarily been a flipper / speculator, buying hype books to flip. 

The hype market is very slow, but you're making it sound like the hype market represents the greater market.

The hype market does represent some of the market, in much the same way something like penny stocks are represented in the stock market, but you can't judge the health of the stock market on penny stocks, can you?

[1Cool]

On 9/16/2024 at 6:58 PM, VintageComics said:

You have primarily been a flipper / speculator, buying hype books to flip. 

The hype market is very slow, but you're making it sound like the hype market represents the greater market.

The hype market does represent some of the market, in much the same way something like penny stocks are represented in the stock market, but you can't judge the health of the stock market on penny stocks, can you?

I can see why you compare spec books to penny stocks since they are high risk high reward but I could call your typical book Mag 7 stocks.  We just operate on different ends of the spectrum and I can only report on my side of the market.  I will have to say there is a lot of books in the middle that I would call regular filler books and I didn’t hear much good talking with dealers of these type of books.  One dealer said they are basically living off of $1 books since nobody is buying the filler books for decent prices unless they are very high grade copies.  
 

This should be great news for board members since they tend to gravitate toward these type of books.  But since you bring it up - what percent of books are ultra high grade or hard to find keys?  Impossible to define what the “comic market” is since it’s so diverse and I guess we can only describe what part of the elephant we are grabbing.

Edited yesterday at 01:38 PM by 1Cool

[VintageComics]

On 9/16/2024 at 7:21 PM, 1Cool said:

I guess we can only describe what part of the elephant we are grabbing.

I know which part I'm NOT grabbing. 

[Stefan_W]

Had my eye on the Batman 20 that ended on CL tonight but was outbid by about $150. The hammer price was very reasonable but I had to set a hard cap to avoid spending beyond my range. 

[jimjum12]

On 9/13/2024 at 2:14 PM, LordRahl said:

You are correct. 90 day averages vs 12 month is still down however it's tapering off. Take the same ASM 50, 90 day vs 12 month is down about 5% in every grade that has sales except weirdly enough 8.0 which is very slightly up. Even if you take another 5-10% off the 90 day average, you would still be well above 2019 average. Definitely not quite the GCC that everyone is on about. If the Covid boom had not been so dramatic, we'd be talking about how much the market has gained in the last 3-4 years. Context, context, context.

And another caveat, we are focusing on keys only in this discussion, which is not a litmus for the total "market". I'm noticing a lot more growth in certain segments of the run and semi key/classic cover "market". Still, this index is very praiseworthy both in scope and maintenance.  BA keys seem a bit underwhelming unless one is still buying  GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited 9 hours ago by jimjum12

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

The BA comic books I wish to purchase, in CGC graded 9.8 grade, are generally too expensive so I don't buy them. The ones I have no interest in, are frequently relatively cheap but, to repeat, I don't want them.

My "plan" is to start wanting the BA books I have no interest in to drive up the prices and lose interest in the ones I want to drive down the prices. When that occurs, I will strike ...

I believe my plan will work ... ... ... or perhaps not.

 

 

 

[LordRahl]

On 9/18/2024 at 8:15 AM, Tec-Tac-Toe said:

The BA comic books I wish to purchase, in CGC graded 9.8 grade, are generally too expensive so I don't buy them. The ones I have no interest in, are frequently relatively cheap but, to repeat, I don't want them.

My "plan" is to start wanting the BA books I have no interest in to drive up the prices and lose interest in the ones I want to drive down the prices. When that occurs, I will strike ...

I believe my plan will work ... ... ... or perhaps not.

 

 

 

It's a solid plan. The execution of it might be a bit tough but if you figure out how to do this, please let me know.

[Microchip]

It's the canary in the gold with platinum inlays mine.   This price is ridiculous!

 

[The Less Blob]

On 9/18/2024 at 4:04 PM, Microchip said:

It's the canary in the gold with platinum inlays mine.   This price is ridiculous!

 

Ridiculously low or high?

[comicnoir]

On 9/18/2024 at 4:04 PM, Microchip said:

It's the canary in the gold with platinum inlays mine.   This price is ridiculous!

 

Great Adams cover/art. Very undervalued series. Great GGA. I have a few high grade copies myself.