CGCEMC - CGC Estimated Market Capitalization - now over 325 comics listed 3 3

[valiantman]

Announcing CGCEMC.com

After many "helpful suggestions" in the lively CGCAMC discussion last weekend about how to throw out all my existing work and completely start over with a hundred-step process combining all the greatest improvement ideas from various people with various points of view, I've ignored them all and added one new step to CGCAMC. 

CGC Estimated Market Capitalization has arrived.  

Edited September 22, 2021 by valiantman

[valiantman]

Here's a snapshot, the other 200+ comics and a full description of the process are on CGCEMC.com (ComicMarketCap.com)

Amazing Fantasy #15, Action Comics #1, and Detective Comics #27 are the top 3... which everyone has always known.

What hasn't been as easy to know are the numbers and dollar amounts associated with those top 3... and 200+ others.

Edited September 20, 2021 by valiantman

[valiantman]

Let the hatred continue to spew (from the CGCAMC conversation), I guess, because I've done what they all said couldn't be done in fewer than two dozen complex calculations. 

It took four simple steps, three of which already existed in CGCAMC.      

My aggravation level is hopeful to be lower in the discussion this time, because I really do think I have something with CGCEMC that doesn't need too many caveats. 

If you don't want to know how the sausage is made (or if you believe that reading ISN'T fundamental - sorry, LeVar Burton), skip down to the list on the website and just look at the CGCEMC dollars on the right.  I have a tendency to be fully transparent in my data analysis and allow people a chance to check my work and run the same calculations for themselves.  Transparency is not a flaw, but it does let everyone with a tendency to criticize pick any spot in the process and go to town with bile.

I do like this CGCEMC calculation a lot.  It's not as simple as CGCAMC, but it's not overly-complicated either. 

I'm very interested to see how these numbers compare with any full market capitalization approaches any of you might post using all the various grades and various prices for all the possible CGC labels and the CGC Census for your favorite books.

I'm not interested in hearing how I can complicate the process and achieve the same (or worse) results. 

I would be willing to simplify, but adding complexity as suggested by some in earlier discussions for no net gain is a net loss.  If the suggestion would take more space to explain each book's calculation (or encoding, decoding, medianing) than what is shown on each row of the website now, it's probably not helpful as a legitimate alternative approach for visitors to the website. 

I recognize that the fact that I improved CGCAMC into CGCEMC will allow someone to claim they were the crucial key to getting to a better answer.  Whoever you are, that's true.  You're my soul and my heart's inspiration.  You're all I've got to get me by.

There are a billion things we could do for metrics in this industry.  This is one of those billion, and it only has four steps: three simple and one more that isn't too bad.  

There isn't much room to improve on simplicity here, but if someone sees something... say something.  Maybe we can get back to three simple steps.   

Edited September 20, 2021 by valiantman

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 9/20/2021 at 3:24 AM, valiantman said:

Let the hatred continue to spew...

[Bronty]

I like the new name.   Thx for putting all this together. 

[valiantman]

On 9/20/2021 at 6:00 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

Did you ever hear the tragedy of CGCAMC?

[Gatsby77]

Suggestion for the next iteration (unless I'm just not seeing it): 

The ability to break it out into ages.

Example: I got crucified a few years ago here for suggesting Star Wars # 1 was a major Bronze Age key.

Typical arguments against were it didn't count because it wasn't superhero, wasn't part of normal Marvel continuity (neither is Conan) and/or that it was an adaptation - not an original property (never mind that the comic book came out before the movie, ultimately sold ~1 million copies through various printing and was literally credited with saving Marvel Comics from bankruptcy).

Meanwhile, my argument hinged largely on your market cap one - that the only reason the $.30 cover wasn't a $500 book in CGC 9.4 was it was stupid common. Esp. vs. such rare-in-high grade books as Marvel Spotlight 5, Green Lantern 76 and House of Secrets 92.

Today, it's a $500 book in CGC 9.2 and a $5,000 book in CGC 9.8 - despite being widely available in grade - the ASM 300 of its day.

I feel like your chart helps validate my argument, as it shows Star Wars # 1's market cap is actually above that of such traditional Bronze Age keys as:

• ASM 101
• Iron Fist 14
• Iron Man 55
• Green Lantern 76
• Cerebus # 1

Edited September 20, 2021 by Gatsby77

[Gatsby77]

Another thing I like about this chart (and a defense of the "average grade" whose math was questioned in the other thread):

By showing the average cost of an average CGC grade for the book, you basically get a quick-and-dirty calculation for the entry level cost of the book for a CGC investor - that's also realistic.

Example: Where should I put $900?

From an investment perspective, isn't that the whole point?

From the looks of it, $900 would get you:

• ASM # 300 - 9.0
• Batman Adventures # 12 - 9.0
• Primer # 2 - 9.0
• Special Marvel Edition # 15 - 9.0
• X-Men # 101 - 8.0
• ASM # 101 - 6.5-7.0
• Iron Man # 55 - 7.5
• ASM # 31 - 6.5
• Superman # 16 - 5.5

From the list above, where would you put your money?

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 9/20/2021 at 9:03 AM, Gatsby77 said:

Example: I got crucified a few years ago here for suggesting Star Wars # 1 was a major Bronze Age key.

Typical arguments against were it didn't count because it wasn't superhero, wasn't part of normal Marvel continuity (neither is Conan) and/or that it was an adaptation - not an original property (never mind that the comic book came out before the movie, ultimately sold ~1 million copies through various printing and was literally credited with saving Marvel Comics from bankruptcy).

[valiantman]

On 9/20/2021 at 8:38 AM, Gatsby77 said:

Another thing I like about this chart (and a defense of the "average grade" whose math was questioned in the other thread):

By showing the average cost of an average CGC grade for the book, you basically get a quick-and-dirty calculation for the entry level cost of the book for a CGC investor - that's also realistic.

There's another defense of the "average grade" which doesn't need any other calculations. 

Watching the average grade over time, we can get a sense of whether the "unslabbed copies remaining" are likely to continue to look at lot like what has already been slabbed, or whether the upper grade range copies appear to be running out.  It works best for books which have always been "worth submitting" in all grades, since CGC started.

It's clear that the types of (previously raw) books submitted to CGC between the 1,000th copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 and the 1,400th copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 were similar to what had come before because the movement was a little up-and-down between 1,000 and 1,400.  The actual decline in the grades for (remaining books) submitted to CGC for Amazing Fantasy #15 began around the 1,400th copy and has continued to present.  Yes, the crack-press-and-resubmit game would alter these results, but it should alter the average upward.  The decline would be mostly attributed to raw books being slabbed for the first time. If we could remove resubmissions from the results, the decline could be steeper.

Every calculation of median instead of average (as strongly-suggested by critics) after the 1,000th copy graded would have been a 3.5, and there would be nothing interesting to see on this chart.

Those little fractions of an average grade may seem unnecessary, but we're talking about thousands of copies, so a few hundredths do make a big difference. 

Median can't show that, no matter how strongly it was suggested.

Edited September 20, 2021 by valiantman

[valiantman]

On 9/20/2021 at 8:03 AM, Gatsby77 said:

I got crucified a few years ago here for suggesting Star Wars # 1 was a major Bronze Age key.

Only people who are guilty get crucified.  I'm pretty sure history has proven that.  You probably deserved it. 

[707comics]

What do these values represent? Is there a FAQ someplace? Definition of CGCAMC & CGCEMC??

Edited September 20, 2021 by 707comics

[valiantman]

On 9/20/2021 at 10:43 AM, 707comics said:

What do these values represent? Is there a FAQ someplace? Definition of CGCAMC & CGCEMC??

On 9/20/2021 at 1:13 AM, valiantman said:

... and a full description of the process are on CGCEMC.com (ComicMarketCap.com)

Edited September 20, 2021 by valiantman

[namisgr]

On 9/20/2021 at 10:40 AM, valiantman said:

Every calculation of median instead of average (as strongly-suggested by critics) after the 1,000th copy graded would have been a 3.5, and there would be nothing interesting to see on this chart.

The median is 3.75.

I'm glad you made an adjustment to your approach.  It shows how the original method markedly undervalued golden age comics relative to those of other, later ages.  It did not, as some people speculated, proportionately adjust the estimated total market cap values similarly across all of the ages.

Edited September 20, 2021 by namisgr

[valiantman]

On 9/20/2021 at 11:21 AM, namisgr said:

On 9/20/2021 at 9:40 AM, valiantman said:

Every calculation of median instead of average (as strongly-suggested by critics) after the 1,000th copy graded would have been a 3.5, and there would be nothing interesting to see on this chart.

The median is 3.75.

I'm glad you made an adjustment to your approach.  It shows how the original method undervalued golden age comics relative to those of other, later ages.

The arguments being made in the old discussion were that the median can't be a grade that CGC doesn't encapsulate because the single slab in the 50th percentile would be a "valid" CGC grade (4.0 or 3.5).  3.75 is a better answer, but it was strongly-suggested that it should be a "valid" CGC grade.  Starting around the 1,100th submission of AF15 that single 50th percentile median book was a 3.5 according to those rules and median hasn't changed since.

"Median Market Cap" (MMC), if I were to calculate it, would be very close to AMC, so it would be as far from EMC as AMC is.  MMC would just cloud up the analysis, and the comic hobby already has a much better "MMC" in Marvel Mystery Comics. 

Edited September 20, 2021 by valiantman

[namisgr]

If you insist on a grade in use by CGC, then the old average approach wouldn't fit the bill either.  Instead, both the median and average-based  calculation can generate a grade value in use by selecting the closest value on the CGC scale to the calculated value.  And both methods remain skewed by multiple sales of the same book, not an infrequent occurrence with Amazing Fantasy #15.

Using gocollect data on Universal graded copies with recorded sales of Amazing Fantasy #15, the median grade when restricted to use a CGC scale value is 3.5.  Somewhat coincidentally that's identical to the value that your averaging approach generates.  But for much older and much newer comics with vastly different non-normal distributions of CGC grades than AF15, that certainly wouldn't be the case.

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by namisgr

[valiantman]

HOW TO (MAYBE) USE CGCEMC IN YOUR COLLECTION:

Collectors can look at this info and ignore it, or use it any way they want, but they may not know where to start.

Here's an example:

Hulk #181 and Cerebus #1 are often debated as the "top book" of the Bronze Age (1970s).

A similar debate occurs for Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 in the Golden Age.

Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 have a very similar CGCEMC calculation.

A similar debate occurs for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 and Amazing Spider-Man #300 in the Copper Age (1980s).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 and Amazing Spider-Man #300 have a similar CGCEMC calculation.

 

Do Hulk #181 and Cerebus #1 also have a similar CGCEMC calculation?  Actually, they don't.

 

CGCEMC for Hulk #181 is $120M.  CGCEMC for Cerebus #1 is $1.8M.  That's not even close. 

If these books both have strong claim to "top book" of the Bronze Age, how is the CGCEMC so far apart?

Hulk #181 could be too high, Cerebus #1 could be too low, it could be both. 

Cerebus #1 is low print vs. Hulk #181, but TMNT #1 is low print vs. ASM #300 and they are CGCEMC similar.

 

ONE INTERPRETATION of CGCEMC is to ask whether two books that are generally seen/debated as "comparable" by collectors have comparable CGCEMC.

In this case, I'd say Cerebus #1 may not be getting the respect it deserves in the market, unless it should be considered comparable to Marvel Spotlight #32, ASM #100, and Tomb of Dracula #1 (not #10).

Those three books are just above Cerebus #1 on CGCEMC, and Hulk #181 is $118M away.  Does Cerebus #1 deserve better? 

If the market agrees, expect Cerebus #1 to move up in the actual market, relative to the CGCEMC books nearby, and that market movement will be reflected in future CGCEMC calculations.

 

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Edited September 20, 2021 by valiantman

[valiantman]

On 9/20/2021 at 11:58 AM, namisgr said:

If you insist on a grade in use by CGC, then the old average approach wouldn't fit the bill either.

Right, requiring a grade in use by CGC doesn't help much, if any.  I prefer just a standard average not only because it's simple, but also because of the value it provides in watching trends of just hundredths of average differences, because there are thousands of copies involved.

Edited September 20, 2021 by valiantman

[namisgr]

On 9/20/2021 at 1:02 PM, valiantman said:

Right, and I prefer just a standard average not only because it's simple, but also because of the value it provides in watching trends of just hundredths of average differences, because there are thousands of copies involved.

Thank you for responding to me in a respectful way that didn't belittle my post.  I have always liked the grading data metrics you've provided for the hobby in the past, and certainly never intended to suggest your original method presented in the other thread for guesstimating the total market valuation of a given issue was without value.  

I believe many of the responses you received from others were similarly founded on an interest in your objective.  I think that taking other viewpoints and, yes, the occasional criticism is something that those who share their new creations on hobby-focused social media platforms should expect by the very nature of the medium they've used to go public.  And, as a result, I think you've got a modified method that better represents total valuations across different eras, in which the non-normal distributions of the grades of recorded sales are so very different.

Edited September 20, 2021 by namisgr

[valiantman]

On 9/20/2021 at 12:14 PM, namisgr said:

Thank you for responding to me in a respectful way that didn't belittle my post.  I have always liked the grading data metrics you've provided for the hobby in the past, and certainly never intended to suggest your original method presented in the other thread for guesstimating the total market valuation of a given issue was without value.  I believe many of the responses you received from others were similarly founded on an interest in your objective.  I think that taking other viewpoints and, yes, the occasional criticism is something that those who share their new creations on social media are in a sense are bound to respect by the very nature of the medium on which they've used to go public.

I agree, and I expect criticism.  The problem I had was that many of the criticisms were not valid once the data is reviewed, and although I already knew they were not valid because of the data, I would have to take a teachable moment to address a specific invalid criticism instead of focusing my teachable moments on the broader validity of the system I had provided.

It seemed similar to an elementary teacher trying to talk about Abraham Lincoln's broader impact to society, but the students wanting to disruptively debate exactly where he was sitting in Ford's Theater.

Eventually, I got frustrated but detention, parent conferences, and the principal's office weren't an option... so I got aggravated. 

You could have raised your hand to correctly point out that class was late for lunch, but it was in the middle of all the other chaos and it just wasn't going to be heard.   

(A better metaphor might be a TED Talk with hecklers, but I already typed out the teacher thing, so it doesn't matter.) 

On 9/20/2021 at 12:14 PM, namisgr said:

 And, as a result, I think you've got a modified method that better represents total valuations across different eras, in which the non-normal distributions of the grades of recorded sales are so very different.

The non-normal distributions of the grades were always going to require some adjustment, whether it was a constant multiplier (as it appeared when others calculated 1.6x examples) or some variable that might be hard to identify.  Running those numbers myself, to determine whether 1.6x is reasonable, it was quickly apparent that the adjustment would be correlated to the age of the comic.  Since that was the case, I tried dividing CGCAMC for Action Comics #1 (1938) by 38%, CGCAMC for Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) by 62%, CGCAMC for Amazing Spider-Man #300 (1988) by 88%, and the results (which became CGCEMC) were quite good.

Realizing that the only additional variable needed was already on the page (the comic year) was one of those "nerdy-eureka" moments that sometimes only happen years apart with lots of trial and error in the middle.

It also seems like a perfect place for all-new criticism because people want to argue about causation anytime correlation is involved.  Causation isn't provable, but correlation (even accidentally-found) with consistent results works anyway.

Most other criticisms revolve around something that can't be adjusted, like the "arbitrary" CGC grading scale, the CGC census overages due to resubmissions, the market price premiums that don't follow standard linear or exponential multipliers.  Those can certainly be criticisms "against the calculation" but they're misdirected. 

Additionally, some people think ANY flaw is a fatal flaw when some flaws are like fleas and not floods.  (I wonder if those people would insist their teacher give them a 0% failing grade when they get 24 out of 25 on a test.) 

Edited September 21, 2021 by valiantman