Measuring scarcity 1 1

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/13/2021 at 5:27 PM, mycomicshop said:

Yes, for the most part. If we identify an item as scarce we'll price that item higher than if we found it to be more common, all else equal (desirability/demand). But there's definitely a fair divide between "scarce and interesting," and "scarce but nobody particularly cares."

I think a small premium is reasonable, yes, where there is no obvious demand. You're not going to go all Milehigh on us though, are you, and price newsstands 8,000 times higher are you? That killed my Spidey completism stone dead. 

[mycomicshop]

On 10/13/2021 at 4:49 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I think a small premium is reasonable, yes, where there is no obvious demand. You're not going to go all Milehigh on us though, are you, and price newsstands 8,000 times higher are you? That killed my Spidey completism stone dead. 

No, we won't. With newsstands we've been selectively splitting issues out into direct and newsstand versions for keys and books where the market especially seems to care, but haven't pursued exhaustively separating out all possible newsstand editions. No right or wrong answer on that, it's just not a big priority.

[lizards2]

On 10/13/2021 at 1:21 PM, OuterBanks said:

 

Canadian price variant, jewelers insert, $.35 price variants, newsstand - 

 

Actually, that stuff has no interest for me.

[Artboy99]

I own the only copy I have ever seen of Australian Planet Comics 15 but that isn't a measure of the scarcity of the book which is basically the method used by Gerber.

[MAR1979]

What I do know is this:

Amazing Spider-Man 300, 361 are the exact opposite of scarce. At a comic con there is nowhere you can point your eyes that you will not see at least 20 in 9.6 or 9.8 for sale. This includes the bath room stalls at NYCC where folks were hawking handfuls of CGC graded copies of those issues whilst I was releasing a brown trout into the wild.  Honestly there may not be 2 more plentiful books in high-grade on this planet.

Thor 337 also falls into the same category and that includes the Newsstand versions the only difference is they were not in the bathroom I used, only on the dealer floor.

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by MAR1979

[paqart]

On 10/13/2021 at 4:21 PM, OuterBanks said:

 

Canadian price variant, jewelers insert, $.35 price variants, newsstand - it's just a matter of time before someone manufactures the hype and demand for the pence variant.  A few spec vids on YouTube and we're good to go

 

I just bought a pence variant Avengers #94. It follows my first Pence variant, Daredevil #163. In both cases, I'm happy to have them. 

[paqart]

On 10/13/2021 at 5:49 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I think a small premium is reasonable, yes, where there is no obvious demand. You're not going to go all Milehigh on us though, are you, and price newsstands 8,000 times higher are you? That killed my Spidey completism stone dead. 

I just bought an ASM from MCS for what I think is a huge premium. I've been looking at it on eBay for months and it hasn't moved likely because of the price. Still, I wanted it, so I bit the bullet. They have another one I want but it is too much for me $345 for ASM 11 V2 CGC 9.8.

[valiantman]

On 10/14/2021 at 9:05 AM, MAR1979 said:

What I do know is this:

Amazing Spider-Man 300, 361 are the exact opposite of scarce. At a comic con there is nowhere you can point your eyes that you will not see at least 20 in 9.6 or 9.8 for sale.

... 

Honestly there may not be 2 more plentiful books in high-grade on this planet.

ASM #300 is almost like two different books, if you look at the counts and distributions for Direct Edition and Newsstand.  The fact that the prices are still pretty close at the high end is probably just a relic of the past, not an indication of the future.

Edited October 14, 2021 by valiantman

[valiantman]

@RC Smith

Many years ago, I took a few days and made a note of which Gerber Scarcity Index went with which book in the CGC Census for my CGCdata.com database.

There have likely been more books graded by CGC since then (books which had zero graded copies at the time - perhaps 2007 or so), but anything that had at least one graded copy back then can be checked against the current CGC Census.

Here are the current numbers:

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by valiantman

[MAR1979]

On 10/14/2021 at 5:51 PM, valiantman said:

ASM #300 is almost like two different books, if you look at the counts and distributions for Direct Edition and Newsstand.  The fact that the prices are still pretty close at the high end is probably just a relic of the past, not an indication of the future.

  

On 10/14/2021 at 10:05 AM, MAR1979 said:

What I do know is this:

Amazing Spider-Man 300, 361 are the exact opposite of scarce. At a comic con there is nowhere you can point your eyes that you will not see at least 20 in 9.6 or 9.8 for sale. This includes the bath room stalls at NYCC where folks were hawking handfuls of CGC graded copies of those issues whilst I was releasing a brown trout into the wild.  Honestly there may not be 2 more plentiful books in high-grade on this planet.

Thor 337 also falls into the same category and that includes the Newsstand versions the only difference is they were not in the bathroom I used, only on the dealer floor.

 

 

 

But how many are correctly labeled and reported as newsstand?  Seems to me more a product of incomplete data.  

I have piles of CGC slabbed newsstands from the direct sale era not one denotes newsstand including my Canadians when I did everything correct on the submission forms - including adding a note!

I'm sure some will profit, or already are, on the incomplete data by claiming the newsstands are more rare than they truly are

BTW it was Thor 337 that my I mentioned the newsstands are common not the ASM's. I believe we both know reasons why for that book.

 

"Many years ago, I took a few days and made a note of which Gerber Scarcity Index went with which book in the CGC Census for my CGCdata.com database. "

Is that really your site? If so I owe you a debt of gratitude. I use it ALL the time.  Sometimes while eating lunch  

My sincere thanks for the service you provide!  

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by MAR1979

[valiantman]

On 10/14/2021 at 5:07 PM, MAR1979 said:

On 10/14/2021 at 4:51 PM, valiantman said:

ASM #300 is almost like two different books, if you look at the counts and distributions for Direct Edition and Newsstand.  The fact that the prices are still pretty close at the high end is probably just a relic of the past, not an indication of the future.

But how many are labeled as newsstand?  Seems to me more a product of incomplete data.  

GPAnalysis.com notes Direct Edition and Newsstand for the past few years on certain books, including ASM #300... even though CGC doesn't put it on the label. 

There are 2,000+ sales in the past 12 months.  I think we've got enough data here to make this chart a strong indicator of what's in CGC slabs for ASM #300.

Edited October 14, 2021 by valiantman

[valiantman]

On 10/14/2021 at 5:07 PM, MAR1979 said:

"Many years ago, I took a few days and made a note of which Gerber Scarcity Index went with which book in the CGC Census for my CGCdata.com database. "

Is that really your site? If so I owe you a debt of gratitude. I use it ALL the time.  Sometimes while eating lunch   My sincere thanks for the service you provide! 

It's me. http://www.slabdata.com/blog/about/about-the-author/

You're welcome. 

[valiantman]

On 10/14/2021 at 5:12 PM, valiantman said:

GPAnalysis.com notes Direct Edition and Newsstand for the past few years on certain books, including ASM #300... even though CGC doesn't put it on the label. 

There are 2,000+ sales in the past 12 months.  I think we've got enough data here to make this chart a strong indicator of what's in CGC slabs for ASM #300.

Here's a chart for the 26,000+ CGC graded copies of ASM #300, with estimates for the breakdown at each grade.

CGC doesn't identify the differences, and even if they started now, the CGC Census would always have 21 years of no distinction.

I'd be interested to know if the view from a convention floor for slabbed ASM #300 matches these ratios, or if dealers at conventions have a different sample than what's "out there".

Edited October 14, 2021 by valiantman

[dupont2005]

Is there one for sale right now? If so it’s not scarce.

 

Can I afford to buy it? If so it’s not in demand.

[valiantman]

Here's the same chart of estimates for ASM #361 - which is known to have been "hoarded" by collectors raiding newsstands after the comic shops sold out.

[dupont2005]

Do I already own one? If so it’s severely undervalued and about to blow up

[MAR1979]

On 10/14/2021 at 6:39 PM, valiantman said:

Here's a chart for the 26,000+ CGC graded copies of ASM #300, with estimates for the breakdown at each grade.

CGC doesn't identify the differences, and even if they started now, the CGC Census would always have 21 years of no distinction.

I'd be interested to know if the view from a convention floor for slabbed ASM #300 matches these ratios, or if dealers at conventions have a different sample than what's "out there".

I do recall seeing at least several Newsstands. Frankly the book was so ubiquitous, I just wanted to see something else, anything else

Other books that seemingly every comic dealer had multiples of CGC (and the occasional CBCS) 9.8's and 9.6's; ASM 361 (dirt common), Star Wars 42 (everywhere!),Thor 337, Secret Wars 8, Savage She-Hulk 1, WBN 1 most "high end" dealers had multiple copies,  ASM 362, ASM 316, ASM 301, Batman Adventures (first Harlequin).  Its why when i found a dealer who had not so common stuff I purchased a bunch of slabs The most common being a book with a 9.8 pop of 8.

I do wish the newsstand data was recorded by CGC, even if I'm not a direct sale era  newsstand collector, I'm just someone who happens to have a bunch of direct sale era newsstands.

I've been thinking about subscribing to either GPAnalysis.com or GoCollect. Do you have recommendation for a collector (not a dealer or a seller) that likes to analyze data? No issue if you'd rather not say. I was planning on trying each one out for month this winter.

 

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by MAR1979

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/14/2021 at 9:53 PM, paqart said:

I just bought an ASM from MCS for what I think is a huge premium. I've been looking at it on eBay for months and it hasn't moved likely because of the price. Still, I wanted it, so I bit the bullet. They have another one I want but it is too much for me $345 for ASM 11 V2 CGC 9.8.

Yes, and it's not even being marketed as the price variant it is. CGC missed it as usual too. It's the way of the world now, this sort of pricing, and it kills the average collector. Well, it did me. Hopefully you'll spot one in the wild for less than a tenth of that price 

[MAR1979]

On 10/15/2021 at 2:48 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Yes, and it's not even being marketed as the price variant it is. CGC missed it as usual too. It's the way of the world now, this sort of pricing, and it kills the average collector.

Excellent point! Those collectors are life-blood of the hobby. When (not if) the "speculators" and "social media hype crowd" dump and move-on, the loss of the hobbies life blood will be felt. Some will return, many will not.  When similar occurred in the 1993-1994 the effects rippled for near 3 decades. Comic Shops and new sales never recovered - never will. Changing paradigms would have done that anyhow but the 1990's speculation bust exasperated and hastened the effects.    What will the impact and extent of the effects the next bust be?  Especially with loss of hobby life-blood. It's not if a bust will occur, merely when.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by MAR1979

[James J Johnson]

On 10/12/2021 at 7:31 AM, Dr. Dank said:

Having deja vu

There's a thread around here somewhere 

And I'm having Vuja-de. That's the strange feeling that none of this has happened before.