How do YOU evaluate the price of the books in your collection? 4 4

[Math Teacher]

Some of you may have my semi-monthly review of my collection posts. For that, I thank you. I am just finishing valuing each book in my collection for the end of February. When I look at a book, if it had a recent sale of Jan, 2022, or Feb, 2022, I just use the value listed on GPA. However, it a regular occurrence that I can't find a recent sale for a book. When I have posted one of my reviews, I have explained that I use the price/point method to evaluate the current value of a book. There have been several criticisms of this method.

I have a copy of Flash #152 CGC 8.0. I have posted screenshots from GPA for those who don't have access to GPA.

For this particular issue, there has only been a single sale in the first two months of 2022, and that was a 3.5. I valued it at the price I paid for it in 2021. However, I have numerous books that I can remember where I purchased and how much I paid. So, looking at this data, and assuming you don't remember how much you paid for this particular issue, what valuation would YOU give a Flash #152 CGC 8.0? If you could provide an explanation of your thought process in determining this value, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by Math Teacher

[MattTheDuck]

It's difficult to be precise as to assigning value in a case like this, but I can say that if I'm interested in a book what I generally do is look around the internet a bit to get a sense of whether a book I'm interested in is available, and if so at what price.  With this book, I can determine there is a non-slabbed, "graded" VF+ available on one of the websites at $152, and there is also a raw 7.5-equivalent on another site at $70.  So in theory, the first book is 1/2 grade higher than yours, assuming it's accurately graded and the second is 1/2 grade lower. The mid-point would be $111.  However, I think it's fair to say that slabbed books receive a premium (or raw books receive a discount, depending on your point of view).  In other words if this VF+ book was actually a slabbed 8.5, the price would be higher than $152 and if the raw VF- were slabbed, its price would also be higher.  Assigning a premium if these books were slabbed so they are equivalent to your slabbed 8.0 is the tricky part, but it seems to me fair to assign perhaps a $20 premium to each of these books, IF they were slabbed (everyone should assign their own "premium" - or none at all - depending on their preference.  I'm not asserting this is some kind of exact science.  It's possible, for instance some may feel that a higher premium should be assigned to the higher graded book so $25 for the 8.5 and $20 for the 7.5).  This moves the mid-point to $131, which is about where I think you could fairly value your 8.0 while you wait for some actual sales and more clarity from the market.

This is, of course, not a perfect answer, but for purposes of "carrying" your inventory at some value that seems reasonable, I think it might be sufficient if not spot-on accurate.  As a real-life example FWIW, I recently looked at a raw book here on the Boards which had been assigned a grade by the seller.  An equivalent slabbed book was available on one of the sites at about 10 percent less than the Board offering price, so I offered something less than the price of the already-graded book.

[thunsicker]

Depends on what I'm estimating for.  For sale?  For insurance purposes?  Just for the fun of it?  I tend to be conservative in my valuations for insurance purposes.  I would probably not estimate and just let it go at auction if I was looking to sell.  As for just for the fun of it?  All my comics are worth $10 million dollars each.

[JJ-4]

On 2/28/2022 at 11:20 AM, thunsicker said:

All my comics are worth $10 million dollars each.

Same!

[Off Panel]

On 2/28/2022 at 1:20 PM, thunsicker said:

All my comics are worth $10 million dollars each.

Hey, it’s the Mile High Comics slogan!*

 

 

 

 

 

(*But take 50% off with code word “Nanette”!)

[alexgross.com]

i try to keep track of comiclink results of bigger books that i own, in same or similar grade, as significant results happen there that are obviously not reported to gpa. screen shots are enough. otherwise i just use gpa as best i can. most of my big keys have had more sales results than flash 152, i dare say all of them have, even the tougher ones. it helps to collect marvel in this case i'm sure. 

[Shrevvy]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I wouldn't bother. From your other posts, I gather that you own the first few hundred issues of ASM, FF, DD and others. Valuing a $100 book to the dollar would be a rounding error. It is a non-key issue in a non-hot series. So, it has not likely appreciated quickly. Last sale in grade was less than a year ago. That seems as good as any data point for valuation.

If it is a more general question on how to extrapolate, it is still hard with just one fresh data point. I have used the value per point recognizing that points are generally valued more richly as the grade escalates. Averaging similar grades helps. If an 8.0 and 6.0 recently sold, you can estimate a 7.0 by taking the average. That probably gives you a better estimate than taking the average per point for a 4.0 and multiplying it by 7. Although, I will take several approaches and compare the results. 

[Poekaymon]

On 2/28/2022 at 11:49 AM, Math Teacher said:

what valuation would YOU give a Flash #152 CGC 8.0? If you could provide an explanation of your thought process in determining this value, it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm generally conservative on my own collection.  Although the last couple years have been hot in general, not every single thing has blown up, especially in DC.  HA sold a Flash 152 8.5 for $132 in 2019.  eBay currently has a 7.5 for $115 BIN right now that has been available since July 2021.  I'd therefore expect it to be around there, and probably just round off to $100.

[troydivision1]

I second Poekaymon's breakdown.

I also track my books once a month and run into a similar issue (pun intended) in that I have a handful of books that don't pop up at all.
(except for one listed on eBay BUT at a ridiculous asking price)
For those, I plug in the prices I paid (some going back 5 years) and just keep going.
This ignores the entire market's growth during those years though...
It is actually difficult because replacing some of these 'whales' / 'ghosts' would be nearly impossible and I would love to know their FMV; just for my personal knowledge.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Troy Division

[Math Teacher]

On 2/28/2022 at 12:20 PM, thunsicker said:

Depends on what I'm estimating for.  For sale?  For insurance purposes?  Just for the fun of it?  I tend to be conservative in my valuations for insurance purposes.  I would probably not estimate and just let it go at auction if I was looking to sell.  As for just for the fun of it?  All my comics are worth $10 million dollars each.

I'm definitely not looking to sell. I do it for insurance purposes. And I choose not to be conservative. If I have an AF #15 CGC 2.5, should I value it as $37,000, which is what it was worth about a month ago, or should I value it as $55,000, which is based on a recent sale?

[Math Teacher]

On 2/28/2022 at 2:33 PM, Shrevvy said:

Don't take this the wrong way, but I wouldn't bother. From your other posts, I gather that you own the first few hundred issues of ASM, FF, DD and others. Valuing a $100 book to the dollar would be a rounding error. It is a non-key issue in a non-hot series. So, it has not likely appreciated quickly. Last sale in grade was less than a year ago. That seems as good as any data point for valuation.

If it is a more general question on how to extrapolate, it is still hard with just one fresh data point. I have used the value per point recognizing that points are generally valued more richly as the grade escalates. Averaging similar grades helps. If an 8.0 and 6.0 recently sold, you can estimate a 7.0 by taking the average. That probably gives you a better estimate than taking the average per point for a 4.0 and multiplying it by 7. Although, I will take several approaches and compare the results. 

Actually, I only evaluate the worth of my slabs every other month. I try to do my ungraded comics every six months, although I am often not successful at this task.

[grendelbo]

Less than 1% of my collection is professionally graded.

I've graded about 5% more.

The rest I have a ballpark idea of their grades.

Every so often I'll go through my top 200 books and do a rough calculation in my head based on GoCollect and past eBay sales. The numbers are always whacky but greater than two years ago and definitely appreciated compared to what I paid for the books.

[rexinnih]

Right now about a third of my collection (350ish out of 1100ish) are graded and if I have time every quarter or at least twice a year, I'll check out the last couple of sales at Ebay and/or FMV at Go Collect and update some values. I did insure last year after prices shot up and like to keep at least a semi accurate record. The raws are a bit more difficult to guestimate prices.

[oakman29]

Value is so subjective.  I just let em sit and accrue.  I could care less about price of books until a sale is in order, and sales I have done I could measure on one hand.

[Gregd]

I combo it between GPA (the last few sales) and sold prices on eBay. Then I take the most conservative price of the bunch unless it’s a big outlier. 

[Jesse-Lee]

I look at eBay sales. I signed up for Covrprice, and while it's nice to organize my collection in a nice, visual way, their valuations are way, way off. It's an interesting service, but I might cancel. I wish there was a service out there that had closer valuations to what's really going on with sales, but I haven't found one yet.

Edit to add - they don't take a lot of things into consideration, like grade, etc. For example, I have a Fantastic Four annual 3, but my copy is probably around a 3.0. Their valuation of FMV is $126. But that's just based off whatever sold most recently without taking into consideration the grade. Another example is I have 5 copies of Batman 655, in grades that I estimate from NM to VF (you can put in estimated grades, so mine are from 9.4 to 8.5). It shows that I have 5 total copes, but regardless of grade, it shows the exact same FMV.

I don't have a good solution for how to show valuation based on grade, but that's not my problem - I;m not the one providing the service. I just know that an 8.5 and a 9.4 shouldn't have the same estimated FMV just because of the most recent sale of whatever grade.

Adding to that, I hunt and find deals all the time on eBay based on bad listings, misspellings, bad timing, etc. All of that isn't taken into consideration on Covrprice - their system looks at last sale only. So while I know Stray Dogs 1 first print is selling recently for $50-60, their system can't figure it out, showing an "N/A" for the value - and showing a low price of 99 cents for that issue on 2/26/22 for some reason.

So yeah, the more I type, the more I'm convincing myself to cancel. Just check eBay sold listings.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Jesse-Lee

[kav]

On 2/28/2022 at 5:41 PM, oakman29 said:

Value is so subjective.  I just let em sit and accrue.  I could care less about price of books until a sale is in order, and sales I have done I could measure on one hand.

If I measured on one hand yeah it wouldnt be much-

 

[oakman29]

On 3/1/2022 at 9:27 PM, kav said:

If I measured on one hand yeah it wouldnt be much-

 

That's okay! As they say it's not the size , but the motion in the ocean.😂

[*Bronze age fan*]

I have no idea what my collection is worth.  I have over 20K comics. I have 167 graded books that i have in my GPA collection which luckily adds up the current values. I have my collection inputted in the zap-kapow web site, but on some of the higher end books I don’t always agree with the value they assign. 

[lordbyroncomics]

On 3/2/2022 at 12:09 AM, Jesse-Lee said:

I look at eBay sales. I signed up for Covrprice, and while it's nice to organize my collection in a nice, visual way, their valuations are way, way off. It's an interesting service, but I might cancel. I wish there was a service out there that had closer valuations to what's really going on with sales, but I haven't found one yet.

Edit to add - they don't take a lot of things into consideration, like grade, etc. For example, I have a Fantastic Four annual 3, but my copy is probably around a 3.0. Their valuation of FMV is $126. But that's just based off whatever sold most recently without taking into consideration the grade. Another example is I have 5 copies of Batman 655, in grades that I estimate from NM to VF (you can put in estimated grades, so mine are from 9.4 to 8.5). It shows that I have 5 total copes, but regardless of grade, it shows the exact same FMV.

I don't have a good solution for how to show valuation based on grade, but that's not my problem - I;m not the one providing the service. I just know that an 8.5 and a 9.4 shouldn't have the same estimated FMV just because of the most recent sale of whatever grade.

Adding to that, I hunt and find deals all the time on eBay based on bad listings, misspellings, bad timing, etc. All of that isn't taken into consideration on Covrprice - their system looks at last sale only. So while I know Stray Dogs 1 first print is selling recently for $50-60, their system can't figure it out, showing an "N/A" for the value - and showing a low price of 99 cents for that issue on 2/26/22 for some reason.

So yeah, the more I type, the more I'm convincing myself to cancel. Just check eBay sold listings.

I'm leaning towards cancelling my CovrPrice as well. Besides regular glitches that don't get fixed, it's just not what I had hoped for- I don't mean I want a service to tell me what I *wish* my collection were worth- I just mean, and this is my fault, that I didn't grok on that CovrPrice adjusts as to the most recent sales rather than overall value. Therefore, I've got a selection of Alex Ross variant covers CGC'd 9.8 that are apparently not even worth a dollar!

Any online price guide you guys could recommend, I'd greatly appreciate it. I have no issues with paying a subscriber fee, I just want to use a solid and reliable platform.