Overtsreet Guide Pricing Sucks

[fingfangfoom]

Overstreet has become useless. The market moves to quickly for the data to represent buying/selling trends. It has also outlived its so called bible status. The grouping of golden age books is ridiculous and in no way represents the current market and demand on specific issues inside runs. Take Schomburg covers on Timely's for example...clearly the demand for any VF or better WW2 cover with Hitler, Tojo, bondage etc. far exceeds the supply and although this has been apparent for years it is still not reflected in the guide. There are hundreds of other examples where golden age issues need to be broken out of their groupings and upward adjustments made across all genres...and at the same time the surrounding issues with less demand need downward adjustments. High grade National comics are a joke in the guide...some fantastic Crandall art/covers that are nearly impossible to locate in high grade...Pep comics, high grade, where is the reflection in the guide there? This will be the first time that I pass on Overstreet since 1974. Overstreet has been relegated as a tool only useful as a purchasing guide for dealers and their ads..." We pay 100% of guide"... yeah?...so do I at these prices!

[PovertyRow]

Hey Finfangfoom (great name! One of my favorite pre-hero monsters!)

 

I have to disagree in my context. I think the guide works for some areas and doesn;t for tohers. At Wondercon I picked up 17 pre-code horror books. Literally every one of them was below guide. Some by a few dollars and some by considerably more. So I have to say for pre-code horror (and probaly the related crime and romance areas, the guide is still - well - the guide!)

[Aman619]

you tell em, boss!

[PovertyRow]

you tell em, boss!

 

You betcha. DAGNABBIT!

[fingfangfoom]

Glad to hear you picked up some pre codes below guide!...Were they CGC'd? Were there any stand out issues that are difficult to locate in high grade??? Notice I mentioned high grade...this was in reference to my post regarding market trends of highly sought after golden age books. I went through a period collecting pre code horror...I now find they are not as rare or difficult as I once thought them to be EXCEPT for extremely high grade stuff and oddball runs (Mens Adventures jumps immediately to mind)..even my white mountain copies are a let down and would probably only achieve 8.0's at best. Circle 8's about 8.5's ditto for the River City copies My comments pertain only to pre 1948 material. As far as paying below guide...a book is only worth what YOU are willing to pay. ;-)

This all said maybe I should consider selling my precodes to you at 100% guide ;-)

[PovertyRow]

Were they CGC'd?

 

Nope - I am confident in my grading and restoration detection abilities! And I want to READ the damned things!

 

Were there any stand out issues that are difficult to locate in high grade??? Notice I mentioned high grade

 

A few that are in the VF - NM range. Still underguide. (I shall be posting some of my better covers later tonight).

 

I went through a period collecting pre code horror...I now find they are not as rare or difficult as I once thought them to be EXCEPT for extremely high grade stuff and oddball runs

 

I started collecting pre-code horror about 17 years ago. Even then, really high grades were not common. Prices have gone up qute a bit (no more $15 Fines of Mister Mystery ) but here is the real (to quote Buffy) sitch. Not a lot of folks are letting go of really hi grade pre-code horror. They want them and colect them. Sure, now that CGC has entered into things you will see the more common hi grades like the Harvey file copies and that Thing 16 (mine is a CGC 9.2 I took out of the holder - looks nicer that way!). But for pre-code horror I condsider Fine to be in the upper grade echelon based on my experience and the books I have seen and bought.

 

Since you are familair with both the classic GA books from the late 30's early 40's, and the precode horrors, I think you will agree that the older GA books often had very superior page quality. Thicker interior and cover stock. And of a better grade. it is why you will often see Dc and Timely GA with nice page condition - they just had better paper. In the late 40's early 50's, most of the pre-code horror publishers (MOST - not all) were "push them out as fast as we can for as cheap as we can." This is apparant in the plethora of miscuts and off-centered books you will see in the pre-code world. I was trying to get one nice Fine copy of This Magazine Is Haunted Literaly every copy I saw today at Wondercon was badly miscut, with anywhere from 1/8 to 1/4 inch of white showing on the right and bottom edge.

 

So sure - if you have nicely centered Fine pre-codes will gladly give you 80 and even 100% guide in some cases.