Establishing true raw comic values 1 1

[Mokiguy]

Before I get into this too far, let me say that maybe a really long intro to the question I have is more than some of you can stomach at one sitting. But I’m sort of new here and thought that I would tell you a little about me and what I do, and perhaps the question will make more sense. If it’s too much for you, well then you can just ignore this post and move along to a shorter sound bite and just pretend you never saw this.

My question is about values, but now that I said that, I also need to say that at this time in my life, I'm not trying to sell any comics. Maybe I never will and I’ll just die with them and my heirs can deal with it, but mainly because that's not why I have been buying and collecting comics in the first place. I have started collecting what I think of as rather inexpensive comics, all raw and really have no intention of ever getting any graded. I am no kid, rather I'm retired and thought it would be fun to relive some of the comics I read when I was just a boy, some 60 years ago ........ and they were almost exclusively DC Super Hero comics, i.e. Superman/Boy, Aquaman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Action/Adventure comics, World’s Finest, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, The Flash  and all the rest ...... you most likely know the group.

I try to avoid buying "readers" though you’ll see in the picture I’m posting along with this is that it looks like I have, but those “2’s” surprised me because they looked really good cover wise but had some hidden defect like a story coupon cut out or a missing page or un-noticed major tear or spine split, stuff like that and that’s why they got a 2 or 2.5 from me. But I don't shy away from lower grade books. Most I have bought over the past year or two range between (according to my grading abilities anyway), 3 Very Good to 7.5 Very Fine -, with a few as high as possibly 9.0 and unfortunately a few as low as 2.0. Almost all bought at eBay, and pictures and descriptions at eBay being what they are, I sometimes wound up with a few nice surprises ,and a few disappointments at other times. But with all that said, of all my nearly 300 comics I've bought so far, all are silver age, mostly 12 cent books with a few 10 cent copies, a few 15 cent books and a very few 20 cent books (less than 10 from the tail end of the silver age era), and I've bought most of these books in lots to amortize the shipping costs across many books. I paid between $2 to $7 and that included the amortized shipping. Looking at my database I see only 4 books that exceeded single digits and the highest being $20.16.

Now to my question. I suppose I'm some sort of an anal retentive nut, but I really enjoy bagging, boarding, grading, establishing a value, and entering all that into my Database that I made in Excel. I get some sort of satisfaction out of all that organization.  For the included picture, I just took a little section, about a dozen books to show what I do. On each line in my Database is one comic and four columns with four different grading sources. The next column after that I average out the four estimated values, and then the final column is what I spent for each comic. That’s the cost of the book as well as the shipping to arrive at my all in total cost. OK, I didn’t include the 15 cents for bag and board.

I do all this because I want a check against my spending, and doing all this allows me to see. Am I buying at a bargain price, just average but fair, or have I paid too much. Well I don’t want to be overly optimistic and so estimating true values is important to me, whether I ever decide to sell any or not is really beside the point. I’ve noticed that Comicbookrealm is always high, followed by Overstreet. So for these raw rather inexpensive comics, would I be better off not even lookat their suggested values and just average between Comics Price Guide and Nostomania? I suppose I’m looking for real world un biased values if I had to or wanted to sell them today (though I don’t intend to probably ever).

Well that’s my question and any of you that are still alive or awake, I sure would like to hear what you have to say about my question establishing a raw value. Thanks in advance.

 

P.S The blank line Lois Lane 79 I own but haven't added yet other than what I paid.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Mokiguy

[revat]

Not the end all, but if possible where enough data points exist, you should at least use eBay sold listings as a factor.

if you want, whenever possible you can use sales from any other auction houses too that sell raw books.

if you are fancier, you can collect data points from graded a raw sales of the same issues and extrapolate for other raw comics where only graded sales exist.  Your level of math and modeling prowess (and free time) can get you as precise or vague as is reasonable for you.

 

the method you are suggesting is honestly fine for most common books.

[LowGradeBronze]

I like and understand your collecting rationale and it tallies with mine to a large degree. I too enjoy books at the lower end of the grading scale as you can a) afford them more easily and b) handle them without too much fear of reducing value. To your question on obtaining a value, the only flaw if I can call it that, in your method is that a lot of data collection goes into arriving at a figure which may not hold true for very long if the market is changeable. How often do you want to refresh the data points? Sounds like a lot of work. I only wish to obtain an order of magnitude figure for my values: is this a 5, 10, 20 or 50 pound value, approximately, and compare it to my outlay. That usually satisfies my need to know if I did well buying Silver Surfer 3 for 'x' amount back in 2005.

Edited March 21, 2023 by LowGradeBronze

[Mokiguy]

Quote

Not the end all, but if possible where enough data points exist, you should at least use eBay sold listings as a factor.

if you want, whenever possible you can use sales from any other auction houses too that sell raw books.

I've tried that, but for both raw and fairly low priced books, the sold prices are all over the price on very similar looking copies. Two copies look to both be about a 5 and one sells for $6 and the other for $35 ....... what can you deduce from that? I think for higher priced books, checking eBay sold listings is wise, but I can't see much value to that in the price range and grade I'm buying.

[Mokiguy]

On 3/21/2023 at 2:09 PM, LowGradeBronze said:

I like and understand your collecting rationale and it tallies with mine to a large degree. I too enjoy books at the lower end of the grading scale as you can a) afford them more easily and b) handle them without too much fear of reducing value. To your question on obtaining a value, the only flaw if I can call it that, in your method is that a lot of data collection goes into arriving at a figure which may not hold true for very long if the market is changeable. How often do you want to refresh the data points? Sounds like a lot of work. I only wish to obtain an order of magnitude figure for my values: is this a 5, 10, 20 or 50 pound value, approximately, and compare it to my outlay. That usually satisfies my need to know if I did well buying Silver Surfer 3 for 'x' amount back in 2005.

Those are good points, but establishing value at the time I buy them is more important to me than if I have all my values correct as time goes by. Comics if bought correctly and at low prices initially, should mostly go up. If I was buying moderately expensive or even very expensive key comics, I would be more concerned with all my numbers being accurate some time down the road, but at my prices, I'm more concerned with what I spent on a book today and did I get it at a bargain price or not.

[zzutak]

Here's a simple approach that should provide you with a reasonably close estimate of an issue's Fair Market Value (FMV) based on its current Overstreet Price Guide (OPG) value.  For non-key, Silver Age DC's (non-Batman/Detective superhero titles, raw/uncertified, with condition grades less than about 6.0 FN), FMV ≈ 0.25 x OPG. Batman, Detective, true keys, CGC-certified issues, and/or higher-grade issues (say greater than about 6.0 FN) will generally bring a higher fraction (or even a multiple) of current Overstreet.  

Don't believe determining your "net worth" could be this simple?  Take the sum/total of your "Paid" column and divide it by the sum/total of your "Overstreet" column (for the Excel snapshot shown in your original post).  I bet it'll come pretty close to my 0.25 (25%) estimate. 

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 3/21/2023 at 6:40 PM, Mokiguy said:

I've tried that, but for both raw and fairly low priced books, the sold prices are all over the price on very similar looking copies. Two copies look to both be about a 5 and one sells for $6 and the other for $35 ....... what can you deduce from that? I think for higher priced books, checking eBay sold listings is wise, but I can't see much value to that in the price range and grade I'm buying.

Is there a better option? eBay sold listings give us data points for actual sales. I really don't think you're going to get a better answer than that.

[MattTheDuck]

On 3/21/2023 at 3:40 PM, Mokiguy said:

Two copies look to both be about a 5 and one sells for $6 and the other for $35 ....... what can you deduce from that?

If the purpose of your exercise is to determine whether a book you've purchased - or want to purchase - is a "good deal," you can deduce that by noting whether in this example you paid (or are being asked to pay) closer to $6 or closer to $35.

[Axe Elf]

On 3/21/2023 at 6:51 PM, zzutak said:

Don't believe determining your "net worth" could be this simple?  Take the sum/total of your "Paid" column and divide it by the sum/total of your "Overstreet" column (for the Excel snapshot shown in your original post).  I bet it'll come pretty close to my 0.25 (25%) estimate.

I don't have a lot of dealings with price guides, nor much need to determine value, so this was an interesting observation to me.  I ran his numbers, and the Overstreet column is 4.05 times the Paid column, so yeah, that 25% observation is pretty darned close.

Nice post.

[Dr. Balls]

On 3/22/2023 at 6:17 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

Is there a better option? eBay sold listings give us data points for actual sales. I really don't think you're going to get a better answer than that.

I would agree. The only variable I see that can throw a wrench into Ebay sold listings data is on the Best Offer listings, as it will say 'Best Offer Accepted' at what could be perceived as a "higher" price, but the true purchase price is lower. How much lower? We'll never know.

An example from last night: Two best offer listings for a book at NM+,, one at $40, one at $60. I sent an offer on the $60 book for $40 as it appeared to be a little more NM+ than the other, and he accepted. The previous sales will show this book sold at Best Offer of $60 (not disclosing the true price).

Does this happen all the time? Will the $40 guy lower his price? Will he raise it, as he's the only NM+ book advertised? Does he even care? Who knows - but it's a variable mixed in there with the true sales data.

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 3/22/2023 at 1:53 PM, Dr. Balls said:

I would agree. The only variable I see that can throw a wrench into Ebay sold listings data is on the Best Offer listings, as it will say 'Best Offer Accepted' at what could be perceived as a "higher" price, but the true purchase price is lower. How much lower? We'll never know.

There used to be a website that could tell you what the Best Offer/Sold Price was. I think that eBay fixed their code to stop that, for some reason, though.

[Dr. Balls]

On 3/22/2023 at 11:55 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

There used to be a website that could tell you what the Best Offer/Sold Price was. I think that eBay fixed their code to stop that, for some reason, though.

Yeah, that always seemed weird for data collection to remove that aspect, but on the other hand makes sense keeping that final price and unknown to possibly yield higher fees on future sales where someone is paying top dollar. Bastiches!

[Axe Elf]

On 3/22/2023 at 12:53 PM, Dr. Balls said:

The only variable I see that can throw a wrench into Ebay sold listings data is on the Best Offer listings, as it will say 'Best Offer Accepted' at what could be perceived as a "higher" price, but the true purchase price is lower. How much lower? We'll never know.

 

On 3/22/2023 at 12:55 PM, theCapraAegagrus said:

There used to be a website that could tell you what the Best Offer/Sold Price was. I think that eBay fixed their code to stop that, for some reason, though.

I still use 130point for that:  https://130point.com/sales/

[10centcomics]

I also keep track of all the prices I paid for books in my collection. But I think it might be overkill to try to track values of raw comics by trying to devise your own index average. Keeping up with that won't be worth the effort as comic book prices change all the time. I think zzutak's guidance is a good one. You will learn patterns like Silver Age DC non-keys are usually worth less than their listed guide values while Golden Age Timelys are often worth multiples of their guide value. As long as you keep track of what you paid, you will always be able to compare to whatever the current market value is. I like looking at eBay sold listings, following auction results, and seeing what dealers are listing the book at to get a general idea.

[Sigur Ros]

On 3/22/2023 at 3:58 PM, Axe Elf said:

 

I still use 130point for that:  https://130point.com/sales/

This is what I use also.

The accepted price used to be right in the code of the auction page but when they removed it I found 130Point.

[Tom789]

One thing I noticed in Buy It Now auctions is if I put one on a watchlist, get a discount offer from the seller, and accept, the sold listing will show only the original price with no strikethrough.  Not sure how to detect when those are sold at a discount.

[MAR1979]

On 3/23/2023 at 9:27 PM, Tom789 said:

One thing I noticed in Buy It Now auctions is if I put one on a watchlist, get a discount offer from the seller, and accept, the sold listing will show only the original price with no strikethrough.  Not sure how to detect when those are sold at a discount.

It's yet another way sellers/flippers/speculators can manipulate many a collectible market, at least in "good times"

130point will show the actual sell price. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by MAR1979

[Mokiguy]

The trouble I find with using eBay sold listings on lower price books is the shipping. On a more expensive book where you might be paying $30, $50, $100 or more, then a shipping charge of $5 to $10, though it certainly adds to your overall cost, it still might only be 10% to 20%, and the more expensive the book, the less shipping becomes a major cost. But when your paying a small amount for a book, say $3 to $10, then a $6 to $10 shipping cost is ridiculous to say the least, and when I figure my all in cost of a book, and therefore try and establish a value, it's difficult determining a true value from eBay sold listings.

So then are the eBay sold listings a true indication of a books value with or without the shipping, because if sold listings are supposed to represent what buyers are willing to pay and therefore the actual "market" value, would it be the same without shipping or more or less?

The picture of three eBay listings that just sold last week are prime examples of what I mean. What is the value of the first book, $3 or $11, the second $5 or $13 or somewhere in between? That's the problem with sold listings on relatively inexpensive books.

[Axe Elf]

I would consider shipping and tax to be "overhead" costs, and not the value of the book, per se.

People probly aren't buying a lot of individual $3-$5 comics and paying an additional $8 to ship each one, though.  More likely they are buying a bunch of them from the same seller and combining the shipping costs.

[Tom789]

On 3/24/2023 at 5:02 AM, XiiX said:

Check the post right above yours.

Ok, I thought that only worked for strikethroughs.