Promise Collection Redux 0

[Moondog]

There are a ton of Promise books in the current Heritage auction.  Is anyone going to do a price comparison from the initial auctions?

[fast eddie]

Should be interesting to see,,,,,,,,,

[tth2]

On 9/9/2023 at 9:32 AM, Moondog said:

There are a ton of Promise books in the current Heritage auction.  Is anyone going to do a price comparison from the initial auctions?

Gary, if you go into the Promise Collection thread, you'll see that Master Chief has been maintaining a database of Promise resales thus far, which I imagine will be updated at some point to reflect recent weekly auction results as well as this upcoming Signature auction. 

It makes for some pretty ugly viewing!  The sheer scale of losses, both in terms of percentages and absolute dollars, has been astounding. 

[lou_fine]

On 9/8/2023 at 6:32 PM, Moondog said:

There are a ton of Promise books in the current Heritage auction.  Is anyone going to do a price comparison from the initial auctions?

 

On 9/8/2023 at 7:07 PM, tth2 said:

Gary, if you go into the Promise Collection thread, you'll see that Master Chief has been maintaining a database of Promise resales thus far, which I imagine will be updated at some point to reflect recent weekly auction results as well as this upcoming Signature auction. 

It makes for some pretty ugly viewing!  The sheer scale of losses, both in terms of percentages and absolute dollars, has been astounding. 

I took a quick look at the Promise Collection retreads coming back into this upcoming Heritage Signature and if I remember correctly, there were a total of about 70 of them with most of them being DC's off the top of my head. 

As for the tracking database which Tim is referring to as masterfully compiled by Mitch (last updated June 22nd), ask and ye shall receive:  

On 6/22/2023 at 5:05 PM, MasterChief said:

Update!

With the close of today's Heritage Auction, 46 Promise books were added to the ROI snapshot, two of which sold earlier in the month via HA and CC.

The current rate of return for June is trending down at -34%.

Nine esoteric books will be auctioned by HA as the month comes to a close. Those books will be captured in a later update.

Data sorted oldest to newest Sale Date.

(Source: Heritage Auctions (HA), Comic Connect (CC), ComicLink (CL), eBay)

 

Edited September 9, 2023 by lou_fine

[tth2]

On 9/9/2023 at 10:57 AM, lou_fine said:

ask and ye shall receive

I was hoping to steer the conversation into the existing Promise thread rather than have two separate threads. 

[lou_fine]

On 9/8/2023 at 8:02 PM, tth2 said:

I was hoping to steer the conversation into the existing Promise thread rather than have two separate threads. 

My bad then, but you probably should have set the link to take you right into that post on Page 67 of the thread then instead of making poor Gary plow through 66 excruciating and tedious pages before he came across the updated database worksheet.  

Edited September 9, 2023 by lou_fine

[Moondog]

Thanks for the heads up on Master Chief's work sheet.  Very solid work

It appears that the initial purchases in 2021 came at one of the most advantageous times in history, while the subsequent sales timing couldn't be worse. 

[MAR1979]

On 9/9/2023 at 6:15 PM, Moondog said:

Thanks for the heads up on Master Chief's work sheet.  Very solid work

It appears that the initial purchases in 2021 came at one of the most advantageous times in history, while the subsequent sales timing couldn't be worse. 

As wells as many of the grades are questionable.

Edited September 9, 2023 by MAR1979

[Silver Surfer]

With so many off the charts initial sales prices it makes me question their validity now that so many are being relisted. Even non Promise smaller ticket books I was tracking went for some crazy prices only to be relisted again 6 months later? Besides if NP Gresham bids are deemed as acceptable is it that far of a reach to think that some of those bids may have won some of those auctions? I’m sure there was no BP to pay but consignment fees are likely still collected on the other end so the net loss on the resales probably are not as bad as they look. Just pure speculation on my part of course, who knows. 

[jimbo_7071]

On 9/9/2023 at 7:31 PM, MAR1979 said:

As wells as many of the grades are questionable laughable.

FIFY

[tth2]

On 9/9/2023 at 11:18 AM, lou_fine said:

My bad then, but you probably should have set the link to take you right into that post on Page 67 of the thread then instead of making poor Gary plow through 66 excruciating and tedious pages before he came across the updated database worksheet.  

I also didn't want to do the work of going back in the thread to find the spreadsheet. 

Edited September 10, 2023 by tth2

[tth2]

On 9/10/2023 at 8:16 AM, Silver Surfer said:

With so many off the charts initial sales prices it makes me question their validity now that so many are being relisted. Even non Promise smaller ticket books I was tracking went for some crazy prices only to be relisted again 6 months later? Besides if NP Gresham bids are deemed as acceptable is it that far of a reach to think that some of those bids may have won some of those auctions? I’m sure there was no BP to pay but consignment fees are likely still collected on the other end so the net loss on the resales probably are not as bad as they look. Just pure speculation on my part of course, who knows. 

I imagine the consignor would expect to get paid every dollar of the reported hammer price, as well as whatever rebate was negotiated on the BP, so if the crazy prices were all some big scheme by Heritage, then they've lost their shirt in the resales.  Whatever remaining fee they earned on the original consignment wouldn't have been enough to cover the losses in the resales.

Which would mean that Heritage somehow contrived to lose money on the biggest find to come to market in the last 20 years.

[lou_fine]

On 9/9/2023 at 7:48 PM, tth2 said:

I also didn't want to do the work of going back in the thread to find the spreadsheet. 

And yet you expect poor Gary to go through and do all that tedious and excruciating work.  

[Silver Surfer]

On 9/9/2023 at 7:56 PM, tth2 said:

I imagine the consignor would expect to get paid every dollar of the reported hammer price, as well as whatever rebate was negotiated on the BP, so if the crazy prices were all some big scheme by Heritage, then they've lost their shirt in the resales.  Whatever remaining fee they earned on the original consignment wouldn't have been enough to cover the losses in the resales.

Which would mean that Heritage somehow contrived to lose money on the biggest find to come to market in the last 20 years.

I somehow think that at the end of the day it would be an eventual wash for them. Besides how do we know that they don’t already own the bulk of the inventory that could be potentially affected by such maneuvers? And then there is the market resetting as higher thresholds for key books are established drawing in more consignments and good press. 

[Courageous Cat]

stupid ridiculous made up stories (promise), ridiculous and utterly stupid collection names (Fantast), and insane and almost unbelievable prices. I for one wish to put 21,22 and 23 in the rear view mirror

Edited December 8, 2023 by Courageous Cat

[AJD]

On 9/10/2023 at 12:56 PM, tth2 said:

I imagine the consignor would expect to get paid every dollar of the reported hammer price, as well as whatever rebate was negotiated on the BP, so if the crazy prices were all some big scheme by Heritage, then they've lost their shirt in the resales.  Whatever remaining fee they earned on the original consignment wouldn't have been enough to cover the losses in the resales.

Which would mean that Heritage somehow contrived to lose money on the biggest find to come to market in the last 20 years.

I must be missing something. 1. Original consigner sells books through Heritage, and people buy them at nosebleed prices. Heritage takes a cut, albeit (you are assuming) a significantly reduced one. 2. Buyers from step 1 then sell them through Heritage and Heritage takes an unspecified (but probably larger) cut. Where does Heritage "lose their shirt"? Or are you saying that some of the first round sales were to N P Gresham, not real punters?

[tth2]

On 9/10/2023 at 1:47 PM, Silver Surfer said:

I somehow think that at the end of the day it would be an eventual wash for them.

Just look at the total losses in the spreadsheet.  That's a lot of money for Heritage to make up on the resales.

On 9/10/2023 at 1:47 PM, Silver Surfer said:

Besides how do we know that they don’t already own the bulk of the inventory that could be potentially affected by such maneuvers?

They would've had to buy the books at a steep discount to make these maneuvers worthwhile.  Anyways, why would they do this?  Heritage's business model is to get a cut and take no risk.  Even if they decided to take a risk by selling it as their own inventory, there was a very reasonable price point for the books that they should've been more than happy to sell at, which was many percent below the actual sale prices.  

[tth2]

On 9/10/2023 at 8:22 PM, AJD said:

I must be missing something. 1. Original consigner sells books through Heritage, and people buy them at nosebleed prices. Heritage takes a cut, albeit (you are assuming) a significantly reduced one. 2. Buyers from step 1 then sell them through Heritage and Heritage takes an unspecified (but probably larger) cut. Where does Heritage "lose their shirt"? Or are you saying that some of the first round sales were to N P Gresham, not real punters?

I agree with you, Heritage would be making plenty of decent, risk-free money doing steps 1 and 2, which is their normal business model.

But yes, Silver Surfer seems to be implying that what happened is the bolded part.

[MyNameIsLegion]

now a 64% loss. Ouch.