The Crash???

[delekkerste]

But with all this doomsaying going on, I ask this question... If the market is dieing...

Do you think it is gone forever or just slowing down for a few years

 

For the vast majority of CGC comics, the prices we saw at the peak will likely never

be exceeded. That's right, NEVER. A lot of books used to sell for many multiples of

guide, including common books, new Modern books, sub-9.4 books (for Bronze/Modern),

and books without much demand. A HUGE percentage of the slabbed universe falls

into one of these categories. Is this stuff ever going to see renewed demand? Doubtful.

 

Well, everybody says the super high grade keys will appreciate even from today's

ridiculous levels (even though some of these are still at 10, 15, 20, 30x guide). There will

always be a market for the best stuff, I agree. But to appreciate from these nosebleed levels?

I won't say it's not possible, but I'd say the odds are less than most people think.

 

There's plenty of precedent for assets peaking at too-high prices and never, ever coming

back - graded coins (peaked in 1989), graded cards (late 1990s), certain super-desirable

art pieces (peaked in 1990), tech stocks (1999-2000). If you disagree with me, I'll sell

you as many shares of Commerce One as you want at its former peak price of $1,500/share

(on a reverse-split adjusted basis).

 

Gene

[ubiquiti]

You simplify the issue too much.

First off, it can't be compared to stocks because nothing influences demand for a comic other than popular opinion. That can be influneced by movies, the emergence of a hugely popular character, artist, writer, etc. Stocks can be effected by so damn many things - crooks running the company, poor earnings, market share, consumer confidence, etc..

Will prices ever be what they were a year ago for CGC books? They will for the high grade keys - I guarantee it. They most likely will not be for most other things, however. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, most people who are hard core into collecting do not do it as an investment, they do it for pride, ego, and becuase they love comics - and love CAN BE completely irrational. SO to those guys, prices don't matter so much. Eventually, specualtors will realize the comic market is extremely volatile, especially when the economy is in the crapper, and they will exit the market - then others will come in, new blood, starting from a lower start point. Its a big cycle - it will always come around. I see where all the people shorting the hobby are coming from, but you all are not all looking at the big picture. Again, what was paid early this year for most stuff will never be seen again, and many people will have overpaid for stuff and lost money, but there will always be demand for comic books - especially in high grade. Supply and demand is the basis of our economy, prices might go down, but there will always be a market. When a gets in office and fixes the economy again, you will see prices start to inch back up as people's disposable income rises - you'll see.

[blowout]

"then others will come in, new blood, starting from a lower start point. Its a big cycle - it will always come around."

 

.........where exactly do you see this new blood coming from??

....kids don't buy comic books anymore, so its more than likely that no too much new blood will enter the high grade comic collecting field.............

[ubiquiti]

From speculators....Guys that collected when they were like 12, and see the potential to make some money. Or just people who see an opportunity to make some money. You can't honestly tell me that every guy that has had their Ultimate Spidermans slabbed for the sole purpose of selling it reads comics, can you? A lot of those guys give a rats @ss about the comic, they just want to turn a profit, they are no different than day-traders.

Kids DO read comics today, just not as many as say, 20 years ago. I see kids go in droves to my local comic book store to buy Spidermans, and Heroclix. I will give you that new readership is down a great deal from what it was, but it is far from gone. If it was marvel and DC would close the doors now.

Quit being so negative for the sake of being negative. If the market is that bad - and all you care about is turning a profit, quit dealing in comics and buy yourself some real estate.

[delekkerste]

First off, it can't be compared to stocks because nothing influences demand

for a comic other than popular opinion. That can be influneced by movies, the

emergence of a hugely popular character, artist, writer, etc. Stocks can be effected

by so damn many things - crooks running the company, poor earnings,

market share, consumer confidence,

 

This makes absolutely no sense. Of course many things affect the demand of

comics besides popular opinion - people's incomes, demographic of the hobbyists

(aging, shrinking, etc.), innovations (CGC, revised grading scales, etc.), etc., Etc.,

ETC. And you could argue that those factors you cite that supposedly influence

stocks all just affect the popular opinion of stocks.

 

Eventually, specualtors will realize the comic market is extremely volatile,

especially when the economy is in the crapper, and they will exit the market - then

others will come in, new blood, starting from a lower start point. Its a big cycle - it will

always come around. I see where all the people shorting the hobby are coming from,

but you all are not all looking at the big picture.

 

With all due respect, I think it is you who is not looking at the big picture. Your

idealized view of a "cycle" does not reflect reality. There are many cycles and many

factors influencing the market. You could've made the same bogus argument for the

graded coin market, graded card market, or Nasdaq and it all would have blown

up in your face. Your cycle theory works as long as the cycle of the next order of

magnitude is still trending upwards. But once you get a boom/bust, you have many down-

cycles, often which prices never recover from. And there is every reason to believe

that we have witnessed such a bust. It has been argued at length here that the bigger

picture for the comics hobby is GRIM.

 

Gene

 

 

 

 

 

[delekkerste]

"When a gets in office and fixes the economy again, you will see prices

start to inch back up as people's disposable income rises - you'll see."

 

I would hold my breath waiting for this, but I would most likely lose consciousness first.

Get real. The only thing that is going to fix the economy is to let deflation wipe out

the excesses of the 1990s. Likewise, we *need* rational pricing in the CGC market

to wipe out the excesses of the bubble we just had.

 

"Quit being so negative for the sake of being negative. If the market is that bad - and

all you care about is turning a profit, quit dealing in comics and buy yourself some real

estate."

 

First, nobody's being negative for the sake of being negative. And most of us who are

negative are negative because we are COLLECTORS and not speculators and we

recognize that it HURTS THE HOBBY when collectors buy into the sustainability of

unsustainably high prices and then lose their shirts. You know what happens then? They

leave the hobby in disgust. We don't need that. We had that already in the early 1990s.

 

Also, your comment on real estate is remarkably naive. All the smart money is selling

out at top tick now. Everybody else is going to be depressed in 2-3 years once the effects

of the deflating housing bubble are widely felt.

 

Gene

 

 

[ubiquiti]

Wrong again. A comic cannot have earnings below expectation, a comic cannot fire their CEO, etc. The only thing that can effect a comic is personal preference - again, most people do not buy comics to make money, that is the only reason to buy stock. DO you buy stock because it is a great read? Because you like the artist or the writer? Maybe because the cover is really cool? No. Anyone looking to make huge money on comics better have some 15 cent high grade comic book tree that has endless supply, otherwise they are in the wrong business. Margins are very slim in the comics market as it is, and with a poor economy and less disposable income, those margins are further trimmed.

yes, there will be down cycles, but any market is cyclical. Will it ever cycle back up to where it was? WHo knows. Who cares? I collect comics because I like them, if prices drop I will buy more - many other collectors will do the same thing. You sound like you are bitter because you bought a bunch of 9.8 and 9.6 stuff for crazy prices and are now upset because you got hosed. I'm not sure where else your combativeness and inability to see someone else's point could possibly come from.

[blowout]

"people do not buy comics to make money, that is the only reason to buy stock. DO you buy stock because it is a great read? Because you like the artist or the writer? Maybe because the cover is really cool? No"

 

..........so you actually think that the cgc comic market is made up of people buying comics to read and not to make money..........?

 

..........wake up to the real world my friend................

[ubiquiti]

Naive?

Please. Real estate, along with gold has always and will always be the best long term investment anyone could make for what? Ever?

Looking to turn a quick buck at anything will bite you in the @ss at some point. Everything I am in FOR INVESTMENT I am in for the long term play.

I am a real collector, and I really don't give 2 craps if Ultimate Spiderman #1 9.8 sells for $200 or $20. What does it matter - anyone that would pay 20 times guide for something deserves to lose their @ss if they are doing it in an attempt to turn a quick profit - they are stupid businesspeople, if they are doing it because they really want to have the second best grade comic on record - more power to them, evidently they could afford it and they are happy.

[blowout]

"From speculators....Guys that collected when they were like 12, and see the potential to make some money."

 

.........new blood entering the hobby cannot come from speculators, it has to come from new collectors to sustain the hobby LONG TERM................specs are only in there to make a SHORT TERM profit.................

 

.........too many speculators in a collectables field has historically resulted in a CRASH..............that is what we are seeing now with cgc books...............

 

.......prices will probably not recover to previous levels because the speculators who fueled the demand will be gone................

[ubiquiti]

Sure there are plenty of people who buy CGC comics to make money. One last time - if you are in comics soley to make money - you will most likely be disappointed and broke, fairly quickly. But there are also plenty of people who buy CGC comics because on eBay anyway - it is the only infallable way to get a comic that is actually in the grade advertised. While CGC may be at times slightly inconsistent in their grading, I would take their word for it 99 out of 100 times over some schmo on eBay advertising his Mint ASM 300.

[blowout]

"First, nobody's being negative for the sake of being negative. And most of us who are negative are negative because we are COLLECTORS and not speculators and we recognize that it HURTS THE HOBBY when collectors buy into the sustainability of unsustainably high prices and then lose their shirts. You know what happens then? They leave the hobby in disgust. We don't need that. We had that already in the early 1990s......"

 

......well said gene

......i am a collector not a dealer and have no interset in selling comics for profit................but i would be a fool not to take notice of what is happening in the cgc market.......it ultimately affects the whole hobby..............

[ubiquiti]

"I would hold my breath waiting for this, but I would most likely lose consciousness first. Get real. The only thing that is going to fix the economy is to let deflation wipe out the excesses of the 1990s. Likewise, we *need* rational pricing in the CGC market to wipe out the excesses of the bubble we just had."

 

Huh....How do we get rational cgc prices? have every seller put a ceiling on their prices? Isn't that sort of anti-free market? Someone is paying the money, pal. For whatever reason they are doing it is beyond your control and my control. There must be some reason, well founded or not. That which you cannot control, you just can't worry about.

Oh yeah, evidently deficit spending, a war, and the elimination of Social Security will fix the economy, eh? Did you study economics at Guadalupe Tech or something?

 

[Guest]

Let's get away from the semantics and euphemisms and call a spade a spade:

the fall in CGC values from 10x, 15x, 20x, 30x Overstreet on some books to

wherever they are now (and still headed south for many books) is the very

definition of a crash.

This debate is too much fun to just watch. Gene, I think you're painting the CGC market with brushstrokes that are too broad. The only items that have 'crashed' are those that are in high supply. The quality items, such as the pre-1966 9.2s mentioned by FF, have in some cases moderated in value, but certainly haven't crashed.

 

I don't think the inevitable correction of values for high-supply items is a crash. It is a reflection of the reality that was always there.

[ubiquiti]

................right............................

................................okay.................................

..................I guess I'm a total insufficiently_thoughtful_person then......................................

..............thanks for the economics lesson.......................................

............................................................I appreciate it...........................

[delekkerste]

"You sound like you are bitter because you bought a bunch of 9.8 and 9.6 stuff

for crazy prices and are now upset because you got hosed."

 

Buddy, you are way, way off. This claim has been refuted and discredited

numerous times already. I'm a collector, not a speculator, and most of my CGCs

were purchased from raw submissions or at reasonable prices - I assure you that I

am way in the black in terms of P&L. But, frankly, I don't care all that much. That's

not why I collect. If all my books went to zero, it wouldn't faze me from a financial

standpoint. I don't "invest" my money in plastic slabbed funny books. I only spend

what I can afford to lose. It comes out of discretionary spending funds. Period.

 

 

"I'm not sure where else your combativeness and inability to see someone else's

point could possibly come from."

 

Perhaps because I have been exasperated by your inability to put together a coherent

argument. Your responses have been riddled with internal inconsistencies, trite political

propaganda and naive generalizations. I welcome any well thought-out responses from

those with differing opinions. You, sir, have not provided us with any.

 

Gene

[blowout]

"I don't think the inevitable correction of values for high-supply items is a crash. It is a reflection of the reality that was always there. "

 

........i think you have to be clear about your definitions here doc, there is a big difference between a crash in the cgc graded market and a crash in the comic book market as a whole................

[Guest]

I'm referring to the CGC market, blowout....

 

 

[ubiquiti]

I don't see where you are coming from. My argument is well thought out, and to me, sound. it appears to differ from yours, so evidently that makes it incoherent, inconsistent and naive. At least I can see your side and concede a point or two.

To me, you sound combative, arrogant and irrational.

Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree then.

[delekkerste]

This debate is too much fun to just watch. Gene, I think you're painting the CGC

market with brushstrokes that are too broad.

 

Hey Doc - you're right. I only collect Bronze and Modern books (aside from a few

specific S.A. books that have meaning for me) and so my comments are really aimed

at these two segments of the CGC market.

 

Gene