The Crash???

[Guest]

Rinn, Did they? Did you see them write the checks or pay for these auctions? And if you attended a show and SAW these "former" Heritage items added to their ALREADY awesome display, I repeat, Did you see them actually PAY for them or see their invoices?

 

[rinnson-migration]

I saw the a printout of the invoices.

[Guest]

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

 

delekkrsete, you rock - keep up the great posts! Although it seems like half the people on this Board seem to hate you. Guess they're not really confident in their own opinions!

[Guest]

On the vast majority of CGC comics, prices have plummeted and continue to do so, thus resulting in a serious crash.

The 'vast majority' haven't been affected. The Golden Age, early Silver, super HG Bronze and difficult items through all ages have maintained value. Only the books that are fairly prevalent, such as most Bronze 9.4s, have corrected. This is not a majority of the CGC market, and this is why I don't think the word crash is accurate.

[blazingbob]

I have heard this rumor and had quite a interesting conversation with Vinny/Steve.

 

$5 million is a failure? Sotheby's never did $5 million at a auction. Metropolis spent money on quality items. I spent some money but let's get something straight. Dealers don't spend money just because we are bored. We buy when the price is right. Heritage pumped too much stuff out, bargains are always the result when too much is offered at one time. Nicolas Cage's collection should never have been offered all at once, it's too much stuff to be absorbed by collectors going after that type of material.

 

 

 

 

[greaterfool]

i wonder how much of the auction was bought by "dealers" and how much by "collectors"? it seems pretty hard to make money flipping these books given the reserves and the 15% buyers premium.

[OldGuy]

I think dealers were buying with the thought of reselling these books slowly as the market could absorb them. If anyone bought them thinking they would flip them next week for a profit I think they'll be disappointed. But if they hng on to them for a year or so then they may very well see a nice profit from them.

[aardvark88]

Hope that big-wig coin collector/investor isn't already disenchanted w/ his Pay Copy b/c the JayParrino website lists his new items for sale as Marvel comics #1 cgc 9.0 Pay. Email J for the price, if u dare.

CI, is this the final sign of the APOCALYPSE? Cgc ARMAGEDDON?

[greaterfool]

there must be a VERY interesting story behind the Pay Copy returning to market so quickly!

[clobberintime]

I just looked thru the updates and some of the prices are pretty damn funny - Spidey 33 9.4 and 100 9.4 for a couple thousand??? I need an X-men 4 9.2+ and he has a 9.4 for $7800 - only 2x as much as the 9.4 at heritage sold. hey - i would almost bet that he bought it at heritage for $3800 and now has it up for double!

[fantastic_four]

I've seen stuff listed on Parrino's site many months after he already sold them. I bought an FF 4 from a dealer who got it from somebody else besides Parrino, but my book was still listed on Parrino's site and continued to stay there for at least 3 months after I got it. And I know mine was the same copy, because it had a very unique label comment--plus my slab has a big "The Mint" sticker on the back that feels like it's freakin' heat-welded onto the slab plastic because it's so hard to get off. I felt pretty good about it, because the price I paid was over $1000 less than the listed price on Parrino's site.

[The_Man_Of_Steel]

ubiquiti - "Stocks can be effected by so damn many things - crooks running the company"...

crooks? A crook is a crook, regardless of their choice of political party, and to make an entire political party "seem" crooked, is narrow minded, and ignoring the OTHER parties faults. Who was president when the CEO's of Enron and Arther Anderson were fixing the numbers and stealing money from stockholders before George Bush took office?

ubiquiti - "When a gets in office and fixes the economy again"

When a gets into office and fixes? Hello, have you forgotten 9/11? Events like that take a HUGE toll on any economy, even the all-powerful American economy. You see, George Bush inherited an economy that was showing signs of slowing down and going south. It is unreasonable to expect an economy that has been bombarded with problems to get "fixed" overnight. It takes time for wounds to heal, and it takes time for economies to show impovement. Your statement suggests that the president of a country "dictates" the economy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Our economy is based on so many things. It has MUCH MORE to do with people like yourself and me, than a political party. Oh, and you seem to forget that a president cannot act on his own accord, he needs the Senate behind him, and guess what political party is currently in control of the Senate? All thanks to a spineless two-faced traitor that changed parties in midstream.

[Darthdiesel]

Ahh...but you can deny that WHIG crooks are the worst of all....

[The_Man_Of_Steel]

ubiquiti - "First off, it can't be compared to stocks because nothing influences demand for a comic other than popular opinion."

 

I agree popular opinion IS a major driving force in the comic book market, ESPECIALLY to SPECULATORS. Afterall, what is the speculator looking for? We both know the answer is PROFIT. How likely will profit be made if a book is NOT popular? Supply and demand, that should be what a speculator lives by.

 

BTW, I am a comic book reader/collector that learned a BIG lesson during the 90's speculation. Puchase the comics that I want to read/collect, ignore propoganda and hype, because for the most part, comics are NOT "hot" or "killer" like some might have you to belive.

 

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."

 

Huh? IF a speculator is no different than a day trader, then how can "it" NOT be compared to stocks? When you invest in a company, do you purchase stock? When you invest in the comic book market, do you purchase CGC slabbed HIGH GRADE key Golden age issues? Contrary to your opinion, the answer is YES, "it" can be compared to stocks. However, I see the speculator as more of a stock-broker than "day-trader".

 

Example: IF I may, let me speculate about what I would invest in IF I were a speculator. IF I had an endless supply of money, I would "invest" in a high grade copy of Action Comics #1 based on the past 10 years performance

in the comic book market. IF I found a high grade copy for around guide, I would wait another 10 years (or for another movie) to sell it for profit.

 

[underthebigw]

Hey, if don't have any of Starlin's pre-Dreadstar adventures in Epic Illustrated, I highly recommend it

 

Try the first Eclipse graphic novel. It's fantastic. I was lucky enough to find a first printing (I think there was more than one) in a store in Montreal a few years ago for a few bucks. Great reading and puts the whole story in perspective. So much better than the Epic Comics tales.

[blazingbob]

Why are dealers always "flipping" books? Don't I have customers, want lists, conventions to go to? Every collector in the comic universe didn't attend the Heritage auction. Books don't have to be sold immediately. We actually operate on cash flow. Money coming in funds money going out. Bad cash flow, you don't stay in business very long. The rumor is many dealers are one bad deal from being homeless. Why is the dinner of choice on the road for many of us McDonalds? Yup, I see a lot of dealers driving Ferrari's up to shows.

 

 

[Darthdiesel]

McDonalds is the food of the gods...keeps us comic fans in that sexy svelte form that we are all known for!

[FlyingDonut]

Once again, Bob is the voice of reason! Hard to believe, but he's dead on. And I vote for the Big and Tasty!

[underthebigw]

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.

 

Whooaa, buddy. I don't usually get involved in other's personal squabbles, but you're the one sounding angry here. I think you're missing the point, the people commenting on the "crash" are the ones who are condemning speculators. Their lamentations regarding this price drop have nothing to do with investment, but with the harm it causes the hobby: long-time collectors get disillusioned because they can't afford the books they want until the crash, so they leave, then speculators get disgusted after the crash because they lose money, and the hobby as a whole gets a rep as being worthless, unstable, etc.

 

And (and this point has been discussed with justified concern in other threads) there may not be a fresh supply of new collectors to help the hobby recover. Don't forget, for forty or fifty years, those corny nickel novels or whatever the hell they were called used to rule the day...do you know anyone who collects them? How many pulp collectors do you know? Even thirty-five years ago most of the country couldn't imagine a world without Western movies, comics, novels, pulps, and TV shows. When's the last time you saw any of these produced--and, correspondingly, the demand for Western memorabilia has been stagnant for the last 15 years. Speculation is bad, and it may cause damage to our hobby which is already taking a demographic hit-kids re not reading comics. Do I care about "values" lowering (personally, I think this "crash" is exagerated)--hell no, it just gives me opportunity to buy the books I love (I've never had a book slabbed, by the way), but do I worry that a full-scale crash could hurt the hobby in ways that it could never recover.

 

 

[comicinvestor-migration]

Damn that was well-stated silverandbronze, and echoes my thoughts almost exactly.