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What is the point of the Overstreet Price Guide?

Started by SuperBird,

92 posts in this topic

divad

divad

Posted
Posted
Not that I'm disagreeing with your assessment but have you noticed if a dealer or collector doesn't see a lot of high grade books through their hands they tend to get a little overzealous on the grade when something as nice as a VF comes in?

 

Many board members are what I would classify as tight graders and not what I would call the mainstream. If everybody was grading like the boards we wouldn't have much to talk about grading wise, would we?

 

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Sid

Sid

Posted
Posted

Overstreet helps newbies like me a ton for the general value instead of taking a shot at the dark. What's funny is, after discovering the boards I seem to be happier paying over guide for a few books instead of the other way around.

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adams

adams

Posted
Posted

Does anyone know someone at GEMSTONE who works directly on the Guide to see if they could participate in this Board's discussions?

Is there no one person at GEMSTONE who takes responsibility for the Guide's info?

I can't believe that Overstreet actually does tallying of the numbers while he's

living somewhere in Mississippi. Has Gemstone set up a bustling office down there? There must be Katrina folks who are looking for work.

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deathlok

deathlok

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Posted

Okay, the only reason OSPG exists is to give all collectors something to complain about. It's a well known fact that all collectors are whiny babies in search of the next teat from which to suckle from, so OSPG fulfills that need by allowing each genre something to which they can rally about as the end of all things.

 

End of discussion.

 

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drice6900

drice6900

Posted
Posted
Okay, the only reason OSPG exists is to give all collectors something to complain about. It's a well known fact that all collectors are whiny babies in search of the next teat from which to suckle from, so OSPG fulfills that need by allowing each genre something to which they can rally about as the end of all things.

 

End of discussion.

 

poke2.gif

 

This is beyond a doubt the best reason I have seen yet. Nice job, 'Lok 893applaud-thumb.gif

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october

october

Posted
Posted
Okay, the only reason OSPG exists is to give all collectors something to complain about. It's a well known fact that all collectors are whiny babies in search of the next teat from which to suckle from, so OSPG fulfills that need by allowing each genre something to which they can rally about as the end of all things.

 

End of discussion.

 

poke2.gif

 

893applaud-thumb.gifhail.gif

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lizards2

lizards2

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Posted
I've been on the boards for quite a while, and still can't tell grades above 8.5...

 

I've been collecting for 35 + years, and can't grade very well under 8.5, because 8.5 and over is where I've always collected.

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divad

divad

Posted
Posted
I've been on the boards for quite a while, and still can't tell grades above 8.5...

 

I've been collecting for 35 + years, and can't grade very well under 8.5, because 8.5 and over is where I've always collected.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . 893blahblah.gif

 

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mica

mica

Posted
Posted
I can't believe that Overstreet actually does tallying of the numbers while he's

living somewhere in Mississippi. Has Gemstone set up a bustling office down there? There must be Katrina folks who are looking for work.

Why is location so important unless it's a slam against any place not East or West coast?

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adams

adams

Posted
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Don't think that Gemstone wants to out-source the job to multiple locations throughout the country...that's not their history of doing things.

They like to keep everything under one roof....C-O-N-T-R-O-L

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kimik

kimik

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As a collector, I like having small local dealers and the LCSs use Overstreet for pricing their books. It is way too low on true high grade key books that they may have (or "hot" books that can be flipped quickly online for a profit), and you can usually sell them your low grade filler copies for better prices than on eBay.

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Conanfan-migration

Conanfan-migration

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The OSPG is collector-friendly(i.e. the people that know what they want, war covers etc.) and speculator unfriendly(i.e you have to get to know the market for what titles are selling or sell cheap to someone that does know, you can't just buy the guide and know everything there is to know about cornering markets in titles, which would be alot easier if , say Overstreet broke out every single war cover of Action, etc)

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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
Posted
Okay, the only reason OSPG exists is to give all collectors something to complain about. It's a well known fact that all collectors are whiny babies in search of the next teat from which to suckle from, so OSPG fulfills that need by allowing each genre something to which they can rally about as the end of all things.

 

End of discussion.

 

poke2.gif

 

Actually, you sort of have to feel a bit for OS since he has been doing this for 37 years and there has been nothing but complaints even starting with his first guide back in 1970.

 

When it first came out, people always referred to it as the Overprice Guide saying that OS was trying to hype the market because nobody in their right mind would pay $50 or $100 for a comic book, let alone $300 for a copy of Action Comics #1. I guess prices like that don't seem so ridiculous after all.

 

I believe one of Bob's problem is that he has always been a collector and is always concerned about the health of the market. As a result, he seems to try to use his price guide to achieve two goals. First is to reflect how prices are generally trending in the marketplace and secondly, to raise prices in such a way as to ensure stability and long-term strength in the marketplace.

 

Not sure if he should be using the price guide to achieve his second goal, but if you ask a lot of the long-term dealers, they actually prefer the steady growth as opposed to huge juumps in price one year followed by drops in subsequent years. Just needs some minor tweaking here and there.

 

Sort of paints an inaccurate picture of the market at times, but it's definitely still going strong after all these years without much of a downdraft at all. Certainly can't say the same thing about some of the other collectibles markets.

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