Did anyone Fiddle on Sunday while Ebay burned?

[clobberintime]

Ahhh - the opening line of A Tale of Two Cities comes to mind - "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Well old Bob I consider myself to be one of the major "swingers" anywhere! Meth has already challenged me to send in some muscles poses so maybe we will just have some pics a little south of the beltline too! Anyone saying the market is not off right now is an ostrich. Wake up and smell the cat food. Now how many high grade copies of FF 49 and 50 are over at HighGrade comics right now??

[blazingbob]

Current Inventory of FF 49's and 50 not including my personal collection. I've purchased 17 49's and 16 50's which comes from my business database, I haven't had my morning coffee so I didn't pull my personal database numbers. However, my experience is 48's grown on trees, 49's can be found and 50's require a little work.

 

#49 CGC 9.0 VF/NM

#49 CGC 9.0 VF/NM

#49 CGC 9.0 VF/NM

#49 CGC 9.2 NM-

#49 CGC 9.2 NM-

#50 CGC 9.2 NM-

#50 CGC 9.2 NM-

 

And by the way, I never say you "should" pay 10X guide for a book. The 10-15X pricing structure didn't appear over night, I've watched Ebay auctions just like everybody else, I've seen ComicLink and Investment Collectibles sell a lot of books for prices that I laughed at. I've seen Harley sell unslabbed books at some pretty aggressive prices and yet I've also been able to buy some really good books from him. I have stated this before, the "deal" in dealers is to eekk out a profit and try to stay above water, consistently making collector's bleed out of multiple orafices doesn't garner a long term relationship. I may be a rough around the edges and generally short and curt in my emails but I don't have people saying "Bob Storms ripped me off" or "His checked bounced". God forbid, I even send you to my competitors to find books. I can even save you time at a show by telling you who to avoid. And to top it off I even devote a Rants and Raves section on my website that gives a perspective of my side of the table instead of - Sold Amazing Spiderman #1 NM $xx,xxx. You want hype, let's bring in Don West! The timing is perfect since the glut of CGC material means that Dealers are giving the stuff away! BUY IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[blazingbob]

And if that isn't good enough for you than click below

 

http://www.cutestuf.com/flash_1002/bluemoon.swf

[murph0]

Now if only someone would list a nice MTU #1 9.4 so I can buy it cheap!!!

 

Brian

[OldGuy]

"I only have experience from 1973 to back up what I know but that would make me "old school"."

 

Well, old at least.

[clobberintime]

Ha ha ha - I almost spit my coke all over the computer! Well as I have been saying, I think the next few months will be a great time to buy on ebay and I intend to put my money where my mouth is. I really think as far as the good gold and silver books, the value is there and this down turn happens every year between the end of the cons and spring. I just saw an ad for the Spidey dvd that is out next week - I bet that will give some Spidey books a little bump. I bet ya!!

[delekkerste]

The "number" of full time dealers in this forum numbers exactly how many?

 

And how is this relevant? Does it make me any less right because I am not a dealer

who is less objective/heavily biased because of his vested interest?

 

The combined spending power of the board members numbers how much? Except

for Mr. Meth and his $50,000 bag of money I don't seem to see many of you on the "Big

Swinging D**K" side of the buying house.

 

So now we're back to "my Johnson is bigger than your Johnson". Well, I'd probably

lash out emotionally too if my livelihood were at stake.

 

And not everyone in the Peanut Gallery here is a pauper because they're not "investing"

in plastic-slabbed funny books at all-time high prices. I've got plenty of dry powder in

reserve to invest in stocks, real estate and yes, maybe even some collectibles 3-5

years from now when distressed sellers are bailing out at rock-bottom prices. He who

squanders his capital now at the top won't have the purchasing power to buy assets at

distressed prices from people like you at the bottom.

 

You can either be myopic and focus on the short-term history of comic book prices or

study your history like Meth advises and realize that prices can and do fall precipitously

after a bubble. They don't fall to "reasonable" prices, they fall to downright "cheap" prices.

We seem to have hit an air pocket in the market where buyers have pulled in their horns

because expectations are for lower future prices. It doesn't take a dealer to realize that.

 

Gene

[Crowzilla]

I was a little off on the O/S price for Spidey 14 - it is $2500 - so the 9.0 went for $500 under guide

 

 

No, you are still off.

Guide for a 9.4 is $2500,

guide for a 9.0 would be $1900

(9.0 is the midgrade from 8.0 to 9.4), so if the Spidey #14 sold for $2025, that is still 12% over guide. It really isn't a horrible price, especially when you consider all the copies period that have been slabbed and the fact that 9.0 is a rather common grade for that book so far (more 9.0s exist so far than 8.5 or 8.0, and they represent almost 8% of the entire population)

 

 

[Guest]

I am one of the optimists who feel (felt?) that prices on Silver/Gold CGC books would be preserved to some extent.

 

Am I ready to be counted as wrong?

 

Not quite.... I'll want to see more than a weekend worth of depressed Silver prices. I'll concede if this trend persists over the winter. What I won't do, and haven't done, is commit to large, heavy-multiple-of-guide purchases.

 

Is this a post-Heritage effect? A winter slowdown? A long term 3-5 year trend?

 

Bob, what are your website and off-eBay sales like?

[Guest]

As a follow up, is JP a visionary or simply a comic-market outsider who'll be burned by a downturn, much like the sports-card stores who entered the Valiant craze and got stuck with excess stock?

[greaterfool]

based on his catalogs, i would believe that JP has more than enough capital to outlast all of us through any downturn. it is the people who are speculating on their credit cards, who can't hold books for years, that will dumping their books on the market soon.

[Guest]

JPs NOT a visionary. JP CREATED the Vision. JP is a type A, extremely successful individual with the drive, determination, a well thought out plan to the last detail, money to carry it out, surrounding himself with the right combination of people (another talent), and the Brass Ba**s to see it through. JP knew exactly what was needed, which outlets, which subsidiaries were necessary to create this vision and acted on it. JP built it and they did come. Just like the "Field of Dreams". A very talented individual and infinitely wise businessman.

[Guest]

JP built it and they did come.

 

Will they keep coming, though? Will the person who paid 1M for the Marvel Pay Copy keep coming? If we're seeing the start of a prolonged market downturn, will the coin customers that JP sold books to be happy, and hold the books?

 

Or will JP be chased from the market like Sotheby's was in the downturn of 1995?

[Guest]

Who can say exactly who the payer was on the $1,000,000 comic sale. Was it really sold? Who knows exactly what transpired bewtween buyer and seller? And that's the way it SHOULD be. IF the Buyer and Seller WISH the details to be known than it will, if not, it's THEIR deal. Now in these cases of a deal where the fine details AREN'T known, where the buyer is a big question mark..these transactions SHOULD be taken with a grain of salt as unproven No matter what the seller says occurred. Whether the seller is you, me or JP. There are SO many possibilities:

1)the sale actually occurred and they DIDN't want the media involved for another set of endless possibilities.

2) the sale DIDN't happen and that's why there's no media involvement. ANOTHER hype. JP did so much want to be the first hobby dealer involved in a million dollar comic deal. The Action 1 for the "job" never materializing, what better vehicle than the highest graded Marvel 1, even though a 9.0 was a magnificient "gift" on this book. I know, I know, a Sotheby's Board of graders assessed it at 8.9 or something like that, BUT, isn't almost every book graded by the Sotheby's graders "leniencey" imparted on books under the "outmoded" and now "useless" grading standards, having been replaced by the more accurate, stricter, CGC standards, making those Sotheby graders obsolete, graded far tougher now under the CGC regime? If anything, if this prevailing tenet is true, and CGC redifined grading standards to new levels of accuracy and strictness (as It's been said many times...the NMs and better of yesterday are the CGC VFs of today, because they've tightened everything up to such a high degree), shouldn't this apply to the Marvel 1 pay copy as well? An '89' of "yesterday" should be tantamount to an F/VF or VF- 7.5 at BEST, and looking at the book compared to OTHER CGC 9.0s and CGC 7.0 to 7.5s, it most certainly IS!

3) the sale was part cash part trade, like so many of the famous deals of the past reported as CASH that were actually part trade or part cash, or books to be named later between the comic dealing long haul mega-giants.

4-100) any possible permutation or variation on the above three motifs.

 

Were the books actually sold to coin collector's? Again, who knows? Private auctions, private sales, etc. It's what you wish to believe. Personally, I believe in JP, but I don't believe everything I hear about JP. His business and financial levels are so far above average, up in the ionosphere, who knows where the books are going, if they're going at all, as of yet. Well, prior to the last Heritage offering anyway! I still think it was more than coincidence that Nic decided to divest himself of his collection at the PERFECT time. Who do you suppose may have been his comic investment advisor? Don't you think that someone like Nic would have been given the go ahead on when the perfect moment was to consign to Heritage? Everybody loves Nic, a great actor, a great guy, besides the money and INFLUENCE!!!

[aardvark88]

1995 is a far cry from today w/ the sales push from eBay & Cgc which started around 2000.

[Guest]

True, odin, and furthermore, that point will be irrelevant if there is no lasting market downturn for Silver/Gold books.

 

My point is that if a severe downturn comes to pass, JP could be caught holding the bag on a fairly large stock of books. As Bob said, many dealers were happy to sell to JP at high prices. Yes, he has the financial capacity to withstand the bumps, but will he be happy if the comic venture turns into a money loser?

 

Meth, I'm not sure what point you're getting at? Yes, the sale is speculation. Whatever. The question is: will JPs deep pocketed buyers of the last 1-2 years continue to buy in the face of a downturn?

 

Even with the robust market earlier this year, are we as a hobby big enough for two large auction houses? If things go south, one of these groups may be a casualty.

[clobberintime]

Don't know where you have been in the cgc market for the last 3 years! 9.0 silver age books generally sell at guide 9.4 + 20% chief. The last copy Spidey #14 sold on ebay was about $2500 and a few months ago it was going for about $3000. I think $2000 on that book is a steal and I almost bought it myself but decided to get the Journey 83 8.0 which sold at vf guide which is about $1500 less than it would bring on a good day.

[delekkerste]

i would believe that JP has more than enough capital to outlast all of us through

any downturn.

 

There's a difference between capital and working capital, though...I'd hate to have

all my money tied up in depreciating comic inventory. I'm sure Blazing Bob and

the other dealers out there aren't stupid - they're rightfully nervous about the market.

The Bear has claimed much of the Modern market and now most people don't

even bother to defend the Bronze market with prices falling as much as they have

for all but a few books. The GA and SA markets aren't immune to the downturn.

Any serious scholar of the markets knows that price changes in one asset class

will affect expectations of price changes in other asset classes, let alone two

asset classes that are so similar (GA/SA and BA/Modern comics).

 

it is the people who are speculating on their credit cards, who can't hold books

for years, that will dumping their books on the market soon.

 

Not just overleveraged speculators, but also DEALERS caught with too much

inflated inventory. Converting working cap into cash is a bi**h, I tell you. And don't

expect to make up your losses just by holding your books for years. History is rife

with examples of markets going bust and never coming back, or taking decades

to do so. The experience of the fine art, graded coin and graded sports card

markets should make you especially skeptical about the ability of collectibles

prices to rebound after a bust.

 

Gene

[blazingbob]

Am I lashing out to protect my livelihood? I am lashing out because I question the validity of the "facts" being tossed about. I've been specializing in the high end market for a long time. I was around in the 70's when silver age was treated like bronze age. ASM #1 in high grade - $200 - $250, FF #1 $300, Hulk #1 $250, FF 48's stacked on dealers tables, Conan #1 was hot at $25 a piece, Howard the Duck #1 came out and sold for $10 due to "low distribution". Barry Windsor Smith was the "New God" of artists. Michael Carbonaro was still wheeling and dealing at shows, just like he does today. The hype hasn't changed, it's just got a new flavor! Gee, speculation has been around for 30 years! FF's in the 30-40's sold for $3 in NM. There were 10 cent bins which translated into the 50 cent bins of today.

 

My percentage of sales is about 40-50 percent shows, 25% Ebay, 25% Website. Having a updated site drives sales, make the site easy to use, put some interesting reading and people come. Be accessible and don't hide out in your office, be willing to deal. My prices are not cast in stone but I don't like being lowballed either. Replacement costs driving selling costs so before you start person_without_enough_empathying about my selling price think of how I bought the books. My reputation is one of "He pays", I don't chew a dealer or seller down to the last nickel. I want him to be glad he sold me the books. I don't hide on Ebay or at shows, Blazingbob appears on Ebay, auctions if the id is displayed and in this forum, no information is hidden.

 

Heritage's last auction is a signal that maybe they need to rethink how much material they pump into the market. Smart auction houses don't offer multiple copies of quality material as others have previously stated. They did this with some of my material and won't be seeing any more stuff from me in a long time. Check your computer's boys, we are in the 20th century and I'm sure you have this stuff entered in a database. Over the summer they have done 9-10 Million dollars in sales, not counting their monthly auctions which seem to dwarf auctions that All Star would run twice a year.

 

 

 

[blazingbob]

And lastly I do NOT just sell CGC graded books. Approximately 80% of my inventory is NON-CGC and yes it is not all listed on my site. Come over to my office, feel free to frolic in the smell of cedar and paper! If I want to serve the High end market I need to sell CGC books, plain and simple. Books priced over $500 required me to get it graded simply because of Marvel Collectors stating "Why didn't you get this graded". I sleep better knowing that a book comes back unrestored, don't you think that there are a lot of dealers sweating about books that maybe they weren't truthful about? We've seen those threads posted, I sleep very soundly thank you.