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Is your collection normal?
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27 posts in this topic

Just a quick look at Total Registry Points and the associated median and quartile values.

 

Results from today July 17th 2014.

 

Total Registry Points (4089 members)

Range 5%, 86205 points.

Q1, 8602 points.

Q2 (median), 1501 points.

Q3, 252 points.

Range 95%, 32 points.

IQR = 8350 points.

(Note I go from the highest scores to the lowest scores, because this is how the Registry Points are shown on this site.)

 

Rewrote the following text from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartile .

 

1. The first quartile (designated Q1) is called the 25th percentile (splits off the highest 25% of data from the lowest 75%).

2. The second quartile (designated Q2) also called the median or the 50th percentile (cuts data set in half).

3. Third quartile (designated Q3) also called the 75th percentile (splits off the lowest 25% of data from the highest 75%).

4. Interquartile range (designated IQR) is the difference between the upper and lower quartiles. (IQR = Q1 - Q3).

 

Further I've added 5% and 95% ranges. The 5% range shows the minimum score you need to be among the top 5% of all collections. The 95% range shows the minimum score that 95% of all collections achieved - or you could turn it around, it shows the maximum score for the 5% of all collections with the fewest registry points.

 

So this is quite straightforward:

 

50% of the members have less than 1501 points, 50% of the members have more points (so is 1500 points the most normal score? Maybe... I did not calculate average values, too much data and my evening is too short).

 

50% of the members, ranging from Q3 to Q1, have from 252 to 8602 points. So can we say at least to some degree that it is normal to have from 250 to 8600 total Registry points? Maybe...

 

Only 5% have more than 86000 points - if you are in that category, maybe you are special. Is it good or bad? - You decide! :-)

 

And less than 5% have from 1 to 32 points, should you do more to reach Q3? Again that is of course a personal decision.

 

I will save these numbers, let's see how it changes in a year or two...

 

Best,

 

Rune (yes I'm on vacation, no I do not have anything better to do! ;-)

 

PS. The total range is from 1 to 3,458,712 total Registry points, thus I am not sure that the data set is normally distrubuted, so using non-parametric statistics as above might be warranted (because in this case the average value might not represent common trends).

15709.JPG

 

See more journals by Rune

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I'll be the first to admit it, I hope I can get some sort of nerd award for this :acclaim::facepalm:

 

(But I did have fun doing it)

 

Did not really think that my humble collection would reach top 6%, maybe I should start to consider spending money on clothes and food :ohnoez:

 

To be in the top 1% today, you need at least 430,782 registry points :busy: (and you do not even need a mountain of books to reach the top 1%, just a single Action Comics #1 8.5 or Amazing Fantasy #15 9.4 will suffice (thumbs u ;) )

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I'll be the first to admit it, I hope I can get some sort of nerd award for this :acclaim::facepalm:

 

(But I did have fun doing it)

 

Did not really think that my humble collection would reach top 6%, maybe I should start to consider spending money on clothes and food :ohnoez:

 

To be in the top 1% today, you need at least 430,782 registry points :busy: (and you do not even need a mountain of books to reach the top 1%, just a single Action Comics #1 8.5 or Amazing Fantasy #15 9.4 will suffice (thumbs u ;) )

 

You should follow-up with "Registry Points for Dummies!".

 

Seriously, you made me feel like my math skills are in desperate need of a schooling... if it wasn't for your summary towards the end, I would have remained completely lost and in a mental conundrum. Sadly, when I was young, Math was one of my stronger points, that all ended with Pre-Cal and College Calculus.

 

As for my registry points... 23,426... well... I'm way down in the bottom. But dear lord the numbers for AC#1 8.5 or AF#15 9.4... they're incredible!

 

Just curious, how would I find out which one comic is equivalent or near equivalent to my entire collection?

 

SW3D

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In answer to my own question, I found three comics which are nearly equivalent to my entire registry points (23,426):

 

Comic #1: Avengers Volume 1, No. 4, 9.6: Yellow Label: 23,100 Registry Points

 

Comic #2: Daredevil Volume 1, No. 1, 9.4: Universal: 22,500.

 

Comic #3: Phantom Stranger Volume 1, No. 1: 9.8: Yellow Label: 22,000

 

Hmmm... which one would I trade for?

 

I love Daredevil more than Cap, but Cap is a hot commodity right now.

 

But I also love the mysticism of Phantom Stranger... and a Golden Age.

 

Tough decision.

 

SW3D

Edited by SW3D
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You should follow-up with "Registry Points for Dummies!".

 

 

 

SW3D

 

It may seem more advanced than it really is. Just think of the registry set as one big round cake, then you cut it in half (=finding the median), then into 4 similar pieces (=finding the quartiles and IQR) - and finish by checking the ranges (so you actually do not even need a calculator to do these statistics, ok maybe for the 5% and 95% ranges).

 

I did the above statistics in the spirit of the upcoming awards - and next year we can observe if the median and quartiles have changed. This will indicate if the Registry is gaining or losing points, maybe interesting to follow for speculants? hm - Although that was not my intention, I was just curious. I did find it interesting that the median was "only" 1500 points with 25 and 75 percentiles being 8600 and 250 respectively, I would have thought that these values were much higher (it means that the great majority of CGC book collectors with registered sets on this site have less than 8600 points).

 

One perspective could be if these results are somehow similar to the distribution of wealth in our part of the world? hm (ok, I won't go there, sorry ;-)

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Interesting look at things, Rune. I use the registry as an inventory catalog more than anything else and I don't care about the awards. I can imagine how difficult it is for CGC to keep the points reflective of market demand/values.

 

I am #56 on the registry and did use the points to give me an idea of how much to insure much of my slabbed collection. Although not every slab that I own has a registry slot. I suspect there are a plethora of raw and non-registry users with collections that would rank high.

 

I think I read somewhere here on the boards how great of marketing/revenue generator the registry has been for them. Folks like adding their books and the awards do make those that are interested even more eager to have slabbed books. SS books have also been a money maker.

 

 

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Very interesting, this helps me to look at the registry in a different way (I could use your skills at work). You also mentioned maybe focusing on food and cloths over comics, whenever I try that, the good books come up for sale!

 

Thank you, I guess collecting these books may work better than a Weight Watchers' diet plan lol:jokealert:

 

The Registry does fuel the ludomania, especially when winning rare books and advancing in the hierarchies. The CCG (Certified Collectibles Group) seems quite aware of this fact:

 

"Consumers should be aware that the market in collectibles is at times volatile and involves a due measure of risk. Only those who are aware of, and inclined to bear, the financial risk involved with buying and selling collectibles should participate in this market. "

Source: http://www.collectors-society.com/Legal.aspx

 

From time to time it may indeed be a good thing to question yourself, "am I buying this book because I really like it, or just to get more points for my Registry set?" (yes, I admit it, I have bought pure points too :facepalm: )

 

PS. Again using the median value is often the best method to describe certain groups (data sets). Imagine for example Bill Gates sitting on a park bench together with 10 homeless people. Then you can ask, "What is the average yearly income for each person in this group?", and you conclude that they are all billionaires. But the median value would show you that at least 50% of the group had an income of $0 (or a very low income) - which may be considered a more accurate description in this and many other cases (adding the quartiles, which is the normal way to give results, the results would be 0 (0 - 0) $, now you would know that at least 75% of the group had an income of $0).

 

Here is an example from one of my published papers showing how you can easily compare two groups using medians, quartiles and ranges:

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3502261/figure/F1/

 

 

 

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I think I read somewhere here on the boards how great of marketing/revenue generator the registry has been for them. Folks like adding their books and the awards do make those that are interested even more eager to have slabbed books. SS books have also been a money maker.

 

 

I fully agree - some time ago I wrote a (funny?) journal entry about the pros and cons of collecting CGC books, also reflecting some of your thoughts on the matter:

 

The Pros and Cons of Collecting CGC books

 

(Something went wrong, when I originally posted that entry, so readers can not respond to it directly on my CS public homepage. Hopefully it still does get read from time to time, it did take quite some time to gather the info.)

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Interesting...

So the bottom 5% basically only has one book registered...?

 

Yes, 1 or 2, although this member actually has 5 books:

 

http://comics.www.collectors-society.com/registry/comics/PeopleSetDetail.aspx?PeopleSetID=23163

 

(This is of course not to point fingers, it just shows that some books do not get a lot of points.)

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So what has changed during the last year? Here's an overview:

 

Registry2015_zps1zdwnc9t.jpg

"Points needed to be in [...]" refers to the minimum number of points needed to be part of a category

 

Forgot to include the top 10 % :sorry: - To fit in that category, today you need 38,091 points or more.

 

The number of Registry members increased 11 % the last year making it slightly easier to reach for example the top 5 %, 25 % and 50 % (indicating that most new members did not register large collections). And it shows that the Registry is expanding. (If the Registry expands another 11 % the next year, then there will be about 5000 members.)

 

Even though Cheetah lost a lot of Registry points the last year, it's probably not a trend of high end collections having reduced their Registry points, because today it requires more points to be among the top 1 % than last year (even though the number of members in the top 1 % high-end club also increased 11 % - from 41 to 46).

 

As written in an earlier post, using average values are not a good idea due to the enormous difference between the lowest and highest amount of Registry points (nearly 3,000,000 to 1). For example, if we (as a thought experiment) include the two highest collections and set all other collections to just 1 point, we can calculate that the average member has a collection worth about 1200 points. So the largest collections introduce a severe bias to an average value, and using average values may be quite misleading. As shown 50 % of all members have less than 1500 points, and every 4th member has less than 250 points. Guess we could say that a normal (IQR) collection now has between 250 and 8300 points.

Edited by Rune
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I wonder if there is a better way to score the registry? You could collect books for years and build a nice set but never be in the top 5%. Then someone finds a single book and is on top. Why does popularity count for so much? Completeness counts for very little. Rarity counts for very little as well.

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I have 17 Ziff Davis GI Joe comics published between 1950 and 1957. The worst grade is 5.5 and the best is 7.5. All 17 together is worth a whopping 266 points

 

True, these calculations only focus on raw points to see how the mass of registered members is moving. Such calculations do not care for special or rare books - unless such books are awarded many points. And you can still enter the top 1 % with just one book registered - like Amazing Fantasy 9.4 Universal (Amazing Spider-man #1 Universal won't cut it though, unless you find a 10.0 (thumbs u :facepalm: ), Action Comics #1 8.5 Universal, Detective Comics #27 8.0 Universal, Superman #1 9.2 Universal, Batman #1 9.4 Univeral or Fantastic Four #1 9.8 Universal (which has not been found yet, if ever...)...

 

Personally I was surprised to see that more than 75 % of all members have less than 9k points, and of course if you only collect modern books (or a few rare books that are not all 10.0) it may be very hard to get a lot of points. But thinking that all members in here have giant collections of old near-mint and famous superhero comic books may not quite be true, it only seems true for a very small minority.

 

Maybe I should try to get another 4k of points to enter the top 5 % - or maybe do nothing; if we gain 500 more members the next year, it may automatically push me there :idea::eyeroll:

Edited by Rune
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And then they're here - the results you've been more eagerly anticipating than the Registry Awards - namely the Registry Point Statistics 2016 :acclaim:;)

Reg2016_zpsznyweolx.thumb.jpg.27ac1fcb00ae1d856211ee3b8240dc67.jpg

"Points needed to be in [...]" refers to the minimum number of points needed to be part of a category

 

So really without doing much I'm finally in the top 5 % :grin:

 

Uh-oh, still forgot the top 10 % category - you'll need at least 35,710 points to be part of that group.

 

Top 1 % still is quite expensive if you have to pay for all the points :censored:;)

 

Much like previous years, the top 50 % of all Registry members have more than 1,400 points while the remaining 50 % members have less. You'll need about 7,850 points to be in the top 25 %.

 

Growth the last year has been slowing slightly down to about 8 % more members - compared to 11 % in 2014-2015. In raw numbers, last year the Registry gained 359 more members, in 2014-2015 it gained 464 members.

 

Guess this'll be all for now, I'll be back in summer 2017, stay tuned! :grin:

Edited by Rune
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And now (*prolonged drum roll*) statistics for 2017! :popcorn:

2017-2.thumb.jpg.8bf422796d133dcf746c1b50027d7a63.jpg

It's become slightly harder to enter top 5%, but easier to fit into other categories. Note that a problem with the Registry is that point scores for many books have not been updated for years - so don't put much emphasis on the scores - it's more a fun overview. 

 

The Registry hasn't been gaining many new members the last year - here's an overview:

From 2014 to 2015: 11% more Registry members (=464 new members)

From 2015 to 2016: 8 % more Registry member (= 359 new members)

From 2016 to 2017: 5 % more Registry members (= 247 new members)

 

So it seems we're slowing down in here - would be great to get more new members the next year! :wishluck:

Edited by Rune
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Has it been a year already? Sigh... :smile: Guess it's time to do the math once more - the results I know you've all been waiting for! :taptaptap: :insane:

1.thumb.png.e1aca18f22414d300d97c136a207e664.png

Interestingly, it's become much harder to enter top 1 % and 5 %, and slightly harder to fit into other categories. Just to stay where you were last year may have required some effort. In just 1 year it's become 80,000 points harder to be in the top 1 % - and 8,000 points harder to be in the top 5 % - and 1,500 points harder to be in the top 25 %. 

We might be seeing the effect of updated scores in the Registry, previous years most books were not updated. Guess I'm lucky to still be in the top 5 - gotta start focusing more on books than art, or I'll be completely left in the dust :ohnoez: :jokealert: 

(Note that calculating average scores don't make sense here, because the distribution is extremely skewed. I wouldn't be surprised if the top 1 % has more Registry points than the remaining 99 %... Using average scores would be like placing Bill Gates among 10 homeless persons and then ask: what's the average income of a person in this group? - And then conclude it's a gathering of billionaires; thus average scores don't work well in such cases.) 

The Registry hasn't been gaining many new members the last year - here's an overview:

From 2014 to 2015: 11% more Registry members (=464 new members)

From 2015 to 2016: 8 % more Registry member (= 359 new members)

From 2016 to 2017: 5 % more Registry members (= 247 new members)

From 2017 to 2018: 6 % more Registry members (= 305 new members)

 

Still, more members were gained the last year compared to the year before, and this may be nice to know for the CGC. Next year, let's hope the trend continues! 

Here's an easy overview of members per year - nicely growing the last 5 years:

2.png.9766be2d9ab70df46ee953ff0a4b2ae0.png

 

Edited by Rune
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