Am I completely out of touch with FMV??? 0

[Hudson]

I know there are a lot of comics (especially outside the GA) that I simply have no clue to their FMV, because I don't collect them.

I was surprised, however, to be so out of touch with some GA Actions that were for sale at the recent NY Comic Convention.

Although I did not get to attend the convention, my brother (who was in attendance) was kind enough to keep an eye out for books in my area of interest and contacted me with a few he thought I might want him to pick up for me.  These wee primarily single digit Actions.

I don't want to make this a wall of text, so let me just tell you about ONE of the books and please let me know if I am wrong in thinking this book was over priced...

I get a text saying there is an Action #6 for $2,500.

I quickly call and ask the grade and my brother tells me it is CGC 0.5.

I then ask if it is a universal (blue label) and he tells me it is restored. (Which I always find almost amusing that someone "restores" a book UP to a 0.5.  What was it before?).

My brother then tells me it has C-3 restoration and begins running down the list of "restoration".

I am no expert on "restored" books, as I don't buy too many of them, but that sounds like a lot of restoration to end up with only a 0.5 in the end.

Anyway, I thought this price was high for such a book and am wondering if...

1) I am completely out of touch with the market

2) These are simply NY prices  

3) I am correct and this would not have been a reasonable price.

Please do not ask me the dealer that had the book, as I did not ask my brother.  I am hoping it was not a board member, as I do not want to upset anyone here on the boards.

Please also note that I believe every seller has every right to ask whatever he wants for his items.

*

[aardvark88]

To garner the 'apparent' 0.5, do you know if the Action #6 has the front cover but no back cover or had back cover, missing front cover. I imagine it at least had most of the original front cover perhaps married to a coverless thus throw out the Overstreet guide.

[Hudson]

10 minutes ago, aardvark88 said:

To garner the 'apparent' 0.5, do you know if the Action #6 has the front cover but no back cover or had back cover, missing front cover. I imagine it at least had most of the original front cover perhaps married to a coverless thus throw out the Overstreet guide.

He told me that the front cover had pieces added and the back cover was the wrong back cover altogether.

[lpsunburst]

its the wrong back cover keeping the technical grade down.

[nearmint]

A blue label 0.5 sold last year for $837.

[Hudson]

6 minutes ago, lpsunburst said:

its the wrong back cover keeping the technical grade down.

I don't know as he did not send me a photo of the book.  Once he told me it had C-3 (Poor - Moderate) Restoration and the wrong back cover, I decided it was not the book for me (as I have nicer copies and $2,500 seemed high for a book with that much work done on it and still a restored 0.5 with basically no back cover).  I am curious to know IF the back cover came off a book from the same month (like More Fun 37), or was just off a different GA book, but I did not see it and so cannot speak to that.

[Hudson]

Just now, nearmint said:

A blue label 0.5 sold last year for $837.

So maybe I am not that out of touch.

Although I think someone got a deal for $837. 

Was that at auction?

[nearmint]

4 minutes ago, Hudson said:

So maybe I am not that out of touch.

Although I think someone got a deal for $837. 

Was that at auction?

Actually, I have to correct myself.  It was a blue label "NG" that sold at Heritage for $837.  For some reason, GPA lists it as a 0.5 copy.

[Primetime]

Sometimes folks sticker their books at “I don’t want to sell it” prices and use books as eye candy for their booths. Not saying this was the case but it happens. There’s many variations of .5s out there so maybe the seller was “testing” the fmv as well. You never know who will show up at a major con to buy. 

Edited October 12, 2017 by Primetime

[Hudson]

4 minutes ago, Primetime said:

Sometimes folks sticker their books at “I don’t want to sell it” prices and use books as eye candy for their booths. Not saying this was the case but it happens. There’s many variations of .5s out there so maybe the seller was “testing” the fmv as well. You never now who will show up at a major con to buy. 

You may be right, Ben.

It is great to hear from you, my friend.

 

[rjpb]

42 minutes ago, nearmint said:

Actually, I have to correct myself.  It was a blue label "NG" that sold at Heritage for $837.  For some reason, GPA lists it as a 0.5 copy.

That coverless copy has a chunk out of the first wrap and still has an offer on it for $1200.  I'd say a copy with a decent eye appeal front cover and a decent interior (no brittleness or big pieces missing) is probably worth $2500.  Books like that can sell for around 1/2 what a GD copy would in my limited experience, and can you get a GD copy for under $5K anymore?

The amount and quality of resto would give me pause on the mentioned copy though. Maybe if it was an amateur rice paper rebuild of the spine, but the front cover itself  looked nice and the PQ was solid, but it sounds like there was an extensive list of restoration.

The price was probably somewhat negotiable, unless things have changed dramatically at conventions, and more than a few dealers will price hard to replace "wall books" a little high because they serve to attract collectors to the table even when they don't sell.  FMV on entry level copies of tough books is a hard thing to gauge at times. I'm continually surprised at the auction prices on ebay for some scarce, but low grade restored books.

[BakerFanOne]

Interesting question.  As most of us have seen in the past year, it seems like a new record is set every day on golden age pre-code horror, good girl and romance as well as Centaurs, classic war covers, and much more.   And key silver age continues to achieve very strong results such as Spidey 1.  

Given the relative scarcity of Action 6, $2500 and historical importance of early Superman books, it seems fair to me if it has a reasonable front cover even with the restoration and wrong back cover as long as the page quality is decent.  I would also assume the dealer might have been willing to drop the price by 10-20%.  I actually think early non-Superman cover Actions are overdue for some price increases as they have not moved a lot in pricing relative to other golden age titles.  

[Gotham Kid]

10 hours ago, Primetime said:

Sometimes folks sticker their books at “I don’t want to sell it” prices and use books as eye candy for their booths. Not saying this was the case but it happens. There’s many variations of .5s out there so maybe the seller was “testing” the fmv as well. You never know who will show up at a major con to buy. 

+1 on this.

[woowoo]

19 hours ago, Hudson said:

I know there are a lot of comics (especially outside the GA) that I simply have no clue to their FMV, because I don't collect them.

I was surprised, however, to be so out of touch with some GA Actions that were for sale at the recent NY Comic Convention.

Although I did not get to attend the convention, my brother (who was in attendance) was kind enough to keep an eye out for books in my area of interest and contacted me with a few he thought I might want him to pick up for me.  These wee primarily single digit Actions.

I don't want to make this a wall of text, so let me just tell you about ONE of the books and please let me know if I am wrong in thinking this book was over priced...

I get a text saying there is an Action #6 for $2,500.

I quickly call and ask the grade and my brother tells me it is CGC 0.5.

I then ask if it is a universal (blue label) and he tells me it is restored. (Which I always find almost amusing that someone "restores" a book UP to a 0.5.  What was it before?).

My brother then tells me it has C-3 restoration and begins running down the list of "restoration".

I am no expert on "restored" books, as I don't buy too many of them, but that sounds like a lot of restoration to end up with only a 0.5 in the end.

Anyway, I thought this price was high for such a book and am wondering if...

1) I am completely out of touch with the market

2) These are simply NY prices  

3) I am correct and this would not have been a reasonable price.

Please do not ask me the dealer that had the book, as I did not ask my brother.  I am hoping it was not a board member, as I do not want to upset anyone here on the boards.

Please also note that I believe every seller has every right to ask whatever he wants for his items.

*

No your right on track Hudson your Action 7 is worth 5k but since your my buddy I give you 6k.. We both are off FMV you would think nobody ever saw early Action's or Tec's for years

[drotto]

I was about to start a thread very similar to this.  How do you judge the value of low census books? I have a few GA books and when you look at numbers there are maybe 75 to 100 issues slabbed.  When you try to look up GPA you often find that the last recorded sale in a given grade may have been years ago.  Any other sales you find are in a significantly different grade. To add even more difficulty, the sales volume is so low that it is hard to establish a price adjustment per grade point. 

 

In that situation how do begin to figure out what a book is worth?

[telerites]

16 minutes ago, drotto said:

I was about to start a thread very similar to this.  How do you judge the value of low census books? I have a few GA books and when you look at numbers there are maybe 75 to 100 issues slabbed.  When you try to look up GPA you often find that the last recorded sale in a given grade may have been years ago.  Any other sales you find are in a significantly different grade. To add even more difficulty, the sales volume is so low that it is hard to establish a price adjustment per grade point. 

 

In that situation how do begin to figure out what a book is worth?

You might try the HA archives for raw sales to see if there are sales but it is hard to gauge.  Just being low census or even rare doesn't necessarily make them in demand and increase their value.  One reason for low census may be because they are not deemed valuable enough to incur grading costs so no one bothers to submit them. 

It comes down to supply and demand to set the value and obviously that is not a static line over time as peaks and valleys may occur. 

I grade odd and esoteric books just because and many times they are the only copy in the census.  I have no aspiration of them being overly valuable but they are of interest to me and I prefer those to be graded.  

[drotto]

1 minute ago, telerites said:

You might try the HA archives for raw sales to see if there are sales but it is hard to gauge.  Just being low census or even rare doesn't necessarily make them in demand and increase their value.  One reason for low census may be because they are not deemed valuable enough to incur grading costs so no one bothers to submit them. 

It comes down to supply and demand to set the value and obviously that is not a static line over time as peaks and valleys may occur. 

I grade odd and esoteric books just because and many times they are the only copy in the census.  I have no aspiration of them being overly valuable but they are of interest to me and I prefer those to be graded.  

I understand that, but some of issues I have are GA Batman which still have low census numbers.  I see raw low grade copies on occasion sell for a few hundred, and high grade slabbed go for several thousand ( I am obviously not talking the big Bat books). But the info for mid grade slabbed is still very thin.

[Point Five]

In fairness to the dealer, if you were EVER going to "swing for the fences" with a book's pricing, NYCC is probably the place to do it. Gotta pay for those booths somehow!

 

[Hudson]

I really appreciate all the feedback in this thread.   I do understand that "convention prices" are sometimes higher than "actual prices" (what a dealer actually expects to get from a book) and to be honest, this is part of my frustration.  I just want to know how much a person wants for a book, so I can decide if it is worth that much to me or not.  I don't want to have to "guess" how much they actually are looking to get for the book.  To be fair, I don't think I would have had too much interest in an Action 6 with the wrong back cover anyway.

    Hi, Peter.  Thanks for weighing in early this morning.  Always good to hear from you.

 Hi, Harold.  You didn't say which copy of AC7 you wanted

 

[GoldCap]

I would think the dealer doesn't really want to sell the book unless it's near his high asking price.  Kinda like the sellers on eBay that will list a book for Buy-It-Now that is way high...hoping someone "has to have it" and hits the button