# of whales with unlimited funds 1 1

[zhamlau]

2 hours ago, Nexus said:

So what a certain recent war criminal would call an "unknown known". Which I had previously considered doublespeak nonsense, but somehow, is fitting for this ridiculous hobby.

I don't think that was one of the iterations. I think it was "Known Known", "Unknown Unknown" and "Known Unknown" was the 3 versions from his quote.

[Rick2you2]

10 hours ago, vodou said:

That's a good analysis.

Re: until the seller has so much money tied up in inventory he has to sell at "depressed" prices - That speaks a bit vaguely to a wide range of scenarios that ultimately boil down to where the time value of money, previously unimportant to an individual suddenly becomes very important. Stress being on the time and not the money aspect. (And that's where salvage value comes in to play.) I think we are all aware of this (and ultimately subject to anyway one way or another!) The financial/estate planner folks call it The Three D's: Death, Divorce, Debilitation (or Disease or Disability).

It's one thing when only a single individual is affected and reacts in a salvage value manner, but when a whole market segment (perhaps in response to a broad economic decline in a region?) does...no bid to air pocket and gap down to where at least some small handful of falling knife catchers reside. Unfortunately two things also tend to happen at the same point: risk aversion sets in and as credit lines tighten (and disappear), real liquid wealth is required to buy, which most do not have, and those that do get jittery and either wait for even better deals yet to come or just remove themselves from the risk markets altogether. When you're the only buyer at a price point that's half this year vs. last year, even Kirby/Sinnott FF - at 50% fire-sale feels like 'risk'!

None of us have access to the tax returns and balance sheets (which I'm not even sure all are populating or even know what that is!) of the well-known dealers and collector-dealers, so it's hard to say who's really winning the game, but I do wonder...? (None of what follows applies to consignment sellers.) Clearly Anthony Snyder is churning inventory as fast as possible and rolling the proceeds back into fresh inventory. In doing so, he's breaking the comic art is precious and wonderful not a commodity marketing model. But maybe he's just working a lot harder to make the same or less (at the end of the day)? We also don't know how much he's pulling out of the business for himself and how much he's rolling back in, how much of his 'wealth' is in hard to value (illiquid and volatile) inventory. And what debt load/service he may or may not be carrying, along with staff and warehouse overhead. That's what I mean by winning - really and truly or ..?.. hard to figure from the outside.

Anthony is a separate case as he does this stuff full-time (that I'm aware of) and who else is? I don't think anybody else (which is maybe why he's so turnover-friendly??) Is everyone else shielded from non-DDD supply/demand realities by another regular source of income?

I really like Anthony, and I understand what you are saying. But even if they are not full-timers, there are a number of dealers who seem to have a substantial amount of wealth tied up in OA.

Now, let me add my earlier comment from a few days ago back into the mix: this is a hobby which has a declining long-term horizon. So, it isn't just those whales who are likely to get beached. I just hope that people who shell out for even Kirby/Sinnott FF realize that they can be burned just as easily as the occasional Dutch Tulip Bulb speculator did in the 1620's. 

[Rick2you2]

1 hour ago, zhamlau said:

I don't think that was one of the iterations. I think it was "Known Known", "Unknown Unknown" and "Known Unknown" was the 3 versions from his quote.

Let me give you a real life example.

Let's say you want to build a building and you are a contractor. The job should take 4 months of "straight time". That is a "known known". For scheduling purposes, however, you should account for delays due to weather. You check historical records in the area, and discover that, on average, there may be 10 rain days in this 4 month period. So if you are scheduling a completion date, you add 10 days to the 4 months. That is a "known unknown." But, let's say a hurricane hits and it stops the work for another 10 days. Since your area typically doesn't have any hurricanes, that is an "unknown unknown."

Clear?

[vodou]

2 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Let me give you a real life example.

Let's say you want to build a building and you are a contractor. The job should take 4 months of "straight time". That is a "known known". For scheduling purposes, however, you should account for delays due to weather. You check historical records in the area, and discover that, on average, there may be 10 rain days in this 4 month period. So if you are scheduling a completion date, you add 10 days to the 4 months. That is a "known unknown." But, let's say a hurricane hits and it stops the work for another 10 days. Since your area typically doesn't have any hurricanes, that is an "unknown unknown."

Clear?

Good explanation but Felix's comment originating this subject was really just a veiled smack at...

Donald Rumsfeld.

[vodou]

12 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

...there are a number of dealers who seem to have a substantial amount of wealth tied up in OA.

Oh yes absolutely. Everybody that buys/sells (not consignment) vintage is in deep, either directly or via their line of credit.

13 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

I just hope that people who shell out for even Kirby/Sinnott FF realize that they can be burned just as easily as the occasional Dutch Tulip Bulb speculator did in the 1620's. 

There's very much a belief in this hobby that 'keys' aren't tulips but another flower instead, and thus insulated. But a 50% drop hurts no matter what or how much it is. And human nature is to watch that drop continue lower and lower rather than mark a line in the sand, realize the loss, and move on. This is all academic though if you can lie to yourself and say it doesn't matter because you bought for love*, where previously (on the way up) you watched every HA and CLink auction like a hawk to reinforce your confirmation bias to your own genius as so-called comps continued their march north in perpetuity every auction cycle. That's just noise. When it happens, the proof will be in the pudding: how many buyers and how deep they buy those falling knives? Because everybody, absolutely everybody wants their grails at 50% off and can't wait for the chance, please oh pretty please...but they're saying that with the background assumption that today's 100% wasn't a helium-filled bubble all along (and that these days would be coming back in short order (not always the case!)

*As long as you're not enjoying a Three D's moment or other economic crisis at the same time

[tth2]

10 hours ago, glendgold said:

I forgot the most likely possibility:

3) Actual whales.

What do whales call someone that they consider to be really massive?

[John E.]

1 hour ago, tth2 said:

What do whales call someone that they consider to be really massive?

The ocean?

[Brian Peck]

18 hours ago, delekkerste said:

All you guys may think you know who the guy in the hat is...but, how do you know that it's not this guy?  

 

I know that hat well.

 

[zhamlau]

On 10/27/2017 at 6:45 PM, Rick2you2 said:

Let me give you a real life example.

Let's say you want to build a building and you are a contractor. The job should take 4 months of "straight time". That is a "known known". For scheduling purposes, however, you should account for delays due to weather. You check historical records in the area, and discover that, on average, there may be 10 rain days in this 4 month period. So if you are scheduling a completion date, you add 10 days to the 4 months. That is a "known unknown." But, let's say a hurricane hits and it stops the work for another 10 days. Since your area typically doesn't have any hurricanes, that is an "unknown unknown."

Clear?

I was just going by the quote, didnt think that was one of the versions.

[dirtymartini1]

On 10/26/2017 at 3:51 PM, John S. said:

I pissed myself laughing (the cabal will understand)

Ha, they left out he bums cigarettes too. Where is TMZ when you need them for the juicy details?

[Michael (OML)1]

The guy with the hat  is very cheeky - there are well known stories about him badgering artists on trains and refusing to return art to sick artists (inside joke).  

As for whales, I have a friend who routinely spends a few hundred grand/year on comic art and until we met, he had never in his entire 55 years known a single other comic art collector -- just pursued the hobby by himself.  

M

[wurstisart]

I can't follow most of what you write here. Why can't we just put names to faces ? 

[vodou]

23 hours ago, Michael (OML)1 said:

I have a friend who routinely spends a few hundred grand/year on comic art and until we met, he had never in his entire 55 years known a single other comic art collector -- just pursued the hobby by himself. 

Sounds good. Except, there being two sides to every transaction, I'm wondering who he's been buying from?

[Michael (OML)1]

16 hours ago, vodou said:

Sounds good. Except, there being two sides to every transaction, I'm wondering who he's been buying from?

HA and privately from 2 dealers

[vodou]

3 hours ago, Michael (OML)1 said:

HA and privately from 2 dealers

Oh okay, so he knows there is a hobby out there but just chose to not previously interact with it. The way you wrote it initially, seemed to me like he was unaware.

[SquareChaos]

5 hours ago, vodou said:

Oh okay, so he knows there is a hobby out there but just chose to not previously interact with it. The way you wrote it initially, seemed to me like he was unaware.

Well, I mean... it is understandable. 

 

Have you ever met any of the weirdos involved with this hobby? 

 

[Michael (OML)1]

6 hours ago, vodou said:

Oh okay, so he knows there is a hobby out there but just chose to not previously interact with it. The way you wrote it initially, seemed to me like he was unaware.

sorry about that -- I just meant he never knew anybody in the hobby --