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Overstreet's baby steps toward reality
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43 posts in this topic

Last year the Overstreet guide took a few tentative steps toward reflecting market reality on some GA books. Still, it's almost comical how inaccurate they remain. Too many specific examples to cite, but basically every Centaur and Fox book is undervalued by 3X-20X or more. Some obvious breakout books are ignored. One example I just noticed is Betty & Veronica 40, not even broken out in the last Overstreet, it'll go for at least 20X guide or more in most any grade.

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I find it very hard to keep up with prices now days. I saw a Matt Baker book at $625 on ebay that I bought a little over a year ago for $150 recently. B&V #40 is another one that mystifies me. It's really not that great a book, just popular at the moment. Thought about selling mine but have no idea what to ask for it. It's no wonder that Overstreet is so inaccurate. Near impossible to keep up when you only issue one guide a year. As has been said before, an online guide would be a lot more accurate. Perhaps with a monthly or yearly fee to users. I just think it would be a massive job to update it on a regular basis. 

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It seems like the flippers and speculators are fueling a lot of the prices upward on some books. Not sure how that will play out in long run for market. 

Betty and Veronica #40 had always been a popular cover with Archie collectors. Never was it at this level until pretty recently. It’s no more difficult in grade than the surrounding issues either. My concern with it and some other books is that the buyers often seem to be other dealers or flippers trying to get copies. Most long term Archie collectors probably already own it and paid a fraction of what it goes for today. I think a lot of the crazy prices on some books are justified but also a lot are being fueled by a strong economy and people trying to make a buck off the current strong market. 

As mentioned you can see crazy prices on books now in a few short months or weeks or days (see any Marvel movie announcement) so you’d need a daily update like the stock market to keep up with many.

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1 hour ago, N e r V said:

It seems like the flippers and speculators are fueling a lot of the prices upward on some books. Not sure how that will play out in long run for market. 

Betty and Veronica #40 had always been a popular cover with Archie collectors. Never was it at this level until pretty recently. It’s no more difficult in grade than the surrounding issues either. My concern with it and some other books is that the buyers often seem to be other dealers or flippers trying to get copies. Most long term Archie collectors probably already own it and paid a fraction of what it goes for today. I think a lot of the crazy prices on some books are justified but also a lot are being fueled by a strong economy and people trying to make a buck off the current strong market. 

As mentioned you can see crazy prices on books now in a few short months or weeks or days (see any Marvel movie announcement) so you’d need a daily update like the stock market to keep up with many.

B&V 40 has been spiking for a long time now, and is still doing so. Not sure exactly why. The cover is cheesecake lite, but really no more so than some other early issues of the title.

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16 minutes ago, twmjr1 said:

B&V 40 has been spiking for a long time now, and is still doing so. Not sure exactly why. The cover is cheesecake lite, but really no more so than some other early issues of the title.

The same could be said of Archie 50, but in both cases the dominance of the GGA elements in the compositions make them stand out just a little more. 

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4 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Near impossible to keep up when you only issue one guide a year./\

So true.  Even though GPA reflects CGC sales and from certain sites, it offers better insight (for at least recorded recent sales and sometimes those further back).

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The first time I saw B & V 40 I knew it was where it was at and I tried to buy every copy 2-3 years ago. Over the course of two years only 7-8 copies came available and I lost most of them at auction.  

I sold several copies for what seemed like top market 6 months ago. 

Just because the 7.5 sold for nearly $4k does not make a 5.0 $2k now though. But maybe because does. I guess the market dictates. 

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I find the Overstreet is outdated on just about all the classic covers and so called hot books.The boards are a good place to start for some of the sales here amaze me with the prices some books go for.At this stage of collecting it is fun to see the young guys loving some of the same books i have liked for so long :wink:

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4 hours ago, rjpb said:
5 hours ago, twmjr1 said:

B&V 40 has been spiking for a long time now, and is still doing so. Not sure exactly why. The cover is cheesecake lite, but really no more so than some other early issues of the title.

The same could be said of Archie 50, but in both cases the dominance of the GGA elements in the compositions make them stand out just a little more. 

+1

Although the B&V 40 is certainly a nice cheesecake cover, I am still surprised at all of the hype and price it's going for.  Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that it appears readily available to some of the other earlier cheesecake covers that just doesn't show up in the marketplace that often.

The perfect example being the Archie 46 which is a classic HTF early cheesecake cover with all of the girls seemingly parading into the classroom for Archie to rate and dream about.  :cloud9:  :luhv:  :takeit:

Edited by lou_fine
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1 hour ago, comicjack said:

I find the Overstreet is outdated on just about all the classic covers and so called hot books.The boards are a good place to start for some of the sales here amaze me with the prices some books go for.At this stage of collecting it is fun to see the young guys loving some of the same books i have liked for so long :wink:

Well I must say you do have impeccable taste. One of the best collections out there for sure!! 

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I view Overstreet the same way I view California’s speed limit on its freeways. 

When it was 55mph everyone drove 65-75.

When they increased it to 65mph people drove 75-85.

I think there’s a general mindset that books should be X amount of dollars above Overstreet regardless of how it changes now.

Human beings are creatures of habit and it’s hard for them to change. 

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1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

+1

Although the B&V 40 is certainly a nice cheesecake cover, I am still surprised at all of the hype and price it's going for.    :cloud9:  :luhv:  :takeit:

There are many B&V cheesecake or bikini covers that list for $5 or less in grade:

8NbujNB.jpg

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1 hour ago, aardvark88 said:

There are many B&V cheesecake or bikini covers that list for $5 or less in grade:

8NbujNB.jpg

I think anyone that thinks B&V #40 is somehow a great cheesecake cover should grab a few back issues of Cherry Poptart to see what real Archie style cheesecake is.

 

As a Archie collector since the 1980’s I’m a bit concerned that there are those looking at Archie comics now the same way the Brony views My Little Pony stuff. 

 

They are enjoyable humor books with great characters drawn by some of the better humor artists in comics over the years and not intended for some weird male fantasies... creepy. lol 

 

 

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It will take time nd more sales before we can be sure about books like BV 40.  The 7.5 that  sold for 3900 had three bidders snipe at crazy numbers and crashed into each other.  So maybe that means it’s really worth that much... or it just another instance of the bidding process flaw that throwing “win at all cost” snipes can get you hurt when you win...

once two more nice copies show up, we may see prices drop, as we have seen time and time again.  Or they will climb, nd we will know for sure.

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Phantom Stranger was going crazy, crazy for a bit and I’ve noticed it’s still not cheap but it’s pulled back to some degree since I’ve seen copies go recently for several hundred dollars below what people were paying and/or offering them at. 

That’s a series I strongly believe was being pushed up by speculators. I had a dealer in San Diego boast to me during its run up that he was hoarding as many as he could buy. I watched a copy of #4 change hands between 3 different dealers without ever touching the hands of a collector before I finally bought one off of Sqeggs on the boards here. I have zero regrets because I enjoy my copy and it was well within market prices at the time but 2 years later I just watched a copy a 1/2 grade better than mine sell for $100.00 less than what I paid because guess what, Phantom Stranger isn’t getting the attention from speculators it was 2 years ago.

Yes you can argue that high prices brought out more copies etc., etc. but really 1950’s DC’s are always tough and the only thing I see changing is less interest from speculators and flippers. 

I want to see this market when we are in an economic slowdown because like the current stock market a whole lot of it feels artificial to me. 

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I like BV #40 well enough, and its sidekick BV #41 as well. I do think many collectors buying those books are missing the forest for the trees, though. There's obviously a lot of focus on the GGA elements of those covers, of course, but as has been pointed out, there are plenty of other BV covers with cheesecake. What makes these great - and other issues from this era underappreciated - is that the covers are by the incomparable Harry Lucey. I know everybody loves DeCarlo, but for my money, Lucey is the top Archie artist, period, full stop. With 40 and 41 slowly (or quickly) getting out of range for some collectors, I'd think Lucey's other great covers from this period would start to get more attention as collectors look for other cheaper options to satisfy their itch. 31, 38, 42, 43, 46, 49, and 68 are all excellent Lucey covers with similar appeal. 

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This copy listed as a FN- closed at $760.00 with only 7 bids on eBay recently. Considering the past  hype I was surprised it didn’t get more looks.

 

7F834ADC-DCEF-4759-8AB1-F1FBD8376646.thumb.jpeg.158cf04d0346f26a866d5c81ddf0deda.jpeg

 

Edited by N e r V
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