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Action Comics #1 CGC 8.5 for Sale On ComicConnect
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229 posts in this topic

On 5/29/2018 at 10:27 AM, batman_fan said:

In theory he was bidding against someone else so it will come down to who was the third highest bidder assume bidder 2 and 3 are both still on the hunt and have the same or more funds to chase this copy. 

True in theory.  But it would be interesting to know if the last owner of this 8.5 was an underbidder on the 9.0s.  If so, then its possible that we're down to bidders 3 and 4. 

Seems to me that the best strategy to get a really nice Action 1 would be to make a private offer thru Metro for one of the two 9.0s.  He might let one go. 

 

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2 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

True in theory.  But it would be interesting to know if the last owner of this 8.5 was an underbidder on the 9.0s.  If so, then its possible that we're down to bidders 3 and 4. 

Seems to me that the best strategy to get a really nice Action 1 would be to make a private offer thru Metro for one of the two 9.0s.  He might let one go. 

 

There were several different bidders above 1.5 million on the eBay copy. If memory serves me right it was a mix of high feedback (read: probably a dealer or "collector/dealer") and low feedback bidders (probably "collectors") Who knows what this mix will be on this book even with two of the million dollar buyers out of the running (if that is, in fact, the case.)

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5 hours ago, rob_react said:

We're getting very close to my original, slightly hesitant, target for this book being successful ($2,000,000) 

I'm not sure what you mean by "successful."  If the buyer enjoyed having the book, and doesn't lose more money on it than he views as justifying his enjoyment, I'd call that successful. 

But, I'm guessing you have a more objective financial criteria in mind. 

If it sold for $1.5M in March 2010 and then has a $2M selling price in June 2018 that would yield around a 3.65% compound annual rate of return (excluding fees etc.).  That's actually a very solid rate of return. 

Undoubtedly some other investments would have done better.  For example, the Dow's compound annual rate of return over the same time frame is 10.49%.  To get that rate of return, the Action 1 would have to garner a selling price over $3M.  So if all you care about is money, then maybe $2M is not so successful. 

But, I hope that collectors are buying these ultra-expensive books primarily for reasons other than making money.  I know Hariri did.

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1 hour ago, sfcityduck said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "successful."  If the buyer enjoyed having the book, and doesn't lose more money on it than he views as justifying his enjoyment, I'd call that successful. 

But, I'm guessing you have a more objective financial criteria in mind. 

If it sold for $1.5M in March 2010 and then has a $2M selling price in June 2018 that would yield around a 3.65% compound annual rate of return (excluding fees etc.).  That's actually a very solid rate of return. 

Undoubtedly some other investments would have done better.  For example, the Dow's compound annual rate of return over the same time frame is 10.49%.  To get that rate of return, the Action 1 would have to garner a selling price over $3M.  So if all you care about is money, then maybe $2M is not so successful. 

But, I hope that collectors are buying these ultra-expensive books primarily for reasons other than making money.  I know Hariri did.

If I bought the book 80 years ago for 10 cents hm what would my return be after bank storage fees :whistle:

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2 hours ago, woowoo said:

If I bought the book 80 years ago for 10 cents hm what would my return be after bank storage fees :whistle:

Ignoring bank storage fees, if you bought an Action 1 80 years ago for 10 cents and sold it for $2 million, you would have earned an impressive average return of 23% per year.

If you bought a 10 center 80 years ago and sold it for say $2,000 you would have earned an average return of 13% per year.

If you bought a 10 center 80 years ago and sold it for just say $100 you would have earned an average return of 9% per year.

If you bought a 10 center 80 years ago and sold it for just say $10 you would have still earned an average return of 6% per year.

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4 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "successful."  If the buyer enjoyed having the book, and doesn't lose more money on it than he views as justifying his enjoyment, I'd call that successful. 

But, I'm guessing you have a more objective financial criteria in mind. 

If it sold for $1.5M in March 2010 and then has a $2M selling price in June 2018 that would yield around a 3.65% compound annual rate of return (excluding fees etc.).  That's actually a very solid rate of return. 

Undoubtedly some other investments would have done better.  For example, the Dow's compound annual rate of return over the same time frame is 10.49%.  To get that rate of return, the Action 1 would have to garner a selling price over $3M.  So if all you care about is money, then maybe $2M is not so successful. 

But, I hope that collectors are buying these ultra-expensive books primarily for reasons other than making money.  I know Hariri did.

In this context, I'm not taking the buyer's enjoyment of the book into account and definitely have financial criteria in mind. When I sell my own books I have a target price I'd like to get. There's a minimum level I'd like to hit*. This is exactly the same scenario. If I were selling this book $2,000,000 would feel like a good result. .

*this has included many recent "how much will I lose?" sales where losing only 25% is seen as a successful sale as I pare down certain dead-ends in my collection :insane:

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13 hours ago, rob_react said:

In this context, I'm not taking the buyer's enjoyment of the book into account and definitely have financial criteria in mind. When I sell my own books I have a target price I'd like to get. There's a minimum level I'd like to hit*. This is exactly the same scenario. If I were selling this book $2,000,000 would feel like a good result. .

*this has included many recent "how much will I lose?" sales where losing only 25% is seen as a successful sale as I pare down certain dead-ends in my collection :insane:

factoring in 10% to the auction house a 2 mil sale with CC means a net of 1.8 unless the fees were adjusted

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14 hours ago, rob_react said:

In this context, I'm not taking the buyer's enjoyment of the book into account and definitely have financial criteria in mind. When I sell my own books I have a target price I'd like to get. There's a minimum level I'd like to hit*. This is exactly the same scenario. If I were selling this book $2,000,000 would feel like a good result. .

*this has included many recent "how much will I lose?" sales where losing only 25% is seen as a successful sale as I pare down certain dead-ends in my collection :insane:

Many if not most people who buy collectibles primarily for enjoyment still like to know they haven't "lost" money, even if only to justify it to friends, and the wife.

 

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1 hour ago, Mmehdy said:

factoring in 10% to the auction house a 2 mil sale with CC means a net of 1.8 unless the fees were adjusted

I always thought the auction houses negotiated their rates down considerably, sometimes even down to 0%, when dealing with monster books like this.

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59 minutes ago, entalmighty1 said:

I always thought the auction houses negotiated their rates down considerably, sometimes even down to 0%, when dealing with monster books like this.

You can try but I'm doubtful any auction house is desperate enough to think there is sufficient value in the publicity alone of such an item.

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1 hour ago, entalmighty1 said:
3 hours ago, Mmehdy said:

factoring in 10% to the auction house a 2 mil sale with CC means a net of 1.8 unless the fees were adjusted

I always thought the auction houses negotiated their rates down considerably, sometimes even down to 0%, when dealing with monster books like this.

I'll hazard a guess that the consignor was charged less than 10%, but more than zero.  I would think that running the book by all three houses would garner an offer in the range of a 5% fee.  On a $2 million sale, that's a $100K fee to house, which I think, coupled with the additional publicity the book generates for the auction, would probably be appealing to them, even given what may be greater costs in handling such a high-dollar book. 

Edited by Sqeggs
Typo
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3 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

I'll hazard a guess that the consignor was charged less than 10%, but more than zero.  I would think that running the book by all three houses would garner an offer in the range of a 5% fee.  On a $2 million sale, that's a $100K fee to house, which I think, coupled with the additional publicity the book generates for the auction, would probably be appealing to them, even given what may be greater costs in handling such a high-dollar book. 

That makes sense to me.  Make them compete for the book.  Maybe the underbidder will buy other books out of frustration from the loss.  (shrug) 

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Remember, with regards to the percentage on this book, that this is part of a much larger consignment. 

7 hours ago, adamstrange said:

You can try but I'm doubtful any auction house is desperate enough to think there is sufficient value in the publicity alone of such an item.

I don't have any insider knowledge of the comics auction houses, but Christies and Sothebys have regularly been desperate enough to put together ridiculous deals, potentially money-losing deals, to secure consignments. Having the biggest category sale of the year is a HUGE deal for them. 

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On 5/31/2018 at 3:52 PM, sfcityduck said:

True in theory.  But it would be interesting to know if the last owner of this 8.5 was an underbidder on the 9.0s.  If so, then its possible that we're down to bidders 3 and 4. 

Seems to me that the best strategy to get a really nice Action 1 would be to make a private offer thru Metro for one of the two 9.0s.  He might let one go. 

 

Trying to assess the number of potential bidders for a book is not nearly as simple as counting the top several bidders from a prior auction and subtracting the winner.    In any auction there may well be any number of people who would have made the second largest bid if someone else had not made it first.   Many times I've had it in my head to bid to a certain point and never placed a bid because somebody else did it first.  And sometimes I was willing to bid just as high as the top underbidder, but never placed a single bid.  So I know in those auctions there wasn't just one person willing to make the second highest bid.   .  (although, none of those auctions were for anything at the level of this one; the principle still applies).  And that's not even taking into account people who didn't bid in one auction for any number of reasons but might bid in the next one; perhaps because they were otherwise distracted the first time and/or they just decided at a later point they were interested in such an item and/or they were always interested but only now came into the sort of money that makes them want to go for it

Edited by bluechip
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3 hours ago, bluechip said:

Trying to assess the number of potential bidders for a book is not nearly as simple as counting the top several bidders from a prior auction and subtracting the winner.    In any auction there may well be any number of people who would have made the second largest bid if someone else had not made it first.   Many times I've had it in my head to bid to a certain point and never placed a bid because somebody else did it first.  And sometimes I was willing to bid just as high as the top underbidder, but never placed a single bid.  So I know in those auctions there wasn't just one person willing to make the second highest bid.   .  (although, none of those auctions were for anything at the level of this one; the principle still applies).  And that's not even taking into account people who didn't bid in one auction for any number of reasons but might bid in the next one; perhaps because they were otherwise distracted the first time and/or they just decided at a later point they were interested in such an item and/or they were always interested but only now came into the sort of money that makes them want to go for it

(thumbsu

...plus the market is expanding and also benefiting from significant gains in the stock market since that book was last on the block.... there could very well be new players to the game ..... especially in the time tested blue chip (...no pun intended... well, maybe a tiny bit) market. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

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Did not see a price prediction thread so just wanted to go on record saying the end price for this comic is going to shock allot of people and I would actually be surprised if it lands under $2.4M

 

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On ‎5‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 8:09 AM, G.A.tor said:

I've heard he's "done" for now...not sure how true that is...I suspect Metro could comment on this with some authority...

In my first interview with Vincent Zurzolo of Metropolis Collectibles, around the 18:50 minute-mark he states that Hariri's collection "is pretty much... complete":

https://comicbookinvest.com/2017/11/10/visit-to-metropolis-collectibles-and-interview-with-vincent-zurzolo/

 

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