Nick Fury 4. Raw Ebay Fine. $125.50 0

[James J Johnson]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nick-Fury-Agent-of-Shield-4-Steranko-Shield-Origin-Key-Fine-Beauty/401538904038?hash=item5d7d956fe6:g:~YYAAOSwvMFa~OLu 

Images clearly show a FN copy, certainly no better and nobody will ever mistake a mid-grade NF 4 for being a rare book. Yet it closed for over 2X GPA for a CGC FN and about the current (March, 2018) GP price for a CGC 9.0. What madness am I missing that a raw FN of a very common book commands CGC 8.5 to/and 9.0 prices?    

[comicquant]

My theory on high raw prices at auction is there are those who are really bad at grading so they overpay.  Last year I was looking for a Strange Adventures 205 and someone I knew pretty well contacted me and said “hey, I have a 8.0 I’ll send you the pics in a bit”.  Once I received the pics I knew right away it was a 6.5 on the day that grader got a 20% salary hike.  He ended up getting it graded and it came back a 6.0.  He didn’t disclose what he paid for the book but did say he overpaid significantly.

[James J Johnson]

1 minute ago, comicquant said:

My theory on high raw prices at auction is there are those who are really bad at grading so they overpay.  Last year I was looking for a Strange Adventures 205 and someone I knew pretty well contacted me and said “hey, I have a 8.0 I’ll send you the pics in a bit”.  Once I received the pics I knew right away it was a 6.5 on the day that grader got a 20% salary hike.  He ended up getting it graded and it came back a 6.0.  He didn’t disclose what he paid for the book but did say he overpaid significantly.

But Tuners is a decent grader. His scans show books that he's calling the grades on within a tick or two either way, IMO. Real good for ebay. His VGs look VG, and the same can be said for all of his grade ranges. He's using standard grading nomenclature. He called the NF4 "fine", which the scan reinforces, Being a responsible seller, he's not using the nebulous Ebay grades like, "Wow", "Near perfect", "Minty fresh", "unread", and the catch all, "don't ask me, I'm not a professional grader, just STFU and look at the pictures", etc., etc. So what's puzzling to me is that any bidders would jack the price up to $126 going by that scan and his clear grade definition of Fine. Just plain odd to me. I thought it may have become a hot key issue overnight, as do so many others.

[comicquant]

1 minute ago, James J Johnson said:

But Tuners is a decent grader. His scans show books that he's calling the grades on within a tick or two either way, IMO. Real good for ebay. His VGs look VG, and the same can be said for all of his grade ranges. He's using standard grading nomenclature. He called the NF4 "fine", which the scan reinforces, Being a responsible seller, he's not using the nebulous Ebay grades like, "Wow", "Near perfect", "Minty fresh", "unread", and the catch all, "don't ask me, I'm not a professional grader, just STFU and look at the pictures", etc., etc. So what's puzzling to me is that any bidders would jack the price up to $126 going by that scan and his clear grade definition of Fine. Just plain odd to me. I thought it may have become a hot key issue overnight, as do so many others.

I didn’t even look at the listing so I didn’t see they had issued a grade.  The listings without any grade are the ones which typically get the bad graders.  But it is strange someone would blow up the price. They must’ve really wanted the book.

[thunsicker]

Spoiler

That’s not much less than I paid for my copy.

 

 

[James J Johnson]

1 hour ago, thunsicker said:

  Reveal hidden contents

That’s not much less than I paid for my copy.

 

 

For a Fine? That's a CGC 6.0 equivalent if it grades Fine. Or did you pay almost the same for something much, much better than Fine? CGC 8.5s are readily available for under $100 and 9.0s generally trade in the $120 to $150 range. CGC 6.0s are available in plentiful supply for about $40 or less.  Ironically, this seller's #1 in VG+ (his grade) only brought $36. A little less than GP for a CGC 4.5. Based on the outlandish price paid for the Fine #4, I was half expecting the #1 VG+ to fetch over $500 in raw VG+, low and middle grade raw prices on ebay lately generally bringing an incredible premium, usually 200 to 500% more than CGC equivalent grade prices, although that boggles the mind. Raw is definitely the way to go on ebay recently it seems. CGC 6.0? A NF 4? Would have brought $40 to $50 on Ebay. .

[kav]

15 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

For a Fine? That's a CGC 6.0 equivalent if it grades Fine. Or did you pay almost the same for something much, much better than Fine? CGC 8.5s are readily available for under $100 and 9.0s generally trade in the $120 to $150 range. CGC 6.0s are available in plentiful supply for about $40 or less.  Ironically, this seller's #1 in VG+ (his grade) only brought $36. A little less than GP for a CGC 4.5. Based on the outlandish price paid for the Fine #4, I was half expecting the #1 VG+ to fetch over $500 in raw VG+, low and middle grade raw prices on ebay lately generally bringing an incredible premium, usually 200 to 500% more than CGC equivalent grade prices, although that boggles the mind. Raw is definitely the way to go on ebay recently it seems. CGC 6.0? A NF 4? Would have brought $40 to $50 on Ebay. .

weird for sure-and the buyer is not some new comic buyer by any means.  One time I sold a superman 39 that was eaten by termites and the cover and all pages were completely separated.  It sold for $50 I couldnt believe it.

[James J Johnson]

17 minutes ago, kav said:

weird for sure-and the buyer is not some new comic buyer by any means.  One time I sold a superman 39 that was eaten by termites and the cover and all pages were completely separated.  It sold for $50 I couldnt believe it.

Golden age anything is 100 times more scarce than late Silver age Marvel superhero. A Sup 39 moving at even quintuple graded guide wouldn't surprise me if that was the only one on ebay closing that day and a few people had that hole to fill in their collection. But if there were a multitude of Sup 39s on ebay, CGCed 3.0 to 4.0 and they bid up your fair/good to CGC 5.0 levels, instead passing on the 3.0s and 4.0s for less than your raw fair/good, that would be a more similar an instance to the NF 6 scenario.

Edited May 24, 2018 by James J Johnson

[RockMyAmadeus]

3 hours ago, thunsicker said:

  Hide contents

That’s not much less than I paid for my copy.

 

 

So sexy.

[namisgr]

4 hours ago, James J Johnson said:

For a Fine? 

No, for the near mint plus copy in his post in the 'hidden content'.

Edited May 24, 2018 by namisgr

[entalmighty1]

9 hours ago, James J Johnson said:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nick-Fury-Agent-of-Shield-4-Steranko-Shield-Origin-Key-Fine-Beauty/401538904038?hash=item5d7d956fe6:g:~YYAAOSwvMFa~OLu 

Images clearly show a FN copy, certainly no better and nobody will ever mistake a mid-grade NF 4 for being a rare book. Yet it closed for over 2X GPA for a CGC FN and about the current (March, 2018) GP price for a CGC 9.0. What madness am I missing that a raw FN of a very common book commands CGC 8.5 to/and 9.0 prices?    

You're giving people a lot of credit if you assume they even know what GPA is.  Auction fever, no pricing tools (guide, websites, whatever), bad grading, new to collecting...all of these things lead to uninformed buyers.  It's not that big of a mystery.

[James J Johnson]

3 hours ago, entalmighty1 said:

You're giving people a lot of credit

I have to stop assuming that folks paying quintuple market value for a plentiful middle grade non-key that they can buy already CGCed for 1/3 the price on the same website are thinking before they bid.

[entalmighty1]

2 hours ago, James J Johnson said:

I have to stop assuming that folks paying quintuple market value for a plentiful middle grade non-key that they can buy already CGCed for 1/3 the price on the same website are thinking before they bid.

Essentially, yes.

[James J Johnson]

3 hours ago, entalmighty1 said:

Essentially, yes.

Just so odd. That "winner" could have bought CGC 6.0 copies of number 4, 5, and 6 with combined shipping for the same price as the raw Fine number 4. Less is more with regards to everything, if you're dumb as they come.