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CGC census is high, but there aren't enough keys
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519 posts in this topic

On 8/17/2018 at 12:52 PM, Martin Sinescu said:

I think it's flawed to assume all these thousands of people want a CGC-graded copy of a first appearance. We are a small niche of comic fandom.

+1

Would totally agree with your point that that slabbed comics is a very small niche within the comic collecting community, especially when it comes to the post early SA books. (thumbsu

Yes, we always hear about the big dollar sales from the major auction houses, and yet every single time I go down to a local or regional comic convention, it appears that slabbed books makes up less than 1% of the total number of books available for sale out there.  In fact, I have never seen anybody buy an actually slabbed book at one of the local comic conventions, but lots of raw comics (even first appearances) seems to change hands.  hm

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On 8/17/2018 at 9:56 AM, valiantman said:

Too many words? lol

Everything's relative as your post is a mere anthill compared to that mountain of words coming from RAM and sfcityduck on Pages 4 and 5 of this thread.  zzz

We should ask the mods to delete those 2 pages completely.  :bigsmile:

Edited by lou_fine
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On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 3:00 AM, valiantman said:

Even if there was a GPA for original art, it would be more like real estate where there would be "comparables" but no matching item sales (other than the prior sale for the exact same unique item).

Here's the OA "GPA" ;)

 

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20 hours ago, Gatsby77 said:

I'm not disputing the long-term investment value of the top 10-20 comic keys from each era -- but we've seen the hobby shift over the last decade to a ridiculous emphasis on first appearances that is 90% driven by movie speculation.

I still want to know what will drive key comic appreciation once the major studios aren't pumping out 6-8 comic films per year.

That's not what I'm saying... sorry if I gave that impression.  I'm saying the gap between the first appearances of major characters from all eras (pre-1992, anyway) will be a ridiculously wide gap compared to the other books in those eras.  I mean the Top 10 or 20 comic book first appearances all-time, not 10 to 20 by era.

 

Just 10 to 20 books total (1938-1991) will completely separate from their peers...Action #1 and Detective #27 already left the others from the 1930s and 1940s behind. AF #15 has already left the other 1960s books far behind it, with the exception of Hulk #1, which is also a Top 5 overall character. Hulk 181 will leave all other 1970s books farther behind it. No, Hulk #181 won't catch Golden Age key books, but other 1970s books won't shrink the widening gap on Hulk #181 unless they have a first appearance that can rival it.  The next top all-time characters are Golden Age, and they are separating from their peers... Captain America, Wonder Woman, even Archie.  Then the Silver Age big-but-not-as-big names, first appearances are making wider gaps, Iron Man, Thor, even Flash Barry Allen.  The exact order of Top 6 or 8 or 12 isn't important, because these characters will have individual surges and declines in popularity, as you mentioned, but when there is a downtime for Flash, it still won't shrink the gap between Showcase #4 and other Flash appearances.

 

Books like ASM #300 aren't first appearances for Top 10 all-time characters, but the book will continue to separate from the other 1980s books, with the exception of TMNT #1 because of the big name first appearance in that one.

 

Too many words in my post again, but what I am saying is that we have kept our keys and non-keys too close in price.  The gap will widen greatly. The CGC census won't matter.  Mid-grade Hulk #181 will be $10,000.  It won't approach Silver or Golden Age keys, but the first full appearance of Wolverine will hold more value than many much older books.  It will completely overshadow all but the best first appearances of the 1970s. Wolverine can decline in popularity and the world might go crazy for Spider-Harley Gwenpool, and Hulk #181 might even fall in value, but the price gap will stay ridiculously wide (wider than today) between Hulk #181 and the other books of its era.

Edited by valiantman
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On 8/17/2018 at 11:18 PM, thunsicker said:

Two things:

1)  Overstreet gives raw comic grades.  I’m not sure what this has to do with the CGC census.

2)  One thing I’m sure of is if anyone tells me there is no way not to make money investing in something they are wrong.

1) Overstreet is a gateway drug.  You don't get to collecting key first appearances in CGC slabs without flipping through Overstreet.  If some people can get to CGC keys without buying Overstreet, that improves my point.

 

2) Agreed. You can lose a ton of money in comics.  I believe you'll lose less if you are holding the first appearances of the greatest characters of all time.  "Just Buy Keys" isn't a new topic worthy of another discussion. This topic says that there are keys for which the high CGC census numbers and all the remaining raw copies in the world still aren't enough, and they are specifically the first appearances of the pop culture big names... even common books like Hulk #181.  That's not a normal position to take on this forum.

Edited by valiantman
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6 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Everything's relative as your post is a mere anthill compared to that mountain of words coming from RAM and sfcityduck on Pages 4 and 5 of this thread.  zzz

We should ask the mods to delete those 2 pages completely.  :bigsmile:

meh

Who's RAM...? 

Hey, I spoilered at least one of my posts. Maybe I'll go back and spoiler them all, so no one feels obligated to read them. ;)

Besides...there's a TON of interesting information in my posts, that deals, at least in an ancillary way, with the subject. 

Edited by RockMyAmadeus
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2 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:
9 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Everything's relative as your post is a mere anthill compared to that mountain of words coming from RAM and sfcityduck on Pages 4 and 5 of this thread.  zzz

We should ask the mods to delete those 2 pages completely.  :bigsmile:

meh

Who's RAM...? 

Hey, I spoilered at least one of my posts. Maybe I'll go back and spoiler them all, so no one feels obligated to read them. ;)

Besides...there's a TON of interesting information in my posts, that deals, at least in an ancillary way, with the subject. 

Well, who can blame me for getting your name wrong as I was half asleep by then after reading through that mountain of "interesting information".  :baiting:

All I can say is that's 5 hours of my life that I will never get back, considering that I ended up dozing off quite a few times just to get through those 2 exhilarating pages.  lol

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10 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Well, who can blame me for getting your name wrong as I was half asleep by then after reading through that mountain of "interesting information".  :baiting:

All I can say is that's 5 hours of my life that I will never get back, considering that I ended up dozing off quite a few times just to get through those 2 exhilarating pages.  lol

That'll teach me to like your posts that I like! (shakey first smiley)

But think of all the benefits you got: cool, esoteric information about the origins of comic fandom that no one cares about, that you can whip out at parties and impress your friends with...AND, you got some bonus nap time!

Win.

Win.

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3 hours ago, valiantman said:
On 8/17/2018 at 9:18 PM, thunsicker said:

Two things:

1)  Overstreet gives raw comic grades.  I’m not sure what this has to do with the CGC census.

2)  One thing I’m sure of is if anyone tells me there is no way not to make money investing in something they are wrong.

1) Overstreet is a gateway drug.  You don't get to collecting key first appearances in CGC slabs without flipping through Overstreet.  If some people can get to CGC keys without buying Overstreet, that improves my point.

Although he original poster was talking about raw comic grades, I am quite sure he meant raw comic book prices.

As such, I personally have never brought the argument that the valuations in Overstreet are based on raw comic book prices.  I believe they are based upon whatever is the standard method (i.e. slabbed, raw, or combination of both) that is used to sell a particular book.  By this, I mean since an Action 1 is always sold in a slabbed format, the prices in the guide reflects what a slabbed copy historically and conservatively have gone for.  Take a look at all of the key sales that he identifies for certified comics and it's clear that these have been incorporated in part when come to determining the valuations in his guide. (thumbsu

Of course, as we all know there are also a ton of sales of raw books, especially with the lower grade and more recent lower value books.  Some of these key sales have also been identified in the Overstreet guide, and as such, I believe his valuations for things such as BA and CA books should rightfully be a blend of both slabbed and raw prices.  You also have to remember that he does place valuations for books above NM- 9.2 since there is a much higher level of volatility in prices when you get to these nosebleed grades.  

Of course, these nosebleed grades are the ones that we usually talk about here when we say that Overstreet is completely out of touch with the marketplace.  Likewise, his price guide doesn't place valuations for books below Good 2.0.  As we have seen with most of the GA keys and even with most of the HTF GA books which only shows up in low grades if at all, they tend to sell at huge multiples of bottom of guide since collectors are just happy to even get an entry level copy of these books.  hm

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On 8/17/2018 at 2:07 PM, valiantman said:

It is (or should be) pretty clear which books are absolutely not going to fall (unless the whole industry goes away like Beanie Babies)... they are the first appearances of household names.  I don't mean comic book collector households, I mean all households.  The 8-year-old and 88-year-old know who they are characters.  There's no doubt that the first appearances for ancillary characters are also solid books, since some collectors prefer Dr. Octopus and some prefer Green Goblin and some prefer Venom, but they all collect Spider-Man... and AF #15 and ASM #1 are the natural Spider-Man "must haves".  I've been on this board since 2002, so I've seen the discussions of Bronze Age books are too plentiful for over 15 years.  That hasn't stopped Hulk #181 skyrocketing.  We've got Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) behaving as if it was a bigger key than just about any book printed in the 1940s or 1950s.  The reason is that Amazing Fantasy #15 was 40 years old in 2002, while 1940 was 62 years earlier.  Now, it's Amazing Fantasy at 56 years old and 1940 was 78 years ago... both of those are at least two generations back.  Bronze age books like Hulk #181 are 44 years old.  That's also two generations back.  Action #1 was "my grandpa's generation" when I started collecting, but it was only 52 years old. There are now kids at comic conventions who can say Hulk #181 was "my grandpa's generation" because it's 44.  The old Golden, Silver, and Bronze age gaps don't matter... they're all two generations ago.  The supply is the only thing keeping Hulk #181 from matching AF #15 or Action #1 in terms of pricing, but I don't think the supply is high enough to keep Hulk #181 from being $2,500 for ANY complete copy.  It will be $10,000 for a mid-grade.  It will be $100,000 for a CGC 9.8... and all of those prices still pale in comparison to Amazing Fantasy #15.  If the child and the great-grandma both know the character, the first appearance will be in the stratosphere.

 

will the kids care about owning a comic in 10-20-30 years? just cause they love venom or whoever doesnt neccessarily mean they need to own his first appearance if they have no connection to comics. i’m almost 50and my generation grew up w john byrne and frank miller, and comics were huge for us. the 35-45 year olds on here have the same reaction but prob mcfarlane is their guy. the 60-65 year olds here saw firsthand the birth of marvels SA stuff with lee kirby and ditko. but how many 10year olds care about or read comics today? i think this is a key question and i’m obviously not the first one to bring it up here. if u dont have a childhood connection to comics, then why would u care when youre 30, and have some money (hopefully instead of crushing student loan debt) to spend? wouldnt you rather collect whatever it was that u loved as a kid? video games or something? i only love comics because i grew up on them and learned to draw from them. alot of kids will have grown up w spidey and venom tv shows, video games, and movies, and not comics, and just might not care at all about comic books. not to mention that many other countries never even had our comics, like china. many do love marvel movie heroes there, but not much interest in comics. ( i’m told this from some wealthy art and pop culture loving collectors there.) 

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19 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

I'm glad, however, that you are starting to educate yourself on the true history of 1960s comic fandom.  I am confident that soon you'll be comfortable in retracting your assertion that there were only 1,000 comic collectors in 1970.

Read an interesting article that said that Marvel went from publishing 13MIL comics per year to 70MIL comics per year by 1975.

That's a lot of comics (from 1MIL a month to 5MIL a month) to be absorbed by readers.

You'd have to think that by 1970 even if they were only doing a couple of million comics a month that there would be more than a few 1000 collectors.

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Anyone weigh in on the first mass-speculated books by collectors?

From what I've read, everyone bought heavy multiples of Conan # 1.

But before that, I've read that collectors also bought heavy multiples of the 1968 Marvel expansion books (Iron Man 1, Captain Marvel 1, Captain America 100, Submariner 1, Nick Fury 1, Hulk 102, etc.).

Curious if there were earlier books that point to a larger collector base.

I find it hard to believe there were just a few thousand collectors nationwide when the Batman TV show was on every week beginning in 1966.

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55 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

Anyone weigh in on the first mass-speculated books by collectors?

From what I've read, everyone bought heavy multiples of Conan # 1.

But before that, I've read that collectors also bought heavy multiples of the 1968 Marvel expansion books (Iron Man 1, Captain Marvel 1, Captain America 100, Submariner 1, Nick Fury 1, Hulk 102, etc.).

Curious if there were earlier books that point to a larger collector base.

I find it hard to believe there were just a few thousand collectors nationwide when the Batman TV show was on every week beginning in 1966.

As noted before, "mass speculation" doesn't mean there was a larger collector base. 

There are people buying comics today who have zero interest in the artform, and see it merely as a vehicle for making money. No one would define these people as "collectors." That was certainly true then, too.

How many people who go to SDCC, for example, are comic book collectors...? 10%? 5%? 1%? The vast majority of the attendees of SDCC and NYCC and the like aren't comic book collectors, and if they own comics, it's incidentally. They're pop culture fans who have zero interest in buying and maintaining a collection.

As well, what does "mass speculation" mean? Did the entire print run sell out? 50% of it? (50% would have been a very healthy number.) Is a speculator a collector just because they own comics? What was the ratio of buyers to readers to collectors? How many people bought multiple copies, and how many copies did they buy? These are questions with answers that are virtually unknowable, but we do know that those ratios existed. 

Lots of people watched Batman...and that certainly translated into more sales of the comic....until the show was cancelled. In an era where Gunsmoke ran for 20 years, and Andy Griffith and Van Dyke ran for nearly 8 and 5 years respectively, Batman lasted a little over two years. Did the Batman show influence people to become comic collectors? Not to any great extent, no. Sales on the book returned to pre-show numbers after it was over.

 

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It's important to define what a collector is. A collector is someone who has an interest in the material he/she is collecting, a focus for maintaining and preserving its condition, and a desire to have a "complete" set, tracking down what came before them, and buying that which comes out, however they define the parameters of their set. A collector of Spiderman, for example, wouldn't be content to only have a few random issues; they'd be putting effort towards getting all of them, even if it's a collection of, say, #100 to #200. And this is true even of TYPE collectors; in that case, they wish to own an example (or several examples) of each TYPE of comic; in that case, the completeness comes when they've obtained at least one issue of every "Batman title" for instance.

The "gotta catch 'em all" mentality is chiefly what separates collectors from, say, hoarders who just like to acquire, irrespective of what and how, or speculators who only have interest in what can make them the most money.

It's important to stress that more readers and more copies sold does not necessarily translate to more collectors. Edgar Church was a comic book collector, even if only incidentally. He went to some effort to keep and preserve his books, and even went to the trouble of tracking down issues he'd missed. He may not have had a great interest in the characters themselves, but he certainly was interested in maintaining what he had, and making sure he had everything he wanted...and he preserved that collection until he was at or near death.

Stan Lee, on the other hand, is a great example of someone who was not a collector, even though he had comics in his possession. He showed little interest in the preservation of the books he owned, and only owned them as examples of his work. He had zero interest in obtaining any copies he missed or didn't keep for some reason, and when he had the opportunity to get rid of the vast majority of it, because someone showed interest in it, he did. 

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6 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

It's important to define what a collector is. A collector is someone who has an interest in the material he/she is collecting, a focus for maintaining and preserving its condition, and a desire to have a "complete" set, tracking down what came before them, and buying that which comes out, however they define the parameters of their set. A collector of Spiderman, for example, wouldn't be content to only have a few random issues; they'd be putting effort towards getting all of them, even if it's a collection of, say, #100 to #200. And this is true even of TYPE collectors; in that case, they wish to own an example (or several examples) of each TYPE of comic; in that case, the completeness comes when they've obtained at least one issue of every "Batman title" for instance.

The "gotta catch 'em all" mentality is chiefly what separates collectors from, say, hoarders who just like to acquire, irrespective of what and how, or speculators who only have interest in what can make them the most money.

It's important to stress that more readers and more copies sold does not necessarily translate to more collectors. Edgar Church was a comic book collector, even if only incidentally. He went to some effort to keep and preserve his books, and even went to the trouble of tracking down issues he'd missed. He may not have had a great interest in the characters themselves, but he certainly was interested in maintaining what he had, and making sure he had everything he wanted...and he preserved that collection until he was at or near death.

Stan Lee, on the other hand, is a great example of someone who was not a collector, even though he had comics in his possession. He showed little interest in the preservation of the books he owned, and only owned them as examples of his work. He had zero interest in obtaining any copies he missed or didn't keep for some reason, and when he had the opportunity to get rid of the vast majority of it, because someone showed interest in it, he did. 

I'd just disagree that preservation does not have to be one of the conditions of being a collector.

Only that you collect to amass a collection.

There are many collectors who are not interested in condition, except for completeness.

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In my high school on the late 60s, I knew of maybe 5 comic collectors.  Collectors who went to the store each week and added comics to their collections.  Who also would trade with the few PUBLIC comic collectors.  (As you got older it was NOT something you talked about with guys, and definitely not with girls.  You never even read them in public!)

so find out how many high schools in the US in 1968 and multiply by 5 to estimate all the comic collectors in the US.  Heck, multiply by 3 and I’m confident it comes to a lot more than 1000 collectors!

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9 hours ago, Aman619 said:

In my high school on the late 60s, I knew of maybe 5 comic collectors.  Collectors who went to the store each week and added comics to their collections.  Who also would trade with the few PUBLIC comic collectors.  (As you got older it was NOT something you talked about with guys, and definitely not with girls.  You never even read them in public!)

so find out how many high schools in the US in 1968 and multiply by 5 to estimate all the comic collectors in the US.  Heck, multiply by 3 and I’m confident it comes to a lot more than 1000 collectors!

We need to know how many students were in each grade in your high school. Then use the U.S. population numbers to scale up.

 

The number of high schools isn't useful since some had 1,000 students, but some had 25. :D

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