Too rare to rise? 2 2

[buttock]

On 8/23/2018 at 8:11 PM, Roger66 said:

When I returned to collecting after a 30+ year hiatus I knew nothing about the Boards community, GPA, CGC, the CGC census or even how to do an advanced search on eBay to see past sales.  I simply bought without any consultation with anyone, I bought out of love and paid what I felt I needed to pay in order to possess a certain HTF book.  In the process I likely set a highs on GPA but I was oblivious to all of that and only focused on what I was willing to pay for each book I desired.  All of this GPA, census and market talk is understandable but to me it creates a fiction about this hobby.  The fiction being that a particular book is indeed worth a certain price because someone out there is willing to pay that price as opposed to a book being worth whatever you the individual wants to pay for it.  Keep in mind I am not talking about common books but about the 'special' GA or early SA ones we covet and collect.  I find my being connected now to GPA etc has at times limited my vision on what I am willing to pay as well as made me overpay at times too.  Thus try not to overthink or over examine a purchase of a book you love like it is a stock esp one that might indeed be HTF if not scarce or you get stuck in the web of market expectations as opposed to the freedom of just collecting and buying as you see fit.  Of course if you are into this hobby as a dealer and or flipper - than you can ignore this reply. 

GPA can't apply to this situation.  For unique or near unique items, you either pay the asking or don't get the book.  I assume you are happier with the books than you are frustrated with the price paid?

[buttock]

On 8/23/2018 at 4:45 PM, valiantman said:

I gotta address this.  "Rare" is used on this board for everything from recent variants to Gerber 10s to last night's top sirloin.

If this is a hobby that is global, one that has decades of literature about collecting, one that currently has 4.1 million listings on Ebay within the Comics category that include the word "Comics"... then anything with 4,100 copies would be 1,000-to-1 rarer than what's on Ebay right this moment.

56 is rare.  56 isn't rare.  There's no good answer to this debate.

56 is common enough to exclude it from the intended scenario though.  In this situation the definition of rare was clarified and can be determined. 

[sfcityduck]

3 hours ago, october said:

The half dozen I have seen were all from 1938/39, and were mostly Centaurs. 

Interesting.  That suggests it was a one-time purchase of a batch of comics early in his comic buying pre-WWII, back when there weren't that many titlles a month.  I know he wanted them for source material, so it is understandable he'd have bought used comics before he built up the library of comics bought off the newsstand and had ample source material available.  

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 hours ago, buttock said:

GPA can't apply to this situation.  For unique or near unique items, you either pay the asking or don't get the book.  I assume you are happier with the books than you are frustrated with the price paid?

The sting of price fades. The agony of frustration never does.

[FlyingDonut]

On 8/22/2018 at 6:56 PM, valiantman said:

I figured I would need to come up with some examples. 

Uh... ok. 

Between 2006 and 2018, the price for a CGC 6.0 New York World's Fair 1939 (April/May 1939) moved from $3,900 to $6,000, a +54% change.  In 2006, a CGC 6.0 Superman #6 (late-1940) sold for $700, and the most recent sale was $2,800, a +300% change.

Why would one book have a six-fold change compared to the another?  Different characters?  Not in this case.  Different supplies?  Maybe... if there were too many copies of the +54% book, and not enough of the +300% book?  Makes sense, but it's the opposite.

There were 28 universal copies of NYWF 1939 on the CGC Census in 2006, and there are 56 copies now... twice as many.  There were 30 universal copies of Superman #6 on the CGC Census in 2006, and there are 126 copies now... more than four times as many.

What's going on?  The one with more supply had such a different rise in prices, when you might expect the extra supply to dilute the prices.

There were 10 sales of CGC 6.0 Superman #6 between 2006 and 2018.  There was one sale of CGC 6.0 NYWF 1939 between 2006 and 2018.    

One had an "active" market of one sale per year, and the other only had one additional sale in a decade.

Was NYWF 1939 too rare to rise?

You're overthinking it. There's much less demand for NYWF 1 relative to Superman 6.

[valiantman]

53 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:

You're overthinking it. There's much less demand for NYWF 1 relative to Superman 6.

These books were already 60+ years old when I started comparing the two.  What's so special about the last 10 years, that the first 60 years didn't already have it included in the comparison?

[Knightsofold]

On 8/22/2018 at 4:41 PM, sfcityduck said:

 

I'd posit the following demand based explanations for the discrepancy:

* NYWF has a lousy cover.  It does not feature a superhero, and they mis-colored Superman's cameo head shot.  In contrast, Superman 6 is a cool early Superman cover. In the GCG world, this may be the only explanation you need.

* Superman is part of one the most actively collected runs of GA comics by DC collectors.  NYWF is an oddity.

* Superman 6 trades for less money.  In 2018, it is still less expensive than NYWF was in 2006.  Less cost means bigger buyer pool.  The dollar increase in value of Superman 6 is less than the dollar value increase in value of NYWF.  That alone can explain why it has increased more in value percentage-wise than NYWF. 

Finally, to your bigger point.  There are examples of rare books which have tremendously appreciated in dolar value with little (or even no) intervening sales.  It all goes back to demand.  The WW ashcan might be an interesting test case for your theory. 

I've seen some economics info that states that "Less cost means bigger buyer pool" actually means higher demand.  But Golden Age price charting/speculation/value has always been a very confusing (and utterly fascinating) topic for me.  

When people say books with little to no sales data available equals LOW DEMAND I just can't believe it unless the books are always available.  

Many books (keys or classic covers often) rarely come up for sale, and when they do they disappear quickly.  In some ways that seems like the HIGHEST for of "demand".

I love this topic, and feel there's some hidden knowledge waiting to be discovered.

Isn't there a parallel in other markets?  For example maybe real estate in certain neighborhoods or type/age rarely available?   Surely that's a thing right?  If so, what's the situation called?  

[FlyingDonut]

7 hours ago, valiantman said:

These books were already 60+ years old when I started comparing the two.  What's so special about the last 10 years, that the first 60 years didn't already have it included in the comparison?

CGC and the popularity of books with cool covers.

[lou_fine]

On 8/28/2018 at 4:03 PM, lou_fine said:

On 8/28/2018 at 3:47 PM, jmg3637 said:

New Book of COmics 2 5.5

Yes, definitely not much movement at all in these early and rare HTF pre-hero DC books.  

A classic and perfect example of books that very seldom ever comes to market and hence, not enough market activity for them to ever go up much in price.  

I may have been wrong as there does appear to be movement in these early pre-hero DC books, but unfortunately it appears to be on the downside.  

Not sure if CL was the best venue for these early books, but it looks like both of the low grade New Comics 2 and the mid-grade New Book of Comics 2 managed to sell at only a huge discount to their condition guide price.  

[hannibal151]

On 8/29/2018 at 2:08 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

The sting of price fades. The agony of frustration never does.

+1

[RockMyAmadeus]

11 hours ago, FlyingDonut said:

18 hours ago, valiantman said:

These books were already 60+ years old when I started comparing the two.  What's so special about the last 10 years, that the first 60 years didn't already have it included in the comparison?

CGC and the popularity of books with cool covers.

So, wait...cool books™...?

[valiantman]

19 hours ago, Knightsofold said:

I've seen some economics info that states that "Less cost means bigger buyer pool" actually means higher demand.  But Golden Age price charting/speculation/value has always been a very confusing (and utterly fascinating) topic for me.  

When people say books with little to no sales data available equals LOW DEMAND I just can't believe it unless the books are always available.  

Many books (keys or classic covers often) rarely come up for sale, and when they do they disappear quickly.  In some ways that seems like the HIGHEST for of "demand".

I love this topic, and feel there's some hidden knowledge waiting to be discovered.

Isn't there a parallel in other markets?  For example maybe real estate in certain neighborhoods or type/age rarely available?   Surely that's a thing right?  If so, what's the situation called?  

I get what you're saying, and I think the things that fascinate you are what caused me to post this topic in the first place.  I think you're getting somewhere important when you say "Many books rarely come up for sale, and when they do they disappear quickly".  So, we really should be following the old advice for pretty much every topic which is "follow the money".  Now, since buyers of rare items would like to buy those items at the lowest possible price, it is not the buyers who will point out that the market is under-pricing rare items.  Why would buyers say anything at all?

Sellers are in business to sell what they have available... and rarely (by definition) would sellers be trying to sell rare items.  So, I think that there must be some minimum quantity (as others have mentioned/agreed) that is necessary for the prices to rise.  Buyers don't increase prices against their own interests.  Sellers can't increase prices for items they don't have.  Those who already own the rare items aren't putting them back in the market.  So, there's literally no one left.

I believe that unless a seller can say, "I have X and I can't sell it for $Y" then they are as clueless about the market as anyone else.  In fact, I would say that the only people who really know the market for rare items are those people who own the items.  They're the only ones who can say "I would sell X for $Y".  Buyers can say "I would pay X for $Y".  Everyone else is just a spectator in the current rare market, even if they have 60 years experience.

[Knightsofold]

14 minutes ago, valiantman said:

So, we really should be following the old advice for pretty much every topic which is "follow the money"

I feel like a formula/or observation could be made by examining auction sales of say..  Action Comics #1 and the $ equivalent of Amazing Fantasy #15s sold within the same time period. 

For example, if over the weekend one Action #1 sold for 100k, all the sales of AF15 for 200k, and all the Hulk 181's for 50k.   Would that mean the demand for AF15 is highest, Action #1 next, and Hulk 181 being the lowest demand?

I feel this falls apart in many ways, but looking at the sales when all 3 are available seems important to me.

I'm sorry if this is all elementary, I'm not used to thinking in numbers and never had the interest required to excel in math. 

 

[Knightsofold]

47 minutes ago, valiantman said:

I would say that the only people who really know the market for rare items are those people who own the items.  They're the only ones who can say "I would sell X for $Y".  Buyers can say "I would pay X for $Y".

Offers made to owners are really the only info that might be out there.  More than once I've heard dealers say "I've seen him turn down X price"

At this point is sounds like the high end Original Comic Art market.   Would be buyers will often track down the owner of a specific page/cover and privately offer them the value + a massive premium for parting with the piece.  The only successful transactions I've heard of have been from collectors with emotional attachment to the piece.  Not flippers of dealers, so I don't think many of those transactions mean much more than a possibility.  

Truly "rare" comics can ALMOST be thought of as "one of a kind", but I think recorded sales on a certain book is part of what makes them valuable.  

Eh.  just more frustrating observations. 

[valiantman]

1 hour ago, Knightsofold said:

I feel like a formula/or observation could be made by examining auction sales of say..  Action Comics #1 and the $ equivalent of Amazing Fantasy #15s sold within the same time period. 

For example, if over the weekend one Action #1 sold for 100k, all the sales of AF15 for 200k, and all the Hulk 181's for 50k.   Would that mean the demand for AF15 is highest, Action #1 next, and Hulk 181 being the lowest demand?

I feel this falls apart in many ways, but looking at the sales when all 3 are available seems important to me.

I'm sorry if this is all elementary, I'm not used to thinking in numbers and never had the interest required to excel in math. 

The collective dollars is a very fun topic... but also pretty "controversial".  Let's say there is $200K spent total on AF #15 in a particular week.  If a regular comic book was released that week at $4 each, selling 60,000 copies, would we say that some recent issue of a random title has more "demand" than AF #15 because it sold $240K when AF #15 only sold $200K?  That would be weird... so I don't think that's a reflection of "demand".  Additionally, whenever one copy of Action #1 sells, it's likely that the 2nd highest bidder would be happy to pay their bid to obtain a second copy but there's not one available.  So the demand in terms of dollars spent was $100K (in your example), but it was at least $195K "demand" since the 2nd highest bidder did also want to buy one.  When there are multiple copies available and multiple copies sold, it's possible that everyone who wanted a copy was able to get one.

I think there is something important happening with the collective dollars, especially for the "total value of all known slabbed copies" or even some estimate using the average graded copy value multiplied by census total.  But, even that, is "controversial" since it's assuming that there's some economic principle that all the slabbed copies wherever they are somehow combine to represent a "demand" statistic that can be used to compare books of different decades, quantities, hoards, slab-worthiness, or whatever.

Nevertheless, whenever I run those numbers, Action #1, Detective #27, and AF #15 are always the top 3... despite AF #15 being newer and "plentiful". 

[lou_fine]

And every now and then, you see an absolutely mind-blowing result when one of these rare comics do come to market:

https://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?referral=EAlist&id=656651&title=K.O.PUNCH

Definitely not my personal cup of tea, but still sold last night in the CC Auction for almost $20K or more than 37X Overstreet condition guide even though there is a higher graded CGC 9.2 copy out there somewhere.      

[october]

The hell?

Why did that sell for so much? Not a book I am familiar with. 

[adamstrange]

1 hour ago, october said:

Why did that sell for so much? Not a book I am familiar with. 

 VD educational giveaway. 

[path4play]

On 8/30/2018 at 1:39 PM, valiantman said:

I get what you're saying, and I think the things that fascinate you are what caused me to post this topic in the first place.  I think you're getting somewhere important when you say "Many books rarely come up for sale, and when they do they disappear quickly".  So, we really should be following the old advice for pretty much every topic which is "follow the money".  Now, since buyers of rare items would like to buy those items at the lowest possible price, it is not the buyers who will point out that the market is under-pricing rare items.  Why would buyers say anything at all?

Sellers are in business to sell what they have available... and rarely (by definition) would sellers be trying to sell rare items.  So, I think that there must be some minimum quantity (as others have mentioned/agreed) that is necessary for the prices to rise.  Buyers don't increase prices against their own interests.  Sellers can't increase prices for items they don't have.  Those who already own the rare items aren't putting them back in the market.  So, there's literally no one left.

I believe that unless a seller can say, "I have X and I can't sell it for $Y" then they are as clueless about the market as anyone else.  In fact, I would say that the only people who really know the market for rare items are those people who own the items.  They're the only ones who can say "I would sell X for $Y".  Buyers can say "I would pay X for $Y".  Everyone else is just a spectator in the current rare market, even if they have 60 years experience.

Could it be as simple as with services like GPA and GoCollect, or feeBay history folks who buy big books reference the historic data and are only interested in bidding some increment amount higher.  If a book is rare, that increment gets added to the prior sale which maybe was 10 years ago.  Whereas if that book sells more frequently, that increment gets repeated many times over in even in a year.

On the other hand, it feels like a book that suffers an incremental downturn becomes a pariah that can stigmatize it which lasts maybe a decade or two.

Edited September 15, 2018 by path4play

[path4play]

On 8/31/2018 at 12:58 PM, lou_fine said:

And every now and then, you see an absolutely mind-blowing result when one of these rare comics do come to market:

https://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?referral=EAlist&id=656651&title=K.O.PUNCH

Definitely not my personal cup of tea, but still sold last night in the CC Auction for almost $20K or more than 37X Overstreet condition guide even though there is a higher graded CGC 9.2 copy out there somewhere.      

That just blew my theory.  Perhaps I'm applying a "rationale market" approach. There could be outliers - like a super wealthy boxer or something, that are willing to pay whatever regardless of future potential.  That's why likely if this came up for sale again, many buyers would treat it as an outlier and discount this sales price (imo).

 

Edited September 1, 2018 by path4play