Comic Price Archaeology (Mapping "World Record" comics sales back to OSPG #1) 1 1

[rob_react]

Hello Golden Age Comics Books people of Earth. So, I write technology books and I have a new book coming out in three weeks. As part of promotion for that I was going to do a big blog post showing off one of the technologies in the book by doing a new data visualization and explaining how it's done. Nerd stuff™. As part of that I'm going to try to do something I've wanted to do for a long time- put together a timeline of the record price paid for a comic book throughout the Overstreet era.  

I believe I have the past 28 years sorted out, with the exception of venues and specific dates for a few of the books. 

• Title | Issue # | Grade | Date | Venue | Price
• Action Comics #1 9.0  2014-08-24 eBay  $3207852
• Action Comics #1 9.0 Cage Copy 2011-11-30 ComicConnect $2161000
• Action Comics #1 8.5 2010-03-29 ComicConnect $1500000
• Detective Comics #27 8.0 2010-02-25 Heritage  $107500000
• Action Comics #1 8.0 Kansas City 2010-02-22 ComicConnect  $1000000
• Flash Comics #1 9.6 Church 2004-01-01 sold to JP the Mint in a private sale  $350000
• Marvel Comics #1 9.0 Pay Copy 2003-01-01 sold to JP the Mint in a private sale  $350000
• Detective Comics #27 8.0 2001-01-01 Mastronet $278190
• Captain America Comics #1 9.8 Allentown 2001-01-01 sold to John Verzyl in a private sale $260000
• Whiz #2 NM-NM+ Church 1995-01-01 "private sale?"  $176000
• Detective Comics #27 8.5 Church 1994-01-01 "private sale?" $125000
• Detective Comics #27 "high grade" 1993-01-01 "private sale?"  $101000
• Action Comics #1 78 Cage Copy 1992-01-01 Sotheby's $82500
• Detective Comics #27 NM-MT Allentown 1990-01-01 sold to "The Dentist" in a private sale $80000 
• Action Comics #1 NM Church 1984-01-01 eBay sold to "The Dentist" in a private sale  $25000

What I would like to do is fill in the gaps between the "big 2" in the 1980s and then start to piece together some numbers for the 1970s. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[buttock]

1 hour ago, rob_react said:

Hello Golden Age Comics Books people of Earth. So, I write technology books and I have a new book coming out in three weeks. As part of promotion for that I was going to do a big blog post showing off one of the technologies in the book by doing a new data visualization and explaining how it's done. Nerd stuff™. As part of that I'm going to try to do something I've wanted to do for a long time- put together a timeline of the record price paid for a comic book throughout the Overstreet era.  

I believe I have the past 28 years sorted out, with the exception of venues and specific dates for a few of the books. 

• Title | Issue # | Grade | Date | Venue | Price
• Action Comics #1 9.0  2014-08-24 eBay  $3207852
• Action Comics #1 9.0 Cage Copy 2011-11-30 ComicConnect $2161000
• Action Comics #1 8.5 2010-03-29 ComicConnect $1500000
• Detective Comics #27 8.0 2010-02-25 Heritage  $107500000
• Action Comics #1 8.0 Kansas City 2010-02-22 ComicConnect  $1000000
• Flash Comics #1 9.6 Church 2004-01-01 sold to JP the Mint in a private sale  $350000
• Marvel Comics #1 9.0 Pay Copy 2003-01-01 sold to JP the Mint in a private sale  $350000
• Detective Comics #27 8.0 2001-01-01 Mastronet $278190
• Captain America Comics #1 9.8 Allentown 2001-01-01 sold to John Verzyl in a private sale $260000
• Whiz #2 NM-NM+ Church 1995-01-01 "private sale?"  $176000
• Detective Comics #27 8.5 Church 1994-01-01 "private sale?" $125000
• Detective Comics #27 "high grade" 1993-01-01 "private sale?"  $101000
• Action Comics #1 78 Cage Copy 1992-01-01 Sotheby's $82500
• Detective Comics #27 NM-MT Allentown 1990-01-01 sold to "The Dentist" in a private sale $80000 
• Action Comics #1 NM Church 1984-01-01 eBay sold to "The Dentist" in a private sale  $25000

What I would like to do is fill in the gaps between the "big 2" in the 1980s and then start to piece together some numbers for the 1970s. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Mitch Mehdy's Action 1 comes to mind.  I think Beerbohm claims the first sale over $2k which was the SF Tec 27 IIRC, but don't quote me on that.  You could torture yourself digging through his posts.  

[rob_react]

45 minutes ago, buttock said:

Mitch Mehdy's Action 1 comes to mind.  I think Beerbohm claims the first sale over $2k which was the SF Tec 27 IIRC, but don't quote me on that.  You could torture yourself digging through his posts.  

I don't want any torture!

[sfcityduck]

See next post.

Edited August 28, 2018 by sfcityduck

[sfcityduck]

42 minutes ago, rob_react said:

I don't want any torture!

Rob,

Check out this thread:

[rob_react]

5 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

Rob,

Check out this thread:

[AJD]

Rob, are you inflation correcting the prices? because the 2003 $350k sale is actually higher than a 2004 $350k sale, for example.

Using the inflation calculator, the 2003 sale adjusts to $359k in 2004.

[sfcityduck]

42 minutes ago, AJD said:

Rob, are you inflation correcting the prices? because the 2003 $350k sale is actually higher than a 2004 $350k sale, for example.

Using the inflation calculator, the 2003 sale adjusts to $359k in 2004.

He's using raw numbers.  Which I prefer because we can all do our own inflation adjustment if we want.  But, knowing that someone paid $250 in 1965 is pretty neat.  

[AJD]

3 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

He's using raw numbers.  Which I prefer because we can all do our own inflation adjustment if we want.  But, knowing that someone paid $250 in 1965 is pretty neat.  

Neat, maybe, but misleading. Comparisons should always be against a common baseline. Another useful comparison would be top price as a % of average weekly earnings.

But, hey, use nominal figures if you want.

[sfcityduck]

18 minutes ago, AJD said:

Neat, maybe, but misleading. Comparisons should always be against a common baseline.

I think we're all aware of inflation so I don't think anyone will be misled.  

And, as I know you are aware, inflation calculators have their own problems.  But, I would be interested in seeing charts as you propose, just not in the first instance.

I prefer knowing the actual prices paid, so I can apply my own context.

Edited August 28, 2018 by sfcityduck

[RockMyAmadeus]

8 hours ago, rob_react said:

Hello Golden Age Comics Books people of Earth. So, I write technology books and I have a new book coming out in three weeks. As part of promotion for that I was going to do a big blog post showing off one of the technologies in the book by doing a new data visualization and explaining how it's done. Nerd stuff™. As part of that I'm going to try to do something I've wanted to do for a long time- put together a timeline of the record price paid for a comic book throughout the Overstreet era.  

I believe I have the past 28 years sorted out, with the exception of venues and specific dates for a few of the books. 

• Title | Issue # | Grade | Date | Venue | Price
• Action Comics #1 9.0  2014-08-24 eBay  $3207852
• Action Comics #1 9.0 Cage Copy 2011-11-30 ComicConnect $2161000
• Action Comics #1 8.5 2010-03-29 ComicConnect $1500000
• Detective Comics #27 8.0 2010-02-25 Heritage  $107500000
• Action Comics #1 8.0 Kansas City 2010-02-22 ComicConnect  $1000000
• Flash Comics #1 9.6 Church 2004-01-01 sold to JP the Mint in a private sale  $350000
• Marvel Comics #1 9.0 Pay Copy 2003-01-01 sold to JP the Mint in a private sale  $350000
• Detective Comics #27 8.0 2001-01-01 Mastronet $278190
• Captain America Comics #1 9.8 Allentown 2001-01-01 sold to John Verzyl in a private sale $260000
• Whiz #2 NM-NM+ Church 1995-01-01 "private sale?"  $176000
• Detective Comics #27 8.5 Church 1994-01-01 "private sale?" $125000
• Detective Comics #27 "high grade" 1993-01-01 "private sale?"  $101000
• Action Comics #1 78 Cage Copy 1992-01-01 Sotheby's $82500
• Detective Comics #27 NM-MT Allentown 1990-01-01 sold to "The Dentist" in a private sale $80000 
• Action Comics #1 NM Church 1984-01-01 eBay sold to "The Dentist" in a private sale  $25000

What I would like to do is fill in the gaps between the "big 2" in the 1980s and then start to piece together some numbers for the 1970s. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Hey Rob. You sure the Church Action #1 sale was in 1984....?

I thought it was in 1982. 

EDIT: Chuck claims it was 1983:

http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg168.html

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[sfcityduck]

39 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Hey Rob. You sure the Church Action #1 sale was in 1984....?

I thought it was in 1982. 

EDIT: Chuck claims it was 1983:

http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg168.html

 

I believe it passed through someone else's hands between Chuck and the Dentist.  Maybe Snyder.  I forget the story.

[adamstrange]

4 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

And, as I know you are aware, inflation calculators have their own problems.  But, I would be interested in seeing charts as you propose, just not in the first instance.

I prefer knowing the actual prices paid, so I can apply my own context.

I'm very much in agreement. I always want to see actual point in time prices even when inflation adjusted values are shared.

[adamstrange]

9 hours ago, rob_react said:

As part of promotion for that I was going to do a big blog post showing off one of the technologies in the book by doing a new data visualization and explaining how it's done.

One of my current assignments is creating a short educational session based on Edward Tufte's classic, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

[Yellow Kid]

Don't forget Huff's, How to Lie with Statistics, which emphasizes the visual presentation of data. 

[rob_react]

 

9 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

I think we're all aware of inflation so I don't think anyone will be misled.  

And, as I know you are aware, inflation calculators have their own problems.  But, I would be interested in seeing charts as you propose, just not in the first instance.

I prefer knowing the actual prices paid, so I can apply my own context.

I will add the inflation adjusted numbers on a toggle because it's interesting and easy enough to do, but my interest is actually in the X axis, not the Y. It's a chart of the record price paid for a comic book, so it's going to go up, from left to right. I can draw the general trend without calculating anything or having any data beyond whats already in my head. Sometimes the jumps are bigger and sometimes they're lower, but they will keep going up. 

To that point- I'm only going to have two ticks on the Y- 0 and the upper bound. What I'm interested in is what was the #1 book at any given time, as perceived by collectors who would have known such a thing at the time, and how long each book held the record (e.g., 2003/2004-2010.)

The most important scale (for me) is between the books that are adjacent to each other on the x axis and how big (or small) the x axis gap is between them, not the difference (raw or inflation adjusted) between  $250 in 1965 and $3000000 in 2014. The example of the Church Flash Comics #1 and the Pay Copy actually illustrate what I'm trying to do. While the prices were different at the time when adjusting for inflation none of us called that out at the time, or if we did, we collectively didn't care enough to make a distinction that stuck. They were simply tied.  

My guess is, visually, there won't be all that much difference visually between inflation adjusted and raw charts, just because of the scale (it's still $2000 on the lower bound up to $3 million and change on the upper.) 

If I were comparing the $ values as the focus, I would do a different visualization that illustrated the price gaps in a way that you could actually see the different. 

[rob_react]

6 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

I believe it passed through someone else's hands between Chuck and the Dentist.  Maybe Snyder.  I forget the story.

It did. 

[rob_react]

5 hours ago, adamstrange said:

One of my current assignments is creating a short educational session based on Edward Tufte's classic, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

[G.A.tor]

Don’t forget my 2011 action 1 Cgc 6.5 that sold at 625k via clink. Believe that was a record for a bit 

[sfcityduck]

What's interesting to me is what book was the most valuable when.  We all know Action 1 was the record for the greatest number of years, but MC 1 is a clear number two and Whiz 2 might well be a clear no. 3 over D 27 (depending on whether a certain transaction was cash or trade).  Flash 1 apparently shared the record for a while, and CA 1 brings up the rear with one year in the sun a while back.