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FMV and GPA Price Manipulation
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38 posts in this topic

We all talk about FMV for books on this board all the time and most (all?) of us use GPA for pricing data. But what is "FMV"? I think this term means different things to different people.

All books will sell within a range. That range tends to be pretty broad, 10-30% seems pretty standard for the stuff I consistently track (Silver, Bronze and Copper keys in HG). To use actual pricing data (from GPA), Hulk 181 in 9.0 has sold for a low of $4750 and a high of $6405 this year and pretty much everywhere in between in the 10 sales that GPA has tracked. This is a 3 month sample, so all recent sales. That's a variance of $1655 or 34% of the low price. That is a pretty broad range and is repeated (percentage wise) for almost any book you can think of that has a meaningful number of copies tracked within the last couple of years. So I ask you, esteemed members of the board, what is FMV for a Hulk 181 in 9.0? Is it GPA low (doubtful if you are selling but probably what you advocate when buying)? Is it GPA high (sellers unite)? Is it something in the middle? I believe that everyone will have their own interpretation of what FMV is and that interpretation isn't going to be consistent from person to person. But we all quote "FMV" as gospel around here. Without defining what "FMV" means to the person quoting it, it's useless. Boardie 1 says I'm willing to pay FMV for a Hulk 181 in 9.0 might mean $4750. Boardie 2, who happens to be selling a 9.0, probably thinks that boardie 1 is ready to shell out $6400 or something close to it. And $1600 is not an inconsequential amount of money to most people.

On to how GPA price manipulation is affecting "FMV". I accept that books sell within a pretty broad range. 10-30% I think is normal. But what about the outliers? Cases of 60-80% or more. I don't mean for books that suddenly get hot because of movie news or some such. That has a plausible explanation. I also accept that there can be wildly fluctuating results for highest graded and or stuff that just doesn't come up often. A couple of specific examples here of what I mean.

ASM 300 in 9.6. In 2018 the average was $747. There is 1 sale at $1250 and another at $1000. The vast majority (290 copies) sold between $700-800 with some going into the $600's and some into the $800's. There were 6 other copies that sold within 2 days of the $1250 sale for mid/high $700's. I mean on the exact same day that the $1250 sale happened, you could have bought 2 other 9.6 copies for $735 and $763 each. That's around $500 more or close to 70% more on the same day. This for a book that is readily available at any given time. I'm not buying that $1250 sale as being legit. IMO there is only one of 2 likely scenarios for that sale. One is that is was an old label, really sharp copy, that someone thought would upgrade to 9.8. The other is that it was a shill buy and that sale will never be consummated. It's just entirely too easy to pull that off on eBay with no one the wiser. If it was an upgrade candidate, that sale still isn't representative of a what a 9.6 would sell for. 95+% of the 9.6 copies out there are NOT old label upgrade candidates. Although my guess is that it was a shill sale. 

Another example. Journey Into Mystery 84. Why this book? No particularly good reason. I looked it up earlier today as I was looking at a copy online and noticed what I thought was a strange pricing pattern. Obviously a very different book from ASM 300 if only for the fact that it comes up for sale far less often. There are 2 tracked sales of 7.0's in the last 2 months. Both coincidentally enough for $1850. A bit strange that they would have the exact same sales price but whatever I think. Then I see that 7.0's in the last couple of years have sold in a pretty tight range of $1100-1300. That's a jump of 50-60% in a small time frame for a book that is not a key and not speculator driven. But wait... there's more. A 7.5 copy sold right in between those 2 $1850 sales for less at just under $1800. An 8.0 sold for $1900, just slightly more. With this book I'm far less certain than with the ASM 300 because it just doesn't sell as often and there are far fewer available. However, those 2 sales just kind of stick out to me like a sore thumb. I don't know if they were legit sales, maybe good upgrade candidates or what but they sure do affect "FMV" for that book.

Curious to see what others think on both how you define "FMV" and how you think price manipulation is affecting the market. 

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Lots of things could be coming into play. I know lots of buyers that buy the book and not the label. Visual appeal such as cut, color, degree of dust shadows ( or lack there of ), wrap and centeredness probably play a huge roll as well as page quality. Discriminating buyers are willing to pay a premium for these. More recently, newsstand or direct edition play a part also. I know there have been lots of discussions on these boards over and over again on the visual appeal of one book over another, some even preferring a book in lower grade just because they believe it looks better than one in a higher grade. 

Edited by Jaylam
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i agree with jaylam that with some books, it really makes a difference what the book looks like, or, like in the case of hulk181, whether or not it has white pages, which can be worth much, much more. i watched an xmen 1 cgc 4.0 with cihpping and really bad issues sell last year on heritage for a very low price, and a 4.5 sell for substantially more, but it was clearly because one presented SO much better than the other. so, i think it's important to compare apples to apples, even within the same book, if that makes sense. 

i dont really think GPA can claim to represent FMV on many books without major auction results like CL being part of the average, at least on less common books. i just recently discovered go collect, through some collector friends. gocollect.com seems to aggregate all the website results, including the aforementioned, and they actually state a fair market price for books. it seems at least a bit more accurate. 

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15 minutes ago, www.alexgross.com said:

i agree with jaylam that with some books, it really makes a difference what the book looks like, or, like in the case of hulk181, whether or not it has white pages, which can be worth much, much more. i watched an xmen 1 cgc 4.0 with cihpping and really bad issues sell last year on heritage for a very low price, and a 4.5 sell for substantially more, but it was clearly because one presented SO much better than the other. so, i think it's important to compare apples to apples, even within the same book, if that makes sense. 

i dont really think GPA can claim to represent FMV on many books without major auction results like CL being part of the average, at least on less common books. i just recently discovered go collect, through some collector friends. gocollect.com seems to aggregate all the website results, including the aforementioned, and they actually state a fair market price for books. it seems at least a bit more accurate. 

I fully agree and actually I don't think GPA is claiming anything really. They are just reporting sales prices. I have not seen them claim that their reporting should represent "FMV". That is just what is happening on the board and I'm sure elsewhere when books are being sold. If gocollect is reporting CL results, I have a feeling that they are doing so without CL's permission as CL has always been tight lipped about sharing this kind of info. 

And of course, presentation of a book and page quality can and will have an effect on prices. Which is a big reason for why there is a relatively broad range of prices that any book will sell for. But none of that answers the question of, how does one determine FMV. I'm curious to know how people define "FMV".

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29 minutes ago, Jaylam said:

Lots of things could be coming into play. I know lots of buyers that buy the book and not the label. Visual appeal such as cut, color, degree of dust shadows ( or lack there of ), wrap and centeredness probably play a huge roll as well as page quality. Discriminating buyers are willing to pay a premium for these. More recently, newsstand or direct edition play a part also. I know there have been lots of discussions on these boards over and over again on the visual appeal of one book over another, some even preferring a book in lower grade just because they believe it looks better than one in a higher grade. 

Sure all of that plays into it. But I highly doubt of the 200+ copies that sold last year, none except that $1250 one had good color, registration etc. And paying 75% more for a book that is literally everywhere seems curious, to say the least, based on presentation. I guarantee that it didn't present $500 worth better than ALL of the other 50 copies that sold within a couple of months of it. Unless of course as I mentioned earlier, old label upgrade candidate. But again, if that was the case, that isn't really a 9.6 sale. It was a lottery ticket at a 9.8. Most 9.6's will not fall into the category of old label upgrade candidate.

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I do know GPAnalysis does make an effort to screen out shill or fraudulent sales meant to skewer FMV if it can be reasonably determined that is what has happened. The owner of that service has been on the boards several times attesting to this, usually alerted to something as such by vigilant board members here. 

Edited by Jaylam
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10 minutes ago, Jaylam said:

I do know GPAnalysis does make an effort to screen out shill or fraudulent sales meant to skewer FMV if it can be reasonably determined that is what has happened. The owner of that service has been on the boards several times attesting to this, usually alerted to something as such by vigilant board members here. 

Yup I've seen George say that several times and I'm sure they do their best however it's not possible to police on eBay. I'm sure GPA is catching a very small percentage of the actual shill bidding and I believe usually because the book gets relisted quickly. If you don't relist it quickly and don't make it too obvious with low feedback "bidders" and private auctions and such, it's just not possible for GPA (or anyone really) to tell it was shilled. 

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Were they auctions you would not have necessary been able to buy the arm 300 for $735. Indeed, you would have had to bid higher and you have no idea if the winning bidder had another $50 or $100 in bids in them. But yes, that does not explain the difference between $700s and $1200s. They probably didn't have another $500 in them.

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14 hours ago, LordRahl said:

 I'm curious to know how people define "FMV".

When buying, it is 50% of asking.

When selling, it is double what the book is worth.

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Cool post and haven’t read it all yet, but to me (mostly a low-mid grade goldenage collector), FMV is whatever the price is that moves the book within 1 week for books <1,000 2 weeks for 1k+ but <5k and 1 month for 5k+ books.  If they take longer than the said amounts they’re probably priced too high.    Just my 2c

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22 hours ago, LordRahl said:

Another example. Journey Into Mystery 84. Why this book? No particularly good reason. I looked it up earlier today as I was looking at a copy online and noticed what I thought was a strange pricing pattern. Obviously a very different book from ASM 300 if only for the fact that it comes up for sale far less often. There are 2 tracked sales of 7.0's in the last 2 months. Both coincidentally enough for $1850.

Funny you mention that. I had a 7.0 to sell on eBay, and was trying to figure out how to price it. The $1850 seemed too high. So I cut it by $200. And it sold.

It may very well be a book on the rise, ala X-Men 2. 

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36 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

I have paid higher amounts for books in a lower grade that were wrapped better than a higher grade. 

I overpaid for this ASM 129 in 2013.  I just looked it up on CLink and I paid $1105 which about $100 more than the average at the time. 

There were several factors involved in that decision.

  • I knew the book would pop again.
  • I wanted vibrant colors
  • I wanted a nice wrap on the book because many copies of ASM 129 suffer from the white stripe miswrap along the spine. 

Totally worth it in my opinion.  Remember, not all books in grade are equal.  

 

 

ASM129cgc94.jpg

Spot on statement and a magnificent book to boot.  You made a great decision.

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On 4/12/2019 at 6:34 PM, LordRahl said:

I'm curious to know how people define "FMV".

Generally an average through all previous sales.

Once in a while, if a book is tough to price because of rarity I'll slap a strong price on it and field offers but generally speaking, I'll try to price stuff in the ballpark of where the average price would be.

When I was younger I used to price stuff aggressively but I came to realize that most people know that if it's a book they are looking for, they know how much a book should go for and stuff would sell in that range (unless it was a super hot book that was rising in price aggressively - in that case, it's a seller's market).

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On 4/12/2019 at 3:05 PM, Jaylam said:

I know there have been lots of discussions on these boards over and over again on the visual appeal of one book over another, some even preferring a book in lower grade just because they believe it looks better than one in a higher grade. 

Why would you expect anything else in this scenario?  (shrug)

After all, the majority of us here are collecting comic books, not CGC labels.  (thumbsu

Edited by lou_fine
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Many thoughts on @LordRahl's original post. 

1) GPA is a useful collection of data, but it is not complete data as it doesnt record CLINK, ComicConnect, or private sales like here on the boards. 

2) GPA averages are based on arbitrary markers of 12 months and 90 days as well as averages per year. These arbitrary timeframes can deflate or inflate reported averages depending on what data falls into them. A book with a 90 day average that is enjoying a sudden spike in value has a FMV higer than its GPA 90 day average. And similarly if a book has started to deflate may stay "propped up" as long as some higher dollar sales remain within the various average windows. 

3) Manipulation is a strong word, and typically GPA rids its data of questionable "sales". I think, based on your examples, what you are seeing as "manipulation" is often the occasional BIN hitting from someone who is not well versed in the hobby. BINs can definitely be outliers (both high and low!) I do so wish there was a way for us to see averages with and without the inclusion of BINs since true auctions are the best indicator of FMV, and BINs muddy the water. Usually if I see an outlier with a round number I assume it's a BIN. And then I have to decide if I include that in my valuation or not. 

4) While true auctions are the best indicator of FMV, they arent perfect either. Poor pictures/descriptions, misspellings, listing in wrong catagories can all deflate the final total on an auction and influence the appearance of FMV. So even if you just look at auction results they can have other factors influencing their results. 

 

At the end of the day I determine my FMV for my books by keeping track of GPA, and also CLink, CConnect and private sales where I can find them...

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6 hours ago, miraclemet said:

Many thoughts on @LordRahl's original post. 

1) GPA is a useful collection of data, but it is not complete data as it doesnt record CLINK, ComicConnect, or private sales like here on the boards. 

 

As far as I am aware, the overwhelming majority of CC's auction results are actually captured by GPA and it is only the odd ones that are not, for whatever reason there might be.  (shrug)

 

6 hours ago, miraclemet said:

BINs can definitely be outliers (both high and low!) I do so wish there was a way for us to see averages with and without the inclusion of BINs since true auctions are the best indicator of FMV, and BINs muddy the water.

 

Well, if you exclude BIN's, the only problem here is that you would most likely end up not capturing the large majority of eBay auction results.  After all, almost everybody is now using the BIN auction format to try to sell their books, as opposed to the old traditional open auction format for fear of selling their books at a loss.  This is exactly why I feel that GPA numbers are skewed to the upside as most books are sitting out there for weeks on end before somebody finally hits the odd BIN, while there are skads of other copies of the same book in equivalent grade that sits there unsold at the same BIN price, or in some cases, even at a slightly lower price point.  hm

 

6 hours ago, miraclemet said:

At the end of the day I determine my FMV for my books by keeping track of GPA, and also CLink, CConnect and private sales where I can find them...

 

(thumbsu

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