So, Why Has AF #15 Continued to Drop In Value? 8 8

[Northwest]

6 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Your theory that you had posted would definitely be correct if the market was made up of pure comic book collectors only.  

In actual fact though, a significant portion of the comic book market is comprised of short-term flippers and mid-term investors who are more than willing to pick up copies (even multiple copies at that) as long as they believe there is going to be continuing upward movement on the price of the book.  Their only rationale for buying is not to keep the book, instead it is to sell if for a profit at a higher price point going forwards.  

Right, I am assuming a pure speculator would pay less than a priori fair market value. So in this context, values would decline proportional to the expected profit those buyers seek. In an environment like we have today, I am suggesting the days of perpetual growth require collectors (and speculators) to fine tune their approach. That is, unless (or until) newer buyers become a much bigger share of the market to offset the supply increase. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Northwest

[GAMBIT]

1 hour ago, Northwest said:

There is demand for the book, yes, but it is also about how the market can sustain the price level with the increase in supply (due to original SA collectors retiring/downsizing).  In a no reserve auction environment, there are only a finite number of potential buyers. Each time a copy is purchased, that means one less buyer at that price point so you shift to the next willingness to pay on the demand curve. This requires having enough buyers with a high enough valuation to maintain prices (a comparable shift to demand), which may be challenging as economic growth decelerates and demographics shift. 

If it were only that simple.  

 

 Just because someone isnt a buyer today , doesnt mean they arent tomorrow. 

Just because someone buys an copy today doesnt mean that the buyer pool is now 1 less. 

 

As I said before. AF15 will always be a high in demand book. Fluctuation in price is expected. A bubble burst is not.

(Not on this book)

[Northwest]

3 minutes ago, GAMBIT said:

If it were only that simple.  

 

 Just because someone isnt a buyer today , doesnt mean they arent tomorrow. 

Just because someone buys an copy today doesnt mean that the buyer pool is now 1 less. 

 

As I said before. AF15 will always be a high in demand book. Fluctuation in price is expected. A bubble burst is not.

(Not on this book)

I never suggested it is a bubble or will crash. I also do believe the book is of significant cultural importance to sustain a certain value. The question is will that equilibrium value always be higher, especially as available supply shifts upward? The influx of new buyers you mentioned would be a demand increase, which I mentioned as a possibility. It is just about how the demand and supply curves move relative to each other. Yes there is a lot of signaling in the market which adds complexity, and the short term fluctuations are part of the market setting process. 

[Beige]

One other thing - all this talk of AF #15  being common - the actual number of blue labelled books stands at 2059.

And I guarantee that 95% of people re-subbing did not hand in their label, but kept it for 'insurance'.

So if we say 25% resubbed - then that 2059 drops to 1520.

A few other Silver Books - Jim #83 =1400 Blue label, DD = 3528, Avengers #1 = 2907 FF #1 = 1538

 

Just my humble

[kimik]

The number of slabbed copies of all SA keys is still several times lower than the actual number of copies tucked away in collections. There are still plenty of collections out there with mulitples of raw GA/SA/BA keys that have not come to market yet. 

[peewee22]

4 minutes ago, kimik said:

The number of slabbed copies of all SA keys is still several times lower than the actual number of copies tucked away in collections. There are still plenty of collections out there with mulitples of raw GA/SA/BA keys that have not come to market yet. 

Some may stay where they are for years. Yes, some will be "cashed in".

Edited January 2, 2020 by peewee22

[kimik]

6 minutes ago, peewee22 said:

Some may stay where they are for years. Yes, some will be "cashed in".

The only question is whether they are cashed in by the collectors or their heirs. I am aware of several collections that have passed down via inheritance and the new owners are not selling. In some cases, I doubt they will move for a long while as the son(s) collected with their parent and, most importantly, they do not need the money right now. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by kimik

[peewee22]

2 minutes ago, kimik said:

The only question is whether they are cashed in by the collectors or their heirs. I am aware of several collections that have passed down via inheritance and the new owners are not selling. In some cases, I doubt they will move for a long while as the son(s) collected with their parent and, most importantly, they do not need the money right now. 

Interesting, the book I purchased in 2011 was purchased by an original owner who died in a terrible auto accident in 1973. Most of the Marvel keys were there in high grade. The parents and siblings left the books in an upstairs closet until 2003. 

Case in point; it could takes a long time for books to come to market, if at all.

[lou_fine]

2 hours ago, Beige said:

One other thing - all this talk of AF #15  being common - the actual number of blue labelled books stands at 2059.

And I guarantee that 95% of people re-subbing did not hand in their label, but kept it for 'insurance'.

So if we say 25% resubbed - then that 2059 drops to 1520.

A few other Silver Books - Jim #83 =1400 Blue label, DD = 3528, Avengers #1 = 2907 FF #1 = 1538

 

2 hours ago, kimik said:

The number of slabbed copies of all SA keys is still several times lower than the actual number of copies tucked away in collections.

+1

I would definitely agree with the above statement since I have seen far more RAW copies of all of the Marvel SA keys, as opposed to graded slabbed copies.  

The only real value that I find in the CGC population census is from a relative comparison point of view, as I feel the census counts would capture only a small fraction of the total number of actual books out there.  

 

2 hours ago, kimik said:

There are still plenty of collections out there with mulitples of raw GA/SA/BA keys that have not come to market yet. 

Like many other long time GA collectors out there from well before CGC ever opened their doors for business, there is absolutely no reason at all to get a book graded and slabbed until it comes time to sell it.  In addition, if they have GA books in their personal collection, some of them might also have some realtively nice SA books along with uber HG and still raw BA and CA books which they might have cherry picked off the shelves of the LCS's when these books first cam out.  I guess only time will tell as more of these collections enters into the marketplace going forward.     

Edited January 2, 2020 by lou_fine

[Gotham Kid]

3 hours ago, Beige said:

One other thing - all this talk of AF #15  being common - the actual number of blue labelled books stands at 2059.

We are talking about a book from 1962 not 1939. It did not have to survive a World War among other things. What was the original print run ? 500K copies ? 1 Mil ?

To think only 2000+ untouched copies survived is nonsensical.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Gotham Kid

[Sweet Lou 14]

1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

Like many other long time GA collectors out there from well before CGC ever opened their doors for business, there is absolutely no reason at all to get a book graded and slabbed until it comes time to sell it.

I have to quibble with this statement a little bit.  Two years ago I decided to have pretty much all of my pre-1975 books graded because that was the best way to ascertain their value, determine which books were not as valuable as I might have thought, chart a course for upgrading where necessary, and make life easier for my kids for that inevitable day when they have to decide what to do with their inheritance.  And I'm still in my 40s, hopefully a long way away from that day.  It will likely be decades before these books are ever sold.

[jimjum12]

6 hours ago, Gotham Kid said:

We are talking about a book from 1962 not 1939. It did not have to survive a World War among other things. What was the original print run ? 500K copies ? 1 Mil ?

To think only 2000+ untouched copies survived is nonsensical.

Based on circulation figures for surrounding and similar time frame issues, a print run of 140,000 to 180,000 would be likely. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited January 2, 2020 by jimjum12

[Gotham Kid]

1 hour ago, jimjum12 said:

7 hours ago, Gotham Kid said:

We are talking about a book from 1962 not 1939. It did not have to survive a World War among other things. What was the original print run ? 500K copies ? 1 Mil ?

To think only 2000+ untouched copies survived is nonsensical.

Based on circulation figures for surrounding and similar time frame issues, a print run of 140,000 to 180,000 would be likely.

Thanks. So considering now 140,000 copies printed, 3300 copies (Total universal + restored) equates to roughly 2.3%

Edited January 2, 2020 by Gotham Kid

[jimjum12]

1 minute ago, Gotham Kid said:

Thanks. So considering now 140,000 copies printed, 2000 copies equates to roughly 1.4%

According to Stan, Amazing Adult Fantasy was scheduled for cancellation due to poor sales, so the lower estimate is likely correct. He had a hard time convincing Martin Goodman ( the Publisher and his Uncle...) to even allow him to publish the Spider-man character. Goodman was a notorious tightwad, so he certainly wouldn't have increased the print run. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[JollyComics]

Many baby boomers are in mid to late 60 and will retire within seven years before getting full vested social security benefits. They may have them in their collections that may go out to market or inherit to their surviving children.

My friend's father still has his original copy that he bought it from the newsstand ever since. He is not ready to retire.

Edited January 2, 2020 by JollyComics

[kimik]

9 hours ago, Sweet Lou 14 said:

I have to quibble with this statement a little bit.  Two years ago I decided to have pretty much all of my pre-1975 books graded because that was the best way to ascertain their value, determine which books were not as valuable as I might have thought, chart a course for upgrading where necessary, and make life easier for my kids for that inevitable day when they have to decide what to do with their inheritance.  And I'm still in my 40s, hopefully a long way away from that day.  It will likely be decades before these books are ever sold.

You are more of an outlier/exception to the rule. The long time owned GA and SA collections I know of are all raw and the owners have no intention of slabbing due to cost and concerns re: having books "go missing" en route to Sarasota. Now, when they pass on to their heirs, I would expect the big books in some of them to be taken to Florida in person since the heirs either collect slabs, or if they are selling the collection will want to maximize value. 

[JollyComics]

One more thing....few Action Comics #1 owners didn't like the idea of having their book to be encased.  One person still has a raw copy of Edgar Church Action Comics #1 (many people believe it would be NM 9.4 or NM+ 9.6) since 1977.  They like to keep them in safe places.

Ten years ago, I tried to buy my friend's brother who owns X-Men #1 since 1981 after bought it off the wall in the comic book store for only $30.  My friend told me that he is already attached to it.  He rejected my generous offer.  They are guardians of Holy Grail (mega-key comic books).

[Glassman10]

I would not discount Mom's everywhere driving down the number of Comics that did survive. Moms on a tear are efficient. I lost my entire Golden age group to mine. The other aspect of the notion that there are lots of collections of SA still out there in closets has a genuine downside. I've been looking at scans of a really significant collection for a number of weeks now that go back into the golden age and also contain significant silver age materials. Due to the way they were stored in 1970, virtually all of them have sustained  substantial tanning damage and in some cases more sever actual rot of the paper. In 1970, the notion of protecting Comics was in a relative infancy. Why would people go to such lengths with a product that had little value? In many cases, they didn't. The bags at the time were opalescent. Backer boards were not something in common usage and Howard Rogofsky was the primary dealer of Comics. Things change but storage may have been ignored. My collection sat in cardboard boxes raw for fifty years. It didn't help. 

[OuterboroGuy]

37 minutes ago, Glassman10 said:

I would not discount Mom's everywhere driving down the number of Comics that did survive. Moms on a tear are efficient. I lost my entire Golden age group to mine. The other aspect of the notion that there are lots of collections of SA still out there in closets has a genuine downside. 

I kind of have a hard time believing there are a substantial number of "lost" or "undiscovered" collections of SA comics out there in closets, attics and basements.   Real collectors who have unslabbed books?  Yes, probably a lot of those, although with prices lately it would seem crazy for people not to slab and sell any extras they might have, unless they already drowning in cash.

Edited January 2, 2020 by OuterboroGuy
typo

[lou_fine]

10 hours ago, Sweet Lou 14 said:

11 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Like many other long time GA collectors out there from well before CGC ever opened their doors for business, there is absolutely no reason at all to get a book graded and slabbed until it comes time to sell it.

I have to quibble with this statement a little bit.  Two years ago I decided to have pretty much all of my pre-1975 books graded because that was the best way to ascertain their value,

Is this another case of whether the chicken or the egg came first?  

If you are a long term comic book collector, I believe you should already have some general idea with respect to the potential value of your individual books.  Isn't this the basic piece of information which you need to have in the first place to figure out if your books are even worth to have them graded at all.  Especially if you are talking about pre-1975 BA books which are actually relatively common, and in more cases than not, would not even be worth grading at all once you add in all of the grading and other ancillary fees involved.  

From my own personal point of view, if I was planning to keep the books for my personal collection, slabs would simply take up so much more storage space than raw books.  In addition, you wouldn't be able to enjoy them the same way that you normally could with a raw comic book if they were entombed in one of those slabs.  The other major reason is that with all of the ongoing changes that CGC is constantly making with respect to label modifications, pedigree designation changes, restoration/conservation definition changes, etc.; your previously slabbed book might not actually be reflective of whatever the current grading system is when it comes time for you to sell your books.