OPG 49th edition - Ho Hum etc 2 2

[Cat-Man_America]

As someone who just bought the hardcover version of this year’s OSG my reason for purchasing it was Buddy’s ad on the back!  

Seriously, the Guide has two primary uses, maintaining a bottom line conservative estimate of where minimal values stand in the overall hierarchy of collectible comics and as a basis for starting negotiations with a dealer.  It’s all about market stability. The reason that we often discuss double and triple Guide hammer prices is because the OSG makes sense on that level.  

The only way to get real time, month to month or week to week value fluctuations reflected through auction sales and (inconsistently) through some private sales is via internet sales analysis sites.  Alas, there is no single analysis site I’m aware of that provides complete information.  Some limit it to specific auctions, some to CGC only slabbed books, etc.  IMO, this info isn’t proprietary because it’s essential to grade both current real time pricing and health of the hobby.

There you have it! My 

[dannyboy]

2 hours ago, szav said:

At this point OPGs inaccuracy can really only be explained as a conscious, stubborn, and puzzling refusal to accept reality.  Only 2 groups of people I can think of benefit from it... dealers/individuals who want to low ball naïve people selling comics and collections, 

This.  I’ve posted on this before.  I’m not claiming it’s the intent but when ma and/or pa walk into a comic shop and get handed a very professional looking price guide...well, from an outsiders view  it’s a scam in progress.  This upsets me a 1000 times more than simply “not accurately keeping up with the market”.  Although that’s annoying too.

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, aardvark88 said:

18 hours ago, szav said:

I liked Firefly and Serenity but how did that one  make sense on the OPG cover?

Guess one could always get the 'Firefly' OPG signed by their former cast (Jewel Staite, Tudyk, etc.) members, as they are still on tour at various comicons.

Not sure about the other shops in the city here, but not very likely as I went down to the biggest LCS in this neck of the woods and for once, they ordered 100% of only 1 cover version and it shouldn't be hard to figure out which one.  

Like them, they also couldn't understand the rationale for the second cover theme since it was a series with a small fan base from so long ago.  

[Cat-Man_America]

2 hours ago, G.A.tor said:

Cap 3 has been triple cap2 for years and years. We don’t need ospg to tell us that

Says the man with a nice Cap 3 on display at his booth!   ... 

My tragically misunderstood Cap 2 (first round ”Frisbee” shield Cap issue & Hitler combat cover) has apparently been relegated to the Sidekick’s Lounge along with Bucky & second bananas from the Tick’s universe.   

Note: I say this as a huge Schomburg ...and Gator... fan.  Love #3 with the Red Skull cover, but Joe Simon revisiting Hitler on the second issue is highly prized as well.  Like #3, Cap 2 rarely comes up for sale, especially in high grade. Not sure I’d agree with the 3:1 ratio either, but I totally agree that Schomburg cover books are through the roof. IMO, #2 & 3 are much closer in value in grade.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Cat-Man_America

[entalmighty1]

3 hours ago, october said:

People still pay attention to the OSPG? It's completely irrelevant for golden age. At this point I think it does an actual disservice to the hobby by spreading objectively, demonstrably false pricing data. I mean, this HAS to be on purpose. It's really not that hard to find clear pricing trends on a lot of the books they miss. 

Like someone else said, it's garbage and people need to stop supporting it. 

As long as I keep running into dealers at smaller shows that use OSPG for pricing everything, including keys, I hope people continue to support it.

[lou_fine]

11 hours ago, entalmighty1 said:

As long as I keep running into dealers at smaller shows that use OSPG for pricing everything, including keys, I hope people continue to support it.

As I have stated in one of the other threads recently:

When I first started collecting comic books many decades ago, I always dreamed that I might hopefully be able to sell my books at guide price one day. 

Now that I am primarily into GA collecting, I now dream that I might hopefully be able to buy some GA beauties at only full condition guide price.  

Edited July 19, 2019 by lou_fine

[Crowzilla]

4 hours ago, G.A.tor said:

Cap 3 has been triple cap2 for years and years. We don’t need ospg to tell us that

Maybe not you, but lots of people do who rely on Overstreet for accurate information.

Plus there will always be when we look back in 20 years and talk about how in 2019 you could buy a Cap 3 for less than a Cap 2, or that until this month Batman #1 was worth less than All American #16.

[Illustrious]

At this point, the only reason I buy Overstreet is for the market reports. In the past decade, I don't recall ever going by any of the prices listed in it when buying or selling comics. And yes, Cap #3 is way better than Cap #2.

[Sqeggs]

On 7/17/2019 at 8:00 PM, szav said:

Dunno a year in between each one is an awful long time for even one person to say... look at GPA and notice they’re off by 5000-10,000% on a great deal of books.

Its a mammoth task and I don’t expect them to hit the nail on the head for everything... but I think they should strive for ballpark accuracy and they clearly do not.

I think it’s past time for a better guide.

He did publish a quarterly update for a while, iirc. Any annual guide is bound to be out of date in pricing hot books on the day it's printed. 

For GA, I think he's relatively accurate for mid-grade, mid-run, not-hot books.  If you follow the auctions on, say, Heritage, it's fairly unusual for a book in that category to go way above or way below guide. So, I don't think dealers are necessarily crazy to continue using the guide to price those books.

Right from the beginning, he stated that he wasn't going to chase trends because a one-off sale (or two) might give a misleading idea of what a book's underlying value is once the collector who paid that high price is no longer in the market. The GA market is inherently volatile with a lot of books falling into the category of "not many collectors chasing not many copies." I think we've seen some of that with the softness in mid-grade and below Bakers. I've seen decent copies languish on eBay that would have been instantly grabbed (probably by me!) at the BIN price two or three years ago. 

I think anyone contemplating spending significant money on a GA book needs to check GPA, dealers' sites, and ask around before buying. In that situation, relying just on Overstreet would be a mistake, but not one that I think very many people make these days.

[telerites]

1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

For GA, I think he's relatively accurate for mid-grade, mid-run, not-hot books.

Don't you think most of this is because the values don't fluctuate much from year to year?  I do believe many GA genres see stable increases from year to year (maybe 2-5%) in the mid-grade ranges and to a certain extent in lower grades as well.  I always thought  he adjusted these by some modest gain.  Higher grades, hotter genres, hotter books, etc., he doesn't or isn't able to capture.

I may be way off base but that was what I always thought.

[Sqeggs]

1 hour ago, telerites said:

Don't you think most of this is because the values don't fluctuate much from year to year?  I do believe many GA genres see stable increases from year to year (maybe 2-5%) in the mid-grade ranges and to a certain extent in lower grades as well.  I always thought  he adjusted these by some modest gain.  Higher grades, hotter genres, hotter books, etc., he doesn't or isn't able to capture.

I may be way off base but that was what I always thought.

You could well be right, although I think he's kept some prices constant for a year or two or maybe more. I don't follow his listings closely enough to know for sure.

Every now and then, he's made some across the board adjustments. I remember years ago, I think he whacked most mid-grade SA Marvels after it became clear that eBay had reset that market. 

[Robot Man]

3 hours ago, Illustrious said:

At this point, the only reason I buy Overstreet is for the market reports. In the past decade, I don't recall ever going by any of the prices listed in it when buying or selling comics. And yes, Cap #3 is way better than Cap #2.

Even the market reports are misleading and out of date. Besides, it’s the same o, same o. Keys, classic covers and IH #181 is hot. We all know that anyway. Anybody who spends any amount of money on comics already follow EBay, the boards and major auctions to better gauge trends. Kind of fun to see what is selling or not selling in different parts of the country. Interesting to see that Bedrock can still sell Lash  La Rue and other Dell westerns in TX for example. 

I buy the guide mostly out of habit. I have bought every one since #2. It is also useful for me for mid grade or average GA and SA stuff pricing. There are articles that are interesting like the war report and others. 

Up to date pricing on hot books and the “top ten” as well as market reports, not so much. Besides, my wife automatically orders it VERY cheap on Amazon without even asking me. Always brings back the flood of nostalgia when it arrives.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Robot Man

[Sqeggs]

Every year I think "Eh, maybe I'll skip this year" and then every year I end up buying it. There's always something worthwhile to read in it.

[Robot Man]

I posted this over in another thread and decided that it might be better here. Sorry for the oversight.

I have collected comics since before there was a guide... I have seen the prices rise every year since it came out. I never in my wildest dreams thought they would be worth what they are today. Overstreet’s opinion has always been to take a conservative approach to pricing. It has been good for the hobby overall. This approach has always been supported by dealers and collectors alike. Is it always accurate? No, but healthy for the market. 

I will approach just one current example... LB Cole books. I remember probably 35 years ago when I was introduced to them by Redbeard. Never really noticed them before and boy were they cool (and cheap too), They were off the radar to most collectors. I bought as many as I could find. Then the prices started to rise as people discovered them. The prices started to climb very fast and soon they just wern’t affordable anymore. I moved on for a while. A lot of people were left holding the bag when they stopped selling at (for that time) for nose bleed prices. Eventually, the market crashed and when they did, I was back in. In the past year or so they have started to spike drastically again to a level I have never seen. This seems to have come from a few opportunistic individuals and like rats to the cheese, the lemmings have swarmed to them. I ain’t buying the hype. I will wait until the swarm clears to start buying them again. And if you want you can slip in Matt Baker, Planets, and PCH in place of LB Cole if you want. They have all followed similar patterns as long as I’ve been collecting them.

My question is, is this accurate or good for the hobby? I say no. People are going to lose a lot of money and many will leave the hobby. It has historically been the case for as long as I’ve been in it. 

Should Overstreet be caught up in this fury? As fast as they go up, they WILL come down as the market adjusts. 

We all agree that the Overstreet guide is out of touch with our ever changing market. LB Cole books are just a microcosm of our hobby. How on earth can we expect a yearly guide with thousands of books be completely up to date? I for one, (maybe old school) still believe that a conservative approach is much more healthy to our hobby. I think that prices in the “guide” (the word is after all guide) should go up AND down at reasonable levels to protect it’s self. 

And, no matter what you think about the pricing (which seems to be the most important aspect of this hobby to many), there is, and will never be, any more important book ever produced for information and history in our hobby...

[Chicago Boy]

I was surprised at the disparity in NM pricing of Action 1 to Tec 27. 

[Northwest]

On 7/17/2019 at 2:20 PM, szav said:

At first glance ... looks like the same old same old.  The values for the vast majority of GA titles are woefully low relative to actual FMV.  Not at all surprising but disappointing nonetheless.  

One day ... they may make a better effort to capture actual values... or maybe someone will come out with a price guide that does a better job.

Perhaps they should rename this edition "Dealers' Buying Price Guide" 🤣  all jokes aside, I do see benefit in being prudent in valuation given what we have observed in other collectible markets such as sports cards 💭 

Edited July 20, 2019 by Northwest

[lou_fine]

13 hours ago, Illustrious said:

At this point, the only reason I buy Overstreet is for the market reports.

Well, then you should definitely be dancing like a banana as you are in for a real treat and a field day as there are 140 pages of market reports by his various advisors in this year's edition of the guide.  

I still remember back in the day when the market reports were written entirely by Overstreet himself.  The first guide I ever brought was the Barks #7 edition and the market report by Bob was just 1 to 2 pages long.  He eventually managed to get them up to 20 to 30 pages and a definite must read before he basically gave way to his advisors and his input started to go down.  This year's edition's is basically a 5-page market summary made up of selected excerpts from the various market reports which is then followed by 140 pages of these detailed reports.

I remember back in the pre-internet days and pre-CBM days when these market reports were one of the first things that I used to read.  Definitely not the case anymore as virtually all of them seem to talk about the same small number of hot books and mundane lists of books which they had sold throughout the year.  A perfect example being CL's market report which is really nothing more that 15+ real long pages detailing all of their major and minor sales for the whole year.  Looks like they have clearly taken over the totally mundane and almost unreadable market report mantle from Doug Sulipa who used to also have 15+ pages which simply did nothing but listed virtually all of their sales for the entire year.  

With the boards here along with other social media platforms, the market reports are sadly no longer a immediate necessary read for me as market information is so much more readily available through other means now.  Probably explains why it took me until a few weeks ago before I finally managed to drudged my way through to the final market report for last year's edition of the guide.  Similar pattern to the past few years as my only real incentive now is to simply finish them before the next edition of the guide comes out.  

Edited July 21, 2019 by lou_fine

[adamstrange]

9 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Every year I think "Eh, maybe I'll skip this year" and then every year I end up buying it. There's always something worthwhile to read in it.

Every year I think, I might buy it but every year I skip it.  Then I check it out at a friend's place and am reminded why I skipped.

[telerites]

9 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Looks like they have clearly taken over the totally mundane and almost unreadable market report mantle from Doug Sulipa

I have never met Doug but have bought some things from him.  He has always been pleasant and fast in service but your post reminded me of his website and yes I remember his reports too.  

[N e r V]

21 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Every year I think "Eh, maybe I'll skip this year" and then every year I end up buying it. There's always something worthwhile to read in it.

Serious (non hater at least) Question. Is there really articles in it worth the price of one now? 

I was buying it every few years only but finally stopped. Everyone admits it’s useless in its main purpose to exist which is a price guide. I can use an older guide for information on something since they rarely update the inaccurate information in it. So I’m left with only looking at the comic covers it reproduces. They did have at one time some good articles too but am I missing something?

Again meant as a serious straightforward post. Other than habit which I used to be guilty of myself I’m always curious why Overstreet is still “alive” these days...