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GPA Issues
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413 posts in this topic

26 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

 

Sometimes when I am pricing multiple issues within a title, I will jump back and forth between issues to gauge value. It's impossible to do with this new site without going back and forth, and really it's unnecessarily time consuming.

It's more of a work-around than a solution, but you could always open a different issue into a new tab with a right click.

9.jpg.a2c2434ef1ca0362d8b5ac3e46ea4aa8.jpg

 

Edited by BlowUpTheMoon
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10 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

It's more of a work-around than a solution, but you could always open a different issue into a new tab with a right click.

That's a work around I use on other sites and will start using it on this.

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On a side note, I just want to add that my criticism wasn't meant to be personal and just constructive as I've known George for a long time and have been a large supporter of his product for as long as I've known about it. Over the years we've talked a lot about stuff.

George reached out to me, is fully aware of this thread and people's complaints and is making tweaks and changes.

So I guess right now we'll need a little patience until he gets things the way he wants them.

 

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On 12/9/2019 at 1:50 PM, Aman619 said:

I used Age of Data in the same sense and we can all search for the best deals on hotels, fights, cars, fridges, shoes, etc etc.  Prices are out there and searchable.  It has changed retail, and how we do nearly everything today. Some benefited.  Others lost business. but theres no going backwards. Comics however are really small and clinging to the past is still a viable option. My other point was that like when slabbing took hold, on the whole dealers benefited from a loss of their "strategic advantages of the Knowledge" in that case "grading".  But once it was taken over by a third party (Oh No!)  it all worked out for them on balance.

So would it be great for the hobby is somehow GPA could show us nearly every reputable sale of a comic in a certain grade? Yes.  Can that ever happen?  not yet.

There is a fundamental error in what you say above. Slabbing has not "taken hold".  Grading has  NOT been "taken over by a third party". 

Here on this board, surrounded by people that like CGC's product, it is easy to forget that 99.9% of comic books are sold raw. Just go to any comic book convention. Go to any comic book store. A comic book store might have 100 professionally graded and encapsulated comic books for sale - out of an inventory of 100,000 comics. The comic book store owner or employees grade and price all those raw books. So to all the raws for sale on eBay, Facebook. 

Even among the very elite, most expensive comics it's hard to say with any certainty that most have been professionally graded and slabbed. The Dentist has never sent in his Mile High books for instance - and the Action 1 is believed to be the very best copy. Here on this message board, it's easy to forget that our playground is really very, very small.  

GPA is useful enough as is. I am 100% opposed to trying to expand the number of reporting sources - especially to the local comic shops and those selling at comic cons/shows and on Facebook. There is simply way too much temptation to manipulate data. So let GPA harvest data out of the real time online sales. Current data is largely"clean" and obtained without any human involvement. Yes, it misses all the private sales, all the sales at comic book stores, the sales at conventions. But those are the sources might have an agenda other than providing their sales information for the good of all.

And a final comment=== like others have said I find the new site slower than the old. Slower to respond, data is spread out and  seems to require more clicks to drill down to information I want than the old. But it's certainly usable and George is I know open to suggests for improvement.  I've emailed him several times now and he's quick to respond. 

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7 hours ago, Tony S said:

There is a fundamental error in what you say above. Slabbing has not "taken hold".  Grading has  NOT been "taken over by a third party". 

Here on this board, surrounded by people that like CGC's product, it is easy to forget that 99.9% of comic books are sold raw. Just go to any comic book convention. Go to any comic book store. A comic book store might have 100 professionally graded and encapsulated comic books for sale - out of an inventory of 100,000 comics. The comic book store owner or employees grade and price all those raw books. So to all the raws for sale on eBay, Facebook. 

Even among the very elite, most expensive comics it's hard to say with any certainty that most have been professionally graded and slabbed. The Dentist has never sent in his Mile High books for instance - and the Action 1 is believed to be the very best copy. Here on this message board, it's easy to forget that our playground is really very, very small.  

GPA is useful enough as is. I am 100% opposed to trying to expand the number of reporting sources - especially to the local comic shops and those selling at comic cons/shows and on Facebook. There is simply way too much temptation to manipulate data. So let GPA harvest data out of the real time online sales. Current data is largely"clean" and obtained without any human involvement. Yes, it misses all the private sales, all the sales at comic book stores, the sales at conventions. But those are the sources might have an agenda other than providing their sales information for the good of all.

And a final comment=== like others have said I find the new site slower than the old. Slower to respond, data is spread out and  seems to require more clicks to drill down to information I want than the old. But it's certainly usable and George is I know open to suggests for improvement.  I've emailed him several times now and he's quick to respond. 

Remind me again how shill bidding takes place at a show or store?

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7 hours ago, Tony S said:

Here on this board, surrounded by people that like CGC's product, it is easy to forget that 99.9% of comic books are sold raw.

This is true, however, it is also important to note that the higher the value of a comic book the higher the likelihood that it is CGC graded (or highly questionable why anyone would sell it raw).  $1 raw books?  No problem.  $100,000 raw books?  Danger, Will Robinson! 

Somewhere in between ---- CGC makes more sense at $100 than it does at $10, and CGC makes even more sense at $1,000 than it does at $100.

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11 hours ago, Tony S said:

There is a fundamental error in what you say above. Slabbing has not "taken hold".  Grading has  NOT been "taken over by a third party". 

Here on this board, surrounded by people that like CGC's product, it is easy to forget that 99.9% of comic books are sold raw. Just go to any comic book convention. Go to any comic book store. A comic book store might have 100 professionally graded and encapsulated comic books for sale - out of an inventory of 100,000 comics. The comic book store owner or employees grade and price all those raw books. So to all the raws for sale on eBay, Facebook. 

Even among the very elite, most expensive comics it's hard to say with any certainty that most have been professionally graded and slabbed. The Dentist has never sent in his Mile High books for instance - and the Action 1 is believed to be the very best copy. Here on this message board, it's easy to forget that our playground is really very, very small.  

GPA is useful enough as is. I am 100% opposed to trying to expand the number of reporting sources - especially to the local comic shops and those selling at comic cons/shows and on Facebook. There is simply way too much temptation to manipulate data. So let GPA harvest data out of the real time online sales. Current data is largely"clean" and obtained without any human involvement. Yes, it misses all the private sales, all the sales at comic book stores, the sales at conventions. But those are the sources might have an agenda other than providing their sales information for the good of all.

And a final comment=== like others have said I find the new site slower than the old. Slower to respond, data is spread out and  seems to require more clicks to drill down to information I want than the old. But it's certainly usable and George is I know open to suggests for improvement.  I've emailed him several times now and he's quick to respond. 

I'm skeptical that the percentage is that high, if you don't include new off the rack sales. But even if it is, I'm confident that the dollar amount of CGC graded books sold per year eclipses the dollar amount of raw books sold per year by a large margin. So while grading has not been taken over by a third party, high value books and transactions certainly have been.  

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yeah,  I agree.  While Tony S points out some interesting facts about slabbed vs raw in the hobby at large...  my comments referred solely to OUR world in discussing GPA. and GPA ONLY looks at GRADED books!  Whatever goes on with raw books  including what they sell for has no bearing on whether GPAs pricing data would be better with more sources of data. Of course it would be... assuming everyone contributing uploaded ALL their results, good and bad, and let the chips fall where they may. Which as we know, isnt a given as we saw in the early days with large players cherrypicking their data.

As is, GPA is very useful --- assuming one recognizes what it knows and what it doesn't know about the market for slabbed comics.

  

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13 hours ago, blazingbob said:

Remind me again how shill bidding takes place at a show or store?

Shill bidding isn't the potential problem with show dealers and LCS reporting. I'm a comic book dealer as well, so I'm not throwing shade on any particular person or way of selling comic books. . But LCS owners and dealers at shows have their favorite books. They have books they are deep in stock with and would like to sell and they have books they believe ought to be worth more.  Dealers sending in printed lists of books that they say they sold and the price  might be rock solid and might be completely made up numbers. 

Numbers harvested automatically and electronically from live auctions I have a lot more faith in. Yes. GPA only captures data from one part of the market. Which is why successful sellers don't just use one source (like GPA) for pricing information. 

Edited by Tony S
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4 minutes ago, Tony S said:

Shill bidding isn't the potential problem with show dealers and LCS reporting. I'm a comic book dealer as well, so I'm not throwing shade on any particular person or way of selling comic books. . But LCS owners and dealers at shows have their favorite books. They have books they are deep in stock with and would like to sell and they have books they believe ought to be worth more.  Dealers sending in printed lists of books that they say they sold and the price  might be rock solid and might be completely made up numbers. 

Numbers harvested automatically and electronically from live auctions I have a lot more faith in. Yes. GPA only captures data from one part of the market. Which is why successful sellers don't just use one source (like GPA) for pricing information. 

Well if you only trust Publicly recorded sales that would only come from Auction houses why are dealer provided sales currently on GPA then?  

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10 hours ago, LordRahl said:

I'm skeptical that the percentage is that high, if you don't include new off the rack sales. But even if it is, I'm confident that the dollar amount of CGC graded books sold per year eclipses the dollar amount of raw books sold per year by a large margin. So while grading has not been taken over by a third party, high value books and transactions certainly have been.  

Graded books total sales value eclipsing raw? I'm confident that is not true. I've been a dealer (mail order) for decades. I typically have my best books slabbed. A good buddy owns a LCS. I'm there on Wednesdays as a cooperative good for both our businesses thing. He gets his best books slabbed - which isn't at all common for LCS. The other two LCS in this town slab nothing.  For me and for my friend, all those $5-$50 raw sales add up to VASTLY more money that the good stuff that gets slabbed.  The good stuff getting slabbed is sometimes very profitable. The good stuff slabbed is much more liquid. 

I do agree that very high value transactions is where slabbed books show strength. The more expensive the book, the more comfortable buyers feel in buying when the book is third party graded and encapsulated. But even with the high dollar books plenty do change hands raw. Because the buyer trusts the seller. Bob (blazingbob) sells lots of expensive raw books. So does say MCS and Metropolis Comics. Customers trust them. 

Edited by Tony S
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7 minutes ago, blazingbob said:

Well if you only trust Publicly recorded sales that would only come from Auction houses why are dealer provided sales currently on GPA then?  

I can't answer your question to your or even my own satisfaction. It's up to George to decide what sources of information to use for GPA. I have no influence in that. It's up to me to decide if I want to pay $120 a year for his service. I find the service useful enough to me to pay the price. But it's only ONE tool, one pricing source I use. I use and pay for others. 

if George decides to open it up a lot more dealers, a lot of LCS, I might decide differently. 

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1 hour ago, Tony S said:

Graded books total sales value eclipsing raw? I'm confident that is not true. I've been a dealer (mail order) for decades. I typically have my best books slabbed. A good buddy owns a LCS. I'm there on Wednesdays as a cooperative good for both our businesses thing. He gets his best books slabbed - which isn't at all common for LCS. The other two LCS in this town slab nothing.  For me and for my friend, all those $5-$50 raw sales add up to VASTLY more money that the good stuff that gets slabbed.  The good stuff getting slabbed is sometimes very profitable. The good stuff slabbed is much more liquid. 

I do agree that very high value transactions is where slabbed books show strength. The more expensive the book, the more comfortable buyers feel in buying when the book is third party graded and encapsulated. But even with the high dollar books plenty do change hands raw. Because the buyer trusts the seller. Bob (blazingbob) sells lots of expensive raw books. So does say MCS and Metropolis Comics. Customers trust them. 

Unfortunately there is no way to tell. I wish we had some numbers to base raw sales on but that's just not feasible. I think we might be able to get an approximation on slabbed though. GPA is reporting approximately $124M in the past year from sales they track. As discussed, they capture only a portion of the pie. Comiclink alone would probably make up another $50-60M a year and if you factor in all the dealers that sell slabbed books and don't report to GPA, con transactions as well as sales at places like here on these forums, FB, Insta etc, I would think that $124M would be double at least. That would put the slabbed market as $250M+ per year. You really think there are more than $250M a year worth of raw books changing hands (not including new weekly sales)? I don't know the answer, I personally doubt that raw sales make up a quarter of a billion dollars a year but I could be way wrong on that.

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3 minutes ago, LordRahl said:

Unfortunately there is no way to tell. I wish we had some numbers to base raw sales on but that's just not feasible. I think we might be able to get an approximation on slabbed though. GPA is reporting approximately $124M in the past year from sales they track. As discussed, they capture only a portion of the pie. Comiclink alone would probably make up another $50-60M a year and if you factor in all the dealers that sell slabbed books and don't report to GPA, con transactions as well as sales at places like here on these forums, FB, Insta etc, I would think that $124M would be double at least. That would put the slabbed market as $250M+ per year. You really think there are more than $250M a year worth of raw books changing hands (not including new weekly sales)? I don't know the answer, I personally doubt that raw sales make up a quarter of a billion dollars a year but I could be way wrong on that.

It's true that it's hard to "prove" one point or another. 

But right now - at this moment - there are over five million listings on eBay in the Comic book category. 201,634 of those come up on a search for CGC. Not every book that comes up with a CGC search is actually graded, many a seller will list "CGC it" in the title. 

Just take the time to look at listings of MCS. Metropolis. and Mile High Comics. The overwhelming majority of their books are raw.  Walk through a comic convention. What percentage of the books are raw vs slabbed?. What are buyers walking away with? The slabs on the display are flashy, but there is box after box after box of raws.  Finally there are LCS.  Two out of three stores here in Evansville have virtually NO slabbed comics.  The oldest and largest store has at least half a million comics - and no slabs. EVERYTHING they sell is raw. A lot of old school dealers are of the opinion that slabbing books is at a minimum a waste of money - they know how to grade. And at worst a travesty  because comic books were MEANT to be read. 

I cannot truly prove it, but I believe the evidence is overwhelming that slabbed books make headlines, but raw books keep stores open and are the overwhelming bulk of the market. $$$ and volume.  

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4 minutes ago, Tony S said:

It's true that it's hard to "prove" one point or another. 

But right now - at this moment - there are over five million listings on eBay in the Comic book category. 201,634 of those come up on a search for CGC. Not every book that comes up with a CGC search is actually graded, many a seller will list "CGC it" in the title. 

Just take the time to look at listings of MCS. Metropolis. and Mile High Comics. The overwhelming majority of their books are raw.  Walk through a comic convention. What percentage of the books are raw vs slabbed?. What are buyers walking away with? The slabs on the display are flashy, but there is box after box after box of raws.  Finally there are LCS.  Two out of three stores here in Evansville have virtually NO slabbed comics.  The oldest and largest store has at least half a million comics - and no slabs. EVERYTHING they sell is raw. A lot of old school dealers are of the opinion that slabbing books is at a minimum a waste of money - they know how to grade. And at worst a travesty  because comic books were MEANT to be read. 

I cannot truly prove it, but I believe the evidence is overwhelming that slabbed books make headlines, but raw books keep stores open and are the overwhelming bulk of the market. $$$ and volume.  

I don't know man... you might be right. I guess maybe this hobby is just bigger than I tend to think it is. I mean we're talking well over half a billion a year in sales, which just seems wild to me but then again so do some of the prices I've seen in the last 10 years.

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Most of these millions of raw (And even slabbed ) books on ebay and at conventions (and websites especially Mile High) mentioned are merely “for sale”. And far too many at ridiculous prices to be meaningful to this discussion.  Of all the comics lugged to a convention, very few actually sell.  And many of them ended up heavily discounted.  And since they are graded and priced by whoever is selling them, their data doesn’t pertain to GPAs mission to track CGC graded sales.  But sure there’s lots and lots of comics sitting in boxes out there... millions of them unsellable except in bulk.  

Edited by Aman619
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I keep a tab open and not use it for a couple of hours, start to use it again and I get two to four clicks into my next search and then I get logged out.  Anyone else run into this?  I can understand if it did that when I made my first new click but it allows a couple of valid clicks before logging out.

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