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any theories on why prices seem to be dropping with a lot of books?
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194 posts in this topic

1 hour ago, KCOComics said:

I'm yet to figure out how to quote just a section of a story. 

Glassman - thank you for sharing! What an amazing and well told story! 

I'm glad you took care of it for all those years and the value materialized so much. 

I'll be keeping my eyes open for old buses and houses being cleaned out :)

well, it's nice to not get cussed out for honestly telling the stories.  It was before variants, before questioning grade as related to value. Those guys were punching out 15-18 titles a month, printing, and distributing all over the country for essentially the love of the game.  The followers were like the folks in the grateful dead, going from idea to production to success to failure. Kirby tried so much stuff. I still have here a copy of his shot at the "Spirit World" which was dumb as a rock but he was throwing stuff at the walls 24/7. People can give Stan as much as they can muster but he drove it ahead, month after month. I loved what Kirby did with the forever people, Mr Miracle and the new gods and the switches from studio to studio were just new attempts at making the rent. Look at Don Martin in MAD magazine. Just month after month. Look at "Spy vs Spy".  I loved my .35 cent paperbacks from MD.  "Swamp Thing going "Heep Heep". We were all so young. The bus fits. Santa Fe fit. Now, it's mostly money and what's going up fractionally.  I got so lucky to just be there. Your life is a story. Write it down. 

What I found to be so odd and so sad for me was when my son and I scanned the AF15, we shot every single page and I still have those scans. When Bob Sold it, I told him the page shots all existed and would the buyer like them. The answer was "No".  I still don't really understand that. I simply cn't relate to that. I have always thought that artwork to be terribly naiive but every artist I ever have seen matures as they work. This was a beginning with a preposterous story. 

Edited by Glassman10
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On 1/29/2020 at 5:04 PM, Iceman399 said:

It's almost the perfect storm to see a pullback in sales: 

End of an "era" with the MCU - almost impossible to refute how much the MCU and for lesser part the DCCU impacted prices. 
Sales tax - I've talked about this with a lot of Canadian collectors and it was like when our dollar was at parity back in 2012/2013 when all of a sudden it tanked and we were hit with a "25%" increase in prices.  Many stopped buying nearly as much.  It took about 6 months for us to realize yup it's here to "stay" so might as well bite the bullet and get to it.
Calendar - as many have said the winter season is typically the slowest, between holidays and commitments a lot of books slip through the cracks and cripple the 90day gpa on the less commonly sold books (get 2 sales for $600 and all of a sudden the 5 sale GPA is almost cut in half if it was trending at $900).  
Video games - I don't think there is that much money leaving the hobby for video games.  We've seen how pumped that market is by "THE" company and their investors pushing the agenda, the same company that auctioned off the big game, is investors of the company and also bought the game.  All they did was take money out of the left pocket and put it in the right pocket.  Several early spenders are getting absolutely hammered the second time a similar copy comes to market.  Video games aren't new and instead we are just being pushed it by a very select to look at me and the price this copy sold for.

All of that said in the last week we've noticed an uptick in sales and inquiries, is that a sign things are turning around?  I can't say yes, but it's a positive sign.  Can't always have positive gains but I don't think it's a downward spiral.
 

A similar thing happened just over 10 years ago.

The market had been on fire for a decade.

The world economy had crashed and hadn't recovered.

Several new pedigrees were discovered within a year of each other.

Pressing for the masses was starting and people were afraid of what it would do to the market and slowed down spending.

Winter season was upon us.

A few major players pulled OUT of the hobby at the same time.

Perfect storm of depressed prices.

It's just a cycle and has been happening since the beginning of time...and the mid 1930's for comics.

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10 hours ago, Glassman10 said:

I still believe there are boxes of books out there to be found.  Around here, there are all these summer houses byt the lake that still have the contents from 1955.  So, no one went to the dump and now those houses are all being cleaned out. They printed a boatload of AF15's Seek and ye might find. You have to look in odd places. But sharing the story is pretty risky. 

Well, thanks for sharing. It's the best story I've read in ages...  :foryou:

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5 hours ago, KCOComics said:

I'm yet to figure out how to quote just a section of a story. 

Glassman - thank you for sharing! What an amazing and well told story! 

I'm glad you took care of it for all those years and the value materialized so much. 

I'll be keeping my eyes open for old buses and houses being cleaned out :)

Click the quote button for the post you want to quote.  That will put the post in a blue box with room below for you to reply.  Click in the blue box and edit text.

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1 minute ago, KCOComics said:
4 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

  Click in the blue box and edit text.

Well look at that! Lol. 

Thank you!

And if you want to quote a chain of multiple posts like above click at the top of the first post and drag down to the bottom of the last post (2 in this case) and then click the 'quote selection' black box that pops up.

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11 hours ago, Glassman10 said:

The Santa Fe area including the surrounding community heading up towards the Glorietta Pass at that time (1967)  was an ocean of dead vehicles. You just weren't anyone unless you had at least 12 dead vehicles in your yard and not just any vehicles, stuff from the golden ages. I happpened to have a Dodge Power wagon that had dropped the drain bolt on the differential and warped the casing and needed a replacement, so I began to search the hills for a power wagon. I did find one, did get the entire differential and installed it. It cost about one hundred dollars as I recall but that search led me to strange places looking for parts. One place was Apodaca Hill in Santa Fe where I encountered "The bus".  The bus was not in good shape. It had broken windows, dents, flat dead paint, a "Bluebird" as I recall but that could be wrong. It had two wheels (Front) windshield wipers still in place! and the door ajar. Pressing and cleaning would not help. Ajar doors have drawn me in since Pre  Zork so I poked about. It could have contained Ken Kesey. He scooted around Santa Fe and Taos in his bus "Further" all the time he was there intereacting with the communes. But this appeared more desolate than Ken's piece, way too old. It was not far into the seating area that the box sat. There was a lot of stuff on all the seats. The owner knew I loved comics as I poked at the top offerings and said I should just take it. He's moved to Ohio now and I long ago lost touch with him. I took it and after establishing that there were no rear ends there for a dodge I left. The box contents were remarkable  but at the time not massively valuable, more archival. As I took them out of the box, it was odd how well preserved they were. The surprising one in there was ASM16 which graded out as a 9.2!, just sitting in this half open box in a stack. It had numerous early ASM's including 14 which I sold to a man in Illinois who expressed interest here. I had scanned it and there was a flaw that was quite difficult to see in the scan and there was transactional disappointment but he said he should have caught it so it was on him. I didn't feel good about that so I gave him the Avengers 4. Happy camper after that.  He went on to purchase two ASM 129's from me in the 9.0-9.4 range at a very happy price for him. There were a bunch of X-men, Strange Tales , early FF4. It was a true time capsule of stuff flung in a box and there perhaps years. But, there it was about fifteen books down  an AF15 worth about $80 dollars at the time, about one month's rent!. Had some gunk on the cover. I bought a plastic bag for it! We didn't preserve anything those days.  I just felt weirdly fortunate and tucked it in with my other comics. I used to walk across Santa Fe from my studio, about three miles and every third thursday the comics rack at the bus depot engorged with new material. I would take a five dollar bill and do what I could at .12 a shot. It went out to my little house where my friend and I would devour what the two of us bought. At that time, dealers were rare. Howard Rogofsky sold comics in NYC, the mile high collection was in the future and we just loved our stupid comics. Years went by and I kept it up. My mom had already thrown out all of my .10 cent books and baseball cards but I had fooled her and moved 1,000 miles away. 

So, when I sold the comics at the age of 70, it was because there was no future good to my having them. As I said, it took over a year to get organized and I met a number of charlatans ready to relieve me of the burden. So, sympathizing with new collectors, I simply told my process here on valuation.  As I look back, it's amazing that I allowed Bob Storms to simply walk out of my house with the AF15 consigned without a scrap of paper indicating the arrangement.  The two days I spent with Bob taught me more about comics than I ever could have learned elsewhere. It was stupid of me to ever mention the sales price and I haven't done that in a long time. I would say that 10K alone went to capital gains, double that to the boy and the rest, I bought Mastercard at about $150 a share and these days it's around $320.  So we all did well.  I get stupid lucky with junk like this. As a nine year old, going through rolls of pennies with my brother, I found a 1909-s VDB with actual mint luster traces. Someone had to have intentionally put that coin back in circulation but I sold it to my brother for $75 bucks and that seemed like all the money in the world. I really only liked Buffalo nickels . Sort of like Thor.  I use to win a lot at black out bingo at the beach club with Blue haired old ladies with doilies on their heads for luck  as well. Blackout always coughed  up about $75 bucks too. Those women could really glare.  What a great childhood. 

I still believe there are boxes of books out there to be found.  Around here, there are all these summer houses byt the lake that still have the contents from 1955.  So, no one went to the dump and now those houses are all being cleaned out. They printed a boatload of AF15's Seek and ye might find. You have to look in odd places. But sharing the story is pretty risky. 

Did I mention the bus had split rims?

Great story Glass.  I really get a feel for your youth and your love of comics and other associated time wasters. 

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2 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

And if you want to quote a chain of multiple posts like above click at the top of the first post and drag down to the bottom of the last post (2 in this case) and then click the 'quote selection' black box that pops up.

Ok,  I tried. 

That was too complicated of a move for me!  I'll get there. 

Thanks for your help

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13 hours ago, Glassman10 said:

The Santa Fe area including the surrounding community heading up towards the Glorietta Pass at that time (1967)  was an ocean of dead vehicles. You just weren't anyone unless you had at least 12 dead vehicles in your yard and not just any vehicles, stuff from the golden ages. I happpened to have a Dodge Power wagon that had dropped the drain bolt on the differential and warped the casing and needed a replacement, so I began to search the hills for a power wagon. I did find one, did get the entire differential and installed it. It cost about one hundred dollars as I recall but that search led me to strange places looking for parts. One place was Apodaca Hill in Santa Fe where I encountered "The bus".  The bus was not in good shape. It had broken windows, dents, flat dead paint, a "Bluebird" as I recall but that could be wrong. It had two wheels (Front) windshield wipers still in place! and the door ajar. Pressing and cleaning would not help. Ajar doors have drawn me in since Pre  Zork so I poked about. It could have contained Ken Kesey. He scooted around Santa Fe and Taos in his bus "Further" all the time he was there intereacting with the communes. But this appeared more desolate than Ken's piece, way too old. It was not far into the seating area that the box sat. There was a lot of stuff on all the seats. The owner knew I loved comics as I poked at the top offerings and said I should just take it. He's moved to Ohio now and I long ago lost touch with him. I took it and after establishing that there were no rear ends there for a dodge I left. The box contents were remarkable  but at the time not massively valuable, more archival. As I took them out of the box, it was odd how well preserved they were. The surprising one in there was ASM16 which graded out as a 9.2!, just sitting in this half open box in a stack. It had numerous early ASM's including 14 which I sold to a man in Illinois who expressed interest here. I had scanned it and there was a flaw that was quite difficult to see in the scan and there was transactional disappointment but he said he should have caught it so it was on him. I didn't feel good about that so I gave him the Avengers 4. Happy camper after that.  He went on to purchase two ASM 129's from me in the 9.0-9.4 range at a very happy price for him. There were a bunch of X-men, Strange Tales , early FF4. It was a true time capsule of stuff flung in a box and there perhaps years. But, there it was about fifteen books down  an AF15 worth about $80 dollars at the time, about one month's rent!. Had some gunk on the cover. I bought a plastic bag for it! We didn't preserve anything those days.  I just felt weirdly fortunate and tucked it in with my other comics. I used to walk across Santa Fe from my studio, about three miles and every third thursday the comics rack at the bus depot engorged with new material. I would take a five dollar bill and do what I could at .12 a shot. It went out to my little house where my friend and I would devour what the two of us bought. At that time, dealers were rare. Howard Rogofsky sold comics in NYC, the mile high collection was in the future and we just loved our stupid comics. Years went by and I kept it up. My mom had already thrown out all of my .10 cent books and baseball cards but I had fooled her and moved 1,000 miles away. 

So, when I sold the comics at the age of 70, it was because there was no future good to my having them. As I said, it took over a year to get organized and I met a number of charlatans ready to relieve me of the burden. So, sympathizing with new collectors, I simply told my process here on valuation.  As I look back, it's amazing that I allowed Bob Storms to simply walk out of my house with the AF15 consigned without a scrap of paper indicating the arrangement.  The two days I spent with Bob taught me more about comics than I ever could have learned elsewhere. It was stupid of me to ever mention the sales price and I haven't done that in a long time. I would say that 10K alone went to capital gains, double that to the boy and the rest, I bought Mastercard at about $150 a share and these days it's around $320.  So we all did well.  I get stupid lucky with junk like this. As a nine year old, going through rolls of pennies with my brother, I found a 1909-s VDB with actual mint luster traces. Someone had to have intentionally put that coin back in circulation but I sold it to my brother for $75 bucks and that seemed like all the money in the world. I really only liked Buffalo nickels . Sort of like Thor.  I use to win a lot at black out bingo at the beach club with Blue haired old ladies with doilies on their heads for luck  as well. Blackout always coughed  up about $75 bucks too. Those women could really glare.  What a great childhood. 

I still believe there are boxes of books out there to be found.  Around here, there are all these summer houses byt the lake that still have the contents from 1955.  So, no one went to the dump and now those houses are all being cleaned out. They printed a boatload of AF15's Seek and ye might find. You have to look in odd places. But sharing the story is pretty risky. 

Did I mention the bus had split rims?

OK that story is pure magic! Thanks so much for sharing and taking me on that trip with you through the day itself and the full adventure.  It looks and feels like you are having a great journey my friend!

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8 hours ago, KCOComics said:

Ok,  I tried. 

That was too complicated of a move for me!  I'll get there. 

Thanks for your help

Are you reading the forums on a phone or on a personal computer?

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9 hours ago, AJCohen said:

OK that story is pure magic! Thanks so much for sharing and taking me on that trip with you through the day itself and the full adventure.  It looks and feels like you are having a great journey my friend!

Taking this whole thing back to comics, I'd point out that the mentions I make of Mastercard, or Visa for that matter are places where you can realize a lot more profit. If you do that currently, you can sell the stock and then buy a bunch more comics.  Currently, I could have bought another AF15 in quite nice grade with the profit after settling the bill  with the first one, but I'm really considering the endgame personally at this point. There's Thor's I'd still like to have but I can't quite find the point and satisfaction to it. These days I'm more drawn to  finding the time to return to modeling HO trains in my dotage.  I come to this site now and  as No man pointed out, the posts are frequently are about failure to achieve  instant gratification from their purchase. 

In 2008, the world was for sale by the side of the road. The Dow Jones was about  3,000. My business vaporized.  Every month we  could exhale and say we made it through the month, not knowing quite how. So, when you don't quite know how, you aren't going to be buying comics, or trains. You mostly stick to food. Even then, we never considered selling the comics mostly because we had no idea of their value.  The people who can buy when a market is down are the ones that do really well.  Right now, the people who don't have to sell are buying quietly but only when there's value.  Having capital is the hard part.  The point was made about how condition can be upgraded now seem to me to be true. If you can clean,and  press a comic and make it better, that's great but you are not alone in that venture.  It's like Lake Wobegone where all the chilren are above average.  GPA is flooded with comics in the 5.0 range.  I do look on the issue of marvel chipping with some rationalized interest. There seem to be enough of them to be a problem so the easiest thing to do is to say it's not a problem and invite all the holders of chipped copies back into the tent with newely minted 5.0's.

It's just odd to watch. I bought them because I loved them. If I had done it to make money, I'm pretty sure I would have screwed it up.   There's plenty of folks out there that did the same and they haven't sold them yet or don't have a clue as to the value. American Pickers is just seductive.  Hoarders is when it gets out of hand. 

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19 minutes ago, Glassman10 said:

 

It's just odd to watch. I bought them because I loved them. If I had done it to make money, I'm pretty sure I would have screwed it up.   There's plenty of folks out there that did the same and they haven't sold them yet or don't have a clue as to the value. American Pickers is just seductive.  Hoarders is when it gets out of hand. 

By the time I started collecting I can't say I was totally naive to the value of comics. I never imagined we would be here, but I certaintly collected for the love it. I stopped collecting for several years and when my son got interested him and I started again! 

In the late 90s when I was 17 or 18 me and my buddies took a train to NYC for a comic book convention. We got to the show late and this one seller was closing up and offered me deals on two books, but I had to act fast. 

One book was Hulk 181 for $220 and the other was a beautiful journey into mystery 83 for $450... I chose the Hulk for a few reasons. For one, I was a child of the 90s and wolverine was a big deal. But secondly, $450 mine as well have been $1M to me back then.

I remember making jokes on the train ride home about the kind of people who spend $450 on a comic book!  

The irony being that I eventually paid much much more for a much much worse copy of JIM83. And that copy of JIM83 is probably selling for tens of thousands of dollars somewhere today with people lining up to buy it. 

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