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Tracking hammer results during the COVID-19 pandemic
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217 posts in this topic

10 hours ago, lou_fine said:
11 hours ago, comicnoir said:

When the Rifleman 10 is down 32.73%, this hobby is in trouble.

OMG........if the Rifleman's manhood is trending down 32.73%, not only is the hobby in trouble, he's going to be in trouble with his female companions.  lol

That only reduces it to a 67% angle of dangle though...., :cool: 

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I am throwing out TONS of bids and am high bidder with under 10 hours to go on many. I don't expect to win any of the auctions though. It's a bit like 2000-2002 when I made a huge number of lowball bids on (usually low and mid-grade) GA and early SA slabs. Picked up some great deals, lost 99% of the auctions. That's cool. Don't want to actually win all these auctions as my paycheck in 2 weeks might be delayed.

 

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On ‎3‎/‎27‎/‎2020 at 2:19 PM, DavidTheDavid said:

I am really interested to see how this all works out, if this virus continues to go into 6 months to a year it could have a major impact on the comic market.

It will be gotten under control by then, likely a vaccine, but we'll all be worrying about Covid22 or whatever the next horror show is. We got lucky with SARS and MERS. Swine flu killed 10,000 or so people, but it didn't have remotely the same hospitalization rate as this. If 15% of the 60 million people who apparently got swine flu had to be hospitalized the system would have broken. That's the terrifying part here.

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On ‎3‎/‎27‎/‎2020 at 2:47 PM, kidcolt said:

Exactly. I have four close collecting friends that got laid off from work this week due to the virus. They are middle income guys and if they are off work long they said the comics and cards are the first to go. One said even if the market is hurting he will still have no choice but to move his stuff. Right now collecting is at a full 100% halt!!! I live in an isolated community, my nearest comic shop is 1000 km, my collecting is done 100% online and through the mail service. No mail = no comics.

Oil prices in the krapper can't help Canadians either (or at least those in related industries).

 

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44 minutes ago, wilbil said:
46 minutes ago, the blob said:

Oil prices in the krapper can't help Canadians either (or at least those in related industries).

 

i thought they used bear droppings, no?

Wendigo skin.

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21 hours ago, the blob said:

I am throwing out TONS of bids and am high bidder with under 10 hours to go on many. I don't expect to win any of the auctions though. It's a bit like 2000-2002 when I made a huge number of lowball bids on (usually low and mid-grade) GA and early SA slabs. Picked up some great deals, lost 99% of the auctions. That's cool. Don't want to actually win all these auctions as my paycheck in 2 weeks might be delayed.

 

None of my bids won! Only one or two I kind of regret tossing more out there. I guess the market is not so terrible for what I was bidding on (GA and SA slabs).

 

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On 4/2/2020 at 11:44 AM, the blob said:

It will be gotten under control by then, likely a vaccine, but we'll all be worrying about Covid22 or whatever the next horror show is. We got lucky with SARS and MERS. Swine flu killed 10,000 or so people, but it didn't have remotely the same hospitalization rate as this. If 15% of the 60 million people who apparently got swine flu had to be hospitalized the system would have broken. That's the terrifying part here.

sadly, as ed yong explained to terry gross on the fresh air podcast wednesday, we wont have a vaccine for at least one year, and the virus will almost surely continue to disrupt life in strong waves until then. the duration of businesses staying closed, or having to repeatedly shut down, will likely be longer than just a few months. we can see now in china already a second wave, causing theaters to close and restaurants to take action again. this is 4 months later for them. 

the chances of us all getting back to normal in 6 months seem slim at best. 

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On 3/27/2020 at 12:34 PM, kidcolt said:

Like some have already stated I think the market was due for a slight drop. Over the past 10 years comics took a huge jump due to the movies. Seems like a lot of the "new" collectors are moving on to their next thing which for a lot is gaming. A lot will sell off the books they bought plus they won't be buying anymore comics. Less collectors likely means less demand with the same supply out there. I think the hobby was hinging on a decline from the movies and now with the virus and fear of employment loss, sickness any anything else related to the virus will tip it all the way now for those borderline collectors. I think keys will remain the same but a lot of the smaller value lower keys will drop back to where it use to be. As a comic reader and not investor I really hope it happens. My buying slowed drastically over the past 5-6 years. There was always plenty of supply but with the new collectors buying up every thing they thought might be the next hit inflated prices on non keys and small key issues. It was only a matter of time before those impulse new buyers stopped buying and sold off their comics. I know of at least 25-30 people who bought up everything at the local shops just hoping to hit it. I also know of a few shops that the owners pulled all these type books hiding them in the back room with hopes of those books hitting it big. Basically every 1st appearance disappeared over nigh from most shops. I am really interested to see how this all works out, if this virus continues to go into 6 months to a year it could have a major impact on the comic market. Right now our provincial postal system has been shut down for almost a week due to an employee at the postal distribution system being shut down. Its impossible for me to sell or buy online right now. I don't know when the postal system will resume or when it might shut down again. 

This, only it will be more like a 30% long term reduction in the number of young speculators, flippers and boomers that will not have the cash to participate. This will also kill the crack and press trade, as the margins will be too compressed, and re-subs will tank.  You won't see the same book sold 3 times in a year from ebay to clink, to HA.  10 million Americans (so far) are newly unemployed. We will have 15% unemployment and under-employment for a significant time.  The psychological damage of a global shutdown will dramatically alter people's perception of "value" - collectibles of all stripes will be reexamined, and I think just maybe slabbed books in particular, in their sterile, inaccessible little clear coffins will suffer.  Words and pictures will still have "value" to the reader, but the fetish of owning the actual book will be secondary.  Those who need cash will sell if they can recoup at least 50% of their cost basis, because it's a sunk cost, and those books will likely not go up so holding them risks them actually going down. Better to sell  a GPA $1000 book for $500 when you have $650 in it than to risk waiting for 3 months, and selling the same book that is now a $500 GPA book for $250 and taking a $400 hit.  It's just math. 

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21 minutes ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

This will also kill the crack and press trade, as the margins will be too compressed, and re-subs will tank.

Finally at long last, at least there's a silver lining in this dark cloud then as speculators and flippers will finally stop all of this artifical manipulation of their books.  :applause:

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On 4/2/2020 at 12:33 PM, lizards2 said:
On 4/2/2020 at 11:48 AM, wilbil said:
On 4/2/2020 at 11:46 AM, the blob said:

Oil prices in the krapper can't help Canadians either (or at least those in related industries).

 

i thought they used bear droppings, no?

Wendigo skin.

Nah.................they use wolverine adamantium claws the last time I checked.  (thumbsu

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12 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

This, only it will be more like a 30% long term reduction in the number of young speculators, flippers and boomers that will not have the cash to participate. This will also kill the crack and press trade, as the margins will be too compressed, and re-subs will tank.  You won't see the same book sold 3 times in a year from ebay to clink, to HA.  10 million Americans (so far) are newly unemployed. We will have 15% unemployment and under-employment for a significant time.  The psychological damage of a global shutdown will dramatically alter people's perception of "value" - collectibles of all stripes will be reexamined, and I think just maybe slabbed books in particular, in their sterile, inaccessible little clear coffins will suffer.  Words and pictures will still have "value" to the reader, but the fetish of owning the actual book will be secondary.  Those who need cash will sell if they can recoup at least 50% of their cost basis, because it's a sunk cost, and those books will likely not go up so holding them risks them actually going down. Better to sell  a GPA $1000 book for $500 when you have $650 in it than to risk waiting for 3 months, and selling the same book that is now a $500 GPA book for $250 and taking a $400 hit.  It's just math. 

Most of us survived 2008-9, 2000-2003, 1990-1993, 1974-1981, etc.. Sure, it wasn't a pandemic, but things crashed and burned pretty good.

Edited by the blob
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2 hours ago, the blob said:
14 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

This, only it will be more like a 30% long term reduction in the number of young speculators, flippers and boomers that will not have the cash to participate. This will also kill the crack and press trade, as the margins will be too compressed, and re-subs will tank.  You won't see the same book sold 3 times in a year from ebay to clink, to HA.  10 million Americans (so far) are newly unemployed. We will have 15% unemployment and under-employment for a significant time.  The psychological damage of a global shutdown will dramatically alter people's perception of "value" - collectibles of all stripes will be reexamined, and I think just maybe slabbed books in particular, in their sterile, inaccessible little clear coffins will suffer.  Words and pictures will still have "value" to the reader, but the fetish of owning the actual book will be secondary.  Those who need cash will sell if they can recoup at least 50% of their cost basis, because it's a sunk cost, and those books will likely not go up so holding them risks them actually going down. Better to sell  a GPA $1000 book for $500 when you have $650 in it than to risk waiting for 3 months, and selling the same book that is now a $500 GPA book for $250 and taking a $400 hit.  It's just math. 

Most of us survived 2008-9, 2000-2003, 1990-1993, 1974-1981, etc.. Sure, it wasn't a pandemic, but things crashed and burned pretty good.

I believe his statement is probaly true with certain sectors of the marketplace as he was really referring to speculators and flippers, as opposed to long time collectors.  hm

As a result, I would certainly not be surprised to see a rather serious down draft in prices for short-term movie related hype books or for highest graded copies of otherwise recent common books.  I don't think you'll see the same kind of down draft in the aera of HTF GA books that long time collectors probably purchased for pennies on today's dollar because they will simply hold onto them and wait for the market to rebound back up again.  (thumbsu

Especially since there's probably no urgent reason for the long term collectors to be selling since they've probably had these books for decades anyways, as opposed to the speculators or flippers who's game plan was probably to play the CPR game and to simply flip them back out within a short period of time.  (shrug)

Edited by lou_fine
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17 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

This, only it will be more like a 30% long term reduction in the number of young speculators, flippers and boomers that will not have the cash to participate. This will also kill the crack and press trade, as the margins will be too compressed, and re-subs will tank.  You won't see the same book sold 3 times in a year from ebay to clink, to HA.  10 million Americans (so far) are newly unemployed. We will have 15% unemployment and under-employment for a significant time.  The psychological damage of a global shutdown will dramatically alter people's perception of "value" - collectibles of all stripes will be reexamined, and I think just maybe slabbed books in particular, in their sterile, inaccessible little clear coffins will suffer.  Words and pictures will still have "value" to the reader, but the fetish of owning the actual book will be secondary.  Those who need cash will sell if they can recoup at least 50% of their cost basis, because it's a sunk cost, and those books will likely not go up so holding them risks them actually going down. Better to sell  a GPA $1000 book for $500 when you have $650 in it than to risk waiting for 3 months, and selling the same book that is now a $500 GPA book for $250 and taking a $400 hit.  It's just math. 

This is the same logic the stock market is down $30%+.  With the majority of stocks sitting at their roughly 2015 equivalent price all the people who were holding cashed out at break even.  Will it keep tanking?  Maybe in the short term.  But like Warren Buffett says, "When others get fearful it's time to get greedy"

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1 hour ago, 90sChild said:

This is the same logic the stock market is down $30%+.  With the majority of stocks sitting at their roughly 2015 equivalent price all the people who were holding cashed out at break even.  Will it keep tanking?  Maybe in the short term.  But like Warren Buffett says, "When others get fearful it's time to get greedy"

Thank god someone on the boards who is still sane.  ^^

I also remember many CGC comics in 2008-09 that sold for records that still have not been broken.

""The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." - Warren Buffett."

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15 hours ago, DavidTheDavid said:

I doubt that I will capture any more data from the current ComicLink auction. Here are captured results through last night. The remaining night of comics lots includes "assorted." There are always some keys and such there, usually lower grade copies of ones offered on the preceding days, but it's mostly less desirable stuff.

Here are some observations and thoughts after watching this.

  1. This is obviously a very limited dataset. It's not the complete auction. It's only one auction. It's an auction during a period of high economic uncertainty. And the data I captured was loosely defined.
  2. I looked for frequently traded books, only blue label books, high dollar books, and books generally accepted as keys or having some other collector significance.
  3. Since I was using GoCollect for a FMV comparison, I did not capture results from the Golden Age nights since GoCo seldom has a FMV determination for these comics.
  4. I watched most of these results live, and the folks who complain about sniping on CLink have reason to complain. Almost all of them had bids in the closing seconds.
  5. For high quantity books (think a book where you'll see a 9.8, 9.6, 9.4, and possibly additional lower grade copies for sale), the bargains were often on the 9.4. I am defining bargain here as the copy that was percentage-wise the most below GoCollect's FMV.
  6. The average % change was about -12%. That number was very consistent throughout. Only last night did it actually drop under 12%, to 11.88%. Prices seemed obviously depressed but not bottomed out.
  7. Of the 331 lots, 61 hammered at or above FMV. 

I've so far won 6x (SA & BA) at the current ComicLink auction, and all well below FMV.  On two of them (one of them a popular BA key), I've got the lowest price recorded going back to 2015.  

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16 hours ago, NewWorldOrder said:

Thank god someone on the boards who is still sane.  ^^

I also remember many CGC comics in 2008-09 that sold for records that still have not been broken.

""The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." - Warren Buffett."

some don't have the luxury of patience - or the money.  Some will simply be dissuaded from participating (CPR). Both scenarios affect prices.  You can certainly gamble that it's a temporary dip, and will swing back up.......later.  But if you and others like you that are still buying start to get cold feet, and some will- well then this bull market it dead too.  It always happens.....eventually.  It's a self fulfilling prophecy either way. The effects of the last pandemic were largely masked by WW1 and markets were much less interconnected. 

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