Amazing Spider-Man 300 1 1

[Hollywood1892]

8 minutes ago, valiantman said:

1980 was an early year for direct editions, so it's possible there are more high grade newsstand books from 1980.

The "flip" to the point where newsstands (in high grades) become less common probably happens around 1985 (give or take a couple years).  ASM #300 from 1988 is definitely fewer for high grade newsstand.

Until we have better numbers to prove what's going on, I don't usually see any extra value for high grade newsstands before 1983... and ASM #252 (1984) might be where they're about equal... but on #252 you throw in Canadian newsstand and the game gets a little weird. 

The direct edition of ASM 300 9.8 is approximately $2000, what would the value of a newsstand be?

[valiantman]

5 minutes ago, Hollywood1892 said:

The direct edition of ASM 300 9.8 is approximately $2000, what would the value of a newsstand be?

Very hard to say.  Any seller with a CGC 9.8 ASM #300 Newsstand is probably aware of the difficulty in replacing it, so they can ask whatever price they want... and it may sit unsold if they ask too much above the direct edition average, but we would be able to see what "too high" looks like.  Even a couple unsold auctions/listings could at least give us an idea of what price is "too high"... but I don't see any CGC 9.8 ASM #300 newsstand on Ebay right now.  The highest CGC graded ASM #300 newsstand on Ebay right now is 9.0, except for a CGC Signature 9.6 Stan Lee that would be a combination of the price of the newsstand and the price of the Stan Lee signature.

 

For March and the first week of April 2020, GPA shows 9 sales for CGC 9.8 ASM #300 with prices from $1,560 to $2,950, and the average was $2,137.  Throw out the high and low price and the average was $2,103 (from Ebay, all direct editions).  The $2,950 price didn't come from Ebay, and the low price ($1,560) is from Heritage.  8 of the 9 sales were direct editions... and I haven't seen the $2,950 sale (not Ebay, not Heritage, where was it?)  There isn't a huge available supply for newsstand ASM #300 (over CGC 9.2), so sellers aren't really losing any sales to other sellers who ask less... there aren't any for sale.   Once in a while, CGC newsstand ASM #300 auctions that start low with no reserve will just end up wherever they end up and it might be near (or maybe even below) the direct edition price, but it's rarely a CGC 9.8.

Looking long term (since this discussion has been about the next ten years), it is usually a very good thing to have high demand and very little supply.  CGC 9.8 ASM #300 newsstand fits that description.

[Hollywood1892]

12 minutes ago, valiantman said:

 

Looking long term (since this discussion has been about the next ten years), it is usually a very good thing to have high demand and very little supply.  CGC 9.8 ASM #300 newsstand fits that description.

And the direct edition doesn't (have little supply) and yet it is still amazingly valuable, which imo makes the ASM 300 (9.8) a paradox in the collecting community.

Most puzzles are certain enough to be solved, especially by your exquisite math skills, but this one seems to elude comprehension in understanding its value. If it had the same amount of grades copies in 9.8 as Hulk 181 we could be talking about a much different price in terms of value, one that may in fact exceed Hulk 181 at the same age.

Edited April 8, 2020 by Hollywood1892

[Ryan.]

14 minutes ago, Hollywood1892 said:

this one seems to elude comprehension in understanding its value. 

Kardashian...

[MGsimba77]

59 minutes ago, Hollywood1892 said:

And the direct edition doesn't (have little supply) and yet it is still amazingly valuable, which imo makes the ASM 300 (9.8) a paradox in the collecting community.

Most puzzles are certain enough to be solved, especially by your exquisite math skills, but this one seems to elude comprehension in understanding its value. If it had the same amount of grades copies in 9.8 as Hulk 181 we could be talking about a much different price in terms of value, one that may in fact exceed Hulk 181 at the same age.

Maybe one factor could be that there's more and more collectors who fit the gen X age range where they were young and impressionable ~ 1987, 88. I don't know its just speculation?

Its crazy to think how valuable a first Venom would be if they created him in the early to mid 70's with a similar dark cover as 300! It would of been like the mount St Helens of comics in 2018

[Hollywood1892]

1 minute ago, MGsimba77 said:

Maybe one factor could be that there's more and more collectors who fit the gen X age range where they were young and impressionable ~ 1987, 88. I don't know its just speculation?

Its crazy to think how valuable a first Venom would be if they created him in the early to mid 70's with a similar dark cover as 300! It would of been like the mount St Helens of comics in 2018

True...

Even when the first Spider-Man movies came out with Tobey McGuire, I think the feel was that everyone wanted to see Venom (I mean not the greatest version with Topher Grace). But Venom has to be up there in terms of most popular villains/anti heroes of all time

[valiantman]

1 hour ago, Hollywood1892 said:

Most puzzles are certain enough to be solved, especially by your exquisite math skills, but this one seems to elude comprehension in understanding its value. If it had the same amount of grades copies in 9.8 as Hulk 181 we could be talking about a much different price in terms of value, one that may in fact exceed Hulk 181 at the same age.

The simplest way to better understand any market (comics, cards, coins, stocks, etc.) is to use an important second variable, when the most obvious variable (individual price) results in a mystery.

For example, with stocks, APPLE is $267 per share and MICROSOFT is $165 per share, but we know that Microsoft is a bigger company than Apple.  Mystery?  Not really.  Multiply the number of shares by those prices and the mystery goes away.

Apple (at $267 per share) has 4.38 billion shares, and Microsoft (at $165 per share) has 7.61 billion shares.  So, Apple is not a bigger company than Microsoft, even though the price for EACH share is $100 higher for Apple.  Mystery solved.

With comics, we talk a lot about the price of a single copy... CGC 9.8 ASM #300 is $2,000, but how many are there?  There are currently 1,300 on the CGC census (Universal + Signature).  (I said there were 1,400 earlier, but I just double-checked and it's 1,300.)

So, $2,000 times 1,300 and CGC 9.8 ASM #300 has a "total value" of around $2,600,000.  Is that too high or too low?  We need to find another book to really compare to... let's use New Mutants #98.  It's from 1991, so it isn't too far away, and it's the first appearance of another character with a big fan base and a couple of movies.  CGC 9.8 New Mutants #98 is currently averaging $710.  Is CGC 9.8 ASM #300 supposed to be three times more expensive than CGC 9.8 New Mutants #98?  It depends... specifically, it depends on how many copies there are for each book.

CGC 9.8 New Mutants #98 is $710, but there are 3,660 of them.  That's a total of about $2,600,000.  Compare that to CGC 9.8 ASM #300 total at around $2,600,000.  That's almost scary.

The market isn't decided by the one variable everyone focuses on... price of a single copy.  The market is always balancing the price for one against the number of copies available.  In this case, you get $2,600,000 whether you're talking about CGC 9.8 ASM #300 or CGC 9.8 New Mutants #98... the first appearance of major Marvel multiple-movie headliner characters (with many comic books series in their name) from about 30 years ago.  Same total, $2,600,000.

Edited April 8, 2020 by valiantman

[Bird]

others may know better as I was just a reader at the time, but I think that ASM 300 was considered a big book before Venom became popular. His popularity has added to the book but it was a notable book anyway.

[MGsimba77]

2 hours ago, valiantman said:

1980 was an early year for direct editions, so it's possible there are more high grade newsstand books from 1980.

The "flip" to the point where newsstands (in high grades) become less common probably happens around 1985 (give or take a couple years).  ASM #300 from 1988 is definitely fewer for high grade newsstand.

How do you account for the fact there's far fewer newsstands for say x-men ~'80, 81 particularly in 9.8? I'm referring to 9.8 copies listed. I wouldn't say they're as scarce as late 80s UPC's but there's definitely fewer available 

[valiantman]

9 minutes ago, MGsimba77 said:

How do you account for the fact there's far fewer newsstands for say x-men ~'80, 81 particularly in 9.8? I'm referring to 9.8 copies listed. I wouldn't say they're as scarce as late 80s UPC's but there's definitely fewer available 

A few possibilities... CGC submissions are (most likely) heavily-skewed toward retail comic shop owners doing the submitting.  They would be sending in their direct editions (more often) for slabbing, since that was the original point of direct editions, and they are also more likely to have multiple high grade copies remaining in their inventories.  To offset the number of high grade direct editions, you'd need just as many "regular people who bought newsstands" to still have them in the same high grades, the same quantities, and the same likelihood of regular people submitting them to CGC (but not having a retail shop to sell them in when they return).  All of those "regular people" scenarios are unlikely, but if newsstands started out with a much higher number printed... that fact alone could balance it all out.  We don't really know yet since the CGC census doesn't separate them for us.

There's a good chance that high grade newsstands are tougher regardless of the age (including the early 1980s) but we know more newsstands were printed back then... so it's an unknown that I wouldn't want to bet on a significant newsstand premium for 1980-81 in my collection (yet... data could easily change my mind).

Edited April 8, 2020 by valiantman

[MGsimba77]

40 minutes ago, valiantman said:

A few possibilities... CGC submissions are (most likely) heavily-skewed toward retail comic shop owners doing the submitting.  They would be sending in their direct editions (more often) for slabbing, since that was the original point of direct editions, and they are also more likely to have multiple high grade copies remaining in their inventories.  To offset the number of high grade direct editions, you'd need just as many "regular people who bought newsstands" to still have them in the same high grades, the same quantities, and the same likelihood of regular people submitting them to CGC (but not having a retail shop to sell them in when they return).  All of those "regular people" scenarios are unlikely, but if newsstands started out with a much higher number printed... that fact alone could balance it all out.  We don't really know yet since the CGC census doesn't separate them for us.

There's a good chance that high grade newsstands are tougher regardless of the age (including the early 1980s) but we know more newsstands were printed back then... so it's an unknown that I wouldn't want to bet on a significant newsstand premium for 1980-81 in my collection (yet... data could easily change my mind).

Yeah that's an unfortunate oversight by cgc to not separate UPC from direct. That information would be most helpful! Even if they decided to do so now it would be impossible to sort of backdate the information from prior submissions. I'm looking specifically at XM133 from '80. I do periodic searches and way more 9.8 directs

One things for sure though, you don't need cgc to affirm the scarcity of ASM 300 9.8 UPC 

Edited April 8, 2020 by MGsimba77

[valiantman]

23 minutes ago, MGsimba77 said:

I'm looking specifically at XM133 from '80. I do periodic searches and way more 9.8 directs

If you also have numbers to go with those periodic searches, you might be the current expert on that particular issue.  I'm not sure there's much interest (yet) in putting hard data together.

Edited April 8, 2020 by valiantman

[Lazyboy]

41 minutes ago, Bird said:

others may know better as I was just a reader at the time, but I think that ASM 300 was considered a big book before Venom became popular. His popularity has added to the book but it was a notable book anyway.

I wouldn't say it was big. Anniversary issues were more popular then and it certainly wasn't worthless, but 298 was the big book before Venom took off and the rest of the early McFarlane run was pretty pricey as well.

[Lazyboy]

2 hours ago, MGsimba77 said:

How do you account for the fact there's far fewer newsstands for say x-men ~'80, 81 particularly in 9.8? I'm referring to 9.8 copies listed. I wouldn't say they're as scarce as late 80s UPC's but there's definitely fewer available 

Listed is listed and is only a small piece of the puzzle. There are so many things to consider.

For example, there could be 12 Direct copies listed in January, along with 1 Newsstand. You could look every month for the rest of the year and see the exact same thing, without looking deeper to see that every month, a Newsstand copy sold and another Newsstand popped up while the others were all relisted. At the end of the year, there would have been 12 copies of each of the different editions available that year. This is obviously an extreme example, but even a close look at the online market is just the tip of the iceberg.

Too many people seem to be learning () about Newsstands from the worst sources and acting on the hype rather than doing any real research or daring to actually think for themselves.

[Ryan.]

I too remember 298 being THE book to get. To this day, when I see a 298 on the wall of a LCS, I stop at it instinctively, as though it's a huge key. 

[valiantman]

16 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

Too many people seem to be learning () about Newsstands from the worst sources and acting on the hype rather than doing any real research or daring to actually think for themselves.

It sounds like you're seeing people overpaying for newsstands, but I'm not seeing a huge premium for newsstands, so would you say the newsstand "misinformation" problem is worse than the "ratio incentive" problem from the past 10+ years?

Comics that had 1:20 or 1:25 books when they came out were immediately selling for $15 to $30, and most are now dollar books. 

[FoggyNelson]

On 4/7/2020 at 10:44 PM, Hollywood1892 said:

I'd be very happy if in ten years ASM 300 9.8 is $3400

I hope so too even though I don’t have one👍

[valiantman]

Here's something else to think about for ASM #300.

CGC graded copies of ASM #300 have been selling for over $125 at grades as low as CGC 4.0 for at least five years.  There aren't many comic books from the 1980s that sell for $125+ at CGC 4.0 grades, so we don't have many comics from the 1980s that get submitted to CGC regardless of grade.

Why does that matter?  Well, everyone wants to believe that their collections of tons of 1980s comics are CGC 9.0+ even though they haven't been graded.  What if all those comics DID get sent to CGC? 

Well, before 2015, half of all copies of ASM #300 sent to CGC were 9.4 or higher.  Collectors often like to think their raw copies are "just as good" as all these CGC 9.8, or at least CGC 9.6... they might even figure that half their books are just as good as CGC 9.4 or better... but are they really?

Since 2015, the average CGC grade assigned to ASM #300 is 8.6.  Collectors would be better informed if they realized that their raw 1980s comics probably average 8.6... if not worse... since ugly copies of ASM #300 probably aren't submitted as often as pretty ones.

We also know that every copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 is "worth submitting" to CGC just for the restoration/counterfeit check, and the average copy of TMNT #1 has been 7.9 condition since 2015.  That's 7.9 average... for a mid-1980s comic.

I'm not saying there aren't plenty of CGC 9.8 books in existence, but I am saying that collectors who think they've got boxes of raw Copper Age comics "just as good" as CGC 9.4+ are seriously, seriously fooling themselves.

Many topics on this board discuss CGC 9.6 as "not good enough" for copper/modern comics, "CGC 9.8 or don't bother", etc., but there's very little reason to believe all those collections of 1980s raw comics would average anywhere near as good as even CGC 9.2.  Reality is probably 8.6... or a little lower... as the average grade for every raw in those boxes.

Edited April 9, 2020 by valiantman

[Hollywood1892]

5 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Here's something else to think about for ASM #300.

CGC graded copies of ASM #300 have been selling for over $125 at grades as low as CGC 4.0 for at least five years.  There aren't many comic books from the 1980s that sell for $125+ at CGC 4.0 grades, so we don't have many comics from the 1980s that get submitted to CGC regardless of grade.

Why does that matter?  Well, everyone wants to believe that their collections of tons of 1980s comics are CGC 9.0+ even though they haven't been graded.  What if all those comics DID get sent to CGC? 

Well, before 2015, half of all copies of ASM #300 sent to CGC were 9.4 or higher.  Collectors often like to think their raw copies are "just as good" as all these CGC 9.8, or at least CGC 9.6... they might even figure that half their books are just as good as CGC 9.4 or better... but are they really?

Since 2015, the average CGC grade assigned to ASM #300 is 8.6.  Collectors would be better informed if they realized that their raw 1980s comics probably average 8.6... if not worse... since ugly copies of ASM #300 probably aren't submitted as often as pretty ones.

We also know that every copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 is "worth submitting" to CGC just for the restoration/counterfeit check, and the average copy of TMNT #1 has been 7.9 condition since 2015.  That's 7.9 average... for a mid-1980s comic.

I'm not saying there aren't plenty of CGC 9.8 books in existence, but I am saying that collectors who think they've got boxes of raw Copper Age comics "just as good" as CGC 9.4+ are seriously, seriously fooling themselves.

Many topics on this board discuss CGC 9.6 as "not good enough" for copper/modern comics, "CGC 9.8 or don't bother", etc., but there's very little reason to believe all those collections of 1980s raw comics would average anywhere near as good as even CGC 9.2.  Reality is probably 8.6... or a little lower... as the average grade for every raw in those boxes.

So then we are most likely nearing the amount of 9.8s we will see on census?

[valiantman]

4 minutes ago, Hollywood1892 said:

So then we are most likely nearing the amount of 9.8s we will see on census?

No, I don't think so.

Even comics like Action Comics #1 and Detective #27 are believed to have only half the remaining copies graded by CGC so far, if not fewer... and we know the biggest books are the ones submitted to CGC most often.

Books like ASM #300 would be unlikely to have even 25% of the remaining copies graded by CGC so far... so 75% (or maybe much, much more) are still raw copies out in the world.

Here's the rate of CGC 9.8 for ASM #300 over the past 20 years:

No reason to think that steady trend from 2017 to 2020 will suddenly fall to zero... so we should expect more CGC 9.8s maybe 30 or 40 for every 1,000 additional copies of ASM #300 that are graded for the next few years.

The spike in 2009-2011 is MOST LIKELY related to weaker grading standards, in my opinion.  It happens across all titles.  Some portion of the spike is due to pressing and regrading, but pressing and regrading happens now (probably more than then) and the CGC 9.8 rate is back around 4%, like before 2008... so I think the spike in 2008-2015 was probably weaker standards... especially 2009-2011.