Formula for determining value when GPA is no help 1 1

[Bill Robinson]

Stupid question. The value is what the market will bear, I get it.

For the sake of argument, though, let's say you're looking at  a 9.6 CGC SS of a book signed by a popular artist or writer that has passed away. Let's say Michael Turner. Popular guy who has passed. RIP.

Let's say there is no sales data to be had for SS and little to no data for the last few years of any grade in SS.

How do you price the book, aside from a shot in the dark? Let's say there was a sale of a 9.6 CGC Universal two year ago for $50. A year later, the artist is passed, nothing significant has happened to the property/character like an option, or renewed interest in any way.

What is the sig worth? What is a witnessed by CGC sig worth?

Would you try for $150 and hope for the best? Would you go higher? Lower?

[shadroch]

What are you pricing it for? A sale or just to price it?

[Motor City Rob]

I don't think there's an easy answer to this one.  Really depends on the artist.  In almost all cases, you will get more $ for a book signed by Stan Lee than Michael Turner....but....there could always be that one collector who is trying to buy every SS Michael Turner book in the world, and will pay a premium to do it.  That being said, when there is limited (or no) sales data for comparison, I always look at multiple grades higher and lower to try and get any data possible and determine some kind of % increase.  For instance, maybe you find the same exact book signed by the same person, but in a 9.2 (instead of a 9.6).  If that 9.2 sold this year and it was 20% higher than the 9.2 sale two years ago, you could apply that 20% "formula" to your 9.6 book.  Not sure if this helps.

[piper]

Put the book up for auction to maximize value.

[Motor City Rob]

55 minutes ago, piper said:

Put the book up for auction to maximize value.

I would say in most cases, auctions do not maximize value (unless a major key issue). Typically, fixed price will get you a higher selling price, albeit taking longer to sell. And with a book that has very few sales, like the OP's example, you are likely to get much less with an auction.

[piper]

That 

23 minutes ago, Motor City Rob said:

I would say in most cases, auctions do not maximize value (unless a major key issue). Typically, fixed price will get you a higher selling price, albeit taking longer to sell. And with a book that has very few sales, like the OP's example, you are likely to get much less with an auction.

That hasn’t been my experience with GA classic covers with light sales and low census numbers. I would have left significant money on the table.

The other factor to consider is that the collectibles market is scorching hot.

[blazingbob]

26 minutes ago, piper said:

That 

That hasn’t been my experience with GA classic covers with light sales and low census numbers. I would have left significant money on the table.

The other factor to consider is that the collectibles market is scorching hot.

Much like gamblers all I hear about are the Auction Big wins when in reality there are a lot of big losers to.  But you never see the losers post.  

How's the DC key market doing?  Somebody going to tell me that it is as hot as the Marvel key market?  

Edited March 12, 2021 by blazingbob

[mycomicshop]

44 minutes ago, piper said:

That hasn’t been my experience with GA classic covers with light sales and low census numbers. I would have left significant money on the table.

The other factor to consider is that the collectibles market is scorching hot.

 

I think the opposing viewpoints here between Motor City Rob and piper center around the difference between books that are more or less readily available in the market (buyer's market) and books that are in high demand but don't appear for sale often (seller's market).

There are a lot more books in the first category than the second. Even many expensive high-end keys are nonetheless pretty readily available. That doesn't have to mean there are multiple copies sitting on eBay every day of the week, but you know they come up for auction fairly frequently.

For those buyer's market books, I tend to agree with Motor City Rob. You will on average do better with a well-informed fixed price sale than with auction. You only need one person to meet your price, whereas the auction winning bid is determined by the amount the second place bidder is willing to pay--the winning bidder will often have been willing to go higher. Sure, sometimes there will be a bidding war and an auction can end higher than what a comparable copy could be bought for that's available on eBay or somewhere else as fixed price, but that's the exception not the usual outcome. On average, auction prices will be somewhat lower than fixed price. It varies depending on type of material, but I often expect a good auction to average in the range of 90-95% of GPA. Auctions tend to pull the GPA average down and fixed price sales tend to pull the average up.

But for particularly desirable, rarely available seller's market books (a prime example of which would be "GA classic covers with light sales and low census numbers"), auctions can look more appealing. Three factors:

1) A big element is that because the books are rarely traded, any available sales data is often several years old. Because the books are desirable and rare and the market has moved up, there's pent up demand. When a book sells in auction it goes for a lot more than the older sales, and it's easy to attribute that success to the auction model rather than the fact that the market has moved up significantly since the previous sales.

2) High-profile auctions can help funnel buyer attention to books. Out of everybody in the world that might care about your book, if the 2-3 people most willing to pay for it become aware of your item because they see it in an auction, and they wouldn't have come across your item otherwise as a fixed price listing, that's an advantage an auction can provide.

3) Animal spirits lead buyers into a bidding war and make them bid more than they would have been willing to pay if pulling the trigger on a fixed price listing for a lesser amount.

I think there's something to be said for all three of those elements, but it's easy to over-estimate their significance. Could the same or even a higher price have been achieved without the auction? In many cases yes, but no easy way to prove it. And fixed price sales come with the trade-off that they can take longer to achieve that higher price, vs the immediate result you get with auctions.

Edited March 12, 2021 by mycomicshop

[NewWorldOrder]

1 hour ago, Motor City Rob said:

I would say in most cases, auctions do not maximize value (unless a major key issue). Typically, fixed price will get you a higher selling price, albeit taking longer to sell. And with a book that has very few sales, like the OP's example, you are likely to get much less with an auction.

It depends.  I auction everything, why? Because its fun, better than going to vegas!

Certain books that constantly trade IMO auctions for me are quick and the best option.  Now if you have books that dont trade that often I can see why a fixed price makes sense.

 

 

[JazzMan]

Just solve for tau.  Works all the time.

[adampasz]

3X2(9YZ)4A!

[Motor City Rob]

1 hour ago, mycomicshop said:

 

I think the opposing viewpoints here between Motor City Rob and piper center around the difference between books that are more or less readily available in the market (buyer's market) and books that are in high demand but don't appear for sale often (seller's market).

There are a lot more books in the first category than the second. Even many expensive high-end keys are nonetheless pretty readily available. That doesn't have to mean there are multiple copies sitting on eBay every day of the week, but you know they come up for auction fairly frequently.

For those buyer's market books, I tend to agree with Motor City Rob. You will on average do better with a well-informed fixed price sale than with auction. You only need one person to meet your price, whereas the auction winning bid is determined by the amount the second place bidder is willing to pay--the winning bidder will often have been willing to go higher. Sure, sometimes there will be a bidding war and an auction can end higher than what a comparable copy could be bought for that's available on eBay or somewhere else as fixed price, but that's the exception not the usual outcome. On average, auction prices will be somewhat lower than fixed price. It varies depending on type of material, but I often expect a good auction to average in the range of 90-95% of GPA. Auctions tend to pull the GPA average down and fixed price sales tend to pull the average up.

But for particularly desirable, rarely available seller's market books (a prime example of which would be "GA classic covers with light sales and low census numbers"), auctions can look more appealing. Three factors:

1) A big element is that because the books are rarely traded, any available sales data is often several years old. Because the books are desirable and rare and the market has moved up, there's pent up demand. When a book sells in auction it goes for a lot more than the older sales, and it's easy to attribute that success to the auction model rather than the fact that the market has moved up significantly since the previous sales.

2) High-profile auctions can help funnel buyer attention to books. Out of everybody in the world that might care about your book, if the 2-3 people most willing to pay for it become aware of your item because they see it in an auction, and they wouldn't have come across your item otherwise as a fixed price listing, that's an advantage an auction can provide.

3) Animal spirits lead buyers into a bidding war and make them bid more than they would have been willing to pay if pulling the trigger on a fixed price listing for a lesser amount.

I think there's something to be said for all three of those elements, but it's easy to over-estimate their significance. Could the same or even a higher price have been achieved without the auction? In many cases yes, but no easy way to prove it. And fixed price sales come with the trade-off that they can take longer to achieve that higher price, vs the immediate result you get with auctions.

Well said.  Many good points made here.

[piper]

6 hours ago, blazingbob said:

Much like gamblers all I hear about are the Auction Big wins when in reality there are a lot of big losers to.  But you never see the losers post.  

How's the DC key market doing?  Somebody going to tell me that it is as hot as the Marvel key market?  

It's a great time to buy Showcase 4's, HOS 92's, and BB28's.

[piper]

6 hours ago, mycomicshop said:

 

I think the opposing viewpoints here between Motor City Rob and piper center around the difference between books that are more or less readily available in the market (buyer's market) and books that are in high demand but don't appear for sale often (seller's market).

There are a lot more books in the first category than the second. Even many expensive high-end keys are nonetheless pretty readily available. That doesn't have to mean there are multiple copies sitting on eBay every day of the week, but you know they come up for auction fairly frequently.

For those buyer's market books, I tend to agree with Motor City Rob. You will on average do better with a well-informed fixed price sale than with auction. You only need one person to meet your price, whereas the auction winning bid is determined by the amount the second place bidder is willing to pay--the winning bidder will often have been willing to go higher. Sure, sometimes there will be a bidding war and an auction can end higher than what a comparable copy could be bought for that's available on eBay or somewhere else as fixed price, but that's the exception not the usual outcome. On average, auction prices will be somewhat lower than fixed price. It varies depending on type of material, but I often expect a good auction to average in the range of 90-95% of GPA. Auctions tend to pull the GPA average down and fixed price sales tend to pull the average up.

But for particularly desirable, rarely available seller's market books (a prime example of which would be "GA classic covers with light sales and low census numbers"), auctions can look more appealing. Three factors:

1) A big element is that because the books are rarely traded, any available sales data is often several years old. Because the books are desirable and rare and the market has moved up, there's pent up demand. When a book sells in auction it goes for a lot more than the older sales, and it's easy to attribute that success to the auction model rather than the fact that the market has moved up significantly since the previous sales.

2) High-profile auctions can help funnel buyer attention to books. Out of everybody in the world that might care about your book, if the 2-3 people most willing to pay for it become aware of your item because they see it in an auction, and they wouldn't have come across your item otherwise as a fixed price listing, that's an advantage an auction can provide.

3) Animal spirits lead buyers into a bidding war and make them bid more than they would have been willing to pay if pulling the trigger on a fixed price listing for a lesser amount.

I think there's something to be said for all three of those elements, but it's easy to over-estimate their significance. Could the same or even a higher price have been achieved without the auction? In many cases yes, but no easy way to prove it. And fixed price sales come with the trade-off that they can take longer to achieve that higher price, vs the immediate result you get with auctions.

That's a very good aseesment.  At the end of the day,  I felt like I was going to have an impossible time with the scant data trying to price books (e.g. Adventure 51).  It's fairly easy using completed sales from GPA to figure out pricing for Hulk 181's, but seems like a crapshoot for most Golden Age books.

[evilskip]

I have a late golden age non key listed at (cough cough MCS) that has only had 3 sales in the past 5 years, with my purchase being one of them. Best I could do was pick a figure and throw it out there, hoping for the best.

[blazingbob]

22 minutes ago, piper said:

It's a great time to buy Showcase 4's, HOS 92's, and BB28's.

Have BB #28's and a Showcase #4.

Feel free to buy them.

I won't miss them one bit

 

 

[piper]

4 minutes ago, blazingbob said:

Have BB #28's and a Showcase #4.

Feel free to buy them.

I won't miss them one bit

 

 

I’ll go check them out. Thanks.

[silverseeker]

In addition to all the good points shared, here are a few others you could consider...

• Auction the book, but start the bidding at the lowest price you're willing to accept for it
• List the book at a higher "buy it now" price than you think it's worth, but accept offers - This may give you an idea of the true market for the book unless you've priced it so high that people don't even make offers, in which case you can lower the "buy it now" price over time

[silverseeker]

8 hours ago, blazingbob said:

How's the DC key market doing?  Somebody going to tell me that it is as hot as the Marvel key market?  

Ever since I got back into collecting in 2000, every year was supposed to be the year that DC keys started to catch up to Marvel keys.

It feels like the opposite has happened (especially in the last few years), and the gap has widened considerably...

[blazingbob]

1 hour ago, silverseeker said:

Ever since I got back into collecting in 2000, every year was supposed to be the year that DC keys started to catch up to Marvel keys.

It feels like the opposite has happened (especially in the last few years), and the gap has widened considerably...

Showcase #4 moved so fast up and so fast down the flash couldn't keep up.