Market is just crazy stupid right now 6 6

[Gaard]

You want crazy? I'll show you crazy.

Iron Man 150

It went for over 20x what I paid for it last year.

[the blob]

2 hours ago, Gaard said:

You want crazy? I'll show you crazy.

Iron Man 150

It went for over 20x what I paid for it last year.

i just wonder why, because i don't think of new money caring that much about a non-key book just because it is probably tough in 9.8

[the blob]

10 hours ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

Ok.  But if you buy more than a dozen, I’m staging a forum intervention.

I went ahead and bought it, $20 or so more than the sales the last 1-3 weeks outside of a MCS BIN that was a little higher. for reasons unclear to me I did not get charged sales tax (which saves almost $30!), which seems to randomly happen. whatever, what's $20 in the big picture, and, actually, I am on par with those earlier sales if I had been charged sales tax on them? I just need to sell it somewhere with no fee if I do sell it one day. I'm a cheapskate, but realize that one a book like this it is really hard to get too great a "deal"

Edited May 6, 2021 by the blob

[BlowUpTheMoon]

29 minutes ago, the blob said:

3 hours ago, Gaard said:

You want crazy? I'll show you crazy.

Iron Man 150

It went for over 20x what I paid for it last year.

i just wonder why, because i don't think of new money caring that much about a non-key book just because it is probably tough in 9.8

Census numbers don't look strange.

[the blob]

not even that tough as it isn't even an obvious book to send to cgc. i wonder how much shilling goes on with some of these auctions?

 

[WolverineX]

2 minutes ago, the blob said:

not even that tough as it isn't even an obvious book to send to cgc. i wonder how much shilling goes on with some of these auctions?

 

There is definitely manipulation and stupid new money buying this stuff.  I know the old guard isn't flushing money down the toilet like that.   

[the blob]

2 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

There is definitely manipulation and stupid new money buying this stuff.  I know the old guard isn't flushing money down the toilet like that.   

why would new money care about this book? or any number of non-key 9.8s? they like 9.8s, but they want them associated to something that may be a key

 

[WolverineX]

1 minute ago, the blob said:

why would new money care about this book? or any number of non-key 9.8s? they like 9.8s, but they want them associated to something that may be a key

 

don't rationalize anything...the youtubers are pumping all types of random stuff

[fantastic_four]

Back in 2010 we had one deep pocket setting records on almost every highest-graded Silver and Bronze Age Marvel.  That person was putting in bids up to at least quadruple the most paid up to that point, but I don't think anyone ever knew just how high the bids were.  In some cases prices were 10x what had been seen before.  We do know that they were so outlandishly high that ComicLink contacted the bidder to make sure they didn't type extra numbers into their bid by accident, and the bidder (or their representative) said that it was an accurate bid and they just wanted to ensure they got the comic.  Word at the time was that it was a well-known celebrity, which if true probably means someone else was bidding for them.  I never heard anyone divulge who it was--my best guess was Samuel L. Jackson, but I have no actual evidence of that, it's just my best educated guess since he said around the same time in an interview that he's a comic collector, his heyday in the MCU was ramping up at the time, and he's easily rich enough so that dropping a few million on Silver and Bronze Age Marvels would be completely within his reach--but whoever it was they created very large outliers in sales data at the time.  If that person was going for a book at auction and someone else bid the book up it would just go for a new record price because the bids being entered well in advance were so incredibly high.

This time is clearly different.  The deep pocket from 2010 would only bid on one copy of a book, and after that the next sale would be significantly lower.  It was obvious that one guy was just building his collection at that time and paying insane prices to do it, so I knew you could just wait him out and go for the next copy.  A few times a second very-high bidder would come in on a book to bid it up to a truly insane price that was triple or quintuple the previous high, but not often.  This time we have what appears to be a set of people bidding on a variety of titles, ages, and grades who clearly lack all perspective of supply and demand for any given issue.  In that way it reminds me of the lack of market savvy of the 2010 buyer, but this time it looks like a group of people who probably don't have millions to drop on comics, but they do have tens of thousands.

It reminds me directly of almost the same phenomenon seen in the stock market that most famously went into inflating Gamestop's stock to insane new highs.  I never fully understood that beyond the idea that it was some sort of semi-educated Robin Hood mentality at the time of saving companies that a relatively small group of buyers thought needed saving mixed in with a much larger group who were just following the hype.  What's driving this surge in prices is unclear, but I describe it as "Gamestop-y" wondering if there are any similarities between these surges and the ones seen in the stock market since they started around the same time.

Edited May 6, 2021 by fantastic_four

[WolverineX]

1 minute ago, fantastic_four said:

Back in 2010 we had one deep pocket setting records on almost every highest-graded Silver and Bronze Age Marvel.  That person was putting in bids up to at least quadruple the most paid up to that point, but I don't think anyone ever knew just how high the bids were.  In some cases prices were 10x what had been seen before.  We do know that they were so outlandishly high that ComicLink contacted the bidder to make sure they didn't type extra numbers into their bid by accident, and the bidder (or their representative) said that it was an accurate bid and they just wanted to ensure they got the comic.  Word at the time was that it was a well-known celebrity, which if true probably means someone else was bidding for them.  I never heard anyone divulge who it was--my best guess was Samuel L. Jackson, but I have no actual evidence of that, it's just my best educated guess since he said around the same time in an interview that he's a comic collector and his heyday in the MCU was ramping up at the time--but whoever it was they created very large outliers in sales data at the time.  If that person was going for a book at auction and someone else bid the book up it would just go for a new record price because the bids being entered well in advance were so incredibly high.

This time is clearly different.  The deep pocket from 2010 would only bid on one copy of a book, and after that the next sale would be significantly lower.  It was obvious that one guy was just building his collection at that time and paying insane prices to do it, so I knew you could just wait him out and go for the next copy.  A few times a second very-high bidder would come in on a book to bid it up to a truly insane price that was triple or quintuple the previous high, but not often.  This time we have what appears to be a set of people bidding on a variety of titles, ages, and grades who clearly lack all perspective of supply and demand for any given issue.

It reminds me directly of almost the same phenomenon seen in the stock market that most famously went into inflating Gamestop's stock to insane new highs.  I never fully understood that beyond the idea that it was some sort of semi-educated Robin Hood mentality at the time of saving companies that buyers thought needed saving mixed in with a much larger group who were just following the hype.  What's driving this surge in prices is unclear, but I describe it as "Gamestop-y" wondering if there are any similarities between these surges and the ones seen in the stock market since they started around the same time.

Well there's method to the madness to the Gamestop bump because the hedge funds were being greedy and overleveraged their shorts to drive the company into the ground (similar to what they did to Toys R us) .   People on WSB, realized there were more shorts then total number of stocks, so if you bought and held, the Hedge funds would have to eventually buy back to cover their shorts hence the short squeeze.

[the blob]

The IM 150 price seems nonsensical given that a 9.8 118 just sold for $740. I understand 118 may have more in the census, but what would I rather have? And other 9.8s around then and earlier tend to be $150 or less.

[Gatsby77]

20 minutes ago, the blob said:

The IM 150 price seems nonsensical given that a 9.8 118 just sold for $740. I understand 118 may have more in the census, but what would I rather have? And other 9.8s around then and earlier tend to be $150 or less.

Agree - but the rationale for Iron Man 150 seems to be new “classic cover” status, a la Sub-Mariner 8.

Problem is, it’s not rare, even in 9.8 - and this sale will flush out many more slab candidates.

[the blob]

2 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

Agree - but the rationale for Iron Man 150 seems to be new “classic cover” status, a la Sub-Mariner 8.

Problem is, it’s not rare, even in 9.8 - and this sale will flush out many more slab candidates.

Would rather have (and do have, well, I have both) 1st Rhodey. A lot of covers could be "classic covers"

[Gaard]

What raised my eyebrows was the fact that it was close to $3000 after 2 days, and didn't really go up much after that.

[alexgross.com]

2 hours ago, the blob said:

i just wonder why, because i don't think of new money caring that much about a non-key book just because it is probably tough in 9.8

apparently a youtube person says to buy 9.8s. that must be why. lemmings with money? 

[fantastic_four]

Some of the smaller buys could just be younger, more inexperienced vintage collectors spending some of the $1800 in stimulus checks they've gotten this year on comics, but that doesn't explain FF 48 going up to $10K to $20K for high grades.  Usually these surges happen during recessions, but this time the surge in the comics market has coincided with the surge in the stock market.  So I'm mostly still mystified.

I should probably de-couple any MCU characters slated to appear prominently in phases 4 and 5 from the rest of the comics market.  Those were rising before the current overall rise anyway, so the generally-rising waters are just causing those to surge even higher.

Edited May 6, 2021 by fantastic_four

[lostboys]

15 hours ago, the blob said:

The attitude that everything is going up 30% next week pervades everything. I am looking at a 9 8 that had sold for $260-270 the last 3 auctions and BINs over the last 1-3 weeks. Every current BIN is prices $90-140+++ more than that. So I make offers at a little above the sales results. Most of the BINs auto reject. One guy does counter.  But he was the highest already and just countered with what the lowest BIN out there was. I don't think offering a little above the 3 sales results (one SS) was unreasonable. But folks want 30% more. 

If your best offer is auto rejected, send the seller a message letting him know what your offer was and to contact you if he's interested.

I've been told this is against ebay rules but I've been very successful with this approach. Just be super polite.

A lot of times these sellers don't check the offers that have been rejected but when they actually see it, they sometimes change their minds.

Also...ebay adds a "reply with offer" option after the seller reads your message.

[Bludriver]

Someone was selling an item for $100 with best offer. I offered $80, expecting either an acceptance or counter-offer. But I was turned down.

Sellers like that I just ignore going forward, they are not worth dealing with.

[Gatsby77]

29 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

Some of the smaller buys could just be younger, more inexperienced vintage collectors spending some of the $1800 in stimulus checks they've gotten this year on comics, but that doesn't explain FF 48 going up to $10K to $20K for high grades.  Usually these surges happen during recessions, but this time the surge in the comics market has coincided with the surge in the stock market.  So I'm mostly still mystified.

I should probably de-couple any MCU characters slated to appear prominently in phases 4 and 5 from the rest of the comics market.  Those were rising before the current overall rise anyway, so the generally-rising waters are just causing those to surge even higher.

Ditto any Star Wars books.

I'm glad to see that the Marvel Star Wars run has caught up with the modern Dark Horse show first appearance speculative hype books over the last six months.

But $6,000+ for the normal $.30 # 1 in 9.8 is just dumb.

And there have now been several sales at that price point.

[TheOldCollector]

20 minutes ago, lostboys said:

If your best offer is auto rejected, send the seller a message letting him know what your offer was and to contact you if he's interested.

I've been told this is against ebay rules but I've been very successful with this approach. Just be super polite.

A lot of times these sellers don't check the offers that have been rejected but when they actually see it, they sometimes change their minds.

Also...ebay adds a "reply with offer" option after the seller reads your message.

I've never tried this always just gave up. I'm going to try this next time and see what happens. Thanks for the info!!