What happened to the reasonable slab prices on eBay?

[caxiotis]

I have been looking at eBay lately and am not seeing any reasonable you priced Pre-Unity 9.8 slab? What happened? I mean the Bloodshot movie happened, but it doesn’t explain high prices for Solar and Magnus?

[IMJ]

Things have been like that on eBay 9.8's for years now. The best thing you can do is wait for open bid auctions. There's a large eBay cohort that I think feed pricing off of each other. These are the guys that would reply to your offer saying that their price would beat the next lowest on the bay, but in complete disregard of actual sales rather than listing asking prices.

It's like people list random slabs at the default pricing of $74.95 (or worse) for a common 9.8.

I've got 25 years of historical data in pricing and sales on Iron Man books that I've curated from market observations and my own buying logs. It used to be that a $25 9.8 for a common, unimportant book was possible. Now people list books like that for a bill.

[Juki]

Well,
I am wondering if EBay taxation is going to drive prices up? I got this e-mail today:

Effective July 1, 2020 eBay is legally required as a Marketplace Facilitator to collect and remit sales tax on behalf of our sellers, for items shipped to buyers in certain states, now including Louisiana and Mississippi. If you’re a tax-exempt buyer (e.g. a reseller, charitable entity, etc.), you can submit a tax exemption certificate to us and make purchases on eBay without paying tax.

[magnus20009]

Things have been like that on eBay 9.8's for years now. The best thing you can do is wait for open bid auctions. There's a large eBay cohort that I think feed pricing off of each other. These are the guys that would reply to your offer saying that their price would beat the next lowest on the bay, but in complete disregard of actual sales rather than listing asking prices.

It's like people list random slabs at the default pricing of $74.95 (or worse) for a common 9.8.

I've got 25 years of historical data in pricing and sales on Iron Man books that I've curated from market observations and my own buying logs. It used to be that a $25 9.8 for a common, unimportant book was possible. Now people list books like that for a bill.

Open bid options is the way to go. I collect Rosa ducks. Won 6 different slabs 9.8 recently from $16 a slab to $32. The 6 slabs totaled about $145. If I wanted buy the same books at fixed price it would have been $80 to $120 PER book. I rarely buy fixed priced slab auctions as I think some sellers just put them up there and don't care if they sit for years.

[magnus20009]

Well,
I am wondering if EBay taxation is going to drive prices up? I got this e-mail today:

Effective July 1, 2020 eBay is legally required as a Marketplace Facilitator to collect and remit sales tax on behalf of our sellers, for items shipped to buyers in certain states, now including Louisiana and Mississippi. If you’re a tax-exempt buyer (e.g. a reseller, charitable entity, etc.), you can submit a tax exemption certificate to us and make purchases on eBay without paying tax.

eBay has been rolling this out South Dakota vs Wayfair was ruled on. There are few states where eBay doesn't do this. eBay even collects sales tax for purchase made from some countries. Sellers don't see this though as the fees are added at checkout. If anything it should cause prices to fall as many people know they will have to add 5-10% on when they check out.

[nycjadie]

I have been looking at eBay lately and am not seeing any reasonable you priced Pre-Unity 9.8 slab? What happened? I mean the Bloodshot movie happened, but it doesn’t explain high prices for Solar and Magnus?

My impression is that people put their collections up on eBay and say to themselves, "I'll sell it if I can get a silly price for it." I noticed this occurred when eBay essentially stopped charging listing prices from sellers. Even $.10-.25 is enough to keep the crap off the site. However, eBay wanted to compete with third-party sellers at Amazon, and now we have the virtual swap meet online.

I rarely buy BIN listings for slabs, but every once in awhile I pull the trigger.

I will also say that the number of Valiant slabs on eBay is at an all time high, with 9.8s regularly totaling 1700+. A few years ago there was maybe 1200, a few years before that maybe 800, and before that, even fewer.

My slab purchases have ironically plummeted. Not because I'm not interested, but the vast majority of the books available for purchase are probably 20-30 books, if I had to hazard a guess. I slabbed those long ago, and it seems the other books are not of interest to only but a few of us.

[IMJ]

Open bid options is the way to go. I collect Rosa ducks. Won 6 different slabs 9.8 recently from $16 a slab to $32. The 6 slabs totaled about $145. If I wanted buy the same books at fixed price it would have been $80 to $120 PER book. I rarely buy fixed priced slab auctions as I think some sellers just put them up there and don't care if they sit for years.

Exactly. Man I remember when I started buying slabs and eBay was replete with $18 - $25 books. Nowadays people treat their common 9.8 or 9.6 like it's going to make a car payment for them. Basically eBay is populated with regular books that reflect key book pricing.

My impression is that people put their collections up on eBay and say to themselves, "I'll sell it if I can get a silly price for it." I noticed this occurred when eBay essentially stopped charging listing prices from sellers. Even $.10-.25 is enough to keep the crap off the site. However, eBay wanted to compete with third-party sellers at Amazon, and now we have the virtual swap meet online.

Yes, yes, yes. Great point.
Just recently I found a $225 slab I was interested in. It's not a key book at all, but it's one that I've wanted to add for some time. There's nothing special about it beyond being a personal fav. I do some digging outside of my own experience with the book and from three different source I find that it's generally a hundred dollar book in high grade.

I offer the guy what comes to $150 shipped, which is wayyyyy more than FMV on this one. I'm silly for spending even that on it, but I love the book and it will probably sit in my collection for 10 to 15 years, so whatever. I send a nice, conversational style offer to the seller and he replies with $200 along with the good 'ol, conventioneer, mouth-breather "Best I can do" response (which is completely meaningless).

I reply by increasing my offer maybe a dollar and explain that he's got a great copy there but I'm already way above fair market value with my offer, that double the current market price is simply unwarranted, and respectfully ask him to give it some consideration. Basically I'm telling this guy that he's got no real basis for what he's asking and that he's lucky I made him a polite offer that is beyond fair. I mean.....what is this nonsense?

On another note, you guys ever run into the "I've got more in it than that" kind of seller? That always makes me laugh. Let me frame this one - had a guy with a Quasar slab I wanted to pick up. This book is the kind of book that you'd buy for 2 bucks out of the bins, get lucky on the grade, submit it and sell it as a 9.8 for maybe 25 to 30 bucks for your trouble. Guy wants like 125 bucks for it. I don't remember what I offered him, but it was still way fair for the book (maybe like 40 bucks which is more than it's worth, but Quasar books are a novelty for me). Guy tells me that he's got more in it than that.

What's that jackass doing? Trying to recoup the cost of a longbox of random Marvel cosmics by selling one slab? On that note another 9.8 popped up eventually and I picked it up for 48 bucks. -ahem-

The slab market is a mess right now.

[magnus20009]

Not slabs related but similar.

I have a story from yesterday. I noticed a listing that has been up for about a week at $400. It was for a set of 1993 collectible cards. Not rare but a real pain to put together back in the day and something I had always wanted. Normally it would go for about $250. (Although coincidently One third of it sold for $11 last week – which I passed on as I didn’t want the headache of tracking the other cards down separately). I wasn’t going to pay $400 but talked myself into being able to offer $325 so politely sent a note to the seller who has a total of 5 for feedback on eBay (who also has listed his guitar and a one lot of old video game cartridges) asking if he would accept this. I suspect I am one of the few people in the world that would care about this and likely the only nibble he got. He responded back to me know that he thinks of it $400 is too cheap and he is raising the price to $600 if I am interested. Normally I am leary of sellers with low feedback but he had quite a lot of pictures of the item and it would be far to much work to try and scam people on something like this that no one cares about.

I hope he does not need money soon as this will sit for years at that price I would imagine. I figure in a week or two the price will be back down because if he is selling his guitar, this one card set and a random collection of well-played video games I am guessing he just looked around his house to see what he could try to quickly turn into cash.

The sad thing is like most other early 1990s drek he likely could have gotten $400 for it back in the day and I do not doubt that he might well have more than that into it. (A few weeks ago I finally finished my Plasm 0 card set buying the 9 level 1 chase cards and 4 level 2 chase cards for $10. Remember when they went for far more than that each when Plasm was released and hot?)

[IMJ]

Magnus2009, his next move when it doesn't sell will be to remove the listing and take the time to message you to tell you that it sold, lmao!

[magnus20009]

Magnus2009, his next move when it doesn't sell will be to remove the listing and take the time to message you to tell you that it sold, lmao!

And then tell me he has a second set available that I can have for $800

[ckb]

Hey I do what I can!

But I'm not selling individual slabs for $15. I would rather use them for TV dinner trays or target practice.

My bottom has historically been $45 shipped on eBay and ~$35 shipped off-eBay, but I have lowered that by about $10 recently. Really things are weak enough that I am afraid to slab more commons, despite having many that I planned on sending in. Sometimes I will see slabs sell above what I have them listed at, which all I can do is shake my head at.

And as you guys know I gave up on auctions for slabs a long time ago. eBay can be a sea of garbage, I don't know how anyone finds anything. Especially licensed merchandise. I started selling again for my friend at PopFun recently...he had the Harry Potter license and has some HP products... OMG, what a morass of steaming confusion the HP categories are. There are like 50k+ listings in some categories. Much of it unlicensed.

Anyway, rant off.

[IMJ]

Hey I do what I can!

But I'm not selling individual slabs for $15. I would rather use them for TV dinner trays or target practice.

My bottom has historically been $45 shipped on eBay and ~$35 shipped off-eBay, but I have lowered that by about $10 recently. Really things are weak enough that I am afraid to slab more commons, despite having many that I planned on sending in. Sometimes I will see slabs sell above what I have them listed at, which all I can do is shake my head at.

And as you guys know I gave up on auctions for slabs a long time ago. eBay can be a sea of garbage, I don't know how anyone finds anything. Especially licensed merchandise. I started selling again for my friend at PopFun recently...he had the Harry Potter license and has some HP products... OMG, what a morass of steaming confusion the HP categories are. There are like 50k+ listings in some categories. Much of it unlicensed.

Anyway, rant off.

I can totally understand how eBay slab prices have changed given the rise of shipping costs and the costs of selling on online platforms. I have to find my own ways to compensate for it when I run sales too.

But I think there's a big difference between a seller who wants to make a few bucks on a good pick and submission for a common issue 9.8 slab versus most of what's on eBay with asking prices spanning 75 to 250 bucks for what are essentially novelty slabs. Most of the Iron Man slabs in my collection are novelty slabs that simply serve as high grade examples from the run. Those used to be some of the most fun books to have when the pricing was right - "oh look! Iron Man #247 as a 9.8! $25 bucks? Surreeeee! Wait.... huh? $75 bucks? LOL Um no thanks".

[betterthanezra]

Hey IMJ there were some IM 9.8 slabs just listed on an App I use called Shortboxed they are very reasonably priced and not gorging people.

-Brian

[nonplayer]

Everything is leaning towards comics just not a big thing anymore.
Better sell your collection soon. Because as the older crew move on or die out the next generation just doesnt care. Covid was really bad let people know where value lies.

[magnus20009]

This is what happened.

Number of CGC 9.8 slabs on eBay 79,210 (100%)
Number of those CGC 9.8 slabs up for auction and not just Buy-it-Now: 4,331 (5.5%)
Number of those 9.8 slabs up for auction where the opening price is reasonable that someone had actually put a bid in: 830 (1.0%)

So 99% of the slabs listed on eBay are people only willing to sell if an above market price is hit. It is dirt cheap to have your books listed and to keep rolling them over in the hopes someone will buy.

Based on the data only 1% of books listed are at prices attractive enough to get buyers interested.

I find I buy less and less on eBay all the time comic wise as the prices just do not make sense and if you offer someone fair market price they will come back and say there are like 5 more copies asking $$$ (but they neglect to mention they have been asking that for 6 months and have not moved)

[nycjadie]

Yep

[IMJ]

Hey IMJ there were some IM 9.8 slabs just listed on an App I use called Shortboxed they are very reasonably priced and not gorging people.

-Brian

Hm. Never heard of it, but I'll check it out. Thank you.

This is what happened.

Number of CGC 9.8 slabs on eBay 79,210 (100%)
Number of those CGC 9.8 slabs up for auction and not just Buy-it-Now: 4,331 (5.5%)
Number of those 9.8 slabs up for auction where the opening price is reasonable that someone had actually put a bid in: 830 (1.0%)

So 99% of the slabs listed on eBay are people only willing to sell if an above market price is hit. It is dirt cheap to have your books listed and to keep rolling them over in the hopes someone will buy.

Based on the data only 1% of books listed are at prices attractive enough to get buyers interested.

I find I buy less and less on eBay all the time comic wise as the prices just do not make sense and if you offer someone fair market price they will come back and say there are like 5 more copies asking $$$ (but they neglect to mention they have been asking that for 6 months and have not moved)

This. The whole post, exactly.

Everything is leaning towards comics just not a big thing anymore.
Better sell your collection soon. Because as the older crew move on or die out the next generation just doesnt care. Covid was really bad let people know where value lies.

I can't tell if this was sarcasm or catastrophizing to be honest. But either way I'd say that if you dialed back the sense of urgency several notches, then the spirit of this is widely true.

Comics are going to have a market for a very long time as investments. But the day of trading common books are probably dwindling. People are always going to buy truly key books, but after the current speculation trend is over I can see things changing big time.

[nonplayer]

When stuff doesnt jive with people key books or not nobody will waste therir money because its not an investment.
Its a old persons game.

[IMJ]

When stuff doesnt jive with people key books or not nobody will waste therir money because its not an investment.
Its a old persons game.

I agree with that completely.
But then again Baseball cards are seeing a huge resurgence now too, so hopefully in another generation things will be the same for comic books. I'm curious as to how long the current speculation mania will last though.

[DirtbagSailor]

People don’t really buy comics.

They buy back their youth, or they acquire what they could not when they were young. This is why we see people paying for cards, toys, or video game cartridges that are put on display.

Notice how the people who own classic muscle cars tend to buy cars that were hot during the time period that they were young?

Now, some people are different, and pay a LOT for things BEFORE their time if it represents something from the present (e.g. Action Comics #1).

[IMJ]

Now, some people are different, and pay a LOT for things BEFORE their time if it represents something from the present (e.g. Action Comics #1).

This is me.

[DirtbagSailor]

Now, some people are different, and pay a LOT for things BEFORE their time if it represents something from the present (e.g. Action Comics #1).

This is me.

I drive a fully restored 1970 Chevelle SS LS6, which could easily make any Top 10 Muscle Car list. Yet, I was NOT even born until 1978.

This car would have fit better in my father's generation as he was 19 or 20 when it was released.

He always wanted a car like this, as it reminded him of when he was young, wild, and free. It reminded him of a simpler time.

For me, it is different.

I've seen all of "The Fast and The Furious movies," "Gone in 60 Seconds," and "John Wick." I've watched Jay Leno's Garage, and recognize this car as a iconic example of the classic American muscle car. I don't care about original parts and such; I care about performance and style.

He wanted a Journey Into Mystery #83 because he grew up reading about Thor in the early 60s.

I want a Journey Into Mystery #83 because it is the FIRST APPEARANCE of Thor, would look incredible in my collection, and also is worth a TON of $$$$$!

[aj583]

People don’t really buy comics.

They buy back their youth, or they acquire what they could not when they were young. This is why we see people paying for cards, toys, or video game cartridges that are put on display.

Well said!


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