From: rickard@anasazi.com (Ronald J. Rickard Jr)
Subject: Re: Which Guide to Use
Organization: Anasazi, Inc.  Phoenix, Arizona USA
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 08:23:57 GMT

In article <1992Dec25.060233.3939@njitgw.njit.edu> ddl1542@hertz.njit.edu (Derek Lee!) writes:
>Here's my reasoning for preferring Wizard and CVM:  The price market for 
>comics is ridiculously volatile, a good example being the weekly appreciation
>of the Superman 75's as well as any hot new Image or Valiant stuff.  Now,
>considering that Overstreet is quarterly, anything that is quoted in the
>Update is going to be at least a month off, and possible quite more, what
>with the entire process they go through of putting together the stuff.  When
>people say that Wizard and CVM are overpriced, it's just that it takes 
>Overstreet so long to catch up to them.  I would much rather have a monthly
>update in my hands rather than wait 3-4 months for a guide which is typically
>obsolete even before it hits the shelves.  If you want the best pricing, just
>go to the shows.  A comic is worth as much as people want to pay for it, and
>the way all three guides get their prices is by watching the shows.

This is all fine and dandy, but where all price guides fail is reporting when
a book has fallen in price.  Very few new books that go up in price will remain
at that level, I would say 99.99999% of them fall in price, or perhaps I 
should say should fall in price.  Look at the demand for a Spiderman #1 or 
X-Force #1 as examples (I could name a few hundred more as well).  Are these 
really worth the prices listed in these guides?  I know alot of stores that 
have these particular issues at cover price, because that is the price 
that the books move at.  So, to me price guides are great in reporting 
upward trends, but they do fail in reporting when a book begins to fall 
in price or demand as well.  That is the reason Overstreet does the reporting 
of prices the way it does and in the long run is a better 'guide' for comics.  
It will never list the maximum value a book is going for, and its prices 
for books over 1-2 years old is more realistic, since the Wizard and CVM 
seem to fail in adjusting the prices down for books that do fall in price.  
Just because a book sells for $35 today does not mean that it will always 
maintain this value.  And if it is a new book, more likely than not, it
won't maintain this value.

Does anybody remember Overstreet before these new "Price Guides" came along?
It use to report downward trends as well as upward trends in books.  I
remember the first update from around 1981-82 which had more books go down
in price than up, and rightfully so.  I do not think the new 'guides' will
ever do this with any reasonable accuracy, and have fueled the speculator
side of comic investing greatly.  If buying such and such a book is a sure
bet of making a profit, since this book will be worth so much, I should
buy alot of copies.  

In my opinion, Wizard and CVM have been bad for the comic collecting 
industry as a whole and have helped create the "new hot issue" frenzies
that I have seen at the comic shops in the past couple of years.  This
is bad in my opinion, because I would rather people buy the comics to 
read them first, and have the value that comes with them be secondary.
It seems like for a large number of people that buy the books today,
the value of the book is the main thrust of their purchase, and reading
the book is secondary.  Some may not see this as bad, but in my
opinion, it is.

The uniqueness of the hobby has long since left it from the days when
I started collecting comics in the early 80s.  It seemed to me then
that stories, art, and characters were what people bought the books for.
Today, it seems that the profit is the sole reason behind buying a book.
I can see the similarities between the comic market and the card market
of a few years ago, and it makes me sad to see the decline of the 
comic market, because what happened to cards is going to happen to 
comics.  If this is just the field maturing, then I would have to 
say that I prefered it in its infancy.

						Ron
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.marketplace,rec.collecting