{"id":203,"date":"2019-07-16T13:30:41","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T18:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/?p=203"},"modified":"2019-07-16T13:30:41","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T18:30:41","slug":"overstreet-market-report-december-2018-ospg-49","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/2019\/overstreet-market-report-december-2018-ospg-49\/","title":{"rendered":"Overstreet Market Report – December 2018 OSPG #49"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\u00a0following\u00a0post\u00a0contains\u00a0the\u00a0Overstreet\u00a0Market\u00a0Report\u00a0supplied\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0Overstreet\u00a0Comic\u00a0Book\u00a0Price\u00a0Guide\u00a0#49,\u00a0published\u00a0in\u00a0July\u00a02019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GREG HOLLAND<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

slabdata.com<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the increasing attention placed upon slabs (third party professionally\ngraded and encapsulated comic books), it is the raw (ungraded, non-slabbed)\ncomic books which remain the overwhelming majority of comic books in existence,\navailable for purchase, and sold each year. Price guides such as this one remain\nextremely important to the market by providing accurate listings and values for\nraw comics, if for no other reason than the immense size of the raw comic\nmarket this guide serves. Slabs represent a very small percentage of all comic\nbooks in existence, however, the slabbed comic market represents a much larger\npercentage of total dollars spent annually, particularly for the highest valued\n(and highest publicity key issue) comic books in each decade. The largest of\nthe professional grading companies for comic books has been Certified Guaranty\nCompany (CGC) since opening to the public in 2000. With CGC permission, I have\nbeen compiling the CGC census into a searchable database online since 2003. If\nany other grading companies also make their census information available and\ngive permission, they will be included in future reports. While there are\nbillions of comic books in existence, 4,161,087\ncomic books were reported as having been professionally graded and encapsulated\naccording to the official CGC census by mid-December 2018.<\/strong> The counts break\nout as: 3,405,568 universal grades, 659,200 signature series, 53,488 restored,\nand 42,831 qualified grades. Those 4,161,087 slabs are for 179,409 different\ncomic books, seeming to show that the average comic book sent to CGC has been\ngraded 23 times. In fact, more than 50,000 different comics have been graded\nonly once, more than half of the 179,409 comics have been graded three times or\nless, and more than 129,000 (72%) of the 179,409 have been graded fewer than\nten times. Only 4% of comic books sent to CGC have been graded at least 100\ntimes. The nine most submitted comic books to date have been graded at least\n10,000 times. This might seem like a very high number of copies graded, but\neven 10,000 is only 10% if the print run was 100,000 comics.  The comics in the top most submitted were printed\nin multiple hundreds of thousands of copies. The most often CGC graded comic book is Amazing Spider-Man #300<\/em> with more than 18,000 copies graded,\nfollowed by New Mutants #98<\/em>, and Wolverine Limited Series #1<\/em>.<\/strong> The\nnext five are Marvel Super Heroes Secret\nWars #8, Uncanny X-Men #266, Incredible Hulk #181, Amazing Spider-Man #361, <\/em>and\nAmazing Spider-Man #129<\/em>. In ninth\nplace is Spawn #1<\/em>, followed by Amazing Spider-Man #252<\/em> in tenth, which is\nlikely to exceed 10,000 graded copies by the time of this publication.  Nine of the top ten most submitted books are from\nMarvel, plus Spawn #1<\/em> from Image\nComics.  The top most submitted comic\nfrom D.C. Comics is Batman: The Killing\nJoke<\/em> at 17th<\/sup> most submitted with 5,770 copies on the CGC\ncensus.  All the Top 100 most-submitted\ncomics are from Marvel (85), D.C. Comics (11), or Image (4). The first book\nrepresented by another publisher is Rai\n#0<\/em> (1992) from Valiant Comics at position #101 (2,512 copies graded).  The\nTop 100 most-submitted books to CGC represent 476,015 copies on the CGC census,\nwhich is 11.4% of all CGC graded comics.<\/strong> \nThe Top 1% of comics submitted to CGC (1,794 different comics) represent\n1,715,163 slabs, or 41% of all slabs.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CGC Census Counts by Comic Decade\n(as of mid-December 2018):<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1930s = 8,254 (0.2%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1940s = 138,426 (3.3%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1950s = 135,854 (3.3%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1960s = 656,900 (15.8%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1970s = 694,187 (16.7%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1980s = 639,429 (15.4%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1990s = 472,865 (11.4%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2000s = 519,093 (12.5%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2010s = 893,984 (21.5%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others = 2,095 (<0.1%) \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total = 4,161,087.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing broad conclusions using the CGC census information is more\nproblematic than simply calculating the numbers. CGC counts, totals, and\naverages do not necessarily represent a sample of the whole comic book market. Comics which are sent to CGC have often\nbeen selected by the submitter for exceptional qualities of high grade\ncondition, high market value, or both. <\/strong>By definition, the average raw comic\nis unlikely to be exceptional.  Another\nimportant note is that comics which have few copies on the CGC census are not\nnecessarily rare. When a comic book has little market value, even if it is very\nold, there is little reason to pay for third-party professional grading and\nencapsulation. Comics which appear\nuncommon on the CGC census may be extremely common and of little value in the\nmarket. <\/strong>One common phrase often used with CGC graded comics is the phrase\n\u201chighest graded\u201d. According to the CGC census, the highest graded copy is\nrarely alone. The potential buyer for a highest graded copy should check to see\nif the copy is still the highest graded because more copies may be graded at any\ntime. The buyer should also know if the highest graded copy is one of one, one\nof ten, or one of hundreds at the same grade. Over 25% of all CGC graded comics\nare also the \u201chighest graded\u201d for that issue. More than 1,000,000 CGC graded comics are technically the \u201chighest\ngraded\u201d while fewer than 50,000 are the \u201csingle highest graded\u201d copy with at\nleast one lower graded copy on the CGC census.<\/strong> Everyone should be aware\nthat the phrase \u201chighest graded\u201d rarely means \u201csingle highest graded\u201d. Additionally,\nany premiums paid for the single highest graded copy of a comic book should be\nconsidered carefully, since another copy at the same grade or higher could potentially\nbe graded tomorrow. There is also quite a bit of debate and mystery associated\nwith the highest possible CGC grades of CGC 9.9 and CGC 10.  At the time of this writing, CGC had assigned\nthe CGC 9.9 grade to 15,432 comics (about 1 out of every 270 comics graded) and\nassigned the CGC 10 grade to 3,503 comics (about 1 out of every 1,188 comics\ngraded).  The CGC 9.9 and CGC 10 grades are\noverwhelmingly associated with recently-printed comic books.  80% of CGC 9.9 and 86% of CGC 10 books were\nprinted since CGC opened to the public in 2000. \nA high percentage of the remaining CGC 9.9 and CGC 10 comics were printed\nin the 1990s with chromium wraparound covers. It is common to point to the CGC\n9.9 and CGC 10 grades (and their corresponding high prices in the market) as\nexamples of extremes, even extreme absurdities, but it should be recognized\nthat CGC 9.9 and CGC 10 are extremely\ninfrequent, particularly for comics printed in the 1990s and earlier which do\nnot feature chromium covers.<\/strong>  The\noldest CGC 10 comic book is Kolynos\nPresents the White Guard #1 <\/em>(1949), which was a promotional comic book for a\ntoothpaste company. The oldest standard comic book graded CGC 10 is a copy of Thor #156<\/em> (1968). The oldest comic book\ngraded CGC 9.9 is a copy of Zip Comics #7<\/em>\n(1940).  All three of the oldest CGC 9.9\nand CGC 10 books listed above were graded by CGC more than 15 years ago.  For key issue comics, it is nearly\nuniversally-accepted that the three biggest superheroes in the comic book\nindustry are Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man, so it is worth noting that CGC\nhas graded 69 copies of Action Comics #1<\/em>\n(1st<\/sup> Superman, 1938), 68 copies of Detective Comics #27<\/em> (1st<\/sup> Batman, 1939), and 3,061\ncopies of Amazing Fantasy #15<\/em> (1st<\/sup>\nSpider-Man, 1962).  If there were\nunreported CGC resubmissions for copies of these (or any other) comic books,\nthen the CGC census numbers are too high. While this means that the CGC census\nhas errors, the actual number of CGC slabs in the market (and available for\npurchase) is always equal to the number reported or is even lower.  More\ninformation like this market report is available at slabdata.com, and more\ndetailed CGC census analysis can be performed at cgcdata.com. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0following\u00a0post\u00a0contains\u00a0the\u00a0Overstreet\u00a0Market\u00a0Report\u00a0supplied\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0Overstreet\u00a0Comic\u00a0Book\u00a0Price\u00a0Guide\u00a0#49,\u00a0published\u00a0in\u00a0July\u00a02019. GREG HOLLAND slabdata.com Despite the increasing attention placed upon slabs (third party professionally graded and encapsulated comic books), it is the raw (ungraded, non-slabbed) comic books which remain the overwhelming majority of comic books in existence, available for purchase, and sold each year. Price guides such as this one remain extremely important to the … Continue reading “Overstreet Market Report – December 2018 OSPG #49”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[112,111,113],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basic-info","tag-market","tag-overstreet","tag-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204,"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.slabdata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}