A Guide to CGC Comic Book RARITY 2025
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2024
- Rarity is one of the most misunderstood aspects of comic book collecting. This video sets the record straight for CGC and raw comics. Specifically...
1:42 | What are the types of rarity?
4:04 | What makes a comic rare?
6:58 | What is the relationship between rarity and value?
9:12 | How do I estimate the prevalence of a comic book?
11:50 | Is X-Men 1 rare?
--Related Videos on Rarity--
Matt Nelson (CGC President) Interview: • CGC and Comic Book Rar...
My Response to No-Comics-Are-Rare Video by Swagglehaus: • The Truth About Comic ...
My Other Comprehensive Rarity Video: • CGC Comic Book RARITY:...
--Websites Mentioned in this Video--
www.cgccomics....
www.comichron....
Thanks so much for watching my friends! -Kesto
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
Hi, everyone. Thanks for liking this video at a Gerber "Less than Average" Level (200 to 1,000)! Can we hit "Average" (1,000 - 2,000)?
Great video again.. I’m an economist by trade so I feel I have a qualified opinion on this topic. At the end of the day price is gonna be some function of supply and demand. Demand is hard to quantify but you can take existing sales on a book at a particular time and each book has a fixed number of quantity. There are so many individual factors that each book has that really drive demand such as Fomo influence, page quality, which company graded a book, and grade etc. A lot of these drivers will feel pretty intuitive. Like a book that is a first appearance, nice quality book, of a popular character is gonna basically have a lot of demand in our hobby and the level of scarcity will inversely multiply the value of that book! It’s all cool !!! Nice way to articulate our hobby keston!!!
Aj! Awesome. I was hoping that an economist was a viewer and I'm glad it was you. Thanks for sharing your professional perspective. Well stated and much appreciated!
Great video! You met your like goal too! Wait, my 60s silver age marvel books aren’t rare anymore???? My plans are foiled again!
Great stuff my friend.
Heh, heh. Ironically, I am starting to buy some silver-age keys now. I love the silver-age books. They were waaay too expensive 2020-2023. :-)
@@kestonsoldschoolcomicbooks6842 yes they where. I cashed in on the majority of mine and upgraded to The All Star Comics 8, A Tesla Model X, a Jeep Cherokee and at the time an Amazing Fantasy 15 (which I no longer have). I have all the rest though. I saw the craze for marvel blue chip and thought to myself….i better sell this now while baseball card collectors will pay anything for it.
Good timing!
Love the information. Good to keep in mind
Thanks, JM for the kind words.
I love these educational videos. Keeps collecting alive. And definitely high quality videos thank you Keston. Always learn many new things with your videos!!
Thanks, MB for all the love :-)
Great video Keston. Very in depth. Where did you get that Punch framed photo that us constantly behind you on the wall? It's very cool.
Hi, Ken. Great to hear from you! Thanks. The Punch 12 is a print of a re-creation cover done by Ryan Heshka. I bought it directly from Ryan.
Great video Keston! I have one issue with the market availability rarity. Let’s say there are 10,000 copies of X-Men number one available, if there’s 15,000 people that want a copy then that is going to affect prices and value quite a bit. Conversely, if there’s a rare golden age book that only has 100 copies available, but only 70 people are looking for a copy, then that affects the value as well. So many factors to consider. I guess the question here becomes rare versus valuable. Although X-Men number one is not rare, it is still very valuable because of the popularity of the characters. And like you said there can be a golden age book that only has 200 copies available, but is not popular, Therefore it’s not as valuable as the X-Men number one which is super popular. Anyway, I really enjoy your content and analysis, very well done and I’m sure I’m not the only person out here who appreciates your content.
Hi Bry! Good question. I'm no economist, but I'll give a shot at an explanation. You're certainly right. The majority of golden age comics aren't worth that much simply because the demand is even smaller than the limited supply. In the case of X-Men 1, the demand is absolutely huge, and to get a copy people will pay a lot of money. A good book to examine is AF 15. Let's say there's 6,000 copies, which is 25 to 100 more prevalent than most golden age books....but it's more valuable grade for grade than all but perhaps the top 0.1% of golden age books because the demand is so fierce for that book. Nevertheless, I wouldn't call AF 15 rare. I would just say that demand is so great relative to supply that the book can sell at five figures for low and mid-grade copies. So, yeah, price is the intersection of supply and demand. A rare book can still be cheap when no one cares about it, and a common book can be quite expensive with incredible demand. However, with similar demand, the rarer book will be more expensive. That's what I was trying to show with the comparison of Action 1, AF 15, Hulk 181, and NM 98. All of these books have incredible demand but you'll never see the median copy of NM 98 sell for millions b/c there are just too many copies out there. Anyone else want to take a crack at Bry's excellent question? And, Bry, any additional thoughts?
Great point, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Doesn’t have to be rare to be very valuable, but if it’s rare and very desirable than you’re talking super valuable! I think people confuse the word ‘rare’ and ‘valuable’ when they discuss books like X-Men #1. It’s definitely not rare, but it’s also very valuable.
Keston, your explanation of various forms of rarity is very informative. So many factors contribute to "rarity". Everything is simply a matter of degree. :)
Thanks, Robert. You are definitely right about the "degree" part. While I think it is useful -- linguistically -- to assign labels to varying amounts of prevalence, it's also problematic. If a comic is suddenly discovered in an old barn and the total known copies increases from 10 to 11, does the comic all of a sudden cease to be "very rare"? :-)
@@kestonsoldschoolcomicbooks6842 Definitely some comics will no doubt be always rare thanks to attrition. Just like you touched on in the video. When everyone thought of comics as disposable, used for the paper drives, or simply destroyed from fires and floods, it turned many golden age comics into rarities. Now the fun is getting lucky finding them. :)
@@robertmalinowski6804 Indeed!
Hello there! Great information. I love the Gerber Book! Thank you!!
Thanks, Hyper. Just checked out a couple of your videos. Good work!
Great video. Very well done. Extremely informative. Thanks Keston.
Thanks, Chris! I appreciate it.
Thanks for this video! The best explanation I've seen so far!
Thanks, Jonathan! I appreciate the kind words.
In the early 2000's I brought my X-Men #1 to be appraised at my LCS (Flying Colors Comics - the originator of free comic book day). One of the employees remarked he hadn't seen one in a very long time. Joe Field, the owner, appraised it at $500.
As always clear and informative information about our favourite obsession. Big thumbs up 👍 from me.
Thank you, Unkle_Enkil!!
Great video and study of comic book rarity. Perhaps we'd be better talking about desirability; many keys are not rare, but are certainly highly desirable hence the price increases.
Thanks so much for the comment 35c! I think collectors should understand both. One of the reasons I harp on rarity is because of how the term is over-used in the hobby. To your point, it might be helpful to have more information on demand too :-)
Some rare comic books have their prices depressed from what they could be due to lack of demand. This can be caused simply because of a lack of information on the book. If no one knows that a particular comic book exists, the demand will not be there. This can be seen using many platinum era comic books as examples. I have a copy of Peck’s Bad Boy and His Chums from 1908. Most people have no idea about this book. There are estimated to be below 25 copies in any condition left. It is rare, but not many people really want that comic book in their collection. It is a piece of history that has been mostly lost to time.
BTW -It just happens to be the story that started the “Our Gang / Little Rascals” films a few decades later on in the 1920s - 1940s.
No doubt. Many cool platinum and gold books are simply unknown to most collectors. I do remember the Little Rascals. Cool book!
Like your hat. Fellow carrier in Arkansas.
Awesome. Thanks Andrew. I worked as a Remote Coder for a couple of years back in the day. Enjoyed my time at USPS!
Great video!
Thank you, VV!
Serious question: how can a 9.6 Amazing Fantasy #15 even exist, since safe storage methods didn't exist back then (or high-grading Golden Age books?) That always confuses me. Are books like that altered or pressed?
Hi Sampoerna, Good question. It's extremely rare because most books were NOT handled with care and most were not stored in optimal conditions. That said, a few early collectors -- despite their being virtually no market for comic books -- treated them very well. The most famous of which is Edgar Church who was an adult collecting comic books to inspire his graphic design business. He was OCD and stored his comics in a cedar closet. The cool, dry climate in Colorado helped keep his books in pristine condition. That's why his pedigree (the Mile High) is the most revered of them all. The average condition of his books from the golden age is either a 9.4 or a 9.6. The majority of highest graded copies in the golden age come from this collection.
Question for you. I'm curious if you think Spirit Section 6/2/1940 is rare. I have one and I think only 20 on the census but did have a very high print run in 1940
Cool book. I'm guessing that it is not more prevalent than most other golden age books. But, the price point is not high enough for CGC to be a reliable indicator imho. What do you think?
@@kestonsoldschoolcomicbooks6842 seeing how it was a newspaper insert of sorts I feel more got printed then most GA books but even more got destroyed. Feel like it's one of the most important books to come to the medium because it changed not only comics forever but became a staple for newspapers
Double covers, price variants (35 cent and pence variants)
Definitely good examples under attributional rarity!
Great information
Thank you, Roy!
I’m the proud owner of a comic which I believe is almost certainly the rarest issue of Batman.
Batman #2, 15 cent variant. 3 known to exist.
Hi, Charles. I did not know about that variant. Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
@@kestonsoldschoolcomicbooks6842 there are other 15 cent variants around the same time. An issue of Action, an issue of Detective, an issue of More Fun, a couple others. An Adventure Comics. All are fewer than 5 known to exist.
They may have been for Canadian distribution.
Cool. Thanks. I'll have to look into it :-)
@@kestonsoldschoolcomicbooks6842 the Detective Comics is #43, 1 known to exist which is the Dave Crippen “D” copy Pedigree.
Great Show K ! Me, I'll take Value all day long. "rare" is for prime rib. C ya !
My favorite kind of rare, Tom!
Serious question - has anyone tried to determine if there are older comics that are known to exist today, but are absent from the CGC census because none have been graded by CGC?
I bet there are at least a few giveaways and educational/inspirational comics that would fall into this category.
Hi, Tom. I can say with certainty that this is the case. There are many obscure books -- like the ones you are talking about -- that have not been graded. I have some friends with such comics.
I recently sold an X-Men 1 to help fund my pursuit of more "rare" Golden Age books. The idea being, if the market slowed enough that collectors stopped listing "rare" books, I want to lock those down now while they're still available. I know that even in a down market, there will always be an X-Men 1 up for grabs.
Hi, Shane. I hear you. Good strategy imho. Yeah, I've always thought that rare golden age books with some cachet are the best investments. In my experience, most of them don't shoot up as fast (nor crater as quickly) as silver, bronze, and modern books. My collection has evolved most into gold over the years. That said, I do like silver-age keys at a good price. LIke so many people, I was and am a huge marvel fan. And, there's something special about having these books!
If I owned one of those extremely valuable books, I would not let anyone know I owned it. I am definitely not sending it in the mail to be graded. There might be more copies than estimated buried in private collections.
Hi, Ancient Comic Guy. Certainly. No doubt there are some huge ungraded grails locked away in a private collection. For example, the Mile High copy of Action 1 exists and has NOT been graded. That said, any copy of Action 1 that has come to market since 2000 -- to my knowledge -- has been graded by CGC. That's why Matt Nelson believes that such a high percentage of existing copies have been graded. Even still, it's impossible to fully know how many copies are out there. There are some raw copies of Action 1 that are known like the Mile High copy. There are likely a few that have been discovered but have not been revealed to the collecting community. And, there are likely some (but I'm guessing not many) that have yet to be discovered in an attic, a basement, a barn, or in a wall! Thanks for the comment, my friend!
It’s so strange that Canadian Price variants are in more demand than Us versions and UK price variants are in less demand. I wonder who decided on this convention. Both Canadian and UK are rarer than US versions. Maybe do a segment in the history of why!
Hi, Dakoit. It is interesting. Is it the case that there is a higher density of comic book collectors in Canada than in the U.k.? I don't know the reason. I'm guessing that Canadians are paying higher prices for the Canadian variants than folks from the, U.S.?
@@kestonsoldschoolcomicbooks6842 it could be…but Canadians just follow what the US market dictates. There are Canadian exclusive golden books called “Canadian Whites” that are rare. However regular Canadian price variants are not uncommon to find in Canada. Started collecting in Canada, and we didn’t even know we had a Canadian version, nor was there any real interest until Americans started valuing them more.
The very concept of comic book "grading" pay services is pure baloney.
They have CGC partys, now? Then I guess I won't be attending.
That stock video of "60s hippies" is hilarious 😅
Thanks, Derek. I liked that part of the video, too :-)
Last comment, LOVE the Comicchron website. Great share!
Thanks, Shane. Yeah, so much good info on there!
The CGC census is extremely unreliable due to cracking and resubmitting.
Thanks, Mack, for the comment. Certainly an issue. Matt Nelson addresses "ghost copies" in his video if you're interested. th-cam.com/video/DdLPgcPTR0Y/w-d-xo.html
I loved the breakdown on 'Types of Rarity'.
Thank you, Shane.
Bonus last comment, when are we going to get a Keston Comic book room tour?
Haha. When I clean it up...which may be a while :-)
NOTHING IS RARRRREEEE
haha. We'll see :-)