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What's a Blob (50lb+) REALLY worth?


anwnate

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What is a blob (50lbs+) REALLY worth?

 

I just started teaching myself excel.  I decided to create a graph.  Instead of selecting random numbers…I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make the exercise worthwhile.

With both the wifey and daughter out…I decided to  prove (once and for all) I have no life…and actually determine what a blob (50lb+) is REALLY worth.

How do you do this?  You go through 73 pages in the Selling Section (see…no life) and grab the last 12 years of blob sales (50lbs+). 

In the beginning (2004ish)…most people didn't put prices up…so those couldn't be included.

Additionally some people never updated the posts after selling it (assumingly)…so I couldn't include those.

Finally…some people ended up taking less than asked…but never revealed what they accepted…so I couldn't include those either.

Truly-You-Have.svg 2.jpg

Well yes…yes I do.  Anyway, I went ahead and grabbed all the prices…disregarding shipping.  When I had to subtract and the shipping was $13.45…I simply rounded it to $15.  I will spare you the painful experience I had erasing hours of work due to inexperience with the program…and the rest of the crap I went through.  All you really want is the info.  Remember…shipping was NOT included in any of these figures.

The average Blob50 was sold at $107.  The highest was sold at $150, the lowest at $55 (which I happened to get :)).

The average YORK USA (second generation) half hundred was sold at $134.  The highest was sold at $200 and the lowest at $65.

The average YORK FATMAN half hundred was sold at exactly $200.  The highest was sold at $300 (Paul Knight being the lucky man) and the lowest was sold at $100 (very early on…probably didn't know any better).

Here's a graph for your perusal.

chart3.JPG

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The Ambassador Of Grip...

and now Than is becoming the Grip CPA too?

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10 hours ago, richcottrell said:

The Ambassador Of Grip...

and now Than is becoming the Grip CPA too?

Funny...but I wouldn't insult a CPA saying it.

Additionally, I hope people like David, Jedd and Juha aren't insulted by the title you've given me.

I don't think there have been greater Ambassadors than them.  

Then again...since they are all also living legends...maybe I can use that particular  title. :)

 

 

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To answer a few questions...

 

"How many data points were used in created the graph?"

Answer:  60 (this averages out to 5 blobs per year)  This amount was only those I could track.  Obviously there were a lot of "Friend" and Ebay sales also.

 

"What was the breakdown of the data points?"

25 Blob 50's (2/year),

18 USA (1.3/year),

15 Fatman (1.25/year),

2 Fatman Clones (super rare)

 

"Beyond that $100 outlier, what was the lowest Fatman that sold?"

$170 (2011)

 

 

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Great work Nate! The only improvement I can think of is that the median price would be more useful, especially due to the small sample size and accompanying outliers.

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15 minutes ago, odin said:

Great work Nate! The only improvement I can think of is that the median price would be more useful, especially due to the small sample size and accompanying outliers.

So let it be written...so let it be done.

 

Median Fatman=225 (average 200), (12% increase)

Median USA=120 (average 134), (10.5% increase)

Median Blob50=105  (average 107), (2% increase)

(average price increase of 8.2% from average to median using gorilla blob math)

 

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1 minute ago, anwnate said:

So let it be written...so let it be done.

 

Median Fatman=225 (average 200), (12% increase)

Median USA=120 (average 134), (10.5% increase)

Median Blob50=105  (average 107), (2% increase)

(average price increase of 8.2% from average to median using gorilla blob math)

 

Great work Nate, thank you! You are very generous with both your time, money and support for the world of grip as well as being a very accomplished bender and overall gripster. I appreciate the difficulty and tediousness of the task, thank you for all the interesting data!

I tried a similar exercise earlier this year and got a # that was higher for second gen (forgot the exact # now).  I'm surprised the median score was lower than the mean, would have guessed it was 150+ w/ the low outliers losing some influence due to using the median.

I forget where I read or heard this, but...rumor has it that the second gen Blob prices went down due to their perceived scarcity being reduced by someone in Pennsylvania (?) flooding ebay with blobs in recent years. I remember when the going rate was closer to $200 on the board. Too bad ebay probably won't give you their archival Blob data to analyze, because I know you would.

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14 hours ago, anwnate said:

The average YORK FATMAN half hundred was sold at exactly $200.  The highest was sold at $300 (Paul Knight being the lucky man) and the lowest was sold at $100 (very early on…probably didn't know any better).

 

 

Nice. To whom did he sell it for?

 

By the way thanks for the info/research.

Edited by Alawadhi
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29 minutes ago, Alawadhi said:

Nice. To whom did he sell it for?

 

By the way thanks for the info/research.

I assume he sold them for himself.

And...I'm pretty sure he sold them to you.  A "brother/sister" pair. ;)

NP.

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Any idea what the inflation rate is in the grip equipment world (12 years- I'd expect some)? Maybe compare prices to the equivalent new uncut DB?

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50 minutes ago, Old Dax said:

Any idea what the inflation rate is in the grip equipment world (12 years- I'd expect some)? Maybe compare prices to the equivalent new uncut DB?

I think this might be a pointless endeavour.  Using Ironmind as an example...some pieces of grip equipment become collector's items (single stamps etc) and others drop value and become obsolete  (1st version IM hub or RT).

The immediate problem I see with comparing dumbbell prices over the years is that they are much worse than cars with their resale value.  After buying a dumbbell, it loses 50% of its value when you walk out the door.

Blobs and block weights are created from used dumbbells  99% of the time. Because of this, in general there is a glut of them. The price of the new dumbbell rises, yet the price of the used one does not. The average price on used hex weights has stagnated at 50cents/lb for the last 7 years minimum.   Iron weights will only be affected if the scrap prices rise significantly...ignoring scarcity. 

In the case of old Yorks, there are far more out there than people realize.  I pretty much never pay more than a $1/lb...and often get them cheaper.  Although this is slowly changing, to this day, there are still sellers who don't realize there is a collectors market for old Yorks.  While 100s come up for sale rarely, they do come up.  Sharkey managed to score a pair of full dumbbell Fatman 100s for $300 a few years back.  I've lost count of the number of scores I've made.  The larger ones are harder to find partially because of an emerging resale market (those who scour CL, auctions to resell old-school equipment  professionally).

Just thinkin' out loud here.

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22 hours ago, anwnate said:

I assume he sold them for himself.

And...I'm pretty sure he sold them to you.  A "brother/sister" pair. ;)

NP.

Oh yeah I remember now :tongue

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Lots of work, cool.

Ebay prices are insane sometimes, saw a blob50 go for 400 bucks... and everything up lately is at least $2/lb usually plus shipping so that's my quick assessment of blob value outside the board.

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20 hours ago, wobbler said:

Lots of work, cool.

Ebay prices are insane sometimes, saw a blob50 go for 400 bucks... and everything up lately is at least $2/lb usually plus shipping so that's my quick assessment of blob value outside the board.

At that point it's how bad do you want it and does it have to be now. Those are convenience prices.

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  • 1 year later...

$36 brand new. ($80 adjusted for inflation)*

 

*If you happened to buy one 30 years ago.

York Roundhead dumbbells sold for about $0.75 / lb in 1985. In the late '80s and early '90s York began to stamp USA on their products to differentiate their US product line from their cheaper overseas line as they started to phase their production off-shore. Hence 1985 is the most recent retail price for a pre-USA "Fatman." 50 lbs x 72¢ = $36.

  • In 1975, a 100# york would cost you $35 ($160 in 2018 dollars)
  • In 1985, a 100# york would cost you $72 ($165 in 2018 dollars)

What's interesting is that these 100 pounders are the only weights to appreciate in value. 1970s/80s York plates and smaller dumbbells sell for about $1 per lb among people that know their worth (but can often be found for much less as @anwnate mentioned, since these were mass produced for decades). However the going rate for 95-100 lb roundheads among collectors is nearly twice as much (they're harder to find because so many have been blobbed), varying from $1.50-$2 per lb... which is up to $200 for a dumbbell! Something else that's magical, the 100s are the only inanimate object in the known universe to undergo meiosis. That is - when cut in half - it's still worth $200!

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, DAVE101 said:

Do you think you'll keep the excel sheet updated @anwnate? You got most of the heavy lifting out of the way.

updated...probably not.  I may "update" it in a few years or if there is a rash of sales.  I got a ton of pots on the fire.  Anybody is welcome to add recent sale prices to the thread though.

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Got some updates with the last two years of data - current through January of 2018 (This NexGen still pending).

Here are the Means:

Fatman - $213 (looks like Nate's "$200" might have been a typo, I got closer to $230 with the old data).

USA/NextGen - $132

Blob50 - $115

image.png.00c8dd0d796b5a9d71b31fd89a94c436.png

Here are the moving averages. Looks like Fatman value peaked in 2015 and has come down a bit, while the USA-stamped blob and Blob50 prices are converging. This is partly due to the supposed $260 Blob50 sale (before shipping), but the trend is still there.

image.png.0b9af5f5fdaf698494c30b038decb48a.png

 

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Great work!

(Not sure how my numbers got screwy...but I did see a transcription error between those two documents.  I misplaced the fatman at 10/6/09 into a different column.  Pretty sure that didn't affect things overall.  I don't have the energy or interest to hunt down my screw up...but I'm very pleased you have taken this over and caught the error (s).)

 

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Any chance you’d be willing to share the sheet? I’m curious about a few specifications and I’d be interested in noodling with it myself rather than making you do any additional work.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Very little, so far! :) I have a partially indexed list that tracks inflation, but I haven't crunched the numbers on it yet. (My hypothesis is that inflation and unemployment won't have much of an effect due to small sample size, but when we're talking about high-cost goods like this it's not unusual for a high misery index to lead to increased resale.)

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  • 2 months later...

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