The rapidly shifting economy, combined with the uncertainty of both international and domestic stock markets, have made people look at alternative asset classes such as collectibles. Both the Wall Street Journal and the magazine Art & Auction have included the Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) in their discussions of this phenomenon as it relates to classic comic books.
The October 3, 2008, Wall Street Journal’s front page story by Jennifer Levitz was titled, “When Stocks Tank, Some Investors Stampede to Alpacas and Turn to Drink.” The subtitle posed the question, “Can Comic-Book Index Outpace the Market?” The article discussed hard assets like coins and comic books as potential stores for value in inflationary times. Regarding comics, it noted that “The ‘Silver Age Comic Book Pricing Index’ of 32 frequently traded ‘60s comics, was up 14.2% in the 18 months ending in July, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index was down 11% in the same period.” Mark Haspel, president of Certified Guaranty Company, then commented on CGC’s increased business in 2008 and his quote ended the article. Mark concluded, “Spider-Man is going to be here in 20 years – he’s not going away.”
The November 2008 issue of the magazine Art & Auction, a major international lifestyle magazine, ran an article by Douglas Wolk titled “Holy Six-Figure Prices!” It describes the appeal of classic comics and the robust market for them, stating “collectors may be driven by a childhood fascination with a favorite character, the prestige of owning a powerful cultural totem or the pleasure of having access to a cartoonist’s oeuvre. Or they may just appreciate lucrative investments.” The author places the establishment of CGC as a key point in the development of the comic book market and states that CGC grading has “made the high-end back-issue market much more active – since virtually all valuable comics sold at auction are now slabbed, buyers know exactly what they’re getting.” The article also points out that CGC “maintains online documentation of the grade of every comic book it has ever slabbed – more than a million to date – so collectors have readily available a reasonable estimation of exactly how common or scarce every sought-after comic is and of the condition of every extant copy.”
These two articles are just a few of the many mentions of CGC in mainstream publications in 2008. Standardized, impartial grading and authentication contribute to a robust collectibles market that provides both pleasure and investment potential for those who participate in it.
